The Hebrew date of 26 Adar will forever live in infamy as the day Benjamin Netanyahu swept back into power, “rewarded by Israeli voters,” as the Foundation for Middle East Peace’s Matt Duss notes, “for blatantly disrespecting the United States and its president, for rejecting the international consensus in support of a two-state solution, and for shamelessly race-baiting against Israel’s Arab citizens.”
It will also live in infamy as the day when the leadership of American Jewry stood in near unanimous silence as Israel embarked down the road to apartheid.
I have given every opportunity to the Jewish Federations of North America, the American Jewish Committee, AIPAC, and the Jewish Council on Public Affairs to condemn Benjamin Netanyahu’s thrice disavowal of the two-state solution and electoral race-baiting.
I’ve sent repeated emails over the last few days, I’ve phoned each organization, and I’ve repeatedly prodded them on Twitter.
When reached by telephone, one AJC spokesman chuckled at me and repeated me incredulously when I said Netanyahu had “formally disavowed” the two-state solution after issuing a policy statement from his party. “Formally disavowed?!”
But as of this writing, none have dared to speak out against Netanyahu singlehandedly rejecting, while dismissing as naive and destructive, a quarter century of U.S. policy pursued by the North American Jewish community on behalf of the state of Israel. Only one — the JCPA — even bothered getting back to me.
Rather, many Jewish organizations have fallen all over themselves to congratulate Netanyahu on his “strong showing” as the ADL termed it. Even they couldn’t bring themselves to specifically name Netanyahu in their condemnation of “extreme and divisive statements by candidates.”
No comments:
Post a Comment