The Stealth Legitimacy of J-Street

by Lori Lowenthal Marcus
http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/05/07/the-stealthy-legtimacy-of-j-street/

Did you know that J Street – which is, please, let’s acknowledge it already, a political lobbying organization – is launching a new national election year initiative? They have plans to train its supporters to lobby for the candidates they support, and ensure the defeat of candidates supported by “right-wing Republican” Jews in this year’s presidential election. Perhaps that doesn’t surprise you, but what if you learned that some of those political training sessions were taking place in your local synagogues (Chicago and San Francisco), or Jewish community centers (Nashville and Minneapolis), or even your local Federation building (Philadelphia)? A recent email from Carinne Luck, J Street’s Vice President for Campaigns, announced the launch of a new J Street initiative, “Future of Pro-Israel.” Luck describes this purely political, election year initiative as J Street’s effort to drive a new course in “national and communal politics.” Luck labels it a direct response to donations by two Jewish millionaires to two political organizations of Republican candidates for US president. J Street makes no effort to conceal where donations to counter Republican support are supposed to go, but let’s spell it out: if you oppose people supporting Republican candidates, including the man who is the presumptive Republican nominee, where does one suppose your financial support is going to go? Here’s a hint: it’s going to an eight letter word starting with D, and it isn’t Dinosaur. This is a free country, and if J Street reveals itself honestly as a purely political advocate for Democratic candidates, they have the right to do so. But J Street is succeeding in having it both ways, by doing pure politics but cloaking itself with the hecksher of the official Jewish community – their buildings, their patina of charity and good works – in order to advance its purely partisan political goal. When you click on the link to find J Street’s new initiative in your community, you learn several things: (1) the effort is solely part of J Street’s lobbying, advocacy and campaign arms, not the one that is bound by the same rules that bind Federations, JCCs and synagogues; (2) J Street calls itself the “political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans”; (3) several of the descriptions make it clear it is an intensive lobbying campaign to support political candidates who share J Street’s vision; and (4) some of the places where these intensely political, lobbying training efforts are being held are in our Jewish communal homes, which are limited by federal law and community consensus from engaging in lobbying or political campaigning. For example, J Street Philadelphia is holding its Political Initiative launch at the Philadelphia Federation building, although the event is sponsored only by its political entities – those that are permitted to engage in lobbying and campaigning – and not the tax-exempt arm. Not only that, but even on its Facebook page, J Street Philadelphia labels itself only a political organization. In most other cities, the J Street lobbying launch is being held in private homes, which makes sense. But while it appears only Philadelphia is allowing its Federation building to be used to launch this lobbying effort, there are some cities in which the Jewish Community Centers and some synagogues have allowed these lobbying campaigns to take place. The nearly identical language used to describe most of the local efforts focuses on action to be taken during this “election season,” and includes training for being “on the front lines of voter engagement in this important election year.” Should Jewish Federations or Jewish Community Centers or synagogues host one-sided political events or lobbying efforts? Of course not. Those entities need to remain neutral so that all Jews feel welcome in their communal centers. And from a financial standpoint, those Jewish communal entities must also avoid any semblance of political favor because the only way such entities are created, exist and grow is through funding from donors, in exchange for which the donors can deduct the value of the donations when reporting their income for tax purposes. And that is why, usually, religious institutions are loathe to allow anything that smells political, particularly when it comes to election season, within their gates. Even the appearance of supporting a particular politician or lobbying effort can create serious problems. So why are some Jewish organizations allowing their facilities to be used for J Street’s unabashedly political initiative? The answer in Philadelphia probably reflects the thought process that took place in other Jewish communities, which was twofold: (1) they assumed the event was not political and (2) Jewish institutions strive to be inclusive. Why did Philadelphia think the event was not going to be political? Because the decision makers there, at least initially, did not see the original announcement of J Street’s Political Initiative, and because many think of J Street as a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, the same as are Federations, JCRCs, and the other alphabet soup of Jewish organizations. You see, by originally presenting itself as simply another Jewish organization, but with a decidedly leftist orientation, the J Street national, and then their local affiliates, were able to participate in Jewish communal life as if they were just another non-profit, pro-Israel, Jewish organization. But J Street* is now an overtly political entity, working for political candidates who support its causes and working to create candidates who will champion those causes. It is a lobbying effort that came in the front door of our communities wearing its nonprofit, tax-exempt status, but is now operating within our gates in its political, lobbying, campaign incarnation. And that feint leaves our Jewish entities’ tax status, and certainly its nonpartisan stance, vulnerable, while J Street, which gave subtle but sufficient indications of what it is really doing, with little to hide. Can you imagine any synagogue, JCC or Federation allowing, say, the Republican Jewish Committee to launch a lobbying efforts in their buildings? Or a Tea Party planning event? Of course not. So if not them, then why this J Street Political Initiative? Because it succeeded in achieving stealth legitimacy, to our peril. * The J Street Education Fund is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization for education and outreach, but that arm of J Street is not involved in this new initiative. Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the president of Z STREET and the executive committee chair of the National Conference on Jewish Affairs

Jews unwelcome on campus Op-ed: Western universities becoming frightening bastions of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish hostility

11:08 , 05.06.12

Print click here to enlarge text				Jews unwelcome on campus Op-ed: Western universities becoming frightening bastions of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish hostility Giulio Meotti From the outside, Western faculties appear as genteel oases of wisdom and knowledge. In truth, institutions of higher education are becoming brutal offspring of anti-Jew hatred. Famous faculties that have been an historical cradle of European civilization are sacrificing freedom and Israel to barbarism and obscurantism. Even in America the gloves are coming off. The Institute for Jewish & Community Research in San Francisco recently published a report titled "Alone on the quad: Understanding Jewish Student Isolation on Campus,” one of the most comprehensive surveys of its kind. More than 40% of students confirm anti-Semitism on their campus; some 41% of students have encountered anti-Israel remarks made in class by professors. Protest Florida: Pro-Palestinian group 'evicts' Jewish students / Ynet Some 200 Jewish students attending Atlantic University receive fake eviction notice sent by pro-Palestinian activists Full story Numbers are also telling in Europe. While boasting large numbers of Muslim students and students from Arab countries, European universities count very few Jewish or pro-Israeli students among their population. Whereas 15-20% of young people matriculating in America’s top universities are Jewish, in Europe only a few faculties claim even a tenth of this figure. Today, we are witnessing the worst wave of anti-Israel hatred since April 6, 2002, when 123 academicians signed an open letter, published in Britain’s The Guardian, calling for a moratorium on all cultural links with Israel. Recently, the University of Paris VIII closed its doors for two days to avoid a harder stance about a planned conference against the Jewish State. Elsewhere, while septuagenarian Israeli novelist and Holocaust survivor Esther Orner has been banned from the University of Provence, Hezbollah officials spoke at the Sorbonne University. Meanwhile, Rotterdam’s Erasmus University recently hosted events in which Israel was equated with South Africa’s apartheid regime. 'Israel absolute taboo in Europe' But the case of Pieter van der Horst, the professor of Early Christian History and Judaism at Utrecht University, is emblematic of the fear and hatred dominating Dutch academia. The pioneering researcher wanted to argue in his valedictory lecture that “the Islamization of European anti-Semitism is one of the most frightening developments of the past decades.” However, his university’s chancellor prevented him from doing so by censoring the lecture in advance. “It should have been my last lecture”, van der Horst told me. “In the Middle East of today, the demonization of Jews has reached unprecedented levels. Jews are accused of every evil under the sun, from cannibalism to the attacks on the Twin Towers, to causing the tsunami, the bird flu, AIDS and so on. The University’s committee claimed it was too dangerous to give the complete lecture because it might trigger violent reactions from ‘well-organized Muslim student groups.’ I decided to submit an expurgated text because I did not want to expose myself and others to potential danger.” “I capitulated to self censorship,” he added. “In the country of Anne Frank we accept that today the Jews don’t walk in the streets with their religious symbols. We accept that in Holland synagogues are protected by the police. What will be the end of all this?” Dozens of academicians just signed a petition condemning Liverpool University’s invitation to Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UK, Alon Roth-Snir. Meanwhile, students at Edinburgh University voted in favor of the boycott of Israeli goods. At Queen’s University in Belfast, Palestinian militants violently attacked Israeli attaché Solon Solomon. Benny Morris, professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, was assaulted last year on a street by a group of Muslims before a conference at the London School of Economics. When Morris finished his lesson on Israel’s war of 1948, he was unceremoniously bundled away through the back exit of the faculty, past the garbage cans, out of fear for his safety if he left the building in the normal manner. “I felt like a Jew in Berlin in the ‘20s”, a shaken Morris told me. “Israel is an absolute taboo in Europe. At Cambridge, my class was canceled after intimidation by Islamist groups. And I think that it will only get worse.” Matthias Küntzel, a German political scientist, was invited by Leeds University for three days of seminars. His lecture on “Hitler’s Legacy: Islamic Anti-Semitism in the Middle East” was expected to draw a large audience. But when Küntzel arrived at the British faculty, he was informed that his lecture had been cancelled “on security grounds.” 'Peace with Israel is a crime' Last autumn, Israeli professor Ronen Cohen, whose “sin” is that of teaching at Ariel University, was expelled from a German academic conference in Berlin (he was later reinstated after a storm of protest.) Elsewhere, Spain’s Housing Ministry disqualified Ariel University from participating in the international competition on solar power because of its address in Samaria. According to a poll commissioned by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 62% of university students say they do not want Jewish classmates. These numbers are as surprising as they are worrying: the most anti-Semitic people in Spain are supposedly the most educated. A prominent figure in Belgium’s Jewish community, Jacques Brotchi, just resigned from the board of University of Brussels after denouncing grave anti-Semitic incidents within the campus. A study published by Professor Marc Elchardus of the Flemish University showed that 50% of Muslim students harbor anti-Semitic sentiments. In Italy popular anti-Semitic websites called for the “blacklisting” of Jewish professors. An Israeli student at the University of Turin, Amit Peer, confessed to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that “the Jews here are hiding their own identity because they risk becoming a target”. Israeli attaché Shai Cohen has been prevented from speaking at Pisa University after a violent attack by students, who called him “butcher.” The Israeli ambassador, Ehud Gol, fled Florence University after a similar “protest.” A shoe was hurled at Israeli ambassador Benny Dagan while he was giving a lecture at the Stockholm University and a Jewish student, Anja Savosnic, was forced to give up Hebrew studies at the University of Oslo due to anti-Semitic attacks from fellow students. Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz was banned from Norwegian universities because of his views on Israel. In an article titled “Judar, ta avstånd,” Stockholm University Professor of Philosophy Torbjörn Tännsjö argued that Jews should distance themselves from the State of Israel, or otherwise they might be subjected to anti-Semitism. In 1936, at the beginning of a new wave of terrorism against the Jews, Zionist leader Berl Katznelson wrote: “We are called upon to defend ourselves not only from the physical marauders but also from the spiritual marauders.” Today the new spiritual marauders are based in Western faculties. They want to bring the war to the home of every Jew. It’s an academic final solution epitomized by a sign on the walls of London University: “Peace with Israel is a crime.” Giulio Meotti, a journalist with Il Foglio, is the author of the book A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter Back

‘FDR used the Jews’

By RAFAEL MEDOFF

05/03/2012 21:56

Benzion Netanyahu’s eyewitness report on America’s response to the Holocaust.

http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=268630

Over the years, I had the opportunity to conduct a number of lengthy interviews with Prof. Benzion Netanyahu, who passed away early Monday, concerning his activities in the United States in the 1940s, when he was executive director of the American wing of the Revisionist Zionist movement. The previously unpublished interview below took place in June 2009, as I was working on my book, Herbert Hoover and the Jews: The Origins of the “Jewish Vote” and Bipartisan Support for Israel (coauthored with Prof. Sonja Schoepf Wentling), which was published last month. In your view, why were American Jewish leaders so cautious during the 1940s? Part of the problem was how they saw themselves. In their contacts with president Roosevelt, Jewish leaders thought of themselves as weak or helpless. Take, for example, Rabbi Stephen Wise – leader of the American Zionist movement, the American Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress. He thought of himself as a servant of president Roosevelt. He referred to Roosevelt as “chief,” and he really meant it that way – Roosevelt as was the chief, and Wise was the servant. Wise was happy to just follow along with whatever Roosevelt wanted. He was content as long as FDR just remembered his name or gave him a few minutes of his time every once in a while. What about the Jewish advisers within Roosevelt’s inner circle? FDR used Jews if they served some purpose that he needed. Samuel Rosenman was useful to him as a speechwriter. Henry Morgenthau Jr. was useful to him as secretary of the Treasury. Only a certain kind of a Jew could reach that position in Roosevelt’s administration – the kind of Jew who would not talk about Jewish issues or problems. FDR used the Jews, but there was no room in his heart for the plight of the Jewish people. In his mind, the suffering of Europe’s Jews was not included in the “Four Freedoms,” the four great principles for which America was fighting in World War II. Roosevelt had no time for the problems of the Jews. (Prof. Netanyahu’s assessment was privately shared, at the time, even by many within the Jewish establishment. Coincidentally, on the morning of our conversation, I spent some time doing research at the Central Zionist Archives, and came upon the transcript of a meeting in 1944 between Nahum Goldmann and the Jewish Agency Executive, including David Ben-Gurion. Goldmann, who was cochairman of the World Jewish Congress as well as the agency’s representative in Washington, had come to Jerusalem to brief the agency’s leaders on the political situation in the US capital. Goldmann told them Roosevelt was only “superficially sympathetic” to the suffering of European Jewry. He said, “It is impossible to educate the president, because he will only let you see him once every six months, for 30 minutes, and he spends the first 10 minutes chatting and telling stories.”) Just before Yom Kippur in 1943, the Bergson Group (led by activist Hillel Kook, who was known as Peter Bergson) and the Vaad Hahatzalah (an Orthodox rescue committee based in New York City) mobilized more than 400 rabbis to march to the White House to plead for rescue. The president refused to meet with a delegation of their leaders. Later, a columnist for one of the Yiddish newspapers wrote that if 400 priests had come to the White House, the president would not have refused to see them. Was there indeed a double standard applied to Jewish concerns? To answer that question, just consider how the international community would have responded if millions of Englishmen or Frenchmen were the ones who were being annihilated, rather than millions of Jews. Would the world have just stood by, quietly? Would you have needed to have protest groups organizing marches and taking out newspaper ads in order to wake up the world’s conscience? No. The nations of the world would have immediately risen in angry protest, without any prompting. They would never would have allowed such a thing to continue. But when the Jews were the victims, it was a different story. It was as if the Jews were untouchables. It was as if the nations did not want to besmirch their hands by touching the Jews. What could American Jewish leaders have done to change Roosevelt’s position? Roosevelt understood the language of political power. Jewish leaders should have done, and could have done, what my colleagues and I did – we went to the Republicans. And then Roosevelt got the message. We built relationships with Republican members of Congress, and leaders of the Republican Party such as [former president Herbert] Hoover and [1936 presidential nominee Alf] Landon, and we lobbied them before the Republican Convention in 1944. They put a plank in their party platform that year calling for “unrestricted immigration and land ownership” for Jews in Palestine and it called for making Palestine a “free and democratic commonwealth” for the Jewish people. That was the first time one of America’s political parties took such a position. Stephen Wise said he was deeply embarrassed that the Republicans were trying, in his view, to upstage the president on Palestine. But the Democrats responded by putting language in their platform – this is the first time they did this – supporting “unrestricted Jewish immigration and colonization” and establishment of a “free and democratic Jewish commonwealth.” Was Congressman Emanuel Celler the key figure in convincing the Democratic Party to do that? Some of the Jewish congressmen were very good. Some were not. Celler was one of the best. I had many meetings with Celler during those years. He was very friendly and supportive. Sometimes when we discussed with him an idea for a newspaper ad, or a resolution in Congress, he would want to use language even stronger than we proposed. He was not afraid to criticize the president on Jewish issues, even though he and Roosevelt were from the same party. Celler was a courageous man. How would you characterize Sol Bloom, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who was the most powerful Jew in Congress? Bloom was a very small man, a narrow-minded politician. He was worried about keeping his powerful position. He stayed close to the State Department and Roosevelt, and did what they wanted, so he could keep his position. Would you say there was a certain similarity between Bloom’s attitude and that of Jewish leaders such as Rabbi Wise? They were both in a position to push the administration, but they were both afraid to do so. If American Jews had pressured FDR with regard to opening Palestine, he could have compelled the British to put aside the White Paper so Jews could escape from Europe to Palestine. (In his biography of Wise, Prof. Melvin Urofsky describes one of the rare instances in which Wise pressed FDR – and got results. Hearing, in 1936, that Britain was planning to restrict Jewish immigration to Palestine, Wise asked Roosevelt to intervene. The fact that it was an election year gave Wise some implicit political leverage. Urofsky explains that Roosevelt, “alert to the potential political benefits” (meaning, a chance to impress Jewish voters at no cost), let London know he would be unhappy if Palestine’s doors were shut. The British, anxious to preserve relations with Washington, backed down. It was a very significant accomplishment. Three years later, the British would impose the White Paper, “but in the intervening years (1936- 1939),” Urofsky points out, “more than 50,000 Jews, mostly from Germany and Austria, were able to [enter Palestine] –men, women, and children who would undoubtedly have perished had the 1939 White Paper been issued three years earlier.”) What was the response of grassroots American Jews to the news from Europe, as compared to the response of the leadership? Certainly the grassroots Jews responded in a more heartfelt way than the leaders. And the lower they were on the economic ladder, the more they seemed to care. Our work had the support of the poor people, the little newspaper vendor on the corner, or the kosher butcher or the school teacher. Those who were better off were more assimilated, and they paid very little attention to what was happening. They slept soundly at night, because they closed their eyes to the Jewish tragedy. This is something I could never understand. How could they just turn away and continue to go about their business as they usually did? How could they still eat in the finest restaurants, when the Jews in the ghettos were starving? How could they sleep at night? There were times I literally could not sleep at night because of what was happening in Europe, and I could not understand how anyone else could. Was that also true of Jewish leaders? Jewish leaders, too, were going about their business, and involved in all kinds of issues. And they probably were sleeping soundly at night. They did not understand the full urgency of the situation. And they had other problems, such as the problem of their big egos, especially in the case of someone like Stephen Wise. I had a meeting with him in 1940, shortly after I first arrived in the United States. He knew my father, Rabbi Nathan Mileikowsky, who was a prominent speaker for the Keren Hayesod and other Zionist causes. When I sat down with Wise, I began speaking in Hebrew. I looked upon him as if he was the chief rabbi of America, so I assumed that of course he would know how to speak Hebrew. He answered me in English – he said, “As a matter of principle, I do not speak Hebrew in private conversation.” In fact, as I later discovered, he could not speak Hebrew at all – he just could not stand the idea that anybody might think that he could not speak Hebrew. He was a bluffer. A man who was so shallow and petty was not suited to be a Jewish leader, especially one who had the responsibility to lead American Jewry in responding to the Holocaust. It is a mark of the poverty of the Jewish people that these were its leaders in those terrible times. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.

Holocaust Remembrance Day Siren in Israel

'nuff said

74 DEMOCRATS JOIN RADICAL GROUP TO FORCE ISRAEL INTO CONCESSIONS INCLUDING TN REPS STEVE COHEN AND JIM COOPER

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2012/04/12/74-Democrats-Join-Radical-Group-to-Force-Israel-Into-Concessions

by JOEL B. POLLAK 3 days ago 119POST A COMMENT

In the midst of ongoing rocket terror attacks against Israel fromGaza and even Egypt, as civil war rages in Syria, and as the threat from Iran approaches the point of no return, 74 Democrats in the House of Representatives have joined the radical, George Soros-funded J Street pressure group in supporting the Obama administration's attempt to force Israel into making risky concessions to the Palestinians.

J Street calls itself pro-Israel, but has frequently taken positions--from supporting the libelous Goldstone Report and opposing Iran sanctions--that are quite clearly anti-Israel. It has lied about its funding from Soros, given a platform to radicals pushing for boycotts of Israel, cheered confrontation between the U.S. and Israeli governments, and singled out Jewish charities for criticism (while leaving Islamic charities alone).

Over time, and given the cold shoulder from the Israeli government, J Street has attempted to moderate its positions somewhat. That led Israel to send an envoy to J Street's annual conference this year, after refusing to do so in years past. Much to the surprise and chagrin of J Street's leaders and members, Deputy Ambassador Barukh Bina delivered a rebuke to the organization:

In this spirit of democracy and openness, I have to broach an issue with you, for J Street is not just an NGO that publishes a magazine and states an opinion in the free market if ideas. It is an organization that lobbies congress. You practice not only free speech but a legislative agenda. You don’t only publish op-eds, you bring members of Congress to the region. I respectfully submit that this relatively new role lays responsibilities before you which I am not certain have always been adequately considered. Thus, when you bring lawmakers to Israel, please make sure that they come out with a full picture.You may be critical of settlements, but if you choose to show the most extreme, it behooves you to present the greater mass of moderates as well. If you show them negative aspects of checkpoints, please show as well the catastrophe and grief of terror victims. If you show them Israel’s failings, show them also our triumphs such as the aliyah of the Jewish community of Ethiopia.  I urge you to strive for balance, so that these lawmakers may become friends of Israel who might be critical, and not critics of Israel who are not friends.

I welcome the evolution in J-Street's position, which brought about the recognition of the ultimate need to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear capabilities. I hope that this will be followed by adopting President Obama's policy that all the options, including a military effort, are on the table.

Likewise, I welcome your position against one-sided resolutions on settlements, and I hope that you will never go back to opposing a veto cast by the Obama administration, like you did in January of 2011.

I would like to express our appreciation of J Street’s active repudiation of BDS, and of your activity on campus to help stem this insidious ideology. Our shared view is that BDS is not a form of criticism, but a blatant, though veiled attack. I hope that the leaders of the BDS movement will not be welcomed at J Street, and that all calls for boycott will continue to be refuted. They use such appearances as a means of gaining legitimacy, and whatever actually happens in your fora, they report to their supports that they were greeted at J Street with enthusiasm and consent. Please don’t let yourselves be used. They aren’t honest players.

J Street is a tax-exempt organization, but is quite obviously a Democrat front. In the 2008 election, the group helped engineer the un-inviting of Sarah Palin from an important rally against Iran's nuclear program in New York. In 2012, the organization and its supporters are attempting to cover for President Barack Obama's dismal record on Israel by attacking positions adopted by the Republican candidates.

The group's latest effort is the so-called "Cohen-Yarmuth-Connolly Letter," which calls on the Obama administration to keep pushing Israel towards accepting a two-state solution--as if Israel's acceptance of, and enthusiasm for, that solution were ever in doubt. This week, a Palestinian official called for the rival Hamas and Fatah factions to unite to destroy Israel; Hillary Clinton's response has been to give them more money.

J Street's Cohen-Yarmuth Connolly letter also sets up a straw man, attacking "those calling for a 'one-state solution' under which Jews would soon become a minority in their own historic homeland." Not only is that prediction based on faulty demographic data, but it also fails to identify a single one of "those" who are campaigning for a "one-state solution" (hint: they're not pro-Israel).

Rep. Allen West caused controversy this week when he suggested that 80 members of the Democratic caucus were communists. He may only have been slightly off, both in ideology and in numbers. There are clearly close to 80 Democrats who are prepared to sacrifice the security--and, potentially, the existence--of the state of Israel for the sake of Obama's re-election campaign. 

Frightening:Jewish Values in 2012

This recent poll of Jews in the USA by the Public Religion Research Institute is very telling...and sad...and should make us all the firmer in our resolve to get the word out with NCJA.

"...When asked which qualities are most important to their Jewish identity, nearly half (46%) of American Jews cite a commitment to social equality, twice as many as cite support for Israel (20%) or religious observance (17%).  About one-in-ten volunteered that a sense of cultural heritage and tradition (6%) or a general set of values (3%) are most important to their Jewish identity..."


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New Film Exposes Northeastern’s Radical Holocaust Program The "see no evil" response from Northeastern's provost is part of the problem.

Americans for Peace and Tolerance has released a documentary on Northeastern’s Holocaust Awareness Week, and Charles Jacobs has published a column in the Jewish Advocate summarizing his criticisms of it. In response, Northeastern Provost Stephen Director has complained that Jacobs “cherry-picked his examples”:

The present-day facts are clear: Northeastern is a vibrant academic community where people of all backgrounds and faiths come together in pursuit of knowledge.

In dismissing a dozen examples of intellectual and moral abuse of the Holocaust program at Northeastern as “cherry-picked,” Director expresses either a lack of awareness or a dishonesty about the nature of the intellectual and moral stakes. That Jacobs could “cherry-pick” any examples of people using this venue at Northeastern to make the morally sadistic comparison of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians with the Nazis’ treatment of the Jews represents a failure of judgment on a colossal scale......

This is not just a Jewish question. What the “Left” has done to Israel, it does to every other Western nation and culture: it insists we liberals, in order to prove our good will, adopt Islamism’s demonizing narratives about the infidel, especially the Jew. The consequences are terrible for those like we Jewish and non-Jewish liberals who, in a paroxysm of self-critical good will, accept this dishonest and vicious story about ourselves. But they are in some ways worse for Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim culture, where our acceptance of these hate- and violence-filled lethal narratives strengthens the grip that the producers of this war-mongering propaganda have on their own people. And in the process, peace is the first and last casualty.

...

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The Brain Dead Israeli Left | FrontPage Magazine

The Brain Dead Israeli Left | FrontPage Magazine

The Israeli left is dead. It’s politically dead, conceptually dead and brain dead. But like the fabled Norwegian blue parrot, there is an industry dedicated to assuring us that it’s still alive and well, just pining for the peace process.

The left in Israel is one of the few in the world to exist on foreign subsidies. Without generous funds from the European Union, the State Department, George Soros and assorted members of the Shadow Party, the last remnants of the Israeli left would have packed up their suitcases, their degrees in art philosophy and their framed photos of Amos Oz and Leon Trotsky and moved to Paris or San Francisco.

Let’s Make This Clear: Jordan is Palestine

Listen, Palestinian Arabs, If you want to march, march on Jordan.

By Matthew M. Hausman, Att’y
[Matthew M. Hausman is a trial attorney and writer who lives and works in Connecticut. A former journalist He is also one of the people who I have co-opted to support this cause.]

The “Jordan-is-Palestine” option for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict is an idea that, despite history and logic, was beaten into silence by Israel’s enemies and detractors. Critics denounced the concept as preposterous, reactionary and counterproductive.

And yet, the idea has been resurrected from within Jordan itself. There can be no dispute that Jordan was created in a sovereign vacuum on land that had comprised most of the Palestine Mandate. However, its creation as Transjordan in 1921 satisfied a geopolitical need unencumbered by a Palestinian national myth that had not yet been invented.

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New Documentary about Israel is a left-wing hit piece "Five Broken Cameras"

At Sundance, view of Israel ranges from critical to abysmal

"....The film (Five Broken Pieces) is one-sided and the impact is devastating. No mention is made of the more than 1,000 Israelis who died in Palestinian terrorist attacks in the decade before there was a West Bank security fence, no mention of the soldier who lost an eye in 2005 when he was struck by a rock thrown by a Bil’in resident. We never hear an Israeli commander explain why the IDF chose its tactics...."

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Five Broken Cameras Shown As Part Of Nashville Film Festival at David Lipscomb University

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Israeli Government’s Gift to J Street: Truth Served Straight Up The address of the embassy's No. 2 sparked a gala dinner tiff, but then former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also got into hot water with the crowd.

The No. 2 at the Israeli Embassy in Washington took the stage at J Street’s gala dinner tonight with a polite, impeccably structured point-by-point barrage of the risks faced by the Jewish state and where the lobbying organization has slipped.
It sparked a battle of sorts at the event, with former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert taking the beginning of his address to slam the Israeli government for sending the diplomat to speak — but then launching into similar points on Iran that provoked the same chilly reaction from the crowd.

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J Street Defends Occupy Wall Street's Anti-Semitism

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/03/21/j-street-clumsy-defense-occupy-wall-street-anti-semitism/


It’s always difficult to untangle when J Street officials actually believe in the anti-Israel policies and anti-Semitic rhetoric that they push and defend, and when they’re just following the commands of donors. The group’s president Jeremy Ben-Ami raised eyebrows by voluntarily injecting himself on the side of anti-Jewish language during the “Israel-Firster” debate, and then later it turned out that J Street had a potential financial incentive to take that stance. On the other hand the group and its partisans seem genuinely enthused about rolling out the red carpet for Peter Beinart and his exhortation to economically suffocate Israelis who don’t live where he tells them. As for J Street’s call on Obama to pressure Israel in the aftermath of the Flotilla even though the Israelis were in the right on self-defense, that simply had an incoherence borne of conflicted priorities.
So it’s impossible to know which dynamic — donor pressure or personal passion — was at work when J Street officials defended Occupy Wall Street from criticism of its disgraceful and extensively documented anti-Semitism. In favor of the donor theory, there’s the fact that J Street funder George Soros backed Occupy. On the side of the labor of love theory, there turn out to be deep sociological, institutional, and personal ties between pro-Occupy radicals and J Street officials – so much so that those radicals are now officially “partnering” with J Street on this weekend’s conference.
Most likely it was a little of Column A and a little of Column B, with J Street officials being genuinely sympathetic but wary about the optics of supporting yet another group of anti-Semites.
The debate revolves around a statement by self-declared “Jewish leaders” who, per the statement title, set out to “Denounce Right-Wing Smears of Occupy Wall Street.” The piece specifically attacked the Emergency Committee for Israel, a J Street  bête noire and a major force behind the electoral wipe out of J Street candidates in the 2010 election. Ben-Ami’s name was one of about a dozen on the bottom of the statement, and the press contact for the entire release was J Street VP Carinne Luck.
The upcoming conference will have a core, recognized, pro-Occupy new media presence. The leftwing Jewschool site recently announced that it was going to “partner with J Street” on the conference, including dispatching sponsored bloggers to cover the events. Jewschool actively pushed Occupy and continues to do so, with the most recent sympathetic post getting published just last week. “We are the 99%,” declared another post. An admittedly inaccurate Google site search for “occupy wall street” turns up over 700 hits.
It turns out that J Street officials and Jewschool officials have demonstrably been cooperating to insulate Occupy. For instance, an early version of J Street’s toe-in-the-water press release was published on a site called Occupy Judaism (later versions had additional press contacts). Daniel Sieradski, founding publisher and former editor-in-chief of Jewschool owns the site. I’d direct you to the original statement on Sieradski’s site but the whole blog was taken down some time this morning, after I searched for it and found it last night. Luckily it’s still cached here.
J Street officials and Jewschool activists have long worked together to paper over the anti-Semitism of Occupy Wall Street, albeit sometimes with each being once removed from their home organizations. It would be hard to think of two more appropriate “partners” for the J Street conference.

A new honorific for Baroness Ashton and the cultured Oxford Professor returns

The True Perpetrators of The Antisemitic Attacks

by Barry Rubin


What a tragic, evil joke. A drive-by shooter in the beautiful, almost magical, city of Toulouse, France, murders three Jewish children and a teacher in front of their school. Various VIPs issue statements about how terrible is this deed, how unspeakable.
And yet at that very moment, the next round of murders, the next slanderous and inciting antisemitic lies are being perpetrated by respectable people and institutions. There is no real soul-searching, no true effort to do better, no serious examination about how the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hysteria is paving the way for murder and fueling dreams of genocide.

The street thugs, fanatics drunk on the interpretations of Islam they are being fed, and the mentally twisted may be pulling the trigger but the distinguished, the powerful, and the honored are providing the ammunition.

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Qaida-linked Islamist wanted to 'avenge Palestinian children'

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=3603

300 French police corner Mohammed Merah, a 24-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origin, in Toulouse apartment • “The Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine,” Merah said, adding that he had uploaded a video of the attack onto the Internet.

Boaz Bismuth, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

Police cordon off the neighborhood in which a standoff with the Toulouse school murder suspect is taking place. | Photo credit: Reuters

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French police launched a pre-dawn raid on a house in Toulouse early Wednesday morning, cornering a man suspected of killing three Jewish schoolchildren, a rabbi and three French paratroopers in three attacks that took place in the southwestern French city and the nearby town of Montauban over the last two weeks.

Gunfire erupted as members of the RAID police special forces team tried to storm an apartment in a residential district of Toulouse in the early morning operation, and at least two officers were wounded, French Interior Minister Claude Gueant said.

Police named the suspect as Mohammed Merah, a 24-year-old Frenchman of Algerian origin, who they said claims to be a member of al-Qaida.

“He claims to be a mujahideen [holy warrior] and to belong to al-Qaida,” Gueant told journalists in Toulouse, adding that the suspect had ties to “people involved in jihadism and Salafism.”

Gueant said the man targeted in the raid had visited Afghanistan and Pakistan, and had shot dead the four to avenge Palestinian children killed in the conflict with Israel and due to France’s military involvement abroad.

“’The Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine,” the killer reportedly said, adding that he had uploaded a video of the attack onto the Internet.

Gueant said the suspect was thought to be armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, a mini-Uzi 9mm machine gun and other handguns, but had thrown a .45 pistol used in seven murders in the previous nine days from a window.

“He is currently in a dialogue with a police official and he says — I do not know if he is telling the truth — that he will hand himself in later in the day,” the minister said, in an interview with the BFM-TV news network. As of 12:30 p.m. (Israel time), however, news reports said the suspect had cut off contact with police negotiators. Authorities were determined to take the suspect alive so he could stand trial.

French authorities said national intelligence had been monitoring Merah for years. He had also been previously arrested on a matter of common law in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold, police said, according to French news agency AFP.

Merah, who was holed up in the Toulouse house during the hours-long standoff, had been speaking with a police negotiator over the course of Wednesday morning before cutting off contact.

Gueant did not say how police had tracked the man down, but said they were talking to his brother at a separate location in connection to the killings. His mother had also been brought to the scene to help negotiate with him.

Heavily armed police in bullet-proof vests and helmets cordoned off the area where the raid was taking place, in a suburb about three kilometers from the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school where Monday’s shooting attack took place. Residents of the besieged building were being evacuated.

Gueant said French President Nicolas Sarkozy had been informed of the raid, which began at 3 a.m. in Toulouse. Sarkozy, campaigning for re-election in a presidential poll in five weeks time, has blamed racism for Monday’s school attack. His handling of the crisis could be a decisive factor in determining the vote.

As events unfolded in Toulouse, Sarkozy said Wednesday that “terrorism will never succeed in fracturing our nation.”

Far-Right candidate and Sarkozy challenger Marine Le Pen decried the attacks as the result of France’s mistaken policy in Afghanistan and said France should wage war against fundamentalist political and religious groups.

“The risk of fundamentalism has been underestimated in our country. Certain political and religious groups are developing in the face of a certain laxness,” she told the i-Tele news channel, questioning the decision to deploy in Afghanistan.

“We must now wage this war against these fundamentalist political and religious groups that are killing our children, that are killing our Christian children, our Christian young men, young Muslim men and Jewish children.”

Paris Grand Mosque Rector Dalil Boubakeur urged France not to stigmatize its Muslims in the wake of the shootings, saying, according to AFP, that “99.9 per cent” of French Muslims were law-abiding citizens and the killings were the work of a tiny “fringe.”

French security forces expanded their hunt for the attacker on Tuesday, using hundreds of officers in their effort, as officials cleared three neo-Nazi soldiers suspected in the case. The three had been discharged from their army unit in 2008 after a picture of them was discovered posing with a Nazi flag and raising their hands in a Nazi salute.

Police released footage from a security camera outside the Jewish school on Tuesday, showing a man on a motorcycle wearing a white helmet, while Gueant said on Tuesday that the murderer arrived at the school with a camera attached to his chest to film the attack. “This proves he lacks sensitivity and is determined, and adds to the tremendous cruelty of his acts. The symptoms of anti-Semitism are always around us and we must be weary of them,” Gueant said.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Paris Chief Prosecutor Francois Molins told reporters that the murderer was cold, calculating, determined, worked alone and appeared to execute pre-mediated plans. Molin said that the investigation had been transferred to a counterterrorism unit, because “racially motivated attacks and attacks of an anti-Semitic nature are also terrorist attacks.”

The chief prosecutor said there was a connection between the murder of a French Muslim soldier in Toulouse on March 11, the murder of two other soldiers of North African descent and wounding of a French soldier from the Carribean Islands on March 15, and the attack at the school. According to Molins, the same gun was used in all three cases and the perpetrator arrived at all three sites on a Yamaha TMAX motorcycle wearing a helmet, indicating it was likely the same man who committed the crimes.

“The murderer does not hesitate to kill his victims at close range, as he did with the soldiers and three of the four school attack victims. We are confronting a man who is very determined and knows there is a broad manhunt taking place to find him. He may act again without hesitation. He has acted each time with a four-day interval,” Molins said.

The French interior minister told Israel Hayom on Tuesday that France was committed to the security of French Jews.

Pierre Basnano, a senior Jewish community leader in Toulouse, promised that security for additional Jewish venues would be bolstered in the coming days.

Meanwhile, also on Wednesday, a package bomb exploded at the Indonesian Embassy in Paris, causing minor damage but no injuries, police and Indonesia’s foreign minister said.

A Paris police official said an employee at the embassy discovered a suspicious package and stepped back in time before it exploded. There was minor damage to a window but no injuries, the official said. The source of the package was not immediately clear.

Asked whether the embassy would be closed, the minister said the embassy would remain vigilant but the bomb would not “deter us from going on with the business of our activities.”

He said it was too early to say whether there was any link between Wednesday’s mail bomb and the attack on the Jewish school in Toulouse.

Protestors Decry Presentation on “Islamophobia” at JCC Over 30 protestors gathered in front of the JCC in Manhattan to express their outrage over a forum entitled “Combating Islamophobia.”

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Protestors Decry Presentation on "Islamophobia" at JCC

Over 30 protestors gathered in front of the JCC in Manhattan to express their outrage over a forum entitled "Combating Islamophobia."

By Phyllis Chesler & Fern Sidman

First Publish: 3/16/2012, 10:07 PM

On Wednesday evening, March 14^th ,over 30 protestors representing both Jewish and human rights organizations gathered in front of the Jewish Community Center on Manhattan's upper west side to express their outrage over a forum entitled "Combating Islamophobia."

Moderated by former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, the panelists included Rabbi Marc Schneier, co-founder of the Foundation For Ethnic Understanding, which fosters "twinning" programs between mosques and synagogues and Imam Shamsi-Ali, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York and the chairman of the Al-Hikmah mosque in Astoria.

Holding aloft signs and banners reading "What Are Muslims Doing for Peace???", "Burning Churches, Honor Murdering Women. Where is the Muslim Protest?", "Sharia Equals Death", "Since 9/11, Radical Islamists Committed 11,961 Attacks, Killed 75,038, Injured 115,255", "Wake Up! Islam's Goal: Destruction of Our Way of Life", "Stop Billions of Saudi Oil Monet Funding Worldwide Radical Islamic Intolerance and Terror", "The Right of Jews to a Jewish State in Israel," "The Right of Muslims to Convert to Other Religions," the protestors took aim at what they perceived to be the hypocrisy that this event represented...............

Barak Warns Iran Nuclear Program Soon to be Strike-Proof

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153920#.T2hqKI6KxIa

Iran's nuclear program will soon be strike-proof, according to Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

By Chana Ya'ar

First Publish: 3/19/2012, 5:55 PM

Ehud Barak

Flash 90

Iran's nuclear proram will soon be strike-proof, according to Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Speaking on Monday to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Barak said the window of opportunity for a military strike is rapidly closing.
The Islamic Republic, he told the committee, is rushing to move its nuclear development facilities underground, and beyond the reach of any attack.
"The world, including the current U.S. administration, understands and accepts that Israel necessarily views the threat differently than they do,” Barak pointed out. “Ultimately Israel is responsible for taking the decisions related to its future, its security and its destiny.”
Iran's nuclear program is “steadily approaching maturation and verging on a 'zone of immunity,' - a position from which the Iranian regime could complete its program without effective disruption, at its convenience,” he added in a statement released by his office to reporters.
Israel's government leaders have been working in concert in recent weeks to accustom the population – and the rest of the world – to the idea that if necessary, due to the short time left before the sites are underground, the Jewish State is ready “go it alone” to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat. The US has bunker busters that could reach deep underground sites, but Israel's are more limited.
Last week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reminded the world in one of his fiercest speeches to the Knesset in some time, that Israel has "never left its fate to others, not even in the hands of its best friends."

‘I have no doubt Demjanjuk was Ivan the Terrible,’ says Dalia Dorner

Following death of John Demjanjuk, retired Supreme Court justice Dalia Dorner defends her 1988 ruling convicting Demjanjuk for crimes of brutal Nazi guard known as “Ivan the Terrible” • Supreme Court overturned conviction in 1993 over reasonable doubt.


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BREAKING NEWS: VIDEO SUGGESTS CAIR USED ADL TALKING POINTS TO LOBBY AGAINST AMERICAN LAWS FOR AMERICAN COURTS LEGISLATION IN FLORIDA; TERROR-SUPPORTER AHMED BEDIER PRAISES ADL; NCJA LEADERS REITERATE CALL FOR ADL’S FOXMAN TO RESIGN

For Immediate Release

Contact: Beth Gilinsky bgilinsky@gmail.com

Lori Lowenthal Marcus lorilowenthalmarcus@gmail.com

Dr. Herbert I. London herb@hudson.org

New York, March 16, 2012 -- The National Conference on Jewish Affairs has just received a video taped by the United West on February 28, 2012 in Tallahassee, Florida.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeEPPBJVQ3s

Ahmed Bedier is former Communications Director for the Florida chapter of CAIR, a Hezbollah supporter, and attended a pro-Hamas rally in 2008 and is a compatriot of Sami Al-Arian, the Palestinian Arab Islamic Jihad operative who was found guilty of raising money for and lending support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.  Bedier is seen at the beginning of the video praising the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).  According to Discover the Networks:

"Bedier has had ties to radical Islam since at least 2002, when he was the Outreach Director for the Islamic Society of Pinellas County (Florida), a mosque whose website features material calling for violence against Jews. Moreover, he has cultivated relationships with organizations and individuals connected to anti-Israel terrorist groups overseas, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Hezbollah."

Earlier this week, the NCJA expressed dismay at reports that the ADL and CAIR lobbied to defeat Florida legislation that would have restricted state courts from considering foreign laws as part of any legal proceeding or decision.

NCJA learned that the ADL sent a letter to Senator Mike Haridopolos, Florida Senate President, urging the Senate to oppose SB 1360 on the grounds that it is “an obstacle to Jewish divorce and remarriage, and an infringement on religious freedom.” CAIR hailed its “Shariah Victory” in Florida and acknowledged the ADL’s help: http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_display.cfm/blog_id/41102

CAIR was named as an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror funding trial.

 

When the identical bill, HB1209, passed the Florida House of Representatives, the ADL expressed its “disappointment”:

http://regions.adl.org/florida/adlprhb1209-march2012.html

 

READ MORE:

For further information on Bedier:

http://www.investigativeproject.org/profile/175

ADL calls Anti-Shariah Bill “pointless” –March 7, 2012

http://regions.adl.org/florida/adlprsb1360-3-7-12.html

“Anti-Shariah” bill dies in Senate:

http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/after-easy-house-passage-anti-sharia-bill-dies-senate

More on CAIR:

    http://www.investigativeproject.org/profile/172

 

For a clear comparison of Shariah Law to Jewish law:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/no_comparison_shariah_and_jewi.html

Bedier on Al-Arian deportation:

http://www.tampatrib.com/MGB4QU3F1ME.html