A Pledge Against Self Destruction of American Jews
by Jerry Gordon (March 2011)
West Bank Settler Family Murdered in their Beds.”
Watch this Reuters Report and note the comments by Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu about Palestinian duplicity: talking peace in English and incitement to murder in Arabic conveyed in mosques, schools and in state-controlled media.
JCCWatch in Manhattan Objects to Sponsorship of Anti-Israel Events
JCCWatch.org (JCC Watch), which monitors sponsorship of anti-Israel functions by the Manhattan West Side Jewish Community Center (JCC). JCCWatch has reproached the Manhattan JCC about its sponsorship of The Other Israel Film Festival, which included a showing of films by a prominent Palestinian director who came to the Festival to discuss his anti-Israel films.
torah of liberalism.” There are Jewish communal leaders who fund and endorse projects like sending Jewish students to “dialogue’”with enemies of Israel in the disputed territories, often with Federation and Jewish philanthropic support. As absurd as this may strike you, it is in fact going on with the Olive Tree Initiative at a number of University of California institutions. It is why OTI critic, Dee Sterling in Orange County called the U.C. Irvine program “A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.”
Anteaters for Israel at U.C. Irvine by exposing them to opponents of Israel and the Jewish people. Another purpose of the Rose Project is to facilitate respectful dialogue among the different constituencies on campus and in the greater community, and to promote bridge-building and improved relations with the University. Beginning in 2008, OTI has sent groups of U.C. Irvine Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Druze and non-religious students on these missions.
International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and Arab- list Members of the Knesset. The most recent flashpoint was the appearance of George S. Rishmawi, a co-founder of the virulently anti-Israel ISM, on the U.C. Irvine campus on November 22, 2010 at an event sponsored by the OTI. Rishmawi had met with OTI student tour groups on past trips. Read this report by Roz Rothstein of StandWithUs on the Rishmawi appearance at the OTI U.C. Irvine program.
Mazin Qumsiyeh, a man who considers “Zionism a disease.” Until 2005, Qumsiyeh was active in the US organizing events on college campuses by the anti-Israel pro-Palestinian Al-Awda (The Palestine Right to Return Coalition). According to Lee Kaplan of Stop the ISM, Qumsiyeh was denied tenure as a Professor of Genetics at Yale Medical School over an infamous alleged antisemitic email incident on the New Haven campus. We have written about Mazin Qumsiyeh and his cousin Samir, two opposites, in a FrontPage Magazine article, “A Tale of Two Palestinians.” Qumsiyeh returned to the disputed territories to teach and do research at Bethlehem and Bir Zeit Universities and run the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement between Peoples, where Rishmawi was a former Board member. You can read about Qumsiyeh’s involvement in the launch of the 2010 International Apartheid Week at his website, Axis of Logic. Rishmawi's Siraj Center for; Holy Land Studies website has links to the Sabeel Liberation Theology Center of Jerusalem that the NGO Monitor accuses of fueling the anti-Israel Palestinian Kairos Document, the latter signed by anti-Israel Middle East Christian clerics. These clerics are promoters of anti-Israel BDS initiatives modeled on South African anti-Apartheid experience from the 1980's. After his controversial appearance at U.C. Irvine in the OTI sponsored event, Rishmawi spoke at a Friends of Sabeel of North America event in Denver, Colorado on November 28, 2010.
in the arrest of MSU protesters and suspension of the MSU chapter from the U.C. Irvine student activities program for a short academic quarter. It was simply a slap on the wrist.
Orange County District Attorney Rackauckas with conspiring to disrupt Ambassador Oren’s speech. Ironically, “Jewish Studies” faculty members at a number of U.C. System institutions signed a petition in support of the 11 Muslim students indicted by the Orange County DA.
UCLA OTI program announcement, students from “ U.C. Irvine, U.C. Berkeley, U.C. Santa Cruz, U.C. Santa Barbara, U.C. San Diego and University of Southern California are expected to attend.”
The Pioneering San Francisco Jewish Community Federation Guidelines and its Critics
It is time to put a stop to this self-destructive activity by local Jewish community and collegiate groups. That could be facilitated by adoption of a Pledge not to fund BDS and related activities by local Federations and their affiliates. The Pledge is modeled on guidelines that were established by the board of the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation (SFJFed) in February, 2010.
In addition, the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America has adopted resolutions calling for an effective response and proactive strategies to halt the alarming spread of the anti-Israel BDS movement.
Just Say Yes,” argued against adoption of such guidelines. He commented:
[. . .]
The Fogel Pledge to ban Jewish Federation funding of Anti-Israel Activities
Deny funding, whether directly from our Federation or indirectly from agencies or funds related to, associated with, or controlled or administered by our Federation,
2) Deny sponsorship of or participation in any forum or program (including any interfaith religious group) whose doctrine, mission, policies, activities, leadership or partnerships support or advocate in any manner or in any respect whatsoever and to any degree, large or small, (a) anti-Semitism, harm to any Jewish community, delegitimization of the State of Israel as a secure independent, democratic Jewish state or BDS, or (b) proselytizing, conversion, or replacement theology.
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