The UN General Assembly voted Wednesday afternoon in favor of holding a commemorative event in honor of the 75th “Nakba Day,” the Palestinian name for Israel’s establishment, which translates to “catastrophe.”
The vote was 90-30, with 47 abstentions. The United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom were among those who opposed the move. Most of the European Union also rejected the motion, save for Cyprus which supported the measure.
Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan tweeted that the UN in "passing such an extreme and baseless resolution, the UN is only helping to perpetuate the conflict."
In a UN General Assembly plenum debate prior to the vote, Erdan called for the UN to “stop ignoring the Jewish Nakba,” referring to the 750,000 Jews expelled from Arab and Muslim countries in the aftermath of Israel’s establishment.
“What would you say if the international community celebrated the establishment of your country as a disaster? What a disgrace,” Erdan said.
Erdan showed the General Assembly a front page of The New York Times from May 16, 1948, with a top headline stating: "Jews in grave danger in all Moslem lands."
Today the #UNGA passsed a shameful resolution calling for an official event to commemorate the Palestinian “Nakba” on the 75th Anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel. By passing such an extreme and baseless resolution, the UN is only helping to perpetuate the conflict pic.twitter.com/RH3cHVWdT1
UN passes resolution calling Israel's founding a 'catastrophe'
The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution to mark Nakba Day, recognizing the Palestinian version of events that depicts the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948 as a "catastrophe".
CORRECTION @Palestine_UN: You want to end the conflict? Recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish, renounce terror and stop paying salaries to Palestinian terrorists. https://t.co/E9teskOw8z
The United Nations General Assembly called for an International conference in Moscow to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine which has turned it into an international pariah.
The call was included in a broad-based text called the "peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine" which was approved 154-9, with ten abstentions.
Even Ukraine voted in favor of the resolution.
Overall, the 15-point resolution called for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks based on the pre-1967 borders with east Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state and an end to Israeli settlement activity.
Item number three in the text called for 'the timely convening of an international conference in Moscow as envisioned by the Security Council in is resolution 1850 (2008) for the advancement and acceleration of the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace settlement."
76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (credit: REUTERS) 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (credit: REUTERS)
Who was in opposition?
The revolution was part of an annual group of more than a dozen pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli texts, which the UNGA approves every year.
The UNGA passed five of those texts on Wednesday afternoon. The countries that opposed this specific text were: Canada, Hungary, Israel, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and the United States.
Australia, which has historically voted again the text, chose this year to slightly downgrade its support for Israel at the UN and abstained.
The Australian representative at the meeting said that the shift did not signify a lack of support for Israel.
"Australia shifted from 'no' to 'abstain' on the resolution .. because we believe in a just and enduring two-state solution negotiated between parties," she said.
Arab-Israeli relations are a source of good news these days. The conflict between the Jewish state and its radical enemies, Palestinians and others, is far from over, and the threat of the Iranian revolutionary regime may be greater than ever. However, a new strategic alignment promises a better chance for regional states to isolate and stand up to the radicals who continue to threaten the existing order. The old structure of the Arab-Israel conflict that defined the Middle East for generations is now being replaced by a strengthening Arab-Israeli coalition against Iran and its radical Arab proxies.
The erosion and ultimately the abolition of aggressive regional solidarity targeting the Jewish state has been the supreme objective of Israel's regional strategy since its inception. Breaking up regional solidarity is an indispensable precondition to any progress toward peace. Arab states would consider accepting Israel only following a painful recognition of the failure of the attempt to erase it at an acceptable cost.
The profound change in the strategic landscape of the Middle East in the recent decade may be characterized by four pillars: the magnitude of the Iranian regional threat, the inability of Arab states to stand up to that threat by themselves, the questionable steadfastness of American support, and the proven capacity and dependability of Israel.
Unlike most European and American officials, Arabs fully realize the magnitude of the Iranian determination to hegemonize the Middle East at their expense and the effectiveness of Iranian brutality and sophistication in the pursuit of that objective. Watching the impact of the Iranian takeovers in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen and its subversion in their own countries, they know they are in desperate need of external assistance to survive.
The most vulnerable Arab states turned to the only power that fully appreciates the magnitude of the Iranian threat and is capable and determined to provide a forceful response. Israel has been engaged for more than half a decade in a wide-scale preventive war in Syria and western Iraq to thwart the Iranian takeover where it threatens Israel most acutely. The historic all-Arab coalition against Israel has been replaced by a de facto Arab-Israeli coalition against the radical forces that threaten them both.
The IDF’s ongoing Operation Break the Wave in the West Bank has seen thousands of troops and reservists crack down on Palestinian terrorism, arresting over 3,000 suspects and thwarting over 500 terror attacks.
The operation began in late March after a series of terror attacks in Israeli cities left 20 people dead. Israeli security forces, including the IDF, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Israel Police have been carrying out raids during day and night against Palestinians suspected of terrorism.
For more than six months, some 25 regular battalions have been deployed to the West Bank along with an additional 84 of reservists deployed to the area by the end of next year.
The large number of troops comes as the level of violence in the West Bank continues to remain unusually high, with massive amounts of gunfire directed against troops carrying out operational missions as well as against Israeli civilians.
The past year has seen a marked increase in terrorism, with 281 serious terror attacks by Palestinians: 239 against soldiers and 42 against civilians.
There were also a total of 8,483 violent incidents by Palestinians such as riots or stone throwings, about 40% of them against Israeli civilians and 60% against IDF troops. The number marked a significant rise of almost 20% from the 7,039 attacks last year.
On Nov. 14, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz approved plans to upgrade a section of the West Bank security barrier after a series of terror attacks were committed by Palestinians who illegally entered Israel.
A tall fence, similar to those on the borders with Egypt and Gaza, will replace a 50-km. stretch of fencing from the Te'enim checkpoint near Avnei Hefetz to Oranit in the northwestern West Bank.
In the summer, construction began on a 9-meter tall concrete wall to replace another 50-km. stretch of fencing in the northern West Bank from Salem to the Te'enim checkpoint that was built 20 years ago.
Both upgraded sections will be equipped with surveillance cameras and sensors.
In July, the IDF began to strengthen defenses along the existing security fence in the Judean Desert in the southern West Bank, digging a deep trench over 20 km. to prevent the passage of people and vehicles.
Many credit the West Bank security barrier with helping to end the Second Intifada (2000-2005), though only 62% of the barrier was completed.
J-Street, the self-styled "pro-Israel, pro-peace" organization, is definitely anti-truth.
An email sent out to the J-Street mailing list signed by their deputy Israel director, Eve Lifson, says:
Almost every day, my fellow Israelis are sent to guard wrecking crews.
Young soldiers have to tell children and their parents that bulldozers have come for their family home. They hold back distraught relatives as jackhammers tear into bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms.
It’s not the vision of defending our homeland that most young Israelis had in mind.
The truth? Demolishing family homes to make way for settlements has nothing to do with Israel’s security, and everything to do with the right-wing’s efforts to entrench permanent control over occupied land.
The idea that Israel demolishes Palestinian homes in order to build Jewish communities in their place is rampant among anti-Israel social media activists, but it is a lie. Jewish communities are not built anywhere near existing Arab communities. (The only exception is Hebron, where Jews lived way before Arabs did, and which J-Street wants to ethnically cleanse today just as it was in 1929.)
There are only two reasons why Arab homes are demolished nowadays. Either the home was built without a permit, or it was the home of a terrorist and the demolition is meant to dissuade future attacks.
Before Israel withdrew from Gaza, it sometimes demolished homes to clear land for security purposes (as in the Rachel Corrie incident.)
Lifson lives in Israel, which means that either J-Street hires the most ignorant Israelis to work for them, or she is knowingly lying.
And Lifson isn't ignorant. She's been obsessed with Israeli home demolitions since she was in high school. She considers home demolitions to be part and parcel of what anti-Israel activists call "creeping annexation." It is only a short mental leap between that belief and telling people that Israel is building settlements on destroyed Palestinian villages.
Her hallucinations may be shared with many modern antisemites, but that doesn't make them true.
But if anti-Israel organizations cared about truth, they wouldn't have very much to say.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Tuesday's primary is over, and in the closely watched Michigan congressional race between two incumbents, moderate Haley Stevens and "progressive" Andy Levin, Stevens trounded Levin by 20 percentage points.
The result is being painted by the far-Left crowd as AIPAC stealing the election by spending millions of dollars through their PAC, UDP, to pay for ads for Stevens. While AIPAC did spend the money, the margin of victory is not because of them - it is because Stevens was heavily backed by moderate Democrats.
One byproduct of the race, though, is that is exposed J-Street's hypocrisy.
J-Street went all out for Levin, no less than AIPAC did for Stevens. They falsely painted Levin as having mainstream positions in the American Jewish community.
The truth is quite the opposite, and it shows J-Street's extremism.
It is alarming that this race, like many other Democratic primaries this cycle, was heavily impacted by the aggressive outside spending of AIPAC and its SuperPAC, the United Democracy Project. They spent nearly $5 million to target and defeat Levin, far more than was spent by any other group. While Rep. Levin is a proudly pro-Israel Jewish-American, AIPAC smeared him as “anti-Israel,” “fringe” and “hostile.” They targeted him for holding principled, mainstream views about US diplomatic leadership in the Middle East, and for proposing legislation to help uphold Palestinian rights and secure Israel’s future as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people.
...
With their overwhelming spending, AIPAC hopes to send an intimidating message to others: Cross our red lines, and you could be next. While political space for open and healthy debate over US foreign policy has opened up considerably in recent years, they appear determined to close it down. Instead of building sustainable bipartisan support for Israel, AIPAC has harmfully turned Israel into one of the sharpest wedge issues in American politics.
To respond to this new challenge, Democratic Party leaders should make absolutely clear just how harmful and unwelcome AIPAC’s interventions in its primary contests are. Candidates in future primaries should disavow and decline the support of AIPAC and its SuperPAC – which have come as a surprise to at least some of them.
J Street remains committed to doing all that we can to represent the views of the majority of Jewish Americans and American voters. We will keep up our work to ensure that our national political and policy debate about foreign policy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is rooted in honest fact, shared democratic values, and a commitment to lasting peace.
The hypocrisy shown here is off the charts.
Levin's positions are not mainstream in the Jewish community. His centerpiece "Two State Solution Act" has no traction and zero co-sponsors because it is abhorrent to pro-Israel Americans. It makes demands on Israel and none on Palestinians. It defines the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall as "occupied territory." It also defines Gaza as "occupied" even though no Jews have lived there in nearly two decades.
Chief among my priorities are safety and security, both here in the U.S. and abroad, and I believe that our strong and enduring partnership with the State of Israel is a cornerstone of maintaining these goals. The United States and Israel have maintained a steadfast partnership for over seven decades, bound by our shared commitment to common values. The U.S.-Israel partnership is one that must continue to thrive – and importantly, cannot become a partisan issue. I stand firm in my commitment to the U.S.-Israel alliance and will continue working in Congress to support policies that strengthen our strategic alliance.
I had the opportunity to visit Israel for the first time in 2019, where I experienced its deep history, cultures, and natural beauty. I was also able to learn more about the innovative technologies Israel has created that Americans depend upon for agriculture, energy, healthcare, commerce, transportation, and national security, among many others. I look forward to finding new ways to develop strategic plans to build on these technological successes.
I stand alongside Israel against the BDS movement, which seeks to undermine Israel’s economy and legitimacy. Its main goal is to delegitimize Israel’s existence and inflame tensions in communities and on college campuses, which undermines the prospects for peace. At a time when anti-Israel boycotts are prevalent around the country and globe, and the Anti-Defamation League is reporting a dramatic uptick in anti-Semitic hate crimes, it is now more important than ever to stand beside Israel and oppose state-sponsored BDS.
I believe in Israel’s fundamental right to self-defense. As the only democracy in the Middle East and our strongest ally in the region, Israel’s safety is paramount to our interests at home and abroad. Congress must continue to unconditionally support critical programs that help Israel upgrade its fleets in air, land, and sea, enhance the mobility of its ground forces, and continue to strengthen its missile defense capabilities. The landmark Memorandum of Understanding reached under the Obama Administration provided Israel with robust funding to accomplish these goals, and I will continue to support funding from this historic agreement, as I have each year. We must prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and further destabilizing the region. Diplomacy must be the first option and is the best solution but all options must remain on the table.
I believe in the worth and value of every Palestinian and every Israeli and will work to support a negotiated solution resulting in two states—a democratic Jewish State of Israel, and a viable, democratic Palestinian state—living side-by-side in peace, security, and mutual recognition. This peace process should be settled by the parties directly.
Our countries share a commitment to justice and equality for all. From standing up for women’s rights to affirming our support for the worldwide LGBT community, our common values are what unite us. That deep sense of justice – born out of a shared commitment to repairing the world – is why we can always count on each other.
This statement says more positive things about Israel than J-Street has during its entire existence. Moreover, it is clearly within the mainstream of the American Jewish community - supporting a two state solution, supporting a strong US-Israel relationship, supporting Israel's right to self-defense, supporting Israel's liberal values, and opposing BDS.
These position are what J-Street opposes. Which makes J-Street an extremist group, not a moderate pro-Israel group.
I am deeply concerned by the persistent and growing effort to demonize Israel, the world's only Jewish state and a close American ally, on the international stage. Whether through the chronic bias displayed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) or accusations put out by groups like Amnesty International, I stand opposed to efforts to unjustifiably brand Israel as an "apartheid state," and I will always work to mitigate the threat of delegitimization against our closest friends in the Middle East. Since its inception in 2006, the UNHRC has created 33 Commissions of Inquiry, out of which nine have dealt with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There have been no UNHRC commissions of inquiry into Iranian or Chinese human rights violations. Israeli Arabs are represented in the Israeli Knesset, Supreme Court, Governing Coalition, and Defense Forces, in short. Instead of holding the world’s only Jewish state to a double standard, we should investigate why its adversaries are so keen on finding new methods to undercut its legitimacy as a vibrant, multi-ethnic democracy. This disastrous characterization of Israel will not serve to end the conflict and suffering in the region but will rather serve to incite violence and hatred toward the world's largest hub of Jewish life amid a time of overwhelming concern for the international Jewish community. I support good faith efforts to address the underlying causes of recurrent tensions and instability in the region in pursuit of peace, but I fervently condemn this campaign to vilify our close American ally with these displays of hateful discrimination.”
This is mainstream American Zionist and Jewish opinion. But I cannot find a single J-Street statement opposing the UN Commission of Inquiry.They issued no condemnation of the antisemitic statements of its member Miloon Kothari that the "Jewish lobby" controls social media.
J-Street's opposition to Stevens proves that they are not pro-Israel at all.
Moreover, I cannot find a single statement from Andy Levin decrying those who call Israel an "apartheid state." His silence is tacit support. J-Street says it is against that specific term - but they fully support the anti-Israel reports from HRW and Amnesty that make that accusation.
There is a further hypocrisy from J-Street in their letter. They pretend to be upset that AIPAC is turning Israel into a wedge issue - yet that is J-Street's entire purpose, to divide the American Jewish community and to promote the ideas and candidates whose opinions are anathema to most American Jews.
And their self-righteous posturing that billionaire money corrupts democracy is even more hypocritical. J-Street was formed with the early support (within six months of its founding) of billionaire George Soros, a fact that they tried to hide.
All you need to know about J-Street can be seen in this one campaign. And it proves that J-Street holds fringe opinions on Israel that they try to obscure behind their mantras of "pro-Israel, pro-peace, two states."
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
During Edwards's first year in the House, she voted "present" on a resolution "recognizing Israel's right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza." And Edwards voted present on a resolution expressing support for direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. She also voted present on 2012 legislation to enhance security cooperation between the United States and Israel. All three measures passed with overwhelming majorities, at times when Democrats and, later, Republicans were running the House.
J-Street pretends to be pro-Israel, but it supports someone who cannot even vote that Israel has the right to defend itself? Or that there should be direct Israel-Palestinian negotiations?
Clearly, Edwards is an outlier in her hate for Israel compared to most members of Congress.
J-Street cannot credibly claim to be pro-Israel in any context if this was the candidate that they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to support.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
This year it has become fashionable to accuse Israel of the crime of apartheid. First B'Tselem, and then Human Right Watch, have opened the floodgates to give the Israel haters something to point at as they use Israel as the first, last and only example of apartheid in the world.
As we and others have documented extensively, the charge is baseless - unless you completely redefine the word to apply to pretty much any nation that has some level of racism or has a preference for citizenship to people who were originally from that country, which is literally every nation on the planet.
I wondered whether J-Street agreed with Human Rights Watch that Israel was guilty of apartheid, or if it defended Israel from the defamatory and false charge. After all, J-Street keeps telling everyone that it is pro-Israel - even though one would be hard pressed to find a single example where J-Street actually publicly defended Israel against obsessed haters like Richard Falk, Roger Waters, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar or Mark Lamont Hill.
We are deeply dismayed by the vitriolic response of some Jewish communal and pro-Israel organizations to the new report by Human Rights Watch titled “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution.” While J Street does not use the term “apartheid” to describe the current situation in the occupied territories, we believe this new report raises critical concerns that should deeply trouble both supporters of Israel and those who care about Palestinian rights.
J-Street tries to walk the line by saying that it doesn't use that specific term, it did not defend Israel against the charge - it instead defended Human Rights Watch against its critics.
And note what J-Street didn't say. It didn't say "J-Street doesn't agree with applying the term 'apartheid," it said it doesn't use the term itself. J-Street does not disagree!
Which means that J-Street effectively agrees with Human Rights Watch. It just knows it will lose support from credulous Zionist funders who still think it is a liberal Zionist organization that is merely against settlements, instead of an organization that is dedicated to slandering Israel nearly as much as Jewish Voice for Peace does, so it doesn't want to explicitly agree for fear of losing its "pro-Israel" facade.
It's refusal to defend Israel against the charge is itself all you need to know about J-Street. It is not pro-Israel in any sense of the word.
It is a predictable pattern: any time anything happens in the news, a group of anti-Israel Jews issue a "letter" from "Jewish leaders" that try to gaslight the world and pretend to represent Jews as a whole.
The Israel-hating Left is very frightened by the wave of antisemitic attacks that have gotten publicity worldwide - attacks that clearly aren't initiated by the far Right that they blame for all antisemitism. So, they wrote a letter to fool people into thinking that the attacks are an anomaly, and roundly condemned by pro-Palestinian activists.
As usual, they are lying.
This one has the absurd title "Jewish Leaders Say: We Won't Be Distracted, We Won't Be Divided." The gaslighting begins in the title: they represent only a tiny fringe of Jews (only some 3% of Jews are actively anti-Zionist.) The writers of this letter are the ones who are actively trying to divide the Jewish community, not the mainstream Zionists.
We are Jewish leaders who have a range of opinions, perspectives, and approaches to Israel-Palestine.
Yes, some of them (IfNotNow, JVP) want the Jewish state destroyed today, and some (J-Street) are willing to wait until tomorrow.
We are deeply concerned by recent reports and outcries from certain corners of our community which suggest a direct confluence between the growing movement for Palestinian freedom and violent incidents against Jews in our cities.
Their "concern" is that the attacks delegitimize their movement as being based on liberal principles. The letter is an attempt to deflect from that.
We unequivocally condemn attacks on members of our Jewish community. Jewish people deserve to walk safely in the streets of our cities without fear of attack or harassment — just like anyone else. Blaming all Jewish people for the actions of the Israeli government is antisemitic. We are shocked and disgusted by individuals who would use this moment of heightened support for Palestinian rights to advance antisemitic hatred and violence.
It does not take political courage to condemn random attacks on Jews. But after they do, then they go on to minimize and justify them.
We reject efforts to stoke fear and division. Supporters of the Israeli government — including some in the American Jewish establishment — are misrepresenting fringe and widely-condemned acts of individual antisemitism as characteristic of the broader Palestinian human rights movement.
The only people stoking division are these fringe Jews. The entire purpose of this letter is to give the impression that a significant number of Jews consider Israel to be beneath contempt.
Ooooh, look at all those hyperlinks! Most of them point to tweets, in English, from people no one heard of, that deny Palestinian antisemitism.
But if you spend time looking at Palestinian Arabic media, the story is very different.
MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch expose blatant antisemitism in Arabic media all the time, as do I, but that's not the entire story. I have not once seen Palestinian backlash against explicit antisemitism in their media. If one is going to represent antisemitism as a fringe opinion in Palestinian circles, then one would expect that Palestinians would condemn other Palestinians who spout Jew-hatred - and that never happens.
I have never seen a single Palestinian media outlet criticize their first political leader, the Mufti of Jerusalem who collaborated with the Nazis in the Final Solution, as antisemitic. I have never seen a Palestinian respond to the mainstream Palestinian belief, popularized by Yasir Arafat, that Jerusalem is not really holy to Jews and there was never a Temple there. The antisemitic theory that most Israeli Jews are really Khazars and not Jews at all is never even debated. When Hanan Ashrawi's Miftah organization published the blood libel in Arabic, after defending it, it issued an apology, but only in English. Mahmoud Abbas claimed that rabbis want to poison the water of Palestinians. He has blamed Jews for the Holocaust which he claims was vastly exaggerated. The official PLO position is that there is no such thing as a Jewish people.
This is not "fringe antisemitism." This is as mainstream as it gets.
I think that these examples outweigh a few tweets from nobodies. But that's how one does propaganda - highlight the few counterexamples and ignore the overwhelming evidence disproving the thesis. But the "leaders" deny the reality:
Linking the movement at large to antisemitism is baseless and harmful. Especially in this moment, we must condemn this thinly veiled attempt to delegitimize Palestinian leadership and distract from Palestinians experiencing state violence by Israel.
The Leftist Jews don't only deny the undeniable antisemitism that is at the very core of Palestinianism. They then say that it is the Jews who are really the racists!
We commit to standing up against anti-Palestinian racism, so often unreported and unacknowledged in our communities.
First they bend over backwards to deny the existence of Palestinian antisemitism, no matter how explicit and blatant. But you know who the real bigots are? Jews!
....We support our Palestinian siblings’ right to describe their lived experiences without being accused of antisemitism. {W]e refuse to be more outraged by the words Palestinians use than the actual violence they endure.
4300 rockets, decades of terror attacks, Palestinian leaders inciting violence against Jews - they all go unmentioned. No, these As-A-Jews pretend that the only problem with Palestinians is that they sometimes say some bad stuff - which are all completely justified, by the way, because of Israel - and Jews are racists for calling those out. And when Palestinians say that Jews are Nazis, well, that is their "lived experience" and cannot be considered antisemitic.
Similarly, we refuse to allow progressive leaders of color who speak out in support of Palestinian rights to be smeared for their principled stand.
Claiming that Jews are racist is antisemitic itself. Mainstream Jews refute the antisemitism and terror-support from Roger Waters and Betty McCollum as energetically as they refute the lies from Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. To claim that somehow Marc Lamont Hill should not be called out for his antisemitic conspiracy theories because he is Black is the actual racism.
Beyond that, was Kareem Abdul Jabbar being racist when he called out the antisemitism from among Black Lives Matter supporters last year? There is a serious problem with Black antisemitism, whether it is from celebrities or from people attacking random religious Jews in Brooklyn. These "Jewish leaders" deny it, meaning that they condone it.
We know safety comes through solidarity. Antisemitism — like anti-Asian, anti-Black, anti-Palestinian, and Islamophobic attacks and rhetoric — exists in every community, but it is fostered and exploited by rightwing movements in the US and around the world, which gain power by keeping us divided.
Yes, a letter that is supposedly against antisemitism ends up blaming only the Right, and dismisses all other Jew-hatred as "fringe." Which means that this letter ends up tacitly defending all antisemitism that is not rightwing - antisemitism from Arabs, from the Left, from people of color, from Louis Farrakhan - as justified or anomalous, and not something that needs to be specifically called out or fought.
J Street seems to make it a point to find ever-innovative ways to lower the bar on what passes for pro-Israel.
J Street Support For The Goldstone Report
In an October 23, 2009 piece for The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami. In response to Goldberg's concern that there are those "who are glomming on to you guys as a cover, just using you to advance another agenda entirely," Ben-Ami replied:
I hope that we have a very strong left flank that attacks us, that Jewish Voice for Peace and other groups that are consistently upset with us for backing Howard Berman's sanctions plan and for refusing to embrace the Goldstone report and for standing up for the right of Israel to defend itself or for its military aid -- I hope we get attacked from the left because I would characterize J Street as the mainstream of the American Jewish community. [emphasis added]
The following week, October 30, The Standard's Michael Goldfarb posted J Street Adviser Morton Halperin Goes to Work for Goldstone. According to Goldfarb, in response to H.R. 867 -- condemning Goldstone's report claiming Israel committed war crimes in Operation Cast Lead -- a document authored by Judge Goldstone was being circulated on Capitol Hill.
Goldfarb notes that
it seems that certain elements of J Street have indeed embraced Goldstone and his report. Upon further inspection of the Goldstone letter, the actual author seems to be Morton H. Halperin [president of the Open Society Institute (OSI)], who serves on the J Street advisory council and is a senior adviser at George Soros's Open Society Institute.
...Individuals with official ties to J Street are not just embracing the Goldstone report, they are involved in efforts on behalf of Goldstone himself to scuttle opposition to the report in Congress. It's just another example of the disconnect between J Street's official positions and the actions of those who are connected to the organization. [emphasis added]
J Street — the self-described pro-Israel, pro-peace lobbying group — facilitated meetings between members of Congress and South African Judge Richard Goldstone, author of a U.N. report that accused the Jewish state of systematic war crimes in its three-week military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
Ben-Ami told The Washington Times that while “J Street did not host, arrange or facilitate any visit to Washington, D.C., by Judge Richard Goldstone,” but that “J Street staff spoke to colleagues at the organizations coordinating the meetings and, at their behest, reached out to a handful of congressional staff to inquire whether members would be interested in seeing Judge Goldstone.” Ben-Ami reiterated “We believed it to be a good idea for him and for members of Congress to meet personally, but we declined to play a role in hosting, convening or attending any of the meetings.”
When asked later how many congressional offices had been contacted, a J Street staffer told the Times that it was 2 or 3. Mr. Ben-Ami later said he did not remember reaching out to Congress. [emphasis added]
But Goldstone himself contradicted both the staffer and Ben-Ami:
Judge Goldstone said he remembers attending “10 or 12” meetings.J Street co-founder Daniel Levy, who accompanied the judge to several of the parleys, said that the New America Foundation (NAF) — whose Middle East Task Force he co-chairs — had also hosted a lunch with Judge Goldstone for “a group of analysts and Middle East wonks.” The judge, Mr. Levy, and J Street all declined to identify the members of Congress. [emphasis added]
As the article points out, all 3 of those organizations connected with Goldstone’s visit to Washington -- J Street, NAF and OSI -- are funded by Soros.
Contrary to J Street, most of the organized American Jewish community, across the spectrum from left to right was critical of the report.
In the end, the House passed a resolution condemning the Goldstone Report by a vote of 344-36. However, J Street said that it was unable to support the resolution as written.
J Street And Betty McCollum's Military Detention Bill HR 2407
This bill prohibits the use of certain foreign-assistance funds to support the military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill treatment of children in violation of international humanitarian law. The bill also prohibits such funds from being used to support certain practices against children, including torture, sensory deprivation, solitary confinement, and arbitrary detention.
The bill also authorizes the Department of State to provide funding to nongovernmental organizations to (1) monitor and assess incidents of Palestinian children being subjected to Israeli military detention, and (2) provide treatment and rehabilitation for Palestinians under 21 years of age who have been subject to military detention as children.
McCollum sent a letter to J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami on June 4th [2019] seeking his endorsement of the bill. In a response sent almost two months later, Ben-Ami described his board’s internal deliberations. He wrote that J Street strongly opposes unique standards being applied to Israel, but also believes Israel must adhere to legal requirements placed on all recipients of taxpayer-funded military assistance.
“While our Board of Directors has not yet made a decision on whether to support H.R. 2407, it is seized [sic] of the matter and has instructed our staff to engage in further research and consultations with relevant experts and stakeholders on this legislation and the critical issue it addresses,” Ben-Ami wrote. J Street Communications Director Logan Bayroff confirmed that this continues to be the organization’s position on the bill.
But J Street was not always so hesitant.
H.R. 2407 is the second iteration of McCollum's bill.
This bill prohibits U.S. assistance to Israel from being used to support the military detention, interrogation, or ill-treatment of Palestinian children in violation of international humanitarian law or the use against Palestinian children of: (1) torture, inhumane, or degrading treatment; (2) physical violence or psychological abuse; (3) incommunicado or administrative detention; (4) solitary confinement; (5) denial of parental or legal access during interrogations; or (6) force or coercion to obtain a confession.
Instead of directing the secretary of state to certify that U.S. aid is not being used by Israel to detain children, as the 2017 version does, the new bill amends U.S. law to explicitly ban U.S. aid from going toward the abuse of children, a move that takes discretion over such a ban out of the hands of the State Department.
But more than that, H.R.2407 amends the Leahy Law that prohibits the US from giving aid and training to either foreign military or individuals who are accused of "gross human rights violations" -- and adds a focus on Israel:
McCollum’s bill would make the Leahy Law even more explicit by barring foreign security units from using U.S. aid to carry out the “military detention, interrogation, abuse, or ill-treatment of children.” The bill’s amendment to the Leahy Law would apply to all countries that receive U.S. military aid, but its focus on Israel has made it particularly controversial. [emphasis added]
The potential for cutting aid to Israel concerns not only Democrats in Congress, but J Street as well.
J Street’s endorsement could provide wavering members of Congress enough political cover to back the bill. But J Street is still debating whether to ultimately endorse it. “We haven’t taken a position on this bill yet. We are still looking at the language and researching the very important issue it deals with,” said Logan Bayroff, a spokesperson for J Street.
Advocates for the bill have heard from congressional staffers that J Street is skeptical about using the Leahy Law to bar aid because, in J Street’s eyes, the law should be applied to only the most extreme human rights violations like mass sexual violence, massacres, or ethnic cleansing.
It is not surprising then that J Street has not been lobbying on the issue of H.R. 2407 as it did on H.R. 4391.
Ben-Ami was the one who bragged to Jeffrey Goldberg "I hope that we have a very strong left flank that attacks us."
But the increasingly vocal radical left is not impressed by Ben-Ami's claim to represent the American Jewish mainstream. Instead, just as Ben-Ami once admitted to The New York Times "our no. 1 agenda item is to do whatever we can in Congress to act as the president’s [Obama's] blocking back,” progressives expect Ben-Ami and J Street to keep moving to the left and provide cover for increased attacks on Israel by Democrats.
Now vocal anti-Israel progressives demand J Street do just that.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
...In 2013, an ADL report claimed that JVP consistently co-sponsors “rallies to oppose Israeli military policy that are marked by signs and slogans comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, demonizing Jews and voicing support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.”
In 2017, JVP honored convicted terrorist Rasmea Odeh at the 2017 JVP National Membership Meeting.
The group is also known for disrupting and trying to shut down pro-Israel events.
Canary Mission also has a run-down on the leadership of JVP:
Led by Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson, JVP consists of American Jews and non-Jewish “allies.”
Vilkomerson is one of the leading promoters of BDS in the United States. In 2016, Vilkomerson wrote a Washington Post opinion article titled “I’m Jewish and I want people to boycott Israel.” She has also targeted LGBTQ Jews for harassment in order to push JVP’s anti-Israel agenda.
Judith Butler, a professor at UC Berkeley and a leading proponent of BDS, is also on JVP’s advisory board and has called terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah “progressive.”
Daniel Boyarin, a professor at UC Berkeley and a member of JVP’s advisory board, has compared Israelis to Nazis, referred to himself as an “anti-Zionist" and has a sticker on his office door at UC Berkeley calling to “End U.S. Aid to Israel."
You get the picture.
Considering the strong anti-Israel stand of JVP, it is interesting that on the day it announced their list of the candidates it was supporting, Anarcho-Zionist made the following observation:
Those 3 congressmen -- endorsed by both Jewish Voice for Peace and J Street -- are:
o Mark Pocan o Pramila Jayapal o Betty McCollum
Just how does that work?
How can "pro-Israel" J Street support the same candidates as anti-Israel JVP?
First, here is how J Street, itself, describes the virtues of each of these three congressmen:
Rep. Jayapal is a champion of progressive issues, and her stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is consistent with this profile. The Congresswoman supports the Iran nuclear deal and believes the United States has a constructive diplomatic role to play in the Middle East. She also supports a two-state solution. Her upbringing in India, against the backdrop of the Indian-Pakistani conflict, has informed her strong pro-peace perspective. Since being elected to Congress, Rep. Jayapal has been a consistent supporter of J Street’s legislative priorities, and she was an early cosponsor of House Resolution 326, which reaffirms Congress’s commitment to two-state solution and opposes settlement expansion and annexation.
Congresswoman McCollum has been a JStreetPAC endorsee since 2008 and is one of J Street’s most vocal allies on the Hill. Last session, she supported the entire J Street legislative agenda, and this session she was an early cosponsor of H.Res. 326, which gets Congress on the record reaffirming support for the two-state solution and opposing annexation and settlement expansion.
Throughout his time in Congress, Rep. Pocan has been one of the most steadfast supporters of J Street issues. He has consistently voted with J Street’s entire legislative agenda. Rep. Pocan has traveled to Israel and the Palestinian Territories and is a strong advocate for US leadership towards a two state solution. He was one of the earliest cosponsors of House Resolution 326, which reaffirms Congress’s commitment to two-state solution and opposes settlement expansion and annexation.
Notice what J Street doesn't say about any of them:
Not one of them is described as a friend, let alone a strong supporter, of Israel.
But they are all supporters of J Street and its agenda -- and that, of course, is what matters, isn't it?
Betty McCollum is the representative of Minnesota’s 4th district. She is a St. Paul native and was the second Minnesota woman elected to Congress. First elected in 2000, Congresswoman McCollum is a champion for Palestinian rights, including leading the fight to protect Palestinian children from Israeli military detention and abuse by introducing the first legislation for Palestinian rights in the House of Representatives. Throughout her career, she has also championed public education, protecting the environment, and foreign policy centered on human rights.
PRAMILA JAYAPAL WA-07
Pramila Jayapal is the representative for Washington’s 7th district and is the first South Asian American woman elected to Congress. First elected in 2016, Congresswoman Jayapal is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a leader on immigrant rights, labor rights, Medicare for All, College for All, fighting white nationalism, and more. She is a stalwart supporter of Palestinian rights in Congress, including standing up against Israel’s military detention of Palestinian children and Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes, as well as for a resumption of aid to Gaza, and more.
MARK POCAN WI-02
Mark Pocan is the representative of Wisconsin’s 2nd district. First elected in 2012, Congressman Pocan is Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and has long been a leader in promoting economic and social justice initiatives. He is a consistent and leading voice for Palestinian rights in the House of Representatives, including breaking the silence around the Israeli military blockade and humanitarian crisis affecting Palestinians in Gaza and protecting Palestinian children.
JVP seems as reticent to brag about how anti-Israel these three are as J Street is silent as to how anti-Israel their stances are.
Let's take a closer look at each of the three.
Pramila Jayapal is a good friend of Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar -- such a good friend in fact that when the 2 were criticized a year ago for their attacks on Israel, Jayapal jumped to their defense on Twitter:
Rep. McCollum has been 'a strong ally of the pro-Israel community'?
Seriously?
Is it any wonder that J Street has been forced to repurpose their endorsements of candidates to reference their support for J Street instead and expunge any claim of support of Israel?
More recently, in 2019, Rep. McCollum introduced the ‘‘Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act’’ (HR 2407), which she claims
is expressly intended to end U.S. support and funding for Israel’s systematic military detention, interrogation, abuse, torture, and prosecution of Palestinian children. This bill not only highlights actions by the Government of Israel that violate international humanitarian law by their treatment of Palestinian children in detention, it affirmatively declares that equality, human rights, and dignity for Palestinians and Israelis are the values the American people expect the U.S. government to advance.
o The bill is based largely on the lobbying efforts and accusations of Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCI-P). DCI-P is closely tied to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated as a terrorist organization by the US, EU, Canada, and Israel.
o Citibank, Arab Bank and Global Giving have closed DCI-P accounts due to these PFLP connections. o Many of the citations to UN and other reports in turn simply copy lines from DCI-P publications.
o The new legislation includes several inaccurate factual claims and distortions of international law. o The bill applies standards to Israel that are not applied in the US in general, or in McCollum’s state of Minnesota in particular. o The bill misquotes a number of State Department reports
This is someone that J Street supports -- but not so enthusiastically that they can publicly boast of her as a friend and supporter of Israel.
o supported Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh o supported Islamic Relief, which has links to the Muslim Brotherhood. o criticized California’s Kamala Harris for discussing cooperation between California and Israel on water management, agriculture, and cyber security o accused Harris of “racism” for meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. o retweeted a post from Linda Sarsour supporting Ahed Tamimi, who was jailed for incitement and assaulting an IDF soldier -- and upon release voiced support for suicide bombing.
While we have long championed the value of a wide range of voices in discussion of the conflict and related issues, we cannot endorse candidates who conclude that they can no longer publicly express unequivocal support for a two-state solution and other core principles to which our organization is dedicated.
Fortunately for McCollum, accusing Isreal of apartheid does not contradict any of those "core principles" that J Street is dedicated to!
[Pocan] chose to facilitate a pro-BDS smear campaign using taxpayer dollars without even showing his face at the event...As millions of Jews and non-Jews alike celebrate the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, Congressman Pocan and his J-Street lackeys are spending their time working to undermine the state of Israel.
During the trip, the five met with Shawan Jabarin, whom the itinerary described as the General Director of Al-Haq, for a discussion on “Palestinian political prisoners”.
What the AGI itinerary failed to note, however, are Jabarin’s ties to terrorism.
A member of the PFLP, Jabarin was convicted for his efforts to enlist support abroad for attacks on Israel. He was sentenced to two years in prison, but was released after nine months due to respiratory difficulties.
It is obvious why Jewish Voice for Peace would want to support Jayapal, McCollum and Pocan -- that group and these 3 congressmen are clearly a good fit.
J Street obviously thinks they are a good fit with these 3 too.
It is worth noting that J Street does not need to convince those who strongly disagree with our positions within the American Jewish community or the political sphere. The majority of American Jews and many politicians already broadly agree with us; they just need a movement to validate, organize and amplify their voices. [emphasis added]
The fact that J Street deliberately makes a point of validating and amplifying the views of these 3 politicians demonstrates how badly J Street has stumbled.
Or how cynical J Street really is.
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