Abbas' speech has woken up many American Jewish liberals. Will they stay awake? ~ EoZ

Friday, January 19, 2018

Abbas' speech has woken up many American Jewish liberals. Will they stay awake?

A few days ago, JTA's Ron Kampeas - hardly a right winger - responded this way to a tweet of mine:

You need adults listening.
— (((Ron Kampeas))) (@kampeas) January 17, 2018

Abas' speech last Sunday has awakened many liberal American Jews to the reality of Palestinian intransigence and bigotry.

JNS has an interesting article interviewing a number of prominent dovish American Jews who follow the conflict closely enough to have actually read about what Abbas said. (New York Times readers will not know the truth, of course.)

The Israel Policy Forum (IPF), a leading dovish group, declared that Abbas’s “unhinged screed” makes it “impossible to view Abbas as a viable negotiating partner, when he continues to deny the right of the Jewish people to their own national movement and when he continues to insist that the basic recognition of a Jewish homeland is the original sin of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, a longtime peace activist and former president of the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), told JNS that while he still wants the international community “to keep the possibility of a two-state solution alive,” Abbas’s statements “were outrageous, ignorant and insulting to Jews and civilized people everywhere,” and demonstrate “that progress on the peace front is not possible at the moment.”

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, URJ’s current president, issued a statement warning that Abbas’s remarks “undercut possibilities for a peace process” and “risk a new and very dangerous escalation of tensions.”

Jane Eisner, editor in chief of The Forward and a strong proponent of Palestinian statehood, blasted Abbas in a Jan. 17 editorial. Regarding Abbas’s claims about Israel’s nature and its founding, Eisner wrote, “If Abbas really thinks that is what happened, then he has no business pretending to be a partner for peace. And if he is repeating ugly rhetoric only to please his ever-thinning crowds, then such irresponsibility also disqualifies him.”

Investigative journalist and author Gary Weiss, a former activist in the New Israel Fund, told JNS, “I do not agree that [President Donald] Trump is to blame. That’s absurd. While I disagree with Trump on a great many things, he is simply speaking the truth on Jerusalem. If that causes Abbas to go bananas, that’s a reflection on Abbas, not Trump.”
...
Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff, a member of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet and vice president for special projects at Hebrew Union College, said that while he hopes “Israeli-Palestinian discussions and cooperation” will continue, Abbas’s statement was “a despicable expression of hatred for Israel and for Jews and a disgusting statement of support for terrorists and their families.” As a result, “he has effectively removed himself near-term as a player in future negotiations,” said Kroloff.

We've seen this before. Many Israelis "woke up" to the reality of Palestinian intransigence during the terror war declared by them in the second intifada. American Jews, not so much.

Could this be the moment?

Abbas has said unhinged and antisemitic statements before. He publicly claimed that rabbis were encouraging Israel to poison the Palestinian water supply (he later recanted after the media picked up on it.) He claims that Israelis raise wild boars and dogs to attack Palestinians. He signaled his people to start the knifing and car ramming spree by decrying Jews with their "filthy feet" on the Temple Mount who must be opposed by all means. He brags at every opportunity that he has not made one concession for peace since he has been in office. He says that Israeli "occupation" started in 1948, not 1967.

And his own political party routinely and directly incites violence.

For anyone who bothers to listen to Abbas, this speech may have been a bit more explicitly hateful but not inconsistent.

Yet the mainstream media has still downplayed or ignored altigether the bigotry and hate in Abbas' speech.

This same media went crazy over Bibi warning about "Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls. Left-wing organizations are busing them out." - and ignored his explanation only hours later that he wasn't against Arabs voting but against non-Israeli NGOs interfering with the elections.

Liberal Jews who support Israel's existence too often allow themselves to be blinded to the truth, and are shocked when the truth comes out. Reporters, many of whom are Jewish themselves, soft-pedal and downplay any outrageous Palestinian statements and exaggerate anything Israelis say that can be misinterpreted to be racist.

Now, some have finally woken up. The "right" was right about Abbas all along. (Although as the JNS article notes, J-Street and Americans for Peace Now still try to find excuses for Abbas words. )

Will these new "woke" American Jews remember how they have been deceived about Abbas, or will they fall asleep again?

And when will the rest of liberal America wake up that they have been backing a raving mad bigot as their favorite Palestinian moderate leader?

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.