Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Jewish Voice for Peace

Showing posts with label Jewish Voice for Peace. Show all posts

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Elder Comix: A little Chanukah hypocrisy never hurt anyone

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Brainwashing young adults to hate Israel with novels (update)

Jewish Voice for Peace is sponsoring an event, "Kindle a Hanukkah Light for Palestinian Children's Books!"

One of the books being featured is Ida in the Middle, by Nora Lester Murad.

Here is a summary of the book:

In this debut novel for Murad, Ida, a bashful Palestinian American teenager, is dreading the final class project: discussing her “passion” with the rest of the class.

Her anxiety skyrockets when the school principal informs her that she will be representing her school in this eighth-grade capstone for the entire region.

She is terrified at the thought that someone in the audience will shout out “terrorist” as she ascends to the stage, just as someone had scribbled that insult on her school desk. Home alone one afternoon, as she worries yet again about that presentation, she reaches for her comfort food, green olives sent by her aunt all the way from Palestine.

Olives, as every Palestinian knows, are not just a savoury snack; they encapsulate our culture in each dense nugget. When they are cured by a favourite aunt, they can have magic powers. As she eats the olives, Ida is transported to her parents’ village, Busala, just outside Jerusalem, where she immediately feels at home.

In this alternate reality, her parents have never left Palestine, and she has grown up with feelings of belonging amid kids who look like her, speak Arabic, and can pronounce her name correctly: ‘Aida, with an ‘ayn.
But life in Busala is also unpredictable, scary, and dangerous because of Israel's occupation. Here, Murad skilfully weaves the narrative between Ida’s fantasy and the all-too-real events of life under occupation, as Ida has to brave Israeli military raids, curfews, and home demolitions.

We get to read about the strong sense of community that sustains Palestinians as they navigate life in these extremely difficult circumstances. We witness the immense courage of Palestinian children - including Ida herself - as they dodge the occupation forces; and we hear discussions about survival and resistance, including the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

There are some exhilarating moments, such as when Ida carries a terrified three-year-old boy to safety, telling him his name, Faris, means “knight,” and that he is their leader, while he explains that her name means “Returning,” and he knows she will not leave him behind, as she scouts their whereabouts for a safe path home.

And there are heartbreaking moments, as when Ida watches Israeli bulldozers demolish her friend Layla’s family home. This experience transforms Ida and, after having eaten more green olives, she is transported back to Boston, where she gives an impassioned presentation about the hardships that Palestinians endure under Israel’s settler colonialism.

This is brainwashing youngsters to hate Israel with lies.

Yes, novels can lie - and they can lie far more effectively than most media.

The town of Busala is fictional. The author wants her audience to believe that it is a typical town where Palestinians live.

The lies aren't in the plot, but in the milieu. Israelis storm Palestinian towns for no reason, they demolish houses for no reason, they attack innocent Palestinian children for no reason, a three year old is in danger of being killed by Israelis for no reason, and most importantly, this is presented as the life of an average Palestinian teen.

Those are all lies. Palestinians in Area A, where most of them live, have little to worry about (this year was a rare exception when towns like Nablus and Jenin were taken over by terror groups that had to be rooted out.) Their houses are never demolished by Israel, and Israel only demolishes houses that were either built illegally or that housed terrorists. The IDF doesn't want or try to kill children. The Palestinian teens in danger are the ones throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks at Israelis.

I'm certain that none of these facts are mentioned in the book.

This isn't an accurate depiction of a Palestinian teen's life; this is propaganda meant to create hate against the unnamed, inhuman Jews who invade and steal lands that they have - according to people like this author - no valid claim to.

The only reason this book was written was to incite hate against Israelis and, indirectly, proud Zionist Jews.

Books about Palestinians do not have to be that way. Another book featured in this webinar, Salim's Soccer Ball, looks to be a very nice children's book that (as far as I can tell) does not try to indoctrinate the young readers into hate.

Propaganda disguised as young adult novels is insidious. And it needs to be called out.

UPDATE: I spoke too soon on Salim's Soccer Ball. Amazon reviews include:

“I also really love how the book focuses on Palestinian resistance.”

“A very good book to teach kids about the conflict in Palestine.“

It also includes a "discussion guide." Now, what could be in there? Do books about Japanese children also require discussion guides?

Yes, they weaponize children's books.

(h/t Irene)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

A thoroughly disgusting, antisemitic 1969 blood libel by Fatah and Leftist activists: "Shalom & Napalm"

For the 21st anniversary of Israel's Independence in 1969, the Arab Information Center put an ad in the Miami Herald that tried to link Israel with the US use of napalm in Vietnam, asking "what has Israel offered - Shalom or Napalm?"

Israel never used napalm against civilians, but the propaganda outlet wanted people to believe that it did.

Around the same time (maybe as early as 1968), Palestinian terror group Fatah issued a poster and stamp series with the same theme, "Shalom and Napalm," featuring a child victim of napalm that they implied was a Palestinian. (Both Fatah and the PFLP at the time issued stamps as fundraisers that often had antisemitic themes [h/t iTi].)

These were disgusting blood libels, made worse by juxtaposing "Shalom" with war crimes.

So naturally it was picked up by the far-Left in Germany.

Historian Jeffrey Herf notes that on November 9, 1969, the anniversary of Kristallnacht, a bomb was found in the Jewish Community Center in Berlin. At the same time, monuments commemorating the Holocaust were defaced with graffiti saying “Shalom”, “Napalm” and “El Fateh."

Four days later, an article was published by a radical socialist group called the Black Rats in a leftist magazine in West Berlin, Agit 883, taking credit for the planned attack, and saying that the focus of the Left will move from Vietnam to the Middle East and vilifying "fascist" Israel, saying Germans should stop feeling guilty about the Holocaust because the Jews were the new Nazis.

The name of the article? Again, “Shalom and Napalm.”

The German Leftists behind this were clearly antisemitic by any measure.

Their leading figure, Dieter Kunzelmann, was antisemitic. His antisemitism was not complicated. He simply didn’t like Jews. As Albert Fichter, who planted the bomb in the Jewish Community Centre, later recalled:

““Kunzelmann and Georg von Rauch [another Tupamaro] swore more and more about ‘shitty Jews’. Kunzelmann always spoke about ‘Jewish pigs’ and wound up people against them. At that time he was like a classic antisemite. Georg spoke the same way.”

Similarly, German Leftists are assumed to be behind the 1970 arson attack on a Munich Jewish community center that killed seven Holocaust survivors. And it was German Leftists, not Palestinians, who separated Orthodox Jews along with the Israelis on the 1976 Air France flight that was hijacked to Entebbe.

At the time, the accusation that Israel was using napalm against children was only an implication. Fatah and the German leftists knew enough not to directly make the slander that Israel napalmed Palestinians. It was pure propaganda meant to make people believe the lie, without saying it directly.

But there is an even more disgusting postscript to this blood libel, ten years later.

Way before "Jewish Voice for Peace" started hijacking Jewish rituals for antisemitic purposes, in 1978, the PLO issued its own "Haggadah" where they changed Jewish Passover songs to directly make the accusation of Jews killing Palestinian children with napalm while "repeating shalom:"

The Jew-hatred from both the Leftists and the Palestinians is undeniable in these examples. When they deny being antisemitic today, it is important to understand the history: they haven't changed their positions one bit - they are just obfuscating their antisemitism enough to convince self-described "anti-racists" who want to believe them.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

JVP claims Palestinian terror doctor was an innocent civilian

Jewish Voice for Peace sent out an email to its members:

Last night, Israeli snipers shot and killed Palestinian Doctor Abdullah Abu al-Teen outside the hospital where he worked. But instead of reporting on how the Israeli military targeted and killed a doctor, the Associated Press calls him a militant — the same language used by the reports from the Israeli military.

According to Palestinian news agencies and video from the scene, Dr. Abdullah Abu al-Teen was treating a wounded patient outside the public hospital in Jenin when he was targeted by an Israeli soldier. Dr. Abu al-Teen had three children.

As usual, JVP is lying.

Here is video of Dr. Al-Tin's body being recovered - with his machine gun.

#Jenin: The moment AMB militant Dr. Abdullah Abu Tin was rescued from the alley after being shot, his rifle still on him.

To comment, follow this link pic.twitter.com/O28YYQR48J
— AbuAliEnglish (@AbuAliEnglishB1) October 14, 2022

And here is a Palestinian Fatah official not only admitting but bragging that Al-Tin was fighting at the time he was targeted.

His martyr poster also makes it clear that he is proudly considered a terrorist, not a doctor.

JVP never met a terrorist they didn't defend.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Elder Comix: The anguish of "Jewish Voice for Peace"

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

In which JVP admits they support terrorist rockets killing Jewish civilians

Jewish Voice for "Peace" Political Director Beth Miller reveals that the organization supports dead Jews.

In a bizarre attempt at far-Leftist humor, she writes:

Israel bringing Iron Dome batteries to the tarmac for Biden is like wearing the sweater your aunt gave you whenever she comes over. If your aunt was an imperial military power and you'd begged her for the sweater in order to maintain military control over the people you occupy.

Usually people don't want to wear their aunts' sweaters, but Israel definitely loves Iron Dome.

Notwithstanding Millers lack of understanding how jokes work, she is calling Iron Dome - a purely defensive system meant to save Israeli lives, that has never hurt a single Palestinian - as something meant "to maintain military control over the people you occupy."

Meaning, according to Miller and JVP, Iron Dome should never have been built. Hamas and Islamic Jihad has every right to shoot rockets aimed specifically at Israeli civilians in Israeli population centers, under this sickening concept of morality.

Iron Dome allows Israel to brush off rocket attacks that otherwise would require a major military response. It saves at least as many Palestinian lives as it saves Israeli lives. But JVP doesn't care about the Palestinians in Gaza or elsewhere; their entire purpose is to oppose Jewish rights and Jews living in security.

Never has the both the "Jewish" and "peace" part of their name been proven more Orwellian.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

"Jewish Voice for Peace" espouses the blood libel - literally

The ADL tweeted this image from Jewish Voice for Peace's social media:

Yes, this is a literal blood libel, accusing Jews of drinking Palestinian blood.

It doesn't get more antisemitic than this.

Actually, maybe it does. At least one of the corpses wears a striped uniform that evokes Holocaust victims.

The Jews in the cartoon aren't just killing Palestinians for no reason - they are celebrating murdering people to steal their land.

Many of the comments to the ADL tweet double down on the antisemitism, or say that the ADL is distracting from supposed Israeli crimes. One even claims the blood libel was true.

When "anti-Zionists" excuse antisemitism, it tells you all you need to know about "anti-Zionists."

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

JVP's "Judaism Beyond Zionism" doesn't have much Judaism (plus cartoon)

Jewish Voice for Peace sent out a fundraising email from Judith Butler, where she says:

As the largest Jewish organization that has declared itself anti-Zionist, JVP has taken on an indispensable role in public life that is singular, timely, and critical. JVP offers a way for Jews to re-imagine what Jewishness can look like without nationalism and state violence, for Jews and other Palestinian allies to enact true safety and solidarity in our communities, while showing up and speaking out in the hard moments — the moments that really count.

JVP is at the forefront showing what a powerful and meaningful Jewish life can look like now, and helps all of us imagine the future. Help me make sure that future comes to fruition.

What kind of Judaism can JVP offer?

Given that the entire point of the organization is to oppose Israel, that makes its public activities all political. The only vestiges of religion are the ones that they can twist into politics.

JVP is trying to create a "Judaism" beyond just anti-Israel activities. They set up something called the JVP Havurah Network:

We are an emergent network that gathers, supports and resources diasporist, anti-zionist and non-zionist Jews and Jewish spiritual communities. We yearn for a vibrant Jewish life beyond nationalism that condemns and challenges white supremacy within and outside Jewish communities. The JVP Havurah Network supports collaboration and leadership development in service of the movement for Palestinian freedom and all liberatory movements.

Unlike their events, their ritual sheets are not centered exclusively on anti-Israel activities. They try to take whatever they can from Judaism and remove anything that has anything to do with Israel.

Which leaves them with very little.

Their Kabbalat Shabbat worksheet includes parts of the service. But it has to remove the middle paragraph of Sh'ma, which talks about the ties between Jews and the Land of Israel.

If they would create a prayer book, they would need to excise much of the Amidah and much of the Grace After Meals. Their Passovers must not include where Pharaoh should let the Israelites go. Their Pentateuch would not include much at all, since it is filled with promises from God to give the Land to the children of Israel. Chanukah turns from a holiday of rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem to...Palestinian olive oil.

They realize that Judaism without Israel isn't Judaism, so they are literally trying to create a new religion that they want to pretend is a legitimate branch of Judaism. The hoops they need to jump through prove what a sham they are.

Hating the Jewish state elevated into an art form

Former Jewish Voice for Peace director Rebecca Vilkomerson tweeted:

Think about the phrase "visionary heart-opening anti-Zionist book."

Try to imagine the phrase "visionary heart-opening anti-"anything else.

Anti-communist? Anti-white supremacist? Anti-terrorist? Anti-gay? Anti-Chinese? Anti-global warming? Anti-abortion? Anti-Muslim?

There are lots of people and groups against a lot of things, and hate is an appropriate response to many outrages. But how many people who hate anything try to elevate that hate into art and poetry?

I can only think of two examples.

Nazi Germany turned Jew-hatred into poetry. Here is a poem "If All People Were Jews:"

If all people were Jews,
What would become of the world?
No corn would grow,
No plow would move through the fields,

No forester would tend the woods,
No miner would start his shift.
Jews don’t even like
To sail the seas.
The steamboat would never have been invented,
Nor would the train.
No dirigible would rise
Shining into the sky.
We wouldn’t have gunpowder,
Nor electric lights.
For the Jew can barter,
But he cannot invent.

... What can the Jew give,
He who has nothing,
Yet presumes to
Call himself “elect”?
Only the devil knows,
For the devil loves pride and arrogance.
Thank God there are still
People other than Jews on earth!

And now the "anti-Zionist" community, with books and songs and chants dedicated to hate..

Like the KKK, the modern haters used to pretend that their movement was not negative but positive. They pretended to be "pro-Palestinian." But that façade has faded as it became increasingly clear that these groups were doing nothing to help Palestinians and as their philosophy developed around the theme of hating Israel and everything it stands for. They only support Palestinian initiatives that align with that goal. (How many "pro-Palestinians" make solidarity visits to Lebanese or Jordanian UNRWA camps? It's very rare.)

Here is an entire book of "personal stories, history, poetry and art" that is based on a negative: "confronting Zionism." These people define themselves by what they hate. And now like their antisemitic forebears they are trying to use their hate as a springboard build an entire artistic community.

This idea of elevating antisemitism as anti-Israel art has been building for years. Belgium's poet laureate Charles Ducal and poet Alice Walker both wrote poems that compared Jews to Nazis under the guise of "anti-Zionism." So did the acclaimed play "Seven Jewish Children."

The modern haters are all strengthened by finding comrades who share their hate, and since they look at themselves as being cultured, they are now in the forefront of integrating hate into art.

More hypocrisy from Judith Butler/JVP and their narrow definition of antisemitism

Jewish Voice for Peace sent out a fundraiser yesterday written by Judith Butler, the anti-Israel professor who twists Judaism itself to justify her bizarre opinions (which include that Hamas and Hezbollah are part of the global Left.)

Butler complains about rumors that Facebook will adopt the excellent IHRA working definition of antisemitism, which is - she says - an assault on free speech. Nothing new there.

She also claims:

Apart from a chilling effect on social media, any definition of antisemitism that includes anti-Zionism would, if accepted, threaten free speech, scholarly inquiry on the Middle East, academic freedom on campuses, and the ability of nonprofits to support projects in and for Palestine, while establishing a dangerous norm for governments across the world.

According to Butler, it is impossible for scholars to discuss the Middle East or nonprofits to raise money for Palestinian causes without violating the IHRA working definition. This is patently absurd. One does not need to claim Israel is racist or that Israeli Jews are Nazi-like to be pro-Palestinian, and her assertion to the contrary proves that anti-Israel rhetoric goes way beyond what is considered acceptable discourse for any other nation on Earth - because the IHRA definition explicitly states that criticism of Israel similar to that of any other nation cannot be considered antisemitic.

Butler is saying that it is impossible to support Palestinians without holding Israel to a standard that no other nation is held to. That is quite an amazing argument.

Her next statement is even more absurd:

To dismantle antisemitism, we have to know its history, how best to identify its forms, and how to devise strategies for defeating its every instance. Conflating antisemitism with anti-Zionism makes this work impossible...

Over the past month we saw the first anniversaries of the Jersey City massacre and the Monsey Chanukah machete attack that left several Jews dead. Jewish Voice for Peace and its socialist Left allies who pretend to be against antisemitism did not say a word about them.

The reason is simple. The attackers were Black. Which means they weren't white supremacists. And to the "brilliant" Judith Butler, that means that these attacks targeting Jews weren't antisemitic!

Butler has the chutzpah to say that "we have to know its history" but she and JVP will never discuss Soviet antisemitism, or Arab antisemitism, or Muslim antisemitism, or Black Hebrew antisemitism, or Nation of Islam antisemitism, or last summer's online Black celebrity antisemitism. If it isn't Christian or right wing, it doesn't exist in their minds.

Which means that they are erasing lots of antisemitism from the history books. And they then claim that they "have to know its history!"

The hypocrisy of Judith Butler and JVP is off the charts.

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J Street Secretly Supported The Goldstone Report Against Israel -- Now They Are Expected To Support Betty "Apartheid" McCollum's Anti-Israel Bill (Daled Amos)

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]

In an article for The Washington Times, Eli Lake revealed that

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

In 2019, Congresswoman Betty McCollum introduced the Promoting Human Rights for Palestinian Children Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act:

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 has the distinction for being the first US lawmaker to ever publicly accuse Israel of apartheid, in October 2018 during the annual national conference of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

McCollum is also endorsed by J Street -- one of 3 Democratic congressional Democrats that are endorsed by both J Street and the anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace.

NGO Monitor gives the underlying claims of McCollum's bill a thorough debunking.
But what does J Street think of this bill?

Apparently, J Street is divided over H.R.2407 - according to Bill Harper, McCollum's chief of staff, there is an internal debate among J Street board members over whether they should support the bill:

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.

Originally, in November 2017, Congresswoman Betty McCollum introduced the Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act (H.R. 4391):

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.

The website OpenSecrets notes that 4 organizations registered to lobby on the issue of H.R. 4391 -- and one of those lobbying on the issue of McCollum's bill was J Street.

The site links to a lobbying report indicating J Street lobbying activities during the second quarter of 2018 were done by 4 different lobbyists.

That was then.
What would account for J Street's hesitation this time around?

According to The Intercept, there is a change in the language of McCollum's bill that has a number of Congressmen concerned:

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.

J Street has bragged they will fill the need to "validate, organize and amplify the voices" of American Jews and politicians.

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.

A challenge for the "woke" crowd: Antisemitic or "just" anti-Zionist?

Capital Research Center reproduced some Instagram posts by "free.palestine.1948," an account that Rashida Tlaib followed until the story broke.

The interesting thing about the offensive images is that they generally were about "Israel" and not officially about Jews.

So I would like to ask J-Street, Jewish Voice for Peace, Rashida Tlaib, Omar llhan and her apologists: Which of these images, if any, are antsemitic and which are merely "legitimate criticism of Israel?"

If anyone on the Democratic side that supported the watered down condemnation of all bad things could honestly answer, it would be very illuminating.

And if their answer depends on whether the images were shown on a "pro-Palestinian" or a white supremacist site, that speaks volumes as well.

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.

Frightened "Jewish Voice for Peace" wants students to shun Birthright trips to Israel (ElderToons)

From Haaretz:

The controversial pro-Palestinian advocacy group Jewish Voice For Peace has launched a campaign to convince young Jews not to participate in Birthright Israel trips, just as college students are returning to campus and registration for the winter visits gets underway.
Under the slogan #ReturnTheBirthright, JVP is working to convince 18-26 year-old Jews eligible for the all-expenses paid 10-day tours to reject the tempting offer.
A “pledge” on its website takes the form of an online petition in which young Jews declare: “We will not go on a Birthright trip because it is fundamentally unjust that we are given a free trip to Israel, while Palestinian refugees are barred from returning to their homes. We refuse to be complicit in a propaganda trip that whitewashes the systemic racism, and the daily violence faced by Palestinians living under endless occupation. Our Judaism is grounded in values of solidarity and liberation, not occupation and apartheid. On these grounds we return the Birthright, and call on other young Jews to do the same.”

This being Haaretz, they don't bother to interview anyone who actually fully supports Birthright for the other side of the story. Instead, they interview someone from JStreetU, who pretty much admits that Birthright is awful, too, but he's not sure it is awful enough to boycott:

Ben Elkind, J Street U director, said that for him, taking a Birthright trip was “an important piece of my engaging around Israel and the broader Israeli Palestinian conflict” and that he believes “it is important to encourage students to engage rather than not engage” with the issue.
“I empathize deeply with the questions and concerns” expressed in the JVP campaign, he said. “I think (people like) Adelson have not been a productive force in the politics of this issue, and I think there are reasons to have real concern about the lack of freedom of movement of Palestinians. But I am not sure the response needs to be to boycott Birthright. I think there are potentially more meaningful courses of actions.”

So I made a cartoon about JVP's real position towards Birthright any indeed any dialogue with any Zionist.

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Jewish Voice for Peace publishes a book to justify some kinds of antisemitism

The virulently anti-Israel "Jewish Voice for Peace" has released a book that is ostensibly about antisemitism. But it doesn' ttake much to realize that the book is really about justifying the merciless criticism of the Jewish state, and only Israel, beyond any context and beyond criticism of any other country, as legitimate.

The foreword is by Judith Butler, the fundamentally dishonest academic who twists Judaism itself to find a philosophical framework for her hatred of Israel. She is also the person who absurdly called Hamas and Hezbollah "progressive."

Her foreword shows more of her duplicity in trying to reframe the question of what antisemitism is into the charge of how Zionists supposedly use the charge of antisemitism to silence criticism:

Given the contemporary framework in which the matter of antisemitism is discussed, the conflict about how to identify its forms (given that some forms are fugitive) is clearly heightened. The claim that criticisms of the State of Israel are antisemitic is the most highly contested of contemporary views. It is complex and dubious for many reasons. First: what is meant by it? Is it that the person who utters criticisms of Israel nurses antisemitic feelings and, if Jewish, then self-hating ones? That interpretation depends on a psychological insight into the inner workings of the person who expresses such criticisms.But who has access to that psychological interiority? It is an attributed motive, but there is no way to demonstrate whether that speculation is a grounded one. If the antisemitism is understood to be a consequence of the expressed criticism of the State of Israel, then we would have to be able to show in
concrete terms that the criticism of the State of Israel results in discrimination against Jews.

Already Butler is purposefully distancing herself from any definition of antisemitism that includes being against Israel. And one part of that definition is quite easy: opposition to the Jewish people's right to self determination. The more expansive definition is Natan Sharansky's 3D test: if the criticism is based on demonization, delegitimization and double standards it is antisemitic.

Naturally, Butler wants to obfuscate the issue rather than deal with it, because, well, she agrees with all three and she doesn't want to be called an antisemite.

Instead, she floats the straw man that some nefarious people are claiming that any criticism of Israel is antisemitism.

If modern democratic states have to bear criticism, even criticisms about the process by which a state gained legitimation, then it would be odd to claim that those who exercise those democratic rights of critical expression are governed only or predominantly by hatred and prejudice. We could just as easily imagine that someone who criticizes the Israeli state, even the conditions of its founding-coincident with the Nakba, the expulsion of 800,000 Palestinians
from their homes-has a passion for justice or wishes to see a polity that embraces equality and freedom for all the people living there. In the case of Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews and their allies come together to demonstrate that Jews must reclaim a politics of social justice, a tradition that is considered to be imperiled by the Israeli state.

Here she uses the myth, and then she actually promulgates another myth. 800,000 Arabs were not expelled from their homes in 1948. Not even close. But Butler isn't interested in facts; she is interested in using big words to pretend that she is not avoiding the real issue of left-wing antisemitism such as is practiced by JVP.

Her zeal to divide antisemitism from anti-Zionism would be comical if only she was being honest. She admits that saying that Jews control the media and the banks is antisemitic; what about those who claim the "Zionists" do the same thing? What about those who claim the Zionists control the US and other governments? I bet most of the authors in this collection believe that fervently.

Finally Butler gets to the crux of her misdirection:

So to answer the question, why is antisemitism attributed to those who express criticisms of the Israeli state?, we have to change the terms of the question itself. We have been asking, under what conditions can we decide whether or not the charge of antisemitism is warranted? What if we ask: What does the charge of antisemitism do? ...

When the charge of antisemitism is used to censor or quell open debate and the public exchange of critical views on the State of Israel, then it is not exactly communicating a truth, but seeking to rule out certain perspectives from being heard.

Butler's straw man is complete. No one is saying that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, but her thesis that this is what is happening allows her to create an entirely new spurious charge: that critics of Israel are being silenced by false accusations of antisemitism.

Therefore, this preface to this volume supposedly about antisemitism is really showing that the book is about justifying modern antisemitism.

Indeed, the first essay by Antony Lerman starts off with his rejection of any definition of antisemitism that includes demonization, delegitimization and double standards concerning Israel:

For activists battling daily against the abuse of antisemitism to stifle free speech on Israel/Palestine, on university campuses and in Jewish religious and communal bodies of all kinds, it may seem something of a luxury to dwell on the reasons why contemporary understanding of antisemitism has become so politicized, bitterly contested, and controversial.

A look at the authors of essays in the volume show that every one is not just a critic of Israel but they question Israel's right to exist as a Jewish homeland:

Preface by Judith Butler

Introduction by Rebecca Vilkomerson

Part I: Histories and Theories of Antisemitism
Antisemitism Redefined: Israel’s Imagined National Narrative of Endless External Threat by Antony Lerman
Palestinian Activism and Christian Antisemitism in the Church by Walt Davis
Black and Palestinian Lives Matter: Black and Jewish America in the Twenty-First Century by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Intersections of Antisemitism, Racism, and Nationalism: A Sephardi/Mizrahi Perspective by Ilise Benshushan Cohen
On Antisemitism and Its Uses by Shaul Magid
Antisemitism, Palestine, and the Mizrahi Question by Tallie Ben Daniel

Part II: Confronting Antisemitism and Islamophobia
Trump, the Alt-right, Antisemitism, and Zionism by Arthur Goldwag
“Our Liberation Is Intertwined”: An Interview with Linda Sarsour
Centering Our Work on Challenging Islamophobia by Donna Nevel
Who Am I to Speak? by Aurora Levins Morales
Captured Narratives by Rev. Graylan Hagler
“We’re Here Because You Were There”: Refugee Rights Advocacy and Antisemitism by Rachel Ida Buff
European Antisemitism: Is It “Happening Again”? by Rabbi Brant Rosen

Part III: Fighting False Charges of Antisemitism
Two Degrees of Separation: Israel, Its Palestinian Victims, and the Fraudulent Use of Antisemitism by Omar Barghouti
A Double-Edged Sword: Palestine Activism and Antisemitism on College Campuses by Kelsey Waxman
This Campus Will Divest! The Specter of Antisemitism and the Stifling of Dissent on College Campuses by Ben Lorber
Antisemitism on the American College Campus in the Age of Corporate Education, Identity Politics, and Power-Blindness by Orian Zakai
Chilling and Censoring of Palestine Advocacy in the United States by Dima Khalidi

Conclusion
Let the Semites End the World! On Decolonial Resistance, Solidarity, and Pluriversal Struggle by Alexander Abbasi
Building toward the Next World by Rabbi Alissa Wise

Omar Barghouti? Linda Sarsour? Dima Khalidi? These are the experts on antisemitism that contribute to this volume?

As far as I can tell, only one writer here does not support boycotting Israel, and that is Shaul Magid. Everyone else seems to support it, meaning that they are guilty of double standards towards Israel (no one boycotts other countries nowadays.) So the entire book is an apologia on how singling out the Jewish state for punishment for crimes that, at worst, are committed by every other nation in active conflicts is not really antisemitic.

Moreover, the nature of the arguments visible from the preview available of the book indicates that the authors not only deny that any leftist criticism of Israel can possibly be antisemitic, but also that any Arab criticism of Israel can be antisemitic. A glance through this blog, Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI shows hundreds of examples of explicit Arab antisemitism, so when Arabs cloak their criticism of Israel in human rights or international law terms, they are obviously masking their true motives. How many "progressive" critics of Israel share those same antisemitic motives? I can't say, but to ignore the issue altogether is not scholarship.

It is propaganda.

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Look how "progressive" the Jewish Voice for Peace is!

I was forwarded this email from the Jewish Voice for Peace:

Tell the Center for American Progress to

rescind their invitation to Netanyahu

Dear

Since college -- actually, since grade school -- I’ve been a political activist, and I’ve spent my entire career fighting for peace, and justice, and equality. It’s what us progressives do.

But some “progressives” didn’t get the memo.

The Center for American Progress, one of the biggest and most influential progressive think tanks in the U.S. has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak. Let me put it another way: one of the most important progressive organizations in America is giving a huge platform to one of the least progressive men alive, at a time when he’s inciting hatred, entrenching a brutal status quo of apartheid, and presiding over a terrifying descent into far-right extremist violence.

Our allies at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation are calling on CAP to rescind their invitation to Netanyahu, and we’re standing with them.

But we need you, too. Add your name to our letter: Bibi is no progressive, and CAP has no business inviting him to speak.

...

Jews like me, and supporters of justice and equality from all walks of life are moving the needle, and changing the political conversation around Israel and Palestine. Fealty to the Israeli occupation is no longer guaranteed, and Netanyahu knows it. The emerging progressive majority has had enough of Israeli apartheid, and Netanyahu is running scared.

We can’t let the Center for American Progress give Netanyahu the veneer of bipartisan respectability. Not now, when the tide is turning for peace and human rights.

I’m Progressive. Netanyahu isn’t. Add your name, and tell CAP to disinvite Netanyahu.

Onwards,

Stefanie Fox
Co-Director of Organizing

Eleven times she reminds us of how "progressive" she is - while advocating silencing any views that she disagrees with!

I never fail to be stunned at how the words "liberal" and "progressive" have been co-opted to push the most illiberal and regressive ideas. Jihad, after all, is about as regressive as possible, yet people who want to kill Jews as a religious imperative must be given a platform for their speech in liberal, progressive newspapers. The most liberal state in the Middle East is attacked as supporting terror while the terrorists and their cheerleaders are hailed as progressive and moderate. It is truly an Orwellian use of language, yet it is one that is not pushed back on nearly enough.

The Center for American Progress can invite or not invite anyone they want; it is not a violation of free speech either way. But "progressives" like Fox insist that the only speech that may be free is speech that they have labeled as "progressive kosher."

JVP shows its hypocrisy in other ways, of course. Here is what they say about The Canary Mission:

While students who stand up for Palestinian rights are under special scrutiny regardless of their identity, Palestinian students, along with Muslim and Arab students, bear the brunt of this intimidation and demonization. They are often deliberately “named and shamed” publicly for standing up for Palestinian rights, and are vulnerable to marginalization and exclusion in campus communities. This is nowhere more clear than when looking at the recent “Canary Mission” database, which claims to expose student activists as “hatefomenting individuals” by compiling dossiers of their pro-Palestinian political activities.

Yet they have built their own dossier of pro-Israel organizations on campus, complete with names and associations! Their list:

THE LOUIS D. BRANDEIS CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS UNDER LAW
THE AMCHA INITIATIVE
AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE
AMERICANS FOR PEACE AND TOLERANCE
ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE
CAMPUS WATCH
CANARY MISSION
DAVID PROJECT
GLOBAL FRONTIER JUSTICE CENTER
HASBARA FELLOWSHIPS
HILLEL
INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH & COMMUNITY RESEARCH
ISRAEL ACTION NETWORK
ISRAEL ON CAMPUS COALITION
THE LAWFARE PROJECT
SCHOLARS FOR PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST
SHURAT HADIN
STANDWITHUS
ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA

I personally don't think there is anything wrong with a dossier, as long as it is accurate, but to complain that the other side is keeping tabs on you while you do the same for them is the height of hypocrisy.

This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 11 years and over 22,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.