Anyone surprised that J Street is attempting to desecrate Tisha B’Av? by Stephen M. Flatow

It may be hard to believe that any self-described Jewish organization could so viciously distort the meaning of a sacred Jewish day. But J Street has never met a Jewish religious commemoration that it hasn’t turned into a propaganda weapon for slamming Israel.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
Tisha B'Av '20..

If you thought Tisha B’Av was about the destruction of the holy temples and two Jewish states in ancient times, think again. According to J Street, the real meaning of the day is that the Israeli government is oppressing the Palestinian Arabs and will thereby cause the destruction of the Jewish state in our own times.

It may be hard to believe that any self-described Jewish organization could so viciously distort the meaning of a sacred Jewish day. But J Street has never met a Jewish religious commemoration that it hasn’t turned into a propaganda weapon for slamming Israel.

On Passover, J Street complained about the “plagues” for which it blames Israel, such as “the plague of home destruction.” According to J Street’s “Haggadah,” if the Israeli army undertakes a court-sanctioned dismantling of a home used by terrorists, then it is to blame for “encouraging retaliatory terrorist attacks.”

On Rosh Hashanah, when Jews engage in cheshbon hanefesh—the “accounting of the soul,” meaning spiritual introspection and self-assessment—J Street announced that everyone should “engage in cheshbon hanefesh” over Israel’s “demolition of Palestinian villages.”

Israel, of course, does not demolish Palestinian villages. J Street was referring to instances in which handfuls of illegal Arab settlers squat on Israeli land, call themselves a “village” and then accuse Israel of “demolishing” them when the police dare to enforce the law. But as far as J Street is concerned, if facts get in the way of the narrative, well, just push them aside.

Considering the way J Street has mangled the meaning of other sacred days on the Jewish calendar, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at J Street’s crude exploitation of Tisha B’Av. But that doesn’t make it any more acceptable.

(Continue to Full Column)

Stephen M. Flatow is a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, an attorney in New Jersey and the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995. His book, “A Father’s Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terror,” is now available on Kindle.

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A broken clock is right twice a day, but J Street? Virus, shmirus; let’s focus on the Palestinians! - by Stephen M. Flatow

Talk about tone-deaf! Completely oblivious to the suffering of American citizens, J Street’s top priority is to give American money to two of the most vicious America-hating regimes in the world.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
07 April '20..

The whole world is changing—but not for J Street, which, virus or no virus, is still devoting itself to persuading members of U.S. Congress to embrace the Palestinian cause.

Over the past several weeks, J Street was mobilizing its supporters around the country to urge them to “demand the administration release vital assistance to help the Palestinians combat the coronavirus pandemic.”

Think about that. In the midst of an epidemic that has left U.S. hospitals desperately short of emergency equipment and has resulted in millions of Americans losing their jobs, J Street is trying to convince the government to give millions of taxpayers’ dollars to two anti-American terrorist regimes: the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

Talk about tone-deaf! Completely oblivious to the suffering of American citizens, J Street’s top priority is to give American money to two of the most vicious America-hating regimes in the world.

It’s not just a matter of priorities. It’s not just that most Americans don’t want their money going to anti-American regimes. It’s also a matter of funding terrorists.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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If You Will It, It Is No Dream…But Only On Our Terms - by Dr. Asaf Romirowsky

The necessity of a Jewish nation state was a foundational premise for the founding fathers of Zionism, no matter what their political persuasion. That understanding was once shared by most American Jews, particularly in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Today, however, the idea of Jewish statehood is no longer a unifying principle but a wedge issue for American Jews.

Peter Beinart speaking at Temple De Hirsch Sinai,
Seattle, Washington

Dr. Asaf Romirowsky..
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,445..
10 February '20..
Link: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/jewish-statehood-american-jews/

In his address to the Zionist Congress in London on August 2, 1900, Theodor Herzl said:

Zionism demands a publicly recognized and legally secured home in Palestine for the Jewish people. This platform, which we drew up three years ago, is unchangeable. It must have responded to a very deep necessity, a very old longing of our people, otherwise its effects would be inexplicable. There is no need of my enumerating these effects at the present day. Everyone knows them, everyone sees and hears them. Four years ago in speaking of a Jewish nation one ran the risk of being thought ridiculous. Today he makes himself ridiculous who denies the existence of a Jewish nation. A glance at this hall, where our people is represented by delegates from all over the world, suffices to prove this.

The Zionist enterprise has evolved over the past 120 years but has always been predicated on the reestablishment of Jewish statehood in the ancestral homeland. The collective memory of Jewish statelessness and powerless was vivid during the early decades of the Jewish State. Left, right or center, the founding fathers of Zionism were all motivated by the imperative of Jewish statehood as both a manifestation of the Jewish People’s right to national self-determination and a means of lessening Jewish vulnerability and increasing the likelihood of Jewish survival.

This foundational axiom was also widely understood by American Jews, particularly in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Statehood was seen as the necessary extension of the shared sense of Jewish nationhood that had existed for millennia, a sense of unity and even destiny that went beyond culture or even religion.

Today, however, among an increasing number of American Jews, the idea of a Jewish state is no longer a building block but rather a wedge issue.

The very idea of nations and nation states may be suspect in the 21st century, but no other national movement evokes so uniquely visceral a reaction as does Zionism. No other term for a national movement has been infamously defined by the UN as “a form of racism and racial discrimination”—an epithet assigned to it by a bigoted coalition led by the Soviet Union. And no other definition has caused so much anxiety among a movement’s putative supporters and rendered them so unwilling to stand up for their cause. Too many American Jewish supporters of Israel live in fear of being declared racist by enemies of Zionism, or by those who purport to be so “enlightened” that they can see through the façade of Israeli democracy.

Those individuals take it upon themselves to distinguish between the “good” and the “bad” parts of Israel and avail themselves freely of the all-purpose evil of the “occupation.” Today’s left and progressive circles use the 1967 “Green Line” as a red herring in their representation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the American Jewish community. Journalist Peter Beinart, one of the driving forces behind this trend, claims “the American Jewish establishment and the Zionist establishment [render themselves] morally corrupt by defending the indefensible, for defending an occupation that holds millions of people occupied”.

President Trump’s critics shouldn’t encourage Palestinians to make another mistake (but they will) - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Contrary to the bad advice they’re getting from the Democrats and J Street, Palestinians need to accept that the U.S. plan is their best chance for statehood.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
28 January '20..

As far as those Americans who despise President Donald Trump, as well as many of those Jews and Israelis who feel the same way about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the ceremony unveiling a new U.S. peace plan for the Middle East was a sham.

With the Palestinians refusing to even talk to the administration—let alone negotiate with Israel about implementing the plan’s terms—chances of the “deal of the century” solving the conflict remain exactly zero. Trump’s opponents see his determination to recognize Israeli sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, as well as the green light his plan gives to annexation of West Bank settlements, as an outrage. And they dismiss his offer of statehood to the Palestinians—provided that they recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state and cease support for terrorism—as meaningless.

In essence, all those denouncing Trump’s terms are advising the Palestinians to stick to their refusal to talk until a new American president takes office.

Whatever you think about Trump, it is the worst possible advice anyone could give to the Palestinians.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what many Democrats are doing. The same is true of allegedly “pro-peace” Jewish groups like J Street. Rather than encouraging the Palestinians to start negotiating, the “experts” about the Mideast are applauding their decision to reject Trump’s proposal out of hand. Sadly, they are once again serving as enablers for a Palestinian Arab leadership that has, over the course of the last century, failed their people miserably as they pursued a futile war against Zionism.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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In spite of various “peace processors”, Palestinian terrorists keep shattering their profile - by Stephen M. Flatow

Sometimes, the J Streeters get a little carried away with themselves. They seem to think that just because they are the subject of flattering feature stories in The New York Times or on CNN, it means that the winds of public opinion are blowing their way. But the meager support that the “teen terrorist” bill has garnered so far suggests otherwise.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
24 January '20..

The latest Palestinian Arab stabbings of Jews in Israel won’t get much attention since fortunately, nobody was killed. Attacks that don’t involve fatalities are considered by the international news media to be insignificant; editors call them “dog bites man” stories. But the circumstances of the attacks are, in fact, quite significant.

Near Hebron, a 17-year-old Palestinian Arab stabbed and wounded a Jewish passerby. In Jerusalem, a 50-year-old Palestinian Arab woman charged towards Israeli police officers, brandishing a knife.

A 50-year-old woman completely shatters the profile of the “typical” Palestinian Arab terrorist. Supposedly, terrorists are mostly single men in their 20s. A 50-year-old woman, quite possibly a mother with children still at home, is exactly the kind of person who gets less scrutiny from security guards because they don’t expect her to be a terrorist.

What does that tell us? That Palestinian Arab terrorists come in all ages and genders, all economic brackets and social circumstances. Time and again, Israeli Jews have been attacked by terrorists who are younger or older than the “typical” terrorist. Employed or unemployed. Single or with families.

Many self-anointed “experts” on the Middle East situation insist that poverty or unemployment is the root cause of Palestinian Arab terrorism. The terrorists are supposedly jobless young men who feel “hopeless” or “frustrated” at their economic prospects.

Thus, these “experts” say, the solution is to throw more money at the Palestinian Arabs or to let more of them cross into Israel. Not too long ago, former Obama “peace processor” David Makovsky was urging Israel to admit 100,000 workers from Gaza each day. How does that advice look in the wake of the mass violence perpetrated at the Gaza border over the past year? How many of those who were trying to burn down Israeli fields and murder Israeli soldiers should be admitted?

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Well, the Palestinian Authority ignored J Street’s advice - by Stephen M. Flatow

The subject may come back to bite the organization with finger-pointing by the International Criminal Court regarding the presence of Jews in Jerusalem.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
03 January '19..

A few years ago, when Palestinian Arab leaders were threatening to enlist the International Criminal Court (ICC) in their war against Israel, J Street expressed “understanding” at “the Palestinians’ frustration.”

But now that the ICC is taking action that could lead to J Street’s leaders being branded “war criminals,” the J Streeters have fallen silent. What an agonizing moment this must be for the Jewish far-left!

This ugly mess began several years ago, when the Palestinian Authority began joining various international organizations and signing international treaties in order to use them against Israel. In January 2015, the P.A. signed the Rome Statute, which created the ICC.

Here’s what J Street said a few years ago: “With regard to the International Criminal Court (ICC), while we understand Palestinians’ frustration at the ongoing occupation and the lack of a path to ending it, we regard attempts to bring cases before the ICC to be unhelpful. Such action stands to set off a spiral of counterproductive actions and leave the Palestinian people no closer to freedom and self-determination.”

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Notice how J Street refused to characterize the P.A. using the ICC against Israel as immoral or wrong. In fact, J Street did not even acknowledge that such hostile actions by the P.A. are a blatant violation of the Oslo Accords. No, J Street’s only concern was that such P.A. action would lead to “counterproductive actions” by Israel.

It seems that J Street has no problem with the principle of the P.A. and its allies waging international legal warfare against Israel. It’s just concerned that the tactic might not succeed in bludgeoning Israel into making more concessions to the Arabs.

Well, the P.A. ignored J Street’s advice.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Surprise? "Pro-Israel" J-Street, without evidence, demands the US investigate Israel misuse of aid - by Elder of Ziyon

If there is zero evidence of misuse of funds, and an existing audit mechanism to ensure that there is no misuse of funds, why ask for an investigation into misuse of funds? There is no fire, and there is no smoke, except from J-Street's massive smoke machine meant to obscure rather than reveal the truth.

Elder of Ziyon..
10 December '19..

You know the expression "where there's smoke, there's fire"?

Not when someone has a gigantic smoke machine. And that is exactly what J-Street builds.

From a J-Street mailing:

Let’s make sure US aid is being used for Israel’s defense, and not the demolition of Palestinian homes. 

Join us in backing a new effort in Congress to ensure that US military assistance is being used in compliance with current US law, for Israel’s defense and not in connection with the displacement of Palestinians.

....[W]e’re strongly backing a new congressional letter, initiated by Reps. Ro Khanna, Anna Eshoo and Steve Cohen, pushing for greater accountability in ensuring that US aid to Israel is only being used for legitimate defense purposes -- and that equipment purchased with our tax-payer dollars is not being used to displace Palestinians.

Over a dozen members have already joined the Khanna-Eshoo-Cohen letter, expressing concern over the dramatic rise in demolitions this year.

The members ask -- pursuant to the Arms Export Control Act -- for the administration to report back to Congress on whether US-supplied equipment has been used for such demolitions and whether such use constitutes a breach of any existing restrictions.

As I have reported previously, there already is an audit process in place to see where every dollar of US aid is spent in Israel.

Does J-Street have any evidence that Israel is somehow bypassing the existing controls and spending US money on other things? If you read the many reports from the Congressional Research Service about aid to Israel, there doesn't seem to be any. US aid is earmarked for specific, targeted programs from the F-35 fighter to anti-rocket defense systems.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The mistaken partisanship of seeing Israel in the context of American politics, not Middle Eastern reality - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Reaction to Trump’s latest decision once again proves that liberal Jewish groups see Israel in the context of American politics, not Middle Eastern reality.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
19 November '19..

When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced this week that the United States no longer considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be in violation of international law, most Israelis were clearly pleased. But a good portion of American Jews weren’t. This tells us more about American Jewish priorities and indifference to what Israelis think than it does about what’s good for the Jewish state or arguments about international law.

As was the case with the Trump administration’s moves on Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the Iran nuclear deal and accountability for the Palestinian Authority’s support of terrorism, all the major Israeli political parties greeted the announcement with support. Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his leading rival, Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz, agreed that America was right to scrap its old insistence that Jews had no right to live outside the 1949 armistice lines.

That latter point is crucial to understanding a basic fact about Israeli political reality. Gantz, who remains locked in a standoff with Netanyahu and his allies over the composition of the next Israeli government, actually received a heads up about Pompeo’s impending statement before it was issued.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman called Gantz and informed him of the decision. Had Gantz expressed opposition or had he asked that the Americans delay their announcement, a State Department source told the press that the administration would have complied with the request. To the contrary, after Pompeo spoke, Gantz approved of his move, saying explicitly that the fate of the “settlements and the residents of Judea and Samaria should be determined by agreements that meet security requirements and that can promote a peace that will serve both sides while reflecting the reality on the ground.”

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Some thoughts and notes on the J Street conference - by Sarah N. Stern

I have always found it the height of arrogance for us, sitting here, between what I like to call our two “liquid assets”—the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean—to tell the Israelis what to do. They are the ones who ultimately will have to live with the consequences of any withdrawals. They live in the Middle East. And if there is one thing that recent events in Syria have taught us, it’s that it is a very tough neighborhood. And as former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said, “We have nowhere else to go.”


Sarah N. Stern..
JNS.org..
31 Ocotber '19..

Like our colleagues at AIPAC, I have long believed that support for Israel should be a bipartisan issue. Once it becomes a partisan issue, we create enormous enmity for the State of Israel within at least 50 percent of the population, which would ultimately give succor and support to Israel’s enemies. And it certainly does not help the Jewish state survive if an incoming American president regards Israel as “the other party’s issue.”

That is why my heart is so heavy when I read that mainstream leaders of the Democratic Party, such as Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and almost all of the major contenders within the Democratic Party have attended the J Street Conference.

What is even more concerning is that many of the speakers in this week’s conference have made outrageously naive and even hostile statements about the State of Israel—demonstrating no empathy for what the Jewish state must contend with—to rapturous applause.

(Continue to Full Column)

Sarah N. Stern is founder and president of the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), a pro-Israel and pro-American think tank and policy institute in Washington, D.C.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Bernie’s Gaza aid farce certainly exposes J Street’s false front - by Jonathan S. Tobin

In a competition to see which Democratic candidate can pander more to the far left by undermining Israel, the Vermont Socialist wins by a landslide.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
30 October '19..

The still-crowded 2020 Democratic presidential field proved to be a godsend for the left-wing J Street lobby. It gained attention for its annual conference this week due to the presence of five presidential candidates. But the dynamic of the event didn’t give a boost to its supposed “pro-Israel, pro-peace” agenda. To the contrary, the tenor of the coverage of the event showed that the group had achieved a very different goal. That was to be a magnet for opponents of the Jewish state, as it became clear that the main objective of the vote seekers was to avoid being outflanked on the left and to therefore outdo each other in vowing support for measures designed not merely to pressure Israel, but to cripple it and help its foes.

The winner of this competition to be tough on Israel was Sen. Bernie Sanders. The Vermont Socialist has always used his Jewish identity and his stay on a kibbutz more than half a century ago as a license to attack Israel with impunity. While continuing to express support for Israel’s right to exist, he also holds a position that its leaders must be brought to heel in such a manner as to force not just the creation of a Palestinian state alongside it, but to hamstring its right to self-defense.

Even more damaging is his consistent support for the idea that the independent Palestinian state in all but name that already exists in Gaza should be the beneficiary of a new “even-handed” U.S. stand on the Middle East. In the past, that has meant doing his best to organize support in Congress for opposition to the international isolation of the Hamas-run enclave and to undermine Israel’s efforts to defend its people against the terrorists who govern the Strip.

But the main headline that came out of the J Street conference concerned Sanders’s latest proposal, in which he went one step beyond his previous threats to cut U.S. aid to Israel.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Surprise! J Streeters duped on alternative tour of Israel - by Steve Frank

Hebron’s Shuhada Street was a highlight of J Street’s Israel tour, and the group fell for the myth, hook line and sinker.

That which is kept out of sight,
remains out of narrative

Steve Frank..
JNS.org..
04 August '19..

Nonprofit advocacy group J Street has recently been campaigning against Birthright Israel, an educational program that sponsors free 10-day heritage trips to Israel for young Jewish adults. Over 600,000 young adults have participated in the program since its founding in 1999.

J Street charges that Birthright trips lack Palestinians voices, fail to incorporate the Palestinian narrative and neglect to visit Palestinian sites in the West Bank. As an alternative to the traditional Birthright tour, J Street recently sponsored a trip to Israel for 28 participants who visited Palestinian sites in the West Bank and heard from spokesmen for the Palestinian cause.

According to The New York Times, “In the West Bank settlement of Har Gilo,” the J Streeters “received a harsh history lesson from a veteran opponent of the occupation. Then they toured an impoverished, water-starved Palestinian village that Israeli settlers want to demolish, and visited the city of Hebron, where repeated outbreaks of violence have turned an entire Palestinian business district into a ghost town.”

The J Street trip and the Times article about it were highly criticized in a pointed piece in Commentary magazine. The Commentary review noted that there was not a word in either the trip or the Times article “on the murderous Palestinian anti-Semitic violence that necessitates Israel’s policing of such places [as Hebron] to begin with,” “no mention of the kleptocratic Palestinian leadership that’s consigned generations of Palestinians to certain ruin” and “no mention of the fact that the Palestinians have, again and again—and again—refused to make peace with Israel when it was offered.”

However, there was one particular failing of the J Street trip that has not received the attention it deserves.

(Continue to Full Column)

Steve Frank is an attorney, retired after a 30-year career as an appellate lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. His writings on Israel, the law and architecture have appeared in publications including The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Jerusalem Post, The Times of Israel and Moment magazine.

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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J Street, BDS and the willful blindness of the liberal peaceniks - by Ben-Dror Yemini

Some boycotts are justified, whether imposed by a state or individuals, but the drive to boycott the State of Israel is certainly nothing but an effort to deny Jews the right to self-determination, whatever so-called pro-peace organizations tell themselves

Ben-Dror Yemini..
Ynetnews/Opinion..
27 July '19..
Link: https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5556925,00.html

Ilhan Omar, a member of the US House of Representatives, is a clear supporter of the pro-Israel boycott BDS movement. Recently, she proposed a bill that supports boycotts, all boycotts, as freedom of expression, which sounds wonderful.

While most Democrats did not buy her into her sophistry, fear not, for J Street rushed in to support her.

"We do not support BDS," the organization stated, reiterating its old position in favor of two states, "but we are also in favor of freedom of expression."

How kind.

If we thought that Omar was breaking records for disingenuity, given that freedom of expression interests her as much as snow in summer and hatred of Israel is what really motivates her, J Street has actually managed to bypass her.

Surprised by NY Times’ Partisan Reporting on J Street's Birthright Alternative Tour? - by Emanuel Miller

J Street’s tours may or may not be worthy of coverage, but in publishing a piece devoid of context and piercing questions, the New York Times is acting as a shill for those who spend their time highlighting Israel’s every flaw.

Emanuel Miller..
Honest Reporting..
14 July '19..

Ever wondered how fringe organizations like IfNotNow and Breaking the Silence wield so much influence on the public discourse on Israel?

It’s not because these organizations are well-financed or organized, although that certainly helps. It’s because these organizations are set up primarily to create catchy, often-sensationalized media narratives about injustices which are packaged neatly for enthusiastic and ignorant journalists to write about. Oppression, segregation, colonialism, and collective punishment are the name of their game.

For the unacquainted, Birthright is a free trip to Israel sponsored in part by the Israeli government, and in part by private donors, to young men and women of Jewish heritage. The trip is largely apolitical, and endeavors to provide Jewish youth with an opportunity to connect with their roots, learn about the Jewish people, and visit a country with undeniable ties to their Judaism. Despite being as mainstream and apolitical as could be, the organization has come under fire from some who demand that it tackle Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians in greater detail, with the two aforementioned organizations hijacking multiple Birthright tours to score political points and make headlines in 2018.

One year later, another American Jewish organization catering to a left-leaning audience, the self-described “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace” J Street, has launched its own version of the famous free trip to Israel. In keeping with J Street’s political agenda, this tour puts Israel’s actions vis-a-vis the Palestinians under the spotlight.

J Street has every right to its own tour of Israel, even if the move is provocative. New York Times Jerusalem bureau chief David Halbfinger, however, owes the public a better account of the tour than the one made in the July 10 edition the New York Times, entitled “Absorbing a Different Slice of a Jewish Birthright – An Unflinching View Of Israeli Occupation.”

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Question. Could the Trump administration be siding with J Street? - by Stephen M. Flatow

...I am very surprised and deeply concerned at the possibility that the Trump administration could be falling into the old Obama pattern of pressuring Israel to make unilateral concessions in order to appease media pundits and Israel-bashing activists. I hope that Knesset Member Kisch was mistaken. I am anxiously awaiting an unequivocal denial from U.S. officials that they are asking Israel to let the squatters of Khan al-Ahmar continue their theft of Israeli public land.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
19 June '19..

Has the Trump administration taken J Street’s side in the dispute over an illegal Arab settlement on the outskirts of Jerusalem?

That disturbing question has suddenly entered the ongoing controversy over a piece of Israeli public land near Ma’ale Adumim, a major suburb of Jerusalem. Several dozen Arab families began squatting there some years ago, alongside the highway that goes from Jerusalem to the Jordan Valley. They call their encampment “Khan al-Ahmar.”

The illegal settlers in Khan al-Ahmar don’t own the land. They don’t rent it. They don’t have any construction permits. They simply set up some tents there and waited for sympathetic journalists and Jewish “peace” activists to go to bat for them, which didn’t take long.

The Israeli authorities have more than enough reason to remove the illegal settlers. It’s obviously a security hazard to have an Arab encampment situated adjacent to a heavily traveled Israeli highway. It’s also hazardous to the children of Khan al-Ahmar itself, who reportedly run back and forth across the road at will.

But most of all, there is a vital principle at stake: Should Israel enforce its own laws, or should it bend those laws whenever The Washington Post or the European Union start complaining?

(Continue to Full Column)

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Palestinians Drop Their Mask On Payment To Killers. Will J-Street et al Remain Silent? - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

How does J-Street react to this news? Silence is morally unacceptable. What about Meretz? Peace Now? And of course, all the Democratic Party representatives who are constantly criticizing the Jewish State ostensibly on moral grounds? Now is not the time for silence.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
02 May, 2019..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=73503

For years now Palestinian officials have been arguing that the money the PA gives to Palestinian prisoners and their families is nothing more that humanitarian assistance.

But now the mask is off.

The European Union Forum has proposed that the PA provide payments to Palestinian prisoners and their families according to their economic needs rather than their status based of the severity of what they did to Israelis.

Here is the response of Qadri Abu Bakr, Chairman of the Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission of the Palestinian Authority:

"The prisoners are freedom fighters and from our standpoint they have the standing of members of the security forces and therefore no Palestinian leader can agree to such a proposal."
Jack Khoury - Haaretz 2 May, 2019.

Let me spell this out: carefully crafted sound bites notwithstanding, the official position of the PA is that no matter how gruesome the attack, no matter how shocking the victims, the Palestinian Authority will reward Palestinian who murder Israelis in accordance with the severity of the attack that they carry out.

With no exception.

A prominent D.C. Synagogue will mourn Palestinians, ignore Israeli Independence Day - by Stephen M. Flatow

I do not question the right of Sixth and I to do this. I question the wisdom and morality of their decision to publicly proclaim that Israel and the Palestinian Arabs are morally equivalent. They are not.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
01 May '19..

A prominent synagogue in Washington, D.C., will mark Israel’s 71st birthday by mourning “Palestinian losses” alongside Israeli terror victims, and refrain from holding any kind of Israeli independence celebration.

It’s the latest example of an appalling “both sides” mentality that blurs right and wrong, good and evil, and Israel and its would-be destroyers.

On Tuesday evening, May 7, Israelis—and Jews around the world—will hold solemn Yom Hazikaron ceremonies to remember the approximately 25,000 Israeli Jews murdered by invading Arab armies and Palestinian Arab terrorists since 1948.

But at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in the nation’s capital, a different kind of ceremony will be held. Called the “Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony,” participants will gather together for what they describe as “a memorial based on the values of hope, solidarity and non-violence. Hear from Israelis and Palestinians as they share their families’ stories of loss.”

Yes, Palestinian Arabs have been killed in the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

But that doesn’t make them all “victims.” And that doesn’t mean they should all be “mourned.” That doesn’t place them all on the same moral level.

In the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, Israel is the victim and the Palestinian Arabs are the aggressors. Nobody is saying Israel is perfect. No country is perfect. No army is perfect. But we still should be able to make the basic distinction between right and wrong. We still should have enough sense to distinguish between cops and robbers.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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How did J Street get 78 percent of respondents to say they “support creating a Palestinian state”? - by Stephen M. Flatow

The J Street poll question began with a list of six points that supposedly would be part of any agreement creating a Palestinian state...But the six points are all just figments of J Street’s imagination. They have either been rejected outright by the Palestinian Authority or are simply wildly implausible.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
09 November '18..

More than three-fourths of American Jews want Israel to be reduced to just miles wide—narrower than Washington, D.C., or the Bronx. How can that be?

The answer, of course, is that it can’t be. But J Street is now making that claim anyway, and some media outlets this week fell for it.

J Street wants to see an independent Palestinian state established alongside the pre-1967 armistice lines, which means that Israel would be a mere nine miles wide. It would be very helpful to J Street’s efforts if it could claim that most Jews support it. But most Jews don’t. So, what’s a J Streeter to do?

Simple. Take a poll in which the question about a Palestinian state is worded in such a way as to make it as appealing and non-threatening as possible. Don’t say a word about it making Israel nine miles wide. Pretend that it will bring peace. And then—presto!—the J Streeters can get the “poll results” that they want.

Sure, it’s dishonest, disingenuous and distasteful. But this week, that’s exactly what J Street did.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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These murders were brought to you by the two state solution. The next ones will be too. - by Daniel Greenfield

...These murders were paid for by the peace process. They were funded by the supporters of the two state solution. The solution that has solved nothing except how Islamic terrorist groups pay killers to murder fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, at a supermarket, at work or on the way home.

Daniel Greenfield..
Sultan Knish..
09 October '18..

”May Allah send the message I am longing for," Ashraf Walid Suleiman wrote on his Facebook page.

Then he went on to murder two Israelis, tying the hands of Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, a receptionist working toward her law degree, and the mother of a 16 month old baby, and Ziv Hajbi, the father of twin boys, before shooting them at close range.

A 58-year-old woman was left with a gunshot wound in the stomach after she burst in on the Islamic terrorist while he was busy doing Allah’s work.

That was the message from Allah that Ashraf, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority were looking for.

"The Palestinian people everywhere praise the heroic operation," Hamas wrote, gloating over the heroism of tying up a 28-year-old receptionist before killing her. The Palestinian Authority will be paying a salary to Ashraf if he’s captured alive and will be making payments to his family if he’s killed.

At the United Nations, Mahmoud Abbas, the unelected leader of the Palestinian Authority, and the boss of Fatah and the PLO, which control the terrorist entity, called terrorists, “hero martyrs”.

"By Allah, even if we have only a penny left it will only be spent on the families of the Martyrs and the prisoners, and only afterwards will it be spent on the rest of the people,” Abbas had declared in July.

Two days later, Yotam Ovadia, heading home to prepare a romantic dinner for his wife, was stabbed to death.

“The heart breaks at the sound of your little son calling ‘Abba, Abba.’ ('Daddy, Daddy')," his father-in-law said at his funeral.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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I believe this Palestinian teenager - by Stephen M. Flatow

Ahed Tamimi supports assaulting Israeli soldiers and “throwing stones”—meaning, trying to stone Jews to death. She also respects “every type of resistance” in which Palestinians engage: knives, guns, bombs.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
28 September '18..

Ahed Tamimi, the Palestinian teenager jailed for assaulting an Israeli soldier, says she supports violence against Jews and seeks the destruction of Israel.

I believe her.

And I believe that groups such as J Street, which have defended Tamimi and claimed that she is nonviolently resisting “the Israeli occupation of the West Bank,” owe the Jewish community an apology for refusing to believe her.

When Tamimi was arrested last December for assaulting an Israeli soldier, the Jewish left leaped to her defense. J Street president Jeremy-Ben Ami wrote an op-ed arguing that Israel has been “illegally taking over” the land of her village, and her assault of the Israeli soldier “results quite naturally … from the human impulse to resist injustice against one’s community and family,” he wrote.

The J Street web site posted an essay by a Washington, D.C., rabbi named Hannah Goldstein, declaring that that she “can understand why” Tamimi’s father sent her and her siblings to throw rocks at Jews since “under occupation, their opportunities are limited” and “putting children [or allowing them to put themselves] in harm’s way for the sake of greater change seems worth the risk.”

But as soon as Tamimi finished her jail sentence, she began issuing statements making it clear that for her, the issue is not the village’s land, but rather the very existence of Israel. And far from being some kind of Palestinian Gandhi, she supports terrorism and terrorists.

(Continue to Full Column)

.Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Myths, Facts and J-Street lies for @UNRWA - by Elder of Ziyon

...There's lots more in J-Street's list of myths, but it is obvious that an organization that states flatly that over 5 million Palestinians have a "right" to "return" to destroy Israel is not a pro-Israel organization.

Elder of Ziyon..
14 August '18..

J-Street has a "Myths and Facts" page about UNRWA where they deliberately switch the myths and the facts.

Once again, the "pro-Israel" J-Street can find nothing bad to say about an organization that teaches its students that they must remain stateless until they "return" to destroy Israel.

Their "myths and facts" could have been written by UNRWA itself, and I think there is a good chance that this was in fact the case.

Literally everything they say in the first section is a lie:

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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