Video: How the New Israel Fund trains IDF officers to worry more about 'Palestinian' terrorists (and human shields) than about their own soldiers
I apologize for the lengthy title to this post - it was the only way I could let some of you know what the video below is about.
I also apologize for the fact that the video below is solely in Hebrew, and I do not have the time to start translating and inserting subtitles - even if I knew how to insert subtitles.
This video should be translated and seen by Jews all over the world. It might even be named "How Israel Shoots Itself in the Foot."
IDF officers must attend 'training seminars' given by New Israel Fund grantees like the uber-Leftist Bina (one of whose founders calls Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman a fascist) and the Shalom Hartman Institute (whose head says that Netanyahu is living in 1938 Germany, and that our problems are far deeper and that the 'sick roots' in our society must be uprooted) in order to advance in rank. These seminars teach them that sometimes the IDF has to accept being routed in order to avoid civilian casualties. They are taught that avoiding loss of life among 'Palestinian' human shields is more important than avoiding casualties to IDF soldiers. An IDF soldier is surrounded by 'Palestinians' throwing firebombs and he cannot respond because he has no authorization to do so. I kid you not.
At this rate, we will lose a war to show how 'humane' we are.
There's a new 'tender' for the right to give these seminars in September. Will the New Israel Fund win again?
Let's go to the videotape.
Sickness. True sickness. Who will want to fight in our army if we continue to send soldiers to their deaths to show our 'humanity'?
Israel's Left is circling the wagons around two of its own. Ta'ayush's Ezra Nawi (pictured) and B'Tselem's Nasser Nawaja were shown on Israeli television on Thursday night telling a Right wing activist with a hidden camera that they turn over 'Palestinians' who wish to sell land to Jews to the 'Palestinian security forces' for torture and death.
Although the story has gotten little exposure outside of Israel, here it's all the rage. Over the weekend, Israel's hard left has been circling the wagons to defend Nawi and Nawaja.
Both Nawi and Nawaja are among the most internationally renowned
members of Israel’s radical left. Earlier this year, Nawaja published an
anti-Israeli op-ed in The New York Times,
accusing the Jewish state of “dispossession and oppression.” Nawi is
considerably more prominent: when he was arrested, in 2007, for
attacking Israeli policemen during a West Bank demonstration, more than
20,000 people—including a long list of prominent Israeli academics as
well as progressive American celebrities like Noam Chomsky and Naomi
Klein—signed a petition demanding his release.
Responding to the piece with a statement on its Facebook page,
B’Tselem said that while it opposed tortures and executions, reporting
Palestinians interested in selling land to Israelis to the PA was “the
only legitimate course of action.”
These revelations comes at an inopportune moment for the two NGOs, as
the Israeli government is considering measures to regulate non-profit
organizations receiving financial support from foreign governments. Ta’ayush,
according to the Jerusalem-based group NGO-Monitor, receives some
foreign donations but does not disclose its funding.
B’Tselem, on the
other hand, is considered one of Israel’s leading civil rights
organizations, and receives financial support from
the governments of Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands,
Norway, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, as well as the European
Union and the New Israel Fund.
Amazingly, B'Tselem, a favored grantee of the American non-profit organization The New Israel Fund, defended the action portrayed on today’s show, claiming that “This is the only legitimate channel for a Palestinian.”
Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett accused the
New Israel Fund and the European Union of funding Israeli human rights
activists who turn in innocent Palestinians, and later urged foreign
ambassadors to Israel to stop transferring funds to these organizations.
(Both, B’Tselem and Ta’ayush receive funding from France and the United Kingdom, as well as from American Jews.)
Ta’ayush has in the past partnered with Rabbis for Human Rights
– of which Rabbi Gordon Tucker of Temple Israel of White Plains is a
donor - to bring “hundreds of volunteers to work side-by-side with
Palestinian farmers during Olive Harvest campaign.”
The pushback from the Left has been so fierce that even journalists like Maariv's Ben Caspit and Haaretz's Barak Ravid (both Leftists themselves) have criticized the Left wing organizations for not disavowing Nawi and Nawaja (links in Hebrew).
Of course, then there are the real Jew haters, like Gideon Levy, who still has a platform at Haaretz.
In a report on left-wing groups which operate in the West Bank, Uvda aired secretly recorded footage
of Israeli activist Ezra Nawi saying that he had exposed Palestinian
land brokers who sold West Bank land to Jews, and turned them over to
the Palestinian Authority.The right wing and the settlers celebrated the
event of course. Another outpost has fallen into their hands. They have
already compared the left-wing activist Nawi to the Duma murderers, no
less. The rightists and settlers, known for their deep concern about the
lives of Palestinians, were shocked by Nawi’s statements. But the right
is not the story. The story is how a lethal virus has penetrated what
is almost the last outpost of real journalism.
How has a McCarthyist right-wing organization, whose motives are
clear (and despicable) and whose sources are unknown, succeeded with
such ease in enticing such respected journalists as Ilana Dayan and Omri
Assenheim? How has this flagship joined the ranks of the false
propaganda which masquerades as journalism?
That is how to conduct delegitimization. That is how it is done to
liberal organizations in the darkest of regimes, and now here too, and
on Uvda – no less.
Presenting the human rights organizations as dangerous groups, and
penetrating them, is compared to penetrating ISIS. The McCarthyists are
glorified, depicted as heroes of Israel who excelled in battles in Gaza.
All these are well-known ploys. And against this background, all that
is left is to record Nawi boasting, to catch him uttering the taboo
words, to present him as a “senior” activist, to ignore the entire
context — the crimes of the occupation and the expulsion form the
Southern Hebron Hills, which you never heard about on Uvda. Just ignore
the holy work done by left-wing activists in this battered region, spice
it with a few lies such as “execution” by the Palestinian Authority,
add a few generalizations, suspicions and slander – and the dish is
ready.
To those of you with even the slightest suspicion that Levy is onto something, I suggest that you go watch the video of Thursday night's broadcast (it's in Hebrew only, but I summarized it here). It doesn't get much more clear cut. Nawi and Najawa turned 'Palestinians' who wanted to sell land to Jews ('Palestinians' whose existence the Israeli Left denies) over to the 'Palestinian security services' for torture and murder. And they did it with a sadistic smile.
The recent uproar over remarks (later walkedback) by the President of the French international phone conglomerate Orange about how he would shut down operations in Israel if he could, was the result of pressure applied by Leftist Israeli NGO's financed (via the New Israel Fund) by European governments and American Jewish Federations. Ronn Torossian reports (Hat Tip: Richard A).
What prompted these statements? Several NGOs that lead the boycott
against Israel in Europe, including the Israeli organization “Who
Profits from the Occupation?” issued a report in France intended to
pressure Orange.
In
2013, following the growth and establishment of a research center under
the auspices of "Who Profits", the project registered as an independent
organization, and today they run joint activities as sister organizations. "Who Profits" is one of the leading organizations in the Anti-Israel boycott campaign and manages a website with a database on companies that invest or are
involved in projects located over the Green Line or in Israeli security
companies.The website encourages international companies and foreign countries to divest themselves of such investments.
...
In short, the NIF provided funding to Coalition of Women for Peace
during the launch of the "Who Profits" project, one of the leading
organizations in the boycott campaign against Israel. The damage caused
by the activities of Coalition of Women for Peace continues to have
repercussions to this day.
Shamefully, certain American Jewish extremists including The Jewish Communal Fund, Alisa Doctoroff, President of UJA-Federation,
the Leichtag Foundation and others donate significantly to The New
Israel Fund, thus supporting and encouraging boycotts against Israel.
Your charitable dollars at work: UJA-Federation (New York) donates $6 million to radical Leftist New Israel Fund
I have never been a big fan of donating money to Jewish Federations in the United States. Perhaps this story will convince some of you - at least in New York - that you need more ability to control your charitable donations than donating to Federation gives you: JCC Watch reports that the New York Jewish Federation (UJA) has donated nearly $6 million to the radical Leftist New Israel Fund over the last 13 years. And UJA-JCF has kept it secret until now.
A fully-owned subsidiary of the
UJA-Federation has sent $5,836,856 to the New Israel Fund since 2002,
according to IRS form 990 filings examined by JCCWatch, with donations
of between $258,000 and $802,000, made each year for the past dozen
years.
The revelation
contradicts the public statements from the UJA-Federation chair Alisa
Doctoroff, past CEO John Ruskay and current CEO Eric Goldstein who have
misled New Yorkers to believe that the umbrella charity has no financial
connection to the New Israel Fund.
The New Israel Fund,
in turn, is the financial banker for a network of organizations that
demonize the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces, promote
boycotts of Israeli products and call for international criminal
proceedings against our very own Jewish state.
The findings come on the back of a JCCWatch investigation on
Tuesday that showed that UJA-Federation leadership have been
pressuring former Israeli diplomats, and the office of the
current Consul-General in New York, to give cover for their support of
the New Israel Fund to participate in this weekend's Israel Day Parade.
In 2014, the UJA-Federation reported
on the IRS form 990 that it had assets of $1.382 billion, generating
$76 million in investment income, in addition to the $167 million in new
donations it received from the Jewish community.
Buried on page 7 of its audited financial statements,
under "Additional Notes," the UJA-Federation listed an entity called
the Jewish Communal Fund, of which it is the "sole member" and has
"controlling financial interest," meaning the UJA-Federation owns the
Jewish Communal Fund, "lock, stock, and barrel."
...
Jewish Communal Fund has 25 board members
drawn mainly from the parent board of the UJA-Federation, including its
president, Alisa Doctoroff. As for supervision of the donations, from their annual report:
"All qualified grant recommendations are submitted to the Charitable
Distribution Committee of the Jewish Communal Fund’s Board of Trustees
for approval."
Reading the detail of
their grant-making guidelines, the board has two responsibilities: to
be "committed to supporting causes that promote the welfare and security
of the Jewish community here and abroad" and to "deny any grant request
where the purposes and activities of the recommended charitable
organization are deemed to be adverse to the interests of the Jewish
community."
The beginning of the end of Leftist domination of Israel's Foreign Ministry?
In the past week, there have been two significant appointments to Israel's foreign ministry that have the potential to change the foreign ministry's longtime Leftist slant. Keep in mind as you read this that Prime Minister Netanyahu did not appoint a foreign minister and that it was previously thought that he was holding the position open in the hope that Avigdor Lieberman or Dore Gold would eventually join the government.
First,
she’s a novice who has never held any executive branch position before,
yet will now exercise de facto control over one of the cabinet’s most
important ministries. Technically, she serves under Netanyahu, who
retained the foreign affairs portfolio for himself. But since Netanyahu
already has a full-time job as prime minister, she will largely run the
ministry.
Second, she’s one of the most hawkish members of Netanyahu’s coalition and an outspoken opponent of Palestinian statehood. As The Jerusalem Post’s diplomatic correspondent, Herb Keinon, put it, “Hotovely represents the opposite of everything much of the world...wants to see in Israel.”
Third,
in contrast to appointees like Miri Regev or Haim Katz, whose power
bases within Likud were simply too strong for Netanyahu to ignore,
Hotovely’s support inside the party is tenuous; in the last primary, she
barely scraped into the 20th slot. Nor is she known as one of the
premier’s own loyalists. Thus he was under no political compulsion to
reward her with such a lofty post.
Finally,
there were plenty of other candidates who would seemingly have been
more suitable, including the one many American Jews undoubtedly hoped to
see there: former ambassador to Washington and current Kulanu MK
Michael Oren.
Indeed, Hotovely’s main qualification for the post – aside from being pretty, personable and reportedly speaking excellent English
– would seem to be that she constitutes no threat to Netanyahu, who
notoriously squelches anyone he does consider a potential political
threat.
That’s why so many ambitious Likudniks eventually quit the party
to run their own parties (see Moshe Kahlon, Naftali Bennett and Avigdor
Liberman).
Gordon goes on to make a case for Hotovely being the one to shift the Foreign Ministry's focus away from the West and toward Africa and Latin America. And while I agree with Gordon that there's little hope of Europe ever taking our side again in the diplomatic courts of the world for the foreseeable future, I believe that there's a lot more that Hotovely can accomplish than just keeping countries like Rwanda and Nigeria on our side.
Sunday was perhaps the first indication that Netanyahu intends to have Hotovely remake the foreign ministry and the diplomatic corps: Netanyahu summarily fired the Director General and appointed his longtime confidante Dore Gold to be Director General of the Ministry and to work directly under Hotovely.
Gold, a former ambassador to the United Nations and currently head of
the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, will be working under Deputy
Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who was told about the appointment
just prior to it being made public. He replaces Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, a
veteran ministry employee who started out in its administrative track
and then moved to the diplomatic side.
...
[Former Foreign Minister Avigdor] Liberman commented on the appointment, saying that while it was
Netanyahu’s prerogative to appoint his own man to this post,
appointments at the ministry are not ways to give out favors or settle
scores. He also said that “it needs to be clear that new appointments
or changes are not a replacement for clear policy.”
In that
regard, one government source said, Gold was the perfect candidate
because he had a direct line to Netanyahu, and his interlocutors would
know that when he speaks, he is speaking for Netanyahu and with
authority.
“This will give him power and make him relevant,” the official said, noting that Ben-Sheetrit never enjoyed that status.
The
American-born Gold is considered one of Netanyahu’s top foreign policy
advisers. He served as one of his foreign policy advisers starting in
1996, during the prime minister’s first term in office, being appointed
the following year as ambassador to the UN, where he served until
1999. In 2014, he became an “outside” consultant in the Prime
Minister’s Office.
In recent years, Gold has accompanied
Netanyahu on many of his trips to Washington and the UN, and over the
years has been one of Israel’s foremost unofficial spokesmen, speaking
in the media and at conferences around the world on Israeli policy. He
is often sought out by journalists and diplomats because of his
knowledge of the issues, and because he is considered to be close to
Netanyahu, thus reflecting his thinking.
He has also been very active in lobbying policy-makers on behalf of “defensible borders” for Israel.
Hotovely
spoke with Gold after the appointment and issued a statement, saying
that with his rich experience in the international arena, the former UN
ambassador could contribute to furthering Israel’s position in the
world.
For those of you who have forgotten, 'defensible borders' mean that any 'Palestinian state' would be severely truncated.
Dore Gold has done the State of Israel a great service by forcing us to
focus on concrete things that we want out of the 'peace process.' Dore
is fond of pointing out that when you ask a 'Palestinian' what he wants
from the 'peace process,' he will tell you that he wants a 'Palestinian
state' in the areas that are outside Israel's '1967 borders' (for now),
whose capital is Jerusalem. If you ask an Israeli Jew what he wants from
the 'peace process,' he will tell you 'peace.'
Dore is changing
that paradigm. One of the things he believes that Israeli Jews can and
should be demanding from the 'peace process' is defensible borders. His
organization, the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has put together a
collection of essays that sets out in concrete terms what defensible
borders mean. The collection is called Israel's Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace. It's reviewed by Lee Smith in Tablet Magazine.
The book Israel’s Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace
is a collection published this year under the auspices of the JCPA with
essays about security and diplomacy by leading figures in Israel’s
security establishment, like Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze’evi Farkash, former
head of IDF intelligence, and Maj.-Gen. Uzi Dayan, former IDF deputy
chief of staff and a former national security adviser to Prime Ministers
Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon. The volume’s findings represent a broad
consensus across the Israeli political spectrum, and the fact that
Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon—former IDF chief of staff and currently the vice
prime minister—wrote the introduction is evidence that the ideas have
won approval at the highest political levels.
The book pushes
three common ideas, some likely to add to the friction between
Washington and Jerusalem: First, Israel, must not withdraw to the 1949
armistice lines; second, Israel needs defensible borders; third, Israel
must rely on itself to defend itself and not on foreign forces as
proposed by U.S. national security adviser Gen. James Jones, who has talked openly about replacing the IDF with international forces in the West Bank.
The
insistence that Israel must retain the ability to defend its own
borders—a basic attribute of national sovereignty—is the least
controversial element of Gold’s blueprint. The issue is not merely the
inglorious record of U.N. peacekeeping forces—from Sinai to Bosnia and
Lebanon—but also the fact that the international community rarely sends
its blue helmets into the middle of a real shooting war, which is what
the West Bank would become if an IDF withdrawal left Hamas and Fatah at
each other’s throats and eager to gain credit for launching terror
attacks on Israel.
The concept of defensible borders is closely
tied to the drawing of 1949 armistice lines, commonly and incorrectly
known as the 1967 borders. As Gold explains in his contribution to the
volume, successive U.S. administrations since Lyndon Johnson’s have all
recognized the danger in Israel withdrawing to those borders. George
Shultz, one of President Ronald Reagan’s secretaries of State, explained
that “Israel will never negotiate from or return to the 1967 borders,”
and the Clinton Administration reaffirmed the Reagan White House’s
concept of defensible borders. However, it was during Clinton’s Camp
David negotiations that then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak abandoned
the idea of defensible borders in the hope of a radical breakthrough
with Yasser Arafat. With the outbreak of the Second Intifada and peace
nowhere in the offing, the George W. Bush Administration pledged not to
hold the Israelis to the Clinton parameters and returned to the
traditional U.S. position. “It is unrealistic to expect that the outcome
of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the
armistice lines of 1949,” reads an April 14, 2004 letter from Bush to then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
How will this play out in the field? One indication might be this link I received in an email this morning from JCC Watch's Richard Allen.
The UJA-Federation’s top brass have been twisting the arms of
Israel’s diplomatic corps to provide cover for supporting the New Israel
Fund marching in the Israel Day Parade, according to emails obtained by
JCCWatch.
The strategy to use the Foreign Ministry as their beard came to an
uncomfortable public end last week, when the Spokesman for the Israeli
Consulate in New York had to make a statement to deny what UJA-Federation
CEO Eric Goldstein had told Talkline Communications radio host Zev
Brenner on March 30. In an appearance on the show, Goldstein said, twice
actually, that “the government of Israel, the Consul General’s office,
very much, emphatically, want us to allow these groups to continue to march.”
The consulate spokesman told Arutz Sheva last week
that at “no point did any of the parade’s organizers consult with the
Consulate or with someone acting on its behalf regarding the New Israel
Fund’s participation.” The newspaper quoted the spokesman directly as
saying, “never, ever, did the Consul-General, or someone on his behalf,
or any of the Consulate’s employees, say anything favoring the NIF’s
participation, either explicitly or implicitly, in a hinted manner or in
public, in secret or openly.”
The oddly worded distancing of the Consul-General’s office from the
UJA-Federation comes as emails obtained by JCCWatch show Goldstein and
former UJA-Federation president Jerry Levin, indeed, reaching out to
Israeli ambassadors for exactly that kind of cover.
The email trail leading up to Goldstein’s foot-in-mouth routine,
and reproduced below, casts a dark shadow on UJA-Federation leadership
who were able to co-opt important Israel diplomats to publicly boost
their cause of defending the New Israel Fund.
The exposure of Federation efforts to force parade organizers to accept the New Israel Fund, and the disavowal of interference on behalf of the NIF's behalf by the Consulate may have come on a direct order from Hotovely. And if it did, it's long overdue. In the past, I doubt that the Consulate would have issued such a clarification.
Here's hoping that Hotovely and Gold will bring about an end to the Leftist domination of the Foreign Ministry, which goes back to the days of Shimon Peres, Tzipi Livni and others. That would be a welcome change.
The Samaria Revenants Committee has put out a video attacking Israel's Left as collaborators with European (neo) Nazis.
Let's go to the videotape.
Does it go too far? Let's just say that one of the reasons it has caused such an uproar here is that there is a lot of truth to the accusations.... Note that the coin being flipped to each collaborator is a Euro and the Europeans heavily fund Israel's Leftist NGO's.
But I have to say that the Left has gone way out of line in response, accusing the Prime Minister of being behind the video. The revenants are nearly as critical of Netanyahu as they are of the Left.
Birthright terminates relationship with New Israel Fund
Birthright Israel has terminated its relationship with the Leftist New Israel Fund, the largest and most powerful non-governmental source of support for
Israeli civil society organizations, providing funding and
organizational/political assistance. This is from the first link.
Birthright Israel, the American organization that organizes visits to
Israel for participants from 66 different countries, has terminated a
partnership with the controversial New Israel Fund (NIF,) resulting in
the cancellation of a December visit to the Jewish state assembled by
the two groups.
In an email to trip participants, Stephanie Ives, the New York
Director for the NIF, said that “we have been cut from the trip for
three reasons that have been communicated to us: (1) Birthright Israel
determined that our marketing of the trip was in violation of their
policy because our NIF logo was slightly larger than the Birthright
Israel logo; (2) Birthright Israel NEXT has determined that it can no
longer partner with NIF in any way because we seek to influence policy
in Israel, and they have a rule against partnership with organizations
that seek to influence policies in Israel or the United States; and (3)
Birthright Israel decided to cancel a number of the New York UJA trips
because of recruitment concerns.”
Ives added: “I wish this were not the case. We were truly excited to
participate and honored to have been recruited to do so by Birthright
Israel NEXT. More importantly, we think participation by progressive
Israel organizations is crucial to allow Birthright Israel to continue
having the kind of impact on the next generation America-Israel
relationship that it seeks and that we seek.”
For those who aren't familiar with the New Israel Fund (search this blog!) NGO Monitor reports:
“Allegations by NIF-funded groups are frequently used to advance
anti-Israel BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) activism – the
claims of these groups are used to justify demonization,” NGO Monitor says. “For instance, the UC Berkeley divestment campaign (April 2013) referenced B’Tselem,
Adalah, and PHR-I as documenting ‘ongoing human rights violations
systematically committed by the Israeli government.’ We also note that
previous NIF funding for radical anti-Israel groups (ICAHD, Coalition of Women for Peace, Mada al-Carmel,
Al-Qaws, etc.), which has ended, continued for years and caused
significant damage, including, for example, the decision by Dutch
pension funds to divest from Israeli banks in January 2014.”
B'tselem: "We'll save israel from herself by trashing her to the world." You got a problem with that? http://t.co/fkfYUi5OqG
— Richard Landes (@richard_landes) August 20, 2014
For those of you who donate money to the New Israel Fund (NIF) (how long have you been reading this blog anyway?), B'Tselem is one of the largest beneficiaries of your donations, to the tune of $255,477.23 in 2012. And the New Israel Fund is getting its money's worth: B'Tselem acts as Hamas' Israeli propaganda arm.
B'Tselem published 8 updates on casualties during Protective Edge. Under
the deniability cover of an "initial investigation," every report
compared the number of dead on the Israeli side and the number of
Palestinian side. This information was published on B'Tselem's website,
in their press releases and on social media.
Naturally, B'Tselem emphasized the number of children, minors, women
and elderly among those killed in Gaza, backed by visual aids. If
B'Tselem took care to note the number of combatants killed (by its own
definitions) in its first 6 releases, this category disappeared in the
last two releases, turning all Palestinian casualties into civilians until proven otherwise. B'Tselem explained the sudden change thus:
"the data is very initial and partial, and still being checked […] over
the next few months B'Tselem will continue to look into the events and
in this framework confirm the identity of those killed and figure out
who participated in the fighting." Why did B'Tselem repeatedly publish
partial, unconfirmed data? Didn't they care that this would serve solely
to bash Israel? Probably not. Meanwhile, while B'Tselem was coy about
identifying members of Palestinian terrorist groups among the dead, they
were consistent and clear about dividing between Israeli 'soldiers' and
'civilians'. In addition, these reports were padded with lachrymose
visual aids, of the kind meant to bypass the reader's critical
faculties, among them "tear-jerking" testimonies of Gazans,
who talk of being unable to sleep at night for fear of IDF bombardment,
how their life isn't a life and an impassioned appeal to the world not
to "stand aside." We should note that B'Tselem did indeed publish
testimonies of residents of the south of Israel who live under constant
rocket fire. But as B'Tselem itself admitted, symmetry is more important than nationality for them:
"We report more on Palestinians who are harmed because many, many more
Palestinians were harmed during the operation. This in spite of the fact
that most of the casualties did not take any part in the fighting
[note: such a categorical statement based on what they themselves call
"initial and partial data"! – A.W.] […] reporting needs to reflect
reality and reality is not symmetrical when it comes to the extent of
damage in Gaza and Israel and therefore it is presented before you in
this manner." B'Tselem even tried to launch a campaign of reading the
names of dead Palestinian children on the radio, which was banned by the
Broadcasting Authority and rejected by the Israeli Supreme Court. B'Tselem also released photo albums and video clips of the destruction in the Gaza Strip. After all, property destruction is ipso facto
against international law. Who cares if the building served as a
command or combat post? B'Tselem certainly couldn't be bothered to find
out if they were.
Your charity dollars at work.... What could go wrong?
New Israel Fund 'activists': 'The Holocaust is a whore who justifies the occupation'
You can't make this stuff up. The New Israel Fund has reached new heights of anti-Semitism with the dissemination of the video below called 'The Holocaust visits Yad Vashem' (Yad Vashem is Israel's national Holocaust memorial).
Let's go to the videotape (language warning). More after the video.
And the connection to the New Israel Fund? That's here (link in Hebrew). Here's a partial translation:
But beyond the academic interest in a Naziphile fantasy like this one, it would be worthwhile on this day to take an interest in the small people who stand in the background. These are the transparent activists, the epitome of the 'other,' without whom this sort of snorting production would be impossible. The first, the honored matron Moran Sharir, the producer and photographer, who showed off her dream regarding the return of all the 'uprooted Palestinians' to a convention of the Zochrot organization last year, and whose cinematic creations are shown off with others atthe 'social television' site (25,000 from the New Israel Fund in 2012.
She and the additional photographer Guy Boktavia (also from the 'social television' of course) are the bread and butter without which the New Israel Fund's prostitution of the Holocaust would not reach our screens.
Second, but not secondary, is Mr. Itamar Shapiro, who lightly skips between activism in the anti-IDF group 'Breaking the Silence' (about 100,000 dollars from the New Israel Fund in 2012) and the establishment of the anti-IDF group 'Fighters for Peace.' In between, Shapiro found time to try to be a guide at Yad Vashem, where he was surprisingly fired after comparing the Holocaust to the occupation. A lot of investment for a cheap provocation.
And of course it would be impossible without the Professor of Honor, the Great Teacher, the Great Oracle of the psychotic Left, Gidon 'I am a Holocaust survivor so I'm allowed' Spiro, who took the trouble to be interviewed in the video, and to inform those few who made it to 7:05 in the video that "the Holocaust victims in Israel are the manufacturers of the next Holocaust."
After it massively and actively supports the boycott of Israel, prevents the IDF from protecting the State's citizens, destroys Israel's economy in the name of utopias of equality (of blessed memory), the time has come to tell the New Israel Fund and the organizations it has spawned: Have the Jewish people not suffered enough?
With the exception of the Shapiro link (a story I covered on this blog at the time), all the rest of the links are in Hebrew.
But keep this video in mind when you see the New Israel Fund-supported groups marching in the Celebrate Israel Parade on June 1. Disgusting, isn't it?
New Israel Fund-supported hate group holds pro-BDS demonstration on 8th day of Pesach in New York
The anti-Israel hate group Adalah, which is supported by the New Israel Fund, is holding a demonstration outside Zabar's in New York City on Tuesday to pressure the chain to stop carrying SodaStream products. The demonstration is to be held from 5:00 - 7:00 pm New York time, which is still the 8th day of the holiday of Passover in New York City, thus ensuring that fewer counter-demonstrators will show up than would otherwise be the case.
Fortunately, the witches of Adalah are afraid of melting, so there is a rain date of Sunday if it rains. While it is currently partly cloudy in New York, there is a 60% chance of rain later today. We can only hope.
'Israeli Arab journalist' arrested for meeting with Hezbullah in Lebanon
The General Security Service released for publication today the arrest of an 'Israeli Arab journalist' for meeting with Hezbullah in Lebanon.
The journalist, Majd Kayyal, the editor of the website for Adalah - The
Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, is suspected of
traveling to Lebanon for a conference commemorating 40-years of the
Lebanese newspaper As-Saphir, where he came in contact with Hezbollah agents.
Adalah lawyers met yesterday with Kayyal in the Shin Bet Prison in Kishon, for the first time since his arrest.
Kayyal
told his lawyers that the investigation is focusing on his visit to
Lebanon and explained that his visit was part of his job as a
journalist.
Kayyal claims he was being held in a cell 24 hours a day, without any
daylight, a bed or a lamp, and that he had lost his sense of time. He
claims he was intensively interrogated and questioned about his private
life.
Boo. Hoo.
The Haifa Magistrate's Court released Kayyal to house arrest on Thursday until the next hearing on his case which is April 22.
Diaspora Affairs ministry reconsidering funding to Salute to Israel parade
The Diaspora Affairs ministry is reconsidering its funding of the Salute to Israel Day Parade as a result of parade organizers' insistence on including groups that promote BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) against Israel.
[S]ome in Jerusalem have begun to question their affiliation with the
parade, with a government source telling the Post that “due to the
ongoing controversy that has now erupted, the Jerusalem and Diaspora
Affairs Ministry will review its funding of the parade for future
years, [although] not this year.”
The source, who asked not to be identified, said that while future
funding was being reconsidered, reports that the Jerusalem and Diaspora
Affairs Ministry cut funding to the parade due to the controversy were
incorrect and that the cuts had been planned for almost a year. The
funds, he explained, had been reallocated to Minister of Religious
Serices Naftali Bennett’s new strategic initiative for the Diaspora and
the shortfall had been made up by a grant by the Prime Minister’s
Office.
Bennett, he added, never intended to attend, and reports that he
canceled a trip in response to the NIF’s participation were incorrect.
Hmmm.
In the meantime, NGO Monitor has issued a statement regarding the parade controversy, which may be found here.
New York City, 5pm to 7pm : Shofars to be blown at 5:30 pm
The largest number of Shofars ever blown in Unison to take place
in Manhattan by a Coalition of Jewish groups; to protest the inclusion
of Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions against Israel in the Israel Day
Parade.
Join Us and Bring Your Shofars!
I will not be in New York on the 29th, but if you will be, you know what to do.
Rally at UJA-Federation headquarters takes BDS issue to the door of the American Jewish establishment
There was a rally outside the UJA-Federation offices in New York on Tuesday to protest the scheduled presence of groups supporting the BDS (Boycott Divest Sanction) movement in the Salute to Israel Day Parade on June 1.
Here's a press release I received about the rally.
NEW YORK, April 8, 2014 – A rally held today at the headquarters of the UJA-Federation spoke truth to Jewish power in no uncertain terms.
Speaker after speaker called on the UJA and JCRC to disallow three BDS-supporting Jewish organizations to march in the upcoming Celebrate Israel Parade, and brought forth compelling evidence that the three offending organizations deserve not only to be barred from marching in the parade, but also deserve to be kept out of the “big tent” of Jewish communal life.
Organized by JCC Watch, National Conference on Jewish Affairs, and Americans for a Safe Israel, the days leading up to the event sparked discussion and controversy that has spread from New York to Los Angeles, London and Tel Aviv. Helen Freedman of Americans for a Safe Israel introduced many of the speakers.
She spoke about the fact that all of the protesters respect and admire the humanitarian and social service work of the UJA and JCRC, but that it is also vital to Israel's survival and the well-being of the Jewish People that the BDS issue -- including Jewish support for BDS -- be addressed publicly.
Mark Langfan spoke of his respect and admiration for the protesters who came out to the rally. He discussed many of the security concerns of Israel, and how the BDS movement harms the Jewish State and puts Jews in jeopardy.
Rabbi David Algaze spoke at length about the skewed values of those in the Jewish community supporting anti-Israel activities and the Hamas-backed BDS movement, and also strongly took to task those in major Jewish organizations who are not vocal enough to speak out publicly and clearly against the BDS movement. "The decision by the JCRC and UJA is neither democratic nor Jewish. It is not democratic because the organizers in allowing these boycotters to March they are ignoring the feelings of the predominant majority of those who participate and attend the Parade. It is not Jewish because Judaism has many values but suicide and self hatred are not among them."
Beth Gilinsky, president of Jewish Action Alliance and founder of the National Conference on Jewish Affairs, an umbrella of pro-Israel, pro-America Jewish leaders, gave a rousing speech about not just the parade controversy, but also about the BDS movement in general. She addressed the real-life impact of BDS here in the United States and England on college campuses, across Europe where Jews are being targeted in violent attacks, and in Israel.
She asserted that while some people believe BDS is just a grassroots effort of a few Arab activists who desire a Palestinian Arab state, in reality it is linked to and driven by radical Islamist organizations such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood that are bent on Israel’s destruction. After asserting that BDS attempts to denigrate and demonize Israel and is, in fact an anti-Semitic movement aimed at dehumanizing Jews, she addressed establishment accusations that opposition to Jewish BDS groups in the parade was pitting Jew vs. Jew, firing back with: “Jewish participation in the Hamas-backed BDS movement is the epitome of Jew vs. Jew! “
Responding to assertions that criticizing the establishment organizations creates “disunity” in the community and hurts Israel, Gilinsky stated: “In the name of unity, we are being asked to allow destructive forces to threaten our fellow Jews. NO, we are Jews FOR Jews. We are here to proclaim that we stand in solidarity with Israel, and that includes Judea and Samaria, and we are here to fight FOR the victims being targeted by BDS aggression.”
A Member of the Israeli Knesset was present, MK Nissim Zeev, and he spoke with full support for all of Yehuda and Shomron and spoke of the Yehuda and Shomron being the heart of the Jewish people and Eretz Yisrael.
Richard Allen, founder of JCC Watch, took on the UJA directly, calling out “DO NOT SUPPORT BDS!” to UJA-Federation employees and leaders as they left the building, and saving particular criticism for John Ruskay. “Under John Ruskay’s leadership of the UJA-Federation, the Celebrate Israel Day Parade has invited groups to march that actively call for a Boycott of Israeli Companies. Under front names like Partners for Progressive Israel, New Israel Fund and B'Tselem these groups organize and work against the Jewish State.
"It is shameful that the UJA Federation and the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) are supporting the New Israel Fund in their efforts to delegitimize and fund Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel," continued Allen, an active member of the Pro-Israel Parade Committee. "It's time the UJA Federation stop supporting radical groups that work for BDS against Israel. If the BDS supporting groups are allowed to march, we will call for posters and leaflets on the day of the parade.”
Coalition for Israel founder Howard Weber, spoke eloquently about BDS and the peace process. “For those passers by asking what "BDS" stands for, it means "Blind, Deaf and Stupid’--"Blind to the fact that the reason Mr. Kerry can't obtain a peace agreement has nothing to do with the Jews living on less than 3% of the West Bank, but rather, as Mr. Abbas bluntly put it, the non-recognition of Israel as a Jewish State. "Deaf" to the pleadings of the Palestinian Authority and Mr. Abbas who urge BDS not to boycott Israeli goods since the factories producing them employ West Bank Arabs who enjoy much higher wages and standard of living than their Arab brothers. And finally, "Stupid" because they have decided the best way to put forth their political ideology is by economically crippling Israel.
He continued: “Is this the ‘Celebrate Israel Parade’? or is it the ‘Denigrate Israel Parade’? ”
Dr. Paul Brody of the Great Neck-based Jewish Political Education Foundation (JPEF), said that there is a difference between "opinions and destruction." "Our group is opposed to Israel's relinquishing sovereignty over any of our Biblical Land. But, in terms of marching in the parade, there are individuals and groups who support all sorts of solutions with which we disagree. However, calling for boycotts, divestments and sanctions should be a redline."
Buddy Macy, a founder of Never Again is Now, spoke of his family’s involvement with raising funds for Federation, and stated, “It is called the Celebrate Israel Parade. However, 364 days a year, Partners for Progressive Israel, B’Tselem and the New Israel Fund not only do not celebrate Israel, they lambast and work against her by promoting the boycott of products produced by Israeli companies and/or fund organizations that boycott Israeli products. In other words, these three organizations embrace the narrative created by Israel’s enemies, who are intent on destroying the Jewish State.
What is equally absurd and potentially more dangerous, is that the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, under the watchful eye of the UJA-Federation of New York, provides a platform for those organizations to gain respect and esteem among the hundreds of thousands of parade goers. Make no mistake about it: we will not permit enemies of Israel to become role models for the Jewish people…especially, for our youth.
Julian Rapaport, from the Russian Jewish community, stated: “We are joining the voices of protest against the participation of BDS-connected groups in the Celebrate Israel Parade. We know from history that the Nazi Holocaust began with the boycotting of Jewish stores. Our group sticks tightly to the principle: NEVER AGAIN! We are calling on the UJA to modify and clarify its controversial policy and guidelines to make sure that participation in the Israel Day Parade, as expected, means to strengthen the State of Israel and the Jewish community, not weaken them.”
Rabbi Aryeh Spero, whose two hard-hitting articles in Jewish newspapers created a stir this past week, stated today in response to the rally: “Promoters of BDS do not love Israel, and through their boycotts wish to harm Israel and its people. And the acceptance by the establishment Jewish community of these groups reflects a perverse form of Jewish suicide. “
The rally organizers expressed special thanks to the National Council of Young Israel for their endorsement of the rally. A representative of Endowment for Middle East Truth addressed the crowd, emphasizing the importance of continued activism and pressure on the UJA and JCRC to do the right thing, as well as the importance of bringing the community’s attention to the truths about BDS in America and abroad.
Endorsing organizations of this rally were: JCC Watch, Jewish Action Alliance, AFSI, Z Street, National Conference on Jewish Affairs, Endowment for Middle East Truth, Americans for Peace and Tolerance, Ha-Emet, Coalition for Israel, National Council of Young Israel, International Committee for the Land of Israel, Jewish Political Education Foundation, IsraelLives.org, Amcha Initiative, and Never Again is Now.
What if they had a Salute to Israel parade and no supporters of Israel showed up?
The New York 'Jewish' Federation - apparently dismayed by the number of real Jews who participate in the Salute to Israel parade - has decided to allow the Jew-hating BDS'ers to join the parade, thereby leading the real Jews to consider boycotting.
Several groups are organizing a protest rally for April 8 as part of a
campaign to have the parade sponsors remove their invitations to the
controversial groups. Further, unless the groups are pulled, several
local rabbis, including day school and yeshiva principals, are
considering boycotting the event, thereby significantly reducing the
number of participants.
"Partners for Progressive Israel" lists Israeli products to boycott on its website; the New Israel Fund (NIF) has supported BDS and reportedly been encouraging Arab riots; volunteers with B'Tselem have taken part in Arab riots.
NIF and B'Tselem have also been implicated in pro-BDS activities,
including via subsidiaries, videos and statements. All three are
currently set to march in the parade under their own banners.
There are supposed to be 35,000 participants in this year's parade, so why let a few evildoers rain on it? Rabbi Aryeh Spero explains.
"Boycotting is an action that far exceeds disagreement. At its core,
it is a public venue designed to demonize, ultimately to make something,
in this case, the State of Israel, illegitimate. It is a form of
anti-Semitism,” the rabbi noted.
“These BDS groups work every day to isolate Israel and make her a
global pariah, announcing to the world the names of specific
Jewish-owned companies operating in Judea and Samaria that they want
punished," charged Rabbi Spero.
Rabbi Spero adds that "these ‘Jewish’ groups are being invited to
infiltrate the Parade, either because of agreement with their tactics or
as a way of affirming what the UJA-Federation calls ‘an open tent.’ UJA’s desire for an ‘open tent’ should not devolve into the destruction of the tent."
Referring to the BDS claims that they target only areas east of the
1949 Armistice line, the rabbi noted "to the world, a boycott is a
boycott, east of the Green Line or west of it. Approving one leads to
the other. Boycotting Israel will spur future boycotting of those ‘bad’
Jews, for example, in Brooklyn or London."
The rabbi added that the boycotting groups "never boycott Arab or
Muslim businesses, despite the ubiquitous terrorism coming from PA
neighborhoods and their violations of human rights. Their outrage is
only against the Jewish state and its Jews."
At least one rabbi has already announced that the four organizations that he controls will not march if the BDS'ers do.
Showing the widespread fallout the groups' opposition to the parade
may bring about, Rabbi Elie Abadie has threatened to pull the support
and float of his Edmond J. Safra Synagogue. He also represents the Moise
Safra Community Synagogue, Congregation Magen David of Manhattan, and
the Sephardic Academy of Manhattan.
Rabbi Abadie warned he would be “urging every rabbi and leader of
every Sephardic organization—as well as many others—in our community" to
boycott the parade if the BDS groups were not pulled.
The rabbi decried the BDS-supporters for harming a fellow Jew's
ability to earn a livelihood, citing the Jewish legal precept from the
Torah "not to stand idly by the blood of your brother."
And the real reason why the BDS'ers are being allowed to march is... wait for it... money.
Jeff Wiesenfeld, a member of the Jewish Community Relations Council
(JCRC) which organizes the parade, revealed the decision process that
led to the groups' inclusion.
While a majority of JCRC's leadership would have opposed the
"detestable" BDS groups, according to Wiesenfeld, "there was no debate.
It was a decision handed down from ‘above’ because, I think, it was
determined that, financially, the UJA stood to lose more from the left
if the BDS groups were excluded than they would gain from the right."
And you're not opposing this, Jeff? Say it isn't so! You're going to condone Tony Kushner's BDS friends marching in the Salute to Israel parade? Weren't you one of the founders of JCC Watch precisely because it was meant to call out the Manhattan JCC for supporting BDS? What a disappointment!
Silly me, it's all about money, isn't it? Have to keep supporting those Alice Walker events at the 92nd Street Y going.
Sorry but if the New York 'Jewish' Federation is going to support a boycott of Jewish businesses in Israel, it has no right to exist.
For those of you who want to do something about it, a reminder....
Organizers of the rally against the BDS groups' inclusion call on
those who cannot attend the protest rally, which will be held on
Tuesday, April 8, between 4:00-7:00 pm, outside the UJA-Federation
headquarters at 130 E. 59th St. in Manhattan, to send protest letters to
the UJA and JCRC.
Peter Kohlmann, executive producer of the parade can be reached at
212-983-4800 ext 162 (kohlmannp@jcrcny.org), while Michael Mittelman,
director of the parade, can be reached at 212-983-4800 ext 487
(mittelmanm@jcrcny.org).
“Let the directors of the UJA and other Jewish organizations know of
your concerns," called Rabbi Spero. "Real Jewish leaders should not be
indifferent, silent, nor lend support to boycotters and others wishing
to tear us down."
The rabbi added "directors of our Jewish organizations proved their
fallibility during the 1930s and ‘40s, teaching us that blind obedience
is foolish and leaving our destiny and safety to those who claim they
‘know best’ can be devastating. This time in history, we must not make
the same mistake."
And I invite all of you to send those two gentlemen links to this post.
What's left unsaid here is that the person who is really behind this is the Chairman of the New York UJA, John Ruskay. Ruskay is a long-time supporter of the anti-Israel Left, going back to the days of Breira in the 1960's and 1970's.
Ruskay's email address is ruskayJ@ujafedny.org.
UPDATE 3:14 PM
I was probably a bit too harsh on Jeff Wiesenfeld. His heart is definitely in the right place, even if I disagree with him on how to handle this. And it sounds like there wasn't even a vote on this....
'The disappearance of the Jewish state would not be a tragedy'
Israel has an illegal immigrant problem, with thousands of illegals arriving here from Africa via Egypt. While the problem's growth has largely been stopped by a border fence, the issue of what to do with the thousands of illegals who are here remains.
This week, the illegals have been demonstrating, first in Tel Aviv (pictured) and then in Jerusalem against an Israeli government policy of deporting them back to their home countries if the Israeli government deems their home countries to be safe. They are backed by radical leftist groups, including the infamous 'New Israel Fund.' The caption above the Tel Aviv demonstration picture reads 'the disappearance of the Jewish state would not be a tragedy.' The quote comes from Hedva Rabinovitch, Deputy Director General of the New Israel Fund, 2011. The New Israel Fund has been helping to organize the demonstrations.
The illegals accuse Israelis of racism saying that they are black, and we are white. That's an odd accusation to make at a country that took in thousands of Ethiopian Jews starting in the 1980's.
The issue isn't skin color. It's the fact that there is one and only one Jewish state in this world, and we think that state ought to stay Jewish. The fact that the Jewish state is an island of democracy and western capitalism surrounded by impoverished states with undemocratic governments doesn't mean we ought to suffer for being whom we are.
AVRAHAM’S RESEARCH demonstrates that Hoffman and Kallus are
political animals, not just spiritual seekers motivated by their intense
attachment to the Western Wall. And it strongly suggests that the prime
motivation of the leaders of WoW is to advance an agenda consistent with their
other political work.
The power of the Western Wall derives, in large
part, from its role as a symbol of Jewish continuity, from the time of the First
and Second Temples until today. Those who identify with organizations like Ir
Amim and Emek Shaveh, which oppose Israeli archeological work in the Old City,
as part of a sinister “Judaization of Jerusalem,” and who are allied with groups
calling for the return of east Jerusalem, including the Temple Mount and Western
Wall, to Palestinian control, are apparently not terribly moved by Jewish
continuity and its symbols.
In truth, Hoffman has always been rather
forthright that the Western Wall Plaza had value in her eyes primarily as a
place to make political statements – “to be seen,” in her words – and provoke
confrontation. Hoffman admits she feels no particular attachment to places, the
Western Wall included. And her Reform Movement long ago declared, “One should
not consider the Western Wall as possessing any sanctity.”
She has no
answer for the question posed long ago by Hillel Halkin, “Are there no other
places in Jerusalem to practice Jewish feminism, that they must do it at the one
site where it is sure to infuriate large numbers of Orthodox Jews?” – a question
that takes on special gravity given Hoffman’s admission that the Western Wall
has no real sanctity in her eyes.
Offending others is not an unfortunate
byproduct, but the very purpose of WoW. Again, Hoffman admitted as much recently
in explaining her theoretical acceptance of Jewish Agency chairman Natan
Sharansky’s proposal for WoW to move their prayer rites from the current Western
Wall Plaza to a fully refurbished area further south on the Western Wall (albeit
while conditioning that acceptance on 16 untenable conditions). “WoW,” she
conceded, in explanation of the new approach, “is not the right group for
bringing about change in the Orthodox world.”
In other words, the 25
years of confrontation were not, at least for Hoffman, about the yearning for
proximity to the Western Wall, but to “model” new and better modes of prayer for
her benighted Orthodox sisters.
IT IS IMPORTANT to understand the ways in
which WoW’s activities serve the radical agenda of Hoffman, Kallus and Sachs.
WoW serves to “kasher” many of the organizations with which it is associated, in
particular the NIF, which serves as both a funder of WoW and a conduit for its
tax-deductible contributions.
WoW wraps itself in the cloak of religious
pluralism.
For most American Jews, the belief that “there is no right way
to be a Jew” is both the first and last of their theological principles.
Accordingly, religious pluralism is as “American Jewish” as apple pie and
motherhood – sadly, a good deal more so than the latter.
By selling
itself as an organization committed to the benign cause – at least in the eyes
of non-Orthodox American Jews – of religious pluralism, the NIF is able to
obscure other parts of its agenda that might find less favor with many of its
contributors.
But there is another more insidious way in which WoW helps
to advance the radical Left agenda in Israel.
Groups like B’Tselem and
Breaking the Silence, which uses former IDF soldiers to advance a narrative of
widespread Israeli war crimes, seek to alienate American Jews from their
identification with Israel. By doing so, they hope to increase Israeli Jews’
sense of isolation and lack of international support, and to thereby convince
them that the only way out is to conclude a “peace” with the Palestinians on
almost any terms.
The information is out there. It's time for Women of the Wall to either issue an answer refuting the charges or to stop threatening people who have posted them.
Documentary evidence of ties between Women of the Wall and radical 'Palestinian' groups
For those of you who are interested, here is the supporting documentation for the story on the ties between Women of the Wall and radical 'Palestinian' groups (including those supported by the New Israel Fund). I got permission from the person who sent it to me to upload the material to ScribD and it's embedded below.
The document is in Hebrew, but even if you don't speak Hebrew, you should click on the embedded links to see how deep the ties are between these 'heroines' of American Jewry and those who would extirpate the existence of the Jewish state.
'Women of the Wall' trying to suppress coverage of leaders' association with radical Left?
On Friday, I received an email with a Hebrew attachment that contained extensive evidence about ties between the leadership of 'Women of the Wall' and radical Leftist and pro-Arab groups ('including groups funded by the New Israel Fund'). I was invited to blog about the issue. On Saturday night, I received a revised version of the same attachment.
I fully intended to blog about the issue, but with work pressures and a desire to have more than one or two posts on Sunday, it just didn't happen. In the meantime, the Jewish Press posted an article on the same issue by Rachel Avraham. Avraham's article had been posted last week to another site (and I had seen it then, but last week was a crazy week), and was taken down almost immediately. Why? Arutz Sheva hints that the website that originally posted Avraham's article - Jerusalem Online News - was intimidated into taking it down.
“While Women of the Wall has built up a name for themselves as a
feminist organization promoting women’s rights in Israel, their
leadership in fact have links to anti-Israel groups that not many people
know about,” writes Avraham in the piece.
“Regardless of whether one views their actions as provocative
publicity stunts that disturb the peace at the Western Wall or as noble
deeds designed to promote women’s rights within the Jewish religion, the
Israeli public is generally not aware that the Women of the Wall
leadership possesses links to anti-Israel groups.”
“Women of the Wall Vice Chair Batya Kallus serves as an adviser to
Sikkuy,” writes Avraham.
“This NGO is a signatory to the Haifa
Declaration, which calls for the abolishing of the State of Israel,
praises violent resistance, and accuses Israel of manipulating the
memory of the Holocaust for political purposes. Furthermore, Kallus has
facilitated funding for anti-Israel groups Adalah, Ir Amin, Yesh Din,
and Mossawa, as part of her position as programs officer for the Moria
Fund.”
The article goes on to point out that these groups contribute towards
the delegitimization of Israel in the world. Adalah and Mosawah are
opposed to Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and a major
contributor to the discredited Goldstone Report; Ir Amim runs “highly
politicized anti-Israel tours of the holy city, which indoctrinate
internationals into holding anti-Israel views,” and Yesh Din views
Israel to be an apartheid state, and demonstrated support for Turkey
after the Gaza Flotilla incident.
Woman of the Wall Chair Anat Hoffman “also happens to be the chair of
the Domari Society of Gypsies in Jerusalem,” which is a part of Al Aqsa
Grassroots, an anti-Israel network that supports "resistance to the
occupation" and is against the "Judaization of Jerusalem," in addition
to supporting the Palestinian right of return to Israel, reveals
Avraham.
Before the 1993 Oslo Accords, she adds, Hoffman was the chairwoman of
Women in Black, a group that advocates giving all of Judea and Samaria,
as well as eastern Jerusalem – which includes the area of the Western
Wall, or Kotel – to the Palestinian Authority.
...
Interestingly, Avraham's article first appeared on Jerusalem Online News. Shortly after its appearance there last Tuesday or Wednesday – it disappeared, and then reappeared on the Jewish Press website on Sunday.
Perhaps this has something to do with Avraham's claim that “Women of
the Wall continues to threaten news publications that have the audacity
to present these facts to the public.”
“However, as journalists, we are committed to share with the Israeli
public the truth about political groups operating within our country.
There are many well-meaning feminists who support Women of the Wall
without being informed of the fact that the organization is led by
individuals tied to anti-Israel groups. These women have the right to know the truth before they sign up for such a cause,” she concludes.
Women of the Wall has not denied the substance of Avraham's charges.
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
