I’m A Latina Who Works For The ADL. JVP’s Attack
For months now, the far-left anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has been targeting our exchange program with Israel with a campaign called “Deadly Exchange”. Now, ADL is a 104-year-old organization, and becoming targets of both fair criticism and inaccurate attacks from the right and the left of the political spectrum comes with the territory for an established institution like ours. But in my time at ADL, I’ve been especially surprised at JVP’s ignorance, dangerous dogmatism and blind efforts at intersectional cause-making.When Was the "Palestinian People" Created? Google Has the Answer.
In their campaign against our program — a program that is designed to save lives — JVP makes the case that American Jewish institutions are responsible for rising levels of police brutality and racism against minorities here in the United States, thanks to their support for these types of exchanges between American and Israeli law enforcement agencies.
In other words, JVP believes Jewish institutions control how the police racially profile people of color in the United States.
I was shocked by this attack. It hewed so closely to anti-Semitic canards about the Jews secretly controlling the levers of power. How could a Jewish organization make such a hateful claim?
This radical — and willful — misunderstanding of our program was compounded last week when JVP came to protest ADL at our New York headquarters.
As the head of communications for the organization, I went to greet them and to receive their petition. But I was only seconds into my conversation with a JVP spokesperson before she demanded to know: Why didn’t ADL send anyone to hear their stories?
“I’m right here,” I said, confused.
Then she asked me point blank how a woman of color could work for ADL. Hadn’t I personally experienced racial profiling?
Yes, she actually asked me that.
Read more: http://forward.com/opinion/national/387789/im-a-latina-who-works-for-the-adl-jvps-attacks-shocked-me/
All people born in British Mandatory Palestine between 1923-1948 (today's Israel) had "Palestine" stamped on their passports at the time. But when they were called Palestinians, the Arabs were offended. They complained: "We are not Palestinians, we are Arabs. The Palestinians are the Jews".
After invading Arab armies were routed and the Arabs who had fled the war wanted to return, they were considered a fifth column and not invited back. The Arabs who had loyally remained in Israel during the war, however, and their descendants, are still there and make up one fifth of the population. They are known as Israeli Arabs; they have the same rights as Christians and Jews, except they are not required to serve in the army unless they wish to.
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality, today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese." – PLO leader Zuheir Mohsen, interview in the Dutch newspaper Trouw, March 1977.
#BDSfail
Israel's economic data came out. Guess what? The campaign to destroy Israel through economic boycotts is not only unfair, misleading and wrong, but it's also a failure. Again.