Some questions for Ifnotnow
Some questions for Ifnotnow

Mark Mellman, president of Democratic Majority for Israel, on July 9 sent a letter to the Democratic presidential candidates, titled: WARNING on Anti-Israel Campaigners, in which he described a “strongly anti-Israel organization, IfNotNow, which has refused to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist at all.”

He writes that IfNotNow is “asking young people to run up to candidates and ask some variant of, ‘will you push Israel to end the occupation.’”

Continuing, Mellman writes:

"Such a question and response alters the foundations of most Democrats’ Israel positions:

“1. It wrongly suggests Israel alone is responsible for the current impasse in negotiations, ignoring the fact that the Palestinian leadership has consistently refused offers for a two-state solution. As President Clinton recalled, ‘I killed myself to give the Palestinians a state. I had a deal they turned down…’

“2. It demands pressure on Israel alone.

“3. It ignores the need for a negotiated agreement between Israelis and Palestinians that would give the former security and the latter a state.”

I strongly suggest that you click on the link above and read the entire letter.

So far Pete Butiggieg, Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden have been targeted by Ifnotnow and publicly condemned the "occupation". 

Marc Mellerman, the AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups should follow the same strategy of Ifnotnow and also ask questions to presidential candidates. (Alternatively these questions could be asked directly to Ifnotnow members making sure to record their answers). 

Do you support the ethnic cleansing of 400,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria even though 20% of the Israeli population within its pre-1967 lines is Arab and Arabs are allowed to live anywhere in Israel? 
Some of the questions they could ask include: 

1. Do you support the ethnic cleansing of 400,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria even though 20% of the Israeli population within its pre-1967 lines is Arab and Arabs are allowed to live anywhere in Israel? 

2. After final Status negotiations, do you believe Jerusalem's Western Wall should be under Israeli sovereignty (as Bill Clinton stated in his Parameters for Peace) or Palestinian Arab sovereignty (as ruled by Obama when he did not veto UNSC 2334 calling the Western Wall "occupied Palestinian territory")? 

 3. If Israel withdraws from Judea and Samaria how would Israel protect itself from Hamas missile attacks. Considering Hamas leadership repeatedly stated they will attack Israel from the West  Bank as they do from Gaza if given a chance? 

The answers to the questions above would in all probability reveal that Ifnotnow does not care about Jewish holy sites or about Israel's protection. Ifnotnow wants Israel to commit suicide by making its borders vulnerable to Hamas, it doesn't even want to protect the Western Wall. 

When Ifnotnow members call to "end the occupation" they mean also Jerusalem's Old City including the Western Wall where Jews were not allowed to pray from 1948 to 1967, the period of the Jordanian occupation, when the Jodanian Arab Legion ethnically cleansed all Jews from Jerusalem's old city and destroyed dozens of synagogues. 

 Ezequiel Doiny is author of "Obama's assault on Jerusalem's Western Wall"