They say that “dog bites man” is not news, but “man bites dog” is news. What about “Jews Defend Ilhan Omar?”
The marine layer has burnt off and the sun is hot at 2:30 pm on Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, but there is a cool ocean breeze refreshing everyone on this Saturday afternoon in July. Tourists from around the world are out strolling; all ages, from Japan, Italy, Brazil, and everywhere else. A Muslim family of seven with three women of different generations clad in colorful hijabs enjoy the shops and the breeze. Six excited Japanese teens giggling with each other, and a gaggle of American women tourists attired in bright casual bling are toting large logo shopping bags. Everyone is happily excited to be in the California that they’ve seen in movies, magazines, and on Bay Watch.
Intermixed are the Santa Monicans and locals from around L.A., all races, all backgrounds, also coming to shop at the corporate stores that have replaced the locally owned shops. Though the old shops are sorely missed, the place has a relaxed, clean and well managed feel, and it’s lovely to watch people enjoying themselves as couples, families, or just by themselves, all a part of the same walking human tableau bathed in the warm Pacific light.
There is a stage-savvy 10-year-old boy singing droning songs too loudly with an amplified guitar. He sings monotonously and completely off key at times, with a parent asleep in a chair, perhaps using the kid to make money. On the corner is an indigent man in a wheel chair, panhandling opposite a magnificent Chinese musician playing an unamplified lute with astounding grace, like a moment of grace from a distant world. Life does exist in Los Angeles.
The light turns green and the backed up throng crosses Arizona Avenue, going South on the Promenade. An American couple from New York is among them. The gentleman is originally from Egypt and his wife is from Bosnia. They cross and notice a knot of several people facing them, holding signs that stop them short: The signs say, “I Stand With Ilhan”. The couple approaches. The sign holders are all white men. One of their sign says, “Islamophobia Is A Curable Disease”.
The men holding the signs seem friendly and even somewhat jovial, talking amongst themselves and to one curious passerby. Now a close up of the couple. They see the smaller print on the signs identifying the sponsoring group as “Jewish Voice for Peace.” Jews defending Muslims in public? Interesting!
They have encountered something odd, unexpected. They are quite aware, like most people who pay attention to the news, that the President has been vilifying Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and the other Congresswomen of color, observing the hateful crowd around him chant, “Send them back!” as he smiles approvingly, pretending to be blithely ignorant of the fact that three of the four are American born. But the chant has teeth. He allows it to continue. It says, “you are not one of us, you are less than we are, and we will punish you!”
The President has targeted four Congresswomen of color, but has chosen Omar to receive the most abuse. She is the first woman in Congress born in Africa, and the first to wear a Hijab, the Muslim headscarf, as a Congresswoman. She is the most visibly “other”. Islamophobia is now in full bloom. He lies about her and about what she has said. He calls her a vicious Anti-Semite, in spite of the fact she is not known to have ever said anything even unkind about Jews. She has criticized Israel, but so have many others, some of them Jews, such as the thousands of members of Jewish Voice for Peace, a national organization, and so have many other public figures.. She has many Jewish supporters in her district. But the repugnant con man knows how to incite fearful and racially bigoted people, and that is what he is doing.
The racist presidential call to harm these women horrifies most Americans, even though Ilhan Omar has been getting death threats since she won office in Minnesota, and even though her mosque was bombed some time ago. With the president’s help, the threats have now multiplied. Ilhan, as the President knows well, is without the deep security detail that a President or Cabinet member would have.
At first Nancy Pelosi criticized Representative Omar, forcing her to apologize. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Omar’s “use of anti-Semitic tropes and prejudicial accusations about Israel’s supporters is deeply offensive.” Omar’s statements in question were completely distorted and taken out of context.. They were tweets issued from a conference at which nationally known scholar Phyllis Bennis, (a fellow at the Center for Policy Studies, and a member of the national board of Jewish Voice for Peace) was present, and here are her comments on what actually was said and its context;
“The most recent attacks on Representative Omar are based on her answer to a broad question about anti-Semitism during a recent town hall meeting at Busboys & Poets in Washington, DC. I was there, sitting just a few feet from Omar, asking a question during the Q&A. She never said that Jews have dual loyalty. She never expressed “prejudicial attitudes” or supported “discriminatory acts” against Jews or anyone else. And yet that is the language being proposed for a Democratic Party–sponsored resolution aimed at undermining Omar’s credibility, and likely that of Rashida Tlaib, the other Muslim woman just elected to Congress. Like Omar, Tlaib, who is Palestinian, stands forthrightly in support of Palestinian rights, against the power of the pro-Israel lobby and other lobbies that use money to influence Congress to support guns, environmental destruction, and Israeli violations of human rights—and she stands against racism and anti-Semitism.”
Omar apologized and made clear she was apologizing under duress. Even in her apology she held firm to her principles: “I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry. It’s gone on too long and we must be willing to stop it.”
At the same time, many Americans rushed to Omar’s defense. “Lobbies influence politics, I don’t think that’s controversial to say,” said Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace. “It’s not anti-Semitic to accurately describe something that is completely obvious about the Israeli lobby,” tweeted Brandon Friedman, a former Obama official who heads a public-relations agency whose clients address national security and defense issues.
And by the way, why would Nancy Pelosi and the Dem leadership find Omar’s factually correct assessment to be an “anti-Semitic trope”, supposedly insinuating that Jews were throwing money around for political purposes? Well, let’s ask a pertinent question: how much did Nancy Pelosi take from AIPAC, i.e. the Israel Lobby, over the years? I wish I could tell you. I searched and could not find the specific numbers available. I couldn’t find the breakdown on who got what from AIPAC, which covers its tracks through encouraging individual members to contribute to specified candidates rather than direct donations. (Yes, Jews actually do engage in using money for political influence, like many other groups, anti-Semitic tropes notwithstanding.) What is readily observable is that Nancy Pelosi took in $478,391 in PAC contributions last year and was a featured speaker at the AIPAC conference earlier this year.
Omar’s real crime was to break the taboo against criticizing the powerful Israel Lobby, comparable to the NRA in influence, which is the American mouthpiece of the Israeli government.
Omar’s real crime was to break the taboo against criticizing the powerful Israel Lobby, comparable to the NRA in influence, which is the American mouthpiece of the Israeli government.
As far back as two years ago Phillip Weiss in his on-line blog, Mondoweiss commented, “How many people have noticed that PEN America (led by a Clintonite) is holding its annual world literary festival this spring without money from Israel, following a campaign against the sponsorship by leading writers? Two Democratic former congressmen said at a teach-in about AIPAC last week that politicians are overwhelmingly partial to Israel because of campaign contributions, but the support for Palestinians is slowly rising– to 80. (I don’t know what that number represents.–ed) Bernie Sanders didn’t appear at AIPAC last year, or this year either, for good reason. He actually talks about the occupation, and young Democrats want him to.”…from an article by Phillip Weiss, Mondoweiss, 03/28/17.
Omar’s real crime was to break the taboo against criticizing the powerful Israel Lobby, comparable to the NRA in influence, which is the American mouthpiece of the Israeli government. AIPAC (American Israel Political Committee) is the most powerful group within the Lobby, which also includes virtually every traditional Jewish organization in the country, religious or secular. They all march in lockstep to keep Israel, not a poor country, the largest recipient of U.S. aid, which turns the U.S. taxpayer into the major subsidizer of the illegal occupation of Palestinian people and lands.
AIPAC is an enforcement outfit. To police its turf, i.e. massive aid to Israel and defending Israel against rhetorical attacks, it will spend mightily to drive congressmen and congresswomen out of Congress, (Packwood, Percy, McKinney, et al) with the full acquiescence of the Democratic party (and of course Republicans) in order to replace them with servile substitutes. Like so many already in place, folks will tow the line to defend any Israeli transgression, of which there are many, regardless of the evidence or severity. That is why “Thou shalt not accuse Israel” has been the unspoken taboo when Israel is acting against U.S. law in use of U.S. funded weapons, or committing violations of international law that it is a signatory to, or committing fully documented crimes against humanity. The list of such replacements is long, with Ilhan Omar and her assertive colleagues Rashida Tlaib, Ayana Pressley, and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez undoubtedly in their crosshairs. But this bipartisan love fest has shown signs of stress.
With Trump attacking Omar he has taken the Dem’s “Israel First” ball and ran with it. The Dems reversing course and trying to speak against his racist excesses and in defense of principle and decorum comes off as an unprincipled tactical reversal, which it transparently is. The Democratic party is caught; How do Dems defend Israel at any cost, year in year out, just like Trump, dis Omar and Tlaib, and then protest Trump’s scapegoating? The Dems’ permanent politburo, the corporate DNC leadership, has never had a problem yielding to the Israel lobby, going back to Truman, but what used to be imperial bipartisanship on their part is now becoming for them a counter productive “collusion” with the GOP, agreeing with Trump and emboldening him at their own expense. Being “Pro-Israel” is no longer working for them but against them.
If the Democratic party is stuck in their ritual obedience to a blindly pro-Israel policy, it is now also against a rising young insurgency in its own ranks. As Israel has become more and more overtly racist, there are growing pluralities of American Jews, an important part of the Dem base, who are increasingly critical of Israel as well. The Democrat’s status quo wing (Pelosi, Schumer, et al) cannot compete for obsequiousness with Trump on Israel, so much so that Israel itself has long since traded in American Jewish support, overwhelming Democrats, for the GOP with its Evangelicals, who unlike American Jews don’t complain about niceties of Palestinian rights.
All this and yet, with the notable exception of Bernie Sanders (who recently called the Netanyahu government a “racist government”) as of now, every single Democratic candidate ritually intones the AIPAC talking points word for word, straight from the Israeli foreign ministry handbook.
While two million civilian children, women, and men are kept prisoners just above starvation level in the world’s largest concentration camp, Gaza, for thirteen years, these so-called “Progressive” candidates, somehow with a straight face, uniformly parrot absurd Israeli talking points about the long discredited “Two State Solution” and refuse to call out the slow destruction of a people, seventy-five years after the Holocaust. In the words of Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, what they are white washing is an “incremental genocide.”
So Pelosi and the Dem Liberals are thereby hoisted on their own petard; With the Evangelicals giving Trump wind at his back in cheerleading Israeli occupation, the Dems cannot either compete or reverse course on their unprincipled support of Israel. This mirrors their timid electoral strategy of not losing votes versus getting more votes. The latter would look like bringing disenchanted voters in from the sidelines; youth voters, more Latino and Black voters. Those people will have no truck supporting an apartheid Israel. Many minority voters don’t yet know that their taxes are giving a million dollars a day to Israel, but many do. Regardless, it cannot feel right: Ferguson is like Jenin. Palestinian children are in cages too, and “you don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind blows.” The Black Lives Matter manifesto condemned Israeli genocide outright. And need we say, since no one else is putting two and two together: Ilhan Omar is….African. Will some African Americans just stay home on election day thinking of Nancy Pelosi’s education of Ilhan Omar?
Nonetheless, according to the political class, including wall to wall corporate talking heads, from Fox to CNN and including Comcast/MSNBC?, the Israel Lobby cannot be criticized for spending for political outcome, and please note, even named for “meddling” in domestic politics. No, wait a minute; it’s supposed to be Russia that is doing large scale political interference, not the lobby for a different foreign country, that brought their foreign prime minister to publicly berate a sitting American President at a joint session of Congress. No wonder some “low information voters” may be enticed by anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
See you at the Santa Monica Promenade this Saturday, August 10, and next Saturday, August 17, 2pm at 3rd and Arizona.
See you at the Santa Monica Promenade this Saturday, August 10, and next Saturday, August 17, 2pm at 3rd and Arizona.
The couple from NY (who feared repercussions for their family if I had included their names, so we will call them Zara and her husband Issa) engage the Jewish Ilhan defenders on the sunny Promenade. She is a tall graceful woman, whose looks, demeanor, and elegant style make her look like she walked out of a Cosmopolitan magazine. (When I first saw her I thought, “she reminds me of a Nordic Jackie Kennedy.”)
They are relieved to see people openly defending Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from the President’s assault. They know these are false charges to create a scapegoat, a distraction from the dysfunctional and corrupt Trump policies designed to incite ethnic divisions and racism, and to subjugate anyone else but agreeable white males. It isn’t hard for them to recognize this. They have seen firsthand what happens when a group, in her case Bosnian Muslims, are targeted and demeaned, and not defended by elected politicians. What begins with indignities can end in mass killings.
They know that Ilhan has “sinned’ by being truthful. It is the same sin that everyone in the 70 national chapters of Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, and other dissident Jewish groups have sinned; that Black Lives Matter has sinned, and that every Palestinian sins by the very fact of being alive. Like this immigrant and educated NY couple, these people recognize the courage of Ilhan and now see in front of them, Jews defending her in public, as many have done in her home district. This is an unexpected twist.
Zara says, “I survived the war in Bosnia. I was a Muslim but I never went to the mosque, I didn’t celebrate the “Eid” holiday… but I knew we could be killed by the Serbian death squads that would kill anyone of Muslim extraction, and by the thousands, which they did. Many of my family and friends were murdered by them while the world stood by and watched.”
She was still a child when her city was surrounded by Serbian forces who rained artillery down on the city from the hills. Her cousins were killed, injured and raped. She was the lucky one to survive.
“If anyone has a reason to hate I do. If anyone has a reason to want to kill, I do. But I don’t want to hate anyone or kill anyone.” The emotion was rising in her face; tears were welling up in her eyes. This is an immensely poised woman, obviously very highly educated and beautifully dressed, and she was holding back strong and deep pain, with horrible memories behind them.
In the hot afternoon sun, I saw her arms get goose bumps right in front of me and that told me as strongly as her words that we, all of us, all of us humans, are in this together. I can’t describe how moved I was.
For those of us who have held these signs on Saturdays at the Promenade since April, when these attacks on Ilhan began, many interactions have been moving too. We get more positive than negative reactions, but the negative can be very ugly. We try and restrain ourselves in our responses and just say nothing or “have a nice day”, but it’s been a learning process. We also get such heartfelt support and encouragement back, such as from this NY couple.
So many people know that at the center of the controversy swirling around Ilhan Omar is the charge, the smear, alleging that she is a Jew hater. They’ve never believed that but know many do, even within a Democrat party that reflexively kowtows to the Israel Lobby, dogmatically portraying Israel as a democracy, which it is not, and one that only defends itself, which is also untrue.
When we are told it is a complicated picture, we need to remember that one single and simple fact that Ilhan Omar tweeted and was verbally crucified for saying out loud. Jewish or not, it is “the Benjamins”, and that must be spoken loudly and clearly. Freedom of speech and the ability to speak the truth to ruthless power must be exercised and jealously guarded.
Is there any other antidote to a racist demagogue better than the truth?
Zara, from NY with a PhD from an Ivy league school, who I met in this chance encounter, has seen and lived through the pain of a mindless hatred of a demonized group, has lived through raw power killing the truth and then taking masses of innocent lives. We can honor the pain of everyone who we have not been present for in the past, like the Zaras of this world, by being present now. Our choice as a people and as progressives is clear: allow a President to rhetorically and maybe literally “kill the messenger” or to stand up to him and make it clear: “I Stand With Ilhan!”
See you on the Promenade, Second and Fourth Saturdays at 2 pm.
Rick Chertoff
Rick Chertoff is a member of the Los Angeles Chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace.
nick says
Why this mademoiselle is in a government? What is her accomplishment apart from talking nonsense?
Lydia Howell says
Perhaps, y9ou don’t understand how democracy works…? The people LIVING IN HER DISTRICT have VOTED for her to REPRESENT them. I am one of them (in MINNEAPOLIS,MN). I SUPPORT Rep. Omar’s BRAVERY in TRUTH-telling. I suggest you do further study of the issues in the Middle East–and find out about the human rights abuses of ISRAEL against the Palestinian people. TRUTH that’s been CENSORED is NOT “nonsense”.
Posted by Al Barlevy says
Got to call bullshit on this one. Israelis criticize their government all the time. Ilhan Omar is Anti-Semitic in her calls to boycott Israel.
Israel has border disputes with its Palestinian neighbors. Israel is not the only country that has border disputes, but it is the only country that Ilhan Omar has called for boycott. That means that Ilhan Omar is Anti-Semitic, and we should never be afraid to call her Anti-Semitic.
Having said that, Omar’s Anti-Semitism does not give Trump a free ticket to be a racist bigot.
Don’t fall for the bullshit that her Anti-Semitism is legitimate criticism of the Government of Israel. It is NOT. It is Anti-Semitism, and we must call a spade a spade.
Sincerely,
Al Barlevy
Marc Wutschke says
You call the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands a “border dispute?” This is absurd. There is no logic nor substance to your argument which boils down to the fall back Zionist tactic of merely screaming “Antisemitic” at every criticism of Israel. People are getting wise to that bullshit.
RICK CHERTOFF says
Please provide us with exact quotes in which Rep. Ilhan Omar has issued statements or made public comments maligning Jews. Let’s see the facts, should there be any, and then we might have a basis for conversation. I suspect you do not have any, so that is my challenge to you.
Lydia Howell says
Al: BOYCOTTS are a NON-violent means of PROTEST. The most FAMOUS ones were the Montgomery (Alabama) Bus Boycott in 1955 that put the first big cracks in southern racial segregation. The second most known (& relevant for discussion of Israel) is the 1980s Boycott of the SOUTH AFRICAN government which was part of what led to END of racial APARTHEID (segregation) of the Black majority in that country.
It is NOT “anti-Semitic” to criticize the Israeli government’s actions or to QUESTION whether OUR government should SUBSIDIZE Israel’s Human Rights Abuses of Palestinians with $5 BILLION of our tax dollars. Frankly, it is the POLICIES of ISRAEL’S GOVERNMENT which is creating anti-Semitism.
Jim Thomas says
Thank you for an inspiring and encouraging report on the ways in which the establishment, including, not surprisingly, the Democratic Party leadership, has dishonestly misrepresented Congresswoman Omar’s critical and truthful comments about Israel and the Israel lobby. It is certainly refreshing (and all too rare) to hear a few members of the U.S. Congress speaking truth about these matters. I have no doubt that AIPAC and its followers will engage in their standard shameful procedure of character assassination and underhanded sabotage of Omar and others who continue to speak the truth on these matters. I hope they are unsuccessful in their efforts to defeat these truth tellers. I would be great to see the truth tellers win for a change. I am a progressive and former member of the Democratic Party. After 4 decades of the party’s drift to the right, I gave up on it. I did not vote for either Trump or Clinton in the 2016 election and will not vote for any candidate who is a neocon and neoliberal, regardless of party affiliation. I congratulate Congresswoman Omar for having the courage to stand up to those who support the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians and theft of their land and resources. More power to her and others who do the same.
Paul Haeder says
Man, this is way over the top coverage of a few moments in Santa Monica with, again, more insipid coverage of what Jews think of Palestine. Calling for herem? How primitive Old Testament is that?
Jewish Voice for Peace isn’t democratic, for sure:
https://thewallwillfall.org/2015/06/23/jewish-voice-for-peace-inciting-division-elitism-and-supremacy-gilad-atzmon/
Gilad Atzmon:
“A month ago, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) issued a call for a Herem(excommunication, Hebrew) against the remarkable activist and writer Alison Weir. The call was distributed internally among JVP’s chapter leaders and was leaked to me by a few JVP dissenters. The publication of the call led to a massive surge of resentment towards JVP within the dissident movement. JVP was compelled to explain their move.
The call for Herem is deeply rooted in Jewish culture. Throughout their history, Jews have called for the expulsion of some of their most articulate and sophisticated minds. Spinoza, and Uriel Da Costa are famous examples. Christ, another dissent voice, found himself nailed to the cross for advising his people to love their neighbours. Though Rabbinical Jews rarely call for a herem, contemporary so-called ‘liberal’ Jews are obsessed with that ugly, primitive medieval ritual. Since I immersed myself in solidarity matters two decades ago, I have been witness to the relentless chasing, harassing and slandering of every Jew who crossed the 100 IQ barrier. First it was Israel Shamir, then Paul Eisen, and then Norman Finkelstein who dared speak the truth about the Jewish Left and BDS operating as a secret society (cult). Consistent with their Jewish heritage, ‘progressive’ Jews like to employ a ‘Sabbos Goy’, a gentile who is willing to surrender to their whims. The liberal Jews at JVP have used Ali Abunimah as their favourite ‘partner’. He has apparently been happy to provide his Palestinian voice to issue the Palestinian stamp. Although rabbinical Jews employ the Herem solely against Jews, liberal Jews, fuelled by peculiar sense of righteousness, extended the Herem to include some ‘Goyim’. For years they have attempted to excommunicate me (an ex-Jew). They chased Free Gaza Founder Greta Berlin. Currently their target is Alison Weir and, in a surprising move, the American people whom JVP has outrageously dubbed a racist collective.
A rapidly growing number of activists and commentators see JVP and the Jewish liberal attitude as a corrosive, yet dominant, element within the solidarity movement. The publication of the leaked JVP’s call for herem against Alison Weir drew a lot of negative attention. JVP and its Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson could have easily saved what was left of their reputations by issuing an apology and perhaps vowing not to engage in herem tactics. But such a humane and reconciliatory approach would be totally foreign to the culture JVP succumbs to. For JVP to word such a statement would mean an engagement in genuine self-reflection, pretty much thinking the unthinkable. It just wasn’t going to happen. Instead JVP offered another clumsy and lousy attempt to ‘justify’ its primitive call for a herem. Lacking elementary imagination, this progressive synagogue re-cycled its banal Judeo-centric diatribe. JVP’s new statement achieved little except to offer another view into tribal morbidity. Their statement has nothing to do with peace or the Palestinians but is, instead, an embarrassing manifestation of goy hatred and anti white inclinations. They reveal, yet again that liberal Jews are not the solution. They are, actually, the core of the problem.
In their new diatribe against Weir, JVP’s board informs us that they have chosen not to work with her because their central tenet is “opposition to racism and oppression in all its forms, and she (Weir) has consistently chosen to stay silent when given the opportunity to challenge bigotry,” which they find “repugnant.”
It is amusing to find out that the people who are operating within a racially Jewish exclusive club are preaching against ‘racism.’ Yet, what was Weir’s crime exactly? Apparently, Weir has been ‘a friendly guest’ of ‘white supremacist’ Clay Douglas on his hate radio show, “the Free American.”
Without even addressing the horrid labels that JVP and liberal Jews often attribute to others (gentiles), I wonder whether JVP would have the same reaction if Weir appeared on Israeli TV. Israeli TV is suffocated with Jewish supremacy and racism. Of course, the answer is NO – JVP has yet to call for a Herem against a single activist for appearing on Israeli TV or any other Jewish supremacist outlet. I guess that in the eyes of ‘liberal’ Jews at JVP & Co., Jewish racism is somehow kosherish.
“Clay Douglas,” according to JVP, “is concerned primarily with the survival of the White race and sees malign Jewish influence everywhere.” To start with, ‘seeing Jewish influence everywhere’ has now become mainstream news and for good reason. Furthermore, if it is bad for a white person to be primarily concerned with the survival of his ‘race,’ should we apply the same ethical standard to all identities and sectarian activism? Would JVP also denounce a lesbian activist for caring primarily for her sisters and their libidinal and cultural survival? Would JVP denounce Jews who primarily care about the survival of their ‘race’? I guess that within their liberal tribal mindset, universal ethics evaporate wherever the ‘White’ appears. I admit that I am puzzled by this brutal tribal animosity towards Whiteness, particularly the vile language that some Jewish progressive ‘peace’ activists use. If JVP truly believes in diversity, shouldn’t it include Clay Douglas in its phantasmic multi layered society? Seemingly ‘White’ people are unwelcome within the imaginary Jewish liberal ‘diverse’ universe. What a shame, some of my best friends are white. In the mirror I look pretty white, almost as white as Rebecca Vilkomerson and her junta of progressive Rabbis.”
RICK CHERTOFF says
You comments are way off topic. You may want to come back and address points I’ve made in this article, which are not about Jewish Voice for Peace as an organization per se, but rather how some Jews and many other people realize that they must stand up against state power when it becomes overtly racist and threatens dissenters within government. I’d welcome your thoughts on that, or on the Democratic party’s automatic attacks on anyone questioning its automatic support of Israeli systematic violation of Palestinian rights.
Olivia LaRosa says
That’s lots of Israeli-splaining Paul Haeder,
Lydia Howell says
Paul: you’ve spewed so much VILE SLANDER and SMEAR against Jewish Voices For Peace that the only response to your post should be DELETE it. Sad that unquestioning supporters of Israel must resort to character assassination & lies. That’s kind of a clue that it’s OVERDUE to CHANGE POLICIES, when FEWER & FEWER people believe Israeli Government BS in service of LAND THEFT.
Walter says
Your title misspelled Ilhan as lhan.
Posted by Administrator says
thank you
RICK CHERTOFF says
Thank you.
Matt McLaughlin says
Trump is using support of a foreign country as a measure of citizenship. Neo- Protestantism like never before. Not even Reagan who legalized No- Fault Divorce in California as governor ever dreamed of negotiating Jerusalem.