The U.S.-based Jewish progressive advocacy group J Street is joining the ranks of useful idiots who have come before. Are we to be suicidally empathetic? Is that J Street’s message? If so, that’s not a side of the street any Jew should be on.

On July 28, J Street posted an urgent message claiming to speak in the name of the “Jewish community” and calling for support for Mohsen Mahdawi.

J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami also urged supporters of his organisation to stand with Mahdawi.

It is time to take stock of just how far the leadership of this Jewish organisation has lost its way.

Before anyone misunderstands my point, let me be absolutely clear:

I do not care what Jeremy Ben-Ami thinks about Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu. I do not care whether he supports or opposes settlements, favours a two-state solution, or believes Israel’s current government should be voted out of office tomorrow.

None of that is the issue here.

This is about a complete lack of judgement.

Specifically, it is about how a self-described Zionist organisation has become so lost that it is now publicly campaigning on behalf of a man who openly aligns himself with organisations committed to murdering Jews.

In doing so, Ben-Ami downplayed Mahdawi’s positions and misrepresented why so many people object to him. He even claimed that Mahdawi is merely supporting “the freedom of his own family”:

Does Ben-Ami know who Mohsen Mahdawi’s family is?

Here is one reason to ask that question. These are members of his family:

Increasingly, every issue appears to be viewed through a single political lens. If Donald Trump opposes someone, that person must be defended. If Benjamin Netanyahu criticises someone, that person must be treated as a victim. Every debate is reduced to a choice between two political tribes.

When everything is filtered through that prism, judgement disappears.

That is precisely what appears to have happened in J Street’s response to Mohsen Mahdawi.

Over the past year, together with Vermont researcher Rachel Feldman, I have investigated Mahdawi extensively.

Our investigation uncovered evidence that he fabricated significant elements of his personal history. We found a Facebook group that he ran which glorified terrorists. We also found repeated examples of Mahdawi portraying family members killed while engaged in armed terrorist activity as innocent civilian victims.

Most revealing of all was a video recently uncovered by our investigation, that Mahdawi recorded in Arabic in December 2024 for a restricted Palestinian audience.

In that video, Mahdawi openly aligns himself with what he calls the “resistance” and expresses support for its armed factions. While doing so, he invokes the founders and leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both of which are recognised terror groups.

Those are his words – not mine.

Yet if you read Ben-Ami’s appeal, none of this is acknowledged.

Instead, J Street supporters are invited to rally behind a man presented simply as someone facing deportation because he supports Palestinian rights.

That is not an honest account of who Mohsen Mahdawi is or what he supports.

Did J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami conduct any due diligence before publicly backing him?

Did anyone at J Street examine the evidence? Or watch the video and listen to what Mahdawi actually said as he placed himself within the so-called “axis of resistance” alongside Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad?

Somewhere along the way, opposition to Donald Trump appears to have become so all-consuming that it overrides every other consideration.

Because when an American Jewish organisation begins defending someone who openly aligns himself with organisations committed to murdering Jews, it has not merely lost its political compass.

It is leading American Jews off a cliff.

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