From Ian:
Down with the Norwegian occupation!
Down with the Norwegian occupation!
Norway’s third largest city, Trondheim, has announced a boycott of all Israeli goods originating in areas beyond the 1967 line.Joel Pollak: In Attacking David Friedman, J Street Condemns Itself
Ironically, however, the policies of occupation, colonization and discrimination that these Norwegians are accusing Israel of imposing, have been practiced for centuries by Norway against its own indigenous minority.
Long before there was such a thing as Norway, the northern part of that country was the homeland of an indigenous people known as the Sami. While the Norwegians’ first king, Harald Fairhair, ruled in the 9th century CE, the roots of the Sami nation are much deeper – going all the way back to prehistoric times, according to archaeologists.
The name “Sami” first appeared in recorded history in the writings of the Roman historian Tacitus in the year 98 CE. Coincidentally, that was at almost the same time that the Romans tried to wipe out all memory of the Jewish inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael by renaming the country “Palaestina.”
Giving the Land of Israel a new name did not, however, change the ethnic, religious or national identity of the inhabitants, and claims of a “Palestinian” nation would not be heard until the late 20th century. In the meantime, in far-off Scandinavia, the poor Sami were enduring long centuries of mistreatment at the hands of their Norwegian occupiers.
In the 15th century CE, Norway began encouraging its farmers to establish settlements in the Sami region, an area the indigenous people call “Samiland” but the Norwegians renamed “Finnmark.”
J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami writes in the Washington Post that David Friedman, chosen by President-elect Donald Trump as the next ambassador to Israel, is unfit to serve.Students Supporting Israel: JStreet Do You Even Support Israel?
He begins by sharing how wounded he feels that Friedman has referred to “me and Jews who share my politics on Israel as ‘worse than kapos’ and not really Jews.”
What crocodile tears.
For several years, Ben-Ami and his group have tried to bully everyone less radical than J Street — which is to say, most of the rest of the American Jewish community.
It’s not enough to support the two-state solution — which Ben-Ami, disingenuously, claims to be the reason Friedman attacked J Street. No — J Street has cast even supporters of the two-state solution as enemies of peace if they dare to expect Palestinian concessions.
In 2010, J Street ran an advertisement describing supporters of the two-state solution like Alan Dershowitz and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) as part of the “chorus of no.” Unless you pressured Israel, you weren’t part of the “community of yes.”
Then Ben-Ami and his organization began pressuring the U.S. Treasury to investigate Jewish charities — and only Jewish charities — whose beneficiaries may have included Jews living across the 1949 armistice line, i.e. in East Jerusalem or the West Bank.
Yesterday Jeremy Ben-Ami published an article titled "MOVING THE US EMBASSY TO JERUSALEM IS STILL A BAD IDEA". In his article, Ben-Ami mentioned three points that should hold back the move of the U.S. Embassy: The Situation on the Ground, Danger to US Interests, Misunderstanding the American Jewish Community. After I read the article,
I would like to let Jeremy Ben-Ami know what my view on the issue is.
Let's start with the following: Until the embassy won't be moved I won't be excited about it. Many Presidents had the chance to move it and until today no one has done so. That day, and if it will move at all, I will make sure to get excited about the issue.
Now let's get to the point.
J Street is not a pro-Israel organization. An organization that backs up its decisions and articles in paragraphs like "Danger to US Interests, Misunderstanding the American Jewish Community," cannot say they are pro-Israel. Maybe J Street isn't anti-Israel like others but they are not pro-Israel.
An organization that is pro-Israel will first worry about Israeli interests before they will worry about how the American Jewish community will be seen and judged here; they should worry about how their cousins in Israel won't be killed by their other cousins in the Middle East. J Street = not a pro-Israel organization.

















