Surprise? Reform Movement Backs Palestinians against Israel on Jerusalem - by Evelyn Gordon

...Maybe to American Jewish ears, Jacobs’s statement sounds innocuous and reasonable; indeed, as a poll published in September showed, a whopping 80 percent of American Jews oppose moving the embassy right now. But effectively, what it means is that the Reform Movement–and 80 percent of American Jewry–has ceded sovereignty over Jerusalem to the Palestinians. They, and only they, have the right to decide if and when anyone else recognizes the city as Israel’s capital. Absent Palestinian consent, Israel isn’t entitled to have a recognized capital.

Evelyn Gordon..
Analysis from Israel..
06 December '17..
Link: http://evelyncgordon.com/reform-movement-backs-palestinians-against-israel-on-jerusalem/

That Arab and European leaders are protesting President Trump’s intent to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is no surprise. Nor is it any surprise that groups like J Street and Jewish Voice for Peace joined them. I was, however, genuinely shocked that the leader of America’s largest Jewish denomination also joined the denunciations. Until recently, any mainstream American Jewish leader would have been embarrassed to oppose U.S. recognition of Jerusalem publicly.

And yet, it’s of a piece with recent decisions by non-Orthodox Hillel directors to bar mainstream Israelis from speaking on campus, and with the fact that Birthright Israel recently dropped the Union for Reform Judaism as a trip organizer because it was recruiting too few students. Taken together, all these facts paint a worrying picture.

I’ve always objected when I hear people on the right term the Reform Movement anti-Israel because of its stance on the peace process. After all, its views aren’t far from those of Israel’s mainstream center-left, and any mainstream view ought to be legitimate within the pro-Israel camp.

But in its opposition to recognizing Jerusalem, the URJ has zero support from Israel’s Zionist center-left. The chairman of the Labor Party, currently Israel’s largest opposition party, praised Trump’s expected decision. Yair Lapid, head of the other main opposition party (which is currently outpolling Labor), demanded that the rest of the world follow suit.

Indeed, only two Israeli parties shared the Reform Movement’s reservations: the Arab community’s Joint List and the far-left Meretz, which used to be a Zionist party but no longer is. Its platform doesn’t define it as Zionist, its official spokeswoman defines it as “a non-Zionist Israeli party,” and key backers of its current chairwoman are busy floating the idea of an official merger with the anti-Zionist Joint List. Thus, in opposing U.S. recognition of Jerusalem, the Reform Movement has aligned itself with the country’s anti-Zionists against the entire spectrum of Israeli Zionist opinion.

In his statement, URJ President Rick Jacobs insisted that the Reform Movement does consider Jerusalem to be Israel’s “eternal capital,” to which the U.S. Embassy should move someday. But the URJ “cannot support” Trump’s “decision to begin preparing that move now, absent a comprehensive plan for a peace process,” Jacobs said, as it objects to any “unilateral steps.” Other Reform Jewish organizations, including the Association of Reform Zionists of America, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Women’s Rabbinic Network, endorsed this statement.

Maybe to American Jewish ears, Jacobs’s statement sounds innocuous and reasonable; indeed, as a poll published in September showed, a whopping 80 percent of American Jews oppose moving the embassy right now. But effectively, what it means is that the Reform Movement–and 80 percent of American Jewry–has ceded sovereignty over Jerusalem to the Palestinians. They, and only they, have the right to decide if and when anyone else recognizes the city as Israel’s capital. Absent Palestinian consent, Israel isn’t entitled to have a recognized capital.

The real crisis of racism in Israel, which should be visible to anyone with eyes - by Vic Rosenthal

...Did you go up to the Temple Mount and have the police treat you like a criminal? Do you find the weekly sermons by imams at mosques all over the country in which they describe Jews as descendents of apes and pigs insulting? Do the maps published by the Palestinian Authority which erase Israel make you feel “unsafe?” Call the hotline or fill out the form.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
28 August '17..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2017/08/the-real-crisis-of-racism-in-israel/

The strategy of the US Reform Movement along with home-grown leftists to introduce an American-style obsession with “racism” into Israeli consciousness shows just how far from understanding regional reality these people are.

The movement’s Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) plans to document incidents of racism in Israel and sue the perpetrators in court, following the model of the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center in the US, which – despite illegitimately multiplying the numbers of right-wing “hate” groups, counting Christian, conservative, and anti-jihad groups and individuals as “hate groups” or “extremists,” and minimizing or ignoring Islamic, black and left-wing extremism – has managed to get itself treated as an authoritative arbiter of who should be denied a platform to speak, or even silenced by the removal of Internet services.

Let’s look at the list of groups in Israel that IRAC claims are victims of racism, and whose members it asks to report incidents of racism by telephone hotline or web form:

The Racism Crisis Center will provide support in cases of discrimination, hate speech, and hate crimes against minority populations, and collect data on the growing phenomenon of racism in Israel. The center provides support to victims of all backgrounds: Arab[s], Ethiopian Jews, Russian Jews, Mizrahi Jews, asylum seekers and migrant workers, and provides services in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Amharic and English [my emphasis].

The first thing we notice is that apparently IRAC accepts the pernicious definition of ‘racism’ that is lately popular on the Left: racism = bigotry + privilege. According to this definition, it is impossible for a member of an oppressed group to be a racist, because no matter how bigoted oppressed individuals may be, they don’t have power to oppress. This explains the second thing that we notice in the statement above, which is that the list doesn’t include “Jews” without qualification.

In Leftyworld, privilege and oppression are relative. A logical consequence of accepting the definition of racism above is that a hierarchy of oppression is created in which an oppressed person can only be victimized by the racism of a more “privileged” one. So if a Mizrachi Jew beats up an Arab, that is considered a racist hate crime; but when an Arab stabs a Jew the motive must be something else (the Arabs themselves call it “resistance”). Once you have the hierarchy you can use it for all kinds of things, such as who is allowed to speak and who is expected to be a silent “ally.”

Since all Jews, even Mizrachi, Russian or Ethiopian Jews, have more privilege than Arabs, there is no need for a category for racism against Jews. Jews qua Jews can’t complain of racism, unless the complainant is a member of one of the oppressed groups complaining about a more privileged person or group. And no, I don’t know whether Mizrachis or Russians are more oppressed.

This definition and the ideology that flows from it have created more racial hostility in the US than understanding or reconciliation. Bringing it to Israel is a terrible idea.

If we look at the basic difference between the “racial issue” here and in the US, we can see how blisteringly ignorant these people are of reality in Israel and the rest of the Middle East. Without the slightest doubt, the most common, blatant and vicious manifestation of racism in the region is Muslim Arab racism toward Jews.

Anat Hoffman's non-solution to a non-crisis - by Vic Rosenthal

... These are not the people we need to help save Israel from herself, either in our dealings with the Palestinians or our own social issues. Despite her American education and connections, Anat Hoffman was born in Israel and lived most of her life here, so she should know better. But apparently she is being paid not to.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
25 August '17..

If you are an Israeli, do you feel smug that the neurotic politics of political correctness and victimology that lately are so prevalent in the USA are rare in Israel? Are you pleased to think that most Israelis are not obsessed with race the way Americans are?

If so, you will be sorry to hear that the folks that hijacked the Women of Wall and other internal Israeli controversies in order to depict Israel as undemocratic or worse have decided to bring the socio-political pathology of the US to our country.

The Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), created and primarily funded by the American Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) has proudly announced the establishment of a “Racism Crisis Center” in Israel.

Did you know there was a crisis of racism here? I didn’t, and in fact it seems to me that racially-based conflict is much lower here than in the US and many other places.

You may be shocked by that statement. Isn’t Israel the conflict capital of the world? Yes and no.

(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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Israelis, URJ and the struggle for the Kotel - by Vic Rosenthal

...Jacobs’ arrogance and presumption to pontificate about what Israel must do perhaps obscures the false assumption he makes about the “majority of Jews in Israel and the world.” Even the most secular Israelis don’t agree that American Reform Jews should decide what Israel does in the holy places that were regained with the blood of its soldiers. They may passionately hate the Rabbinate, but it is our Rabbinate that they hate.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
27 June '17..

(A number of excellent observations. Great post!)

The Kotel Hama’aravi (Western Wall) is not actually the holiest place in Judaism – that is the Temple Mount, the actual site of the First and Second Temples – but for various reasons it has become the holiest place at which it is practical for Jews to pray. It is administered by an organization called The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, chaired by Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich, “the Rabbi of the Kotel.” It is considered an Orthodox synagogue.

In 1988, the Women of the Wall (WoW) organization was founded in order to obtain the right for women to pray at the Kotel with Torah scrolls and wearing a tallit (prayer shawl). They did not ask for mixed prayer with men, just a relaxation of the rules concerning how they could pray with other women in the women’s section of the Kotel. This would not violate Orthodox halacha (religious law), but is in opposition to the rules established by the Rabbi of the Kotel and the customs of strictly observant Jews (among others, the prohibition against women chanting out loud in the presence of men).

Customs differ over time and place. While it can be shocking to see a custom that one has grown up with violated – consider the (non-religious) customs concerning gender and restrooms – changes can and do happen.

(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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Honig - Banana noses and freckles

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
29 December '11..





Back in junior high I had a classmate called Patty Christie, better known to her peers as Cookie. She was big, plumpish and her ruddy baby face was often conspicuously plastered with makeup, to the strident displeasure of our homeroom teacher.

One day Cookie announced assertively that “all Jews have banana noses.” Uninitiated in the irrationalism of stereotyping, I rose to the defense of our tribe: “Oh yeah? How come my nose isn’t like that?” Cookie shot back without hesitation: “Coz you’re not Jewish.”

“Yes I am,” I replied defiantly.

“No, you’re not,” she insisted. “You got freckles.”

I was stumped and all I could come up with was “Huh, what’s that got to do with anything?”

I found myself asking that very same question, with as much bewilderment, after the current White House resident informed the whole world about his daughter Malia’s busy schedule on the bar/bat mitzvah circuit. That was somehow supposed to prove that Obama is the most pro-Israel president ever, endear him to American-Jewish hearts and win him political support, campaign contributions and crucial votes.

But, as with Cookie’s kooky argumentation, I couldn’t find the connection.

Malia’s dad pulled out all the stops when appearing at the recent Union for Reform Judaism Biennial in Maryland. His cliché-ridden routine wouldn’t have shamed any campy stand-up comedian in the intensely embarrassing era of Catskill overkill.

Tobin - What’s the “Different Story” About Obama and Israel?

Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary/Contentions
18 December '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/18/obama-israel-reform-iran/

As I noted earlier, President Obama’s pitch for the Jewish vote has more to do with his appeal to knee-jerk liberalism on a host of non-Jewish issues than it does with concern for Israel’s welfare. Nevertheless, it is a misnomer to think liberal Jews such as those who cheered Obama Friday at the Reform biennial, don’t care about the Jewish state.

However, their willingness to accept Obama’s claims on the topic says more about their desire not to turn on a Democrat than it says about his virtues. One must ignore much of what has transpired in the last three years in order to believe the president’s claims.

The main element of Obama’s claim is that he has done more for Israel’s security than any of his predecessors. It is true he has done nothing to interfere with the security alliance that has grown since it was initiated during the Reagan administration. Military aid has flowed in large amounts, and for that Obama deserves some credit. But to speak, as he does, as if this relationship was invented by him, is absurd. On Friday, he alluded, as his defenders often do, to the Iron Dome missile defense system the two nations have created. But that project was initiated and funded by the Bush administration. The most we can say of Obama’s involvement is that he chose not to prevent it from being deployed.

Obama also bragged of making a phone call to ask Egypt’s military government to prevent Israeli diplomats from being slaughtered and also of providing assistance when forest fires beset Israel. These are praiseworthy acts. But, as with his continuance of existing security cooperation, the failure to act would have been far more noteworthy than a routine willingness to help.

But though the president told his Reform listeners not to “let anybody else tell a different story,” his account of his relations with Israel is, to put it mildly, incomplete.

The New Israel Fund — the bad and the ugly

Fresnozionism.org
16 June '11

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/06/the-new-israel-fund-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

The following is from an article by Anne Hertzberg of the intrepid NGO Monitor:

…a group of NGOs, primarily funded by European governments, the EU, and the New Israel Fund (NIF) have initiated a campaign to denigrate the Israeli justice system in order to bolster efforts to have Israelis arrested for “war crimes” in Europe, and in order to support the PLO’s application to the International Criminal Court for an investigation of Israel.

They also play an integral role in the PLO strategy to use UN frameworks, not to resolve the conflict, but to “internationalize the conflict as a legal matter” and to “pave the way for (the Palestinians) to pursue claims against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the International Court of Justice” as Mahmoud Abbas tellingly revealed in a May 17 New York Times op-ed…

Adalah, an Israeli NGO heavily funded by the NIF and the EU, is a leader of this strategy. At a 2008 conference in Brussels funded by the Swedish government, Adalah’s General Director Hassan Jabareen recommended that Palestinian activists “should try to portray Israel as an inherent undemocratic state” and “use that as part of campaigning internationally.”

Adalah has implemented this strategy in many submissions to UN committees, including the Human Rights Council. Additionally, in 2009, Adalah filed an “expert” opinion on behalf of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) in a lawsuit brought by the group in Spain seeking the arrest and imprisonment of seven Israeli officials for alleged “war crimes” arising out of the killing of a senior Hamas terrorist, Salah Shehade.

In 2007, Adalah presented its proposal for a “Democratic Constitution” for Israel. In its introduction, Adalah begins by demanding that

Beinartism

Fresnozionism.org
(Originally posted
01 April '11)

http://fresnozionism.org/2011/04/beinartism/


(FresnoZionism’s powerful piece about the warped perspective of the Jewish Left, “Beinartism,” is competing in the quarter-finals of the 2011 pro-Israel Blog-off! An excellent article, and if you agree, please give it your vote of confidence at the 2011 pro-Israel Blog-off! Voting closes Sunday.Yosef)


Israel has a problem. OK, Israel has a lot of problems, but one of the biggest is American Jews who

1) take as their primary sources the loud but demographically unimportant media and academic Left in Israel; and,


2) combine ignorance with remarkable arrogance to apply American paradigms and analogies to Israeli society and politics, and


3) conclude that Israel is becoming (or has already become) morally corrupt, right-wing, theocratic, anti-democratic and anti-peace.

I call this position ‘Beinartism’. The Beinartist manifesto is this Peter Beinart article, which I also discussed here and here.

The US is Israel’s only source for vital military hardware (aid dollars are not as important as availability of spare parts and qualitatively superior technology), and its only defender in the UN Security Council. I think it’s safe to say that Israel’s enemies would eat it alive if the US turned against it. American Jews are only a tiny portion (a couple of percent) of the US population, but enormously important in determining policy toward Israel.

This is because they take an interest in it, because non-Jewish politicians look toward Jews for direction in this area, and because Jewish opinion provides an excuse to justify what officials want to do anyway. So if the administration wants to stop Jewish construction in eastern Jerusalem, it is very helpful if it can point to a large group of American Jews that agrees with it. And this is why Beinartism is dangerous.

Beinartism often expresses itself in statements that begin by declaring undying love for Israel, but then continue by excoriating it in ways usually associated with the extreme anti-Zionist Left. Beinartism, like J Street, is phony: it is dislike (or worse) pretending to be love, and it includes a threat that if Israel doesn’t change in accordance with Beinartist principles, it will be abandoned by American Jewry.

Yaacov Lozowick, discussing speakers at the J Street conference — including Beinart himself, but also David Saperstein of the Union for Reform Judaism — put it this way:

…there’s a consistent tone of disdain of Israeli society coming from these people which I find arrogant and very distasteful. Americans left and right have lost their civility in political discourse; Israelis, admittedly, never had it. Yet there are codes in language, deeper than mere words, and the subtext of these J Street spokesmen when discussing Jews from Russia, religious Jews and centrist Jews, is ugly. I find no other word for it. Just as their compassion for Israel’s Arabs (the citizens) is odd. There’s a level of identification with them which is totally lacking when they talk about the majority of the Israeli Jews. I say this as someone who wishes only the best for Israel’s Arabs.

Beinartism is characterized by false analogies: the situation of Israeli Arab citizens, or even Arabs in the territories, is often compared to that of African-Americans in the pre-civil rights movement South. It fails to note the huge differences, and the ways in which the physical situation of Israel makes it vulnerable in a way that we’ve never been.

Beinartism advocates a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinian Arabs, but it ignores the real security issues that would have to be dealt with before such a solution would be anything other than suicide. It makes vast assumptions about Arab intentions, or rather, doesn’t even think about them.

Beinartism accepts uncritically the prejudices of the academic and media elite of Israel, who tend to despise Russian immigrants, Jews from Arab countries, observant Jews and of course (last but not least) ‘settlers’.

Choosing partners

Fresnozionism.org
02 November '10

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan), a radical Sunni Islamist organization, was founded in 1928. Today it has several million members and branches all over the world, including the US. Although the Ikhwan’s goal is similar to that of other Islamist groups, calling for the establishment of a transnational caliphate and the application of Islamic law and principles to all aspects of society, it differs from al Qaeda because — at least officially — it opposes violence at the present time, in most circumstances. But there are exceptions, including the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Hence it gave rise in 1987 to Hamas, its ‘Palestinian’ branch, which is open and explicit about its antisemitic and jihadist position. There is little or no daylight between the Ikhwan and Hamas, and Brotherhood-linked organizations around the world have played a large role in funding and supporting Hamas.

There is little doubt that some of the groups that claim to speak for Muslims in the US also have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. The most widely-cited evidence is the “Holy Land Foundation” (HLF) case in which numerous individuals and groups were charged with material support for terrorism, conspiracy and money laundering in providing funds for Hamas and other jihadist groups. After a mistrial in 2007, several individuals were convicted in 2008 and sentenced to long prison terms. The process gave rise to a list of unindicted co-conspirators which included the Council on American-Islamic relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Both were cited as belonging to the US Muslim Brotherhood.

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Attacks on conversion bill are misleading

Fresnozionism.org
18 July '10

The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) — the largest Jewish denomination the US — sprung into action recently to protect us from a “dangerous threat”:

Sunday, July 12th, abruptly and with no warning, a committee vote was held on the bill sponsored by Member of the Knesset David Rotem that poses a dangerous threat to the rights of Conservative, Reform, and all non-Orthodox Jews, who comprise the overwhelming majority of world Jewry…

For 2,000 years, Judaism has treated Jews-by-choice (converts) the same as Jews-by-birth. This treatment is rooted in the Talmudic teaching that “as soon as a convert emerges from the mikvah (ritual bath) she or he is Jewish for all purposes.” (Yevamot 47b).

Since its founding 62 years ago, the State of Israel, through the Law of Return, has welcomed Jews from around the world as citizens in the world’s only Jewish state.

This legislation would delegitimize all non-Orthodox conversions. It would also preclude conferring citizenship under the Law of Return to Jews who did not qualify for such status on a prior visit (ie. converts).
[my italics]

The URJ is calling for its members to write to the Prime Minister and to apply every kind of pressure available to US Jews to prevent the passage of this bill. Rabbis will be speaking to their congregations from the pulpit, mass emails have been sent to Reform Jews, etc. Recently, the president of the largest congregation in our city said to me that “I’ve always supported Israel [he has], but I’m going to fight on this.”

A change to the criteria used by the State of Israel to determine ‘who is a Jew’ for the purposes of the Law of Return would indeed be big news. The Orthodox parties have tried in the past to change the law to disallow non-Orthodox converts from receiving citizenship, but have always been beaten back.

But in fact the bill doesn’t do anything like that.

Its main purpose is to decentralize the conversion process in Israel, in order to solve the problem of 320,000 Russian immigrants who would like to convert to Judaism but have been unable to, because of bureaucratic problems and ultra-Orthodox obstructionism. It makes it possible for local rabbis to perform conversions, and makes it harder for ultra-Orthodox ones to annul them.

This is a huge issue, and the bill tries to fix it without changing the traditional religious-secular status quo.

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What have we been fighting for?

Fresnozionism.org
12 March '10

If ever there was an example of throwing the baby out with the bath water, the frantic desire of the ‘progressive’ camp to make an agreement — any agreement at any cost — with the Palestinians is it.

Look at what the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) is sending to its base as its “Ten Minutes of Torah” [!] offering today. It’s an article from a (where else?) San Francisco Jewish newsweekly called J. It begins with a false equivalence:

One would be hard pressed to find Jews who do not value the Torah and the Holy Land. Every square inch of biblical Israel is significant to the Jewish people. But many of those same biblical sites are just as important to Palestinians. And there’s the rub.

One could easily argue that in fact these sites are not as important to Islam as to Judaism, and that the Palestinians have just created another club to beat Israel with. But why bother; making them “Jewish Heritage sites” does not assert that they are exclusively Jewish. Arab objections, on the other hand, imply — and in many cases explicitly assert — that they wholly belong to Islam.

The Palestinians have consistently denied Jewish claims to any holy sites, including and especially in Jerusalem. Yasser Arafat claimed — and today, Islamic Movement leader Raed Salah insists — that there never was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Backing down on this issue lends credence to these absurd and insulting claims, just like backing down on the issue of building in East Jerusalem buttresses the Arab and American claim that Israel is not sovereign in Jerusalem.

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An answer from the Reform movement

Fresnozionism.org
11 February '10
Posted before Shabbat

Recently I posted a copy of a letter I wrote to the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), the Reform movement in America, which criticized it for its support of the New Israel Fund (NIF). I was very pleased to receive a reply from a URJ official which explained its position.

Unfortunately, I don’t have permission to publish the statement. But I can reproduce my response (with some minor editing), which I think will make clear why I was not convinced.

Dear _______,

Thank you for the long and considered response. You are right that you haven’t convinced me. Here’s why:

1) Let’s dismiss some straw men. I don’t know who said it, but the idea that ‘without the NIF there would be no Goldstone report’ is preposterous and I certainly don’t hold this position. I also do not think that nothing the NIF does has value; they do make grants to numerous worthwhile groups in addition to the 16 in question. Finally, I was very happy to see Rabbi [Eric] Yoffie’s denunciation of the Goldstone report, and do not doubt your love of Israel or commitment to Jewish values.

2) Regarding the numbers, I deliberately didn’t mention the 92% figure in my letter in order to avoid getting into an arithmetic contest. What Im Tirtzu claimed was that 92% of the footnotes from non-governmental Israeli sources which were judged negative, came from the 16 NGOs. This is correct — or if it’s wrong, we can still say ‘the great majority’. No, they were not entirely responsible for the Goldstone report — but they contributed mightily, especially when you consider the extra weight given to an Israeli source accusing the IDF of crimes.

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Letter to the Reform movement

Fresnozionism.org
08 February '10

I’m a member of a Reform Jewish congregation. I wrote the following letter to Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Union for Reform Judaism, and Rabbi David Saperstein, head of its “Religious Action Center”. I also sent a copy to our rabbi and the president of the congregation. If you are a Reform Jew in the US, you should do the same:

February 8, 2010

Dear Rabbi Saperstein and Rabbi Yoffie,

I was shocked to see that the Reform Movement – in the person of Rabbi Saperstein – has leapt to the defense of the New Israel Fund (NIF), after it was revealed that almost all of the negative ‘evidence’ from Israeli sources in the slanderous Goldstone report came from 16 NIF-supported non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Although this incident has propelled the NIF into the public eye in Israel, the fact is that the NIF, with its annual budget of $32 million, has been funding numerous groups which are part of the ongoing campaign against the Jewish state for years. The independent organization NGO Monitor wrote,

(Read full letter)
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To URJ: Israel is not the USA

FresnoZionism.org
29 October 09

News item:

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — A newly restructured and slimmed down Union for Reform Judaism will focus on interfaith relations and the rights of Israeli Arabs at its biennial convention Nov. 4-8 in Toronto…

“The union has long held that Israel should live up to its Jewish values and its democratic values for all citizens,” said Rabbi Elliott Kleinman, director of Advancing Reform Judaism, a position created this summer to coordinate Union for Reform Judaism activities worldwide.

With all due respect, this is not an appropriate path for an American Jewish denomination to take.

There’s no doubt that there’s inequality in the treatment of the Arab minority in Israel. The average American, on hearing this, will think: it’s just like our own civil rights struggles. Israeli Arabs are like African-Americans, and the solution is just to force Israel, like Mississippi, to give them their rights.

It is nothing like that. Not at all.

For one thing, some of the perceived differences between Jewish and Arab towns may not be due to discrimination. If a road in an Arab town isn’t paved, is it because the money hasn’t been allocated or because the mayor of the Arab town has different priorities, like projects benefiting members of his own clan?

For another, Canada and Mexico are not populated by hostile cousins of our African-Americans. The US has not recently fought several major and numerous minor wars with them. Mexican and Canadian blacks are not firing rockets into our cites, kidnapping our soldiers or infiltrating our borders to blow us up.

Israeli Arabs are not descended from slaves (unless some of them were slaves of other Muslims), and they had the ability to vote from 1948, before many American blacks did. There was no Reconstruction and counter-Reconstruction, no Jim Crow laws, no segregated buses or lunch counters. There is no tradition of lynching Arabs who look at Jewish women — the lynching that sticks in my mind happened to Jewish reservists. And there is no long history of terrorism by African-Americans.

African-Americans are not demanding that the US change its flag or its national anthem, or that a ‘black caucus’ have a veto power over all acts of Congress. They are not demanding a change in our national identity.

There have been riots by African-Americans in our cities — after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr., after the Rodney King beating, etc. It’s clear where the frustration that led to these riots came from, even if there was a criminal element that may have exploited the chaos.

There have been Arab riots, too. There was a ‘riot’ in 1834 in Tzfat, in which an entire Jewish community was destroyed. Arabs have rioted periodically in response to incitement about the al-Aqsa Mosque. This happened in 1929, when hundreds of Jews were murdered, long before there was an Israel to ‘discriminate’ against them; it happened in 2000 after Yasser Arafat threw Israel’s offer of a sovereign state back in its face; and it happened a couple of weeks ago. The politically correct view is that this happens because Arabs are ‘frustrated’ about being ’second class citizens’, but what they are actually frustrated about is not being in possession of all of Jerusalem (and Israel).

There is plenty of tension between Jews and Arabs in Israel, but it is only to a small extent a question of civil rights. A whole lot of it has to do with a trend for Arab citizens of Israel to more and more identify as ‘Palestinians’, not just alienated from but actively hostile to the Jewish state. Unsurprisingly, the solution does not lie in — why does this seem so familiar? — forcing Israel to accept Arab demands.

It’s incredibly arrogant and insulting when Rabbi Kleinman (above) calls for Israel to “live up to its Jewish values and its democratic values for all citizens,” implying that Israel does not live up to said values.

But what word characterizes liberal American Jews better than ‘arrogant’? The J Street approach, that a bunch of ‘progressive’ American Jews can and should tell the democratically elected government of Israel how it ought to act — during a time that is probably no less perilous than any since 1948 – is an example.

Another is the New Israel Fund, which collects money from well-meaning American Jews and uses it to support groups that are actually working to destroy the Jewish state, also in the name of ‘civil rights’.

Americans — including Jews — don’t understand Israel very well, and insist on applying American paradigms where they don’t fit. How can you discuss the relationship between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel without considering the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict, or indeed, the 100-year Arab war against Israel?

Lest they make fools of themselves and hurt Israel at the same time, I suggest to the URJ that their people concentrate their efforts on helping poor people and solving social problems here in the USA. That’s enough to keep them busy for years.

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