Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, has been on the warpath against the new Amnesty International report saying that Israel practices “apartheid” in its “cruel” system of Jewish domination of Palestinians.
On Sunday Greenblatt said that the report will foster attacks on Jews worldwide, and he doubled down on that claim in testimony at a hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday about “the dynamic terrorism landscape.”
1, Greenblatt said that Congress should treat anti-Zionists like members of ISIS and Al-Qaeda and not hire them. 2, Riffing on Bruce Springsteen for a New Jersey congressman, Greenblatt said that the apartheid report has left him “on fire” and while Amnesty International is in its “glory days,” its “brilliant disguise” will soon be discredited. And there will be “No surrender” to Amnesty International. More below.
In the first exchange, Greenblatt said that if a person with Nazi tattoos on his neck sought a job as a House intern, he should be disqualified. That’s an “obvious” call, Rep. Dan Bishop, a North Carolina Republican, told Greenblatt, but what if you are part of a movement, some of whose adherents called for bombing public buildings. He offered the women’s suffragist movement of a century ago. Greenblatt didn’t take the bait.
If you are unable to disassociate yourself with movements that espouse violence or supremacy of any group, yes you should be barred from government service. You can support women’s suffrage and not support harming government officials.
Bishop persisted, Who is to judge whether people have sufficiently dissociated themselves from violence? Greenblatt went to anti-Zionists, saying they’re terrorists.
It’s a fair question. If we talk about Al Qaeda, we talk about ISIS, we talk about some of the horrific anti-Israel people out there who say the Jewish state is committing genocide, you know Mr. Congressman, I don’t think they belong as interns in your office or any public office for that matter. I feel very strongly about that. That kind of extremism should have no place.
Bishop agreed, but said Greenblatt was raising the possibility of imposing significantly on “fundamental constitutional freedoms.”
Now let’s get to the Springsteen. NJ Rep. Josh Gottheimer asked Greenblatt to comment on the Amnesty International report, which Gottheimer called a “completely biased and wrong report” that is “part of a rise in antisemitism and an increase in attacks on Jewish people.”
Greenblatt responded:
I realize following Mr. Malinowski [of New Jersey] and my fellow panelists and you, I am racing in the street in the badlands of this New Jersey moment. … I’m on fire here but I’m going to try to specifically keep my remarks focused on the Amnesty report.
Look, I almost don’t want to dignify it with my time today. The problem is that when you make wild aspersions and groundless accusations against the Jewish state it has an immediate knock-on effect on the Jewish people. To release this report– six months again after Jews were beaten and brutalized in broad daylight, not by people wearing MAGA hats and not by people espousing white supremacy but by people coming from anti-Israel rallies– is shocking. A report which doesn’t call into question other countries around the world which have Christian principles and Muslim principles, it is only the Jewish state which they seem to call out….
That is a reference to demonstrations against an Israeli onslaught on Gaza last May that killed more than 250 Palestinians (11 Israeli civilians were killed by Gaza militants). That attack curdled progressive opinion in the U.S. and yes, a demonstration in New York was followed by fights between Israel supporters and Israel denouncers.
[As a result of this report] I will be dealing with the cyberbullying targeting Jewish activists on line. I will be dealing with the Jewish kids on college campuses who are afraid to identify as being Israeli, or having any relations– even showing up at Hillels because of fear of being bullied and intimidation by anti-Israel types. I think it’s frightening. I think it’s a terrible report. I think it’s going to cause — I promise you, I predict it, I’ll be back on this committee talking about threats against Jews spawned by this kind of wild accusation.
I say this as someone, Josh– Representative Gottheimer– who believes in the two state solution. Who believes we need dignity and equality for Palestinians. But if you think demonizing and delegitimizing the only Jewish state in the world is the way you are going to achieve it, like, the folks from Amnesty are as far from reality as you could imagine. It may be Amnesty International, but it’s like reality somewhere else… Look, there will be no surrender to these people. They may be in their glory days with all this hateful rhetoric. But I think the brilliant disguise of them showing up as human rights advocates will not work for the majority of good thinking Americans who realize what they’re doing.
The Springsteen song-titles struck me as entitled and– inappropriate? We’re talking about a people, Palestinians, who the world has granted zero rights to for over 70 years; and now a serious organization has joined a chorus of human rights groups saying they suffer persecution and apartheid. Greenblatt sees the subject as an opportunity for shtik. He obviously thinks he has carte blanche at Congress, and evidently he does: He talks about coming back soon. He was surely working on his Jersey joke for hours leading up to that hearing.
What’s the proper way to talk about the AI report, from an activist perspective? I think it’s just to ask what’s untrue in it. That’s the approach Gideon Levy takes –
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium.HIGHLIGHT-tell-me-what-s-untrue-in-amnesty-s-report-on-israel-1.10587114?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=content&utm_campaign=haaretz-news&utm_content=27b2fdcd5e
Tell Me What’s Untrue in Amnesty’s Report on Israel….As the curses and screeches subside – Amnesty are antisemites, the report is full of lies, the methodology is absurd – one must ask: What, precisely, is incorrect in the apartheid report?…Was Israel not founded on an explicit policy of maintaining Jewish demographic hegemony, while reducing the number of Palestinians within its boundaries? Yes or no? True or false? Does this policy not exist to this day? Yes or no? True or false? Does Israel not maintain a regime of oppression and control of Palestinians in Israel and in the occupied territories for the benefit of Israeli Jews? Yes or no? True or false? Do the rules of engagement with Palestinians not reflect a policy of shoot to kill, or at least maim? Yes or no? True or false? Are the evictions of Palestinians from their homes and the denial of construction permits not part of Israeli policy? Yes or no? True or false?
Here’s Jonathan stretching it as much as he can…to the point of being ridiculous. He is working hard to do damage control for his country, and making a fool of himself. Desperate people say/do desperate things.
“If you are unable to disassociate yourself with movements that espouse violence or supremacy of any group, yes you should be barred from government service.” – Greenblatt
The evidence is overwhelming that by that standard Zionists should be barred. Greenblatt calls anti-Zionists “terrorists”, but terrorism was an explicit strategy of the Zionists in conquering he Palestinians. Today they practice terrorism against Palestinian children to break their spirits. That is what has prompted Rep. Betty McCollum to propose bills barring such Zionist terrorism. The overwhelming evidence shows that anti-Zionism is anti-terrorism.
Given the obvious, ongoing crimes of murder and robbery by the Zionists in Palestine, Greenblatt’s statements to Congress are the apex of brazen, Orwellian lying.
Notice the pattern? Not a single person screaming from the rooftops and denouncing the report have said that the report itself or the contents within the report is untrue.
Every single argument thus far has criticized the ‘timing’ of the report (ie released the same month, year, or decade as Intl. Holocaust Remembrance Day). Criticized that a report was even ‘released at all’. Criticized it for ‘seeking the destruction of Israel’.Criticized the report for ‘singling out Israel’ and ignoring other regimes when AI’s body of work clearly proves otherwise. Criticized it for making ‘broad sweeping aspersions’ in what is a pretty specific and detailed document spanning more the 800 pages. Argued that Israel isn’t exactly like South Africa (well, duh!). Argued that the report might ‘stoke tensions’. Argued that the report makes ‘Jews and the Jewish State look bad’. Argued about rise in ‘cyberbullying’. Criminally ironic when they and their proxies have been using LITERAL state-sponsored cyber weapons like Pegasus and literal cyber warfare. And suggested that the report might embolden ‘anti-Zionists’ to protest or, God forbid, speak at all about Palestinian rights.
Yet not a single person, organization, spokesperson, or politician, carrying an ocean of water for Israel has singled out a single word, sentence, paragraph, or chapter that is simply untrue or inaccurate. THEY have been the ones making wild
They haven’t a shred of evidence or fact on their side, so they are pounding sand and screaming as loud as possible about anything and everything other than Israel’s actions, policies, and history of systemic abuse of the Palestinians to distract from the obvious truth of Israel Apartheid spanning three quarters of a century.
Greenblatt talks about Amnesty International’s “glory days” fading into history, and Americans “realizing what they are doing”, but his performance and words scream of desperation and projection. He and his ilk are the ones sliding down the slope on the wrong side of the hill of history and the politicians sympathetic to his cause are being dragged down with their pockets heavy with cash and an Apartheid Israel-sized albatross around their necks. History will NOT be kind to any of them and when this turning tide hits its full height in the coming months and years, the mainstream media WILL turn with it and eat them alive! If anything, out of pure survival and to distract from their own complicity.
When Greenblatt testified in Congress, nobody was informed enough to ask why Israel has supported al-Nusra in the Golan Area? They are indistinguishable from ISIS.