Two letters from American Jews to the Prime Minister

Fresnozionism.org..
04 April 13..

Recently, a group of American Jews, including Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ);Rabbi David Ellenson, President of the URJ’s Hebrew Union College and Jewish Institute of Religion; Rabbi Eric Yoffie, previous URJ head; and Rabbi David Saperstein of the URJ’s Religious Action Center, signed a letter to Israel’s PM Netanyahu. Joining them were several prominent Jewish philanthropists, academics and liberal politicians.

The letter lauds President Obama’s ‘leadership’ for helping to bring about Netanyahu’s apology to Turkey over the Mavi Marmara affair, which I and others believe to be a disastrous mistake.

And — almost incredibly, given the recent history of Israeli withdrawals and concessions answered only by war, terrorism and further demands — the letter has the chutzpah to call for Israel to make “painful territorial sacrifices for the sake of peace.”

This point of view may have made sense thirty years ago, but the world, as they say, has moved on, with the rise of Hamas and its violent takeover of Gaza, the second Intifada, the 2006 Lebanon war and consequent re-arming of Hizballah, the abrogation of the Oslo accords by the PLO, the ascent of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Iranian nuclear program, the civil war in Syria … need I go on?

As always, the letter fallaciously conflates actual peace with the signing of a ‘peace’ agreement between Israel and the PLO and concomitant concessions and withdrawals by Israel.

The endorsement of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish denomination in America, placed on this piece of obsequious stupidity is not surprising, considering that Rabbi Jacobs was an activist in the phony ‘pro-Israel’ group J Street as well as the New Israel Fund before being selected to head the URJ. Yet again the liberal Jewish establishment demonstrates that support for President Obama trumps concern for Israel’s survival.

The Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), a conservative advocacy group which supports US political candidates and policies favorable to Israel, put it remarkably well in its own letter to Netanyahu, which I reproduce here:

Dear Prime Minister Netanyahu:

We know you don’t need our advice on how to handle the peace process – but given the decision by a group of self-described American Jewish leaders to call for you to make “painful territorial sacrifices,” we felt it appropriate to convey our own thoughts on the matter.

Be assured that they don’t speak for us or for a majority of Americans. We not only question the wisdom of their advice, we question their standing to issue such an admonition to a democratically-elected prime minister whose job is not to assuage the political longings of 100 American Jews, but to represent – and ensure the security of – the Israeli people.

Demagoguery at its finest

Seth Frantzman
Terra Incognita/JPost
09 February '10

In early January it was reported that famed architect Frank Gehry had ended his participation in the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s project to build a Museum of Tolerance in downtown Jerusalem. It is the latest in a controversial saga that has united old Muslim Jerusalemite families, Arab protesters and Reform Jews in attempts to stop the project. In April 2004, a groundbreaking was held to inaugurate construction. The museum was slated to be built atop an eyesore of a parking lot that abutted a disused cemetery that was the site of overgrown weeds, trash, illicit meetings and drunks. Its graves lay in a state of extreme neglect.

When rumors circulated that, in the course of removing the parking lot, skeletons were discovered, people began to take notice. Reports speak of the cemetery containing “long-ago associates of the prophet Muhammad.” Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism and not usually an expert on the historical geography of the Holy City or its Muslims, claimed it was “a plot of land where Muslims have been burying their dead for most of the last 800 years.”

Ya’acov Yehoshua (father of A.B. Yehoshua) wrote in 1950 that the cemetery contained “70,000 of the Muslim fighters who were in Saladin al-Ayoubi’s army.”

In general, media reports have had shocking headlines, such as the Independent’s “Israel plans to build ‘museum of tolerance’ on Muslim graves.” Had photos accompanied the reports, the public might have realized the existing cemetery, including such noticeable graves as that of former Ottoman governor Ahmed Agha Duzdar, was being left untouched.

Supporters of the museum claim an 1894 Shari’a court ruled that the sanctity of the cemetery could be lifted. In 1928, the Palace Hotel, whose investors included Haj Amin al-Husseini, was given the right by the Higher Islamic Council to build on a site next to the cemetery. When ancient tombs were discovered in laying the foundations of the hotel, Husseini, who was also the mufti of Jerusalem, “ruled that any bones could simply be removed and issued a gag order for the entire operation.”

The hotel was turned over to the State of Israel in 1948 as absentee property. In 1964 the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem declared the “location was so old it was no longer sacred.” During the 1960s, a parking lot was paved over a small portion of the cemetery. In 1992 that part was given to the municipality. Haggai Elias, a former municipal spokesman, claims that “in Islam, after 25 years the sanctity wears off.”

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