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[Excerpt:]

"The choice of speakers underlines the concerns. The organization has invited Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace and an adamant proponent of BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) against Israel, to address the conference. In June of last year JVP campaigned to get the US teachers’ pension giant TIAA-CREF to divest from numerous Israeli companies, such as Bezeq and Elbit, that purportedly profit from the “occupation.” Formally, in an eminently reasonable position, J Street opposes all forms of BDS. Instead, it focuses on “creating the political will and atmosphere necessary in the US to promote strong leadership to achieve a two-state resolution to the conflict.” But by associating with pro-BDS groups, J Street undermines its own positive message. Similarly, as regards another speaker, why should J Street risk alienating its own core constituents by associating itself with Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general and founder in 2002 together with the late Edward Said of the Palestinian National Initiative, an organization created out of protest against the Oslo Accords? In October 2008 Barghouti, another BDS advocate, took part in a Free Gaza Flotilla that, after initial resistance, was given permission by the Israeli Foreign Ministry to anchor in Gaza. A third speaker at the conference is Michael Sfard, an attorney who advocates international “lawfare” against Israel. Sfard recently told Amnesty International’s website that he was “lucky” to bring a lawsuit in Canada against a Canadian firm for building in Modi’in Illit and hoped to pursue similar cases in Spain, England and Belgium. According to NGO Monitor, Sfard also testified as a paid expert witness on behalf of the PLO in a lawsuit brought in a US Federal Court in Miami by terror victims of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a terrorist group indirectly tied to the PLO."