What We Should Expect From CJP

According to the latest communication from Boston's Combined Jewish Philanthropies, in response to our discovery that that organization had funded such overly anti-Israel groups as the Unitarian Universalist Association and the American Friends Service Committee, a representative maintained that their vetting process was "sound."   Considering an organization's mission statement as definitive in regards to its policy and activities vis a vis Israel is naive at best.

We beg to differ.  There is nothing "sound" about funding groups that:

• Actively support Hamas support groups like The International Solidarity Movement (UUA).
• Actively support BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction) campaigns (AFSC).
• Actively support Israel Apartheid Week (UUA).
• Refuse to allow pro-Israel groups and speakers a place at their events (UUA and the AFSC).

We do not believe that our CJP intentionally supports these anti Israel groups.  The temptation of accepting funds earmarked for groups that routinely denigrate and de-legitimize Israel must be resisted.   Donor Advised Funds (DAF's) must conform to the overall mission statement of the CJP itself:   "Our Israel agenda will focus on advocacy, connection and impact."  

Chaos engulfed the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation earlier this year when it supported the screening of the  the intensely propagandistic anti-Israel film, "Rachel", by the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, which selectively recounted the life and tragic death of Rachel Corrie, an ISM member accidentally killed in Gaza while shielding weapons smuggling tunnels.  Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the SFJCF and supporter of the film's screening, has since moved on to become CEO of The New Israel Fund and was a keynote speaker at last October's J Street Washington conference.

                     Daniel Sokatch of the New Israel Fund

Hoping to avoid such divisive controversies in the future, the SFJCF has since adopted a set of guidelines governing support and funding of organizations that conflict with the organization's mission statement on Israel.


We believe that the Boston CJP must adopt and enforce similar safeguards against the support and funding of overtly anti-Israel groups, including donations via Donor Advised Funds.


These must include donations and support for organizations that:

• now, or in the past, have - through publications, speeches, films and other presentations - directly or indirectly supported the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state.
• have hosted predominantly anti-Israel speakers and failed to host a balanced number of pro-Israel speakers.
• have advocated the "one state solution" (which implicitly advocates the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state).
• have advocated and/or supported Boycott, Divestment or Sanctions (BDS) initiatives or petitions against Israel.
• presented or supported anti-Semitic speakers or events.
• have funded - directly or indirectly - individuals and/or organizations that support U.S. State Department designated terror groups such as Hamas. 
• have depicted Israel as "an Apartheid state" and/or participated in "Israel Apartheid Week.

 Considering the groups that CJP has funded recently who are clearly anti-Israel (as a Jewish and democratic state), adoption and enforcement of such guidelines are essential to maintaining CJP's mission of defending and supporting Israel at a time of unprecedented existential threats. 

Revelation at Harvard: Who Wrote Obama's Cairo Speech?

 

"I Cannot Tell a Lie - I Wrote it."

For nearly ten months questions have swirled around the country about the identity of the speechwriter responsible for Obama's controversial address to the Muslim and Arab world delivered at Cairo University on June 4, 2009. In attendance was the Grand Sheikh Mohammed Sayyid Tantawi of that other great seat of learning and tolerance, Al Azhar (co-sponsor of the speech); the Sheikh has stated that there are "good Jews and bad Jews": "The good ones convert to Islam...the bad ones do not." Dr. Andrew Bostom excerpts some of Sheikh Tantawi's interfaith gems in his groundbreaking work, "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism."

The much ballyhooed speech, originally scheduled for Morocco, was changed to Cairo to have the greatest impact in "correcting" the perceived Muslim hostility to the U.S.engendered by  George.W. Bush.  The Wall St. Journal and Politico guessed it was the product of  Ben Rhodes, Obama's only foreign policy speechwriter (and erstwhile novelist: "The Oasis of Love") who traveled with him for his first major European speech, often dubbed the "Blame America First" speech.

Well, speculate no more. The writer wasn't Ben Rhodes or Chris Brose, former foreign policy speechwriter for Condoleeza Rice.  If we can believe him - and there is no reason to doubt his word - it was Stephen P. Cohen.   Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel called Cohen a week before the trip and asked him to prepare a first draft for the speech, "A New Beginning."

That's right!  BHO chose a Jew to write the most important  address by an American President  -in the middle of a war against Islamic terrorists - to the Muslim world.

Steve Cohen, founder of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, Harvard PhD, visiting professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Princeton and other high powered institutions, recently spoke at Harvard's Center for Middle East Studies beneath the smiling portraits of Harvard's stellar contributors to the landscape of failed foreign policy initiatives, notably, Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski.  We all remember "Zbig", the guy who helped weaponize the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan along with someone called Osama Bin Laden.  Now that was a brilliant move.

You might recall the less-than-rave reviews the Cairo speech garnered.  Charles Krauthammer called it "abstract, vapid and self-absorbed."  Anne Bayefsky had this to say:

"President Obama's Cairo speech was nothing short of an earthquake — a distortion of history, an insult to the Jewish people, and an abandonment of very real human-rights victims in the Arab and Muslim worlds. It is not surprising that Arabs and Muslims in a position to speak were enthusiastic. It is more surprising that American commentators are praising the speech for its political craftiness, rather than decrying its treachery of historic proportions.

"Obama equated the Holocaust to Palestinian "dislocation." In his words: "The Jewish people were persecuted. …anti-Semitism …culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust…. Six million Jews were killed…. On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people — Muslims and Christians — have suffered in pursuit of a homeland." This parallelism amounts to the fictitious Arab narrative that the deliberate mass murder of six million Jews for the crime of being Jewish is analogous to a Jewish-driven violation of Palestinian rights.

Speaking in an Arab country to Arabs and Muslims, Obama pointedly singled out European responsibility for the Holocaust — "anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust." In other contexts, the European emphasis would be a curiosity. In Egypt, it was no accident. The Arab storyline has always been that Arabs have been forced to suffer the creation of Israel for a European crime."  Read More... 

Bayefsky's piece was entitled Obama's Stunning Offense to Israel and the Jewish People.  Why an "offense?"  What could have prompted such visceral reactions from writers like Bayefsky and Krauthammer?  Read the full excerpt to find out:

"America's strong bonds with Israel are well known.  This bond is unbreakable.  It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.(our emphasis)

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust.  Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich.  Six million Jews were killed -- more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today.  Denying that fact is baseless, it is ignorant, and it is hateful.  Threatening Israel with destruction -- or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews -- is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people -- Muslims and Christians -- have suffered in pursuit of a homeland.  For more than 60 years they've endured the pain of dislocation.  Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead.  They endure the daily humiliations -- large and small -- that come with occupation.  So let there be no doubt:  The situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable.  And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own. " (Applause.) 

To trace the history of the Jewish People in Israel from a point 70 or so years ago is grossly and historically inaccurate - and a slander.  Speechwriter Cohen quickly followed up the slap with another: Imputing the seemingly endless Middle East conflict to Israel's creation by visiting "the pain of dislocation" upon the Palestinian Arabs.  That one, needles to say, went over big in Cairo and around the Muslim world.

To further woo and wow his Cairo audience, Cohen decided to recount the Isra, or The Prophet's miraculous "night journey" to heaven on the back of his noble, flying steed, Buraq, during which he hangs with Moses and Jesus.  Cohen reads ecumenicism into what most of the Muslim world sees as triumphalism.  Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koran; only the term, al-Masgidu l'-Aqsa, the "farthest mosque."  Considering the fact that Palestine had not yet been conquered and colonized by Muslim armies (621 CE), many scholars dismiss as ridiculous the notion that that "mosque" indicates Jerusalem.  At any rate, Cohen not only buys into the story, but glorifies it.

For at least the past 75 years, Palestinian Arabs (and much of the Muslim world) have attempted to deny the abundant historical data and physical evidence that substantiate Jewish presence as the sovereign people in their own land for at least a thousand years before the birth of Mohammed and the Islamic conquest of Palestine.  Official after official of both Hamas and the PA have denied Jewish existence there and have refused to acknowledge the historicity of Har ha Bayit, The Temple Mount, built by Herod the Great over 2000 years ago.  The Islamic Waqf, or Holy Trust for the Haram al Sharif, has even attempted to destroy priceless Jewish (and other) artifacts uncovered on the Temple Mount during expansions of the Al Aqsa mosque.

Having erased the nettlesome matter of Jewish patrimony, Cohen then goes beyond mere dhimmitude and starts writing like a true believer.  His rhapsodic rendering of Prophet's miraculous night journey to heaven  could have come from the pen of a ninth century compiler of the hadiths.

When asked during the Q&A why he had traced Jewish "aspirations" for their land only as far as the end of World War II, he did show a measure of remorse - but only to extend that connection back to 1920!  He still refused to acknowledge the historicity of thousands of years of Jewish presence on the land.

Listen to his answer (and my apology for the poor audio quality):

Yes, "upsetting to Israelis", but apparently not so for Mr. Cohen.


Yet in spite of his regrets over making Israelis uncomfortable, he concluded by again warning Israelis to hew to the Administration line by heeding Joe Biden's upcoming admonitions in Israel, no doubt reiterating Obama's demands for a settlement freeze.


Again, the Academy has marched the world ever closer to the abyss in its insatiable desire to become the perfect dhimmi.

At Last - J Street Comments on Israel Apartheid Week... Weakly

 

More Than an "Analogy"

Following this blog's noting J Street's silence on the blood libel of Israel Apartheid Week, Jerermy Ben Ami has finally published a response.    In typical, studied, tortured and almost diplomatic prose, the statement nowhere rejects the substance of the campaign, namely, that Israel IS an apartheid state.  IAW is not constructing analogies - it defines "Israel as an apartheid system."

Rather than simply and emphatically stating that Israel is NOT an apartheid state, J Street nibbles at the edges by saying:
"We also reject comparisons of Israel to South African apartheid. The analogy clearly implies that Israel is illegitimate."(our emphasis).   

There is no "analogy" - according to IAW, Israel IS an apartheid state, clear and simple.  Continuing, the J Street statement criticizes the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanction) crowd by claiming that they are:
"making no distinction between West Bank settlements and Israel proper, and refusing to support a two-state solution..."

In other words, J Street would probably be quite delighted were the BDS movement to target the "settlements" per se.  Moreover, if IAW would only sign onto J Street's idee fixe of the two state solution, then they might go along with them. 

Clearly and irrefutably, Israel - including the "settlements"- are not "apartheid states".  Why won't J Street come out and unequivocally state that obvious fact?  Because they have the agenda juggernaut of "no settlements and a two state solution".

I suppose we must issue a muffled congratulations to Ben Ami, but nibbling at the edges of this modern blood libel will not suffice. 
 

CJP Follow Up

 A number of readers have inquired about DAF's (Donor Advised Funds) in relation to targeted grants bestowed by the CJP.  Briefly stated, DAF's are charitable giving vehicles administered by a third party and created for the purpose of managing charitable donations on behalf of an organization, family, or individual.

  Rather than setting up your own foundation, DAF's provide a means of charitable giving that avoids the lengthy and expensive (tax and administrative costs) process inherent in direct giving.  Other than the basic requirement of fiscal due diligence, the administering non-profit may or may not reserve the right to reject targeted grants.

CJP reserves that right as stated on its website:

"CJP reserves the right to reject grant recommendations for purposes contrary to its mission or to organizations that fail to maintain proper standards of financial oversight or accountability. CJP may request the return of grants that are discovered to be in conflict with its mission, or in violation of the guidelines in this section."

Moreover, as CJP states:

"Contributions to your DAF are irrevocable gifts to CJP. In accordance with the Internal Revenue Code, CJP owns the assets in each DAF outright and retains exclusive legal control over these assets for the charitable purposes of CJP. Donors may not restrict the absolute rights of CJP as owner of the assets. This is the basis for your eligibility for a federal income tax deduction."


These two paragraphs essentially say it all.  "CJP reserves the right to reject..."  And as "exclusive" controllers of these funds, ultimate responsibility for approving grantees resides with the CJP.   Do cash grants to organizations like the American Friends Service Committee and Media Matters conflict with its mission?  I believe they do. Let the debate begin.

Guess Who's Dining at CJP's Trough?

  The Combinded Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston is one of the nation's highest funded charitable groups.  With assets approaching half a billion dollars and annual revenues approaching two hundred million dollars, they are chartered to dole out lots of money to groups whom they deem worthy causes.  In addition to providing valuable social services to local Jewish and non-Jewish communities, one of their central activities, they claim, is support for israel.
Their mission statement declares:

"Our Israel agenda will focus on advocacy, connection and impact."

I find that statement quizzical, to say the least, but designed to accommodate groups like The Workmen's Circle (whose support for Israel has been demonstrated by hosting any and every anti-Israel group they can muster) and the likes of J Street and The New Israel Fund.  The NIF received close to $42,000.00 in 2007.
Each year the Boston CJP provides cash grants in compliance with federal regulations governing the operations of a 501(c)(3) non-profit.

We thought you might be interested to see just who receives the CJP's largess, ostensibly in keeping with that organization's strong support for Israel.  For the latest reporting period, here are some of those recipients:

• The American Friends Service Committee
• Democracy Now!
• The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee
• The Tides Foundation
• Media Matters
• The New Israel Fund
• Brit Tzedek v'Shalom
• Physicians for Social Responsibility
• The Workmen's Circle
• Amnesty International

Many of these organizations have been highly critical of Israel - to say the least - some even have questioned Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State.  To be fair, the CJP has also awarded grants to groups like the David Horowitz Freedom Center.  And yet, contributions to organizations like Media Matters and The Tides Foundation, whose financial clout and animus towards Israel are well known, should raise some significant eyebrows for an organization that is so self-avowedly "Pro Israel".  Through George Soros' affiliated non-profits like MoveOn.org, The Open Society Institute, The Center for American Progress and through his associate, Peter Lewis, Media Matters has plenty of money to spend bashing Israel.  Read a recent Media Matters piece by M.J. Rosenberg on the infamous Goldstone Report condemning Israel at the U.N:

"Did Congress condemn Israel for its disproportionate use of force (1400 Palestinians killed including 320 children vs. 13 Israelis)?
Nope.  On the contrary, the House condemned the distinguished Justice Richard Goldstone, who wrote the United Nation's report on Gaza, for daring to criticize Israel's conduct. It called on the Obama administration to do everything it could to suppress the United Nations report! Only 36 representatives voted "no."

CJP awarded Media Matters $200,000.00 in 2007.


Do contributions (no matter how small an amount) to organizations like the Unitarian Universalist Association or The American Friends Service Committee comport with CJP's stated claim to support Israel?  This week the UUA church in Cambridge will host an Israel ApartheidWeek event.  The AFSC, long a champion of Palestinian "resistance" while "disagreeing" with Iran's Jew-hating President, put out this statement in reaction to his Holocaust denial and threats to destroy Israel:

"The AFSC will continue to reach out to the Iranian people and their leaders and pursue
dialogue on the basis of what we believe to the shared value that affirms that of God in 
each of us."


Democracy Now! is the media vehicle for Amy Goodman, a longtime Israel-hater, who never saw a Palestinian act of "resistance" she couldn't relate to.

The Tides Foundation, another George Soros-affiliated group, has been generous with CAIR (The Council for American Islamic Relations) many of whose officials are serving prison sentences for aiding HAMAS and which was recently named an unindicted co-conspirator in the successful prosecution of The Holy Land Foundation in Texas.  Tides also funds the National Lawyers' Guild, whose anti-israel positions are legendary.  Read more...

Physicians for Social Responsibility is a global non-profit which has demonstrated a particularly nasty attitude towards the Jewish State.  While highlighting Israel's supposed "human rights violations", the group routinely whitewashes Palestinian violations such as the use of ambulances to ferry weapons and combatants.

As we reported earlier, The New Israel Fund was predictably silent on the current offensive of Israel Apartheid Week as was their parent, J Street.

Should the CJP's putative "support" for Israel extend to financing groups that have demonstrated a long-standing animus towards The Jewish State?

Who's minding the store at 126 High Street?

Boston Globe, in Typical Form, Provides its Readers with Little Background

In what might be described as a "Hail (but under your breath) the Conquering Hero" welcome back to Rep. William Delahunt " from his controversial "fact finding" trip to Israel, Jordan and "Palestine" this week, the Boston Globe papered over the intense anti-Israel sponsors of the trip, J Street.  The trip's co-sponsor, Churches for Middle East Peace, yet another far left terror- apologizing outfit was not even described.  Nor was J Street's only recent endorsement of limited sanctions against Iran's drive for nuclear weapons.  J Street was adamantly opposed to any sanctions on Iran until Obama finally moved in that direction.  Martin Solomon of Solomonia was quoted, however, giving scant balance to an otherwise puff piece on J Street.

                       What informs The Globe when it comes to Israel matters, sadly, is the out of touch, non-leadership of the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council whose affinity for J Street and its anti-Israel affiliates is no secret.  Alan Solomont, now payback (for raising bundles of dough for Obama) ambassador to Spain (from cashing nursing home medicare checks to ambassador - now that's a career trajectory), is a member of J Street's "Advisory Council." 

In its unabashed, sycophantic adoration of Barack Obama, has J Street become an unofficial arm of the State Department?  Considering the irrelevancy of the Mitchell mission and the Obama administration's coldness to the Netanyahu government, add the J Street fiasco to the latest chapter in diplomatic incompetency.

If Only J Street Despised Ahmedinejad as Much as They Do Israel's Christian Friends...

                       Erick Stackelbeck of CBN

  J Street Slanders Evangelical Christian Supporters of Israel Once Again

Have you ever heard of a supposedly "pro Israel" group that has issued more press releases condemning Christian Zionists than it has Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, Hezbollah and Syria combined? No? Then welcome to J Street, the self-described "pro Israel, pro peace" lobbying group that bends over backwards to insult Israel's friends and supporters, especially evangelical Christians, and makes a living off of criticizing Israeli government policies.

 I've discussed J Street's naked anti-Christian bigotry before (see here and here) but since they are at it again (more on that in a bit), I felt compelled to undertake a little research project. I went to J Street's website and surveyed the group's press releases from the past year and a half. The results? To start, four press releases (including one from February 1, 2010) attacking John Hagee and Christians United for Israel (CUFI). Indeed, two of J Street's first four press releases were devoted to slamming Hagee. Talk about misguided priorities: a purportedly pro-Israel group using all of this ink on Hagee and evangelical supporters of Israel at a time when Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria are stockpiling increasingly lethal weapons and publicly calling for Israel's destruction.

In those press releases, J Street essentially painted Hagee--a man Senator (and orthodox Jew) Joseph Lieberman once compared to Moses--as a closet anti-Semite and portrayed Christian supporters of Israel as some sort of wild-eyed, apocalyptic death cult (a strategy which this release by J Street's founder, Jeremy Ben-Ami, took to new extremes).  But what may be even more offensive is that J Street has come up with exactly one--one--press release condeming genocidal Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadenijad. And zero press releases condeming either Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah or Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, two others who regularly threaten Israel's demise. If J Street wants "end times" and "apocalyptic," then Ahmadenijad, Assad and Nasrallah--who all met yesterday in Damascus to plot further attacks against Israel--are certainly the real deal. So why the bizarre preoccupation with evangelical Christians, an extremely large and influential group that Israeli government officials of every political persuasion routinely hail as among the Jewish people's greatest friends and supporters?

I was greeted by the same puzzling output when scanning through opinion pieces penned by "members of J Street's Advisory Council and by its staff and friends." No less than three scathing op-eds that mention Hagee or CUFI in the title, and others, like this one, that slam them in the body of the piece. Yet not one op-ed that mentions Ahmadenijad, Nasrallah or Assad in the title, or Hamas for that matter. Christian supporters of Israel and Israeli government officials, on the other hand, are specifically targeted for criticism. Again, this is a quite peculiar strategy for a "pro-Israel" group to pursue.
Which brings us to the latest example. J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami once again mischaracterized CUFI recently, erroneously claiming that the group contributed money to a certain Israeli organization. I won't go into all the details here--rather, I  strongly encourage you to read two comprehensive responses to J Street written by a pair of CUFI spokesmen (see here and here).

Bottom line: J Street's press releases, writings and public statements reflect a great deal of time and energy spent cutting down Israel's friends and supporters--with a special venom reserved for evangelical Christians--not to mention, the Netanyahu government. On the other hand,  the group has spent precious little time condeming Israel's sworn enemies. You can call this perplexing tactic many things. Pro-Israel is not one of them.