You may have seen this ongoing story, and it’s awful. One of the most powerful Jewish political organizations in the country, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, last week named Dianne Lob as its next chairwoman. Then rightwing member organizations rebelled over the appointment because Lob is the chair of HIAS, a Jewish organization that supports refugees, and has helped a lot of Muslim refugees.
Liberal and centrist orgs stood up for Lob; but– the Conference folded. On Sunday night it announced that Lob’s appointment would be deferred for a year. She will serve as chairperson-elect till 2021.
It’s a complete folding to the rightwing. As IfNotNow puts it: “ICYMI: The Conference of Presidents caved into @ZOA_National‘s islamophobic and xenophobic smear campaign against Dianne Lob and @HIASrefugees. The American Jewish community should not be represented by this sort of moral cowardice.”
Haaretz reported on the power of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) in shutting down the Lob appointment. ZOA’s power derives from Sheldon Adelson.
ZOA President Klein and Chairman Mark S. Levenson wrote a fiercely-worded letter accusing HIAS, under Lob’s leadership, of collaborating with organizations that are anti-Semitic and “hostile to Israel.” It also charged that HIAS was “not a Jewish organization,” “has primarily non-Jewish (especially Muslim) clients” and has ignored European Jews fleeing anti-Semitism.
In recent years, the relationship between ZOA and HIAS has been strained, as HIAS has become increasingly high-profile in challenging Trump’s immigration policies. ZOA’s major financial backers include Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, who were counted among Trump’s biggest campaign donors in 2016, and continue to back pro-Trump PACs.
And of course in the ritualistic unfolding of this scandal, Dianne Lob issued a statement pledging her devotion to Israel and describing anti-Zionism as antisemitism.
The delegitimization of Israel continues to be a threat we must counter, as is the reprehensible BDS Movement, which we must continue to strongly oppose. I believe that we must also re-focus on fighting the new and old antisemitism, which is more acute than it has been at any time since World War II, as well as anti-Zionism, which is simply a modern form of Jew hatred.
Of course any organization has a perfect right to be as rightwing as they would like; and the Conference of Presidents has continually deferred to the furthest rightwing elements in Israel, refusing to criticize the slaughter of Palestinians and the expansion of settlements.
The wonder here is that liberal organizations that constitute the Conference of Presidents go along with this program. They are they paying the salaries of the leaders who time and again side with the right wing and Islamophobes. Among these groups are: the Union for Reform Judaism, Workmen’s Circle, Women of Reform Judaism, the ADL, Ameinu, the National Council of Jewish Women, and Americans for Peace Now.
All these groups could be taking stands against Islamophobia and settlement expansion by getting out of the Conference now and starting their own umbrella group. And IfNotNow which is dedicated to smashing the Jewish establishment over its support for occupation ought to be focusing its fire on these liberal organizations, not the Zionist Organization of America.
But these liberal groups go along meekly with the fire-breathers out of core Zionist convictions: American support for Israel is an existential issue; the only way to maintain that support is through the lobbying of Zionist organizations in Washington; and Jewish Zionist lobbyists will be ineffective unless they speak in one voice. That’s how a special interest maintains its power, by speaking for a small community on one issue. If the community divides, the lever disappears.
So out of concern for the very existence of Israel, the liberal Zionists join forces with their extremist brothers and sisters. They side with Sheldon Adelson so as to defeat the evil anti-Zionists, many of whom are young Jews… They might say that they are moderating the Conference, but what do they have to show for it? Conference executive vice chair Malcolm Hoenlein cheers the pro-annexation Trump peace plan inside the White House…
The only pressure these liberal groups get inside the Jewish community is from an anti-Zionist like me and non-Zionist youth group IfNotNow. But we are forces the liberal groups feel they can ignore…
Part 3
These so called Jewish organizations did the math a long time ago and realized there was more consistent support from the 40 million Christian zionists than from the harder to control, more leftist and liberal Jewish community of less than 6 million in the U.S.
Israel and support for Israel has kept many Jews under control and pushed them to the right, as exemplified by this decision as well as the “reassurances” of Lob, their target, but any concern or even the pretext of concern for the Jewish community has been abandoned long ago for the most part by the zionist establishment. (With the exception of defining anti-zionism as antisemitism).
Anti-zionism is not anti-semitism. Jews have existed for thousands of years. Zionism is a settler colonialist ideology rooted in Western misinterpretations of Christianity as a religion of conquest, not a religion of peace. Zionism is less than 200 years old, Israel less than 100 years old. How could anything that young, define a people so ancient? It is not antiJewish to oppose a racist ideology, regardless of who it supports. In its conflation of all Jews with zionism, it is zionism itself which is antisemitic.
(Thank you, the end)
So much here!
I want to address the assertion that it is young Jews who make up anti-zionist Jewish activism. There have always been anti-zionist Jews as long as there has been zionism. What is different with the “young Jews” is that they remain within the established Jewish community. Older anti-zionists were essentially barred from Jewish life and operated outside of the community, still Jewish, just very unwelcome. These younger Jewish activists come from within the establishment, not the traditional left and their activism, though important does not represent all Jews any more than their zionist parents do.
They do tend to come from upper middle class families and the pretext of age as the dividing identity erases the work of generations of Jewish activists, often working class Jews, who have gone before them as well as the essential class issues of who has power within the Jewish community.
Like the boomer and millennial bashing in the society in general, the focus on generational differences obscures real differences of inequality, class, targeting and marginalization.
Also, one of the key benefits the U.S. and U.S empire gets from its support of Israel is it has pushed the mainstream and visible Jewish community to the right. Many of the repressive immigration policies at play today were initially developed to target and deny access to Jews because of our activism and radicalism.
LIberalism is not radicalism and will always capitulate to the ruling class and more conservative agendas.
(continued…)
Part 2
Even groups of “young Jews” like If Not Now, When, or Jewish Voice for Peace, are essentially zionist, all essentially accept or require a 2 state solution which remains an apartheid solution and also an untenable solution as Israel and the right have assured, with facts on the ground that a 2 state solution is more and more impossible. The 2 state solution only exists as a stalling tactic, along with demands for “dialogue” while West Bank settlements expand and Gaza remains under siege and attack. There already exists a 1 state solution with Israel controlling all of Historic Palestine either within the “green line” (the 67 borders) or in the occupied territories where Palestinian administrations administer the occupation like the Capos ran the Jewish ghettos under the nazis. (But then every occupation has its Judenrat).
Groups like Stand With US and the ZOA and the ADL and the Simon Weisenthal Center with their extreme right wing agendas (at least as they pertain to Israel and Islam) and their demands and support for the most extreme of right wing zionism should be listed as Hate Groups by organizations like the SPLC who spares no distinction of Muslim and African American groups who ideologies SPLC recognizes as racist. SPLC claims that it recognizes that groups that are anti-Islam are hate groups but has never identified any mainstream Jewish identified group as a hate group. Zionism is a racist ideology as is the anti-Islam position of these organizations. These groups were active in denouncing and opposing a Muslim Community Center in lower Manhattan and in some cases immigration bans of immigrants and refugees from majority Muslim countries. While they hold onto the support of orgs like The Conference of Presidents, they don’t hold the hearts and minds of the majority of Jews, (most of whom are not affiliated with any synagogue). (cont)
I read this news the other day. It very much relates to Islamophobia and genocide…
“India should be placed on religious freedom blacklist, US panel says …
I
A US government panel has called for India to be put on a religious freedom blacklist over a “drastic” downturn under the prime minister, Narendra Modi, triggering a sharp response from New Delhi.
The US commission on international religious freedom recommends but does not set policy, and there is virtually no chance the state department will follow its lead on India, an increasingly close US ally.
In an annual report, the bipartisan panel said that India should join the ranks of “countries of particular concern” that would be subject to sanctions if they do not improve their records.
“In 2019, religious freedom conditions in India experienced a drastic turn downward, with religious minorities under increasing assault,” the report said.
It called on the US to impose punitive measures, including visa bans, on Indian officials believed responsible and grant funding to civil society groups that monitor hate speech.
The commission said that Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, which won a convincing election victory last year, “allowed violence against minorities and their houses of worship to continue with impunity, and also engaged in and tolerated hate speech and incitement to violence”.
It pointed to comments by the home minister, Amit Shah, who referred to mostly Muslim migrants as “termites”, and to a citizenship law that has triggered nationwide protests.
It also highlighted the revocation of the autonomy of Kashmir, which was India’s only Muslim-majority state, and allegations that Delhi police turned a blind eye to mobs who attacked Muslim neighborhoods in February this year.”…
More @- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/28/trump-is-unravelling-even-his-supporters-cant-ignore-it-now
Israel belongs on the list… big time.
The only pressure these liberal groups get inside the Jewish community is from an anti-Zionist like me and non-Zionist youth group IfNotNow.
How about giving credit to Jewish Voice for Peace?