Barack Obama Vs. Mort Klein. Who The Hell Is Mort Klein?

Martin Peretz
The New Republic
15 July '10
Posted before Shabbat

(Like Marty Peretz? This is a good one. Y.)

The president doesn’t like Mort Klein. I don’t know whether they’ve ever met. But the Obama folk did convene a meeting for the president with the “Jewish leadership,” which included, as it happens, American Jewish organizations (new on the block and who are financed mostly by Jewish billionaires who care not a fig for the survival of a people they do not think of as their home) believing that Israel is basically responsible for the intensity and duration of the conflict with the Arabs, in general, and the Palestinians, in particular. Anyway, Klein is president of the Zionist Organization of America which makes him, if you’ve read Jeff Rosen’s dazzling TNR essay on Supreme Court justice Louis Dembitz Brandeis, a literal successor to Brandeis who himself had difficult views on a settlement with the Arabs. A literal successor, nonetheless, in the same way that Elena Kagan will be.

Now, Klein takes a harder line than Brandeis did. But then the Arabs had not waged five wars against Israel, and the Palestinian cause had not yet been invented. There were cases of random terror as much against Jewish agricultural workers as against Arab effendi. In any case, the map of the Levant was being divided, and a tiny portion had been allocated to the Zionists—as larger divisions were cut out for new states like Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, etc. Not democratic states or even states cut to demography. Each of these states, by the way, is still a mess, which is a massive understatement. Except the Zionist encampment of Israel, a modern state with a free press, an independent judiciary, a real university system and an open culture. OK, smartass, give your ardor to Palestine. It will be like having given your ardor to Khmer Rouge Cambodia.

(Read full article)

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ZOA Criticizes J.N.F. For Donating 3,000 Trees To Palestinian Authority

30 November 09

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized the Jewish National Fund (JNF) following reports that the organization, established by Jews and for Jews to rebuild Jewish national life in the biblical home of the Jewish people, has donated 3,000 trees to the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) of Mahmoud Abbas for a new city near Ramallah.

Benny Kashriel, the mayor of Maaleh Adumim who also is a member of the JNF board, said today that he will raise the JNF decision with the JNF board. The JNF, a time-honored symbol of Zionism, has for decades received literally billions of dollars from Jews in the Diaspora for planting trees and building the modern Jewish State. Kashriel said the contribution to the PA is a grave step that was taken without any request for approval and without advance notice and reflects a “system that has gone haywire … The country has gone crazy when it plants trees for the PA in Judea and Samaria at the same time that it forbids Jews to build. The system does not know who it is representing – us, the Palestinian Authority or the Americans?” (Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, ‘JNF Donates 3,000 Trees to Palestinian Authority,’ Israel National News, November 30, 2009).

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We are deeply critical and indeed shocked by the decision of the JNF to donate thousands of trees, grown with money donated by Jews from around the world, to the PA. The PA is a terror-promoting entity controlled by Abbas’ Fatah, which demonstrated only in August at its Bethlehem conference that it does not accept Israel as a Jewish state, does not support a peace agreement that closes the conflict and engages in, indoctrinates for and glorifies terrorism against Jews. At this conference, Fatah honored terrorists, including Khaled Abu-Isbah and Dalal Mughrabi, responsible for the 1978 coastal road bus hijacking, in which 37 Israelis, including 12 children, were slaughtered.

“Has it really come to this, that a venerable Zionist organization with only one purpose – the up-building of a sovereign Jewish national existence, takes money from Jews and then uses these funds to make a gift of trees to Israel’s unreconstructed enemies?

“If JNF is to retain the confidence of American and world Jewry as to its dedicated purpose of building up the Jewish state of Israel, it is vital that the JNF publicly acknowledge its error and apologize for this clear misuse of funds it has raised. For the JNF to do otherwise would be to raise money from world Jewry under false pretences. It is vital that JNF never repeat this decision.”

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(For those of you who find this deeply disturbing, the following contact information should be put to good use)

Tree Certificates, Products,
Donations:

Inquiries: customerservice@jnf.org
To order: orders@jnf.org
By phone: 800-542-TREE (8733)
By mail: Jewish National Fund,
78 Randall Ave, Rockville Centre, NY 11570

Planned Giving (Bequests, Annuities, etc.):

Email: plannedgiving@jnf.org

Travel & Tours:

Email: travel@jnf.org
Phone: (877) JNF-TOUR (563-8687)

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Regional Offices:

Phone: (888) JNF-0099
Email and Address: Visit our local office pages for this information

General Inquiries:

Email: communications@jnf.org
Phone: (888) JNF-0099
Address: JNF National Headquarters
42 East 69th Street
New York, NY 10021
USA

ZOA SUBMITS BRIEF TO SUPREME COURT SUPPORTING U.S. TERROR VICTIM

Morton A. Klein Zionist Organization of America 26 August 09

ZOA SUBMITS BRIEF TO SUPREME COURT SUPPORTING U.S. TERROR VICTIM The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has submitted an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a petition for Court review filed by the parents of David Boim, a victim of Palestinian Arab terrorism. The brief was prepared by David I. Schoen, Esq., a distinguished criminal lawyer and a member of the ZOA’s National Board of Directors; and Susan B. Tuchman, Esq., the director of the ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice. (To read the brief, click here.)

In 1996, 17-year old American-born David Boim was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting by Hamas terrorists while waiting at a bus stop in Israel. His parents brought suit against several defendants under a provision of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), which permits U.S. nationals injured by international terrorism to sue and recover treble damages.

Among the defendants named in the suit was Muhammad Salah, the admitted U.S.-based leader of Hamas’ military wing. There was evidence that Salah recruited and trained terrorists, channeled funds to Hamas operatives, and helped reorganize and restaff Hamas military cells in Israel.

Despite the substantial role Salah played in aiding and abetting Hamas’ terrorist activities, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Court issued a decision last December, concluding that Salah could not be liable to the Boims under the ATA, because Salah was in prison at the time that David Boim was murdered. The Boims’ counsel of record – the renowned Washington, D.C. legal team of Nathan Lewin, Esq. (who is a member of the advisory board of the ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice) and Alyza Lewin, Esq. – petitioned the Supreme Court to review the case in order to make clear that the ATA provides for civil liability against those who aid and abet international terrorism.

In support of the Boims’ petition, the ZOA’s brief focused on the important public policy issues in the case. The ZOA showed that Congress intended the ATA to be broadly interpreted to include aider-and-abettor liability, that giving the law a broad reading would help the U.S. win the war on terrorism, and that a broad reading would ensure that American terror victims can obtain the fullest and fairest measure of justice.

Morton A. Klein, the ZOA’s National President, commented, “This case raises important legal and public policy issues about how our country responds to acts of international terrorism. Hundreds of American citizens like David Boim have been murdered and over 1500 wounded due to Arab terrorism in the Middle East alone.

“We are so proud of this brief and its potential to impact how our country responds to acts of international terrorism. Nathan Lewin, the Boims’ attorney, expressed his appreciation, saying ‘Many thanks for an excellent amicus brief.’ His co-counsel, Stephen Landes, Esq. from Chicago, wrote, ‘I would like to add my compliments and appreciation as well. It is a fine brief and we hope that it will push us over the finish line.’

“We at the ZOA hope that the brief will influence the Supreme Court to review the Boim case and conclude that not only those who actually pull the trigger or plant the bomb are liable under the anti-terrorism law, but also those who fund, support and enable terrorism.”