Kerry's friends to prevent Netanyahu from speaking at #AIPAC2015?
John Kerry's friends at CodePink are planning to prevent Prime Minister Netanyahu from speaking by disrupting #AIPAC2015 (that's the hashtag for this week's AIPAC convention).
Kerry said in an interview broadcast before he left for more talks in
Switzerland with Iran's foreign minister that Netanyahu was welcome to
speak in the U.S. and that the administration did not want the event
"turned into some great political football."
That sentiment was a step back from some of the sharp rhetoric between
the allies in recent weeks, and Kerry mentioned that he talked to
Netanyahu as recently as Saturday.
But Kerry stressed that Israel was safer as a result of the short-term
nuclear pact that world powers and Iran reached in late 2013, and he
described that improvement as the "standard we will apply to any
agreement" with the Islamic Republic.
Officials have described the United States, Europe, Russia and China as
considering a compromise that would see Iran's nuclear activities
severely curtailed for at least a decade, with the restrictions and U.S.
and Western economic penalties eased in the final years of a deal.
"We are going to test whether or not diplomacy can prevent this weapon
from being created, so you don't have to turn to additional measures
including the possibility of a military confrontation," Kerry told ABC's
"This Week."
"Our hope is that diplomacy can work. And I believe, given our success
of the interim agreement, we deserve the benefit of the doubt to find
out whether or not we can get a similarly good agreement with respect to
the future."
This administration cannot be trusted on anything - it's that simple.
On Thursday, I posted part of Medea Benjamin's rant about her group's detention at Cairo Airport on its way to Gaza. I posted it together with the picture above rather than the picture below, because I focused on the group, rather than on the rock star. I should have known better.
By the way, the caption of that picture says that she is being 'welcomed home by loved ones.' Do you see any?
Little did I know I would be stopped at the Cairo airport, detained, held overnight in a cell, then in the morning brutally assaulted by Egyptian authorities. They threw me to the ground, stomped on my back, handcuffed me so tightly they dislocated my shoulder, and then deported me to Turkey.
But by Friday, Benjamin had miraculously 'recovered.' Here's a guest post by Kristinn Taylor on Jim Hoft's Gateway Pundit.
Three days after she claimed to have been brutally attacked, stomped
on, her arm ripped out of its socket and ligaments torn by Egyptian
authorities trying to deport her from the Cairo aiprport, Susan ‘Medea’
Benjamin appeared to be miraculously healed as shown on a video of an interview recorded Friday.
Benjamin, leader of the terrorist support group Code Pink, spoke to
Bill Hughes at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The camera
shot is tight from the shoulders up. Benjamin looks quite healthy. No
scabs, no bruises, no swelling, no torn scalp, no broken teeth. When the
camera pulls back to show her torso, her left arm which she claimed was
broken, dislocated and had ligaments torn, is seen free of any sling,
cast, or means of support. Benjamin is wearing two pullover shirts,
meaning she had to lift her arms to get dressed. She does however hold
her left arm folded against her abdomen.
Let's go to the videotape.
More here. That's an awfully fast 'recovery,' isn't it?
Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin posts a rant after she is deported from Egypt to Turkey instead of being allowed into Gaza for - get this - International Women's Day. Meanwhile, her fellow travelers, pictured above, remain at Cairo airport.
Just the other day I hopped on a plane to Egypt, eager to join the international delegation of 100 women headed to Gaza for International Women’s Day. Little did I know I would be stopped at the Cairo airport, detained, held overnight in a cell, then in the morning brutally assaulted by Egyptian authorities. They threw me to the ground, stomped on my back, handcuffed me so tightly they dislocated my shoulder, and then deported me to Turkey.
Now the Egyptian authorities are blocking most of the remaining delegates from entering Egypt and traveling to Gaza. It has been frustrating and disappointing for us, but we cannot forget that almost two million Palestinians remained trapped in Gaza while the Egyptian Rafah border remains closed or tightly controlled
What happened to me was traumatizing, but is minor compared to what Egyptian activists are going through, including women. Thousands of peaceful Egyptian demonstrators have been killed or jailed by the Military Junta since the July 2013 military coup.
And just how does this moron think that Hamas is treating 'Palestinian' women in Gaza? Here's an example.
There's only one country in the Middle East which strives to treat its women like human beings. But Benjamin and her ilk cannot even acknowledges that country's existence. Jew hatred takes precedence over women's rights for these self-proclaimed women's rights activists.
[State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki on Twitter:] "Secretary Kerry has a proud record of over 3 decades of staunch
support for Israel's security and well-being, including staunch
opposition to boycotts," Psaki insisted. "Just last year, while briefing
Foreign Ministers at the EU conference in Vilinius on peacemaking
efforts, he urged them to refrain from these measures."
"At the Munich Security Conference yesterday, he spoke forcefully in
defense of Israel's interests as he consistently has throughout his
public life," Psaki continued. "In response to the question about the
peace process he described well known and previously stated facts about
stakes for both sides if the process fails. Secretary Kerry's only
reference to a boycott was a description undertaken by others that he
has always opposed."
"Secretary Kerry has always expected opposition and difficult
moments in the process and expects all parties to accurately portray his
record and statements."
Kerry always supported Israel. Except when he supported Code Pink going to Gaza or when he supported that great reformer (Hillary Clinton's word) Bashar al-Assad. But hey - some of his best friends are Jewish so what does it matter?
State Department dismisses Kerry letter on Code Pink's behalf as 'form letter'
The State Department is dismissing a three-year old letter written by then-Senator John FN Kerry on behalf of Code Pink members seeking access to Gaza as a 'form letter' after the letter came to prominence again this week.
A State Department official reportedly told The Blaze, “The
letter from then-Senator Kerry regarding the humanitarian mission in
Israel and the Palestinian territories was a form letter that was
auto-penned — standard constituent mail that congressional members send
out as a common practice,” the official said. “Senator Kerry never saw
it, nor did his senior staff see it. It was put together by his Boston
office, and would also not have involved senior staff members on the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
“Moreover, the text of the letter has nothing to do with the flotilla
incident or even Gaza. It focuses purely on a humanitarian mission in
Israel and the Palestinian territories in support of the peace process,”
the official concluded.
In the letter, Kerry wrote that his staff met with the
Massachusetts delegation before they left, and his staff would be
briefed about the trip upon their return.
Code Pink co-founders
Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin used Kerry’s letter at the U.S. Embassy
in Cairo, Egypt to pressure the Egyptian government to allow 1300
leftists passage into Gaza from Egypt. The leftists gathered in Cairo
from around the world to mark the one-year anniversary of Israel’s
defense against Hamas’ rocket and mortar attacks.
Images of the
letters from Kerry and [Representative Andre] Carson [(D-Indiana) were
posted by the publisher of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah, on his
blog at Posterous.com. [Abunimah is a close friend and early supporter of Barak Hussein Obama. CiJ].
Abunimah
wrote that he, Benjamin and Kit Kettridge met for over an hour with
“three officials, including Gina Cabrera, head of US citizen services,
and Gregory D. LoGerfo, First Secretary in the Office of Economic and
Political Affairs. The third official, whose name I did not note,
identified himself as a ‘regional security’ official.”
Benjamin
and Kettridge also met with “the embassy’s Deputy Director Matthew
Tuellar, in command while Ambassador Scobey was on leave,” according to
Abunimah.
(Margaret Scobey is a career Foreign Service officer who was appointed ambassador to Egypt by President George W. Bush in 2008.)
The
Christian Science Monitor mentioned Kerry’s letter in a report from
Cairo, but failed to question why the chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee was supporting the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas Gaza
Freedom March.
The letter was written on letterhead from Kerry’s
Boston office. The name and phone number of staffer Christopher Wyman
was included as a point of contact.
Not only do the
Democrats not treat terrorists as combatants - they support them (what
else do you think Code Pink was doing by going to Gaza?).
The State Department is now dismissing Obama's pal Ali Abunimah:
The letter makes no mention of pro-Palestinian activism in general, nor the Gaza flotillas in particular. The Blaze reports
that initial claims that the letter had been authored by Kerry in an
expression of pro-Palestinian support originated with both Ali Abunimah,
co-founder of the Electronic Intifada website and a supporter of the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and
Jodie Pink, a US anti-war activist.
That would be Jodie Evans (not 'Jodie Pink'), shown here.
And the Code Pink members never planned to go anywhere but Gaza via Egypt. And given what we know about Code Pink, one ought to question why Senator Kerry (or President Obama) would have anything to do with them in the first place.
Last week's Reminder presented the story of women
going to the Middle East under the auspices of Codepink. Their stated
purpose was to "take a stand for the people of Gaza."
Although much was said about Israel and Gaza, what wasn't mentioned was the nature of Codepink.
A quick look at the Codepink Web site
and materials makes it clear that it is a one-sided organization that
does not recognize the right of America to defend itself against
al-Qaeda or the Taliban.
Nor does it recognize the right of Israel to fight a war of survival against the terrorist group Hamas, armed by Iran.
Hamas seeks to destroy the state of Israel and has a history of
launching missiles deeper and deeper into Israel. The distance between
Gaza and Tel Aviv is about the same as between Springfield and
Worcester. Would we in America give up the right of self-defense if a
hostile force controlled territory that close? How is it that the
Codepink Web site is silent on these rockets falling well within the
state of Israel?
I wonder why no one seems to have contacted Christopher Wyman about this....
Gee... wearing an anti-Israel shirt in the middle of an AIPAC convention could cost you a tip
The note above was left on a table at a Washington restaurant called Busboys and Poets.The waitress in question wore a t-shirt that said "occupation isn't pretty." The shirt was sold by the radicals at Code Pink. As one of the commenters at that link said, "Not exactly a "pro-peace" shirt. I'd probably can an employee who wore something like that in front of customers."
I wouldn't leave a tip either. (The diners in question apparently left a smaller tip than they would have otherwise).
UPDATE 12:29 PM
Here are front and back shots of the shirt (Hat Tip: My Right Word).
President Hussein Obama has nominated John F.N. Kerry to be Secretary of State, and the National Jewish Democratic Council, which had no comment about Chuck Hagel for Defense, has announced that it's 'ecstatic.'
“John has earned the respect and confidence of leaders around the
world. He is not going to need a lot of on-the-job training,” Obama said
in announcing his pick at the White House. “I think it’s fair to say
that few individuals know as many presidents and prime ministers, or
grasp our foreign policies as firmly as John Kerry.”
Current
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has been recovering from a
stomach virus and concussion, was not present at the announcement. But
she sent out a statement welcoming his announcement which referenced
their shared experience as unsuccessful presidential candidates.
“As
I have learned, being able to talk candidly as someone who has won
elections and also lost them is an enormous asset when engaging with
emerging or fragile democracies,” she said.
Kerry has often
traveled to the Middle East during his role as foreign relations
committee chairman, including meetings with Syrian President Bashar Assad before the civil war there began and with Afghan and Pakistani
leaders to smooth US relations with those countries.
Several
Senate colleagues welcomed the appointment, which comes after Obama
confidant and US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice withdrew
her name from contention after being criticized for her handling of the
Benghazi, Libya controversy.
The picture from the meeting with Assad is above. The second picture is a letter that Kerry sent on behalf of Code Pink's Gaza 'freedom march' when they went to visit Hamas in Gaza. I'll have more pictures from the Kerry highlight reel below.
Kerry’s selection was also welcomed by several Jewish groups.
Americans
for Peace Now Spokesman Ori Nir said of Kerry: “He has consistently
demonstrated a deep understanding of the complex foreign policy
challenges facing the United States in the Middle East and around the
world, and a profound appreciation of and respect for the vital role
that US diplomacy can and must play in addressing these challenges.”
And the National Jewish Democratic Council sent out a strong statement of support.
"We are ecstatic to see that President Obama has selected Senator Kerry to be the next secretary of state,” the group said.
“His
record on the foreign policy issues of special interest to the Jewish
community is exceptionally strong,” the statement continued. “He has
been a leader when it comes to Israel and has made it abundantly clear
that he – like the Obama Administration – stands squarely behind the
Jewish state.”
Just last week, the NJDC couldn't find its tongue to oppose Chuck Hagel at Defense. I guess they find Kerry more palatable. Since they claim to be pro-Israel, one has to wonder why.
The emir told Kerry
to focus on Syria as the path toward resolution of the Arab-Israeli
conflict. Kerry agreed with the emir that Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad is a man who wants change but pointed out that his arming of
Hezbollah and interference in Lebanese politics were unhelpful. Kerry
said that Assad "needs to make a bolder move and take risks" for peace,
and that he should be "more statesman-like." Kerry also agreed with the
emir that the Golan Heights should be given back to Syria at some point.
"The
Chairman added that Netanyahu also needs to compromise and work the
return of the Golan Heights into a formula for peace," the diplomatic
cable reported.
As
for the peace process, Kerry defended the Obama administration's drive
to use indirect proximity talks (which were only being discussed at that
time) as a stepping stone to direct talks between the Israelis and the
Palestinians. He said the two sides should first agree on the amount of
land to be swapped and then work on borders, followed by settlements.
Kerry also said that final agreement would have to include a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem.
...
In a separate meeting
the day before with the prime minister, Kerry resisted the Qatari
leader's assertion that Hamas was ready to accept the existence of the
State of Israel, but he agreed that urgent action was needed to rebuild
Gaza.
According to the leaked diplomatic cable, the prime
minister told Kerry, "We need to broker a quick reconciliation between
Hamas and Fatah and move forward quickly on rebuilding Gaza… Senator
Kerry asserted that HBJ [Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani] was
preaching to the converted and told the PM he was ‘shocked by what I saw
in Gaza.'"
I believe that the photo with Ayatollah Ali Khameni is a photoshop. The rest are real.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Daily Caller - more below the video).
The left-wing delegation to Pakistan included Medea Benjamin, the
co-founder of Code Pink, and Robert Naiman, the policy director of a
left-wing group called Just Foreign Policy, whose board members include
Julian Bond, the former NAACP chairman, and Tom Hayden, the 1960s
radical and former California politician.
During the five-minute video, Naiman hands the ambassador a petition,
which he claims was signed by more than three thousand people, calling
for an end to U.S. military drone strikes in Pakistan.
Naiman also is seen giving Hoagland an anti-drone letter from
left-wing American activists, including Alice Walker, Noam Chomsky, Juan
Cole and Oliver Stone.
“We demand an immediate moratorium on the drone strikes,” the letter
reads, in part. “We demand that U.S. policy in Pakistan be brought into
compliance with U.S. and international law, that the U.S. government
come clean about civilian casualties, that civilian victims and their
families be compensated, and that ‘signature’ drone strikes and attacks
on civilian rescuers be permanently abandoned, in Pakistan and
everywhere else.”
Naiman, the policy director of the Just Foreign Policy organization, is a longtime anti-Israel activist who participated in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza in 2011.
The first step the legal center took against the flotilla was to target private companies that may have been assisting it. “We thought, what do boats need in order to sail?” Darshan-Leitner told me. “And we realized that all boats must have insurance.” Shurat HaDin began by contacting the major maritime insurance agencies, and informing them they might be criminally liable for “aiding and abetting” a terrorist organization if they provided insurance.
The response was very positive: some of the companies even said they were aware of the legal consequences, and had already made the decision not to work with the flotilla.
Shortly after, Shurat HaDin was contacted by the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, which offered its assistance. “They said we had to do anything, anything possible to stop the flotilla,” said Darshan-Leitner. “They asked if there was anything they could do. We said, ‘you tell us, what else do ships need?’”
The prime minister’s office said the boats would require satellite communication service to access GPS, contact the port, and – most importantly – to facilitate media coverage. Shurat HaDin immediately sent a letter to the major satellite provider for the area, warning it of the legal consequences if it worked with the flotilla.
Next, Shurat HaDin lawyers discovered American flotilla activists were potentially in violation of the Neutrality Act, which prohibits U.S. citizens from taking part in a hostile act against an allied country. “So we approached the Attorney General of the United States to fix it. And we also got Gov. Rick Perry to write a letter to Eric Holder,” said Darshan-Leitner.
It may seem a little weird that the governor of Texas would be one of the first people Darshan-Leitner approached to help with the plan. But she explained that Perry was enthusiastically on-board with the cause ever since he met her on a trip to Israel.
“I once spoke at a mission that Perry took part in, in Israel,” she said. “And he approached me and said, ‘I love what you do. It’s amazing what you do. If you ever need help combating Israel’s enemies, I’m here to assist.’”
So with Attorney General Holder on notice – and a Neutrality Act lawsuit filed in New York federal court – Shurat HaDin turned its attention toward Greece. The group discovered the country had a Neutrality Act similar to the one in the U.S., and it prohibited boats from leaving Greece to sail to illegal ports, including Gaza.
Shurat HaDin notified the Greek minister of civil protection about the flotilla, and he immediately blocked the ships from leaving Greece.
“The second thing he did was order the port authorities in Greece to raid the boats and to find what’s wrong with each and every boat – to be very, very particular,” said Darshan-Leitner, clearly amused. “And at that point, an additional six or seven boats were grounded. Because they found a lot of [problems] there.”
This was around the time Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin and her fellow flotilla activists finally caught on to the scheme. But by that point, there wasn’t much they could do.
Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-Ca) is retiring from Congress at the end of the current term.
Democratic Rep. Lynn Woolsey of California announced Monday that she will not seek re-election next year after serving 20 years in the U.S. House.
"I will turn 75 years old just before the next Election Day, and after two decades of service to this district, it will be time for me to move on," Woolsey told supporters at her home in Petaluma, according to a statement from her office. "And so, with enormous gratitude but not an ounce of regret, I am announcing that I will not run for re-election in 2012. I will retire at the end of my current term."
First elected in 1992, Woolsey has been an anti-war liberal and chaired the Education and Labor Subcommittee on Workforce Protections when Democrats held the majority in the previous Congress.
Good riddance. Woolsey is anti-Israel and - you guessed it - a darling of J Street. She was one of five representatives on J Street's recent trip to Israel and 'Palestine.' You know, the one with which Prime Minister Netanyahu refused to meet.
Note Woolsey pumping her hand in the air as Abileah chants to cut US aid to Israel. She then takes the podium and expresses her pride in Abileah's actions.
Woolsey's comments were so outrageous that the National Jewish Democratic Committee demanded her apology. Will J Street condemn or endorse her comments?
NJDC on Rep. Woolsey’s Apparent Support of Netanyahu Speech DisrupterDavid A. Harris — June 23, 2011 – 4:02 pm
It’s deeply unfortunate to see video of Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) turning to the protester who screamed at and disrupted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address before Congress and saying, “you made me proud.” Interrupting any dignitary invited to speak before Congress in this way is wrong, especially when it’s the leader of the Jewish State of Israel—the one true democracy in the Middle East, and America’s staunch, strategic ally. On other issues, Woolsey makes us proud, but today she did not. The protester’s rude “protest” was deeply unacceptable and we urge Woolsey to apologize for her remarks in this video.
The moron who heckle Prime Minister Netanyahu on Tuesday is a member of Code Pink (which is quite proud of her - I won't help them out with a link). You can learn more about her - including her phone number - here. I hope you'll all give her a call when she gets out of the hospital (or prison) and suggest that she try living in Hamastan for a while where she can't run around with tattoos in a tank top (see the next link below). According to friends of mine who know about her, she's the child of Israeli lunatics who felt so bad about the 'occupation' that they left the country and moved to San Francisco.
The group appears to be a new coalition, made of up “realists” like the anti-Israel duo, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer- both of whom will speak at their conference, and those who are old style anti-American activists from the 60’s joined by old Communists and their fellow-traveling allies from the heyday of the Soviet Union’s existence. The group endorses and supports the BDS movement, and favors working to restore the influence of the Goldstone Report, which has lost some of its momentum due to Judge Goldstone’s recent repudiation of it. Its last event will be what it calls a “creative action” outside of the AIPAC gala dinner, at which Netanyahu will be speaking. (I will be covering this for PJM, and will report on it that evening.)
Now let us take a look at the group’s sponsors and few listed members. Their list includes The International Solidarity Movement- the backers of Hamas, The US Boat to Gaza, CODEPINK, the old pacifist left-wing group Fellowship of Reconciliation, and seemingly hundreds of anti-Zionist, anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian entities, many of which may be inflated names with few actual members. Two groups that stands out, however, are The US Peace Council and The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. The latter was founded in 1915 by old Progressives and peace activists. Its US branch gradually morphed into a front for the American Communist Party, whose activists enrolled in it for their “mass work” and effectively took control of it in the 1950’s and after. Its US branch today heralds its support for what it calls its “Cuba and Bolivarian Alliance Committee,” a program meant to gather American support for the Castro regime in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. You will find little on it about peace and freedom, and a great deal about their proud pro-Castro work.
The U.S. Peace Council, founded in 1948 as the American branch of the Soviet based World Peace Council, was the pre-eminent front group of the CPUSA, meant to gather backers in support of pro-Soviet foreign policy positions, whether it was gathering signatures in the early 50’s for the “Stockholm Peace Petition,” which sought unilateral US atomic disarmament so the Soviets could forge ahead with their stockpile while the US destroyed the one it had, or whether it was calling for an end to US atomic testing in the 60’s while supporting Soviet atomic tests.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and its bloc in Eastern Europe, its remnant too now devotes itself to pro-Cuban and pro-Venezuelan political support. Its website calls for an end to “an end to the imperialist war of aggression against Libya.” It favors opposing what it calls Israel’s desire for a “total war” on Lebanon and Gaza, and of course, it still opposes NATO, as it did in the old days of the existence of what it saw as the bloc created by the international forces of peace led by the socialist bloc and the Soviet Union.
It must be costing George Soros a lot of money to fly all those hippies from Berkley to Washington. Heh.
Remember how Helen Thomas was going to speak at that anti-AIPAC conference next month? No more... (Hat Tip: Dan F).
Helen Thomas, who caused controversy when she called on Jews in Israel to “go back to Europe” last year, reportedly declined to take part in the Move Over AIPAC when it became clear that “several members of the coalition and our grassroots community” involved in the conference were opposed to her attendance.
Thomas was quoted by organizers as thanking Move Over AIPAC for inviting her, saying she hoped the conference’s purpose of countering Israel’s perceived influence in Washington will succeed.
“I am delighted that people are coming together for this gathering and I want to make sure that the focus stays on AIPAC and U.S. policy, not me,” she was quoted saying by the anti-Israel lobby group.
...
Move Over AIPAC has been endorsed by the likes of political scientists Stephen Walt and John Meirsheimer, who wrote a book criticizing the Israeli lobby in Washington, and Jewish Voice for Peace, a leftist Jewish organization involved in attempts to break the blockade on Gaza, according to its Website.
At the time of print several messages and phone calls to Walt, Meirsheimer and JVP went unanswered.
Medea Benjamin, a spokesperson for the event, elaborated on differences of opinion among participants regarding Thomas and her reputation.
“Some within the coalition think that the remarks were anti-Semitic and condemned what she said,” Benjamin said. “Others thought that it was a slip of the tongue and that her extended comments afterwards were a good explanation. Personally, I’ve been an admirer of her for years and her protest of the Iraq war.”
Asked if inviting a speaker who in the past made inflammatory comments about Jews proved the point of the gathering’s critics that it was pushing an anti-Semitic agenda under the guise of an anti-Israeli lobby event, Benjamin responded in the negative.
“The conference is really to talk about –and many of us are Jews- is to work for a policy where Israel and Palestine can live together in peace and get a process started,” Benjamin, who is Jewish, said. “My values are Jewish and I believe in Compassion for all and AIPAC does not represent my Jewish values. Helen Thomas is one of 30 people who have been invited and we are a community of people who cherish Jewish values.”
Bottom line: Helen Thomas is too toxic even for the Walt-Mearsheimer-Code Pink-Jewish Voice for Peace crowd. It's been less than a year. My how the mighty have fallen.
Netanyahu heckled in New Orleans by Code Pink-organized protesters
As I'm sure most of you have heard, Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech at the Jewish Federation General Assembly in New Orleans was heckled on Monday. Here's an excerpt from the uninterrupted part of the speech.
Let's go to the videotape.
But as I mentioned, Netanyahu's speech was disrupted. Here's a description of what happened.
"The loyalty oath de-legitimatizes Israel," a woman holding a placard yelled while standing on her chair, interrupting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech at the Jewish Federations of North America's General Assembly in New Orleans on Monday.
She was swiftly escorted out by security. However, moments later, another protester stood on his chair and shouted "the occupation de-legitimizes Israel." The man was also quickly taken outside. But then another, and another, appeared. Six in all. One of them was tackled by participants in the crowd and a short scuffle ensued until security reached him.
The protesters were part of Jewish Voices for Peace, a leftist organization of Jews which helped organize a recent boat that tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza and is attempting to pressure the planned Tolerance Museum in Jerusalem to relocated from the current, controversial building site.
"These actions are in part a protest of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) and Jewish Public Affairs Council (JCPA) newly announced $6 million dollar program to target campus, church, peace and human rights groups that are working to end Israel’s human rights violations through nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions pressure campaigns," a press release from JVP read. "The Federations and JCPA are calling this initiative the “Israel Action Network.”'
The group's aim was to draw attention to their cause, and to a large part they succeeded. Haaretz, Yediot Ahronot and other Israeli newspapers lead with the sensationalist news on their Websites. But the sentiments of the protesters did not reflect any greater discontent by American Jews with Israel based upon interviews with a sampling of participants after the event occurred.
Outside the plenary hall, it appeared cooler heads prevailed. A young group of Hillel students eating kosher sandwiches handed out by JFNA offered their opinions on the frucus which took part shortly before.
"If we allow five butt-heads to hijack the message here by standing on chairs with their homemade signs we're failing our roles as ambassadors to Israel," Daniel Friedman, a student at UCSD said.
Yes, that's the same 'Jewish' Voices for Peace (I am willing to bet that if we check, we will find that a substantial percentage are not Jewish under Jewish law) that is sponsoring 'Israeli occupation awareness week' at Brandeis this week. And I wonder if that's the same Daniel Friedman who has been sending me emails lately.
But I want to show you Prime Minister Netanyahu's reaction, so let's go to the videotape.
I wish the protesters had been arrested for trespassing. They were not. Three were held until Netanyahu finished speaking and two were let go (see next link below). I don't know what happened to the sixth one.
Lastly, I want to bring the astoundingly self-righteous reactions from the protesters themselves (Hat Tip: Republican Jewish Coalition Headquarters via Twitter) and I did promise in the title to tie these people in to Code Pink.
But the group’s pretensions to representing a generational voice, manifested in the publication of a document roughly outlining their positions and titled the Young Jewish Declaration, were called into question by the presence of scores of young, pro-Israel activists in the halls of the G.A.
“I think the point is more that there needs to be space for people like us, people who don’t fit into the paradigm that’s been laid out,” said a member of the protest group, Eyal Mazor, 22, a recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, who was born in Israel. Though involved in planning the action, Mazor was not one of the activists who disrupted the speech. “We need to be seen as a legitimate part of the Jewish community,” he said.
...
Individual activists said in interviews that they supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, and JVP supports the right to engage in BDS campaigns, although a document created by the group does not mention BDS.
The Forward was given limited access to the protesters before the disruption on the condition that the information not be published until after the disruption took place.
On the night of November 7, in a Unitarian Universalist church a few miles from the site of the convention, a dozen young activists sat in a room crowded with half-drawn signs, debating the contours of the next day’s protest.
The activists had been based in the building since November 4, two days before the general assembly’s official kickoff. Convened by JVP, the group of 14 had spent two days engaged in training and skills sharing and preparing for their actions. Members ranged in age from 17 to 39.
Activists initially told the Forward that they planned to silently hoist signs. But in the meeting the night before the action, the plan seemed to be shifting. Rae Abileah, a staff organizer for the anti-war group Code Pink, was arguing for the disrupters to shout while being removed from the room. Abileah said that the time between when the signs are taken from the protesters and when they were removed from the room could total 15 minutes — time that could be used to shout slogans.
“We are often far [more] concerned with being polite and being politically correct and being nice than we are with human rights, dignity, justice, and international law,” Abileah said later in an interview. Abileah said that she has participated in similar disruptions at two recent AIPAC conferences.
In the end, Abileah apparently won out. She was among those who rose to interrupt Netayahu.
Communications staff at the JFNA knew of plans to disrupt Netanyahu’s speech as early as the evening of November 6. Staff members became aware that at least one person registered as a member of the press was actually an activist. JFNA staff sought to intercept any protesters going in disguised as press before they could enter the ballroom. It’s not clear whether they were successful.
Asked about the JFNA staff’s concerns about a disruption of the speech hours before the second plenary, Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles president Jay Sanderson said, “I would rather my enemy be standing right in front of me than hiding. I’m not afraid of any kind of protest. At least we have an opportunity to respond.” Sanderson has been one of the architects of the Israel Action Network, the new JFNA anti-divestment initiative that has been a focus of the program at the G.A.
After the disruption, Jewish Council for Public Affairs senior vice president Martin Raffel, who is leading the Israel Action Network, said that the disruption demonstrated the atmosphere advocates for Israel face. “Trying to prevent the audience from hearing what the prime minister has to say is in itself a form of delegitimization,” Raffel said.
In other words, Code Pink organized this protest. For those who have forgotten about Code Pink's ties to Hamas, go here. For those who have forgotten about its ties to the Obama administration, go here. No, Mr. Mazor, by putting yourselves under the pink umbrella, you have forfeited any right to be viewed as a 'legitimate part of the Jewish community.' Go back to the unitarian universalist church. That's where you belong.
And the smug, self-righteousness?
“I think I’m very much succeeding in practicing tikkun olam and derech eretz by standing up for the rights for all people,” said Hana King, 17, a freshman at Swarthmore College. “It such hypocrisy for these Jewish leaders that I grew up admiring to say that, you know, that the Holocaust was a tragedy but what we’re doing to [the Palestinians] is fine.”
“We have to get their attention somehow,” she said.
Who the hell does this punk think she is and why is she throwing around terms to whose true meanings she is completely oblivious.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
