J Street – The Conservative-Patriot Christian Right

The new government’s war on BDS

Is the global Antisemitism snowballing in the Western World’s democratic nations grown so bad that tiny Israel is becoming diplomatically isolated?

JRH 6/6/15

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The new government’s war on BDS

By CAROLINE B. GLICK

06/04/2015

Jerusalem Post

The flagship of the diplomatic war against Israel is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government is less than a month old, but it’s already apparent that it is different from its predecessors. And if it continues on its current diplomatic trajectory, it may do something that its six predecessors failed to accomplish. Netanyahu’s new government may improve Israel’s position internationally.

The stakes are high. Over the years, Israel has largely concentrated its efforts on developing the tools to contend with its military challenges. But as we have seen over the past decade and a half, Israel’s capacity to fight and defeat its enemies is not limited principally by the IDF’s war-fighting capabilities.

Israel’s ability to defend itself and its citizens is constrained first and foremost by its shrinking capacity to defend itself diplomatically. Its enemies in the diplomatic arena have met with great success in their use of diplomatic condemnation and intimidation to force Israel to limit its military operations to the point where it is incapable of defeating its enemies outright.

The flagship of the diplomatic war against Israel is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Participants in the movement propagate and disseminate the libelous claim that Israel’s use of force in self-defense is inherently immoral and illegal. Over the years BDS activists’ assaults on Israel’s right to exist have become ever more shrill and radical. So, too, whereas just a few years ago their operations tended to be concentrated around military confrontations, today they are everyday occurrences. And their demands become greater and more openly anti-Semitic from week to week and day to day.

Consider the events of the past seven days alone.

Late last week Israel fended off a major international effort led by Palestinian Authority Soccer Federation chairman and former terrorist chief Jibril Rajoub to expel it from the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. Not only is Rajoub a man with blood on his hands. The Fatah luminary is admired by the Israeli far-Left while also being a favorite of Qatar, the chief state sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Rajoub is sympathetically inclined toward enabling Hamas in Gaza to expand its presence in Judea and Samaria.

Before the government had a chance to sigh in relief that FIFA was settled, Britain’s National Union of Students voted to join the BDS movement. This means that the anti-Israel demonstrations and assaults that take place several times a week at Britain’s universities will now take place under the NUS banner.

Also Wednesday, the French telecom giant Orange’s CEO Stéphane Richard told reporters in Cairo that he wishes to cut off his contract with Israel’s Partner telecommunications company, one of Israel’s largest cellular telephone services providers.

Richard was apparently coerced into making his statement by the Egyptian BDS movement which has threatened to boycott Orange’s subsidiary in Egypt due to its contract with Partner.

Tuesday it was reported that last month the Dutch government issued a travel advisory to its citizens traveling in Israel. In an act of anti-Jewish inversion now common in the Western discourse about Israel and its enemies, the Dutch government warned that Jews in Judea and Samaria constitute a threat to Dutch travelers because they throw stones “toward Palestinian and foreign vehicles.”

In the US, the Anti-Defamation League reported that this past academic year there was a 38 percent rise in anti-Israel events on college campuses over the previous year. The number of BDS campaigns doubled over the previous academic year.

By ADL’s count, there were 520 anti-Israel events on campuses. BDS campaigns were initiated on 29 campuses.

At the UN, Tuesday “The Palestinian Return Center,” Hamas’s European chapter, was granted official status as a recognized nongovernmental organization by the UN’s Commission on NGOs. Now, thanks to the commission, Hamas terrorists can participate in UN meetings, have full access to UN facilities and wear their new, official UN badges.

Incidentally, the same commission rejected a request by ZAKA to receive the same status. ZAKA is an Israeli NGO that provides first aid and handles the remains of terrorism victims and victims of major disasters in Israel and worldwide.

Also at the UN, Leila Zerrougui, the envoy for children in armed conflicts, is pushing to get the IDF added to the blacklist of groups that harm children.

Boko Haram, Islamic State, al-Qaida and the Taliban are among the current names of the list.

Wednesday Republican Sen. Ted Cruz sent a pointed letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemning Zerrougui’s actions. Cruz threatened, “Congress will have no choice but to reassess the United States’ relationship with the United Nations and consider serious consequences if you choose to take this action.”

In contrast to Cruz’s position, in his interview with Channel 2 broadcast Tuesday, US President Barack Obama indicated that due to the rising tide of anti-Israel sentiment and campaigns, if Israel doesn’t make unreciprocated concessions to the PA then the administration will have no choice but to join the anti-Israel UN bandwagon.

The time has come, then, for Israel to take the wheels off the wagon.

For the past dozen years or so, pro-Israel activists in the US in particular have been fighting an uphill, lonely battle against the organizations promoting the BDS movement. Among their top complaints has been the constant refrain that the Israeli government has undermined their actions by standing silent or denying what was happening or treating Israel’s defenders as the moral equivalents of its adversaries.

To some degree, the reticence of the Foreign Ministry was understandable. The BDS Israel haters often claim that they wage political and economic warfare against Israel and isolate and humiliate Israel supporters in the West to promote peace.

This claim has always been ridiculous. You can’t support peace and boycott Jewish-owned businesses in all or parts of Israel. You can’t support peace and boycott Israeli students and professors and dance troupes.

But so long as the word “peace” has been involved, or the boycotters have pretended that they are only referring to Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, the Foreign Ministry has by and large taken them at face value and pretended that their smear operation is nothing to worry about.

To the extent they have tried to deal with the growing hate Israel phenomenon, they have run away from its essence. Instead, our senior diplomats have said that the best way to combat BDS is by rebranding Israel as the start-up, gay, friendly state with great beaches.

And largely as a result of this self-induced paralysis and blindness, pro-Israel activists have been isolated.

Jewish anti-Israel organizations such as J Street, Open Hillel and the New Israel Fund in the US, and European governments and government- funded organizations in Europe have operated largely free from criticism by official Israeli voices unwilling to take sides in the debate about the country’s right to exist and defend itself.

All the while, Israel’s diplomatic standing has gone from weak to incapacitated.

Against this backdrop, statements and actions by the new Netanyahu government are encouraging because, unlike its predecessors, it seems to have stopped playing the fool.

At the outset of this week’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu spoke out angrily and specifically against the BDS movement and warned that Israel must not blame itself for the BDS haters’ assaults against it.

As he put it, “The last thing we need to do is to bow our heads and ask where we went wrong, where we erred. We have done nothing wrong and we have not erred. We are not a perfect country; we do not pretend to be such, but they are setting standards for us that are both twisted and higher than those for any other country, any other democracy.”

Wednesday Netanyahu assailed the British student union’s decision to join the BDS movement.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked excoriated the BDS movement at the Knesset, stating openly that it is the new Jew hatred.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely has translated this new position into action. Among other things, this week she instructed Israel’s ambassador to Switzerland to formally demand that the Swiss government and the Zurich municipality rescind their financial support for the planned Breaking the Silence conference this month in Zurich. The purpose of the conference, like the purpose of the foreign-funded group more generally, is to demonize and libel the IDF.

So it appears that the government has decided to finally go on offense. But if this is true, then much more can and must be done immediately.

Take the Dutch travel advisory for instance. Israel wasted no time in condemning Holland’s move. But the Dutch statement was just the tip of the iceberg.

Holland spends millions every year to directly and indirectly finance organizations whose sole purpose is to demonize Israel and Israelis. The Dutch government paid a lot of money to invent lies about Israel and its Jews that then formed the basis of its malicious, bigoted travel advisory.

The Israeli embassy at the Hague as well as the Foreign Ministry must demand not only a retraction of the travel warning. They must demand an immediate cessation of this subversive, adversarial campaign.

So, too, while the British government responded with embarrassment to the BDS vote of the NUS, the fact is that the British government holds responsibility for the strength and radicalism of the BDS movement in Britain. Like Holland, the UK spends millions every year financing NGOs whose purpose is to undermine Israeli sovereignty, demonize the IDF, attack Israel’s right to exist and fund Palestinian terrorists.

Every year, the British government funds dozens of Israeli and Palestinian-registered NGOs whose purpose is to make Israel into an international pariah unable to wage wars of self-defense without risking war crimes tribunals, economic boycotts and international humiliation.

Rather than sufficing with expressions of thanks to the Cameron government for distancing itself from the student union’s boycott of Israel, the government must demand the cessation of direct and indirect British governmental funding of these groups and their campaigns.

The BDS movement is a proxy war. It is being waged against Israel not only by deep-pocketed Arab governments which fund the NGOs that carry the battle to the streets. It is also being waged by hypocritical leftist donors in the US and by supposedly friendly European governments.

The government has taken the first steps in beating back this onslaught. But the hour is late and the stakes are high. The BDS movement is a strategic threat because as it gets stronger, Israel’s ability to wage war on the military battlefield becomes further constrained and the threats to Israel’s economy and social fabric grow. BDS must be defeated piece by piece in an unrelenting offensive that attacks its sources and puts it out of business. It won’t be easy. It won’t be genteel.

But if the government doesn’t submit to the diplomatic urge to be polite, it stands a chance of making matters better, for a change.

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About Caroline Glick

Support Z Street Non-Profit Status

John R. Houk

© May 8, 2015

I’m about to embark on a post that is essentially very pro-Z Street. Which should be distinguished from another organization known as J Street. Both organizations claim to be Pro-Israel with a Jewish-American background. Both claim to be Pro-Jewish State. The thing is Z Street recognizes that the Arabs that call themselves Palestinians are dedicated to destroy Israel. J Street is dedicated to establishing a Palestinian State even if that creation leads to the demise of Israel.

Now in full disclosure I am not Jewish. My love for Israel and its existence is based on my Christian Right Biblical faith which would label me as a Christian Zionist. That means for me Israel’s restoration to their land and having full sovereignty of that land is a sign that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will be sooner rather than later.

From a Christian Zionist’s perspective Eretz Israel was promised by God Almighty to the descendants of Abraham and on through the child of Promise – Isaac and on through Isaac’s son Jacob and the descendants of his 12 sons who aggregately is the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel).

As I was saying I am not Jewish, but since I became a Born Again Christian at age 20 I recall a story told to me in hushed tones when I was a teenager. I can’t remember how this conversation between myself and my Grandmother had taken of the topic of Jews. I do remember my Grandmother (a young woman in the Great Depression era) nearly whispered and I have to rely on a paraphrase:

“John, you know we have Jew in our background. Those Jews in our background were German Jews who immigrated to America ….”

As a teenage I didn’t pay too much attention to family stories as I should have. I was more interested in going outside with my pals to play pick-up games of football and basketball back in the early 1970s. My Grandmother’s understanding of “Jews” was something she still felt the stigma to mention. Antisemitism had not entered America’s national guilt culturally really too slowly after the horrors of the Holocaust became a confirmed public knowledge until after WWII. Thus the stigma of her generation still led to revealing a Jewish ancestry in hushed tones.

Again I have to be honest about the Jewish family tree. My Grandmother was a bit of a stinker. Sometimes she would make up tales as a learning exercise. In my teen days, to put it nicely, I had developed a personality trait of frugality. In those days there was still an abundance of racial slurs of people who were a bit tight with their money or possessions; viz. the Scottish (often spoke of being Scotch in the pejorative sense), the Dutch and – wait for it – the Jews. So in actuality, largely to my teenage inattentiveness, I am not sure was speaking of a family history or telling be more of sharing person.

Some years later my Uncle (Grandma’s oldest son, Mom’s eldest brother) had undertaken the hobby of family trees with his second wife (he was widowed). He spoke of our family being related some German Jews that settled in Pennsylvania with the surname Zonhiser (or Zonizer or Zohnizer or etc. – not at all sure of a spelling, my guesses are all my memory of phonetic sounds). Ironically a brief search at forbears.io shows 9 instances in Pennsylvania all in Mercer County. My Uncle would not elaborate especially by time his 3^rd marriage (widowed again). Anyway, moving on … back to Z Street.

Z Street has gone one step closer to winning a lawsuit against the IRS for refusing to give the Pro-Israel group a non-profit status based on their views; viz. being Jewish and Pro-Israel. From American Thinker:

The IRS was almost laughed out of court yesterday when the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments in the case Z Street v. Koskinen [Blog Editor: IRS Commissioner]. Z Street, founded by AT contributor Lori Lowenthal Marcus, is a pro-Israel educational group that applied for tax-exempt status, only to encounter delay. When it inquired as to the progress of its application, an agent told it that auditors had been instructed to give pro-Israel groups special attention, and that its application had been forwarded to a special IRS unit for additional review.

Z Street sued for viewpoint discrimination, a constitutional no-no, and the IRS went to U.S. District Court in D.C., seeking dismissal of the case. A year ago, a federal judge rejected that dismissal, and the IRS appealed, which landed the case on the docket of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the highest court in the land other than the Supreme Court. The appeal, critically, had the effect of halting discovery in the case, which would have allowed Z Street to examine IRS officials, under oath, and to receive internal communications from the agency regarding the special unit and special procedures for handling pro-Israel groups.

The Wall Street Journal’s Review & Outlook column reports on the incredulity with which the three-judge panel greeted the IRS’s arguments. This was a truly extraordinary event, for it is a rare day that a high-level court reacts so negatively to the positions taken by the federal government.

…

The IRS still has the option of appealing to the Supreme Court, further delaying discovery. Obviously, the game is to delay disclosure of embarrassing IRS policies until after the 2016 election. But the strong language used by the Fifth Circuit makes it less likely that SCOTUS will hear the appeal. READ ENTIRETY (IRS arguments draw derision from D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals; By Thomas Lifson; American Thinker; 5/7/15)

Here is Lori Lowenthal Marcus, the founder of Z Street, on the Leftist agenda of J Street:

We see J Street as being very similar to the Arab leadership. This means that they are very happy to say one thing in English and something completely different in Arabic. J Street says something for general consumption; they say that they are pro-Israel. They say that they are Jewish. However, in fact Judaism seems to play almost no role. They talk about Jewish values but they use a scalpel and remove any of the Judaism part of Jewish values. What is left are simply “social justice” issues. That’s a huge concern. It is appealing to lots of people if you say the word Jewish but remove the Jewish content. I think that is very dangerous because you are allowing people to think that they are acting on Jewish impulses when in fact they are taking actions that are anti-Israel and actually contrary to Judaism. We believe in defending the Jewish state as a pro-Israel Jewish viewpoint and value. J Street is sending the opposite message. I think that is very dangerous. The reason they are still around, the reason they burst on the scene in such a huge way and at such a high level is because of the millions of dollars behind them. J Street had the backing of people with enormous amounts of money. By that I mean George Soros. He gave money later but he did provide his reputation early on. That is why they have staying power. It is very hard to compete with millions of dollars, fancy parties and lots of attractive glossy advertising, mailing and promotional material. All of that is very seductive. J Street is a very seductive organization that is devoid of Jewish values and pro-Israel sentiment. (Z Street: A Pro-Jewish Pride Organization in the Spirit of the Bergson Boys; By Jerry Gordon; New English Review; 4/2011)

Even though this Jerry Gordon post was written in 2011, a little further down the post Gordon asks a question that should give you a clue for the IRS has lumped Z Street with Conservative and Tea Party organizations seeking a non-profit status from the IRS:

Gordon: Why do you believe that the Obama White House views J Street as the “go-to American Jewish Organization” and not AIPAC?

Marcus: Because J Street reflects the views of the Obama Administration and not what is best for Israel. AIPAC is all about promoting a strong Israel- U.S. relationship. J Street is all about promoting a strong Barack Obama. (Ibid.)

American Action News Alert sent me an email that enabled me to do an email about the Z Street vs. Koskinen (i.e. the IRS) to my Congressman and two Oklahoma Senators. I am cross posting that link. To participate in a support Israel situation and support Z Street situation click the link I’ll provide. Then scroll down toward the bottom and put in the appropriate information which will include your zip code. American Action News will send emails to your Congressman and Senators at NO CHARGE.

JRH 5/8/15

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Judges Destroy IRS Defense in Political Targeting Case

By Alana Goodman

Original Source: Washington Free Beacon

May 7, 2015 06:54 PM

American Action News

The Internal Revenue Service stunned a panel of D.C. Circuit Court judges on Monday by implying that it could discriminate against certain groups seeking nonprofit status for up to 270 days, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The three-judge panel was hearing a case related to Z Street, a pro-Israel group that is suing the IRS for discrimination after its nonprofit application was held up by the agency. Last May, a federal judge tossed out the IRS’s motion to dismiss the suit, but the agency is appealing the decision.

The IRS’s legal strategy has been to claim Z Street is suing to obtain non-profit status. According to government rules, a nonprofit applicant has grounds to sue the IRS if it doesn’t act on an application within 270 days—a waiting period the IRS says Z Street did not meet.

Z Street has repeatedly stated that it is suing the IRS for discrimination, not to obtain non-profit status. An IRS official reportedly told the group during its application process that the agency was singling the organization for extra scrutiny.

Take Action – Action Alert

Abolish the IRS

As Senator Ted Cruz said, “the single most important tax reform” we can accomplish is to abolish the IRS.

Not only does the United States have one of the most progressive tax systems in the world, but its tax collection agency, the Internal Revenue Service, has been hijacked by the current administration and used as a weapon against anyone who disagrees with Obama’s radical agenda. While at the same time, they allow tax cheats like Al Sharpton, who owes millions in back taxes, to roam free and host a show on MSNBC all because he spews the White House approved propaganda.

Recently, when Lois Lerner and the IRS came under subpoena of the United States House of Representatives for targeting conservatives and limited-government supporters, they managed to “lose” tens of thousands of possibly incriminating emails.

Enough is enough.

It’s time for everyday Americans to take a stand against this crony institution.

Tell Congress to “Abolish the IRS” today!

http://americanactionnews.com/articles/judges-rip-apart-irs-defense-in-political-targeting-case

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Support Z Street Non-Profit Status

John R. Houk

© May 8, 2015

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Judges Destroy IRS Defense in Political Targeting Case

American Action News

Meddling at the Pond

Intro to ‘Meddling at the Pond’

By Ari Bussel

Editor: John R. Houk

Sent: 2/2/2015 8:34 AM

I am fairly certain the U.S. government uses taxpayer funding to undermine foreign governments either subversively or to influence elections if that foreign government has policies that are detrimental to American National Interests or National Security. This has occurred especially in the post-WWII era when the free world has expected America to police the world from nefarious motives typically with Cold War tactics associated with Soviet and Communist China international Marxist revolution agendas. In the post-Cold War era the Pax American paradigm is resented except when a nation or some state-persecuted nationality faces a genocidal situation and that may even be a bit iffy when political correctness forces our policies to conform to a despotic ruler’s sovereignty.

The problem I am having is our Socialist Transformation Deceiver-in-Chief has been promoting Left Wing NGOs – many associated with Leftist Jewish organizations – to fund Israeli opposition campaigning against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due for mid-March Israeli elections.

Amazingly Obama’s State Department could actually be sending American taxpayer funds to one of these NGOs directly to actively lobby against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s election. Since Israel has a special alliance reliance with the USA I cannot believe that a majority of American voters would support Obama or his Administration lobbying against the head of government in Israel. Senator Ted Cruz has queried the State Department about funding such an anti-Netanyahu campaign for an official confirmation or denial.

The Left Wing organization the State Department could be funneling money toward is One Voice (SA HERE). One Voice is funding Victory 15 (V15) which is actually using Obama 2012 campaign staffers (270 Strategies) in Israel in their anti-Netanyahu efforts. Follow the Leftist Money Trail.

(CFP 2/3/15)

SUBVERSION: U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT-FUNDED GROUP INTERFERING IN ISRAEL ELECTIONS (Homespun Vine 1/30/15)

Netanyahu fires back at ‘Obama army’ plotting his defeat (WND 2/1/15)

JRH 2/3/15

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Meddling at the Pond

By Ari Bussel

Sent: 2/2/2015 8:34 AM

Jeffery Goldberg at the Atlantic describes the relationship between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu as one of “mutual loathing.” I will grant the feeling on the President’s part, although Netanyahu feels the heat, but does not reciprocate. Netanyahu has a country to run, and issues for him are not personal.

Has the President sent a contingency of election manipulating experts to Israel to defeat Netanyahu’s Likud party in the upcoming Israeli elections? Clearly the White House would deny such an absurd notion. The President will not even see Netanyahu during his visit to DC at the beginning of March due (supposedly) to the proximity to the Israeli elections, let alone meddle in the sovereign election of a foreign country.

The President would not dispatch a delegation directly to Tel Aviv to manipulate the Israeli elections. All the President needed to do is to listen to the idea, smile broadly and nod his head. There are enough mega-philanthropists, mainly American Jews and a few Israeli expats living in New York, who would carry out the plan, put up the finances and pull the strings behind the scenes.

The President, undoubtedly, would love nothing better than to see Netanyahu defeated. For him, it is personal, although he has much greater things to handle, including more fundraising, international mega-excursions with a full court, golf outings and vacations with the First Family.

It is not so much Obama as the driving force, it is his stance of “do what you want, it sounds good.” Leave it to the J Street and like- minded Jews in America who feel they need to force Israel to act as they want. Time and again they turned to the Administration to apply pressure on Israel, for her to give in, extend more gestures, withdraw and to submit. Thus, there is really nothing new under the sun. George Soros, J Street, Americans for Peace Now and others have consistently used the same tactics to topple Netanyahu’s government, but Netanyahu is stubborn. He has his country to defend; contrary to what good American Jews may think.

The Likud party is convening a press conference to disclose sources of funds to members of the so-called “Zionist Camp” (a misleading name self-assigned, somewhat similar to J Street initially calling itself “pro-Israel, pro-peace,” later to drop the “pro-Israel” portion. There is another similarity many would remember: J Street hid the fact the Soros was its initial mega donor). The Likud party also enlisted high-powered lawyers to ask the Elections Committee overseeing the upcoming March 17^th election to rule against the flow of foreign indirect funding to the election cycle.

This is a very important lesson to which one must pay very careful attention. For a long period of time, there has been noise, thus public attention in Israel, about the flow of foreign money (some from foreign governments) into local NGOs that are acting to undermine Israel’s position in world public opinion.

There has been an attempt to pass legislation to prohibit such funding, but it has not been successful. The main reason is that in Israel, like any true democracy, one does not target only the portion of the flow of funds one does not like. The rule of law applies equally to all. And the “all” in this equation does not want to stop the flow of funds; until the action hits them directly.

Each member of the Knesset, each political party and movement relies heavily on money flowing in from the outside (the comfort zone is psychological more than an imperative). Members of the Knesset regularly travel overseas on fundraising missions, rather than focus on local individuals and companies, within which there is richness beyond imagination (although less of a giving culture and an inclination is rarely forthcoming). (As I flew to Israel, a former Israeli ambassador and a former major general were busy fundraising in my hometown of Beverly Hills.)

An Israeli colonel (reserves) has travelled to the USA repeatedly and very successfully raised millions of dollars to expose the flow of funds from the USA to Israel. Numerous individuals received tax exemptions on donations to that cause legally. So exposed he did what is otherwise generally publicly available (by the mere status of American non-profits; a requirement for the 501(c)(3) status) and came public with it in Israel.

This vigilante only erred with one unacceptable omission: he hid his own sources of funds. Go expose others, while protecting exactly what you are attempting to expose. This does not sit well with me, nor should it with anyone.

As for the elections, something similar is happening. For many years, there are election experts, primarily in New York, who provide advice to the Likud and to Mr. Netanyahu for “big bucks.” They fly back and forth, most are religious and those whom I know are ultra-Zionists. (This is a new form of Zionism, one of living the comforts and the high-life of New York, while espousing to know better and run the Israeli political scene.)

Suddenly there is a problem. There is an acute need to expose “the other side.” Has the Likud forgotten that it, too, uses high-powered “experts” from New York? Admittedly, V15 may not be “Modern-Orthodox” and their flavor of “Zionism” is closer to J Street’s than to ZOA’s, but they are playing the exact same game.

It turns out they are very good at it, and none other than Ha’Aretz has been actively promoting their every move. There is nothing to hide. All is in the sunlight. And they are very effective – the media both in Israel and the USA is hovering around like bees so the public is fed constantly the idea that “Netanyahu has to go. Even the USA thinks so.” Imagine, they do not even need to spend money on this message. In short, priceless.

The more the White House denies, as it should and as is expected, the more the message is drilled into the collective Israeli and international psyche.

The Likud wants to change the rules of the game. Suddenly the same rules by which it played all along are no longer to its liking. Similar to the foreign funding flowing to Israel, the Likud in this case will cry “foul!” but apply their discontent only to the other side, not themselves.

To effect change, one must hurt personally. But “change” applies to all equally, so one must be very careful with for what one wishes.

The upcoming election in Israel is indeed a most fascinating one. The Prime Minister is going to America to act as a tool in the hands of the Republican-controlled Congress, and a team of experts has arrived in Israel to tilt the election results here.

Allow me a small reminder that holds true both in Israel and in the USA. The voter, contrary to all assumptions, is not stupid. So try as you might, spend the money, attempt to manipulate. At the end of the day, it is the voter who decides.

My recommendation for anyone who cares: BE SURE TO VOTE!

_____________________________

This is the latest in the series “Postcards from America – Postcards from Israel,” a collaboration between Zager and Bussel, a foreign correspondent reporting from Israel.

Ari Bussel and Norma Zager collaborate both in writing and on the air in a point-counter-point discussion of all things Israel-related. Together, they have dedicated the past decade to promoting Israel.

First Published February 1, 2015

Contact: bussel@me.com

Defeating the Jewish Alinskyites

Here are some truisms in politics:

§ Leftists Lie

§ Muslims Hate Jews

§ Leftist Jews Supporting Muslim Agendas are Destined for Dhimmitude or Death

Caroline educates the uninformed about Leftist Jews in America and Israel and the link to Saul Alinsky.

JRH 6/9/12

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Defeating the Jewish Alinskyites

By Caroline Glick

June 8, 2012, 2:48 AM

CarolineGlick.com

Saul Alinsky, the godfather of subversive radical political action, had a very clear strategy for undermining and destroying his enemies: Infiltrate, divide and destroy.

Since his disciple Barack Obama was elected US president in 2008, Alinsky’s impact on Obama has received a fair amount of attention.

Less noticed has been the adoption of Alinsky’s methods by radical leftist Jews in the US and Israel for the purpose of undermining the American Jewish community on the one hand, and Israel’s nationalist camp on the other. This week we saw the impact of both campaigns.

The striking weakness of the American Jewish community was exposed on Tuesday with the Democratic primary defeat of Rep. Steve Rothman in New Jersey. In Israel we saw the impact of the campaign to undermine and destroy the nationalist camp with the defeat of the proposed legislation aimed at saving the doomed Givat Haulpana neighborhood in Bet El.

Ahead of the 2008 US presidential elections, the anti-Israel pressure group J Street made a sudden appearance. Claiming to be pro-Israel, the anti-Israel lobby set about neutralizing the power of the American Jewish community by undermining community solidarity. And it has succeeded brilliantly.

Rothman is Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel. His defeat at the polls in New Jersey by Rep. Bill Pascrell owed in large part to openly anti-Semitic activism by Pascrell’s Muslim supporters.

According to an investigative report of the primary campaign by the Washington Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo, in February Pascrell’s Muslim supporters began castigating Rothman and his supporters as disloyal Americans beholden only to Israel.

Aref Assaf, president of the New Jersey-based American Arab Forum, published a column in the Newark Star Ledger titled, “Rothman is Israel’s Man in District 9.” He wrote, “As total and blind support becomes the only reason for choosing Rothman, voters who do not view the elections in this prism will need to take notice. Loyalty to a foreign flag is not loyalty to America’s [flag].”

These deeply bigoted allegations against Rothman and his supporters were not challenged by Pascrell. Pascrell also did not challenge Arabic-language campaign posters produced by his supporters enjoining the “Arab diaspora community” to elect Pascrell, “the friend of the Arabs.” The poster touted the race as “the most important election in the history of the [Arab American] community.”

Rather than challenge these anti-Semitic attacks, Pascrell enthusiastically courted the Muslim vote in his district.

Pascrell was a signatory to what became known as the “Gaza-54 letter.” Spearheaded by J Street, the 2010 letter, signed by 54 Democratic congressmen, called on Obama to put pressure on Israel to end its “collective punishment” of residents of Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Pascrell’s race was far from the only recent instance of anti-Semitism being employed by Democratic candidates to win their elections. In Connecticut’s 2006 Democratic Senate primary, anti-Semitic slurs and innuendos were prominent features of Ned Lamont’s successful race against Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Defeated in his party’s primary, Lieberman was forced to run as an Independent. He owed his reelection to Republican support.

LIEBERMAN’S GENERAL election victory over Lamont did not force all of his fellow Democrats to rethink their use of anti-Semitism as a campaign strategy. At a candidate’s debate in this year’s Connecticut Democratic Senate primary race, candidate Lee Whitnum attacked her opponent Rep. Chris Murphy as a “whore who sells his soul to AIPAC.”

Given the fact that the overwhelming majority of Jewish Americans are supporters of the Democratic Party, it should have been assumed that they would have responded to Whitnum’s anti- Semitic slurs by seeking to get her expelled from their party. They also could have been expected to pour resources into defeating candidates like Pascrell who actively court the votes of open Jew-haters. But this didn’t happen.

Instead, due to J Street’s agitation, and the penetration of the Jewish organizational world by J Street fellow travelers, for the past three years, the American Jewish community has been fighting among itself about what it means to be pro-Israel. At a time when the US Jewish community’s party of choice is increasingly falling under the influence of radical leftists and Muslims who reject Israel’s right to exist, rather than standing tall, Jewish communities around the US are being neutralized by the solipsism of self-defeating, J-Street-invented issues like whether AIPAC is legitimate and whether Jewish anti-Zionists can be considered pro-Israel.

Equally horrible, if not worse, at a time when Israel is being threatened with annihilation by Iran, and Jewish communities in Europe and Latin America are under physical assault, the voice of the self-obsessed American Jewish community is coming through more and more weakly, with powerful voices questioning the very legitimacy of its collective voice.

In Israel, the success of local Alinskyites was on display this week as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu found himself squaring off against his party’s most committed constituency.

The 350,000 Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria and their massive support base inside the Likud, and indeed throughout Israeli society, suffered a tremendous defeat this week.

Netanyahu’s decision to torpedo a proposed law that would have prevented the implementation of the Supreme Court-ordered destruction of the Givat Haulpana neighborhood in Beit El has made these Likud members perceive themselves as isolated and in danger.

Just as the American Jewish community needs to recognize the J Street effect to contend with its current condition, so in Israel both sides of the divide in the nationalist camp need to understand how they came to find themselves on opposite sides of the fence.

Misreading what has happened, many are drawing false analogies between Givat Haulpana and the destruction of the Jewish communities in Gaza in 2005 and the destruction of homes in Amona in 2006. In both those previous cases, the destruction of the homes was the consequence of government policy. Then-premier Ariel Sharon wanted to destroy the Jewish communities of Gaza and northern Samaria. Their destruction was the centerpiece of his governing agenda. So, too, his successor Ehud Olmert wanted to destroy Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. He ran on a policy of destroying them in the 2006 elections.

This is not the case with Netanyahu.

Netanyahu can be faulted for not providing sufficient protection to Jewish property rights in Judea and Samaria. He has not permitted Jews to build on state land to make up for the fact that they face market discrimination from the Palestinian Authority which has made it a capital crime to sell private land to Jews. And of course, he bowed to US pressure and instituted the deeply prejudicial temporary construction ban on Jews in 2009 and 2010.

But unlike Sharon and Olmert, Netanyahu has not made the destruction of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria a goal of his government.

To the contrary, he has enacted initiatives to strengthen the Jewish communities there and to raise the general public’s awareness of the centrality of Judea and Samaria to Jewish history and heritage.

Netanyahu is not the best friend of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. But he is more a friend than an enemy.

SO IF Netanyahu doesn’t oppose the communities of Judea and Samaria, why is he supporting the destruction of Givat Haulpana? The answer is that he and his angry constituents were set up by the radicals who run the state prosecution.

True, the leftist-dominated Supreme Court ordered the government to destroy the neighborhood. But the state prosecution gave the court’s justices no other choice.

The case regarding Givat Haulpana exposes several of the pathologies of Israel’s legal system. But by far the most glaring pathology it reveals is the politicization of the state prosecution by the radical leftists who run it.

In the event, the radical activist group Yesh Din petitioned the court in the name of a Palestinian who claimed to be the rightful owner of the land on which the neighborhood was built. Yesh Din presented the court with an affidavit in which the Palestinian claimed that the land in question belonged to him. Yesh Din then asked the court to make the state explain why, given the affidavit, the IDF had not yet evacuated the neighborhood.

On its face, the job of the state prosecution couldn’t have been more obvious. All they had to do was tell the court that the issue of ownership is contested and that the court should require Yesh Din to adjudicate ownership in the lower courts.

So, too, they ought to have rejected the unsubstantiated assertion that the IDF is required to destroy homes built on private land. There is ample precedent for both positions, including a nearly identical case regarding a neighborhood in Barkan where the land in question belonged – without question – to a private Jewish landowner.

But the state prosecution decided not to take any of those obvious positions. By not questioning the veracity of the affidavit or the assertion that the IDF is required to destroy homes built on private land without the permission of the owner, the state prosecution, which is supposed to represent the elected government, left the justices no choice. All they could do was set a date for the expulsion of the 30 families living in the five apartment buildings. And so they did.

Both the Knesset and Netanyahu seem to recognize that Israel’s elected leaders were manipulated by political radicals abusing their positions in the state prosecution to undermine the elected government. And they seem to be taking appropriate action. The Knesset has ordered the state comptroller to investigate the circumstances surrounding the state prosecution’s mishandling of the Yesh Din petition. Netanyahu has ordered the construction of 300 buildings in Beit El and 851 homes in all of Judea and Samaria. He has formed a ministerial committee that will oversee the state prosecution’s handling of future cases regarding Palestinian claims to land housing Jewish communities.

None of this solves the problem of the 30 families who through no fault of their own are slated to become homeless in the next three weeks because public officials abused their office to throw these families from their homes and divide and destroy the nationalist camp. But it may make prosecutorial malpractice a less attractive option for these homegrown Alinskyites.

The Alinsky strategy is brilliant in its cunning mendacity. And his followers in the American Jewish community and Israel have already succeeded in causing great harm. The stakes are high in both countries. The time has come for the majority of American Jews and Israelis to stop being cowed and confused by their destructive manipulations.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=273110

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About Caroline Glick

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