Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, August 08, 2019

The Forward fudging the numbers to pretend most US Jews support aims of IfNotNow

"Progressive Jews" were very upset at a recent article in The Forward by Seffi Kogen, the Global Director of Young Leadership for the American Jewish Committee, where he said that anti-Israel group IfNotNow is not representative of American Jews.

A response by Jonah Nelson shows how easy it is to lie with statistics.

To back up his point, Kogen relied on a single survey, from which he extrapolated that most Jews either do not support the anti-occupation work done by IfNotNow or the organization itself.

Mr. Kogen is wrong on the first fact, and likely wrong on the second.

The survey found that 92% of American Jews call themselves “generally pro-Israel.” But this same survey found that two-thirds of all respondents are also either critical of “some” or of “many” of the Israeli government’s policies.

But Mr. Kogen concludes from this survey that the majority of American-Jewish voters who are openly critical of the Israeli government’s actions can’t possibly be supportive of IfNotNow — which draws its support from those respondents who call themselves “generally not pro-Israel.”

Kogen was accurate. There is no honest way to claim that IfNotNow members are supportive of Israel as a whole. To claim that Jews, who will disagree with anyone and everyone, are on the same page as IfNotNow because they oppose some of the policies of the Israeli is ridiculous. Hell, I don't support 100% of Israeli policies.

Note also Nelson's sleight of hand to change the 59% of American Jews who are "pro-Israel but critical of at least some Israeli government policies" into "openly critical of Israeli government actions." There is a huge difference between not agreeing with everything the government of Israel does and being openly critical.

Also, the survey mentioned said that only 3% of American Jews are "generally not pro-Israel." Nelson adds to them the 5% who didn't answer to make it appear that they are 7%.

But 3% is indeed fringe, and every person who joins IfNotNow is a small subset of that 3% that actually hates Israel enough to be actively against it.

IfNotNow, by its own language, merely “seeks to end American Jewish support for the occupation.” That’s it.

This is as disingenuous as it gets. IfNotNow's members are anti-Zionist, even if the organization claims that it has no official position on BDS and Israel as a Jewish state. Jewish Voice for Peace maintained that same fiction until this year but everyone knew from reading tweets and articles from their leaders that they were never remotely pro-Israel, and IfNotNow is the same.

For example, AJC’s own survey from 2019 found that nearly two-thirds of American Jews supported an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank. In other words, they oppose the occupation.

More deception from Nelson. I am quite Zionist and I oppose "occupation." I don't believe that area A or Gaza are legally occupied, Area C should be annexed to Israel and Area B is a disputed area. No Zionist wants to control millions of hostile Arabs. You could say that the late Meir Kahane was against "occupation," too, by wanting to expel the Arabs.

I don't have a problem with a demilitarized Palestinian state that doesn't threaten Israel as long as the borders are defensible. To say that someone who wants a two-state solution, no matter how far fetched the possibility, is opposed to a Jewish presence in the territories altogether - which is IfNotNow's position - is dishonest.

He goes further:

Furthermore, more than two-thirds surveyed answered that either some or all of the settlements should be evacuated when a Palestinian state is established. The transfer of civilians from one territory to another is one element of the legal wrong of the occupation, and this survey makes clear that most American Jews agree that even beyond the purely military aspect, other aspects of the occupation need to be resolved, contrary to the Israeli government’s current position.

Put a different way, they agree that the transfer and settlement issue needs to be resolved roughly in line with IfNotNow’s position of conclusively “ending” all aspects of the occupation.

Not even close. There are settlements that are illegal under Israeli law - wanting Israel to uphold its own laws is not evidence of being "anti-occupation," as Nelson implies. Similarly, if a Palestinian leadership should emerge that is not actively seeking the destruction of all of Israel (via "right of return," for example) then, yes, other Jewish communities would either have to be dismantled or become part of the Arab majority state. This is again not at all close to IfNotNow's positions.

And just like Nelson can look at this question on the survey and conclude "more than two-thirds surveyed answered that either some or all of the settlements should be evacuated when a Palestinian state is established" one can also say that 74% of those who responded believe that a Jewish presence must remain on some of the territories even after a peace agreement.

Put it this way: IfNotNow's position is that even the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and the Kotel are Palestinian territory. If someone would poll American Jews as to whether Israel should control those "settlements," it would be crystal clear that IfNotNow doesn't represent American Jews in any sense.

Nelson, for whatever reason, is trying to mainstream a group that is indeed fringe. The Forward, for whatever reason, thinks that his deceptive arguments have merit.

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Palestinian factions this morning all responded in strikingly similar ways to the news that Jewish student Dvir Sorek was stabbed multiple times o death.

Islamic Jihad said, "The heroic operation is a natural reaction to the terrorism of the occupation and its crimes against our people, our land and our sanctities."

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine said, "The heroic operation this morning in the Gush Etzion settlement...is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people to respond to the ongoing crimes of the Israeli occupation."

Tamer Awadallah, a member of the Central Committee of the DFLP, praised the operation as "a natural response in reaction to the ongoing Israeli crimes."

The Popular Resistance Movement in Palestine "blessed the heroic operation" and said "the operation was a natural response to Israeli crimes in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip."

Everyone seems to agree that, for Palestinians, stabbing a random person is completely "natural" and "heroic."

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Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

I’m not a terminology freak. Sometimes you have to use words or phrases whose connotations are ideologically impure, so that people will understand you. But I draw the line at “West Bank,” “Israel-Palestine,” and “Arab Jew.”

I don’t think I need to remind my readers that there was no “West Bank” before the illegal Jordanian invasion and annexation of Judea and Samaria. With the exception of those 19 years between 1948 and its liberation in 1967, the area was always Judea and Samaria. There is no reason for anyone to call it anything else; but unfortunately the media, even most of the Israeli media, can’t seem to stop.

“Israel-Palestine,” of course, implies that there is a place called “Palestine,” and that it is as legitimate as the place called “Israel.” In reality, there is a State of Israel, there is an area that Israel seems to have ceded to Hamas, and there is the autonomous but non-sovereign Palestinian Authority. Hamas has never declared Gaza a state, because it insists that all the land between the river and the sea is “Palestine.” The PA has declared a state which encompasses all of the land Israel conquered in 1967, but does not effectively control it, so it isn’t really a state. Israel is a state; “Palestine” is a word.

But I think the one that bothers me the most is the last, “Arab Jew.” It is used to refer to Mizrahim, Jews whose last exilic homes were in Arab countries. It suggests – see, for example, this 2003 essay by Ella Shohat – that Jews who came to Israel from Arab countries were culturally more connected to their Arab neighbors than to an abstract historical Jewish people on the one hand, or to the Ashkenazi Jews that discriminated against them so harshly (and stupidly) in Israel on the other. Indeed, she sees a deliberate, even malign, attempt by Zionism to “dismember” their Arab culture and inject a false historical consciousness of being part of a Jewish nation, as part of creating the “new Jew” that was supposed to be superior in every respect to the despicable Palestinian Arabs – and also to the Arab Jews.

Except in the matter of religion, she suggests, Mizrahi Jews are Arabs, Arabs who were cruelly robbed of their true culture so they could be used as soldiers in Israel’s wars and workers in her fields and industries. Rather than “a return home,” Shohat calls their aliyah (she would disdain this word) “a new form of exile.” In this, she agrees with Mahmoud Abbas, who – in order to deny our connection to the land – has always insisted that Jewishness is simply a religion, not a nationality (Abbas, of course, believes that “Palestinians” are a nation, despite their disparate origins and lack of historical connection to “Palestine”).

This fits in with the Arab and extreme leftist understanding of Israel as an Arab territory colonized by “European” Ashkenazi Jews. All this is part of the loaded meaning of the term “Arab Jew.”

Some pro-Palestinian writers even suggest that Mizrahi Jews actually have a common interest with Palestinian Arabs, their “brown” brothers, to overthrow the hegemony of “white” Ashkenazi settler-colonialists.

But there are plenty of testimonies from Jews that came to Israel from Arab countries showing that they did see themselves as fulfilling the biblical promise of ingathering of the exiles; this wasn’t just a Zionist myth to manipulate them. Most Israelis of Mizrahi origin do see themselves as part of the great Jewish people, the people whose history and provenance in Eretz Yisrael is becoming better illuminated from day to day by archaeological and historical evidence. While they recall ill-treatment by earlier arrivals, that is a far cry from pining for their “stolen” “Arab culture.” Indeed, from a political perspective, they are more nationalistic than the descendants of Ashkenazi “pioneers.”

It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that neither Shohat nor the early Zionist social engineers understood what was happening in Eretz Yisrael, when Ashkenazi Jews from pre-revolutionary Russia and Poland, Holocaust survivors, Jews from the disparate cultures of North Africa, Iraq, Yemen, India, Ethiopia, the Soviet Union, and numerous other diasporic populations, were thrown together to experience a historical process impossible to control by any social engineering. Unlike the idea that Mizrachim could be forced to assimilate to a dominant Ashkenazi culture, what actually happened was quite different. A new culture, but with ancient roots, came into being.

Ella Shohat is proud of her Iraqi heritage. But except for having spoken Arabic, her ancestors, who came from a highly developed and relatively modern culture, had little in common with the parents of my son’s wife, who immigrated to Israel from North Africa, and even less with the Yemenite Jews who had never seen indoor plumbing until they were brought here “with wings, as Eagles.” Or the Ethiopians, who came from an even more primitive culture. For that matter, how similar are the cultural origins of Ashkenazis from the former Soviet Union to the academic and media leftists of North Tel Aviv?

According to Shmuel Rosner and the Jewish People Policy Institute, the belief system of most Jewish Israelis is a mixture of Israeli nationalism and Jewish religion which is not found anywhere else but Israel. Israel is experiencing a natural process of developing her own unique culture, a process that those who consciously wanted to create a New Jew had no power to control. It’s a modern culture, although grounded religiously and linguistically in antiquity. My son’s children don’t speak either the Arabic of their mother’s ancestors or the Yiddish of their father’s. They do speak a language that is similar enough to that of the Torah that they can read and mostly understand it.

This isn’t assimilation into a dominant culture, but the creation of a new one – or better, the creation of a modern form of a very ancient one. And it is happening by the reunification of the fragments of the once unified but then scattered Jewish people.

The idea that Mizrahim are “Arab Jews” is wrong. It is also insulting, suggesting that they lost sight of their ancient heritage during their time in exile, and assimilated to the surrounding culture. And it is pernicious, implying that Jewishness is only a religion, and not also a nationality – not membership in the Jewish nation which traces itself back to ancient times in Eretz Yisrael.

***

So yes, I will use the word “Palestinians,” although I’ll add the caveat that no Arab Palestinians existed before the mid-1960s. But I will never refer to Judea and Samaria as anything else, nor will I say “Israel-Palestine” or “occupied territories” or “pre-67 borders.” And I will never, ever, say “Arab Jews.”

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08/07 Links Pt2: State Department redefines antisemitism: Don't compare Israel to the Nazis; A Liberal Jewish Writer Takes Down the Anti-Zionist Left

From Ian:

State Department redefines antisemitism: Don't compare Israel to the Nazis

The US State Department has updated its definition of antisemitism to include "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” as an example of antisemitism in public life.

In 2018, According to pro-Israel philanthropist Adam Milstein, the State Department adopted the definition of antisemitism set by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Milstein disseminated a release about the change on Wednesday morning Israel time:

The State Dep. just updated the definition of #Antisemitism to include "Drawing Comparison of Contemporary #Israeli policy to the of #Nazis". Kudos to @SecPompeo and Special Envoy Elan Carr. It's more clear now, the BDS Movement is disgustingly Antisemitic https://t.co/6VEW9A1M1X pic.twitter.com/O0O78p6XiU
— Adam Milstein (@AdamMilstein) August 6, 2019

Most of the examples presented by IHRA were included in the State Department’s definition, except for comparisons of Israeli policies to Nazi Germany. The State Department, under the leadership of Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and Elan Carr, the U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism, determined that comparisons of Israeli policies to those of the Nazis constitute antisemitism and have added it to the definition.

The working definition of antisemitism also includes the understanding that “antisemitic acts are criminal when they are so defined by law. Criminal acts are antisemitic when the targets of attacks, whether they are people or property – such as buildings, schools, places of worship and cemeteries – are selected because they are, or are perceived to be, Jewish or linked to Jews,” according to the US government’s website. In addition, “Antisemitic discrimination is the denial to Jews of opportunities or services available to others and is illegal in many countries.”

The move comes only weeks after US Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota) compared the anti-Israel BDS movement to previous boycotts of Nazi Germany in a resolution supporting the right to boycott Israel.

Rashida Tlaib's bulletproof hypocrisy and hate

Never missing an opportunity to politicize a tragedy, Rashida Tlaib has joined all of the Democratic presidential candidates in spinning the mass shootings of this past weekend. And while many of the candidates were vile in their accusations (Beto O'Rourke's lovely expletive-filled rant blaming Trump ending with "What the f---?," for instance), Tlaib is particularly hateful and dishonest due to her obsession with (and dual loyalty to) "her people."

To be clear, Palestinians have been committing mass murder with guns, cars, knives, and bombs since Israel's founding. While I abhor Jake Tapper's underhanded comparison of Donald Trump's rhetoric to the very real and clear incitement to violence of Palestinian leadership from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas, he did infuriate Tlaib, so there's that.

In typical disingenuous fashion, the Palestinian congresswoman responded to Tapper attempting to distinguish the terrorists she supports from white supremacists by claiming that Palestinian jihadists are actually "human rights advocates." Yeah, right — in her sick mind, it's okay to kill innocent Jews when your goals are "equality, human dignity & to stop the imprisonment of children." Because that's worked out so well for Palestinians over the decades. In Tlaib's terrorist circles, killing Jewish children is a moral human rights crusade if your goal is to stop the imprisonment of stone-throwing, gun-toting, knife-wielding child terrorists. It is truly difficult for sane people to get their heads around this analysis from a sitting member of the United States Congress. And yet there are Americans who actually voted this hater into office.

But how do we know that Palestinian children who are arrested in Israel are a threat to Jews who live in that country? Here is where the real irony and Tlaib's abhorrent hypocrisy come in. Tlaib once again took to Twitter Tuesday to comment on bulletproof backpacks being sold in Walmart: "This gave me chills. I can't believe this is what we have become."

The anti-Zionist left is trying to get Jake Tapper, one of the most consistent opponents of bigotry across the media landscape, fired. CNN should stand by him 100%, as should the rest of us https://t.co/9DhnccDaHe
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) August 6, 2019

Akiva Fuld would like you to believe there’s nothing special about what he’s doing, and he’s right: we should all be asking each other “What can I do for you, today?” We should all care enough to ask that question.

What’s different about Akiva Fuld, to my mind, is the follow-through. And by that, I don’t mean answering a call for help with whatsoever assistance he is able to offer, though there’s that, but asking the question in the first place: “What can I do for you, today?”

Most of us would be terrified to ask that question, if it even occurred to us to ask it in the first place. We’d be afraid of getting involved with the messiness of other people’s lives, of being on the hook for more than we’d bargained. For Akiva Fuld, on the other hand, it’s a simple thing, no big deal, no daunting prospect, just a straightforward proposition. Three times a day, he just comes right out and asks the question, “How can I help you, today?”

That’s how it started, anyway, though now it’s morphed into something else: Akiva Fuld created a Facebook page called How can I try to help you today? The page is open to the public, anyone can join. Anyone can ask for Akiva Fuld’s help.

Now, Akiva may or may not be able to help you with your problem. But he’s going to try. And if you think about it, 45-year-old Akiva Fuld, married for 22 years, and a father of 7 (girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl), is only doing what we all know we should be doing for each other: caring enough to offer our help and doing our best to follow through.

This is what it means to be a good person. And we should all be good people. I think we can learn something from Akiva Fuld’s example, so I reached out for an interview. Wanting to be helpful (!), Akiva agreed:

Varda Epstein: Tell us a bit about yourself: where are you from, how did you end up in Israel?

Akiva Fuld: I was born and raised in Queens, NY. I made Aliyah at age 23. I guess ending up in Israel mainly had to do with the kind of upbringing I wanted for my future children. I was hoping to save my children from a society that was highly influenced by envy.

Varda Epstein: You started a Facebook group: How can I try to help you today? Can you tell us about this group?

Akiva Fuld: A few months ago I started posting those words to my page, and I was getting all sorts of requests from all over the globe. When I first started noticing the requests begin to dwindle, I started posting 3 times a day. I began to see a rise in requests. When I saw them drop off again, I decided to post to groups that were quite big.

On the first day, many people posted and I helped as many as I could. The second day, again there were many requests, but this time many people started helping others. I guess I felt that I can't help with everything, so I might as well share the opportunity. The truth is that the group is for me to be able to help others. If other people want to help, that's great, if not, I get to keep the opportunities for myself.

Varda Epstein: What made you start the group?

Akiva Fuld: Well there really were three things that made me start the group. First, I haven’t always been a big fan of mankind. I'm very optimistic when it comes to Hashem, and yet quite pessimistic when it comes to mankind. Our ability to cause self-destruction is staggering. I felt that I needed a way to begin to better like mankind. What better way to grow to love someone, than to give to them?

Second, we don't charge usury in Judaism. Aside from the simple reason—Hashem told us not to—if we want a bit of a logical reason, it seems to me that the money doesn't really being to us, we are simply guardians. So if we need the money then we use it, if not then we should make sure someone else can. I feel that it should be the same with time.

And third, certain personal things happened in the past few years that made me want to work on being a better person.

Varda Epstein: What do you hope the group will achieve?

Akiva Fuld: I have no real expectations, and I have no idea where this is going to go. I really would like to see it be more international, and be able to help many other demographics.

Varda Epstein: How much of your time would you say is occupied with this endeavor?

Akiva Fuld: Good thing you are asking me and not my wife or children. I am spending as much time as I believe I need to, in order to make sure as many people as possible get the help they need. My wife and kids believe I am spending WAY too much time on this.

I guess in the end the actual time calculation comes out about the same—pretty much around the clock. I am trying to get it down to 2-3 hours in the morning, 2-3 hours in the afternoon, and 2-3 hours at night. I'm hoping as I bring in more moderators on the page, that I'll be able to get it down to those numbers.

Varda Epstein: What do you do for a living?

Akiva Fuld: I'm building up my company - https://fourpathsto.com/ - which is a new form of communication that I've created, based on recognizing which one of 4 personalities best describes your audience, and then being able to change the delivery of your message, not the message itself, to best fit your audience. This works with audiences from 1 all the way to millions.

Varda Epstein: Do you ever think about the success/fail component to your offer of help?

Akiva Fuld: Personally I don't like to fail, so I do put great effort into it, but it will happen from time to time that I'm not able to help someone. Sometimes it is because I don't have specific knowledge, and sometimes the person isn't open to creative solutions. Also, this is why I added the word 'try' to the name of the group. Does it matter whether or not you are able to help this person or that? Nope. As long as I try and give it my all. I imagine there are people who would like to know: how often is he successful. I don't know the answer to that. I'm not keeping track. I don't see any value in that.

Varda Epstein: What is it about an offer of help that is important?

Akiva Fuld: 1- Listening to what the person is and isn't saying. 2- Understanding what the person is asking for. 3- Being able to recognize, and clearly communicate the difference between the person's 'wants' and 'needs.’ 4- Being able to provide creative solutions when the situation requires it, and simple solutions, when that is what is needed. 5- Being able to recognize what the other person needs to hear and how it needs to be said.

Varda Epstein: What should others take away from your perspective on extending help?

Akiva Fuld: 1- Sometimes people simply need an ear, and sometimes they need more than that. And 2- it is only on one to try.

Varda Epstein: What is your ultimate goal for you and for your people?

Akiva Fuld: For me it is to keep on helping until people don't need to ask anymore. Also it might be nice SOMEDAY (NOT NOW) to have a discretionary fund to help out some of the people who need financial assistance. But I am in no rush. I honestly don't know what the other group members hope to achieve. I'm doing this for me.

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.

08/07 Links Pt1: Palestinian who saved Jewish kids after terror attack gets Israeli residency; Swastika Flag on Gaza Border Reveals Hamas’ True Intention — the Annihilation of the Jewish State

From Ian:

Palestinian who saved Jewish kids after terror attack gets Israeli residency

Interior Minister Aryeh Deri on Tuesday awarded Israeli residency to a Palestinian man who saved the children of a West Bank rabbi in the aftermath of the deadly terror attack in which the father was killed.

Rabbi Miki Mark was murdered in a July 1, 2016, shooting. His wife, Chava, was seriously injured, and their two teenage children were also hurt. The Palestinian rescuer and his wife, residents of the Hebron area, helped the surviving members of the Mark family escape their overturned vehicle and administered first aid until first responders arrived at the scene.

The Palestinian man, who has not been named, received a temporary visa to live and work in Israel after receiving death threats in his hometown near the West Bank city of Hebron.

However, the visa was not renewed in August 2018 and for the last year he was unable to work, becoming homeless and living in limbo in Israel.

After his plight was revealed recently in a Channel 12 report, and following a campaign by several Israelis, including settler leaders, he was awarded Israeli residency on Tuesday, along with his wife and son.

While presenting him his identity documents, Deri praised him for his “selfless, noble” actions and said he would now be able to begin a new life in Israel.

Israel: Swastika Flag on Gaza Border Reveals Hamas’ True Intention — the Annihilation of the Jewish State

Israel continued on Tuesday to call out Hamas for the placing last Friday on the Gaza border fence of a Nazi swastika flag by Palestinian demonstrators.

“When #Hamas-led rioters in #Gaza raise the #Nazi flag, they expose their true intention — to annihilate the Jewish State. But Hamas will never have its way,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry tweeted.

On Monday, it was reported that Hamas had instructed rioters to not use the swastika “so that the Israeli occupation cannot take advantage of it.”

Elad Strohmayer — spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC — tweeted on Tuesday, “Hey #Hamas, I get your concern about your PR but banning Nazi symbols just won’t do it. As long as you call for the destruction of the Jewish State, using swastikas is simply you being honest. It’s not the swastika that makes us think you want to kill all Jews, it’s your charter.”

David Singer: Jordan Jew-hatred Risks Trump, Israel and United Nations Ire

Jordanian Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Minister Abdul Nasser Abu al-Basl – who oversees holy sites in Jordan and Jerusalem – reportedly accused Israelis of illegally entering Aaron’s Tomb and decided that Jordan would close it to all tourists with the exception of those who receive prior government approval.

Abu Basl also told Al Mamlaka TV, a state-funded channel, that he decided to close the tomb following “Israeli violations” at the site and “the performance of rituals without the knowledge of the ministry.”

Jews and Arabs – Moslem and Christian – need to respect each other’s religious places of pilgrimage and not claim exclusivity of any site they may each have a religious connection with.

Jordan’s reprehensible action threatens the release of Trump’s deal of the century and Jordan’s possible participation in negotiations with Israel to successfully bring it to fruition. Trump’s displeasure could see financial and security consequences for Jordan. Possible retaliatory action by Israel on Jordan’s Islamic-sites custodianship in Jerusalem could also follow.

Cooling the situation by allowing Jews to freely access Mount Hor is urgently required.
Jordan should hang its head in shame.

Just asking.

It seems there are various former members of J Street, some who served in leadership positions, who are now involved in If Not Now -- and some of them are apparently founding members.

For example:

Max Berger

o He is identified as a co-founder of If Not Now in his 'bio' on Haaretz
o A JTA article notes that before If Not Now, Max Berger worked for J Street as a new media assistant

Yonah Lieberman

o Yonah Lieberman has a twitter account that identifies him as a co-founder of If Not Now
o Lieberman was very heavily involved in J Street. According to his LinkedIn page, from January 2010 on he was a member of the National Student Board, the Midwest Regional Co-Chair, and Campus Chapter Chair.

Carinne Luck

o Times of Israel identifies Carinne Luck as a co-founder of If Not Now.
o Luck's website notes she was a founding staff member and Vice President for Field and Campaigns at J Street.

Simone Zimmerman

o Simone Zimmerman identifies herself as a co-founder of If Not Now on her Twitter page.
o In an article for The Forward, Josh Nathan-Kazis writes that Simone Zimmerman was the national president of J Street U’s student board in the 2012-2013 school year

Kara Segal

o Kara Segal's LinkedIn account lists her as an If Not Now co-founder.
o She appears in this YouTube video at a 2009 J Street conference.

Emily Mayer

o Emily Mayer identifies herself as an If Not Now organizer on her Twitter page
o Daniel Greenfield notes that Emily Mayer was with J Street U at Haverford

Sarah Beth Alcabes

Canary Mission lists Sarah Beth Alcabes as leading an INN disruption, in partnership with Taher Herzallah of American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and also being an activist with J Street U at the University of California, Berkeley (Berkeley) from 2012-2014.

Times of Israel mentions Elianna Fishman, who was "heavily involved with J Street U Dartmouth" and who confirms "I interned for J Street, and helped set up a chapter on campus” before graduating and joining IfNotNow -- to which the article adds

In fact, many of IfNotNow’s leaders are alumni of J Street U.

An article in Haaretz echoes this when it says:

[If Not Now] remains small, attracting several dozen participants, some of whom are leaders of J Street U, the group’s student-organizing arm.

But the question remains: why have these, and other members of J Street, made the switch?

It sure appears as if J-Street is a gateway drug for Jewish students to learn to hate Israel and to be comfortable to criticize Israel "as a Jew." But it might be more than that.

According to a Haaretz article from 2014, Gaza War Pushes Some to the Left of J Street. The logic, according to Haaretz, is that over time, J Street, even back in 2014, was becoming larger and more moderate, with the result that there were the beginnings of a limited exodus that benefited smaller more radical groups. One of those groups was If Not Now, described in the article as "an ad hoc group."

Of course, what the Haaretz article claims is a sign of J Street's moderation can also be seen as the failure in the eyes of some of its members, to become increasingly radical.

A similar theme to Haaretz is taken by Nathan-Kazis in the Forward also in an article from 2014, that in contrast to the more "moderate" tone taken by J Street, some members felt J Street was not doing enough:

Former high-ranking J Street staff members were among the organizers of a July 28 protest in New York City against Israel’s invasion of Gaza. They acted under the name #ifnotnow and made no mention of their former J Street affiliations.

He writes about another protest just a few days earlier, launched by 4 activists that included high-ranking members Carinne Luck who had left J Street in 2012 and Daniel May, director of J Street U from 2010 to 2013 as well as Max Berger.

Other participants in one or both of those #ifnotnow protests included Isaac Luria, J Street’s vice president of communications and new media from 2008 until 2011 and Tamara Shapiro.

Some of that former J Street staff said they were not opposed to J Street’s long-term strategy -- but felt limited by its tactics. Others, like Luck, said they did not share J Street's "patience" with the "Jewish institutional community."

That is the narrative. Daniel Greenfield of FrontPageMag.org isn't buying it.

He is cynical of claims that If Not Now was simply born of a break with J Street. In If Not Now, J Street's Latest Anti-Israel Front Group, he writes:

The official narrative is that If Not Now parted ways with J Street because the group was insufficiently opposed to the Jewish State and insufficiently supportive of Hamas. As a practical matter though this is how radical groups have always operated, with a front group that makes efforts to appear moderate while incubating radical organizations within itself that "split off" but still pursue the same agenda.

Despite claims of a split, If Not Now is just pursuing the exact same agenda as J Street U, protesting Jewish charities for supporting Israel, while claiming to be the voice of a new generation.

It's the same scam with a new brand and slightly less of a paper trail.

If Not Now is J Street...

...New organizations are constantly being created and destroyed. But they all share one agenda. The destruction of the Jewish State.

If there is indeed an element of dramatic effect at work here, then this alleged break would be no more authentic than the recent break of Jesse Steshenko, who claimed to have been "a very ardent Zionist" who as a result of his recent J Street trip to Israel became "disgusted" with Israel.

Elder of Ziyon revealed that in fact as recently as 2016 as a member of Junior States of America, a mock Congress, he introduced a resolution calling Israel an apartheid state and demanding the recognition of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza as defined by the 1949 Armistice -- effectively depriving Israel of the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.

Actually, J Street itself has a history of being less than straightforward.

o It is a group that claims that it is pro-Israel, yet only supports Democrats, going so far as to support candidates it claims support Israel such as Representative Mark Pocan, who anonymously reserved official Capitol Hill space for an anti-Israel forum organized by organizations that support boycotts

o  J Street was perfectly willing to support Rashida Tlaib, until it withdrew it only because she backed out of support of a 2-state solution

o  Despite denials, J Street not only supported the Goldstone Report - it actively facilitated Goldstone's attempt to defend it

o  Despite their repeated denials to the contrary, in 2008 and 2009 J Street received funding from George Soros.

o  J Street's co-founder Daniel Levy called the creation of Israel ‘an act that was wrong’

Carinne Luck's involvement in If Not Now is another reason for apprehension.

Here is a 2012 video of Luck explaining J Street's job:

The main takeaway from what Luck says:

o A sizable percentage of J Street is not Jewish
o J Street responds to the wishes "the Hill, the (Obama) Administration" which wants J Street to "move Jews"
o The bulk of J Street resources are dedicated to this
o There is an uneasiness about those in J Street leadership who are not Jewish who may present themselves as Jews

This idea of misrepresentation that Carinne Luck shares with the group -- without condemning -- is an issue that arises again with If Not Now, both in terms of questions about its connections with J Street but also in terms of its own claims to represent today's young American Jews.

We have seen there is a failure of J Street to live up to what it claims it does.
Should we be surprised that there are doubts about what If Not Now claims as well?

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Egypt's 12th annual National Theater Festival will feature a blatantly antisemitic play called "Christ Crucified in Palestine."

The play is the official entry from the Egyptian Orthodox Church for the youth competition within the festival.

The play is a mock trial between Pontius Pilate, the Roman ruler of Jerusalem in Jesus' time, and Caiaphas, the Jewish leader who is cast as a villain and stand-in for the evils of Jews throughout history, from "killing the prophets" through killing Jesus and on through Israel's crime of existence.

Jesus is characterized in the play as having called to destroy the idea of Jews as the "chosen people" while the Jews continue to act in this arrogant manner.

The play was originally written as a response to the 'Nostra Aetate' of the Second Vatican Council and the subsequent Six Day War. The 'Nostra Aetate' is characterized as being written "to absolve the Jews of the crimes committed against the prophets and unarmed Palestinian people." Egypt's president Gamal Abdel Nasser stood next to the Egyptian National Church and denounced the document in 1965, which is as good a proof as any of the antisemitism in the Arab world.

The performance has been updated with new "crimes" of the Jews, up to and including the US embassy opening in Jerusalem and the "Judaization of Palestine."

"Christ Crucified in Palestine" was staged last year in a number of Coptic venues, and its popularity prompted it to be revived for this year's festival.

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Palestinian diplomats are engaged in a full court press to convince European and Arab countries to continue UNRWA's mandate - a mandate that ensures a parallel infrastructure for education, healthcare and housing in areas under Palestinian control.

They are also trying to convince Latin American countries to vote to extend UNRWA's mandate.

The agency's mandate has been rubber stamped to be extended every three years for decades, but in light of the recent corruption scandal at UNRWA's highest levels and the US opposition to the group, this year the extension will be a little more visible. The chances that it will not be extended are still very small.

But under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas and is foreign ministry, the PLO's diplomats worldwide and at the UN are initiating contacts with every country they can find to ensure that the vote remains overwhelmingly towards continuing the agency's operations.

UNRWA's model of providing free education, healthcare and housing to an ever-increasing number of descendants of refugees for ever is not sustainable. No one even pretends it is. But instead of having the agency curtail operations in areas where the local government can and should take over the role as any normal nation would, the "pro-UNRWA" crowd is not willing to even consider a change in its responsibilities to keep it financially viable.

In Jordan, the vast majority of those who receive benefits are full citizens, not "refugees" in any sense, and there is no reason the world must finance the schools and clinics of full Jordanian citizens.

For the Palestinians, insisting on maintaining UNRWA proves that they have no real desire for independence. After all, the "refugees" on Palestinian soil are not refugees by any definition either. The Palestinian Authority, if it truly wants independence, would actively want to take over UNRWA's functions in areas under its control to move more towards independence. If it truly wanted to be a state, it would ask to integrate UNRWA's operations into its own government and take the UNRWA budget during a transitional period.

It never even considers that. The PLO is not only willing but insisting on outsourcing a large part of its governmental responsibilities to the UN, forever.

That is not how nations striving for independence would act.

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08/06 Links Pt2: Did PayPal shut BDS South Africa account after PFLP terrorist meeting?; UN Workers Under Investigation For Allegedly Stealing Humanitarian Aid

From Ian:

Did PayPal shut BDS South Africa account after PFLP terrorist meeting?

Muhammed Desai, the director of one the world’s leading Boycott, Divest and Sanctions organizations, has found his group embroiled in a new Palestinian terrorism scandal after BDS South Africa last week tweeted a picture of Desai shaking hands with member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The US and the EU have both classified the PFLP a terrorist entity.

At the same time, The Jerusalem Post learned on Monday that BDS South Africa’s PayPal account is now not accepting donations. It is unclear if the online payment service PayPal closed the account due to BDS South Africa’s support and financing of a terrorist organization.

When the Post clicked on the electronic donation section of BDS South Africa, the entry by PayPal stated: “Things don’t appear to be working at the moment. Please try again later.” Post media queries to PayPal on Monday were not returned.

The now-deleted BDS South Africa tweet read: “A representative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) with BDS South Africa’s Muhammed Desai. The PFLP works closely with BDS SA in the global campaign against Apartheid Israel.”

The Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor retained a screenshot of the tweet.

#Deleted!!! @BDSsouthafrica boasted of working with #PFLP 🔫💣 #terror group designated by 🇪🇺EU, 🇨🇦CA, 🇺🇸US, 🇮🇱IL, etc. Their post seems to be missing, but luckily we have a copy. #ICYMI: #BDS = #hate pic.twitter.com/2EOyraVeVf
— NGO Monitor (@NGOmonitor) August 1, 2019

UN Workers Under Investigation For Allegedly Lining Their Own Pockets With Humanitarian Aid

More than a dozen United Nations workers in Yemen are under investigation for allegedly embezzling millions of dollars of humanitarian aid in the war-torn nation, according to a Monday Associated Press report.

The World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an internal investigation, drawing attention to unqualified people being paid excessively, the use of personal bank accounts for donated funds, suspicious contracts and the disappearance of essentials like food and medicine. UNICEF, another U.N. organization, is alleging one of their own may have protected a rebel leader, according to the AP report citing information from eight anonymous aid workers.

Houthi rebels from northern Yemen allegedly seized laptops and evidence from U.N. officials in 2018 as they were about to depart the country from an airport, according to six former and current aid officials.

Yemen is currently the poorest nation in the Middle East with one of the worst humanitarian conflicts in the world, a World Bank report details.

Chief of the U.N.’s Sanaa Office, Italian Nevio Zagaria, was alleged to have misappropriated U.N. finances, jumpstarting a reported probe in November. Six U.N. current and former employees. who requested anonymity, affirmed his tenure was “riddled with corruption and nepotism,” according to AP.

Zagaria reportedly brought in junior staffers and promoted them to extremely lucrative roles for which they were not qualified. It’s also alleged that two highly paid senior staffers were tasked with the sole responsibility of taking care of Zagaria’s dog.

Video of Israeli "Tracks for Regional Peace" plan - railway from Haifa to Jordan and Saudi Arabia

The only people who could hate this idea are the people who hate Israel no matter what.

It benefits Israel, the Palestinians, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states.

Egypt would be the main loser because this plan competes with the Suez Canal.

(h/t Irene)

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Palestinian finance minister Shukri Bishara was to have met with Israeli Finance Ministry officials on Tuesday to discuss several issues.

In Jerusalem, Bishara will meet with the director general of the Israeli Finance Ministry and discuss with him the deduction of Palestinian tax revenues and the deduction of IEC's debts from tax revenues .

This meeting is despite the announcement of President Mahmoud Abbas to stop all agreements signed with the Israeli occupation .

But Abbas got in the headlines for his latest lie, and that's all that really matters.

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08/06 Links Pt1: An Israeli Victory Is Necessary if Peace Is to Be Achieved; Shin Bet busts Hamas cell planning Jerusalem bombing attack; Indonesia's Growing Engagement With The Afghan Taliban

From Ian:

An Israeli Victory Is Necessary if Peace Is to Be Achieved

A major component of US strategy to help Israel gain the victory necessary for peace should be a campaign of “assertive truth-telling.” Such truth-telling by Israel, the US, and eventually the European democracies can be the key to an ultimate Israeli victory because Palestinian policy is based, both internally and externally, on demonstrable falsehoods.

Usually, a country has to commit troops or get the support of other countries, or at least spend a large amount of money, if it is to achieve victory. But the US can help Israel achieve victory without any of these. A major part of Israel’s problem is that most of the diplomatic world accepts key falsehoods about Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians and the Arab world. By simply and boldly stating the truth, the US can end the reign of the now-dominant falsehoods and advance an Israeli victory. And the US has a unique ability to bring diplomatic attention to the error of these falsehoods.

The US can sharply strengthen Israel’s position in the world by explaining three facts so insistently that their truth can no longer be ignored:
1. There has never been any “Palestinian territory” anywhere. That being the case, there cannot now be “occupied Palestinian territory.” Nor can Israel have stolen “Palestinian land.”
2. There were Jewish kingdoms in much of what is referred to as “Palestine” for hundreds of years before the birth of Islam. The Palestinian belief that the Jewish people are European colonialists invading the area with no historic claim or right is entirely false.
3. There are not millions of Palestinian “refugees.” A just peace in the area does not require that Israel take in so many Palestinians that it cannot continue to exist as a democratic Jewish state.

Instead, peace requires that the Arab world let the descendants of refugees from the Israeli War of Independence be settled and live normal lives, rather than continue to treat them as stateless refugees in order to preserve their status as a threat to Israel.

While Israel has expressed these truths frequently, its diplomatic policy has been to put more emphasis on trying to appease the consensus by showing a willingness to negotiate, limiting settlement in the West Bank, and limiting criticism of the Palestinians and assertions of Israeli rights — as if those were useful ways to advance negotiations. It is time for Israel to challenge the international diplomatic assumptions more vigorously by assertive truth-telling.

Arabs Say One Thing in Public and Another Behind Closed Doors

According to Jonathan Spyer, director of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis, "It's very important for Western policymakers to be aware that leaderships and elites throughout the Arab world today find a great deal of common ground with Israel on the issues of the Iranian and Sunni Islamist threats."

"To an increasing extent, they are also weary of Palestinian intransigence and see Israel as a model for successful development. Much of that, however, cannot be said openly by these leaders because this does not reflect the views of parts of the societies of the leaders in question, where Islamist and/or Arab nationalist sentiments continue to hold sway."

Despite some public lip service to the Palestinian cause, the Sunni Arab world knows that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at most a "side issue."

An Israeli military intelligence expert who had just returned from private meetings in Europe with Arab and EU officials told me that, behind closed doors, their analysis of the Middle East, including Iran, is often light years away from the public rhetoric offered by European and Arab Sunni government officials to their citizens.

The conflicts of the Middle East are primarily tribal and religious in nature, and the primary allegiance is not to modern states artificially constructed by the West 100 years ago. Insiders know that if there were no Israel, the Shiites would still hate the Sunnis, Iran would still aspire to hegemony, Turkey would still be an unreliable NATO ally, and Libya and Yemen would still be chaotic.

Some European officials, who vociferously defend the Iran nuclear agreement publicly, privately acknowledge the dangers of the Iranian revolutionary theocracy that acts against their values.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas, Islamic Jihad: "The Circle of Fire is Expanding"

It seems, then, that for Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the ceasefire understandings, reached under the auspices of Egypt and the UN, are meant to give the Gaza-based groups a chance to continue building their military capabilities without having to worry about Israeli retaliatory measures.

Iranian media quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as expressing satisfaction over the "progress" the Palestinians have made in the past few years. The "progress" Khamenei is talking about is not related to the building of a new hospital or school or a medical breakthrough in the Gaza Strip. Instead, the "progress" the Palestinians have achieved -- according to Iran's Supreme Leader -- is that "while the Palestinians used to fight [Israel] with rocks, today they possess precise rockets."

The Egyptian and UN mediators, in failing to call out the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad for their deception and conflicting messages, are permitting the two groups to deploy the ceasefire with Israel as a cover to prepare for the next war.

The leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and their patrons in Tehran... are dead-set on inflicting as much damage on Israel as possible. As per standard operating procedure, the biggest losers of all in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip will be the Palestinians.

J Street doesn't love Israel. (Zvi)

From Zvi:

______________________________________

J Street doesn't love Israel. Neither does Jeremy.

It is important to understand the difference between the ends and the means.

J Street's tag line is, "the political home of pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans". In other words, J Street is intended to be a political magnet for a certain category of Americans: those who are "pro Israel pro peace". (The whole "pro Israel pro peace" thing is nonsense anyway. Nobody who supports Israel opposes peace; what they oppose is buying short-term peace by agreeing to commit suicide. The term "pro Israel pro peace" implies that pro-Israel Jews who don't support J Street are war-mongers, which is a blood libel of sorts. But let's skip that for now.)

For J Street, the highest priority is most definitely NOT a safe, strong Israel; strong, flourishing Jewish communities; or safe, flourishing Jews. None of J Street's words or activities encourage or support any of these goals.

For J Street, the highest priority is to support "progressive" Democratic Party candidates in the US. The MEANS by which they achieve this end involve appealing to "progressive" American Jews by referencing their hot-button issue of Israel in ways that J Street thinks will harness their support for "progressive" Democrats.

Unfortunately, J Street views Israel's politics as an extension of US politics. It views events in Israel exclusively through the lens of "progressive" American politics, forgetting that Israel is a distinct country with distinct dangers, a distinct culture, a distinct history, a distinct political system and a distinct future.

On Israel, J Street is the political home of people who are mentally trapped in the early 1990s, people who view the Ashkenazi Israeli left – which has been eviscerated by its own naïve failure to predict or address the murderous backstabbing of Arafat and his successors – as a kind of extension of the Democratic Party in the US. These are people who don't see any differences between the situation of African Americans in US culture and Ethiopian Jews in Israeli culture. They are people who don't see why Israelis should be allowed to have needs that are different from their own.

J Street and its supporters do not understand Israelis, their culture or their concerns. They do not bother to try to understand these things, because what Israelis want, what Israelis have learned through personal experience, and what Israelis find dubious or ridiculous are simply not important to J Street and its supporters. It's all very patronizing.

J Street has treated successive Israeli governments and politicians like political opponents rather than legitimate friends and allies of world Jewry and of the United States. J Street views all non-leftist Israeli parties – and thus much of the Israeli mainstream – as "far-right" extensions of the US's Republican Party. J Street is not interested in listening to the majority of Israelis because it is not interested in listening to its political opponents. It views them as foils that it can attack in order to rally the troops at home to its real cause, which is the election of "progressive" candidates.

J Street has become so trapped by this mindset that it aligns itself with people who oppose Israel's right to exist and harbor deeply antisemitic sentiments; it continues to oppose efforts to fight BDS effectively, or to prevent other attacks on Israel and on Jews around the world.

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The Al-Quds and Al-Aqsa Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council issued a statement about Jews who plan to visit the Temple Mount on Tisha B'Av Sunday, the fast day that commemorates the destruction of the Temples that were built on the site now dominated by several huge mosques meant to erase Jewish history.

In a time when Americans are upset over the terminology "invaders" referring to illegal immigrants, this official PLO committee refers to Jews who want to visit their holiest site as "Zionist rapists."

They wrote three bullet points:

First: This Zionist obsession, and disregard for the feelings of millions of Muslims in the world, stems from the state of humiliation and shameful normalization led by some corrupt Arab regimes.

Secondly: We call on our people in the West Bank, Jerusalem and inside the occupied territories to travel to the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the first day of Eid, and to consider it as a remarkable day in the days of Allah.

Third: We call on the Palestinian resistance to establish a new equation (i.e. balance of power vis-a-vis Israel) that will protect the holy places, and cut off any hand that is stretched out towards (the holy places) with evil (intentions)."

That third point sure sounds like incitement to terror.

The Mufti of Jerusalem added to the incitement, making up a lie that Jews have demanded to enter the doors of the actual Al Aqsa Mosque - a complete fiction.

The Mufti, Mohammed Hussein, said "our people will not stand idly by" as Jews visit the site.

Supreme Islamic Commission Sheikh Ekrema Sabri called on Muslims to go en masse to the site on Sunday and effectively called on them to fight any Jews who ascend there, saying "Whoever plays with fire will be burned by fire."

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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