Life in Israel: I'lam uses American Jewish donations to finance anti-Israel rhetoric

Life in Israel: I'lam uses American Jewish donations to finance anti-Israel rhetoric

Jackie Mason: Building a Toilet in Judea is an Obstacle to Peace?

How American Jews fund efforts to subvert Israel

I recently wrote a report for the Center for Near East Policy Research entitled Inside I'lam in which I discussed the relationship between American Jews and and an Israeli-Arab media organization with connections to the PLO.

The following is an article I wrote on the subject for World Net Daily. Following that is an embedded PDF of my report.

American Jews fund anti-Israel organizations
Groups work with Palestinian Authority, promote Iran nukes

WorldNetDaily

A U.S. organization has been receiving money from perhaps unsuspecting Jewish donors to support blatantly anti-Israel groups.

American Jews wishing to donate money to Israeli causes routinely utilize local city Jewish federations as a middleman. Hundreds of millions of dollars per year are sent to Jewish federations across the country with the expectation contributions will be used to aid worthy causes in Israel.

Many U.S. Jewish federations as well as individual Jewish donors give to the New Israel Fund, or NIF, a Washington, D.C.-based foundation dedicated to fostering social change and progressive causes in Israel.

The NIF budget comes from a combination of donors. These include the Ford Foundation, grant organizations such as the Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Foundation and the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, as well as various Jewish communal federations such as the Jewish Federation in New York, the Durham-Chapel Hill Federation and the Jewish Federation of Grand Rapids.

However, while many of the programs run by the NIF are considered laudable in the pro-Israel community, such as work the group does with economically disadvantaged Ethiopian immigrants, the flagship grantees of the NIF are Israeli-Arab nongovernmental organizations that openly and unabashedly dedicate themselves to removing the Jewish character of the state of Israel.

The NIF disperses hundreds of thousands of dollars for the core budgets of such groups as Adalah: The Legal Center for Minority Arab Rights in Israel, Mossawa: The advocacy center for Arab citizens in Israel and I'lam media center for Arab Palestinians in Israel.

Supporting Iran's nukes

I'lam was founded in the wake of the Palestinian intifada, or terrorist war, initiated in September 2000 after then-PLO Leader Yasser Arafat turned down an Israeli offer of a state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and eastern Jerusalem.

The first director of I'lam was Hanin Zoabi [right], recently elected as a member of the Israeli Arab Balad Party in the Knesset. Zoabi's party spawned Azmi Bishara, the Israeli Arab Knesset member who fled Israel after he was threatened with prosecution for allegedly aiding the Hezbollah terrorist organization. Balad officials routinely condemn Israel and at times openly present themselves as representing the state of "Palestine."

In April, in Zoabi's maiden interview to the Jerusalem Post as a Knesset member, she declared her open support for Iranian nuclear weapons as a counterbalance to Israel.

Zoabi, in her capacity as the director of I'lam, helped draft and sign the Haifa Declaration, which called for the negation of Israel's Jewish identity and for a "comprehensive change in Israeli policy, whereby Israel abandons its destructive role towards the peoples of the region. …"

ABOVE: a video entitled Lama Zafouk, in which I'lam fabricates an account of Israeli soldiers executing cowering Arabs.

In March, I'lam's so-called empowerment coordinator, Zaher Boulos, issued a "cry of solidarity with the Palestinian people who hold strong to the establishment of a Palestinian state that is independent with Jerusalem as its capital and the return of the refugees to their homes" at the annual conference of the Forum of Journalists, an I'lam affiliate of which he is also coordinator.

The conference expressed "support for the Palestinian people in their struggle for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital and the return of refugees."

Also in March, I'lam issued a press release stating Israel cannot "liquidate the fact that Jerusalem is the capital of Arab culture and will be the future capital of a Palestinian state, and tomorrow will be the focal point of the Arab and Islamic world and the progressive forces in the world."

The terminology in I'lam's media publications resounds with terms such as "massacre" and "ethnic cleansing," as well as accusations of war crimes and the targeted murder of journalists.

Last year, the NIF-funded organization held a conference in Ramallah with journalists from the Palestinian Authority which "aimed to develop and facilitate working relationships between Palestinians journalists in Israel and in the West Bank, and to discuss the role of the Palestinian media on both sides of the Green Line" as well as "exploring strategies for Palestinian media practitioners in addressing Israeli, European and U.S.-American media."

I'lam's official statements are representative of the rhetoric employed by some of the NIF's grantees.

I'lam posted on its website a statement declaring, "The (Israeli) soldiers are the grandchildren of the Nazis' victims, the Nazis' survivors. They have come here to consume food quickly and consume life quickly. This is the true image of Israel."

The statement was made in the context of accusing Israeli soldiers of a "massacre" against Palestinian civilians.

The connection of I'lam to the PA is reflected by its current staff.

Sanaa Hammoud, the current director of I'lam, was a senior official of the PA's Negotiations Support Unit in Ramallah and served in Jerusalem as a senior communications adviser for the Palestinian leadership.

Wadea Awawdy, who served on the founding board of directors of I'lam, worked as a correspondent for the official PA publication Al-Ayyam, which routinely prints anti-Israel propaganda.

I'lam's international relations coordinator, Nasser Victor Rego, has issued numerous statements of support for Hamas, terming the Islamist group "The Palestinian resistance," while providing a link on his blog to the website of Hamas' armed wing, the Essedeen Al-Qassam Brigades.

Nasser also has called on the international community to boycott Israel.

Rego would not return calls to comment on the issue.

In addition to receiving funds from the NIF, I'lam is also a grantee of Al-Quds: Capital of Arab Culture, which works under the auspices of both the PA and the Arab League.

Among other charges laid against Israel in materials distributed by I'lam are allegations that the Hebrew media contains, "Encouragement for killing and destruction."

Other anti-Israel groups

Also supported by the NIF is Adalah, which defines itself as a non-partisan human rights organization. However, its agenda differs significantly from its self-definition.

Jerusalem-based researcher Arlene Kushner, in her study of Adalah published by the Center for Near East Policy Research entitled "Inside Adalah," finds that "in various venues – including the Durban U.N. conference on racism – Adalah has charged or participating in charging Israel with grave breeches of international humanitarian law, war crimes, willful killing, racism, apartheid [and] ethnic cleansing."

Adalah takes the position that the Israeli government is a "junta which proves each day that it is the most fascist and racist in history."

In 2007, Adalah proposed a constitution for Israel in which immigration of Jews would be banned except for "humanitarian reasons." With its demand for the right of return for so-called Palestinian refugees, Adalah sees Israel's future as one with an Arab majority, which would create another predominantly Arab-Muslim state.

Another group funded by the NIF is Mossawa. Last month, Mossawa and fellow NIF grantee Coalition of Women for Peace wrote to the Norwegian government and asked "the Norwegian people to join us in our efforts and to stop investing in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory."

Naomi Paiss [left], director of communications for the NIF, declined to comment for this report.

Sammy Sokol is a writer for the Israel Resource News Agency. David Bedein is director of the Israel Resource News Agency.

Inside I'Lam- Media Center for Arab Palestinians in Israel

Rabbi Richman on Obama's Cairo speech

I've got just the match for you. She's also into c-4 and killing infidels

This is the funniest thing to come down the pike since I got myself a hizbollah email address. Wired reports that Hamas is in the shidduch business.

Creeped out by blind dates? Sick of the bar scene? Craigslist hook-ups a little too impersonal? Maybe you’re looking for this kind of matchmaking only an Islamist terror organization can provide. Why not try the latest dating service that’s sweeping the Gaza strip, and let Hamas find that special someone just for you?

As Diaa Hadid of the Associated Pressreports, Hamas, in the form of the “Tayseer Association for Marriage and Development,” has been providing matchmaking services to the men and women of Gaza since 2007. 40 marriages have already been arranged; the applications of 287 single women are currently on file.

The matchmakers have become particularly valuable since the recent Gaza war, Hadid notes, as Gaza’s sociology has collided with the conflict’s economic aftermath.

While Tayseer’s matchmaking service helps both men and women, it is particularly important for women since staying single is a cruel fate for them in Gaza. They are are often treated as unpaid maids by their extended families and, says Gaza sociologist Naser Mahdi, increasing economic hardship has made the marriage market even harsher.

The dwindling number of middle-class men with steady incomes can have their pick of the prettiest women, leaving others to work hard to find a suitable husband. Meanwhile, poor families are reluctant to marry off working daughters, hoping to keep their salaries.

It may seem strange for the same organization that rockets schoolhouses to be acting as the Gaza equivalent of Singled Out. But Hamas has many faces. Part terrorist organization, part social services group, Hamas’ charitable efforts have given it the political clout among Palestinians that makes it such an enduring opponent. In the words of the Tayseer association’s director, “This makes people close to Hamas and makes Hamas close to the people.”

Sensitive singles should be warned, though. Hard as it may be to believe, Hamas can be somewhat shallow, tactless and kinda racist in its selection process, particularly for those not “pretty by Gaza standards.”

“If we see a girl that appears to match (a man), but she’s not physically what he wants, I’ll call him and say, ‘Well, she’s pretty, but she’s dark.’ Or ’she’s short, but she’s white.’ We encourage them to be a bit more realistic,” [Tayseer matchmaker Nisrin] Khalil said.

Support for Terror

I'lam co-founder and former director MK Zoabi has indicated that she views armed resistance against Israel to be legitimate.

According to Green Left Online, Hanin Zoabi of Balad made the following statement during her recent trip to Australia.

"We don't live in the territories, we cannot throw stones and we cannot participate in the legitimate resistance against occupation." -emphasis added

If one takes her on her word, Zoabi is voicing support for and according legitimacy to the armed uprising against Israel and the terror war being waged against Jewish civilians.

She has now joined the ranks of such MKs as Abbas Zachur who stated in 2006 that "אנחנו גאים בחמאס ובכל מי שתומך בה" which translates to English as "We are proud of Hamas and all who assist it."-NRG

For more on Zoabi, please see today's Jerusalem Post and my own article from the Jerusalem Post regarding her support for an Iranian nuclear weapon.

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Israel To Lessen Oil Dependency

Infrastructure For Electric Cars Being Established

By Samuel Sokol, For The Bulletin

Monday, May 18, 2009

Jerusalem — If Silicon Valley technologist Shai Agassi has his way, Israel will drastically reduce its energy dependence on Arab oil in the near future. Mr. Agassi’s firm Better Place is now in the process of establishing a network of electric car charging stations throughout Israel, which they call “the first deployment for the Better Place infrastructure in the world.”

This pilot program is being established in conjunction in several of Israel’s larger cities, such as Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem, among others.

So far, 18 locations have been opened in Tel Aviv out of 150,000 planned charging stations throughout the country.

Better Place is currently working with car manufacturer Renault to develop an electric car. Unlike other companies manufacturing non-gasoline-dependent vehicles, Better Place has started with the assumption that an infrastructure must be put in place before such a vehicle can be practical. An electric car, as its gasoline-powered equivalent, can only travel so far without stations present to refuel it.

Israel is in a precarious position regarding oil. In the 1970s, the oil-producing Arab states imposed an oil embargo in relation for Western support of Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Gasoline prices in Israel remain high, having reached as high as $7.19 a gallon. This might account for the willingness of the Israeli public to try out such a radical overhaul of their transportation infrastructure.

The company said: “Israeli President Shimon Peres and [former] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were prime forces behind the signing of the deal [between Israel and Better Place], having backed Better Place founder Shai Agassi’s vision for many years.

“Israel will be well on its way to achieving its stated goal of oil independence by 2020,” the company announced.

When asked about Israeli becoming a center of clean technology by Wired magazine, Mr. Peres said: “Israel, you know, is too small of a country to become a world market and too small a country to become a great world producer, but we have enough scientists per square kilometer to become a world laboratory. And smallness has its own advantages; when you are small you can be really daring, you can be a pilot plant. You cannot, for example, try a car like Shai Agassi’s in Texas. It is too large and would be too costly and complicated. Here we can do it on a human scale and eventually extend it and expand it.”


10

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Flags Over Nazareth

Islamists Prepare For Papal Visit

BY DAVID BEDEIN & SAMUEL SOKOL, MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENTS

FRIDAY, MAY 08, 2009

Nazareth, Israel — Next Thursday, May 14, Pope Benedict XVI will visit Nazareth and appear at the Church of the Annunciation.

The Muslims of Nazareth are split in their reactions, but some have responded viscerally.

Multiple Islamic signs, in both Arabic and English, with some bearing the image of the Dome of the Rock, have been hung in the large plaza outside of the church in anticipation of the Pope’s arrival.

One such sign reads: “And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers.”

While another sign reads: “In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful Say (O Muhammad): He is Allah, (the) One and Only Allah, the Eternal, Absolute. He begetteth not nor was He begotten And there is none Like unto him,” in a quote attributed to the Quran.

As The Bulletin reported on April 21, Islamists in Nazareth have handed out thousands of flyers denouncing the Pope and stating that he is unwelcome.

“We announce from Nazareth that we are oppose to the Pope’s visit. A person who cursed the prophet, who stood at the head of the effort to convert Muslims in Darfur, Indonesia and the Muslim world, attacked Islam, praised America and drew near and fraternized with the butcher of Gaza is unwanted here,” the flyer read.

There has been no action on the part of the municipality to remove these signs prior to the Pope’s arrival.

Philadelphia Bulletin 5-8-09

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To serve the nation, again

This is an article I wrote that will appear in tomorrow's Jerusalem Post. It can be found on the JPost website here.

The strictly Orthodox soldiers who performed their mandatory service in the IDF's Netzah Yehuda Battalion will soon begin to perform reserve duty, according to a precall-up notice obtained by The Jerusalem Post.

The more than 2,000 former soldiers who served since 1999 in the combat unit, known as the Nahal Haredi, do not currently perform reserve service, as there is no suitable framework for them. This has been a source of consternation for many of the men who volunteered to fight in this unit.

In 2007, 100 former soldiers sent a petition to the military demanding to serve in the reserves.

The Nahal Haredi was founded in 1999 by Rabbi Yoel Shwartz, as an alternative to full time Torah study for ultra-Orthodox youths who wished to serve their country without compromising their religious needs or communal values. Most Haredim don't perform military service and instead receive student deferments.

In the precall-up letter sent just before Pessah to discharged infantrymen from the battalion, Col. Lior Carmeli, commander of the Menashe reserve brigade, wrote: "The establishment of the Netzah Yehuda [reserve] battalion is made possible thanks to the faith, willingness and motivation among the discharged soldiers of Battalion 97 [Nahal Haredi] who requested to continue to contribute and to serve in the IDF in a reserve service framework and in conditions that will enable them to maintain the values that characterize the soldiers of the battalion."

The battalion will be active in "protecting against hostile terrorist activity and in the war on terror throughout northern Judea and Samaria." The battalion currently operates in the Jordan Valley, Carmeli wrote.

Former members of the unit are excited about the prospect of serving in the reserves. According to Gabi Hayehudi, a former squad leader and the son of New York-born Likud activist Shmuel Sackett, "It has been almost two years [since my discharge] and meantime all my friends who were not in Nahal Haredi were going to the reserves. I was jealous and I wanted to be a part of it, and now thank God I see that it might come to fruition," he said last week.

Hayehudi was one of the members of his company who, as it was demobilized in November 2007, signed a petition calling for the immediate establishment of a reserve framework for ultra-Orthodox soldiers.

When asked if he believed he would be able to maintain the same religious standards in the reserves as in regular service, Gabi said it would "help [strengthen] my belief in God."

"Having a battalion in the army without a reserve battalion is doing half a job and we as a Jewish army like finishing a job, and that's miluim [reserve duty] all the way."

Rabbi Shlomo Ben-Ze'ev has served the Netzah Yehuda non-profit support organization for a number of years as a spiritual adviser to the soldiers undergoing basic training. He feels that the creation of a reserve battalion for the haredi sector will have wide societal repercussions.

"[Reserve duty is] the natural extension of the army service the boys have done and it's a case of the haredi community adding on another stone in [the crown] of their activity in the Land of Israel... and they will obviously make a tremendous Kiddush Hashem [sanctification of the name of God] in doing that," he said.

Ben-Ze'ev summed up the feelings of many people involved in this undertaking when he said, "Look, the bottom line is, the more people doing miluim, the more of a presence you have in the haredi community. That was always the goal, that boys would come from the haredi community and go back to the haredi community."

"I think it's good. It will have a tremendous impact on Israeli society... Eventually, if you have one battalion of regular army, then over a few years you get two battalions of reservists," he said.

According to Rabbi Tzvi Klebanow, the director of the Netzah Yehuda support organization, the establishment of a reserve unit is a "building block" in the eventual creation of a Netzah Yehuda brigade.

For a haredi soldier, army life can be a daunting prospect religiously. Their community adheres to standards of kosher certification much more stringent than that of the rest of the IDF and does not approve of coeducational military service.

The Nahal Haredi program was created to circumvent the issues that could prevent a religious soldier from serving. As such, there are no women in the unit and it holds itself to strict guidelines in preparing food. Moreover, the unit provides an enhanced religious program, with Torah classes and regular services on top of their normal duties.

It was the need to duplicate such an atmosphere that has prevented the formation of a reserve unit until now, Klebanow said.

"That's why it took so long to put together, because the army understood that they cannot do a miluim unless they have all of the conditions of service of Netzah Yehuda," he said. "They will have the same conditions as Netzah Yehuda."

According to the rabbi, the soldiers will not be called all at once, due to the large number of those eligible to serve in the reserves. The plans have not been finalized. The men will likely be called up in shifts the size of companies, he said.

The IDF said it was reviewing the available manpower. However, reservists have already begun receiving precall-up notices in the mail.

When queried about the gap of 10 years between the formation of the regular unit and its corresponding reserve battalion, the IDF Spokesman's Office declined comment. It is unclear how much this project will cost, but it may be considerable due to the number of soldiers eligible for duty.

The IDF released the following statement. "When the [reserve] battalion becomes active, all efforts will be made to maintain all of the conditions that existed in the regular service battalion of Netzah Yehuda."