Clinton bringing green slush to Israel?
Is Bill Clinton bringing green slush with him to Israel? That's how the Jewish National Fund is
implicitly justifying spending
$500,000 to bring Clinton to Israel for Shimon Peres' birthday party.
In response to a
query from The Jerusalem Post to KKL-JNF about the gala, members of the
international steering committee of KKL-JNF’s World Leadership Conference of
Presidents voiced their support for the event.
This year’s WLC, which
takes place biannually, will occur on June 14 through 20 and includes the June
17 gala as part of its activities.
“We members of the committee, the
organizer of the World Leadership Conference of Presidents of KKL-JNF from 40
countries around the world, have decided to join in an event organized by the
Peres Academic Center,” a statement from the group said. “The Peres Academic
Center in Rehovot invited Former US president Bill Clinton, came to financial
terms with him, and paid him, a long time before the representatives of the WLC
of Presidents of KKL-JNF were part of it.”
The $500,000 will be
contributed to the William J. Clinton Foundation, which finances global
initiatives on public health, climate change, economic equality, childhood
obesity and other environmental and health concerns.
“As KKL-JNF
contributors we have decided to take part in this event, seeing this as a unique
opportunity to increase fund-raising towards the land and people of Israel,
while recognizing the KKLJNF’s ‘green’ activities around the world,” the group
statement said.
“We would like to emphasize that our participation at the
event is fully financed by our own funds and we intend to raise $100 million for
projects in the State of Israel.”
The fund-raising will take place
throughout the course of the week-long WLC, the committee members
stressed.
Representatives of the Peres Academic Center meanwhile
responded that Clinton will be a guest of honor at this special tribute evening,
which will include many government officials, public figures and
dignitaries.
Contrary to previous reports, the gala evening will not
include fund-raising, and participants in the event – many of who are friends
and supporters of the academic center – will not need to pay for their entrance,
a statement from the center said.
“The Peres Academic Center in Rehovot
announced that due to the high demand for attendance all places have been
booked, and we thank everyone who was interested in joining and regret that
additional places cannot be confirmed,” the statement added.
So Clinton is coming here to promote 'green activities' around the world, including global
initiatives on public health, climate change, economic equality, childhood
obesity and other environmental and health concerns. The JNF is paying for him to come. And you thought the JNF was about reclaiming swampland and planting trees
in Israel. Climate change? Obesity? What does that have to do with their little blue boxes to which Jews have given money all these years?
Labels: Bill Clinton, energy independence, green slush, greentech, Jewish National Fund
Your charity dollars at work: JNF paying $500K for Bill Clinton to come to Peres' birthday party
And you thought they planted trees.... The Jewish National Fund is paying
$500,000 to the Bill Clinton Foundation so that Bill will come to Israel to celebrate Shimon Peres' 90th birthday.
The Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet Leyisrael) will pay former U.S. President Bill Clinton $500,000 in return for his coming to Israel to give a speech at a gala evening in Rehovot, and at a JNF event. He will also take part in the President's Conference, where Peres will be honored by celebrities, including Barbara Streisand and Robert De Niro.
...
Channel 1's Ayala Hason said that the JNF's spokeswoman refused to say who had authorized the payment but told her “it is a great honor” to bring Clinton to the event.
The gala evening will be held June 17 and will mark Peres's 90th birthday. It will be held at the Peres Academic Center in Rehovot, one of the few institutions in Israel that are named for living dignitaries.
Globes said Saturday that the Peres Center has been cooperating with the JNF for a year. JNF hoped to improve the organization's image abroad by bringing Clinton to speak about it in Israel, and to have Clinton meet with its largest donors, thus bolstering donations. The Peres Center is not linked to Peres formally but its director, Ofra Elul, is wthe wife of former Labor MK Rafi Elul, one the politicians closest to Peres.
Globes said the entire matter was causing great embarrassment to the President's office.
Former Meretz minister Yossi Sarid said Friday that each of the people invited to the event at the Peres Center was asked to contribute 3,000 shekels for students from low income backgrounds. Peres's office reportedly did not know that the event would be used for fundraising, and said Peres may have to pull out of the event if this is the case.
The JNF responded to the report, saying that Clinton had been invited by the Peres Center a year ago, whereas a separate JNF event in which Clinton is to take part is not funded by public funds but “by the hundreds of wonderful participants who arrive from 40 countries and who donate hundreds of millions to Israel.”
I wonder how many of them will cut back their donations after seeing how their money is used.
Obama has nothing on Clinton. Nothing at all.
Labels: Bill Clinton, Jewish National Fund, Shimon Peres
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Sunday, July 15.
1) About that isolation
From Beyond Cairo Israelis sensing a wider siege by Ethan Bronner (New York Times, September 10, 2011):
With its Cairo embassy ransacked, its ambassador to Turkey expelled and the Palestinians seeking statehood recognition at the United Nations, Israel found itself on Saturday increasingly isolated and grappling with a radically transformed Middle East where it believes its options are limited and poor.
From Israel Isolates itself by Roger Cohen (New York Times, September 5, 2011)
“We need not apologize,” Netanyahu thundered Sunday — and repeated the phrase three times. He’s opted for a needless road to an isolation that weakens Israel and undermines the strategic interests of its closest ally, the United States. Not that I expect Obama to raise his voice about this any more than he has over Dogan.
From Israel adrift At Sea by Thomas Friedman (New York Times, September 17, 2011)
Unfortunately, Israel today does not have a leader or a cabinet for such subtle diplomacy. One can only hope that the Israeli people will recognize this before this government plunges Israel into deeper global isolation and drags America along with it.
From Israel is in Good Shape Because So Many Others Decided Not to Be by Barry Rubin (The Jersualem Post, July 13, 2012)
An extremely important point to note is how completely Arabs, and especially Palestinians, threw away the greatest opportunity they’ve ever had to gain more U.S. support and widen the cracks between Washington and Jerusalem into a chasm. If properly motivated, the Obama Administration was ready to become the most actively pro-Palestinian government in American history, to offer more concessions to the Palestinian Authority (PA), and to put more pressure on Israel than ever seen before.
Instead, they refused to cooperate with Obama and rejected his initiatives. The PA wasted Obama’s entire term in refusing even to negotiate with Israel. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, the PA repeatedly showed the U.S. government that it was the intransigent party. And even if American officials would never publicly admit this, they certainly had to give up as a result.
I provide this list not to rejoice at the misfortunes of others, even those who are hostile, because their people are the real victims. But these misfortunes are the result of decisions they made. This is the reality of the Middle East today.
In the cases of Cohen and Friedman note the contempt in which they held Israel. I don't expect either (Cohen is on a sabbatical right now) will revisit this issue and acknowledge that [Israel] has successfully waited out many of the reasons for its isolation.
2) Kicking the can
Jeffrey Goldberg weighs in on the JNF (an organization he previously expressed his contempt for):
But, as Andrew Sullivan suggests, rightly (when he's right, he's right), Palestinians aren't the only ones who publish maps that subvert the idea of a two-state solution. Click here to see the photograph of a Jewish National Fund pushke, a modern version of the age-old Jewish fund-raising device. The map on the JNF collection can depicts the West Bank as indivisibly part of Israel. A two-state solution, an idea to which the current, Likud Party prime minister says he is committed, would of course mean that most of the West Bank would be within the territory of Palestine. If I were a Palestinian looking at this collection can, I might ask myself if the Israelis are actually committed to the idea of territorial compromise.
First of all as Jonathan Schanzer tweeted, Goldberg (and Sullivan) were reading too much into a highly stylized picture.
Getting Talmudic here, Gaza is removed & button covers a chunk of WB. "Extremism" is everywhere, but a stretch in this case.
More generally, Israel over the past nineteen years has made significant concrete concessions giving land, money and even weapons to the Palestinian Authority and, for the most part, found peace further than before it started. And yes, Israel does promote peace even if it doesn't receive it in return. The maps on the Palestinian side are emblematic of the way the PA treats peace; they are not isolated exceptions.
Labels: diplomatic isolation, Jewish National Fund, maps, Middle East Media Sampler, Soccer Dad
Terrorists accuse tree planters of racism
Many of us grew up with blue JNF boxes in our homes and schools. Most of us never envisioned the accusation that those who used - and continue to use - the proceeds of those boxes to reclaim land in Israel could be accused of 'racism.' But in today's Orwellian environment, that has now happened. And - surprise -
the accusers all have ties to terror organizations.
The "Stop the JNF Campaign" alleges that the Jewish National Fund "was instrumental in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in the 1948 Nakba, and continues to play a central role in maintaining Israel's regime of apartheid." It calls for the revocation of JNF's charity and to isolate the group by breaking all ties with it.
The campaign posted an action alert on its website last Friday asking its readers not to support JNF's "Green Sunday" on Feb. 5. "Don't be taken in," the alert reads. "The JNF's tree planting is a cover for ethnic cleansing."
Despite its shrill and nonsensical premise, the "Stop the JNF Campaign" has garnered support from organizations across the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries around the world. It also has spread to American and Canadian college campuses.
...
A look at the founders of the Stop the JNF Campaign helps explain its outrageous agenda. It was started by the Habitat International Coalition (HIC), the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN), the Scottish Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) and the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC).
Read the whole thing.
I can think of no better answer to this outrageous campaign than to make a contribution to
JNF's Green Sunday.
Labels: BDS, Israeli apartheid, Jewish National Fund
Not only did Jews not steal Palestine, they bought it
With the 'Palestinians' selling the world on the notion that the Jews 'stole' Palestine, Daniel Pipes recounts something that is obvious, but only to those of us who grew up with blue and white
pushkes in our houses like the one at left: Not only did the Jews not steal Palestine,
they bought it (Hat Tip:
Daily Alert).
Ironically, the building of Israel represents almost the most peaceable in-migration and state creation in history. Understanding why requires seeing Zionism in context. Simply put, conquest is the historical norm. Governments everywhere have been established through invasion and nearly all states came into being at someone else’s expense. No one is permanently in charge; everyone’s roots trace back to somewhere else.
...
Against this tableau of unceasing conquest, violence, and overthrow, Zionist efforts to build a presence in the Holy Land until 1948 stand out as astonishingly mild, mercantile rather than military. Two great empires, the Ottomans and the British, ruled Eretz Yisrael. In contrast, Zionists lacked military power. They could not possibly achieve statehood through conquest.
Instead, they purchased land. Acquiring property dunam by dunam, farm by farm, house by house, lay at the heart of the Zionist enterprise until 1948. The Jewish National Fund, founded in 1901 to buy land in Palestine “to assist in the foundation of a new community of free Jews engaged in active and peaceable industry,” was the key institution — and not the Haganah, the clandestine defense organization founded in 1920.
Zionists also focused on the rehabilitation of what was barren and considered unusable. They not only made the desert bloom, but drained swamps, cleared water channels, reclaimed wasteland, forested bare hills, cleared rocks, and removed salt from the soil. Jewish reclamation and sanitation work precipitously reduced the number of disease-related deaths.
Only when the British Mandate of Palestine gave up power in 1948, followed immediately by an all-out attempt by Arab states to crush and expel the Zionists, did the latter take up the sword in self-defense and go on to win land through military conquest. Even then, as the historian Efraim Karsh demonstrates in Palestine Betrayed, most Arabs fled their lands; exceedingly few were forced off.
So especially those of you who did not grow up with a JNF pushke in your house, read the whole thing, follow the links and learn how the Jewish people - unlike every other people in the World - did not shed blood to win our land.
Labels: Jewish National Fund, land purchases
Cameron drinks the Kool Aid
On Monday, I reported that British Prime Minister David Cameron has
resigned as a patron of the Jewish National Fund.
Melanie Phillips rips him for his decision.
The JNF thing (despite Downing Street's unconvincing claim that Cameron has stepped down from a number of charities through lack of time) is the latest act of aggression against Israel by HMG, and is particularly offensive. For the JNF is identified closely with the foundational Zionist dream of making the desert bloom, by buying up and developing the land for decades before the State of Israel was established. And so now– of course – it stands accused of the ‘theft of Palestinian land’, ‘ethnic cleansing’ and even ‘war crimes’. Ah yes – that terrible weapon of mass destruction, the sapling.
Without getting into the imbecilic interstices of precisely what and where, one key, crucial, overarching, all-important, nothing-else-matters-as-much-as-this point needs to be made (and yes, I have made it before many times, but it needs to be taped to Cameron’s eyeballs and rammed down the throats of the malevolent mandarins of the Foreign Office and delivered by diplomatic cable to Israeli spokesman as their line–to-take in answer to any statement-disguised-as -a-question about their intrinsic belligerency routinely lobbed at them by the Guardian-of-the Airwaves, aka the BBC).
This is quite simply that the territory beyond the ceasefire lines (formed when Israel fought off the attempt by five Arab armies to destroy it at birth in 1948-9, and now falsely deemed to be Israel’s ‘border’) is not Palestinian land. It is not land that is owned by the Palestinians in general, or to which they have any general right or title. On the contrary, it is land to which the Jews in general are legally entitled. All of it. This is not some crazed, ultra-nationalist dogma. It is a matter of historical fact. international law and basic justice.
Read it all.
Labels: 1949 armistice lines, David Cameron, Jewish National Fund, Melanie Phillips
Cameron resigns as Jewish National Fund patron
Due to pressure from a pro-'Palestinian' group, British Prime Minister David Cameron has
resigned as a patron of the Jewish National Fund.
A pro-Palestinian group is claiming responsibility for British Prime Minister David Cameron's stepping down as a patron of the Jewish National Fund.
Cameron's name was removed from the JNF's list of honorary patrons in recent days; earlier this month the pro-Palestinian Stop the JNF campaign sent a letter to Cameron calling on him to end his association with the charity.
Cameron recently stepped down from several charities, his spokesperson told the British newspaper The Guardian. His predecessors Gordon Brown and Tony Blair remained associated with JNF throughout their terms in office, according to the newspaper.
"Following the formation of the coalition government, a review was undertaken of all the organizations and charities the prime minister was associated with. As a result of this review, the prime minister stepped down from a number of charities – this included the JNF," the prime minister's office said in a statement.
"There has been a change in public opinion and awareness about Israel's behavior and there was specific pressure on [Cameron] to step down from the JNF," Sofiah Macleod of the UK-based Stop the JNF Campaign told The Guardian. "We believe he has stepped down as a result of this political pressure. Given the establishment support that the JNF has received, it's not a decision he will have taken lightly."
The next thing we will hear is that someone in the British government belongs to the IHH.
Labels: David Cameron, Jewish National Fund
'New Israel Fund' opposes Jewish immigration to Israel?
The New Israel Fund is backing an Israeli organization, the
Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement, which has called for the dissolution or fundamental change of the Jewish Agency for Israel, the Jewish National Fund and the Israel Lands Administration.
“The Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement, to the best of our knowledge, is opposed to kibbutz galuyot: the right of Jews to make their home in Israel,” said Haviv Rettig-Gur, the spokesman for JAFI. “If you are opposed to this idea, then in fact you are opposed to the Jewish Agency. We believe the organization that supports this movement, for whatever reason, should be asking itself tough questions.”
Avner Inbar, the spokesman for Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity, said its criticism of the organization tasked with Jewish immigration and absorption in Israel was related to the “privileged status” it was given, not to its mission.
“If JAFI were to become an NGO like any other, we’d have no problem with them, but our criticism of them is because they are treated like a branch of government,” he said.
At the same time, he said Israeli policy allowing Jews to immigrate freely while denying similar rights to Arabs and Palestinians clashed with his organization’s commitment to equality.
“One can infer from our manifesto that changes need to be made to the Law of Return and that those changes need to be done democratically and in the spirit of democratic values,” Inbar said, referring to the law that gives people of Jewish ancestry the right to immigrate to Israel. “We have to think whether Jews in Israel should enjoy a right that Arabs don’t, and that’s an open question.”
Actually, that's not - and ought not to be - an 'open question.' There is no ethnic distinction between the 'Palestinians' and other Arabs, including Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, Saudis, Iraqis and a whole host of others. There are 22 Arab countries to accommodate them.
But there is one and only one Jewish state and that Jewish state is meant to be a refuge and a home for Jews. If the 'Palestinian Arabs' don't like that, they can go live among their brethren elsewhere.
The Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement, whose founder received an award at the J Street conference earlier this week, is funded by the New Israel Fund. In other words, Jews are funding an organization that seeks to place Arab immigration to the Jewish state on the same plane as Jewish immigration.
Meanwhile, watchdog group NGO Monitor criticized the New Israel Fund for funding Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity, and J Street for honoring one of the movement’s key activists, Sara Benninga, at its conference in Washington.
“The New Israeli Fund claims to love Israel and to oppose boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS),” said Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. “But at the same time, NIF also provides funding to a group that campaigns for the ‘liquidation’ of organizations such as the Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund.”
He added that “one of the NIF’s new funding guidelines states that funding will not go to groups that ‘promote anti-democratic values.’ NIF must end the secret funding processes and publicly disclose how they see funding of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement as contributing to coexistence and mutual understanding.”
However, Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder of J-Street, rejected NGO Monitor’s criticism and went on the offensive.
“Efforts by NGO Monitor and others on the far Right of Jewish life to deny those whose views they don’t like the right to express themselves are pursuing a dangerous and highly un-Jewish course of action,” he said. “J Street disagrees with some of the words chosen by some who spoke at our conference – just as we share concerns of Israeli leaders like [Defense Minister] Ehud Barak, who have used the word ‘apartheid’ to describe the future Israel faces without a two-state solution.”
The NIF also rejected NGO Monitor’s claims, defending its support for the activities of Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity.
“NIF, alongside many intellectuals and public figures in Israel, recognizes the importance of the work of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity movement, which bravely acts against the injustice caused by the occupation and the undermining of basic human rights of Arabs in east Jerusalem and other places in Israel,” the NIF told The Jerusalem Post.
Read the whole thing. And if you still donate money to the New Israel Fund, please ask yourself why.
Labels: Israel Lands Authority, J Street, Jewish Agency for Israel, Jewish National Fund, New Israel Fund, Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement
Uri Davis and I agree: The JNF should not be donating trees to 'Palestinians'
More than a year ago, I reported that the Fatah was upset over a donation of 3,000 trees by the
Jewish National Fund to the new 'Palestinian' city of Rawabi (you know - the one that is
boycotting 'settlement' products and labor). Fatah wasn't upset about taking the donation - only that it had been publicized. I wrote that I was upset that the Jewish National Fund was donating trees to the 'Palestinians' at all.
Uri Davis, a Jew who is a member of the 'Palestine National Council' (we have all types here), has now criticized the 'Palestinian Authority' for accepting the trees. He's now calling Rawabi a '
Zionist project.'
As the Convener of the Fatah Revolutionary Council Committee on Resistance to the Settlements, the Apartheid Wall and the Ethnic Cleansing it is my responsibility to ensure that damage already done in the construction of Rawabi city is minimized.
My concern hinges on the acceptance of a donation of thousands of tree saplings from the Jewish National Fund by Rawabi city developers, planted on lands sequestered by the Palestinian Authority from neighboring villages, for a private and commercial venture.
Billed as a new Palestinian city, nine kilometers north of Ramallah with a panoramic view of the Mediterranean and only 70 kms from Amman, Rawabi has been adopted as a project of national importance and the symbol of the Palestinian right to build.
The 850 dunum hilltop development (seen in the map above, photo 2) was approved by the Palestinian Authority Higher Planning Council in October 2008 for construction in three stages. It includes the commercial center and a range of public facilities and has the potential to accommodate a population of up to 20,000.
...
The bulk of the Rawabi development site was private land purchased by developers from the Bayti Real Estate Investment Company. The remainder, however, was sequestered by Presidential Decree.
On 15 November 2009, Abbas signed the decree, taking approximately 1,537 dunum of lands from the neighboring village of Ajjul, 122 dunum from Attara and 118 dunum from Abwin.
It remains a matter of debate as to whether a project designed to fetch a possible windfall profit for a private corporation should qualify for support as a "national project."
But worse, it seems unless public measures are taken by Masri and Bayti, the continued construction of Rawabi places the PA in a position of complicity with one of World Zionist Organizations and Israel’s ugliest apartheid instruments, the Jewish National Fund, a body that "greenwashed" the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 and 1967.
...
In 2009, Masri accepted a donation of some 3,000 tree saplings from the JNF, and allowed the organization arrange to plant the trees on Rawabi lands as a "green" contribution. A portion of the trees were planted on the lands sequestered from nearby villages.
The mission of the JNF is the "redemption" of lands in "Eretz Israel," including Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza and beyond for Jewish settlement. In the wake of the 1948 Nakba, the JNF planted mainly pine trees and other conifers over some 500 ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages.
To add insult to injury, rather than plant indigenous arboreta, notably olive tree saplings, the tree saplings planted by the JNF in the area designated for the Rawabi projects are typically political-Zionist pinera (conifers), the most common tree planted by the JNF in the forests and recreational centers on the lands and over the ruins of Palestinian-Arab villages ethnically cleansed by the Israeli army.
In its support for the city of Rawabi, designated a Palestinian national project, the PNA has implicated itself in the ethnic cleansing of Palestine alongside the JNF and the Israeli army.
I don't know where to begin. If you can stand it,
read the whole thing.
Labels: Fatah, Jewish National Fund, moonbats, Palestinian Authority, Rawabi
Why you should support the JNF
You will recall that Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a post last week in which he urged us all
not to support the JNF because it is paying for items that ought to be paid for out of the budget of the Israeli government. After all, argues Goldberg, Israel is a 'rich country.'
I
took Goldberg to task as did many other bloggers. Over the last week, the controversy has not died down, with many bloggers weighing in either for or against Goldberg, and some of them attacking him personally. Goldberg has posted on the issue at least two more times, and I had those posts open on my screen for a while, but never got around to writing about them.
Jonathan Tobin does a great job in Commentary/Contentions in summing up
why Goldberg is wrong.
But as much as foreign supporters of the Jewish state ought to share the frustration of Israelis about all this, Goldberg is still wrong about boycotting the JNF. The fund cannot guarantee that the trees Americans pay for won’t burn in a future fire, but that doesn’t mean that Israel’s forests shouldn’t be replanted. To punish the JNF because of governmental failures would be no different from a call to stop funding charities that served the people of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina because of the colossal failures of local government to protect their citizens as well as for the mistakes the Army Corps of Engineers made in estimating the damage that a storm might do to the city’s levees. Giving to the JNF is not, as Goldberg says, co-opting Diaspora Jews into supporting a cover-up of governmental failures. To the contrary, such donations will help fund the cleanup and recovery.
Goldberg is right when he says Israel should fully fund its fire-fighting capability, but the country’s mistakes on this issue will be rectified for the same reason that New Orleans’s flood prevention has been improved: it took a disaster and a bitter public backlash to force the government to prioritize this issue. This is the way with all democracies. Just as the defeats suffered during the Yom Kippur War and the Second Lebanon War prompted army reform in Israel, you can bet that Israel’s fire service will never be shorted again, or at least not anytime soon. This proves that for all its specific problems, Israeli democracy is not much different from the kind we practice here, where our leaders are just as guilty of fighting the last war rather than planning for the next one as they are in Jerusalem.
Jeffrey needs to calm down a little bit. Yes, the government should have dealt with this a long time ago - it's an issue that was raised in the aftermath of several fires started by Hezbullah missiles in the Second Lebanon War. But it's not the JNF's fault that the two governments since the War have not take the issue seriously enough. And given how little real influence Israelis have over their government, it's not really Israelis' fault either.
Labels: arson, Carmel forest, forest fire, Haifa, Jeffrey Goldberg, Jewish National Fund
