Extremists of all sorts must be rejected when it comes to the Middle East. Now, more than ever, sane people recognize that this is a war between good and evil, light and darkness. Israel is fighting a war for survival – against terrorists devoted to wiping the State of Israel off the map.
While some organizations raise funds to protect the Jewish state, other so-called Jewish organizations are raising funds to harm Israel during a time of war.
An organization called the Jewish Voice of Peace (JVP) has issued a letter which says that the issue in the Middle East is “rooted in the idea that Jewish lives matter more than Palestinian lives.” The note – which they plan to place in ads in Jewish newspapers including The Forward – continues “I’ve seen terrified Palestinian children in Hebron and Halhul, sitting on the ruins of their homes.”
Their so-called “Open Letter” claims that the Israeli government “created this situation. For weeks, the government knew that the three kidnapped teenagers were dead. But they instituted a gag order on the media, lied to Israelis and the world, and falsely claimed the mass arrests and collective punishment of Palestinians was all in the hopes of finding the teenagers alive.”
Shameful, hateful rhetoric. Akin to blaming America for the WTC bombing, these conspiracy theorists must be rejected. While this shameful organization does not reveal the source of their funding, they have previously described themselves as the “Jewish wing” of the Palestinian solidarity movement.
The liberal Anti-Defamation League described JVP as “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States. Despite the neutral tone of its name, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) counts among its objectives an end to U.S. aid for Israel (because of Israel's "repressive policies") and the success of boycott and divestment campaigns against Israel.”
ADL notes that the organization “uses its Jewish identity to shield the anti-Israel movement from allegations of anti-Semitism and provide it with a greater degree of legitimacy and credibility.”
ADL rightfully notes that, “While JVP's activists try to portray themselves as Jewish critics of Israel, their ideology is nothing but a complete rejection of Israel.” The ADL has described JVP as one of the top 10 anti-Israel groups in the United States.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the former leader of the Reform movement has written that “JVP cloaks their own extremist principles in ambiguous language in order to try and represent themselves as just one more liberal Jewish group.” As Yoffie noted, “this group represents very few Jews and takes positions that are anathema to the entire spectrum of the organized Jewish world.”
Jonathan Tobin of Commentary Magazine, a few weeks ago, wrote an insightful piece which said that the Jewish community needs to cut JVP off entirely – they need “to be cut off from the organized Jewish world and treated like the pariahs they have chosen to be.” As Tobin noted, JVP should never be allowed to express their extremist viewpoints “under the banner of the Jewish community.”
Their advertisements must be rejected from any decent Jewish publication.