Evelyn Gordon: The Embassy, the NIF, and the U.S.-Israeli Jewish divide
Nor is this surprising. That same month, in response to a tweet asking whether Israel is “an evil country” or “just committing ethnic cleansing on a regular basis,” the NIF’s Israeli president, Talia Sasson, tweeted, “It is both.” Also that month, Ruchama Marton, founder and president of one of the NIF’s best-known grantees, Physicians for Human Rights, published an op-ed in Haaretz advocating for BDS.Fatah Admits Its True Goals — but the Media Won’t Retweet
In other words, the NIF has no problem with a chief executive who publicly calls Israel “evil” and falsely accuses it of systematic ethnic cleansing. And despite claiming that it doesn’t “fund global BDS activities against Israel nor support organizations that have global BDS programs,” it has no problem with its grantees’ chief executives publicly promoting BDS. Given this, is it any wonder that even soft-left groups like Women Wage Peace don’t want to be associated with the NIF?
Nor can the NIF be dismissed as a fringe organization. Unlike, say, the widely condemned Jewish Voices for Peace, the NIF is well within the mainstream American Jewish fold; Rabbi Rick Jacobs, today the president of America’s largest Jewish denomination, the Reform movement, used to chair one of its grant committees. And with annual donations topping $26 million in 2016, from a long list of donors, it clearly has a non-negligible support base. It’s not in the top financial tier of American Jewish organizations, but neither is it anywhere near the bottom.
A generation ago, an organization whose executives and grantees spouted anti-Israel canards or advocated anti-Israel boycotts would have been as toxic among American Jews as it was among Israelis. That fact that today’s NIF instead has broad support among American Jewry tells Israelis everything they need to know about how far away from Israel many American Jews have moved.
Given this, it’s not surprising that a growing number of Israelis view Diaspora Jewry negatively. The only question is whether anything can be done to close this widening rift before it’s too late.
Palestinian officials and groups that are often deemed to be “moderates,” have once again been very clear about their desire to destroy Israel and forswear peace. But many in the media won’t report on it.In ironic twist, terrorist's father wins human rights award
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) — an umbrella organization for Palestinian groups headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas — recently tweeted: “Our goal is the end of Israel. … We don’t want peace. We want war and victory.”
The tweet, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointed out, was inspired by a quote from Yasser Arafat, Abbas’ predecessor.
The tweet was posted — and then quickly deleted — by the PLO’s mission in Columbia. As of this writing, not a single major US news outlet has reported on the tweet.
The PLO, established in 1964, was a US-designated terrorist group until after the Madrid Conference in the early 1990s. As the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) noted in a February 2016 Algemeiner op-ed, Arafat’s decision to side with Saddam Hussein in the first US-Iraq War resulted in a loss of support from his Arab donors. This loss of crucial funds, coupled with the fall of its patron — the USSR — put Arafat and the PLO in a corner.
In response, the PLO agreed to the Oslo Accords, which created the PA, and allowed for Palestinian leaders to come to the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Gaza.
The father of a terrorist who murdered three Israelis won an international lawyer prize on Sunday for defending another terrorist's wife.
Attorney Muhammad Alyan's son, terrorist Baha Alyan, perpetrated the October 2015 attack in Armon Hanatziv neighborhood in Jerusalem, killing three Israelis.
Baha was killed by security forces.
Alyan recently represented Nadia Abu Jamaal, the widow of terrorist Ghassan Abu Jamaal, who participated in the November 2014 terrorist attack on a synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood in the capital, which killed five worshippers and a police officer.
The terrorist in this attack was also killed by security forces.
Outrageously, for representing Abu Jamaal, Alyan received the prize for best international human rights attorney in a ceremony held in Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem.
The university collaborated with the International Institute for Human Rights and Peace in Caen, northern France, to present the award.
Caen's local bar association, along with its Palestinian counterpart, the French human rights institute and Al-Quds University held the ninth annual International Palestinian Pleading Competition for Human Rights on Sunday.
Many diplomats attended the event, including from Belgium and Canada, along with French MPs and human rights activists.