Presbyterians Usher in the Jewish Holiday of PurimDivestment and the War Against the Jews, Part 2010.
The Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUSA) is about to release a report which denounces Israel as a “racist” nation which has absolutely no historical, covenantal, or theological right to the Holy Land. The report calls for the United States to withhold financial and military aid to Israel and for boycotts and sanctions against Israel. That’s not all. The report also endorses a Palestinian “right of return” and “apologizes to Palestinians for even conceding that Israel has a right to exist.” According to the press release, it also states that Israel’s history begins only with the Holocaust and that Israel is “a nation mistakenly created by Western powers at the expense of the Palestinian people to solve the ‘Jewish problem’.”
In addition, PCUSA has also resolved to divest in companies that supply military equipment to the American Army, e.g. Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, etc.
In 2004, this Church became the first mainline Protestant denomination in America to “approve a policy of divestment from Israel.” This was rescinded, but in 2008 the Church “created a committee dominated by seven activists holding strong anti-Israel beliefs. The lone member sympathetic to Israel, quit in protest when he saw their radical agenda.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center notes that 46 members of the US Congress and Senate are Presbyterians and fears potentially “significant repercussions in the political domain” as well as a negative “impact on interfaith relations.” They urge us all to protest directly to the top leadership of the PCUSA “to stop this dangerous campaign which denies the legitimacy and security of Israel,” and to “reach out to your Presbyterian friends.”
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Presnbyterian Church again on the attach vs Israel
hursday, February 25, 2010
Presbyterian Church's again blames wrong party
February 23, 2010
A statement from the Reverend Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) regarding the work of the General Assembly Middle East Study Team.
A human rights organization within the Jewish community has issued a statement about the report to the 219th General Assembly (2010) from the General Assembly committee to prepare a comprehensive study focused on Israel/Palestine. The statement says, “…we are deeply troubled that current moves underway in the Church radically depart from its 2008 commitment that its review of Middle East policies would be balanced and fair.”
The Middle East Study Team’s report, which will be released by Friday, March 5, 2010, contains a letter to the American Jewish community. The study team begins the letter by saying:
We want to be sure to say to you in no uncertain terms: We support the existence of Israel as a sovereign nation within secure and recognized borders. No “but,” no “let’s get this out of the way so we can say what we really want to say.” We support Israel’s existence as granted by the U.N. General Assembly. We support Israel’s existence as a home for the Jewish people. We have said this before, and we say this again. We say it because we believe it; we say it because we want it to continue to be true.
The team, which engaged in intensive study, meetings, and travel to the Middle East since their appointment following the 218th General Assembly (2008), continues:
And, at the same time, we are distressed by the continued policies that surround the Occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, in particular. Many of us come to this work out of a love for Israel. And it is because of this love that we continue to say the things we say about the excesses of Occupation, the settlement infrastructure, and the absolute death knell it is sounding for the hopes of a two-state solution, a solution that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has supported for more than sixty years.
Several previous General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have adopted statements about Israel/Palestine. Two excerpts:
In 2004: The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has approved numerous resolutions on Israel and Palestine, repeatedly affirming, clearly and unequivocally, Israel’s right to exist within permanent, recognized, and “secure” borders (for example: 1969, 1974, 1977, 1983, 1989, etc.). It has deplored the cycle of escalating violence—carried out by both Palestinians and Israelis—which is rooted in Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territories (cf. statements of successive assemblies since 1967). Presbyterians have continued to be concerned about the loss of so many innocent lives of Israelis and Palestinians (see “Resolution on the Middle East,” approved in 1997, and “Resolution on Israel and Palestine: End the Occupation Now,” approved in 2003).” GA Minutes, 2004, p. 66.
In 2006: We call upon the church…”To work through peaceful means with American and Israeli Jewish, American and Palestinian Muslim, and Palestinian Christian communities and their affiliated organizations towards the creation of a socially, economically, geographically, and politically viable and secure Palestinian state, alongside an equally viable and secure Israeli state, both of which have a right to exist.” GA Minutes, 2006, p. 945.
I join the Middle East Study Team that will be reporting to this summer’s General Assembly in asking all people to continue to pray, and work, for the peace of Jerusalem."
Why did the Palestinians not accept the UN vote to partion Palestine into Jewish and Arab state 60 years ago? There could have been a Palestinian State for 60 years?
2. Why do the Palestinians raise their kids to commit suicide by killing inncocent Israeli civilians?
3. Why do they teach Jew hatred in primary grades?
4. Why are their summer camps terrorist training camps?
5. Why do they send missiles to try to blow up schools in Israel daily?
6.Why do they try and run guns from ambulances?
7. Why did Jordan not set up a Palestinian state from 1948-1967 when they controlled the West Bank?
8. Show me one source about an Arab Palestinian people in history prior to 1930?
Palestine was the name the Romans gave the area and Palstinians were Jews.
9. Israeli Prime Minister Barak told Arafat he could take 98% of the West Bank and Gaza and Arafat walked out and started infada 2.
10. Israel is on record willing to create a Palestinian state but not to peeople who won't accept her existence and openly say they want to destroy her.
Presbyterian Church's again blames wrong party
February 23, 2010
A statement from the Reverend Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) regarding the work of the General Assembly Middle East Study Team.
A human rights organization within the Jewish community has issued a statement about the report to the 219th General Assembly (2010) from the General Assembly committee to prepare a comprehensive study focused on Israel/Palestine. The statement says, “…we are deeply troubled that current moves underway in the Church radically depart from its 2008 commitment that its review of Middle East policies would be balanced and fair.”
The Middle East Study Team’s report, which will be released by Friday, March 5, 2010, contains a letter to the American Jewish community. The study team begins the letter by saying:
We want to be sure to say to you in no uncertain terms: We support the existence of Israel as a sovereign nation within secure and recognized borders. No “but,” no “let’s get this out of the way so we can say what we really want to say.” We support Israel’s existence as granted by the U.N. General Assembly. We support Israel’s existence as a home for the Jewish people. We have said this before, and we say this again. We say it because we believe it; we say it because we want it to continue to be true.
The team, which engaged in intensive study, meetings, and travel to the Middle East since their appointment following the 218th General Assembly (2008), continues:
And, at the same time, we are distressed by the continued policies that surround the Occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, in particular. Many of us come to this work out of a love for Israel. And it is because of this love that we continue to say the things we say about the excesses of Occupation, the settlement infrastructure, and the absolute death knell it is sounding for the hopes of a two-state solution, a solution that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has supported for more than sixty years.
Several previous General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) have adopted statements about Israel/Palestine. Two excerpts:
In 2004: The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has approved numerous resolutions on Israel and Palestine, repeatedly affirming, clearly and unequivocally, Israel’s right to exist within permanent, recognized, and “secure” borders (for example: 1969, 1974, 1977, 1983, 1989, etc.). It has deplored the cycle of escalating violence—carried out by both Palestinians and Israelis—which is rooted in Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territories (cf. statements of successive assemblies since 1967). Presbyterians have continued to be concerned about the loss of so many innocent lives of Israelis and Palestinians (see “Resolution on the Middle East,” approved in 1997, and “Resolution on Israel and Palestine: End the Occupation Now,” approved in 2003).” GA Minutes, 2004, p. 66.
In 2006: We call upon the church…”To work through peaceful means with American and Israeli Jewish, American and Palestinian Muslim, and Palestinian Christian communities and their affiliated organizations towards the creation of a socially, economically, geographically, and politically viable and secure Palestinian state, alongside an equally viable and secure Israeli state, both of which have a right to exist.” GA Minutes, 2006, p. 945.
I join the Middle East Study Team that will be reporting to this summer’s General Assembly in asking all people to continue to pray, and work, for the peace of Jerusalem."
Why did the Palestinians not accept the UN vote to partion Palestine into Jewish and Arab state 60 years ago? There could have been a Palestinian State for 60 years?
2. Why do the Palestinians raise their kids to commit suicide by killing inncocent Israeli civilians?
3. Why do they teach Jew hatred in primary grades?
4. Why are their summer camps terrorist training camps?
5. Why do they send missiles to try to blow up schools in Israel daily?
6.Why do they try and run guns from ambulances?
7. Why did Jordan not set up a Palestinian state from 1948-1967 when they controlled the West Bank?
8. Show me one source about an Arab Palestinian people in history prior to 1930?
Palestine was the name the Romans gave the area and Palstinians were Jews.
9. Israeli Prime Minister Barak told Arafat he could take 98% of the West Bank and Gaza and Arafat walked out and started infada 2.
10. Israel is on record willing to create a Palestinian state but not to peeople who won't accept her existence and openly say they want to destroy her.
Monday, February 22, 2010
54 Dem US reps and J Street hurt Israel again
Serious Words, Serious Consequences
by Matthew Brooks, Executive Director, Republican Jewish Coalition
The 54 Democrat members of Congress (no Republicans) who signed the January 21, 2010 letter to President Barack Obama initiated by Reps. Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) presumably wanted to make a thoughtful, serious statement of concern and a specific request for action. They were concerned for the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and their request was that American government pressure be brought to bear on Israel to ease the restrictions on Israel's border with Gaza.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) took the letter and its words seriously. We saw that the 'Gaza 54' called for the loosening of security measures that Israel put into place to stop terrorism and reduce the ability of Hamas to launch attacks on Israel. The letter acknowledged that "the Israeli government has imposed restrictions on Gaza out of a legitimate and keenly felt fear of continued terrorist action by Hamas and other militant groups." But the congressmen did not make any mention of the potential consequences for Israel, or what alternate measures would provide equal protection for Israel's citizens against attacks initiated from Gaza.
The letter simply asserted, without foundation, that: "Easing the blockade (sic) on Gaza will not only improve the conditions on the ground for Gaza's civilian population, but will also undermine the tunnel economy which has strengthened Hamas... Most importantly, lifting these restrictions will give civilians in Gaza a tangible sense that diplomacy can be an effective tool for bettering their conditions. Your Administration's overarching Middle East peace efforts will benefit Israel, the Palestinians, and the entire region."
One in five Democrats in Congress signed a letter asking the president to pressure Israel to take unilateral actions that its leaders believe would undermine its security, with no concomitant expectation of concrete action on the Palestinian side to assure the safety of Israeli citizens. They are willing to bet that if American diplomacy forces Israel to make "tangible" changes to its policies, that will somehow "benefit Israel" in the long run.
This is at best, naïve. Israel can't afford to relax its security measures just because someone in the US says it will all be okay. Its enemies' commitment to its destruction has not waned. Loosening the "blockade" will not persuade Hamas to change its goals nor deter it from attacking.
THE DEMOCRATS' letter effectively demonstrates a mind-set all too typical of the Left, which we are seeing increasingly in more "mainstream" discourse: that Israel is doing wrong, Israel must make concessions, Israel is not acting morally except when it gives in. Unfortunately, history teaches us that appeasement leads to more violence, not less. The fact that so many Democrats signed the letter is troubling in and of itself.
The RJC (generously) called the letter signers "misguided." Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) agrees, telling The Jerusalem Post's Shmuel Rosner in a recent interview that the Gaza 54 are "misinformed" legislators.
The RJC decided to take action because we were troubled that 54 Democratic congressmen would call on the president to pressure Israel in this way. We asked our members to express their view on the letter. Within hours, a strong grassroots showing from across the country had signed the petition on our web site, calling for the letter signers to "take a firm stand against terrorism by disassociating yourself from this dangerous letter and upholding America's commitment to Israel's security in the future."
There are simple facts missing from the Gaza 54 letter about Israel's actions to help the residents of Gaza. The same facts were missing from remarks by one of the 54, Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), who last week told students in Gaza that the US should bring in ships to the coast to break the Israeli "blockade" on the Gaza Strip.
As RJC wrote in our own letter to President Obama, asking him to repudiate Baird's remarks: Egypt also has a blockade of Gaza in place and is constructing a wall, similar to Israel's, to stop the smuggling of people and weapons across its border with Gaza; Israel allows huge quantities of food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza each day; Israel has prohibited only building supplies from coming into Gaza, to prevent them from being diverted by Hamas to military use. Israel has taken necessary and justifiable steps to stop terrorism originating from Hamas-controlled Gaza.
THE TRUTH is that the Palestinians are victims of their leaders and of their choices. For decades they have been taught to hate Israel (and Jews), to demand retribution and reparations, and to never compromise - by leaders who pocketed the funds meant to help them, corrupted the political system meant to lead them, and used them as foot soldiers against a reluctant enemy, Israel. Sadly, the lessons of hatred have been well-learned. Palestinian voters chose Hamas in the election of January 2006, giving them 74 of the 132 parliamentary seats and leading to the June 2007 Hamas coup in Gaza that split the Palestinian proto-polity in two. Afterward, hundreds of rockets were launched from within Gaza. The "blockade" of Gaza is a direct result of all these events.
The 54 Democrats who wrote to President Obama should understand this history and the Israeli security measures required to guarantee Israel's continued existence and safety. They paid lip service to Israel's security needs, but without confronting the hard question, which Israel faces daily, of how to keep Israeli citizens safe.
Lacking that important element, the letter was just another outrageous political attack on Israel and it deserved the condemnation of RJC and other friends of Israel. We stand by our characterization of the letter and by our statements about it.
###
by Matthew Brooks, Executive Director, Republican Jewish Coalition
The 54 Democrat members of Congress (no Republicans) who signed the January 21, 2010 letter to President Barack Obama initiated by Reps. Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) presumably wanted to make a thoughtful, serious statement of concern and a specific request for action. They were concerned for the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and their request was that American government pressure be brought to bear on Israel to ease the restrictions on Israel's border with Gaza.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) took the letter and its words seriously. We saw that the 'Gaza 54' called for the loosening of security measures that Israel put into place to stop terrorism and reduce the ability of Hamas to launch attacks on Israel. The letter acknowledged that "the Israeli government has imposed restrictions on Gaza out of a legitimate and keenly felt fear of continued terrorist action by Hamas and other militant groups." But the congressmen did not make any mention of the potential consequences for Israel, or what alternate measures would provide equal protection for Israel's citizens against attacks initiated from Gaza.
The letter simply asserted, without foundation, that: "Easing the blockade (sic) on Gaza will not only improve the conditions on the ground for Gaza's civilian population, but will also undermine the tunnel economy which has strengthened Hamas... Most importantly, lifting these restrictions will give civilians in Gaza a tangible sense that diplomacy can be an effective tool for bettering their conditions. Your Administration's overarching Middle East peace efforts will benefit Israel, the Palestinians, and the entire region."
One in five Democrats in Congress signed a letter asking the president to pressure Israel to take unilateral actions that its leaders believe would undermine its security, with no concomitant expectation of concrete action on the Palestinian side to assure the safety of Israeli citizens. They are willing to bet that if American diplomacy forces Israel to make "tangible" changes to its policies, that will somehow "benefit Israel" in the long run.
This is at best, naïve. Israel can't afford to relax its security measures just because someone in the US says it will all be okay. Its enemies' commitment to its destruction has not waned. Loosening the "blockade" will not persuade Hamas to change its goals nor deter it from attacking.
THE DEMOCRATS' letter effectively demonstrates a mind-set all too typical of the Left, which we are seeing increasingly in more "mainstream" discourse: that Israel is doing wrong, Israel must make concessions, Israel is not acting morally except when it gives in. Unfortunately, history teaches us that appeasement leads to more violence, not less. The fact that so many Democrats signed the letter is troubling in and of itself.
The RJC (generously) called the letter signers "misguided." Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) agrees, telling The Jerusalem Post's Shmuel Rosner in a recent interview that the Gaza 54 are "misinformed" legislators.
The RJC decided to take action because we were troubled that 54 Democratic congressmen would call on the president to pressure Israel in this way. We asked our members to express their view on the letter. Within hours, a strong grassroots showing from across the country had signed the petition on our web site, calling for the letter signers to "take a firm stand against terrorism by disassociating yourself from this dangerous letter and upholding America's commitment to Israel's security in the future."
There are simple facts missing from the Gaza 54 letter about Israel's actions to help the residents of Gaza. The same facts were missing from remarks by one of the 54, Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), who last week told students in Gaza that the US should bring in ships to the coast to break the Israeli "blockade" on the Gaza Strip.
As RJC wrote in our own letter to President Obama, asking him to repudiate Baird's remarks: Egypt also has a blockade of Gaza in place and is constructing a wall, similar to Israel's, to stop the smuggling of people and weapons across its border with Gaza; Israel allows huge quantities of food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza each day; Israel has prohibited only building supplies from coming into Gaza, to prevent them from being diverted by Hamas to military use. Israel has taken necessary and justifiable steps to stop terrorism originating from Hamas-controlled Gaza.
THE TRUTH is that the Palestinians are victims of their leaders and of their choices. For decades they have been taught to hate Israel (and Jews), to demand retribution and reparations, and to never compromise - by leaders who pocketed the funds meant to help them, corrupted the political system meant to lead them, and used them as foot soldiers against a reluctant enemy, Israel. Sadly, the lessons of hatred have been well-learned. Palestinian voters chose Hamas in the election of January 2006, giving them 74 of the 132 parliamentary seats and leading to the June 2007 Hamas coup in Gaza that split the Palestinian proto-polity in two. Afterward, hundreds of rockets were launched from within Gaza. The "blockade" of Gaza is a direct result of all these events.
The 54 Democrats who wrote to President Obama should understand this history and the Israeli security measures required to guarantee Israel's continued existence and safety. They paid lip service to Israel's security needs, but without confronting the hard question, which Israel faces daily, of how to keep Israeli citizens safe.
Lacking that important element, the letter was just another outrageous political attack on Israel and it deserved the condemnation of RJC and other friends of Israel. We stand by our characterization of the letter and by our statements about it.
###
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Hamas Murderer Mabhouh killed
Exodus says when someone comes to kill you, kill them first,
Wall Street Journal
There is no evidence it was Israel...Mabhouh ... rose to infamy in 1987 by abducting and killing two Israeli soldiers. He then went on to become a central figure in Hamas's fund-raising operations.
Later, Mabhouh became a key coordinator of Hamas-Iran cooperation. In this capacity he organized the shipment of weaponry and other sophisticated equipment to Gaza and arranged for Hamas fighters to be trained by the Revolutionary Guards at a facility outside of Tehran. It was in connection with his Iran operations that he was in Dubai last week.
Wall Street Journal
There is no evidence it was Israel...Mabhouh ... rose to infamy in 1987 by abducting and killing two Israeli soldiers. He then went on to become a central figure in Hamas's fund-raising operations.
Later, Mabhouh became a key coordinator of Hamas-Iran cooperation. In this capacity he organized the shipment of weaponry and other sophisticated equipment to Gaza and arranged for Hamas fighters to be trained by the Revolutionary Guards at a facility outside of Tehran. It was in connection with his Iran operations that he was in Dubai last week.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Dems, J Street anti-Israel
From Richard Baehr
Every day it becomes harder for Democrats or liberals who claim to love Israel and support a strong U.S, Israel relationship to defend the actions of members of their Congressional delegation, who now openly side with Israel's enemies. It is telling that the NJDC now chooses to honor David Axelrod, who is Jewish, but has been conspicuously absent from pro-Israel, or Jewish community endeavours in his long professional career. But Axelrod was part of the White House team, along with Rahm Emanuel, who encouraged President Obama to go public with his pressure campaign against Israel over settlements, a policy that resulted only in stiffening Palestinian resolve not to deal with Israel, and instead let Obama deliver the goods to the Palestinians.
J-Street and its Congressional friends visit Israel: http://tinyurl.com/ybctjjq
J-Street has big problems with Christians who support Israel, but find it easy to get along with Christian groups who trash Israel. Let us not forget that Barack Obama is the one who brought J-Street into the inner sanctum of the Whie House as one of the key Jewish groups who deserved to be heard, and has appointed members of its leadership to White House and ambassadorial jobs. He has legitimized a far left group whose sole advocacy is to blame Israel, and get the U.S. government to pressure Israel : http://tinyurl.com/yerrn6j
It is past time for the official Jewish organizational world to sever ties to J-Street , as they have done with groups like Not in My Name, or Students for Justice in Palestine.
For the record, there are today and there have always been pro-Israel and Judaeophile Democrats. One of them was LBJ: http://tinyurl.com/ygkfj59
Every day it becomes harder for Democrats or liberals who claim to love Israel and support a strong U.S, Israel relationship to defend the actions of members of their Congressional delegation, who now openly side with Israel's enemies. It is telling that the NJDC now chooses to honor David Axelrod, who is Jewish, but has been conspicuously absent from pro-Israel, or Jewish community endeavours in his long professional career. But Axelrod was part of the White House team, along with Rahm Emanuel, who encouraged President Obama to go public with his pressure campaign against Israel over settlements, a policy that resulted only in stiffening Palestinian resolve not to deal with Israel, and instead let Obama deliver the goods to the Palestinians.
J-Street and its Congressional friends visit Israel: http://tinyurl.com/ybctjjq
J-Street has big problems with Christians who support Israel, but find it easy to get along with Christian groups who trash Israel. Let us not forget that Barack Obama is the one who brought J-Street into the inner sanctum of the Whie House as one of the key Jewish groups who deserved to be heard, and has appointed members of its leadership to White House and ambassadorial jobs. He has legitimized a far left group whose sole advocacy is to blame Israel, and get the U.S. government to pressure Israel : http://tinyurl.com/yerrn6j
It is past time for the official Jewish organizational world to sever ties to J-Street , as they have done with groups like Not in My Name, or Students for Justice in Palestine.
For the record, there are today and there have always been pro-Israel and Judaeophile Democrats. One of them was LBJ: http://tinyurl.com/ygkfj59
Obama backwards on Iran and Israel-Palestinians
The Obama team had it backwards claiming the centrality of the Israeli Palestinian conflict to resolving Iran's nuclear program: http://tinyurl.com/yh3pxsb
Fatah are terrorists too
Fatah is not a moderate organization. They have fought a continuing war against Israel through the courts-both international courts and U.N bodies, and the court of public opinion. They honor the murderers of Jews, and never stop for a day with their media and mosque incitement.
http://tinyurl.com/ygvov59
http://tinyurl.com/ygvov59
Thursday, February 18, 2010
How J Street hurts Israel
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2010/02/j-street-teams-up-with-leftist-christian/index.shtml
Author: SolomonJ Street Teams up With Leftist Christian Group to Cause Israel Diplomatic Trouble
J Street, in cooperation with anti-Israel Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), is hosting a delegation of Congressmen from the US to Israel. Who is this CMEP that the "pro-Israel" J Street is running with? NGO Monitor has a good rundown:
Analysis: Churches for Middle East Peace and the BDS Movement
Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), which is J-Street's partner in sponsoring the visit of a US Congressional delegation to Israel, is a US-based political advocacy organization. Like many other such NGOs, CMEP's rhetoric and its activities are not always consistent, and some of its constituent groups are centrally involved in the political war against Israel.
A number of CMEP partners take an active role in promoting BDS - the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign - as part of the 2001 Durban NGO agenda which calls for the total international isolation of Israel. For example, Friends of Sabeel North America (www.fosna.org) is a fundraising and publicity branch of the Palestinian NGO Sabeel. This organization, headed by Naim Ateek, is a leader of the church divestment campaign, and in his speaking tours around North America, Ateek employs antisemitic themes and imagery in sermons promoting his "Palestinian Liberation Theology." In promoting this agenda, his rhetoric includes references to "the Israeli government crucifixion system".
CMEP's website also features the "KAIROS Palestine Document", which was written by a group of Palestinian Christians, including Ateek. KAIROS Palestine calls for action designed to create "a system of economic sanctions and boycott [and divestment] to be applied against Israel," echoing Sabeel's efforts. CMEP also quotes Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, referring to the document as "a word of hope in a time of pessimism that could lead to despair."
This adoption of the Palestinian narrative of victimization, perhaps a reflection of the close ties to Sabeel and other Palestinian groups, was also evident in a January 21, 2005 full-page New York Times ad sponsored by CMEP. The text read, in part, "With each news report of Palestinian suffering...popular support in Arab and Muslim countries for terrorism grows and the threat of attacks directed at the United States increases."
A number of CMEP's board members also reflect the goal of demonization, under the façade of promoting peace. For example, Helena Cobban, a fierce anti-Israel ideologue and member Human Rights Watch's Middle East board, sits on CMEP's Leadership Council.
Thus, while much of the media coverage of this delegation has focused on the involvement of J-Street angle, this is only half of the story. CMEP is an equal partner, and deserves equal scrutiny.
The fact that J Street would partner with a group like CMEP is simply and straightforwardly another nail in the coffin of J Street's pro-Israel bona fides. How out to lunch do you have to be to partner with this group and give them credibility before a group of Congressmen? Here, BTW, is a search on "CMEP" at CAMERA's site. Lots of material there.
J Street's handling of the event is already causing trouble, as the Foreign Ministry is refusing to meet the delegation with J Street as an intermediary: US congressman demands explanation for chilly reception in Israel
A visiting U.S. congressman lashed out at Israel's number two diplomat Wednesday, saying he was snubbed by the Foreign Ministry and demanding an official clarification.
Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, is heading a congressional delegation to the region. The trip is hosted by J Street, a liberal Jewish lobbying group that presents itself as an alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- one of Washington's most powerful lobbies.
J Street, which supports President Barack Obama's push for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, says it sought a meeting for the U.S. representatives with Israeli diplomats but was turned down.
The Foreign Ministry dismissed the complaint, saying in response that it did not need mediators to set up meetings with U.S. officials.
The snub appeared aimed at J Street. Israel's government has been critical of the group's programs, which are more dovish than those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hawkish government.
Speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, Delahunt said he was surprised and disappointed to read an Israeli newspaper report that he was being boycotted by the Foreign Ministry for his affiliation with J Street and identified Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon as the culprit.
"We were puzzled that the Deputy Foreign Minister has apparently attempted to block our meetings with senior officials in the Prime Minister's office and Foreign Ministry -- questioning either our own support of Israel or that we would even consider traveling to the region with groups thatthe deputy foreign minister has so inaccurately described as 'anti-Israel'," Delahunt said.
"In our opinion this is an inappropriate way to treat elected representatives of Israel's closest ally who are visiting the country."
Delahunt asked the Israeli government "for a clarification of its stance toward this and future delegations."
Ayalon's office said the deputy minister was prepared to meet any elected officials, especially from the U.S. Congress, but he "didn't need mediators."...
...Four other U.S. representatives were traveling with Delahunt -- Democrats Donald Payne of New Jersey, Lois Capps of California, Bob Filner of California and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio...
All five of the Congresspeople now assisting J Street in redefining what it means to be "pro-Israel" were signatories to the Ellison/McDermott sponsored letter on the Gaza "siege."
Here's more on J Street's latest self-inflicted wound: J Street blasts Ayalon's 'boycott'.
This is what a pro-Israel group does? Partners with one of the worst of the anti-Israel Christian groups and causes a diplomatic incident with the government? Once again we see that J Street is more about leftist politics than about support for Israel. Leftism is the only thing a group trying to claim it was pro-Israel in any meaningful sense could possibly have in common with CMEP. They partner with CMEP yet denounce John Hagee. They bring Bill Delahunt on a trip to Israel and instigate a row putting Danny Ayalon on the spot, as though he doesn't have enough to worry about.
This is about Jeremy Ben-Ami's ego, fundraising and leftist politics. It has nothing to do with supporting Israel.
Update: See Hillel's post above for even
Author: SolomonJ Street Teams up With Leftist Christian Group to Cause Israel Diplomatic Trouble
J Street, in cooperation with anti-Israel Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), is hosting a delegation of Congressmen from the US to Israel. Who is this CMEP that the "pro-Israel" J Street is running with? NGO Monitor has a good rundown:
Analysis: Churches for Middle East Peace and the BDS Movement
Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), which is J-Street's partner in sponsoring the visit of a US Congressional delegation to Israel, is a US-based political advocacy organization. Like many other such NGOs, CMEP's rhetoric and its activities are not always consistent, and some of its constituent groups are centrally involved in the political war against Israel.
A number of CMEP partners take an active role in promoting BDS - the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign - as part of the 2001 Durban NGO agenda which calls for the total international isolation of Israel. For example, Friends of Sabeel North America (www.fosna.org) is a fundraising and publicity branch of the Palestinian NGO Sabeel. This organization, headed by Naim Ateek, is a leader of the church divestment campaign, and in his speaking tours around North America, Ateek employs antisemitic themes and imagery in sermons promoting his "Palestinian Liberation Theology." In promoting this agenda, his rhetoric includes references to "the Israeli government crucifixion system".
CMEP's website also features the "KAIROS Palestine Document", which was written by a group of Palestinian Christians, including Ateek. KAIROS Palestine calls for action designed to create "a system of economic sanctions and boycott [and divestment] to be applied against Israel," echoing Sabeel's efforts. CMEP also quotes Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, referring to the document as "a word of hope in a time of pessimism that could lead to despair."
This adoption of the Palestinian narrative of victimization, perhaps a reflection of the close ties to Sabeel and other Palestinian groups, was also evident in a January 21, 2005 full-page New York Times ad sponsored by CMEP. The text read, in part, "With each news report of Palestinian suffering...popular support in Arab and Muslim countries for terrorism grows and the threat of attacks directed at the United States increases."
A number of CMEP's board members also reflect the goal of demonization, under the façade of promoting peace. For example, Helena Cobban, a fierce anti-Israel ideologue and member Human Rights Watch's Middle East board, sits on CMEP's Leadership Council.
Thus, while much of the media coverage of this delegation has focused on the involvement of J-Street angle, this is only half of the story. CMEP is an equal partner, and deserves equal scrutiny.
The fact that J Street would partner with a group like CMEP is simply and straightforwardly another nail in the coffin of J Street's pro-Israel bona fides. How out to lunch do you have to be to partner with this group and give them credibility before a group of Congressmen? Here, BTW, is a search on "CMEP" at CAMERA's site. Lots of material there.
J Street's handling of the event is already causing trouble, as the Foreign Ministry is refusing to meet the delegation with J Street as an intermediary: US congressman demands explanation for chilly reception in Israel
A visiting U.S. congressman lashed out at Israel's number two diplomat Wednesday, saying he was snubbed by the Foreign Ministry and demanding an official clarification.
Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, is heading a congressional delegation to the region. The trip is hosted by J Street, a liberal Jewish lobbying group that presents itself as an alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- one of Washington's most powerful lobbies.
J Street, which supports President Barack Obama's push for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, says it sought a meeting for the U.S. representatives with Israeli diplomats but was turned down.
The Foreign Ministry dismissed the complaint, saying in response that it did not need mediators to set up meetings with U.S. officials.
The snub appeared aimed at J Street. Israel's government has been critical of the group's programs, which are more dovish than those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hawkish government.
Speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, Delahunt said he was surprised and disappointed to read an Israeli newspaper report that he was being boycotted by the Foreign Ministry for his affiliation with J Street and identified Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon as the culprit.
"We were puzzled that the Deputy Foreign Minister has apparently attempted to block our meetings with senior officials in the Prime Minister's office and Foreign Ministry -- questioning either our own support of Israel or that we would even consider traveling to the region with groups thatthe deputy foreign minister has so inaccurately described as 'anti-Israel'," Delahunt said.
"In our opinion this is an inappropriate way to treat elected representatives of Israel's closest ally who are visiting the country."
Delahunt asked the Israeli government "for a clarification of its stance toward this and future delegations."
Ayalon's office said the deputy minister was prepared to meet any elected officials, especially from the U.S. Congress, but he "didn't need mediators."...
...Four other U.S. representatives were traveling with Delahunt -- Democrats Donald Payne of New Jersey, Lois Capps of California, Bob Filner of California and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio...
All five of the Congresspeople now assisting J Street in redefining what it means to be "pro-Israel" were signatories to the Ellison/McDermott sponsored letter on the Gaza "siege."
Here's more on J Street's latest self-inflicted wound: J Street blasts Ayalon's 'boycott'.
This is what a pro-Israel group does? Partners with one of the worst of the anti-Israel Christian groups and causes a diplomatic incident with the government? Once again we see that J Street is more about leftist politics than about support for Israel. Leftism is the only thing a group trying to claim it was pro-Israel in any meaningful sense could possibly have in common with CMEP. They partner with CMEP yet denounce John Hagee. They bring Bill Delahunt on a trip to Israel and instigate a row putting Danny Ayalon on the spot, as though he doesn't have enough to worry about.
This is about Jeremy Ben-Ami's ego, fundraising and leftist politics. It has nothing to do with supporting Israel.
Update: See Hillel's post above for even
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
PALIN ENDORSES BOMBING iRAN
Sarah Palin entered the fray yesterday. In a high-profile interview yesterday with Chris Wallace, she spontaneously brought up the topic of Obama's winning a second term by bombing Iran:
WALLACE: How hard do you think President Obama will be to defeat in 2012?
PALIN: It depends on a few things. Say he played—and I got this from Buchanan, reading one of his columns the other day - say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really [to] come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do, but - that changes the dynamics in what we can assume is going to happen between now and three years. Because I think if the election were today I do not think Obama would be re-elected. But three years from now, things could change if—on the national security front …
WALLACE: But you're not suggesting that he would cynically play the war card?
PALIN: I'm not suggesting that. I'm saying if he did, things would dramatically change. If he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies, I think people would, perhaps, shift their thinking a little bit and decide, "Well, maybe he's tougher than we think he's—than he is today," and there wouldn't be as much passion to make sure that he doesn't serve another four years.
Comments: (1) Buchanan disapproves of Obama taking out the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, but Palin and I "would like him to do" that, thereby removing the world's No. 1 security threat.
(2) After vilification from the Left and tepid reactions on the Right, it's nice to have a major political figure endorse my idea.
(3) I've always liked Palin and been mystified by the fervid hostility she engenders. Perhaps that results from her readiness, as Jeff Bergner puts it, to challenge "The Narrative" formulated by the Democratic Party. True to form, she is, so far, the only politician willing to touch the hot potato of the political implications of bombing Iran.
WALLACE: How hard do you think President Obama will be to defeat in 2012?
PALIN: It depends on a few things. Say he played—and I got this from Buchanan, reading one of his columns the other day - say he played the war card. Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really [to] come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do, but - that changes the dynamics in what we can assume is going to happen between now and three years. Because I think if the election were today I do not think Obama would be re-elected. But three years from now, things could change if—on the national security front …
WALLACE: But you're not suggesting that he would cynically play the war card?
PALIN: I'm not suggesting that. I'm saying if he did, things would dramatically change. If he decided to toughen up and do all that he can to secure our nation and our allies, I think people would, perhaps, shift their thinking a little bit and decide, "Well, maybe he's tougher than we think he's—than he is today," and there wouldn't be as much passion to make sure that he doesn't serve another four years.
Comments: (1) Buchanan disapproves of Obama taking out the Iranian nuclear infrastructure, but Palin and I "would like him to do" that, thereby removing the world's No. 1 security threat.
(2) After vilification from the Left and tepid reactions on the Right, it's nice to have a major political figure endorse my idea.
(3) I've always liked Palin and been mystified by the fervid hostility she engenders. Perhaps that results from her readiness, as Jeff Bergner puts it, to challenge "The Narrative" formulated by the Democratic Party. True to form, she is, so far, the only politician willing to touch the hot potato of the political implications of bombing Iran.
Pipes to Obama Bomb Iran
How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran
by Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
February 2, 2010
http://www.danielpipes.org/7921/bomb-iran-save-obama-presidency
I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear, and whose policies I work against. But here is an idea for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the United States and its allies.
If Obama's personality, identity, and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient in 2009 for governing. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign policy forays small (e.g., landing the 2016 Olympics) and large (relations with China and Japan). His counterterrorism record barely passes the laugh test.
This poor performance has caused an unprecedented collapse in the polls and the loss of three major by-elections, culminating two weeks ago in an astonishing senatorial defeat in Massachusetts. Obama's attempts to "reset" his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics, where he is just one of many players.
He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.
Barak Obama's job approval problem.
Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy the Iranian nuclear weapon capacity.
Circumstances are propitious. First, U.S. intelligence agencies have reversed their preposterous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, the one that claimed with "high confidence" that Tehran had "halted its nuclear weapons program," No one (other than the Iranian rulers and their agents) denies that the regime is rushing headlong to build a large nuclear arsenal.
Second, if the apocalyptic-minded leaders in Tehran get the Bomb, they render the Middle East a yet more volatile and dangerous. They might deploy these weapons in the region, leading to massive death and destruction. Eventually, they could launch an electro-magnetic pulse attack on the United States, utterly devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to American's friends and enemies.
Third, polling shows longstanding American backing for an attack on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
*
Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg, January 2006: 57 percent of Americans favor military intervention if Tehran pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.
*
Zogby International, October 2007: 52 percent of likely voters support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon; 29 percent oppose such a step.
*
McLaughlin & Associates, May 2009: asked whether they would support "Using the [U.S.] military to attack and destroy the facilities in Iran which are necessary to produce a nuclear weapon," 58 percent of 600 likely voters supported the use of force and 30 percent opposed it.
*
Fox News, September 2009: asked "Do you support or oppose the United States taking military action to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons?" 61 percent of 900 registered voters supported military action and 28 opposed it.
*
Pew Research Center, October 2009: asked which is more important, "To prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action" or "To avoid a military conflict with Iran, even if it means they may develop nuclear weapons," Out of 1,500 respondents, 61 percent favored the first reply and 24 percent the second.
The nuclear facility at Qum on Sep. 26,2009 from 423 miles in space, provided by GeoEye.
Not only does a strong majority – 57, 52, 58, 61, and 61 percent – already favor using force but after a strike Americans will presumably rally around the flag, jumping that number much higher.
Fourth, were the U.S. strike limited to taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities, and not aspire to regime change, it would require few "boots on the ground" and entail relatively few casualties, making an attack politically more palatable.
Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush's meandering early months, a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama's feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene. It would sideline health care, prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, make netroots squeal, independents reconsider, and conservatives swoon.
But the chance to do good and do well is fleeting. As the Iranians improve their defenses and approach weaponization, the window of opportunity is closing. The time to act is now or, on Obama's watch, the world will soon become a much more dangerous place.
Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
by Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
February 2, 2010
http://www.danielpipes.org/7921/bomb-iran-save-obama-presidency
I do not customarily offer advice to a president whose election I opposed, whose goals I fear, and whose policies I work against. But here is an idea for Barack Obama to salvage his tottering administration by taking a step that protects the United States and its allies.
If Obama's personality, identity, and celebrity captivated a majority of the American electorate in 2008, those qualities proved ruefully deficient in 2009 for governing. He failed to deliver on employment and health care, he failed in foreign policy forays small (e.g., landing the 2016 Olympics) and large (relations with China and Japan). His counterterrorism record barely passes the laugh test.
This poor performance has caused an unprecedented collapse in the polls and the loss of three major by-elections, culminating two weeks ago in an astonishing senatorial defeat in Massachusetts. Obama's attempts to "reset" his presidency will likely fail if he focuses on economics, where he is just one of many players.
He needs a dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue, preferably in an arena where the stakes are high, where he can take charge, and where he can trump expectations.
Barak Obama's job approval problem.
Such an opportunity does exist: Obama can give orders for the U.S. military to destroy the Iranian nuclear weapon capacity.
Circumstances are propitious. First, U.S. intelligence agencies have reversed their preposterous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, the one that claimed with "high confidence" that Tehran had "halted its nuclear weapons program," No one (other than the Iranian rulers and their agents) denies that the regime is rushing headlong to build a large nuclear arsenal.
Second, if the apocalyptic-minded leaders in Tehran get the Bomb, they render the Middle East a yet more volatile and dangerous. They might deploy these weapons in the region, leading to massive death and destruction. Eventually, they could launch an electro-magnetic pulse attack on the United States, utterly devastating the country. By eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama protects the homeland and sends a message to American's friends and enemies.
Third, polling shows longstanding American backing for an attack on the Iranian nuclear infrastructure.
*
Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg, January 2006: 57 percent of Americans favor military intervention if Tehran pursues a program that could enable it to build nuclear arms.
*
Zogby International, October 2007: 52 percent of likely voters support a U.S. military strike to prevent Iran from building a nuclear weapon; 29 percent oppose such a step.
*
McLaughlin & Associates, May 2009: asked whether they would support "Using the [U.S.] military to attack and destroy the facilities in Iran which are necessary to produce a nuclear weapon," 58 percent of 600 likely voters supported the use of force and 30 percent opposed it.
*
Fox News, September 2009: asked "Do you support or oppose the United States taking military action to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons?" 61 percent of 900 registered voters supported military action and 28 opposed it.
*
Pew Research Center, October 2009: asked which is more important, "To prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action" or "To avoid a military conflict with Iran, even if it means they may develop nuclear weapons," Out of 1,500 respondents, 61 percent favored the first reply and 24 percent the second.
The nuclear facility at Qum on Sep. 26,2009 from 423 miles in space, provided by GeoEye.
Not only does a strong majority – 57, 52, 58, 61, and 61 percent – already favor using force but after a strike Americans will presumably rally around the flag, jumping that number much higher.
Fourth, were the U.S. strike limited to taking out the Iranian nuclear facilities, and not aspire to regime change, it would require few "boots on the ground" and entail relatively few casualties, making an attack politically more palatable.
Just as 9/11 caused voters to forget George W. Bush's meandering early months, a strike on Iranian facilities would dispatch Obama's feckless first year down the memory hole and transform the domestic political scene. It would sideline health care, prompt Republicans to work with Democrats, make netroots squeal, independents reconsider, and conservatives swoon.
But the chance to do good and do well is fleeting. As the Iranians improve their defenses and approach weaponization, the window of opportunity is closing. The time to act is now or, on Obama's watch, the world will soon become a much more dangerous place.
Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.
New Israel Fund hurts Israel
New Israel Fund Grants Spark Human Rights Brouhaha
Locking horns over Goldstone: An ad sponsored by the Im Tirzu Zionist group depicted Naomi Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, with a horn on her head.
Locking horns over Goldstone: An ad sponsored by the Im Tirzu Zionist group depicted Naomi Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, with a horn on her head.
by Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
Charges that the New Israel Fund supports Israeli civil rights groups that played a key role in providing information highly critical of Israel’s role in the Gaza war last year have sparked a spirited, and nasty, debate over the proper role for civil and human rights groups in a democratic state.
A 131-page report, commissioned by a three-year-old Zionist group active on Israeli campuses, called Im Tirtzu, found that 16 Israeli human rights organizations provided 92 percent of the critical information used in the UN report written by South African jurist Richard Goldstone. All 16 are funded by the New Israel Fund (NIF) and include such groups as Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
NIF, founded in
Inbal 300X250
1979, is a philanthropy that funds mostly left-of-center human rights groups (as well as groups addressing other social issues) in Israel. Supporters say it promotes equal rights for all Israeli citizens; critics have accused it of supporting Israeli Arab groups that in turn encourage insurrection against the Zionist state.
“At the end of the day, we have a situation where Israelis are blaming their brothers of committing war crimes without any proof,” said Ronen Shoval, a graduate student and founder of Im Tirtzu. “They are lying. ... And the NIF stands behind the Goldstone report. I can’t tell you how important it is that Jewish people in the United States understand that at the end of the day their money [to the NIF] helps Hamas.”
A spokeswoman for the New Israel Fund, Naomi Paiss, said that although her group took no position on the Goldstone report, it “is very proud of the groups we have supported. ... Their reports were carefully documented and in some instances were the only available information out of Gaza because the international press and the Israeli press were kept out.
“Those human rights organizations are there to do a job,” she continued. “They reported on their concerns about the Gaza operation and were the first to declare that the Israeli government should launch an independent inquiry into the events of Gaza. Had that been done, perhaps there would not have been a Goldstone report.”
But Jacques Berlinerblau, director of the Program for Jewish Civilization at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, said he believes there is a time and a place for self-criticism, and this might not be it.
“The perennial danger of Jewish self-criticism is that it gets used in a lopsided manner,” he explained. “If you have a completely imbalanced critical apparatus that only features criticism of Israel — and Israel as a nation can be criticized — it may not behoove these groups [to continue their criticism] when they are the only voices out there being critical. When you find critical Palestinian voices, they become useful. But if they are criticizing alone and their work is used in a skewed manner, I don’t know how much good they are doing for Israel.”
Paiss insisted that these organizations “were acting out of love for Israel and loyalty to the values on which the state was founded. ... They took a reasoned and thoughtful look at what happened in Gaza and put out reports that were then used as sources for Goldstone’s report.”
Shoval stressed the serious implications of the Goldstone report, noting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two months ago that the three major dangers facing Israel were the Iranian nuclear threat, the missile threat from Hamas and Hezbollah and the Goldstone report.
“Goldstone has become code for a much broader phenomenon: the attempt to negate the legitimacy of our right to self-defense,” Netanyahu said at the time.
Asked her reaction to claims that the Goldstone report is being used by Israel’s enemies to delegitimize the Jewish state, Paiss replied: “We are acutely aware that Israel has real enemies and that the work of human rights groups are used for their propaganda. ... [But] you lose much more in a democracy when you shut down internal criticism out of fear that it would be used by people who hate you. If Israel gives in on basic democratic values, then it is really lost.”
The Im Tirtzu study found that without the NIF-funded NGOs’ reports, “Goldstone would have nothing on which to base most of the claims” he made against Israel.
“In recent years Israel has been increasingly accused of war crimes, and this allegation has become a type of new weapon among leftist organizations,” the study said. “In effect, a small group of leftist organizations that is financed by identical foreign sources has created international pressure that is seriously harming Israel in the diplomatic arena and challenges Israel’s legitimate right of self-defense in the future.”
Hamas is also claiming Israel committed war crimes in its 22-day Gaza incursion, Shoval said, in order to get the international community to put such pressure on Israel that it won’t dare respond the next time Hamas fires missiles at civilians.
He said he plans to bring his report to the Knesset with the hope that it investigates these human rights groups “because they are helping Hamas, and the State of Israel should check to see who is giving them money and whether it is legal or not.
Yisrael Hasson, a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told The Jewish Week he is inclined to call for an investigation, “but I don’t want to say for sure because I’m still learning the issue.”
In the United States, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called the Im Tirtzu charges “an outrageous broadside,” telling The Jewish Week “it is absurd to blame Goldstone on NIF.”
He said there might be legitimate questions for NIF to respond to about standards for its recipient organizations, ensuring that they not support violence, as was the case with the Ford Foundation. But he said it was unfair to accuse NIF “of undermining Israeli security. Lots of people aided and abetted Goldstone.”
The charges exchanged between Im Tirtzu and the New Israel Fund also became personal attacks when Im Tirtzu took out an ad depicting Naomi Chazan, NIF’s president, with a horn on her head. Chazan is a former deputy speaker of the Knesset and a former member of the Knesset from the Meretz Party.
“She was the head of the campaign against the IDF,” Shoval said in explaining the caricature of Chazan. “She has a major part in deciding where the money is going, and I want to make sure that everyone knows that this is the person standing behind it.”
Asked why a horn was put on her head, he said the word for “horn” in Hebrew also means “fund,” “so it was a funny to put a horn on her head.”
In addition, he said his group staged a protest demonstration outside her Jerusalem home Saturday night.
Paiss said Chazan was in New York at the time and that the protesters mistakenly targeted a neighbor’s home and not Chazan’s.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, a Washington-based pro-peace-process lobby group, issued a statement expressing grave concern about the “vicious” attacks against the NIF and Chazan. He said it used “style reminiscent of propaganda from the darkest days of recent Jewish experience, depicting Chazan with a horn on her head and holding her personally responsible for the contents of the Goldstone Report.”
Ben-Ami said also that Im Tirtzu’s political leanings are clear from the fact that it accepted $100,000 from the John Hagee Ministries, a group run by Pastor John Hagee, a major supporter of Israel who has made controversial remarks in the past. Hagee is also founder and president of Christians United for Israel.
Paiss said she believes this attack on her organization is but the latest in a “coordinated attempt to delegitimize Israeli civil society and repress human rights groups and tolerance for dissent and honesty” in Israel. She cited the recent arrests of Anat Hoffman of the Israel Religious Action Center for her activities in support of women praying at the Kotel, and of Hagai el-Ad, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, as he was monitoring a demonstration protesting the seizure of Palestinian land in Jerusalem.
“We think it’s a suppression of free speech and that they want the human rights community in Israel to be defunded and defeated,” Paiss said.
But Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University and a founder of NGO Monitor, charged that the NIF is guilty of a similar attack against him. He claimed it has been distributing a “finger” painting against him, even though his organization has never engaged in personal attacks.
“It’s an example of how NIF plays rough and dirty in attacking its critics, but is outraged when they are treated in the same way,” he said. “NIF is extremely closed and hostile to any criticism and independent analysis, and they have outraged the Israeli center by their funding of some of the most radical organizations.
“They collect most of their money from outside of Israel, and there is a demand that the Knesset demand transparency from government-funded NGOs,” Steinberg added. “Do NIF-funded NGOs discriminate against Israel when they encourage boycotts of Israel and encourage Israelis to reject the draft? This is part of a wider awareness effort going on in Israel. It is not right wing but centrist.”
Paiss denied that the NIF was behind a “finger” poster directed against Steinberg, whom she called a “voice and outlet for those who believe that any criticism of Israel is anti-Israel.”
“We think that loving examination of Israel’s real problems and proposing solutions is the best way to love Israel,” she added.
Locking horns over Goldstone: An ad sponsored by the Im Tirzu Zionist group depicted Naomi Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, with a horn on her head.
Locking horns over Goldstone: An ad sponsored by the Im Tirzu Zionist group depicted Naomi Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, with a horn on her head.
by Stewart Ain
Staff Writer
Charges that the New Israel Fund supports Israeli civil rights groups that played a key role in providing information highly critical of Israel’s role in the Gaza war last year have sparked a spirited, and nasty, debate over the proper role for civil and human rights groups in a democratic state.
A 131-page report, commissioned by a three-year-old Zionist group active on Israeli campuses, called Im Tirtzu, found that 16 Israeli human rights organizations provided 92 percent of the critical information used in the UN report written by South African jurist Richard Goldstone. All 16 are funded by the New Israel Fund (NIF) and include such groups as Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
NIF, founded in
Inbal 300X250
1979, is a philanthropy that funds mostly left-of-center human rights groups (as well as groups addressing other social issues) in Israel. Supporters say it promotes equal rights for all Israeli citizens; critics have accused it of supporting Israeli Arab groups that in turn encourage insurrection against the Zionist state.
“At the end of the day, we have a situation where Israelis are blaming their brothers of committing war crimes without any proof,” said Ronen Shoval, a graduate student and founder of Im Tirtzu. “They are lying. ... And the NIF stands behind the Goldstone report. I can’t tell you how important it is that Jewish people in the United States understand that at the end of the day their money [to the NIF] helps Hamas.”
A spokeswoman for the New Israel Fund, Naomi Paiss, said that although her group took no position on the Goldstone report, it “is very proud of the groups we have supported. ... Their reports were carefully documented and in some instances were the only available information out of Gaza because the international press and the Israeli press were kept out.
“Those human rights organizations are there to do a job,” she continued. “They reported on their concerns about the Gaza operation and were the first to declare that the Israeli government should launch an independent inquiry into the events of Gaza. Had that been done, perhaps there would not have been a Goldstone report.”
But Jacques Berlinerblau, director of the Program for Jewish Civilization at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, said he believes there is a time and a place for self-criticism, and this might not be it.
“The perennial danger of Jewish self-criticism is that it gets used in a lopsided manner,” he explained. “If you have a completely imbalanced critical apparatus that only features criticism of Israel — and Israel as a nation can be criticized — it may not behoove these groups [to continue their criticism] when they are the only voices out there being critical. When you find critical Palestinian voices, they become useful. But if they are criticizing alone and their work is used in a skewed manner, I don’t know how much good they are doing for Israel.”
Paiss insisted that these organizations “were acting out of love for Israel and loyalty to the values on which the state was founded. ... They took a reasoned and thoughtful look at what happened in Gaza and put out reports that were then used as sources for Goldstone’s report.”
Shoval stressed the serious implications of the Goldstone report, noting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two months ago that the three major dangers facing Israel were the Iranian nuclear threat, the missile threat from Hamas and Hezbollah and the Goldstone report.
“Goldstone has become code for a much broader phenomenon: the attempt to negate the legitimacy of our right to self-defense,” Netanyahu said at the time.
Asked her reaction to claims that the Goldstone report is being used by Israel’s enemies to delegitimize the Jewish state, Paiss replied: “We are acutely aware that Israel has real enemies and that the work of human rights groups are used for their propaganda. ... [But] you lose much more in a democracy when you shut down internal criticism out of fear that it would be used by people who hate you. If Israel gives in on basic democratic values, then it is really lost.”
The Im Tirtzu study found that without the NIF-funded NGOs’ reports, “Goldstone would have nothing on which to base most of the claims” he made against Israel.
“In recent years Israel has been increasingly accused of war crimes, and this allegation has become a type of new weapon among leftist organizations,” the study said. “In effect, a small group of leftist organizations that is financed by identical foreign sources has created international pressure that is seriously harming Israel in the diplomatic arena and challenges Israel’s legitimate right of self-defense in the future.”
Hamas is also claiming Israel committed war crimes in its 22-day Gaza incursion, Shoval said, in order to get the international community to put such pressure on Israel that it won’t dare respond the next time Hamas fires missiles at civilians.
He said he plans to bring his report to the Knesset with the hope that it investigates these human rights groups “because they are helping Hamas, and the State of Israel should check to see who is giving them money and whether it is legal or not.
Yisrael Hasson, a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told The Jewish Week he is inclined to call for an investigation, “but I don’t want to say for sure because I’m still learning the issue.”
In the United States, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called the Im Tirtzu charges “an outrageous broadside,” telling The Jewish Week “it is absurd to blame Goldstone on NIF.”
He said there might be legitimate questions for NIF to respond to about standards for its recipient organizations, ensuring that they not support violence, as was the case with the Ford Foundation. But he said it was unfair to accuse NIF “of undermining Israeli security. Lots of people aided and abetted Goldstone.”
The charges exchanged between Im Tirtzu and the New Israel Fund also became personal attacks when Im Tirtzu took out an ad depicting Naomi Chazan, NIF’s president, with a horn on her head. Chazan is a former deputy speaker of the Knesset and a former member of the Knesset from the Meretz Party.
“She was the head of the campaign against the IDF,” Shoval said in explaining the caricature of Chazan. “She has a major part in deciding where the money is going, and I want to make sure that everyone knows that this is the person standing behind it.”
Asked why a horn was put on her head, he said the word for “horn” in Hebrew also means “fund,” “so it was a funny to put a horn on her head.”
In addition, he said his group staged a protest demonstration outside her Jerusalem home Saturday night.
Paiss said Chazan was in New York at the time and that the protesters mistakenly targeted a neighbor’s home and not Chazan’s.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, a Washington-based pro-peace-process lobby group, issued a statement expressing grave concern about the “vicious” attacks against the NIF and Chazan. He said it used “style reminiscent of propaganda from the darkest days of recent Jewish experience, depicting Chazan with a horn on her head and holding her personally responsible for the contents of the Goldstone Report.”
Ben-Ami said also that Im Tirtzu’s political leanings are clear from the fact that it accepted $100,000 from the John Hagee Ministries, a group run by Pastor John Hagee, a major supporter of Israel who has made controversial remarks in the past. Hagee is also founder and president of Christians United for Israel.
Paiss said she believes this attack on her organization is but the latest in a “coordinated attempt to delegitimize Israeli civil society and repress human rights groups and tolerance for dissent and honesty” in Israel. She cited the recent arrests of Anat Hoffman of the Israel Religious Action Center for her activities in support of women praying at the Kotel, and of Hagai el-Ad, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, as he was monitoring a demonstration protesting the seizure of Palestinian land in Jerusalem.
“We think it’s a suppression of free speech and that they want the human rights community in Israel to be defunded and defeated,” Paiss said.
But Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University and a founder of NGO Monitor, charged that the NIF is guilty of a similar attack against him. He claimed it has been distributing a “finger” painting against him, even though his organization has never engaged in personal attacks.
“It’s an example of how NIF plays rough and dirty in attacking its critics, but is outraged when they are treated in the same way,” he said. “NIF is extremely closed and hostile to any criticism and independent analysis, and they have outraged the Israeli center by their funding of some of the most radical organizations.
“They collect most of their money from outside of Israel, and there is a demand that the Knesset demand transparency from government-funded NGOs,” Steinberg added. “Do NIF-funded NGOs discriminate against Israel when they encourage boycotts of Israel and encourage Israelis to reject the draft? This is part of a wider awareness effort going on in Israel. It is not right wing but centrist.”
Paiss denied that the NIF was behind a “finger” poster directed against Steinberg, whom she called a “voice and outlet for those who believe that any criticism of Israel is anti-Israel.”
“We think that loving examination of Israel’s real problems and proposing solutions is the best way to love Israel,” she added.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Palin over Obama for a safe world
Column One: Sarah Palin’s friendship
By CAROLINE GLICK
12/02/2010 16:01
Hers is the strongest single American voice opposing Obama’s foreign policy, supporting Israel and denying Iran nuclear weapons.
Talkbacks (13)
US President Barack Obama is an inept, incompetent leader. More than his failure to pass his domestic agenda on health care and global warming despite his Democratic Party’s control over both houses of Congress, Iran’s announcement on Thursday that it is a nuclear power and has the capacity to produce weapons-grade uranium is a testament to Obama’s feckless incompetence. Even his most ardent supporters are admitting this.
Take The New York Times. In a news analysis Thursday of Obama’s failure to prevent Iran from advancing with its nuclear program, David Sanger wrote that for the US president, the last year has been “a year in which little in his dealings with Iran has gone the way that the White House expected.”
Since Obama first announced his wish to sit down with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a Democratic presidential candidates’ debate in the spring of 2008, the 44th US president’s only strategy for dealing with Iran has been to appease its leaders. And as of Tuesday, he still believes that ingratiating himself with the regime is his best bet.
On Tuesday, Obama wouldn’t admit that appeasement has failed, even as all of Iran’s top leaders said they were expanding their illicit uranium enrichment activities. The most he would do was acknowledge that the regime’s leaders “have made their choice so far, although the door is still open.”
As for sanctions, well, Obama said it will take “several weeks” to put those together at the UN.
The distressing truth is that Obama’s aim has never been to prevent Teheran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. His whole “sanctions-if-engagement-fails” strategy is just a ruse. The Obama administration has never intended to place biting sanctions on Iran. As one senior administration official told The New York Times, the purpose of the sanctions talk is to get the Iranians to agree to negotiate. As he put it, “This is about driving them back to negotiations, because the real goal here is to avoid war.”
Got that? As far as Obama is concerned, Iran with nuclear weapons isn’t the main concern. Israel using force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is the main concern.
US PRESIDENTS have a far freer hand in foreign policy than they have in domestic affairs. A president’s ability to implement his domestic agenda is constrained by Congress. Congress has much less of a say in foreign policy. But the main constraining factor for a US president in both domestic and foreign affairs is public opinion.
Over the past year, Obama failed to pass his domestic agenda even though he enjoyed governing majorities in both houses of Congress, because the public opposed his agenda. So, too, if the public is able to express its opposition to his foreign policy, particularly as it relates to Israel and Iran, he will be unable to sustain it.
To date, in light of his sinking approval ratings, the main thing Obama has had going for him is that since the presidential election, his political opponents have lacked a leader capable of uniting his opponents around an alternative path. Over the past week, that leader may have emerged.
On Saturday, former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin gave the keynote address at the Tea Party Movement convention in Nashville, Tennessee. As she did in the presidential campaign, Palin electrified her audience in Nashville by credibly channeling the populist impulses of American voters. In her signature line she asked, “So how’s that hopey changey stuff working out for ya?”
Palin excoriated Obama on his handling of US foreign policy. Among other things, she noted that a year into his quest to appease dictators, America’s international standing is in shambles. “Israel, a friend and a critical ally, now questions the strength of our support,” she added.
Palin bellowed that on issues of foreign policy, there is no room for self-delusion. As she put it, “National security, that’s the one place where you’ve got to call it like it is.” And then, “We need a foreign policy that distinguishes America’s friends from her enemies and recognizes the true nature of the threats that we face.”
If her address wasn’t enough to convince Americans – and specifically American Jews – that Palin thinks supporting Israel and standing up to Iran are the keys to US nationalsecurity, then there was her interview on Fox News Sunday. Asked how Obama can win reelection in 2012, Palin responded, “Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really to come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do.”
And if that still isn’t enough, there is her lapel pin. The politician who leads the populist opposition to Obama decided to make her most important speech since the 2008 election wearing a pin featuring the US flag and the Israeli flag.
Palin, who is considering a run in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, is using her public platforms to reassemble the coalition ofsecurity hawks, social conservatives and blue collar workers that propelled Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980. Her support for Israel serves her in building support among both security hawks and social conservatives.
Unlike Obama’s empty protestations of support for Israel, Palin’s support is obviously heartfelt and therefore will not diminish while Obama remains in office. And as Palin becomes stronger, her ability to influence the US debate in a manner that constrains Obama’s freedom to intimidate Israel into allowing Iran to become a nuclear power will rise.
In spite of Palin’s extraordinary support for Israel, the American Jewish community overwhelmingly rejects her. As Jennifer Rubin noted in her article, “Why Jews hate Palin,” in Commentary magazine, Jews disapproved of Sen. John McCain’s choice of Palin as his running-mate by a 54 to 37 percent majority. The sneering broadsides published against Palin by leading American Jewish writers are legion.
In her article, Rubin gives a number of reasons for American Jews’ rejection of Palin.
On the one hand, American Jews, who overwhelmingly self-identify as Democrats and disproportionately identify as liberals, oppose Palin for the same reason they oppose all social-conservative Republicans – because she isn’t a liberal Democrat. What makes American Jews’ rejection of Palin unique is its emotional potency. Rubin argues that the visceral hatred that many American Jews express towards Palin is effectively an issue of class hatred, or snobbery. They are four generations removed from the sweatshops where their great grandparents labored on New York’s Lower East Side. And they don’t like this woman with a funny accent who went to University of Idaho, guts fish and shoots moose.
This may be true. But if it is, American Jews might want to rethink their loyalty to their social class. As the demonstrations against Ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine, against former prime minister Ehud Olmert at University of Chicago, against Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon at Oxford, as well as the disinvitation of Prof. Benny Morris at Cambridge and the celebrity of Harvard’s anti-Semitic Prof. Steve Walt show clearly, the bastions of intellectual elitism where American Jews feel most at home have become the repositories of the most virulent hatred of Jews in America and the West today. Liberal standard bearers like Hollywood have had no compunction about giving prestigious awards to movies like Paradise Now, which glorified murderers of Jews in a manner unmatched since the days of Leni Riefenstahl. Elite media outlets like The Atlantic monthly are only too happy to publish the rantings of newly fashionable critics like Andrew Sullivan.
Liberal Democratic Jewish voices, like Leon Wieseltier at The New Republic, are aware that there is a problem with the rampant anti-Semitism in their camp. And they fear that as a consequence, American Jews may take a second look at Palin with her Israeli flag lapel pin. As Wieseltier wrote this week, “A day does not go by when I do not do my humble part to prevent such a transformation [of American Jewry from liberals to conservatives] from coming to pass.”
THE FACT of the matter is that for Israel’s sake such a transformation can’t happen quickly enough. It isn’t that American Jews have to change their social agenda, but they must recognize that today, sadly, there is not meaningful bipartisan support for Israel in the US Congress. The 54 lawmakers who wrote Obama a letter last month asking him to force Israel to open up Gaza’s borders were all Democrats. Opposition to passing sanctions against Iran, and opposition to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations, are only politically significant among Democrats.
In her speech at the Tea Party Conference, Palin said, “We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.”
The fact of the matter is that Obama came to many of his anti-Israel sensibilities through his professor friends – Rashid Khalidi, John Mearshimer, Samantha Power, William Ayres, Bernadine Dohrn and, of course, the late Edward Said. Americans interested in national security – and particularly American Jews who support Israel – should be the first ones to second Palin’s statement.
Sarah Palin’s emergence as the mouthpiece of populist opposition to Obama presents Israel’s supporters – and particularly Israel’s Jewish supporters – with an extraordinary opportunity and an extraordinary challenge. Palin’s coupling of support for Israel with her populist domestic agenda marks the first time that support for Israel has been treated as a core, populist issue. The opportunity this presents for American Jews who care about Israel is without precedent.
But of course, to make the best use of this opportunity, American Jews who support Israel have to disappoint Wieseltier. They have to acknowledge that the Left has rejected their cause and increasingly, rejects them.
Obama’s failure to prevent Iran from moving forward with its nuclear program, and his stubborn refusal to support an Israeli move to deny Iran the ability to threaten Israel and global security as a whole, place Israel and core US national security interests in unprecedented jeopardy. His fellow Democrats’ willingness to support him as he maintains this perilous course means that the Democratic ship has abandoned Israel, and strategic sanity.
Palin’s future in politics is unknowable. But what is clear enough is that today hers is the strongest single American voice opposing Obama’s foreign policy and the loudest advocate for supporting Israel and denying Iran nuclear weapons. For this she deserves the thanks and support of American Jewry.
caroline@carolineglick.com
By CAROLINE GLICK
12/02/2010 16:01
Hers is the strongest single American voice opposing Obama’s foreign policy, supporting Israel and denying Iran nuclear weapons.
Talkbacks (13)
US President Barack Obama is an inept, incompetent leader. More than his failure to pass his domestic agenda on health care and global warming despite his Democratic Party’s control over both houses of Congress, Iran’s announcement on Thursday that it is a nuclear power and has the capacity to produce weapons-grade uranium is a testament to Obama’s feckless incompetence. Even his most ardent supporters are admitting this.
Take The New York Times. In a news analysis Thursday of Obama’s failure to prevent Iran from advancing with its nuclear program, David Sanger wrote that for the US president, the last year has been “a year in which little in his dealings with Iran has gone the way that the White House expected.”
Since Obama first announced his wish to sit down with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, at a Democratic presidential candidates’ debate in the spring of 2008, the 44th US president’s only strategy for dealing with Iran has been to appease its leaders. And as of Tuesday, he still believes that ingratiating himself with the regime is his best bet.
On Tuesday, Obama wouldn’t admit that appeasement has failed, even as all of Iran’s top leaders said they were expanding their illicit uranium enrichment activities. The most he would do was acknowledge that the regime’s leaders “have made their choice so far, although the door is still open.”
As for sanctions, well, Obama said it will take “several weeks” to put those together at the UN.
The distressing truth is that Obama’s aim has never been to prevent Teheran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. His whole “sanctions-if-engagement-fails” strategy is just a ruse. The Obama administration has never intended to place biting sanctions on Iran. As one senior administration official told The New York Times, the purpose of the sanctions talk is to get the Iranians to agree to negotiate. As he put it, “This is about driving them back to negotiations, because the real goal here is to avoid war.”
Got that? As far as Obama is concerned, Iran with nuclear weapons isn’t the main concern. Israel using force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons is the main concern.
US PRESIDENTS have a far freer hand in foreign policy than they have in domestic affairs. A president’s ability to implement his domestic agenda is constrained by Congress. Congress has much less of a say in foreign policy. But the main constraining factor for a US president in both domestic and foreign affairs is public opinion.
Over the past year, Obama failed to pass his domestic agenda even though he enjoyed governing majorities in both houses of Congress, because the public opposed his agenda. So, too, if the public is able to express its opposition to his foreign policy, particularly as it relates to Israel and Iran, he will be unable to sustain it.
To date, in light of his sinking approval ratings, the main thing Obama has had going for him is that since the presidential election, his political opponents have lacked a leader capable of uniting his opponents around an alternative path. Over the past week, that leader may have emerged.
On Saturday, former Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin gave the keynote address at the Tea Party Movement convention in Nashville, Tennessee. As she did in the presidential campaign, Palin electrified her audience in Nashville by credibly channeling the populist impulses of American voters. In her signature line she asked, “So how’s that hopey changey stuff working out for ya?”
Palin excoriated Obama on his handling of US foreign policy. Among other things, she noted that a year into his quest to appease dictators, America’s international standing is in shambles. “Israel, a friend and a critical ally, now questions the strength of our support,” she added.
Palin bellowed that on issues of foreign policy, there is no room for self-delusion. As she put it, “National security, that’s the one place where you’ve got to call it like it is.” And then, “We need a foreign policy that distinguishes America’s friends from her enemies and recognizes the true nature of the threats that we face.”
If her address wasn’t enough to convince Americans – and specifically American Jews – that Palin thinks supporting Israel and standing up to Iran are the keys to US nationalsecurity, then there was her interview on Fox News Sunday. Asked how Obama can win reelection in 2012, Palin responded, “Say he decided to declare war on Iran or decided really to come out and do whatever he could to support Israel, which I would like him to do.”
And if that still isn’t enough, there is her lapel pin. The politician who leads the populist opposition to Obama decided to make her most important speech since the 2008 election wearing a pin featuring the US flag and the Israeli flag.
Palin, who is considering a run in the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, is using her public platforms to reassemble the coalition ofsecurity hawks, social conservatives and blue collar workers that propelled Ronald Reagan to the White House in 1980. Her support for Israel serves her in building support among both security hawks and social conservatives.
Unlike Obama’s empty protestations of support for Israel, Palin’s support is obviously heartfelt and therefore will not diminish while Obama remains in office. And as Palin becomes stronger, her ability to influence the US debate in a manner that constrains Obama’s freedom to intimidate Israel into allowing Iran to become a nuclear power will rise.
In spite of Palin’s extraordinary support for Israel, the American Jewish community overwhelmingly rejects her. As Jennifer Rubin noted in her article, “Why Jews hate Palin,” in Commentary magazine, Jews disapproved of Sen. John McCain’s choice of Palin as his running-mate by a 54 to 37 percent majority. The sneering broadsides published against Palin by leading American Jewish writers are legion.
In her article, Rubin gives a number of reasons for American Jews’ rejection of Palin.
On the one hand, American Jews, who overwhelmingly self-identify as Democrats and disproportionately identify as liberals, oppose Palin for the same reason they oppose all social-conservative Republicans – because she isn’t a liberal Democrat. What makes American Jews’ rejection of Palin unique is its emotional potency. Rubin argues that the visceral hatred that many American Jews express towards Palin is effectively an issue of class hatred, or snobbery. They are four generations removed from the sweatshops where their great grandparents labored on New York’s Lower East Side. And they don’t like this woman with a funny accent who went to University of Idaho, guts fish and shoots moose.
This may be true. But if it is, American Jews might want to rethink their loyalty to their social class. As the demonstrations against Ambassador Michael Oren at UC Irvine, against former prime minister Ehud Olmert at University of Chicago, against Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon at Oxford, as well as the disinvitation of Prof. Benny Morris at Cambridge and the celebrity of Harvard’s anti-Semitic Prof. Steve Walt show clearly, the bastions of intellectual elitism where American Jews feel most at home have become the repositories of the most virulent hatred of Jews in America and the West today. Liberal standard bearers like Hollywood have had no compunction about giving prestigious awards to movies like Paradise Now, which glorified murderers of Jews in a manner unmatched since the days of Leni Riefenstahl. Elite media outlets like The Atlantic monthly are only too happy to publish the rantings of newly fashionable critics like Andrew Sullivan.
Liberal Democratic Jewish voices, like Leon Wieseltier at The New Republic, are aware that there is a problem with the rampant anti-Semitism in their camp. And they fear that as a consequence, American Jews may take a second look at Palin with her Israeli flag lapel pin. As Wieseltier wrote this week, “A day does not go by when I do not do my humble part to prevent such a transformation [of American Jewry from liberals to conservatives] from coming to pass.”
THE FACT of the matter is that for Israel’s sake such a transformation can’t happen quickly enough. It isn’t that American Jews have to change their social agenda, but they must recognize that today, sadly, there is not meaningful bipartisan support for Israel in the US Congress. The 54 lawmakers who wrote Obama a letter last month asking him to force Israel to open up Gaza’s borders were all Democrats. Opposition to passing sanctions against Iran, and opposition to an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear installations, are only politically significant among Democrats.
In her speech at the Tea Party Conference, Palin said, “We need a commander-in-chief, not a professor of law standing at the lectern.”
The fact of the matter is that Obama came to many of his anti-Israel sensibilities through his professor friends – Rashid Khalidi, John Mearshimer, Samantha Power, William Ayres, Bernadine Dohrn and, of course, the late Edward Said. Americans interested in national security – and particularly American Jews who support Israel – should be the first ones to second Palin’s statement.
Sarah Palin’s emergence as the mouthpiece of populist opposition to Obama presents Israel’s supporters – and particularly Israel’s Jewish supporters – with an extraordinary opportunity and an extraordinary challenge. Palin’s coupling of support for Israel with her populist domestic agenda marks the first time that support for Israel has been treated as a core, populist issue. The opportunity this presents for American Jews who care about Israel is without precedent.
But of course, to make the best use of this opportunity, American Jews who support Israel have to disappoint Wieseltier. They have to acknowledge that the Left has rejected their cause and increasingly, rejects them.
Obama’s failure to prevent Iran from moving forward with its nuclear program, and his stubborn refusal to support an Israeli move to deny Iran the ability to threaten Israel and global security as a whole, place Israel and core US national security interests in unprecedented jeopardy. His fellow Democrats’ willingness to support him as he maintains this perilous course means that the Democratic ship has abandoned Israel, and strategic sanity.
Palin’s future in politics is unknowable. But what is clear enough is that today hers is the strongest single American voice opposing Obama’s foreign policy and the loudest advocate for supporting Israel and denying Iran nuclear weapons. For this she deserves the thanks and support of American Jewry.
caroline@carolineglick.com
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
help Joel Pollak Ill. 9 to help israel
"Beverly Sandler" Joel Pollak - outstanding Pro Israel candidate for Illinois' 9th District has the opportunity to bring on Eric Cantor's fund raising team if he can raise an addition $14,000 by Friday morning. At all costs the incumbent Jan Schakowsky (JStreet) must be eliminated from elected office. Could you help out with this? Please help spread the word.
Contributions can be made on his website.
https://secure.piryx.com/donate/NbeJASm1/PollakForCongress/
Contributions can also be made by check.
Please make checks out to:
Pollak for Congress
Send to
P.O. Box 5027
Evanston , IL 60204-5027
So that we can keep track of how much more we need to raise please ask contributors to email me with the amount of their donations.
The US/Israel relationship is worth fighting for and the fight boils down to us!
Contributions can be made on his website.
https://secure.piryx.com/donate/NbeJASm1/PollakForCongress/
Contributions can also be made by check.
Please make checks out to:
Pollak for Congress
Send to
P.O. Box 5027
Evanston , IL 60204-5027
So that we can keep track of how much more we need to raise please ask contributors to email me with the amount of their donations.
The US/Israel relationship is worth fighting for and the fight boils down to us!
Friday, February 5, 2010
J Street pushed that anti-Israel Gaza piece to Congress
nethttp://www.forward.com/articles/124915/
Washington — In the strongest sign so far of pushback against dovish Jewish groups, a New York congresswoman representing an ultra-Orthodox constituency retracted her support from congressional initiatives meant to ease the pressure on Palestinians in Gaza.
Yvette Clarke, of New York’s 11th District, which covers large parts of Brooklyn, met February 1 with a group of local Jewish leaders, many ultra-Orthodox, to discuss their concerns about her decision to sign on to two congressional letters dealing with the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. One letter called for lifting travel restrictions on Palestinian students, and the other for easing the Israeli blockade on Gaza.
The Jewish leaders’ intervention produced an open letter to Clarke’s Jewish constituents in which she expressed her regret for supporting the congressional letters. “Unfortunately, these letters are uneven in their application of pressure and do not sufficiently present a balanced approach/path to peace,” Clarke wrote, adding that the letters have “a provocative and reactionary impact.”
A spokesman for Agudath Israel of America said that Jewish participants in the meeting with Clarke responded to her new letter with “cautious optimism” and expressed their hope that her future stance on the Middle East “will reflect the support for Israel she is voicing now.”
Dovish Jewish groups supported the congressional letters on Gaza, and while mainstream pro-Israel organizations were not supportive of them, they did not actively lobby against them.
Hadar Susskind, director of policy and strategy at J Street, a group that advocated in favor of the letters, said he understood Clarke’s wish “to balance her needs with the needs of her constituency,” but he called on the Jewish community to break with “the zero-sum game and understand that improving the situation in Gaza will help us all reach a solution.”
Clarke’s retraction of her support for the Gaza letters echoes similar pressure put on lawmakers in the run-up to J Street’s first national conference, in October 2009. Then, too, some members of Congress from strongly Jewish districts came under constituent pressure to withdraw from a list of sponsors for the eve
Washington — In the strongest sign so far of pushback against dovish Jewish groups, a New York congresswoman representing an ultra-Orthodox constituency retracted her support from congressional initiatives meant to ease the pressure on Palestinians in Gaza.
Yvette Clarke, of New York’s 11th District, which covers large parts of Brooklyn, met February 1 with a group of local Jewish leaders, many ultra-Orthodox, to discuss their concerns about her decision to sign on to two congressional letters dealing with the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. One letter called for lifting travel restrictions on Palestinian students, and the other for easing the Israeli blockade on Gaza.
The Jewish leaders’ intervention produced an open letter to Clarke’s Jewish constituents in which she expressed her regret for supporting the congressional letters. “Unfortunately, these letters are uneven in their application of pressure and do not sufficiently present a balanced approach/path to peace,” Clarke wrote, adding that the letters have “a provocative and reactionary impact.”
A spokesman for Agudath Israel of America said that Jewish participants in the meeting with Clarke responded to her new letter with “cautious optimism” and expressed their hope that her future stance on the Middle East “will reflect the support for Israel she is voicing now.”
Dovish Jewish groups supported the congressional letters on Gaza, and while mainstream pro-Israel organizations were not supportive of them, they did not actively lobby against them.
Hadar Susskind, director of policy and strategy at J Street, a group that advocated in favor of the letters, said he understood Clarke’s wish “to balance her needs with the needs of her constituency,” but he called on the Jewish community to break with “the zero-sum game and understand that improving the situation in Gaza will help us all reach a solution.”
Clarke’s retraction of her support for the Gaza letters echoes similar pressure put on lawmakers in the run-up to J Street’s first national conference, in October 2009. Then, too, some members of Congress from strongly Jewish districts came under constituent pressure to withdraw from a list of sponsors for the eve
Monday, February 1, 2010
Goldstone hurts Israel
Dershowitz Slams Goldstone: "He's An Evil Man"
by Hillel Fendel
Following his scathing critique of the Goldstone Report, for which Israel is preparing a response, Harvard Law School’s Professor Alan Dershowitz calls Goldstone an “evil man.”
Speaking with Army Radio on Sunday morning, Dershowitz said that Goldstone – whose report to the United Nations on Israel’s anti-terrorism Operation Cast Lead accused Israel of war crimes – “is a traitor using his Jewishness to malign Israel… He is an evil man, one who allowed himself to be used against the Jewish people, an absolute traitor.”
In his internet-publicized analysis of the Goldstone report, Dershowitz wrote that it is “much worse than most of its detractors (and supporters) believe. It is far more accusatory of Israel, far less balanced in its criticism of Hamas, far less honest in its evaluation of the evidence, far less responsible in drawing its conclusion, far more biased against Israeli than Palestinian witnesses, and far more willing to draw adverse inferences of intentionality from Israeli conduct and statements than from comparable Palestinian conduct and statements.”
Goldstone’s report, Dershowitz wrote, “is worse than any report previously prepared by any other United Nations agency or human rights group. As Maj.-Gen. Avichai Mandelblit, the advocate general of the Israeli Defense Forces, aptly put it: ‘I have read every report, from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Arab League. We ourselves set up investigations into 140 complaints. It is when you read these other reports and complaints that you realize how truly vicious the Goldstone report is. He made it look like we set out to go after the economic infrastructure and civilians, that it was intentional: It’s a vicious lie.’”
Methodology Worse than Conclusions
Dershowitz said that though the conclusions are harmful and unfavorable to Israel, it is Goldstone’s “methodology, analysis and substantive findings” that should be criticized. Dershowitz wrote that he has offered to debate Goldstone about his findings, but that Goldstone “has refused, as he has generally refused to respond substantively to credible critics of the report.”
Different Standards for Israel, Hamas
Prof. Dershowitz chiefly targets two aspects of the report. One is the fact that it uses different criteria for judging Hamas actions and Israeli actions: “Its writers applied totally different standards, rules and criteria in evaluating the intent of the parties to the conflict.” For instance, when faced with doubts about various incidents, in Israel’s case they were resolved against Israel, “concluding that its leaders intended to kill civilians,” while doubts regarding Hamas activities were resolved in favor of Hamas, “concluding that it did not intend to use Palestinian civilians as human shields.”
“Moreover, when it had precisely the same sort of evidence in relation to both sides - for example, statements by leaders prior to the commencement of the operation - it attributed significant weight to the Israeli statements, while entirely discounting comparable Hamas statements. This sort of evidentiary bias, though subtle, and perhaps not readily apparent to the non-legal reader, permeates the entire report.”
The Goldstone report also “takes a completely different view regarding the inferring of intent from actions. When it comes to Israel, the report repeatedly looks to results and infers from the results that they must have been intended. But when it comes to Hamas, it refuses to draw inferences regarding intent from results. For example, it acknowledges that some [Hama combatants wore civilian clothes, and it offers no reasonable explanation for why this would be so other than to mingle indistinguishably from civilians. Yet it refuses to infer intent from these actions.”
Conclusions are Wrong
Secondly, Dershowitz writes that the two central conclusions reached in the report are “demonstrably wrong.” The report’s two conclusions are that 1) Israel used the 8,000 Hamas rocket attacks on its citizens as an [excu for the real purpose of the operation, which was to target innocent Palestinian civilians for death, and 2) Hamas was not guilty of deliberately and willfully using the civilian population as human shields. It found “no evidence” that Hamas fighters “engaged in combat in civilian dress,” “no evidence” that “Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian population with the intention of shielding themselves from attack,” and no support for the claim that mosques were used to store weapons… As we will see, the report is demonstrably wrong about both of these critical conclusions.”
Dershowitz told Army Radio that he feels Israel should respond to the report by conducting its own inquiry, by a committee headed by a former Supreme Court judge.
He said that he and Goldstone were friends and colleagues for a long time, “but now I see him as a traitor… It’s as if they would have taken a Jew to edit the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He uses his Jewish last name to kosher his slander of the Jewish People.”
by Hillel Fendel
Following his scathing critique of the Goldstone Report, for which Israel is preparing a response, Harvard Law School’s Professor Alan Dershowitz calls Goldstone an “evil man.”
Speaking with Army Radio on Sunday morning, Dershowitz said that Goldstone – whose report to the United Nations on Israel’s anti-terrorism Operation Cast Lead accused Israel of war crimes – “is a traitor using his Jewishness to malign Israel… He is an evil man, one who allowed himself to be used against the Jewish people, an absolute traitor.”
In his internet-publicized analysis of the Goldstone report, Dershowitz wrote that it is “much worse than most of its detractors (and supporters) believe. It is far more accusatory of Israel, far less balanced in its criticism of Hamas, far less honest in its evaluation of the evidence, far less responsible in drawing its conclusion, far more biased against Israeli than Palestinian witnesses, and far more willing to draw adverse inferences of intentionality from Israeli conduct and statements than from comparable Palestinian conduct and statements.”
Goldstone’s report, Dershowitz wrote, “is worse than any report previously prepared by any other United Nations agency or human rights group. As Maj.-Gen. Avichai Mandelblit, the advocate general of the Israeli Defense Forces, aptly put it: ‘I have read every report, from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Arab League. We ourselves set up investigations into 140 complaints. It is when you read these other reports and complaints that you realize how truly vicious the Goldstone report is. He made it look like we set out to go after the economic infrastructure and civilians, that it was intentional: It’s a vicious lie.’”
Methodology Worse than Conclusions
Dershowitz said that though the conclusions are harmful and unfavorable to Israel, it is Goldstone’s “methodology, analysis and substantive findings” that should be criticized. Dershowitz wrote that he has offered to debate Goldstone about his findings, but that Goldstone “has refused, as he has generally refused to respond substantively to credible critics of the report.”
Different Standards for Israel, Hamas
Prof. Dershowitz chiefly targets two aspects of the report. One is the fact that it uses different criteria for judging Hamas actions and Israeli actions: “Its writers applied totally different standards, rules and criteria in evaluating the intent of the parties to the conflict.” For instance, when faced with doubts about various incidents, in Israel’s case they were resolved against Israel, “concluding that its leaders intended to kill civilians,” while doubts regarding Hamas activities were resolved in favor of Hamas, “concluding that it did not intend to use Palestinian civilians as human shields.”
“Moreover, when it had precisely the same sort of evidence in relation to both sides - for example, statements by leaders prior to the commencement of the operation - it attributed significant weight to the Israeli statements, while entirely discounting comparable Hamas statements. This sort of evidentiary bias, though subtle, and perhaps not readily apparent to the non-legal reader, permeates the entire report.”
The Goldstone report also “takes a completely different view regarding the inferring of intent from actions. When it comes to Israel, the report repeatedly looks to results and infers from the results that they must have been intended. But when it comes to Hamas, it refuses to draw inferences regarding intent from results. For example, it acknowledges that some [Hama combatants wore civilian clothes, and it offers no reasonable explanation for why this would be so other than to mingle indistinguishably from civilians. Yet it refuses to infer intent from these actions.”
Conclusions are Wrong
Secondly, Dershowitz writes that the two central conclusions reached in the report are “demonstrably wrong.” The report’s two conclusions are that 1) Israel used the 8,000 Hamas rocket attacks on its citizens as an [excu for the real purpose of the operation, which was to target innocent Palestinian civilians for death, and 2) Hamas was not guilty of deliberately and willfully using the civilian population as human shields. It found “no evidence” that Hamas fighters “engaged in combat in civilian dress,” “no evidence” that “Palestinian combatants mingled with the civilian population with the intention of shielding themselves from attack,” and no support for the claim that mosques were used to store weapons… As we will see, the report is demonstrably wrong about both of these critical conclusions.”
Dershowitz told Army Radio that he feels Israel should respond to the report by conducting its own inquiry, by a committee headed by a former Supreme Court judge.
He said that he and Goldstone were friends and colleagues for a long time, “but now I see him as a traitor… It’s as if they would have taken a Jew to edit the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He uses his Jewish last name to kosher his slander of the Jewish People.”
these 54 Dem Congressmen vote against Israel
54 Democrat Congressmen Told Obama to Pressure Israel -
Call Now! Tell them they're wrong!
By now, you've probably heard that 54 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives (no Republicans) sent a letter to President Obama - a letter in which they urge him to pressure Israel to loosen security measures on Israel's border with Hamas-controlled Gaza.
This is outrageous. And we need to raise our voices to respond!
These security measures were implemented to counter the threat from terrorism originating from the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip.
Not a single Republican member signed on. But the fact remains that one in five Democrats in Congress have called on the President to pressure Israel. Unbelievably, they want him to demand an end to measures imposed to fight against terrorism.
These 54 Democrats expressed no concern whatsoever about the consequences their ideas might have for Israelis living under the threat of terrorism from Gaza!
RJC activists need to let these badly misguided Democrats know that their shameful act has been noticed and that Jewish Americans won't stand for it.
Call now and tell the "Gaza 54":
As Americans and supporters of Israel's right of self-defense, we reject your call for pressure on our beleaguered ally. And we demand that you take a firm stand against terrorism.
The 54 Congressmen who signed this letter are:
Arizona
Raul Grijalva: 202-225-2435
California
Lois Capps: 202-225-3601
Sam Farr: 202-225-2861
Bob Filner: 202-225-8045
Barbara Lee: 202-225-2661
Loretta Sanchez: 202-225-2965
Pete Stark: 202-225-5065
Michael Honda: 202-225-2631
Lynn Woolsey: 202-225-5161
Jackie Speier: 202-225-3531
Diane Watson: 202-225-7084
George Miller: 202-225-2095
Connecticut
Jim Himes: 202-225-5541
Indiana
Andre Carson: 202-225-4011
Iowa
Bruce Braley: 202-225-2911
Kentucky
John Yarmuth: 202-225-5401
Maryland
Elijah Cummings: 202-225-4741
Donna Edwards: 202-225-8699
Massachusetts
Michael Capuano: 202-225-5111
William Delahunt: 202-225-3111
Jim McGovern: 202-225-6101
John Tierney: 202-225-8020
John Olver: 202-225-5335
Stephen Lynch: 202-225-8273
Michigan
John Conyers: 202-225-5126
John Dingell: 202-225-4071
Carolyn Kilpatrick: 202-225-2261
Minnesota
Keith Ellison: 202-225-4755
Betty McCollum: 202-225-6631
James Oberstar: 202-225-6211
New Jersey
Donald Payne: 202-225-3436
Rush Holt: 202-202-225-5801
Bill Pascrell: 202-225-5751
New York
Yvette Clarke: 202-225-6231
Maurice Hinchey: 202-225-6335
Paul Tonko: 202-225-5076
Eric Massa: 202-225-3161
North Carolina
David Price: 202-225-1784
Ohio
Mary Jo Kilroy: 202-225-2015
Marcy Kaptur: 202-225-4146
Oregon
Earl Blumenauer: 202-225-4811
Peter DeFazio: 202-225-6416
Pennsylvania
Chaka Fattah: 202-225-4001
Joe Sestak: 202-225-2011
Vermont
Peter Welch: 202-225-4115
Virginia
Jim Moran: 202-225-4376
Glenn Nye: 202-225-4215
Washington
Jim McDermott: 202-225-3106
Adam Smith: 202-225-8901
Jay Inslee: 202-225-6311
Brian Baird: 202-225-3536
West Virginia
Nick Rahall: 202-225-3452
Wisconsin
Tammy Baldwin: 202-225-2906
Gwen Moore:202-225-4572
Call Now! Tell them they're wrong!
By now, you've probably heard that 54 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives (no Republicans) sent a letter to President Obama - a letter in which they urge him to pressure Israel to loosen security measures on Israel's border with Hamas-controlled Gaza.
This is outrageous. And we need to raise our voices to respond!
These security measures were implemented to counter the threat from terrorism originating from the Hamas-controlled Gaza strip.
Not a single Republican member signed on. But the fact remains that one in five Democrats in Congress have called on the President to pressure Israel. Unbelievably, they want him to demand an end to measures imposed to fight against terrorism.
These 54 Democrats expressed no concern whatsoever about the consequences their ideas might have for Israelis living under the threat of terrorism from Gaza!
RJC activists need to let these badly misguided Democrats know that their shameful act has been noticed and that Jewish Americans won't stand for it.
Call now and tell the "Gaza 54":
As Americans and supporters of Israel's right of self-defense, we reject your call for pressure on our beleaguered ally. And we demand that you take a firm stand against terrorism.
The 54 Congressmen who signed this letter are:
Arizona
Raul Grijalva: 202-225-2435
California
Lois Capps: 202-225-3601
Sam Farr: 202-225-2861
Bob Filner: 202-225-8045
Barbara Lee: 202-225-2661
Loretta Sanchez: 202-225-2965
Pete Stark: 202-225-5065
Michael Honda: 202-225-2631
Lynn Woolsey: 202-225-5161
Jackie Speier: 202-225-3531
Diane Watson: 202-225-7084
George Miller: 202-225-2095
Connecticut
Jim Himes: 202-225-5541
Indiana
Andre Carson: 202-225-4011
Iowa
Bruce Braley: 202-225-2911
Kentucky
John Yarmuth: 202-225-5401
Maryland
Elijah Cummings: 202-225-4741
Donna Edwards: 202-225-8699
Massachusetts
Michael Capuano: 202-225-5111
William Delahunt: 202-225-3111
Jim McGovern: 202-225-6101
John Tierney: 202-225-8020
John Olver: 202-225-5335
Stephen Lynch: 202-225-8273
Michigan
John Conyers: 202-225-5126
John Dingell: 202-225-4071
Carolyn Kilpatrick: 202-225-2261
Minnesota
Keith Ellison: 202-225-4755
Betty McCollum: 202-225-6631
James Oberstar: 202-225-6211
New Jersey
Donald Payne: 202-225-3436
Rush Holt: 202-202-225-5801
Bill Pascrell: 202-225-5751
New York
Yvette Clarke: 202-225-6231
Maurice Hinchey: 202-225-6335
Paul Tonko: 202-225-5076
Eric Massa: 202-225-3161
North Carolina
David Price: 202-225-1784
Ohio
Mary Jo Kilroy: 202-225-2015
Marcy Kaptur: 202-225-4146
Oregon
Earl Blumenauer: 202-225-4811
Peter DeFazio: 202-225-6416
Pennsylvania
Chaka Fattah: 202-225-4001
Joe Sestak: 202-225-2011
Vermont
Peter Welch: 202-225-4115
Virginia
Jim Moran: 202-225-4376
Glenn Nye: 202-225-4215
Washington
Jim McDermott: 202-225-3106
Adam Smith: 202-225-8901
Jay Inslee: 202-225-6311
Brian Baird: 202-225-3536
West Virginia
Nick Rahall: 202-225-3452
Wisconsin
Tammy Baldwin: 202-225-2906
Gwen Moore:202-225-4572
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