Future American Support for Israel Dropping

As readers of this blog must know by now, I've always been very cynical or doubtful about American support of Israel. The United States State Department has been anti-Israel from the days of Harry S. Truman, when they recommended voting against a Jewish State. And they haven't changed their approach, even though Israel has been threatened and attacked constantly over the past seventy years. The totally fokokt idea that there can be a "Two State Solution" is their ideal, and if it endangers Israel, they don't care.

Of course, American politicians claim to be pro-Israel, and it's not because of the Jewish vote. There's a minuscule amount of Jewish voters in the USA.

• But a lot of money comes into the campaign accounts from Jews, who don't feel comfortable with an obviously anti-Israel candidate. 
• Christian Zionist and Bible belt voters are very numerous as Hillary Clinton discovered November, 2016. They have no sympathy for the various ideologies of the extreme Left. 

Ambitious candidates/politicians claim to love Israel while they simultaneously support policies that can only endanger the State of Israel. The radically Leftist, pro-Palestinian J-Street has become the darling of the Democratic Party, academics and the international media. 

This is causing a serious drop in future Jewish support for Israel. Liberal American Jewish youth's estrangement from Israel by Matthew M. Hausman on Arutz 7.

In recent years, fundraisers from Israel have found it much easier to get donations from Christian groups, rather than from Jews. The more secular and/or Leftist Jews give their money to Left wing and non-Jewish causes. Mainstream Israel is not their priority. If they support Israeli funds, it's the New Israel Fund and NGOs that give to Arabs for humanitarian and "Jewish-Arab co-existence."

There are many Jews who do support Israel and Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria, the Jordan Valley and the Golan, but most of them don't have the financial luxury to donate much money. Jewish Life in the United States is very expensive. Synagogue dues, Jewish school tuition and university education for their children have caused many people reduce their donations. Many Jewish families are surprised and shocked to discover that their children coming home from college now sympathize with the Arabs, rather than identify with Jewish Israelis.

I am very pessimistic about future support for Israel in the United States. And the worst thing is that I don't see a solution to the problem. The State of Israel will be more and more isolated. We must get stronger and stop all dependency on foreign countries and organizations. We don't need them if we obey Gd.

Jerusalem, Capital of the State of Israel

Should The State of Israel Take Advice/Orders?

When I opened the computer tonight after Shabbat I saw this headline:

Europe criticizes Israel over legislation on terrorism

All I could think of was that the last thing the State of Israel should do is to pay attention to Europe's opinion. They are pro-Arab and anti-semitic.

And the United States isn't much better. Even the Jewish organizations don't know what's best for us. Caroline Glick's latest article is a must-read:

COLUMN ONE: ACHIEVING AIPAC’S MISSION

AIPAC’s mission to cultivate and maintain bipartisan support for Israel in the United States is an important mission. Unfortunately, the messages AIPAC’s leaders delivered during the organization’s annual policy convention this week in Washington indicate that they are at a loss for how to achieve their mission in the contentious political environment now prevalent in post- Obama America.

Their befuddlement is not surprising. For the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, AIPAC’s leaders showed a consistent inability to understand the challenges they faced. And since they were unable to understand how or why the Obama administration was undermining AIPAC, they couldn’t protect AIPAC or advance its mission during his tenure in office.

At this week’s AIPAC convention, the message emanating from the speeches AIPAC’s senior leadership delivered was that they still don’t get what happened.

And largely as a consequence, they do not understand the challenges they face as an organization moving forward. And again, since they don’t understand what happened, or what is happening, they are incapable of meeting today’s challenges to AIPAC’s mission in a constructive way... Click for complete article

Who Speaks for US Jewry? Should We Care?

Just a quick couple of related pre-Shabbat questions for you. Who Speaks for US Jewry? Should We Care?

If you're an American Jew, do you agree with the policies agenda of the newby extreme Left J Street? It is getting all the publicity and media coverage. It promotes policies that are the exact opposite of AFSI Americans for a Secure Israel, the very underfunded and ignored veteran group. Or is there an organization you like which falls more in the Center?

I'm curious and would seriously like to hear your opinion in the comments, thanks.

❓

Shabbat Shalom uMevorach

Have a Peaceful and Blessed Shabbat

Will There be Real Changes in American Policy Towards Israel?

The big question here in Israel and among many American Jews is whether or not the Trump administration will change American policy towards Israel. One great improvement, which isn't actual policy, is attitude.

Obama couldn't hide his genuine antipathy towards Israel and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Even when Obama would read pro-Israel speeches and say the "right words" it was clear that his heart wasn't in it. He absolutely glowed when with Arabs, especially  Mahmoud Abbas. And don't forget that he had vowed to help establish a "Palestinian state" during his term in office. It was the failure to do so that spurred his vicious anti-Israel move in the United Nations and Kerry's awful parting speech while "lame duck."

Contrary to what the New York Times and international media would like people to believe, not all American Jews support J-Street and oppose Jewish life/communities/building in Judea Samaria. Davka, the most committed Jews, the Torah observant ones who have the higher birthrates, totally oppose the extreme Left J-Street and support full Jewish Life and Sovereignty in all of the Land of Israel. On the whole, they are totally embarrassed by American policy. They are proud and happy to have David Friedman as American Ambassador and look forward to the United States' moving its Embassy to Jerusalem.

Pence: 'Trump seriously considering embassy move'

These strongly Jewish American Jews also support building, including news communities, in Judea, Samaria, the Golan and Jordan Valley. And they mourn the destruction of Amona, Gush Katif, etc.

In all honesty, I wouldn't dare predict what Trump will do vis a vis Israel.  At present, he is under so much pressure and opposition to everything he does, good and bad.

Whatever happens, it won't really affect the State of Israel, because our fate and future are in our hands, not those of foreign leaders. Therefore the very best thing the State of Israel can do is to declare complete Israeli Sovereignty over all of the Land we hold. It doesn't matter what anyone says. The stronger and more confident we act the more respect and support we will get from the world, and the more support Gd will give us which is most important. That's the true lesson of Passover, which is in only two weeks.

Remember that the Sea only split when Nachshon stepped in.

Bernie Sanders is 100% WRONG!

The State of Israel envisioned by Leftists both here and abroad is one that wouldn't survive in the real world. It encourages, strengthens and plays in the hands of our unabashed enemies. Bernie Sanders, J-Street and all those others are horrendously and tragically wrong!

Sanders: One can be pro-Israel and rap its government

It doesn't matter one single iota that they claim to love Israel and be pro-Israel. It just makes their stand more dangerous and more tragic.

Israel is a tiny country surrounded by dangerous enemies which unabashedly proclaim their aim to destroy and replace the only Jewish country in the world. It is impossible, totally unrealistic, illogical to make peace with enemies like that.

Speaking before a conference held by J Street, a liberal Jewish American organization that primarily lobbies for a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians, Sanders said that "those of us who support Israel have got to tell the truth about policies that hurt the chances of a peaceful resolution." (Jerusalem Post)

Neither Israel nor the so-called "occupation," sic, is the cause for the tension and terrorism between Israel and her neighbors. Blaming Israel is a totally facetious antisemitic lie, even when said by Jews.

Anyone who reads the history of this part of the world can easily learn that the Jewish People have always had enemies that attempted to invade and destroy us. Yes, quite of few managed to occupy this land, the Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, Persians, Turks etc., but none of them has ever destroyed us.

The Jewish People/Nation is among the oldest in the History of the World. We keep on returning to our Ancestral Homeland, and each time we must fight our enemies, a new one for each generation.  And, yes, Jews like Sanders and those in J-Street have always been around assimilated into foreign cultures and supporting our enemies.

We are now in the Jewish Month of Adar, and the Holiday of Purim is less than a couple of weeks away. Read the Purim Megillah and see that then most of the Jewish People occupied by Persia were very much like Bernie Sanders, celebrating the rise of King Achashverosh and ignoring the plans of Haman. The Jewish Mordecai had to infiltrate Ester into the royal palace to save the Jewish People.

Stop listening to those drunk on foreign, non-Jewish wine and values.

We must learn from history and not ignore it!

Chodesh Adar Tov!

Why Do We Jews Keep Lying to Ourselves?

I don't think I'll ever understand the pathetic and dangerous worship most American Jews have for the Democratic Party? It has never supported Jewish needs properly. The Democratic idol of many, Franklin Delano Roosevelt did absolutely nothing to rescue and accept Jews fleeing the Nazis. And his successor, Harry S. Truman, was ready to accept the State Department's recommendation to vote against the approval of a Jewish State at the United Nations.

Since then, there hasn't really been any improvement.

Today's Democratic Party is extremely pro-Arab and pro-Palestine, sic. Their pet Jewish organization is J-Street, which promotes the weakening of the State of Israel and the establishment of another judenrein anti-semitic terror state to be called "Palestine."  Don't forget that former USA President Barack Hussein Obama had pledged to facilitate that state and considers his failure to be the worst of his presidency. I wouldn't be surprised if he joins another Israel-hater and former president, Jimmy Carter, to try to "rectify" it.

So, when I read Ruthie Blum's  Alan Dershowitz Following Defeat of DNC Chair Hopeful Keith Ellison: I Will Remain in Democratic Party, But Will Fight for It to Move Away From Anti-Israel, Far-Left Trends in algemeiner, I just couldn't stop thinking of how pathetic such an intelligent man sounds.

Why can't Alan Dershowitz finally see and admit the truth? 
The Democratic Party is not the best party for him and other caring Jews!

credit

I'm not saying that they should join the Republican Party. But I do think that they, led by Dershowitz, should resign from the Democrats. In all honesty, I think that American Jewry would have more power if it wasn't tied to a specific party.

• American Jewish voters should make it clear that they vote according to issues, background and personalities. 
• American Jews should make it clear that they donate according to specific issues and if the candidate or cause is associated with antisemitism or anti-Israel policies and groups, they won't get money.

J-Street should be shunned by anyone who really cares for the State of Israel, since its policies, its raison d'être  completely endangers the security, stability and survival of the only Jewish State in existence. Just because they claim to be pro-Israel doesn't mean that it's true.

Yes, this would be very earth-shattering and traumatic for many, but I think it is necessary and would be much better for American Jewry in the long run. 

From an Expat Living in Israel For Almost Half A Century

As I've written before, my husband and I moved to Israel from New York soon after our 1970 wedding. Israel is the country we know best, even if my Hebrew is still, and will always be, awful.

We still have lots of family and friends in America. Some see the American political scene the way we do, while others think we're raving lunatics. And not only do they think we're crazy, they take for granted that we're ignorant and try to correct our thinking. Sometimes this really gets annoying and tedious. I'm not ignorant. I do follow the news. I just see it differently.


The anti-semitism and anti-zionism, which attack the legitimacy of the existence of the State of Israel, where  I live come from the American Left, not the Right.

Organizations like J-Street, and American politicians like Barack Hussein Obama threaten me personally in their policies. Just because they label themselves as "pro-Israel" doesn't mean that their policies vis a vis Israel would enable the country I live in to survive.

As I've written before, the so-called "Two State Solution" is totally unworkable and won't bring peace to the region, only war, terror and destruction. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's "conditions" of recognizing the State of Israel as a Jewish State and allowing Israel to continue being the military presence in the area, would never be accepted by the Arabs. Yes, that's why he keeps touting them, while claiming that "the Palestinians (sic) deserve a state." His hope/plan is double edged:

• that the Arabs will never dare accept the conditions
• that no foreign body will force/impose a "deal" on us that doesn't include his conditions

In a sense POTUS Trump did cooperate with Bibi when he stated that the negotiations must be between Israel and the Arabs. 

The last thing Trump has time for is putting pressure on Israel to risk all in a bad deal. I guess we should be happy about all the mess Trump has to deal with trying to get his government running smoothly. I'm sure that facilitating a "deal" in the Middle East is not high on his list of priorities, and he needs his son-in-law near him to help out in Washington DC. 

Let's just agree to disagree...

Shavua Tov

Have a Wonderful Week

Good News for Israel from Trump Transition Team

Extremely pro-Israel David Friedman has been named as Trump's United States Ambassador to Israel.

David Friedman with Donald Trump in Manhattan. (photo credit:Courtesy) (Jerusalem Post)

Many of us can now breathe a sigh of relief, since Friedman is the sort of American we trust as a friend of the State of Israel and Jewish rights to live here.

“I am deeply honored and humbled by the confidence placed in me by President-elect Trump to represent the United States as its ambassador to Israel,” Friedman said in statement on Thursday. “I intend to work tirelessly to strengthen the unbreakable bond between our two countries and advance the cause of peace within the region, and look forward to doing this from the US embassy in Israel’s eternal capital, Jerusalem.”
Friedman — a founding partner of Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP — was referring to Trump’s campaign promise to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. (Algemeiner)

Friedman, who had also been a longtime Arutz Sheva contributor, spoke out in favor of Israel numerous times during the campaign and highlighted Trump’s pro-Israel stance.
In May, Friedman told Arutz Sheva in an exclusive interview that Trump believes “that Israel should continue to build settlements. This is land that Israel has held for almost 50 years. The population of Judea and Samaria is 400,000 people. You add in East Jerusalem you have almost a million people. These people aren’t going anywhere and Israel’s not going to make the same mistake that it made in connection with the evacuation of Gaza.” (Arutz 7)

No surprise that the Jerusalem Post's article included criticism of the appointment:

"J Street is vehemently opposed to the nomination of David Friedman to be ambassador to Israel," the organization said in a statement.
At a policy forum on Israel this month hosted by the Brookings Institution, Friedman offered choice words for J Street, an organization primarily focused on promoting a two-state solution. He questioned their commitment to Israel and their representation of Jewish causes, according to several attendees of the summit.

The National Jewish Democratic council took it a step further. "There has never been a less experienced pick for US ambassador to Israel," they tweeted on Thursday night, and added that Donald Trump "is not taking the US-Israel relationship seriously. Friedman not experienced enough to be" ambassador.  (Jerusalem Post)

This decision by President-Elect Donald Trump further strengthens our relief that the Democrats won't be in power the next few years.

REALITY: THEY Do Want Israel Destroyed!

The State of Israel does have a lot of very dangerous enemies.

Who's the "THEY?"

Let's start with the so-called "pro-Israel" J Street.

J-Street Speaker Calls for Destruction of Israel – to Applause (VIDEO)

Click, watch and listen.

The EU-European Union is more comfortable with Hamas than with a secure Jewish State.

At a time when the European Union considers a proposal to remove Hamas from the list of “designated terrorist organizations”

How could anyone consider Hamas non-terrorist?

United States President Barack Hussein Obama and his State Department.

Managing Obama’s war against Israel

A simple check in the History Books will show that in the days leading up to the historic United Nations vote, November 29, 1947, favoring the establishment of a Jewish State, the official State Department recommendation was to vote "no." Over the years, the American policy was at best "hands off," and only later, after the 1967 Six Days War did the American Government accept that Israel truly existed and wasn't going to be easily defeated by its Arab enemies.  The Nixon-Kissinger plan during the 1973 Yom Kippur War was to control Israel after their planned stalemate between Egypt (the aggressor) and Israel which had been shocked by the attack. Israel's defeat of Egypt wasn't what they had been expecting.

Obama is just a worse actor, having an awful time hiding his true feelings about the State of Israel, than his predecessors.

Unfortunately, Prime Minister Netanyahu is making an awful mistake, yet again, in trying to placate the Americans. That's why I won't vote Likud. This doesn't surprise me at all.

Don't brush this off as paranoia, please.

Remember that even paranoids have enemies.

Catching Our Collective Breath After Surviving the Obama/Kerry Negotiations Attack

IMRA's Dr. Aaron Lerner seems pretty confident that Prime Binyamin Netanyahu steered us well during the nine month American driven faux peace negotiations.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Observation: American gift to Netanyahu in Barnea piece shows they clueless

Observation: American gift to Netanyahu in Barnea piece shows they clueless Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 4 May 2014 The Americans from Kerry's team who complained to Nachum Barnea about Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu unwittingly gave the prime minister an early Israel Independence Day gift. Here is what they told Barnea, as reported in his 2 May Yediot Ahronot article "How We Failed." #1. The Palestinians refused to compromise during the course of negotiations and insisted that any Israeli security presence (including in the Jordan Valley) vanish within no more than 5 years. #2. Netanyahu insists on absolute Israeli security control for an unlimited period of time. #3. Netanyahu refused to agree to a map dividing Jerusalem. #4. Netanyahu's attorney, Molcho, stood guard to thwart efforts by Livni to compromise Israel's position. For almost all Israelis reading the above there is a simple reaction: Three cheers for Netanyahu! Once again, the Americans are pathetically clueless, relying on the words of encouragement from their lefty Israeli friends rather than actually appreciating what the country really thinks. They thought they would hurt Netanyahu with this piece when the opposite is the case. And now to the real puzzle: If they actually believe that the Palestinians "will get a State for themselves in the end" then why all the fuss? After all, according to the narrative these folks subscribe to, once the Palestinians have a state of their own we will enjoy Utopian Peace. [Only someone who thought there would be Utopian Peace would think that a deal that completely removes the IDF from the scene within 60 months is a deal that promises Israel security]. Let me suggest an alternative explanation for the hysterics. The concern isn't that in the absence of a deal that a Palestinian state will come into existence without a signing ceremony on the White House lawn. The concern is that at the end of the day Israel succeeds in moving on. We make it past all the "tsunamis". The large Palestinian population centers thrive under some form of autonomy. The demographic trends continue with each year more Israeli Jews born. And the dream of withdrawal and division that was the focus of leftist Israelis and their leftist American Jewish friends will be no more serious a possibility than that we all start speaking Esperanto.

I'm not at all as optimistic as Lerner. The fact that Obama/Kerry admitted their attempt at a "deal" between Israel and the Palestinians sic a failure has just brought us a break, time to catch our collective breath, but this was not the effective execution such as when Pinchas killed Zimri and Cozbi stopping the plague that had already killed 24,000 Jews.

While pacifists might decry the taking of a life, in this case a moral outrage was spreading in the camp - wanton, orgiastic debauches and idolatry. Zimri, a leader of the tribe of Shimon, publicly takes Kozbi, a willing participant from the daughters of Midian. The transgression is flagrant and unmistakable, brazen and unabashed. Pinchas steps in to end the disgrace, to halt the epidemic by means of the sword. The reward he is given leaves little room for doubt: Pinchas is good, Zimri is bad. Pinchas is right, Zimri is wrong. In fact, Jewish tradition sees these two as archetypes of good and evil; the Talmud's expression for the epitome of hypocrisy is "one who acts like Zimri and expects the reward of Pinchas." (aish)

While Moshe and the rest of the people who hadn't been overtly sinning with the Midian women stood by silently, Pinchas took action, and G-d gave him a great reward, Priesthood.

Unfortunately, successive Israeli Governments have been making the same basic mistake over and over. They keep on relying on the Arabs to foul up, rather than taking a real stand and ending the pressure on us. This is very much a continuation of the pre-state debates and ideological disputes which Netanyahu's late father Benzion wrote about so clearly in his book  The Founding Fathers of Zionism. He contrasted so-called Zionist leaders like Chaim Weizman, who would have had been overjoyed if the "Jewish state" was to be no more than a British protectorate, part of the Commonwealth, with those who wanted real independence. There was also the debates over whether small Zionist Jewish communities were the key or was it necessary to establish a national framework.

Our enemies are clever and very wealthy. We shouldn't be overconfident that we'll be victorious just by sitting out the pressure on us. I think that that George Soros and his J Street hasn't yet finished their attempt to turn American Jewry. to the extreme Left when it comes to Israel. Soros has backed Obama, and he created J Street to support Obama's pressure on Israel to destroy itself. Now that J Street had been handily rejected by the Presidents Conference, his next step is to destroy that organization.

J Street in The Gutter

Since I get my news of American Jewry mostly from the media, I was nervous about the acceptance/rejection of extreme Left J Street by the "Presidents' Conference." My contact there had told me that's "it's being worked on," the rejection, that it, but still I wasn't confident. He was right. J Street is out in the gutter as far as the "Presidents' Conference"  is concerned.

In a rebuke to the relatively young but very well (and oddly so) financed group J Street, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations decisively rejected the group’s bid for membership.
J Street has only been in existence since 2008, but it shot out of the starting block with hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank and the backing of a wide array of well-connected American (mostly) Jews (mostly) who were itching to establish a new standard for the American Jewish community’s attitude towards Israel...
But J Street’s star rose along with President Barack Obama’s election to office. The first year of its existence, J Street was already invited into the pantheons of American political and media power.
With the kind of cachet that adheres to those close to positions of wealth and power – for it is, as always, wealth and power that gives prestige, even if the wealth and power belongs to those who claim to disdain such “conservative” markers of strength, J Street’s coffers were well-stocked and its dance card was always filled. (Jewish Press)

I'm relieved by their rejection. Extreme Left anti-Israel groups, whether Jewish or not, should not be accepted. And I find the support by American President Obama to such an extreme Left anti-Israel Jewish group to be terribly suspicious. Is there a connection between the Obama backers/controllers and the J Street ones?

Apparently as Left wing as the American Jewish community is, the broad-based Presidents Conference very firmly rejected J Street.

JNS.org – In what many observers will see as the de facto expression of mainstream U.S. Jewry’s outlook on J Street, members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on Wednesday voted 22-17 (with three abstentions) to reject the membership application of the self-labeled “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby. J Street secured the votes of only about a third of the Conference’s 50 members. (Algemeiner)

It's interesting that this happened just as Obama's high-pressured "peace initiative" fizzled and failed.

Everything about them is a sham. J Street is antidemocratic. They aim to interfere with Israeli democracy by imposing their opinions on Israeli citizens, on the Israeli Government. That sign on the right of the above picture proves it. They are protesting legal Israeli life and decisions, which have been approved and voted on by Israeli democracy, democratically elected Israeli officials.

J Street, just like Obama and Kerry who are their biggest supporters, have no right to try to impose their extreme Left ideologies on the State of Israel.  It's that simple. I'm very glad that the Presidents Conference booted them out.