Americans for Peace Now is one of the constituent organizations of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The Conference of Presidents is basically a neocon outfit. Its leaders are hawkish and rightwing. It gave this fire-and-brimstone endorsement of the Gaza slaughter even as it began last month:
Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations stands
solidly with the government of Israel and its decision to defend its
people against terrorism through the targeted airstrikes made on Gaza
today.
“The government
and people of Israel have shown unprecedented restraint in the face of
unyielding attacks with hundred of missiles and mortars fired on
civilian targets by Hamas and other terrorist organizations who have
made clear that their goal is the destruction of the State of Israel.
No country could or would put up with this,” [Malcolm Hoenlein and another exec said]
Americans for Peace Now also stood with J Street as J Street questioned the slaughter. Americans for Peace Now should quit waffling. The time has come for APN to break with the Israel lobby over the killing of 460 children. It should have resigned from the board of the Conference of Presidents long ago, when the Conference was supporting the colonization of the West Bank that destroyed the two-state solution. By sticking with the Conference so long, Peace Now demonstrated ethnocentrism trumps principle. Well there are a lot of gentiles who are on the right side of this question. Peace Now should break with the Conference and get in with peaceloving groups. That would make a difference. (Phil Weiss)
