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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; divestment</title>
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		<title>Judeophobia on Full Display at UCLA</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/judeophobia-on-full-display-at-ucla/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=judeophobia-on-full-display-at-ucla</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/judeophobia-on-full-display-at-ucla/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Nov 2014 05:19:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ari Lieberman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BDS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[resolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UCLA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vote]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245770</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Students vote for economic warfare against the Jewish State. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/la-me-ln-ucla-divestment-israel-20141119-001.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245771" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/la-me-ln-ucla-divestment-israel-20141119-001.jpg" alt="la-me-ln-ucla-divestment-israel-20141119-001" width="331" height="260" /></a>Anti-Semitism on college campuses is nothing new and, partly as a result of the growing influence of groups like the Muslim Students Association (<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/MSA%20and%20Jihad%20Network%20v5b-1.pdf"><span style="color: #0433ff;">an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood</span></a>) and Students for Justice in Palestine, has witnessed a sharp rise in recent years. In fact, some of today’s institutions of higher learning are among the greatest purveyors of Judeophoboia and anti-Israel sentiment.</p>
<p>At San Francisco State University for example, an institution subsidized by the taxpayer, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/taxpayers-fund-radical-profs-overseas-meeting-with-terrorists/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi</span></a>, a pseudo professor of “Race and Resistance Studies,” was allowed (under false pretenses) to meet and collaborate with known terrorists on a university-funded excursion. And at Northeastern University, professors have been <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/09/28/video-shows-professors-teaching-anti-semitism-anti-israelism/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">videotaped</span></a> openly expressing Jew-hatred in the classroom with one professor stating quite candidly that he wears the label of anti-Semite as a badge of honor.  But when it comes to base anti-Semitic vitriol, the University of California, Los Angeles has the dubious distinction of being among the worst of the lot.</p>
<p>On November 18, at around the same time when Jewish worshipers were being hacked and shot to death in a Jerusalem synagogue, UCLA’s student government, by a vote of 8 to 2 with 2 abstentions, <a href="http://www.jta.org/2014/11/19/news-opinion/united-states/ucla-student-government-passes-israel-divestment-resolution"><span style="color: #0433ff;">passed a resolution</span></a> urging the university to divest from Israel and from American companies doing business with Israel.  Despite the fact that some 2,000 students signed a petition opposed to the pernicious measure, the student government, stacked with Judeophopes and their mindless partners in crime, acted as anti-Semites normally do and voted to target the Jews.</p>
<p>Last February, a similar resolution sponsored by the SJP <a href="http://www.jta.org/2014/02/26/news-opinion/united-states/ucla-student-council-rejects-divestment-resolution"><span style="color: #0433ff;">failed</span></a> by a vote of 7 to 5 provoking an embarrassing and memorable <a href="http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/02/video-ucla-student-melts-down-after-anti-israel-resolution-defeated/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">meltdown</span></a> by a BDS-supporting, student note-taker. It is ironic that the instant resolution was co-sponsored by groups like Queer Alliance and Bruin Feminists for Equality. Someone should remind these useful idiots that Palestinians <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/04/20/pinkwashing-difference-between-israel-palestinians-gay-rights/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">don’t take kindly to gays</span></a> and areas governed by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are rife with so-called “<a href="http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&amp;doc_id=10767"><span style="color: #0433ff;">honor killings</span></a>” where women are often tortured and brutalized. This strange alliance merely demonstrates that when it comes to targeting Jews, radical leftists and their Islamist allies generally find common ground and put their difference aside.</p>
<p>What is also ironic is that the vote comes at a time when the Muslim Middle East is imploding. While dysfunctional countries like Iran, Syria, Iraq and Egypt are devoid of any semblance of democracy and brutally subjugate their people, Israel stands as a beacon of democratic values where minorities enjoy full civil rights and where tolerance is the norm rather than an aberration. Yet the student government saw fit to disregard the facts and instead painted a broad bull’s-eye over the Jewish State.</p>
<p>The vote also comes on the heels of a <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/from-gaza-to-ucla-israel-faces-multi-front-war/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">vindictive campaign</span></a> by UCLA’s honorary Brown Shirts to prevent Avi Oved, a Jewish undergraduate and economics major and former vice president of the UCLA student government, from serving as a UC Board of Regents student representative. The campaign failed, but is testament to the broad effort that the SJP is conducting to intimidate Jewish students. UCLA’s SJP’s chapter also tried to invalidate last February’s student government vote of two student government members who allegedly took sponsored trips to Israel that were allegedly subsidized by organizations affiliated with pro-Israel causes. That drive fell flat as well, but the students had to devote much time and effort defending themselves against spurious allegations laced with anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>Though the instant anti-Israel drive was boycotted by Jewish and pro-Israel groups, and the sad but predictable result amounts to nothing more than a publicity stunt with more bark than bite, the malevolent vote represents a black stain and a mark of shame on UCLA. Already, <a href="http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/major-ucla-donor-pledges-pull-funds-if-administration-backs-bds"><span style="color: #0433ff;">prominent</span></a> UC alumni and donors have voiced <a href="http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/second-ucla-donor-pledges-funding-cut-if-administration-doesnt-condemn-bds"><span style="color: #0433ff;">staunch opposition</span></a> to the BDS resolution and have made clear that they will cease donations to the university until it issues an unequivocal rejection and condemnation of the student government’s action.</p>
<p>It does appear that the pressure is having the desired effect. Just a day following the passage of the anti-Semitic resolution, Chancellor Gene Block <a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/ucla-chancellor-gene-block-statement-on-student-vote-on-israel-divestment"><span style="color: #0433ff;">released a statement</span></a> plainly rejecting the BDS outrage, noting that it unfairly held Israel to a different standard. This axiom is of course ignored by the SJP and other Islamist and radical student groups whose platforms are ensconced in Jew-hatred and xenophobia.</p>
<p>While the Chancellor’s statement represents a step in the right direction, stronger action is clearly needed to stem the growing cancer of anti-Semitism that is so pervasive at UCLA. Until it is seriously addressed, we can expect more abominations from UCLA.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Presbyterian Church Slams Israel &#8212;- Ignores Christian Persecution</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/presbyterian-church-slams-israel-ignores-christian-persecution/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=presbyterian-church-slams-israel-ignores-christian-persecution</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/raymond-ibrahim/presbyterian-church-slams-israel-ignores-christian-persecution/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Jul 2014 04:35:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[persecution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[presbyterian church usa]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=236843</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The warped priorities of a left-wing church. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #000000;"><em>Originally published by <a href="http://blogs.cbn.com/ibrahim/archive/2014/07/21/presbyterian-church-criticizes-israel-ignores-christian-persecution.aspx">CBN.com</a>. </em></p>
<p><iframe src="http://cbn.com/tv/embedplayernews.aspx?bcid=3689050552001" width="320" height="180" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Days before the recent Israel/Hamas conflict erupted, the Presbyterian Church in America withdrew $21 million worth in investments from Israel because, as spokesman Heath Rada put it, the Israeli government’s actions “harm the Palestinian people.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Soon after, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and was asked if he was “troubled” by the Presbyterian Church’s move.<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX0Y2mnnsvc" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Netanyahu responded</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="color: #000000;"><em>It should trouble all people of conscience and morality because it’s so disgraceful. You know, you look at what’s happening in the Middle East and I think most Americans understand this, they see this enormous area riveted by religious hatred, by savagery of unimaginable proportions. Then you come to Israel and you see the one democracy that upholds basic human rights, that guards the rights of all minorities, that protects Christians—Christians are persecuted throughout the Middle East. So most Americans understand that Israel is a beacon of civilization and moderation. You know I would suggest to these Presbyterian organizations to fly to the Middle East, come and see Israel for the embattled democracy that it is, and then take a bus tour, go to Libya, go to Syria, go to Iraq, and see the difference. And I would give them two pieces of advice, one is, make sure it’s an armor plated bus, and second, don’t say that you’re Christians.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p style="color: #000000;">It’s difficult—if not impossible—to argue with Netanyahu’s logic. Indeed, several points made in his one-minute response are deserving of some reflection.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">First, the obvious: why is it that self-professed Christians completely ignore the horrific Islamic persecution of fellow Christians in the Middle East, while grandstanding against the Jewish state for trying to defend itself against the same ideology that persecutes Christians?</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">And he is absolutely right to say that the persecution of Christians in the Mideast has reached a point of “savagery of unimaginable proportions.” Perhaps the only thing more shocking than the atrocities Mideast Christians are exposed to—the slaughters, crucifixions, beheadings, torture and rape—is the absolute silence emanating from so-called mainline Protestant churches in the U.S.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Note also the nations Netanyahu highlighted for their brutal persecution of Christian minorities: Libya, Syria, and Iraq. Indigenous Christians were markedly better off in all three nations <em>before</em> the U.S. got involved, specifically be empowering, deliberately or not, Islamist forces. Now,<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/confirmed-u-s-chief-facilitator-of-christian-persecution/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">according to recent studies</a>, Christians in all three nations are experiencing the worst form of persecution around the globe:</p>
<ul style="color: #000000;">
<li style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Libya</span>: Ever since U.S.-backed, al-Qaeda-linked terrorists overthrew Gaddafi, Christians—<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/three-american-teachers-slaughtered-for-christian-faith-in-muslim-world/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">including Americans</a>—have been <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/mass-arrest-and-torture-of-christians-in-libya/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">tortured</a> and killed (including <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://morningstarnews.org/2013/09/two-egyptian-christians-slain-in-libya/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">for refusing to convert</a>) and <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/from-the-arab-world/hatred-of-christians-unleashed-in-libya/" target="_blank" rel="nofollwo">churches bombed</a>. It’s “<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/open-season-on-christians-in-libya/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">open season</a>” on Copts, as jihadis issue a reward to Muslims who find and kill Christians. This was not the case under Gaddafi.</li>
<li style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Syria</span>: Christians have been attacked in indescribable ways—<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/largest-massacre-of-christians-in-syria-ignored/" target="_Blank" rel="nofollow">wholesale massacres</a>, bombed and desecrated churches, beheadings, <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/christians-crucified-again-for-refusing-islam/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">crucifixions</a>, and rampant kidnappings—since the U.S.-sponsored “Arab Spring” reached the Levant.</li>
<li style="color: #666666;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Iraq</span>: After the U.S. toppled Saddam Hussein, Christian minorities were savagely attacked and slaughtered, and dozens of their churches were bombed (see here for<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/in-the-media/graphic-images-of-christian-persecution-under-islam/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">graphic images</a>). In the last decade, Christians have been<a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/muslim-persecution-of-christians/the-silent-extermination-of-iraqs-christian-dogs/" target="_blank" rel="nofolow">terrorized into near-extinction</a>, with well over half of them fleeing Iraq.</li>
</ul>
<p style="color: #000000;">If the Presbyterian Church has problems with governments that persecute people—in this case, the Israeli government’s purported treatment of Palestinians, hence the Presbyterian Church’s divestment from Israel—perhaps it should begin by criticizing its own government’s <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/obamas-proxy-war-on-mideast-christians/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">proxy war on fellow Christians</a> in the Middle East.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Christians are also being targeted in the P.A. territories—by the very same elements the Presbyterian Church is trying to defend.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">In 2012, for example, a pastor <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153747#.T40QLqvY-pe" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">noted</a> that “animosity towards the Christian minority in areas controlled by the P.A. continues to get increasingly worse. People are always telling [Christians],Convert to Islam. Convert to Islam.&#8221; And in fact, the <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://global.christianpost.com/news/christians-say-forced-conversions-to-islam-happening-in-gaza-79011/#RyZs9RbyHGSZIbWX.99" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">kidnapping and forced conversions of Christians in Gaza is an ugly reality</a>.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">More recently, nuns of the Greek-Orthodox monastery in Bethany sent a letter to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urging him to respond to <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.fides.org/en/news/33985-ASIA_HOLY_LAND_Greek_Orthodox_monastery_under_attack_The_nuns_are_appealing_to_President_Abbas#.U8buXfldVqU" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">the escalation of attacks on the Christian house</a>, including the throwing of stones, broken glass, theft and looting of the monastery property. “Someone wants to send us away,” wrote Sister Ibraxia in the letter, “but we will not flee.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Sadly, the hypocrisy exhibited by the Presbyterian Church is not limited to that denomination. <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.jta.org/2012/10/09/news-opinion/united-states/religious-leaders-call-on-congress-to-reevaulate-military-aid-to-israel" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Some time back</a>, fifteen leaders from various U.S. Christian denominations—mostly Protestant, including the Lutheran, Methodist, and UCC Churches—asked Congress to reevaluate U.S. military aid to Israel, again, in the context of supporting “persecuted” Palestinians.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Yet nary a word from these same church leaders concerning the rampant persecution of millions of Christians at the hands of Muslims in the Middle East—a persecution that makes the Palestinians’ situation pale in comparison.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Other “leftist” Protestants do find time to criticize Muslim persecution of Christians—but only to blame Israel for it. Thus, Diarmaid MacCulloch, a Fellow of St. Cross College, wrote an article in the <em>Daily Beast</em> ostensibly addressing the plight of Mideast Christians—but <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/exploiting-christian-persecution-to-demonize-israel/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">only to argue</a> that the source of Christian persecution “ in the Middle East is seven decades of unresolved conflict between Israel and Palestine.”</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">In reality, far from prompting the persecution of Christians, the Arab-Israeli conflict is itself a byproduct of the same hostility Islamic supremacism engenders for<em> </em>all non-Muslims. The reason hostility for Israel is much more viral is because the Jewish state holds a unique position of authority over Muslims unlike vulnerable Christian minorities who can be abused at will (as <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://www.raymondibrahim.com/islam/how-dare-you-the-supremacist-nature-of-muslim-grievances/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">fully explained here</a><em>).</em></p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Little wonder, then, that more Arab Christians—double the number of each of the preceding three years—are now <a style="color: #4e82d0;" href="http://time.com/15479/israeli-army-christian-arabs/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">joining the Israel Defense Forces</a>.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">They know they can count on basic human rights protection from Israel than from many of their fellow Christians in the West. After all, beyond the sophistry, distortions, and downright lies emanating from some of these Christian denominations, the fact remains: both Jews and Christians are under attack from the same foe and for the same reason: they are non-Muslim “infidels” who need to be subjugated.</p>
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		<title>Presbyterian Divestment Stokes Ancient Fires</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/susan-warner/presbyterian-divestment-stokes-ancient-fires/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=presbyterian-divestment-stokes-ancient-fires</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jul 2014 04:10:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Susan Warner]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BDS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christianity]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=235113</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Presbyterian Church (USA) brings anti-Semitism into the mainstream. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/symbol-bluewhite.gif"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-235831" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/symbol-bluewhite-350x350.gif" alt="symbol-bluewhite" width="254" height="254" /></a>Many Christians were in shock recently when the 221<sup>st</sup>  General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (PC/USA), by a slim margin, <a href="http://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/oga/pdf/ga221-middle-east-faq.pdf"><span style="color: #0433ff;">voted to divest</span></a> from three major international companies that do business in Judea, Samaria and Israel (Hewlett Packard, Caterpillar and Motorola). Assembly leaders claim the fault lies in Israel’s “illegal occupation” of Judea and Samaria (also called the West Bank) and its oppression of Palestinian neighbors. But there is a much more sinister agenda behind this action.</p>
<p>While the PC (USA) asserts that they are not (at all) motivated by anti-Semitism and they take &#8220;no position&#8221; on Zionism, they nevertheless lay all problems in the area at Israel’s feet, blaming the so-called &#8220;illegal occupation.&#8221;  However, a recent article by <a href="http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article.php?id=4261"><span style="color: #0433ff;">NGO MONITOR</span></a> has found strong evidence of underlying anti-Semitism in the PC (USA) leadership.</p>
<p>Currently, the vicious battle against the Jewish people and Israel is being waged by international alliances of Christians, Muslims, the hard Left, the press, and academia for the express purpose of instigating Israel’s destruction.</p>
<p>Thousands of representatives of Christian organizations like the PC (USA) gather annually or bi-annually in national enclaves to discuss the business of their denomination as they have for centuries.  In some more liberal leaning activist denominations like PC (USA), the agenda includes Israel. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/13/us/methodists-to-sell-shares-as-a-protest-over-israel.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Methodists</span></a>, Presbyterians (USA), <a href="http://www.churchofscotland.org.uk/news_and_events/news/archive/2013/the_inheritance_of_abraham_revised_report_released"><span style="color: #0433ff;">the Scottish Reformed Church</span></a> and the <a href="http://www.uccpalestineisraelnetwork.org/Action-Alerts.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">United Church of Christ</span></a>, <a href="http://www.exposingtheelca.com/on-israel.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">the Evangelical Lutheran Church</span></a>, <a href="http://www.churchofengland.org/media/1478023/gs%201874b-palestine%20and%20israel%20pmm.pdf"><span style="color: #0433ff;">the Church of England</span></a>, <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/united-church-of-canada-boycotts-israeli-companies/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">The United Church of Canada,</span></a> and the <a href="http://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/middle-east/israel"><span style="color: #0433ff;">World Council of Churches</span></a> all seem to have a stake in proposing schemes to punish Israel.</p>
<p>The most vocal of Israel’s defamers are Christian pastors and leaders like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps-v2NkoNVg"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Stephen Sizer</span></a> (Anglican), <a href="http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/sabeel_and_naim_ateek_factsheet"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Naim Ateek</span></a> (Anglican), and <a href="http://www.meforum.org/3769/israel-evangelical-support"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Gary Burge</span></a> (Evangelical/Protestant).   They cloak their mission to undermine Israel under an aggressive &#8220;peace and justice&#8221; cover-up. They ask the question, “Does Israel really have a legitimate right to call the land its own (Zionism)?” to which their answer is a resounding “no.”</p>
<p>If you bother to read Steven Sizer’s recent book <a href="http://www.stephensizer.com/books/christian-zionism/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Christian Zionism The Road to Armageddon</span></a>, you will discover there that Christian Zionism is not simply Christians standing for the rights of Israel to live in the land. According to Sizer, Christian Zionism is a plot to undermine the USA and the world. Needless to say, Sizer affirms the decision of the PC (USA) to divest from the companies who do business in Judea and Samaria.  <a href="http://stephensizer.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Steven Sizer speaks</span></a> around the Western and Islamic world against Christian Zionism and Israel’s right to continue to live in the land of its ancestors.</p>
<p>In order to justify this Anti-Zionism stance, PC (USA) and its allies need to do to the Jews the very same thing the church planned to do in the second century.  They need to invert the truth, demonize, and ridicule Israel in order to accomplish what until now has been their elusive goal of destroying Israel and the Jewish people.</p>
<p>Just like the Presbyterian (USA) Council last week, the church councils of centuries past turned their language against the Jews. Name calling couched in fancy theologies justified the persecution of Jews.  While the world is burning in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Africa, while Christians are slaughtered in those same lands, the daily headlines accuse Jews of blocking the progress of world peace by building apartments in Jerusalem or <span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/scarlett-johanssons-defense-of-sodastream-factory-in-occupied-west-bank-fails-to-sway-critics/?_php=true&amp;_type=blogs&amp;_r=0">manufacturing seltzer in Ma’ale Adumim.</a></span></p>
<p>At the root of the Christian animus towards Jews is a theological narrative which has stoked the ancient fires of hostility for two millennia.</p>
<p style="color: #0433ff;"><span style="color: #000000;">In her recent column<a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/jesus-was-a-palestinian-the-return-of-christian-anti-semitism/">, Melanie Phillips wrote,</a> </span></p>
<blockquote><p>Within the Protestant world, many churches are deeply hostile to the State of Israel &#8211;  What is less known is the more disturbing fact that this perverse animus is increasing fed not by the politics of the present moment but by theology.</p></blockquote>
<p>The theology that Ms. Phillips mentions is known by a variety of names but is undergirded by the concept of &#8220;Replacement Theology.&#8221;  This term grew out of the early Church where the Founding Fathers laid claim to the promises God made to Abraham and his offspring.  They accused Jews of being “<a href="http://jcpa.org/article/the-origins-of-christian-anti-semitism/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Christ killers”</span></a> and said that God had nullified His covenant with Abraham and transferred his &#8220;Covenant blessings&#8221; to the Church which they called &#8220;The Israel of God.&#8221;</p>
<p>Christianity, birthed from the womb of Judaism two thousand years ago, continues a mission to assassinate its very own Jewish parents. Ridicule, defamation, distortion, fire, and the sword, have all punctuated the Christian enterprise for two thousand years.  “God,” say many Christians, <span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.christianzionism.org/BibleSays/Sizer03.pdf">“has replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people.”</a></span></p>
<p>The Emperor Constantine (In 325 CE,) laid the organizational groundwork  of a &#8220;Christianity&#8221; designed for Roman pagans and non-Jews. The Apostle Paul was the last vestige of the Jewish foundation of the original Church.  After he died (65 CE), it didn’t take the gentile Church Fathers long to muster up a case against the Jews.</p>
<p>Christians claimed that God’s &#8220;everlasting covenant&#8221; with the Jews through Abraham was defunct and claimed the covenant blessings. This Christian theology of “Replacement,” also called <span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.theologicalstudies.org/resource-library/supersessionism/324-defining-supersessionism">“Supersessionism</a>,</span>” energized a paradigm of anti-Judaism that informs some of Western Christianity today.</p>
<p>This <i>Replacement</i> concept is the framework for the most virulent forms of  the anti-Zionism we currently see.  For PC (USA) or the Scottish Church or any of the others who demonize Israel to admit to anti-Semitism might bring world criticism. So they couch their concerns in words and actions that are subtle inversions of the truth like calling Judea and Samaria “illegally occupied.”  When Jordan actually did &#8220;illegally occupy&#8221; Judea and Samaria from 1948 to 1967, the world heard not a peep of opposition from these churches.</p>
<p>From roughly 165 CE through about 500 C.E., the &#8220;Fathers&#8221; tilled a garden of Jewish hatred.  To make everything official, the Emperor Constantine, who, it is said, had a personal epiphany of Jesus, called Bishops around the Empire to attend the First <a href="http://messianicfellowship.50webs.com/nicea.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Council of Nicea (325 CE). </span></a>  This Council, like the Council of PC (USA) last week, concocted its anti-Jewish, anti-Israel narrative which served to advance Church goals and bolster the Imperial Roman Empire at the same time.</p>
<p>The Nicean Council succeeded in manufacturing the first layer of this new &#8220;imperial religion.&#8221; Constantine dubbed Christianity the exclusive state religion. <a href="http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/chrysostom_adversus_judaeos_01_homily1.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">John Chrysostom</span></a> (407C.E.) followed and honed the narrative against the Jews to a fine edge without any opposition. Later key theologians embarked on some far-flung theologies which are respected by some Christians today.</p>
<p>Soon, civil laws throughout the Empire followed suit, prohibiting Jews from holding public office or from eating with or marrying Christians. Forced conversions became commonplace. Demonizing, bullying, torture, and mass killings flourished throughout Catholicism and later Protestantism.</p>
<p>Today, much of Western Christianity occupies that very same anti-Jewish space with not even a grasp of its ancient foundations in Hebrew Scripture. Instead, its paradigm is as a stand-alone creature amputated from its root system.</p>
<p>The PC(USA) and their collaborators are clones of the Founding Fathers.  The theological paradigm is that Israel and the Jews of today are no longer under the covering of the original, eternal covenant with God. Today’s Jews, according to the narrative, are &#8220;different.&#8221;  And since God removed his blessings from them when they “killed the Christ.”  The church has replaced the Jews for all time.  This false theology of <a href="http://www.jewishvoice.org/media/publications/articles/supersessionism.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">supersessionism</span></a> is interwoven into the fabric of Catholicism, Anglicanism, Presbyterianism and other branches of Calvinist and Reformed theologies.</p>
<p>Within Protestantism, Catholicism, and the Orthodox Churches today there are, of course, some denominations more extreme than others.  Protestant Evangelical groups (Bethlehem Bible College, Sabeel) for example, hold conferences, like <a href="http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/bethlehems-christ-at-the-checkpoint-conference-a-personal-report/2014/03/18/"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>Christ at the Checkpoint</i>,</span></a> with the underlying purpose of nullifying Jewish claims to the Land of Israel and dubbing <a href="http://www.foi.org/free-resources/article/jesus-palestinian/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Jesus a Palestinian.</span></a> Partnering together at the bi-annual Christ at the Checkpoint Conference are notables such as Sizer, Ateek, <a href="http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/24218/Default.aspx?article=related_stories"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Lynn Hybels</span></a> (Willow Creek Church) <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXxR_C-6oOw"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Tony Campolo</span></a> (Eastern University) and other advocates of disabling Israel and replacing her with a one-state Palestinian solution.</p>
<p>Evangelical Christians, those who interpret the Bible literally, have been among Israel’s best and most loyal friends. But the winds are shifting yet again as more and more Christian Evangelicals are lured by a pro-Palestinian, pro-&#8221;peace and justice&#8221; narrative. Some Christian/Israel loyalists are concerned about this trend and are working to counter it. A few rays of light and hope peek through the cracks with groups like Christians United for Israel, Friends of Israel, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, and Bridges for Peace among them.</p>
<p>The paradigm that grips many Christians with a theologically based hatred of Jews and Israel must be broken.  Israel’s survival is not guaranteed.</p>
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		<title>Billions in Debt, Stanford University &#8220;Divests&#8221; from Coal Stocks</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/billions-in-debt-stanford-university-divests-from-coal-stocks/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=billions-in-debt-stanford-university-divests-from-coal-stocks</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/billions-in-debt-stanford-university-divests-from-coal-stocks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2014 16:28:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stanford university]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=225017</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Because having $4.8 billion in debt just isn't enough.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/stanford_cardinals_mascot.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-225018" alt="Stanford v Duke" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/stanford_cardinals_mascot-450x300.jpg" width="450" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Great plan.</p>
<blockquote><p>Stanford University announced Tuesday that it would divest its $18.7 billion endowment of stock in coal-mining companies, becoming the first major university to lend support to a nationwide campaign to purge endowments and pension funds of fossil fuel investments.</p></blockquote>
<p>The left&#8217;s financial geniuses have done it again. Because<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-17/university-of-chicago-is-outlier-with-growing-debt-load.html"> having $4.8 billion in debt </a>just isn&#8217;t enough. Especially when your debt doubled between 2005 and 2009. And it&#8217;s now at a quarter of your endowment.</p>
<p>So Stanford is dumping those nasty coal stocks and <a href="http://www.greenreportcard.org/report-card-2011/schools/stanford-university/surveys/endowment-survey">investing in renewables </a>which stop being profitable the nanosecond that taxpayers are forced to stop subsidizing them at crony capitalist gunpoint.</p>
<p>Not a problem for Stanford. Neither is having to<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/27/education-endowments-bonds-idUSN2445544220090427"> sell taxable debt because your</a> endowments are falling.</p>
<blockquote><p>Top U.S. universities, whose endowments have been hit hard by fallout from the global financial crisis, are selling bonds to raise money to shore up their financial positions.</p>
<p>Stanford University became the latest top university to sell taxable debt to make up for recent losses in its endowment, the third largest of any U.S. university.</p>
<p>Stanford on Thursday sold $1 billion worth of debt in a sale led by Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley.</p></blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile Standord&#8217;s endowment has increased far more slowly than its debt.</p>
<p>So sure, let the divestment movement roll. Ivy League colleges don&#8217;t need profitable stocks anyway. They just need to do whatever student agitators demand. And then issue some more tax exempt bonds.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s worked out so well for the rest of California.<a href="http://www.city-journal.org/2013/23_1_calpers.html"> Just look at CALPERS</a> where <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/how-socially-responsible-investing-destroyed-the-pension-fund-of-1-6-million-public-employees/">socially responsible investing resulted in a huge boom</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>CalPERS leaped into “social investing” at exactly the wrong time. That trend had gained currency in the 1990s with an emphasis on buying into environmentally “clean” companies. Tech firms were high on the list, so the 1990s Internet start-up boom made social investing seem like a sound financial strategy. But when CalPERS debuted its Double Bottom Line initiative in 2000—so called because it would supposedly produce both good returns and good social policy—the tech bubble had already popped.</p>
<p>Many socially conscious investors then turned their attention to another industry that didn’t pollute: finance. One social-investing research firm named Fannie Mae the leading corporate citizen in America from 2000 through 2004. Other finance firms that attracted big cash from social investors included AIG, Citigroup, and Bank of America, according to an analysis by American Enterprise Institute adjunct fellow Jon Entine. When the market for shares of these firms imploded in 2008, so did the performance of social investors.</p>
<p>Desperate for higher returns, CalPERS also bought the riskiest portions of collateralized-debt obligations, accumulating $140 million of them by 2007. These were the packages of debt, largely subprime mortgages, whose defaults helped trigger the 2008 financial meltdown. According to a 2007 story by Bloomberg News, CalPERS bought these investments, known as “toxic waste” on Wall Street, from Citigroup, one of the sinking firms that the government later bailed out.</p></blockquote>
<p>Not a problem, unless your pension depended on it. And then there will be a bailout. Because CALPERS and Stanford are all too big to fail. And California is too big to fail.</p>
<p>But the United States isn&#8217;t.</p>
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		<title>The Agony of Moral Defeat</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/richard-l-cravatts/the-agony-of-moral-defeat/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-agony-of-moral-defeat</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/richard-l-cravatts/the-agony-of-moral-defeat/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Mar 2014 05:40:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Richard L. Cravatts]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Harvard]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sandra Y.L. Korn]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UCLA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220320</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A tale of two leftists and their broken dreams.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/harvard.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-220417" alt="harvard" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/harvard-450x325.jpg" width="270" height="195" /></a>Perhaps when literary critic C.S. Lewis despaired of “omnipotent moral busybodies . . . who torment us for our own good,” he was speaking about those well-meaning, but naïve college students who “torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” Lewis’s observation seemed to have been given credence in the past weeks by the very public, tendentious rants of two coeds, one at Harvard University and one at UCLA, as they railed against a world in which their dreams of social justice for the oppressed and weak was not being realized, despite their best efforts.</p>
<p>In the first instance, in an op-ed in the <i>Harvard Crimson </i>entitled “The Doctrine of Academic Freedom,” Sandra Y.L. Korn, majoring at Harvard, tellingly, in the history of science and studies of women, gender and sexuality, decided that academic freedom was undeserved by those who hold beliefs different than hers and her fellow “moral busybodies”— those who have decided what is moral, what is right, and what is acceptable speech and behavior on Harvard’s campus and in the world beyond. “Why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of ‘academic freedom?’,” she asked, seemingly without embarrassment. Academic freedom, she contended, should be put in check so that unwelcomed viewpoints can be suppressed. As an alternative virtue, she suggested “a more rigorous standard: one of ‘academic justice.’”</p>
<p>One example of how that justice might be applied, at the expense of academic freedom, was the recent academic boycott against Israeli academics called for by the American Studies Association (ASA). Though the boycott was subsequently denounced by over 200 university presidents and scores of academic organizations and scholars, Ms. Korn thinks that the loss of academic freedom by Israelis is of secondary importance to her notion of “academic justice;” that is, justice for the oppressed, the victimized, the marginalized, the weak. “The ASA, like three other academic associations,” she wrote, “decided to boycott out of a sense of social justice, responding to a call by Palestinian civil society organizations for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions until Israel ends its occupation of Palestine.” Despite universal protestations from many people far more insightful than Ms. Korn, in her mind, any critics of the boycott are, by definition, morally wrong, and, she asserted, “only <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/1/21/a-just-boycott-for-palestinian-rights/">those who care about justice</a> can take the moral upper hand.”</p>
<p>The UCLA incident revealed a similar Leftist obsession with obtaining social justice for the Palestinians, even if it necessitates the weakening or destruction of the Jewish state. On February 26<sup>th</sup> , the UCLA undergraduate student government voted 7-5 against a Students for Justice in Palestine-proposed “Resolution to Divest from Companies that Violate Palestinian Human Rights,” including specific corporations:  Caterpillar, Cement Roadstone Holdings, Cemez, General Electric, and Hewlett-Packard. After the charged hearings, which included some 500 people in the audience and went on for ten hours, an identified UCLA undergraduate, who was serving as a note taker for the hearings, broke down and railed at the cameras with an expletive-laden rant about how disappointed she was that the resolution failed, how ashamed she was of the racists and bad people who voted against divestment, and how Palestinians would now continue to be “hurt” because of their inaction. For two minutes the hysterical woman can be seen screaming “I’ve never been so f***ing disappointed” and complaining that “we just f***ing blew it” by not passing the corrosive divestment resolution.</p>
<p>Many pro-Israel commentators gleefully parodied the whimpering student when the video went viral, suggesting that her behavior typified the dangerous liberalism which elevates the Palestinian cause at the expense of Israel’s survival. But the reality is more troubling than that: this woman, like the Harvard undergraduate who wishes to live in a world where only her predetermined virtues and worldview prevail, feels quite strongly that, in the case of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, at least, the answers are black and white, there is a moral side and an immoral side, and that anyone who does not, or cannot, see things as clearly and unambiguously as these gifted undergraduates do is a racist, an oppressor, an imperialist, a colonizer, or a supporter of an illegal, apartheid regime trampling the human rights of a blameless indigenous people.</p>
<p>As commonly happens when liberals appraise the relative merits of their own countries and others, one set of expectations is used to measure Third-world countries and their leaders, and a totally different, far more stringent (if not unreasonable) set is used when evaluating the behavior and values of the United States, the EU, or Israel. This cynical, nearly hypocritical, view has meant that the Left frequently denounces Western democracies as imperialistic, racist, militaristic oppressors, precisely because they wish them to evolve to a purer, newly-structured society and feel that they have the collective insight and moral strength to effect this change as they strive for the social justice, or its intellectually-flaccid offspring, “academic justice,” a nebulous term lifted from Marxist thought which empowers Left-leaning administrators, students, and faculty with the false ethical security derived from feeling that they are bringing positive moral and ethical precepts to campuses.</p>
<p>For that reason, Israel is continually slandered as a racist state, an aggressive, militaristic regime that inflicts disproportionate suffering on the hapless Palestinians, lubricating the argument that this inequality is inherently and inexorably wrong, that it must be corrected and made just. Thus, when such radical campus groups as Students for Justice in Palestine have as their core mission, as their name implies, bringing their own vision of justice to the Middle East, it is justice <i>only</i> for the oppressed, the Palestinians, and not for the perceived oppressor, Israel, whose position of power was made possible only because of military strength and imperialistic tendencies.</p>
<p>For the Left, social justice is solely for the disenfranchised, the ‘victims’ of unjust Western societies, those whose suffering is ostensibly caused by and is the fault of imperialistic, capitalistic, militant, hegemonic nations—America and Israel foremost among them. And on campuses, where liberal professors have nearly made sacred the politics of race and class and have identified specific sets of favored victim groups for whom justice will be sought, the cult of “victimhood” has even led to compulsory instruction on the mechanics of achieving social justice for the weak in society.</p>
<p>The new academic dialogue over the concept of social justice obviously has found a fitting locus with concern for the Palestinian cause, since the concept of social justice is particularly applicable on highly-politicized campuses when, as in the case of the Palestinians, the absence of a new Arab state is perceived to be the fault of Israel alone. Compassion for the dispossessed and the weak on the part of the Left has also seen the growth of a whole different set of ethical standards by which the actions of powerful nations—primarily Israel and the U.S—are judged as compared to weaker, developing, sometimes clearly inferior nations, based on their political and international behavior.</p>
<p>In their mission to protect the sensibilities and emotional well-being of identified campus victim groups, universities, often violating their own written guidelines and codes of behavior, have also instituted speech codes to prevent what is generally called “hate speech” now, but which has become a perverse tactic to marginalize, and exclude, the speech and ideology of those with whom liberals and Leftists do not agree, those individuals who express ideas that offend the sensibility of Ms. Korn, for example. Because they feel they have the moral high ground and a much more profound insight into social justice and the rights of the oppressed victim groups with whom they share an intellectual affinity, Leftists are fervent in their belief that they, therefore, have a right to unfettered speech to promulgate their own high-minded views; in fact, the speech of their ideological opponents, simply by virtue of the fact that it contradicts the moral principles that the Leftist holds dear, is regularly regarded as “hate speech” that can be ignored, punished, or, as happens with increasing regularity, shut down completely and excluded from the campus conversation.</p>
<p>That core sentiment has come to define the Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, and was on full display at UCLA during the divestment debate: it is the notion that the repeated defamation of Israel will result in its eventual expulsion from the supposed civilized community of nations. But the call for divestment is merely a tactic through which Israel will be marginalized, and eventually extirpated, as a pariah state with no moral justification for existing.</p>
<p>The acting out and vitriolic language against Israel that so often defines campus anti-Israelism may make the activists feel good about themselves for striving for social justice, but, as journalist Khaled Abu Toameh has contended, these are hollow efforts, that “[i]nstead of investing money and efforts in organizing Israel Apartheid Week, for example, the self-described ‘pro-Palestinians’ could dispatch a delegation of teachers to Palestinian villages and refugee camps to teach young Palestinians English. Or they could send another delegation to the Gaza Strip to monitor human rights violations by the Hamas authorities and help Palestinian women confront Muslim fundamentalists who are trying to limit their role to cooking, raising children and looking after the needs of their husbands.” What was Abu Toameh’s conclusion about this misdirected effort to support the Palestinian cause? “What is happening on the U.S. campuses,” he wrote, “is not about supporting the Palestinians as much as it is about promoting hatred for the Jewish state. It is not really about ending the ‘occupation’ as much as it is about ending the existence of Israel . . ,” and “we should not be surprised if the next generation of jihadists comes not from the Gaza Strip or the mountains and mosques of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but from university campuses across the U.S.”</p>
<div>
<p>“The whole problem with the world,” observed philosopher Bertrand Russell, “is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” That these two undergraduates display a certainty that is so stringent and so contrary to intellectual inquiry should give us all pause, and might make us question if we are teaching a whole generation of college students <i>what</i> to think instead of <i>how</i> to think.</p>
</div>
<p><strong><i>Richard L. Cravatts, PhD, is president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and the author of </i>Genocidal Liberalism: The University’s Jihad Against Israel &amp; Jews.</strong></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
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		<title>How To Fight The Left in Political War &#8212; On The Glazov Gang</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/ben-shapiro-crashes-ucla-divestment-from-israel-hearing-on-the-glazov-gang/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ben-shapiro-crashes-ucla-divestment-from-israel-hearing-on-the-glazov-gang</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Mar 2014 05:35:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Glazov Gang]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jew-Hate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shapiro]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UCLA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220021</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[TruthRevolt's Ben Shapiro, Jeremy Boreing and Elisha Krauss shed light on the tactics that lead to victory.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/TruthRevoltLogo.png"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-220408" alt="TruthRevoltLogo" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/TruthRevoltLogo.png" width="475" height="356" /></a><strong>[<a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang">LIKE</a> The Glazov Gang on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang">Facebook.</a>]</strong></p>
<p>This week&#8217;s special editon of <em>The Glazov Gang</em> was joined by <b>Ben Shapiro</b>, the Editor-in-Chief of <a href="http://www.truthrevolt.org/">TruthRevolt.org</a>, <strong>Elisha Krauss</strong>, Morning Co-Host at KRLA AM 870 The Answer and a staff writer at <a href="http://www.truthrevolt.org/">TruthRevolt.org,</a> and <strong>Jeremy Boreing</strong>, the Managing Editor of <a href="http://www.truthrevolt.org/">TruthRevolt.org.</a></p>
<p>The Gang gathered to discuss <em>How To Fight The Left in Political War</em>. The dialogue occurred within the context of <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/paul-bois/shapiro-crashes-ucla-divestment-from-israel-hearing-resolution-defeated-7-5/">Ben&#8217;s recent successful appearance</a> at the UCLA Divestment from Israel Hearing, in which he blasted both the student sponsors and those considering the anti-Semitic measure.</p>
<p>Other themes included <em>Flashback: Shapiro&#8217;s Debate KO of Piers Morgan,</em> <em>UN Ambassador Samantha Power&#8217;s Jew-Hatred, and much, much more:</em></p>
<p>Watch the two-part series below:</p>
<p><strong>Part I:</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/OJEbD8IP-F0" height="315" width="460" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Part II:</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AgBHwdTxt6w" height="315" width="460" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong> to <em>The Glazov Gang</em> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang">LIKE</a> it on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang">Facebook.</a></strong></p>
<p><b>To watch previous <i>Glazov Gang</i> episodes, </b><a href="http://jamieglazov.com/"><b>Click Here</b></a><b>.</b></p>
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		<title>The Lame-Brain Oil Divestment Campaign</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/the-lame-brain-oil-divestment-campaign/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-lame-brain-oil-divestment-campaign</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Jul 2013 04:25:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark Hendrickson]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bill McKibben]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Climate Change]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmentalism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fossil fuel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Global Warming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[OIL]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=196960</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The disturbing growth of an up-and-coming movement leading America to ruin. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Tufts-student-activists-divestment-CC-James-Ennis2013-628x314.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-196963" alt="Tufts-student-activists-divestment-CC-James-Ennis2013-628x314" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Tufts-student-activists-divestment-CC-James-Ennis2013-628x314.jpg" width="247" height="188" /></a>Perhaps you have heard that there is a small but growing campaign calling for colleges, other institutions, and individuals to divest themselves of any investments in fossil fuel companies.</p>
<p>When I first heard of it, I thought, “How extraordinary! Surely no moderately intelligent person (which, presumably, would include college populations) could be ignorant of the indispensable role that fossil fuels have played in enabling and continue to play in sustaining modern standards of living.” But then two incidents prompted me to take a closer look at this phenomenon.</p>
<p>First, I received an email from a Vassar student, asking me to sign a petition requesting American colleges to “educate students about fossil fuels.” At Vassar, guest speakers about the benefits of fossil fuels are <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/344684/whats-matter-vassar-stanley-kurtz">persona non grata</a>. Then, a dear cousin of mine, still a political activist in his 70s, forwarded an email to me, urging me to “start or join a local divestment effort.”</p>
<p>The email from my cousin contained a link to a May 17 radio interview with Bill McKibben, who hatched the fossil fuel divestment movement, so I checked it out. What I found was embarrassingly inane. Upon reflection, though, rather than simply dismissing the divestment campaign as a tiresome nuisance or the latest crackpot fad, it can be helpful to view it as an object lesson illustrating the mindset of contemporary liberalism.</p>
<p>Indeed, the fossil fuels divestment campaign is imbued with the liberal ideology of its ringleader. In the <a href="http://act.350.org/signup/This_American_Life/?akid=3192.212959.Dia3ug&amp;rd=1&amp;t=1">radio interview</a> my cousin forwarded to me, McKibben and his campaign come across as textbook, stereotypically liberal:</p>
<p>&#8212;Feigning a disarming humility, he candidly admitted that he has been trying to change other people for at least three decades. This is the essence of liberalism: a primary focus on changing others—no getting the beam out of one’s own eye before attempting to remove the mote from the eyes of others.</p>
<p>&#8212;Liberals love to flatter themselves as nobly free of parochial prejudices by taking digs at the USA. McKibben showed his anti-American bona fides by saying (wink, wink, ha ha!), “<i>Even</i> the United States signed [the UN document at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Meeting agreeing to cut future CO2 emissions]” (emphasis added). This snide aspersion is particularly uncalled for, since US emissions of CO2 have been falling, while the emissions of a number of the other signatories have continued to rise.</p>
<p>&#8212;In addition to America-bashing, a distinguishing characteristic of liberals is their habitual denunciation of society’s economic benefactors. A decent, appropriate response to fossil fuel corporations would be to respect them, and perhaps even be grateful to them, for having supplied the abundant, cheap energy that lifted us from the historical norm of mass poverty to the modern norm of widespread prosperity. Indeed, in the words of energy expert Daniel Yergin, today, “Abundant low-cost energy is stimulating a revival of manufacturing in the U.S. as well as increased American competitiveness.” Yet, in the best anti-capitalist tradition, McKibben insists on portraying oil corporations as rotten malefactors rather than benefactors. In his own words, his goal is to “turn oil and gas and coal companies into pariahs.” In short, oil disinvestment is nothing more than good old-fashioned anti-capitalism. Another generation of college students is being conditioned like Pavlov’s dog to react reflexively with loathing and disgust whenever they hear the words “oil corporation.”</p>
<p>&#8212;Like so many other liberal schemes, the fossil fuel divestment campaign manifests an irrational disregard of costs. A verbal trick I once encountered in the environmentalist movement is this: Someone dares to ask, “Can we afford what you propose?” The green replies, “We can’t afford not to.” That is a copout, an evasion of reality. In this world of finite time and wealth, we can’t have or do it all, and so we prioritize on the basis of price—that is, we economize—for in this way only can we rationally calculate how much we can afford. The ostensible purpose of this campaign is to save the world from the catastrophic global warming allegedly caused by human emissions of carbon dioxide via fossil fuel consumption. I have addressed the politicized science and dubious assumptions of the climate change crowd multiple times (including <a href="http://www.visionandvalues.org/2009/10/cap-and-trade-update/">here</a>, <a href="http://www.visionandvalues.org/2010/01/climategate-copenhagen-and-cap-trade/">here</a>, <a href="http://www.townhall.com/columnists/markhendrickson/2012/08/01/a_book_review_of_brian_sussmans_ecotyranny/page/full">here</a>, <a href="http://www.visionandvalues.org/2009/05/a-closer-look-at-the-ipcc/">here,</a> and <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/markhendrickson2012/09/16/climate-change-hoax-or-crime-of-the-century/">here</a>). What should astound and alarm us all is that the proponents of anthropogenic global warming assert that a 50% reduction of U.S. CO2 emissions by 2050 would lessen warming by all of 0.07<sup>o</sup>C. Estimates vary about the cost of reducing our fossil fuel consumption so drastically, but I once read a UN study that put the price tag in the tens of trillions of dollars. Even by liberal standards, to pay so much for so little is breath-taking in its audacity. The oil divestment movement is essentially asking Americans to opt for a certain economic catastrophe in the near term over a hypothetical and highly uncertain economic devastation in the future.</p>
<p>&#8212;Blindness to costs is one aspect of the appalling ignorance of economics that permeates liberal reformers. Another is the apparent cluelessness about how divestment actually would affect ExxonMobil <i>et al.</i> Let’s say the campaign succeeds beyond McKibben’s wildest dreams, and American institutional investors dump their conventional energy stocks en masse. The major effect would be to knock down the price of these profitable enterprises to bargain basement levels, where opportunistic investors&#8211;the Chinese, perhaps—would gladly snap them up. Like so many liberal plans, divestment is just another hare-brained scheme that would redistribute wealth, in this case, from foolish investors to competent investors.</p>
<p>&#8212;Liberal economic ignorance continued: If the pro-divestment crowd really wanted to hurt Big Oil, they would have to find a way to slash corporate revenues and profits, not just crash the stock price. The only way to accomplish that would be to convince large numbers of people to quit using fossil fuels. How many of those jumping on the divestment bandwagon are reducing their own fossil fuel consumption in half? Don’t hold your breath. As mentioned above, liberals like to change others more than themselves. Hypocritically, they blame the producers of fossil fuel energy rather than themselves for consuming it.</p>
<p>This brings us to the bottom line of typical liberal schemes like the fossil fuel divestment campaign. It’s dishonest. McKibben doesn’t tell his recruits that the change they want depends on them accepting reductions in their standard of living. Instead, he manipulates them into believing that they are the good guys, energy companies are the bad guys, and that the only way to save the world is for the good guys to smash the bad guys. It’s all very heady stuff. Too bad it’s bunk. McKibben is a liberal pied piper who promises to lead his followers on the path to salvation—all the while taking them down the road to ruin. That destructiveness masquerading as salvation is liberalism in a nutshell.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Anti-Israel Zealots Chastise Episcopal Church</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-d-tooley/anti-israel-zealots-chastise-episcopal-church/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=anti-israel-zealots-chastise-episcopal-church</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jan 2013 04:00:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[apartheid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[boycott]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[episcopal church]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=174868</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Church stands tall against calls to boycott "apartheid" Israel. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-d-tooley/anti-israel-zealots-chastise-episcopal-church/mozaheb20121215165546567/" rel="attachment wp-att-174895"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-174895" title="mozaheb20121215165546567" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/mozaheb20121215165546567.jpg" alt="" width="282" height="196" /></a>Prominent, radically anti-Israel Episcopalians are urging their denomination to adopt a more aggressive stance towards Israel, including divestment. The Episcopal Church largely has stood back from some of the more stridently negative policies towards Israel adopted by other old-line Protestant denominations.  It has avoided serious consideration of anti-Israel divestment.  And its officials did not endorse an ecumenical plea with other denominations last October asking the U.S. Congress to reconsider U.S. military aid to Israel, a plea prompting major Jewish groups to cancel scheduled interfaith dialogue with those denominations.</p>
<p>As reported by Episcopal News Service, the anti-Israel “Episcopal Voices of Conscience” drafted a letter dated on Martin Luther King’s birthday as a self-proclaimed “Prophetic Challenge” to their denomination’s executive council.  “Just as this church stood with South Africa and Namibia during the dark days of Apartheid, so we recognize that we need to be standing with our sister and brother Palestinians who have endured an Apartheid that Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has described as worse than it was in South Africa,” their plea began.  They lavishly quoted from Martin Luther King to justify their “call for justice on the land where Jesus lived his earthly ministry,” ignoring that King himself strongly supported Israel.   Interestingly, the “Voices of Conscience” themselves evidently had not yet publicized their letter.  So seemingly the Episcopal Church leadership chose to preempt it with their own response.</p>
<p>The letter urges that the Episcopal Church “immediately move forward with our church’s corporate engagement policy so that our financial resources are not being used to support the infrastructure of this suffocating occupation.”  Signers include former Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning, Washington, D.C. National Cathedral Dean Gary Hall, and Bishop Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church’s first openly homosexual bishop who in retirement is now a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC.  Although not Episcopalian, retired South Africa Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a renowned critic of Israel, is also a signer.</p>
<p>Besides “corporate engagement,” these anti-Israel Episcopal prophets want their denomination, after having been “woefully missing,” to join the Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Methodist and United Church of Christ officials who asked Congress in October to reconsider U.S. military aid to Israel.  “The <em>truth</em> that is so readily seen worldwide, except among our nation’s leaders, is that Israel imposes a matrix of control over the occupied Palestinian territories, locating Jewish settlements on prime Palestinian land, building segregated roads forbidden to Palestinians to connect the settlers to Israel proper, erecting a wall that causes havoc in the daily lives of Palestinians and serves as another pretext to occupy yet more land,” the distressed Episcopalians, plus Tutu, explained.  “We see check points that are used to control the movements of people on their own land where tactics of bullying, intimidation, and detention are practiced; and where the demolition of homes and the uprooting of olive tree orchards are commonplace causing further humiliation and insult, along with the destruction of livelihoods.”  They also complained that “once Palestinian East Jerusalem [is] being subsumed through Israel’s settlement policy,” while the “teeming population of Gaza [is] held under confinement on land, in the air, and at sea.” Nowhere do they admit that Israel is surrounded by adversaries, many of whom openly call for its destruction.  Nor do they fault any Palestinians for inflexibility towards Israel.</p>
<p>For this crowd of dissident Episcopalians, it is all quite simple, as “Israel is the oppressor, and the Palestinians the oppressed.”  They fault the U.S. for “irrational bias” towards Israel in “its blind support of an immense injustice perpetrated every day on the Palestinian people.”  Oh, they do reject violence from “either side.”  And they affirm Israel’s right to live in peace, but only through the “prism of justice as we believe Dr. King would insist.”  They also affirm Palestinian “non-violent resistance to the occupation just as African Americans resisted the inhumanity of Jim Crow and segregation.”  After all, just like Martin Luther King, Palestinians “have a dream” too, they surmise.  Except that unlike King, who dreamed that black and white children would someday hold hands, many Palestinians and their supporters throughout the Middle East and beyond dream that Israeli children will either be incinerated or driven into the sea.</p>
<p>In response to the anti-Israel plea, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori told Episcopal News Service:   “We cannot build a lasting peace by directing or imposing strategies on others.”  Evidently this comment was her polite Episcopal way of dismissing the anti-Israel plea.  She publicly opposed divestment last year before the church’s governing General Convention, which, as the Episcopal News Service cited, “rejected boycott, divestment, and sanctions by an overwhelming margin.”  Another Episcopal Church official is quoted noting that the church’s House of Bishops rejected a “trajectory toward supporting boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.”  Also cited is a 2005 Episcopal Church report that rejected comparing Israel to Apartheid South Africa.</p>
<p>So good for the Episcopal Church leadership that is resisting the harsh demands of radical anti-Israel activists. Those activists claimed that pro-Israel America is living in a “bubble of unreality.”  But they are themselves inside a surreal bubble, where amid all the turmoil and repression of the Middle East, only democratic Israel is the villain.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>United Methodists Reject Divestment</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/united-methodists-reject-divestment/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=united-methodists-reject-divestment</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 10 May 2012 04:05:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BDS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[presbyterian church usa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united methodist church]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=131651</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Victory against the anti-Israel Christian movement. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/thumbRNS-METHODIST-DIVESTMENT050212.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-131657" title="thumbRNS-METHODIST-DIVESTMENT050212" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/thumbRNS-METHODIST-DIVESTMENT050212.gif" alt="" width="375" height="248" /></a>Despite fierce targeting by the international anti-Israel lobby, the 12 million member global United Methodist Church soundly defeated anti-Israel divestment at its governing General Conference last week in Tampa.</p>
<p>The margin was over 2-1.  African delegates, who comprised 30 percent of the total, were key, as were U.S. evangelical delegates, joined by numerous moderate and liberal U.S. delegates.  United Methodist rejection almost ensures that the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly will reject anti-Israel divestment next month, leaving the divestment movement with almost nowhere to go among U.S. religious groups.</p>
<p>But sadly, the divestment debate among United Methodists frequently demonized Israel, with one intemperate delegate from Montana comparing the Jewish nation and the firms who do business with it to companies who facilitated the Nazi Holocaust.    She was preceded by a delegate from Oklahoma who cautiously tried to point at the threats against Israel, only to be chastised by the presiding bishop, who apparently disapproved of criticism aimed at Hamas.</p>
<p>“Of course we care about the Palestinians and what they have gone through—the loss of land, the loss of homes, the wall,” the Rev. Earl Long opined.  “But we also care for the people of Israel and what they too have gone through.”  He cited a “small, radical, fringe, terrorist Palestinian group who is set on their destruction and resorts to suicide bombing.”</p>
<p>Rev. Long was not even able to name Hamas before he was interrupted by presiding Bishop Warren Brown of Sacramento, who chided him: “Just [to] remind the speaker that the body has adopted a rule to avoid personal attacks of persons.” So even to imply criticism of Hamas is apparently an unacceptable “personal attack,” at least according to Methodist standards of hyper political correctness.</p>
<p>There was no such interruption or chiding for the delegate who levied her Nazi comparison against Israel.  Margaret Mary Novak of Montana, while urging anti-Israel divestment, suggested: “I would just ask us all to imagine that we were United Methodists in the 1930s and ’40s, that our Board of Pensions held stock in the very successful manufacturing firms in Germany that bid and received the bids to manufacture the ovens for the concentration camps. At what point would we decide it was time to divest? How much evidence would we ask for before it was time to stop the wholesale destruction of people?”</p>
<p>Bishop Brown merely reacted by asking Novak whether her Nazi comparison was a “speech for or against” the divestment proposal.  It was, she clarified, decidedly for. Evidently likening Israel to the Third Reich is so unexceptionally routine that the bishop was unclear about Novak’s intent.  Novak is vice president of the Foundation for United Methodist Communications.</p>
<p>More temperately, a Texas delegate pointed out that Israel has legitimate security concerns.   “The small state of Israel, which we support politically, is surrounded by enemies who wish it to be destroyed and will not have peace until it is destroyed,” said Henry Lessner.  “We are only adding fuel to the fire and giving more people more reasons to think they have more support to get rid of Israel.”  But getting rid of Israel as a Jewish democracy, while comparing it to Nazi Germany, seems to be the objective of pro-divestment activists.  Massachusetts minister We Hyung Chang, leading the charge for an Israel stance, displayed a map ostensibly showing ever expanding Jewish territorial expansion against the Palestinians.  The first map showed the region before Israel’s1948 founding, by implication disputing Israel’s basic existence.</p>
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		<title>Smear Attack Against Israel Defenders at UC San Diego</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/smear-attack-against-israel-defenders-at-uc-san-diego/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=smear-attack-against-israel-defenders-at-uc-san-diego</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 07 May 2012 04:35:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[San Diego]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[students for justice in Palestine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[University California]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=131166</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Fabricated accusations of harassment leveled against student and professor for their opposition to Israel divestment.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/ucsd_030111-thumb-640xauto-2431.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-131167" title="ucsd_030111-thumb-640xauto-2431" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/ucsd_030111-thumb-640xauto-2431.gif" alt="" width="375" height="248" /></a>The University of California San Diego (UCSD) is the latest campus where false charges have been leveled at Israel defenders in order to advance the genocidal campaign against the Jewish State. A UCSD pro-Muslim student association, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), orchestrated what could be a potentially libelous campaign of false charges against a campus-wide elected member of the student government, Ashton Shahyad Cohen, and pro-Israeli professor, Shlomo Dubnov. What animated the campaign? Despite SJP attempts to obfuscate the issue, both men were targeted because they voted against an SJP-sponsored <a href="http://daledamos.blogspot.com/2012/05/intimidation-and-bullying-tactics.html">resolution</a> demanding that UCSD divest itself of holdings in companies that do business with Israel. The resolution was brought before the UCSD Student Council on February 29, 2012. After seven hours of debate, it was defeated 20-13. Shortly after, both men came under attack.</p>
<p>First, professor Dubnov. During the meeting Dubnov, like many others, expressed his opinion against what has become the increasingly familiar issue of divestment. In this particular case, the SJP was attempting to get UCSD to sell its stock holdings in shares of GE and Northrop Grumman, because those corporations manufacture materials used by the Israeli Defense Forces. Two days after the resolution failed, Amal Dalmar, co-chair of the Student Affirmative Action Committee (SAAC), sent an email signed by six other students to the UCSD administration, claiming that as &#8220;students of color,&#8221; they were &#8220;verbally physically and emotionally attacked&#8221; during the debate. After saying they were &#8220;not going to allow such behavior to continue,&#8221; the group demanded the university release $7000 to them so they could bring a pro-divestment speaker to campus.</p>
<p>They then focused their wrath on the professor, whom they accused of racist rhetoric and verbally attacking pro-divestment student Noor El Annan. &#8220;University professor Shlomo Dubnov of the Music department followed a student outside of the 4th floor forum to verbally attack her and tell her that her narrative about surviving  bombings in Lebanon was &#8216;cheap and ridiculous,&#8217;&#8221; the email read. &#8220;They ended their diatribe by calling her a disgrace.&#8221;</p>
<p>The UCSD Office of Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (OPHD) initiated an investigation. Fortunately for Dubnov, the debate was recorded on videotape, which can be seen <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZq7od507AM&amp;feature=youtu.be">here</a>. It reveals that the accusations were a complete fabrication. The video shows that after Noor El Annan gave her speech &#8212; and left the premises &#8212; professor Dubnov remained behind for almost eight minutes, part of which included a conversation with Eyal Raz, a Medicine Department professor, at the back of the room. Furthermore, Raz signed a declaration stating that he and Dubnov continued their conversation for several more minutes outside the room and exited the building together. At no time, Raz added, did he see Dubnov harass a student.</p>
<p>When the OPHD investigation was completed, professor Dubnov was fully exonerated.</p>
<p>On to Cohen. Mr. Cohen, a Persian Jew, became the focus of an <a href="http://forward.com/articles/155644/jewish-student-blasted-for-wearing-mock-arab-outfi/">attack</a> orchestrated in part by the same student activists, Amal Dalmar and Noor El Annan, who targeted professor Dubnov. Cohen&#8217;s &#8220;crime&#8221;? Dressing up in a traditional Arab costume&#8211;for a <em>costume party.</em> Cohen, whose own family includes Muslim members, <a href="http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/19653-Palestinian-Clown-Union-At-UCSD.html">reportedly</a> bought the outfit in Dubai and wore it there when it was hot. At the costume party, Cohen was photographed (seen <a href="http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/19653-Palestinian-Clown-Union-At-UCSD.html">here</a>) posing with three women, two of whom are Muslim. One of the Muslim women posted the photo on Facebook with the caption &#8220;three wives?&#8221; The photo was sent to El-Annan, who posted it on her own Facebook profile, claiming she was “offended and disgusted” by the photo because “something that my grandparents would have worn was funny to him.” Cohen denied the accusation, contending that it was nothing more than “an intimidation tactic because of my vote against divestment.”</p>
<p>Had it ended there it, might have remained a relatively insignificant story. Unfortunately for Cohen, El Annan&#8217;s baseless accusation was <a href="http://issuu.com/ucsdguardian/docs/04.26.12">highlighted</a> in a front-page column in <em>The Guardian,</em> a campus newspaper. The article referred to him as both &#8220;racist&#8221; and &#8220;Islamophobic.&#8221; Both El Annan and Dalmar piled on. El Annan reiterated her &#8220;disgust,&#8221; while Dalmar compared the photo to the Compton Cookout, a racially charged incident targeting blacks that initiated an investigation of UCSD by the federal government. Dalmar inadvertently revealed a certain level of hypocrisy. &#8220;If we as a student body do not react to events like this, anybody&#8217;s culture can be mocked and ridiculed,&#8221; she offered.</p>
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		<title>Freedom Center Ad in the New York Times Slams BDS</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/rachel-hirshfeld/new-york-times-ad-slams-bds/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=new-york-times-ad-slams-bds</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Apr 2012 04:29:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rachel Hirshfeld]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[boycott]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sanctions]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=130456</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[David Horowitz's ad condemning anti-Israel movement receives international attention. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s note: The David Horowitz Freedom Center advertisement referenced in the following article has been reprinted below. For more information on the ad, click <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/04/27/freedom-center-hits-back-against-bds-in-new-york-times-ad/">here</a>. </strong></p>
<p><strong>Visit <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/155194#.T54llcRYs1c">Arutz Sheva</a>.</strong></p>
<p>American conservative writer and advocate, David Horowitz, placed an advertisement in the <em>New York Times </em>on Wednesday, accusing supporters of the Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement of contributing to anti-Semitism worldwide.</p>
<p>“The Holocaust began with boycotts of Jewish stores and ended with death camps,” the ad begins. “The calls for a new Holocaust can be heard throughout the Middle East and Europe as well.”</p>
<p>It also references Mohammed Merah, the terrorist who killed 4 people at a Jewish school in Toulouse, France last month, claiming that “ancient blood libels” supported by the BDS movement contributed to the murders.</p>
<p><strong>To continue reading this article, click <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/155194#.T54llcRYs1c">here</a>. </strong></p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/poh-ad4.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-130479" title="poh-ad" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/poh-ad4.gif" alt="" width="458" height="640" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Anti-Israel Christians Pray for Divestment</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/anti-israel-christians-pray-for-divestment/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=anti-israel-christians-pray-for-divestment</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 19 Apr 2012 04:05:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[presbyterian church usa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united methodist church]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=129198</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Left-wing churches fight for boycotting the Jewish State. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Picture-18.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-129200" title="Picture-18" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Picture-18.gif" alt="" width="375" height="259" /></a>Next week the international United Methodist Church, with 12 million members, will convene in Tampa, where nearly 1000 delegates will ponder whether to support anti-Israel divestment.</p>
<p>In July, the 2 million member Presbyterian Church (USA) will similarly ponder divestment.  The head of the Presbyterian committee of the Israel/Palestine Mission Network is contacting Methodist delegates encouraging them to sound the anti-Israel trumpet.</p>
<p>“This is an important time for those of us who have worked so hard for peace with justice for Palestinians and Israelis,” Carol Hylkema wrote.  Promising she was “watching/looking for news coming” from the United Methodists, she told them that their decision “will have some influence on the outcome” of the Presbyterian General Assembly. “We will covet your support and prayers at that time,” she told them.</p>
<p>No doubt.  A network of anti-Israel groups, aware of the symbolic importance of Mainline denominations backing their cause, is plotting feverishly for Methodist and Presbyterian approval of divestment. A recent confidential conference call among anti-Israel church activists revealed their strategies for the Methodist event.</p>
<p>About 20 leftist U.S. rabbis recently have endorsed anti-Israel divestment, which excited the church activists. Meanwhile, 1,250 U.S. rabbis from left to right have signed a <a href="http://rabbis-letter.org/">letter</a> opposing divestment. “It’s important for people who are concerned about Jewish relationships too, and help people understand that this is an interfaith effort that we are a part of,” explained one. They were also excited by support from the Israeli Committee on Home Demolitions [ICOHD]. “That’s another great connection from a group that is on the ground there in Israel and supporting this effort,” it was noted.</p>
<p>Conscious that United Methodism is global, with nearly 40 percent of its members are overseas mostly in Africa, the church activists emphasized their international outreach for divestment.  The church’s official General Board of Church and Society, which is lobbying for divestment, has even hired a Zimbabwean to liaise with African United Methodists.</p>
<p>Citing counsel from the U.S. Campaign to End the Occupation, one activist implored her fellow activists that when contacting Methodist delegates  “don’t alienate, so keep your politics in check, if you are talking to a conservative person and you are progressive, keep that in mind.”  And she urged stressing:   “We all support freedom and equality for all people.”</p>
<p>Unlike previous divestment initiatives, this latest round targets 3 firms that ostensibly profit from the “occupation.”  They are Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola.  “We have been very careful to focus only on companies that are directly involved with the occupation,” explained one activist, citing a 2010 trip when a delegation photographed U.S. equipment nefariously at work on the West Bank.  “Caterpillar is knowingly providing equipment that is used to destroy homes, more than 26,000 homes have been destroyed with that equipment, and to destroy water cisterns at orchards,” the activist complained. “The sixty ton bulldozers are used as a key weapon by the Israeli army in the Gaza strip and West Bank.”</p>
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		<title>Anti-Israel Christians Ponder Divestment</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/anti-israel-christians-ponder-divestment/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=anti-israel-christians-ponder-divestment</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:00:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kairos Palestine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[presbyterian church usa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[united methodist church]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=120747</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Left-wing churches turn to a man who describes growing Jewish communities as invasive weeds. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/umc.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-120793" title="umc" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/umc.gif" alt="" width="375" height="253" /></a></p>
<p>Both the 7.6 million United Methodist Church and 2 million member Presbyterian Church (USA) will ponder anti-Israel divestment at their governing conventions later this year.   Specifically targeted are 3 firms that ostensibly profit from the “occupation:” Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard.</p>
<p>Perhaps with this battle in mind, Friends of Sabeel-North America (FOSNA), a chief anti-Israel advocate among churches, has hired a Presbyterian minister as its new organizer to reach a “wider Christian audience.”  Sabeel’s describes his goal as addressing the “increasing awareness among American Christians and the Palestinian Christian community and the principles required for a ‘just peace’ between Israel and Palestine.”</p>
<p>In other words, the organizer will rally U.S. Christians initially for anti-Israel divestment and more ultimately against any special U.S. friendship for Israel, with the final goal of deconstructing Israel as a primarily Jewish democracy.</p>
<p>The new Sabeel organizer is the Rev. Donald Wagner, who recently served at Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia.   He previously headed Evangelicals for Middle East Understanding, which seeks to disengage U.S. evangelicals from their traditional pro-Israel stance.  In the 1980s he headed the Palestine Human Rights Campaign.   Seemingly Rev. Wagner combines Mainline Protestant, evangelical and Anabaptist connections that will greatly enhance his anti-Israel work.</p>
<p>Mainline Protestant elites have been anti-Israel since the 1967 war.  They identify Israel as a Western, pro-U.S. power and colonialist victimizer, against which faithful Christians must labor under a Liberation Theology theme.  In contrast, evangelicals remain the largest pro-Israel demographic in America.  But increasingly the Evangelical Left is persuading evangelical elites (especially in academia and missions groups) who are anxious to disassociate from the Religious Right to identify with purportedly oppressed Palestinians.  And Anabaptists, such as Mennonites and Brethren, are pacifists and traditionally few in number.  But both left-leaning Mainline Protestants and evangelicals increasingly embrace the Anabaptist tradition to justify their contempt for America and its “empire.”</p>
<p>The Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem understandably wants to deploy FOSNA as its U.S. arm to appeal to all these key American religious constituencies.  Rev. Wagner seems ideal for the task.  &#8220;I am very pleased to have Don leading FOSNA&#8217;s programs,” explained Sabeel founder and chief the Rev. Naim Ateek, who is a Palestinian Anglican clergy.  “He demonstrated long ago his passion for justice for oppressed Palestinians, and he has been committed ever since.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Three Days of Anti-Israel Venom at U Penn</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/sara-dogan/three-days-of-hate-at-u-penn/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=three-days-of-hate-at-u-penn</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:28:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Sara Dogan]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anti-Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[boycott]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[university of pennsylvania]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=119927</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why won't the university answer basic questions about the origins of its 2012 "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions" conference? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/University-of-Pennsylvania-.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-119938" title="University-of-Pennsylvania-" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/University-of-Pennsylvania-.gif" alt="" width="375" height="254" /></a></p>
<p>What do the administrators at the University of Pennsylvania know about the 2012 National Conference of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement about to take place at Penn and when did they know it?</p>
<p>“BDS,” as this virulent anti-Israeli hatefest is commonly called, is coming to the Penn campus on February 3-5, but university officials have hid from the implications of hosting such an event.  They say that the university is on record as not supporting this movement, yet they let the event go forward, providing space and possibly funding, despite the fact that the sponsors may not meet school requirements as a recognized group and that their anti-Semitic message is deeply hostile to academic freedom and basic human decency. The university appears to be bending rules that would be rigidly enforced for sponsors of another cause.</p>
<p>U Penn’s willingness to enable the BDS conference is particularly inexplicable given the fact that this growing movement to boycott Israel and Israeli-produced goods, force divestment from any companies that do business with Israel, and establish sanctions against Israel due to its supposed violations of human rights, was created by nations and groups seeking to delegitimize and destabilize Israel such as the terrorist-sponsoring nation of Iran and the terrorist groups Hezbollah, and Hamas.</p>
<p>As Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz has noted, the BDS movement abets terrorism: &#8220;People who advocate boycotts and divestiture will literally have blood on their hands,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They encourage terrorism and discourage the laying down of arms.&#8221;  Even Noam Chomsky stated recently that BDS was “hypocritical” in its pretense to be concerned about Israeli human rights violations and that the movement could be called anti-Semitic “with justice.”</p>
<p>Among the scheduled speakers at the upcoming conference is Anna Baltzer, a “Jewish American Palestinian human rights activist,” who summarizes the line of attack on Israel when she bluntly states that its polices of  “ethnic cleansing and apartheid must be stopped.”   These terms are not arguments; they are knowing lies designed to weaken the Jewish State and soften it up for the kill. The insidious segregation of “apartheid” does not exist in Israel. Arabs are granted full civil rights under Israeli law, which forbids discrimination on the basis of race, creed, or sex. Israeli Arab citizens vote in national elections, have representatives in the Israeli Parliament, serve as tenured professors teaching in Israeli colleges and universities, and sit on the benches of Israeli courts (including the Israeli Supreme Court). They have more rights, and enjoy more freedom, education, and economic opportunity than the Arabs of any Arab state.</p>
<p>The BDS conference at Penn will feature, in addition to BALTZER, a cavalcade of anti-Israel speakers, including founder of the Electronic Intifada Ali Abunimah, whose views are summed up when he <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/netanyahus-brilliant-peace-plan/8300">says</a>, &#8220;Israel is a society where virulent anti-Arab racism and Nakba denial are the norm although none of the European and American leaders who constantly lecture about Holocaust denial will dare to admonish Netanyahu for his bald lies and omissions about Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.&#8221;</p>
<p>The BDS National Conference at U Penn is by no means a stand-alone event.  In fact the BDS movement shares radical political DNA (and personnel) with the <em>international</em> “Israel Apartheid Weeks” and “Palestine Awareness Weeks” scheduled to take place on campuses around the country this spring.  The goal of these events, designed by Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), is to garner support for the Palestinian Authority and Hamas who seek to “push the Jews into the sea” and annihilate the Jewish state.  These “weeks” have regularly sought to intimidate Jewish students, occasionally through acts of physical violence, <em>and</em> have become frequent occurrences at campuses like the University of California, Irvine.</p>
<p>The growing BDS movement pursues these same ends by other means—delegitimating Israel by cutting its financial and cultural ties to America. Along with others in his group, Omar Barghouti, the founder of the BDS movement, is a regular speaker on college campuses during Israel Apartheid Week.  Barghouti expresses the genocidal logic at the heart of the anti-Israel movement when he says of its attempt to defend itself: “Israel is never retaliating, because it’s the occupying power, and occupation by definition is aggression and violence.”</p>
<p>Despite the intention of the BDS conference to preach three days of systematic ethnic hatred against Jews that the university would not countenance if it were directed, say, at Muslims, U Penn officials <em>have</em> turned a blind eye (and deaf ear) to the growing public outcry about the conference, claiming that it is solely a student matter and that, to stretch credulity, the university literally has no information regarding the conference, its funding, its sponsors, or its arrangements to use university facilities.</p>
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		<title>Taking On Students for Justice in Palestine at Columbia</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/fern-sidman/taking-on-students-for-justice-in-palestine-at-columbia/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=taking-on-students-for-justice-in-palestine-at-columbia</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Oct 2011 04:33:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Fern Sidman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Afternoon Edition]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=109260</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Students promote the "complete obliteration of the racist Zionist entity." ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Protest-at-Columbia-October-16th.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-109262" title="Protest-at-Columbia---October-16th" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Protest-at-Columbia-October-16th.gif" alt="" width="375" height="248" /></a></p>
<p>Tensions flared between dozens of pro-Israel demonstrators and members of &#8220;Students for Justice in Palestine&#8221; on Sunday afternoon, October 16th outside of Columbia University on the third and final day of the 2011 National Students for Justice in Palestine &#8220;teach-in&#8221; organized by members to prepare for their upcoming Israel Apartheid Week events across college campuses throughout North America.</p>
<p>Holding aloft both Israeli and American flags and signs saying, &#8220;SJP Brings Stealth Jihad to Columbia University,&#8221; &#8220;Stop Hamas Terror Against Jews and Christians&#8221; and &#8220;Occupy Columbia With Truth and Justice &#8211; Not Lies and Anti-Israel Incitement,&#8221; the pro-Israel supporters represented such organizations as Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI), the National Conference of Jewish Affairs (NCJA), Amcha &#8211; Coalition for Jewish Concerns and the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam (HRCARI).</p>
<p>Rancorous debates and raucous arguments broke out between the two sides as the Zionist contingent engaged the SJP members, as they exited the university on the corner of 116th Street and Broadway. &#8220;Our conference is about advocating for human rights in Palestine. Our Palestinian brothers and sisters are being subjected to the most severe degree of oppression on a daily basis by the Israeli colonialists and occupiers and we are here to put forth our message that a Jewish state is a fundamentally racist concept as are the apartheid practices of that state,&#8221; said Amina Fayyid, a SJP student organizer.</p>
<p>According to the SJP web site, one of the objectives of the conference is to &#8220;facilitate and support the advancement of existing campaigns and the development of new campaigns with particular (but not exclusive) emphasis on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel.&#8221; Among the multifarious seminars and workshops taking place at the conference is one titled &#8220;Indigenous Struggles: situating Palestine as a settler-colonial project,&#8221; which ostensibly explores &#8220;understanding Palestine within comparative settler colonial framework while seeking to re-align the Palestinian movement within a universal history of decolonization, and imagining new possibilities for Palestinian resistance, solidarity and common struggle.&#8221;</p>
<p>Helen Freedman, executive director of Americans For A Safe Israel (AFSI), said, &#8220;Israel is the only stable democracy in the Middle East and these student activists know very well that Palestinians living in Israel have a much better lifestyle than they would in any other Arab country; yet their goal in organizing such a conference is to perpetuate the myths, incessant lies and blatant distortions that they use in their quest to demonize Israel. What we are witnessing here today is nothing short of the most egregious form of anti-Semitism cloaked in the clever subterfuge of anti-Zionism.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Pink Floyd Rocker Roger Waters Shows his Hypocrisy with Israel “Boycott”</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/sammy-levine/pink-floyd-rocker-roger-waters-shows-his-hypocrisy-with-israel-%e2%80%9cboycott%e2%80%9d/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=pink-floyd-rocker-roger-waters-shows-his-hypocrisy-with-israel-%25e2%2580%259cboycott%25e2%2580%259d</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:15:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Sammy Levine]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Right to Exist]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.newsrealblog.com/?p=123936</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Everyone knows that Israel is currently threatened by terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah &#8212; both supported by the virulently anti-Israel Iranian regime. But what many do not know is that Israel is also under attack in a cultural war which seeks to destroy her by way of boycotts and divestments. The freest state [...]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a class="highslide" onclick="return vz.expand(this)" href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Roger-Waters.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-123938" title="Roger Waters" src="http://www.newsrealblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Roger-Waters-300x202.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="202" /></a></p>
<p>Everyone knows that Israel is currently threatened by terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah &#8212; both supported by the virulently anti-Israel Iranian regime. But what many do not know is that Israel is also under attack in a cultural war which seeks to destroy her by way of boycotts and divestments. The freest state in the Middle East is under attack from &#8220;peace activists,&#8221; pro-Palestinian organizations, professors and others who seek to starve Israel economically. But perhaps the most troubling trend in recent months is the popular entertainers who are refusing to perform in the only Jewish country in the world.<span id="more-123936"></span></p>
<p>Roger Waters, former front man of Pink Floyd and one of the most critically acclaimed artists of all-time, has formally joined the BDS campaign against Israel. In an open letter a few days ago he <a href="http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/topics/economy-of-the-occupation/3374-roger-waters-my-journey-to-bds" >wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“For me it means declaring my intention to stand in solidarity, <em>not only with the people of Palestine, but also with the many thousands of Israelis who disagree with their </em>governments racist and colonial policies, by joining a campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, until it satisfies three basic human rights demanded in international law. 1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands [occupied since 1967] and dismantling the Wall; 2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and 3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.</em>”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is important to note Mr. Waters’ third demand, the right of return, which would demographically destroy Israel and transform it into another Muslim-dominated country in the Middle-East (just what the world needs!)</p>
<p>Among other things, this is what is instructed by the <a href="http://www.bdsmovement.net/?q=node/126" >BDS Campaign</a> that Roger Waters has joined:<em> </em></p>
<blockquote><p><em>“Individual consumers can show their opposition to Israel&#8217;s project by participating in a consumer boycott of Israeli goods and services.</em>”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Does Mr. Waters genuinely advocate this sentiment? Does Mr. Waters know that Israel is one of the world&#8217;s most technologically advanced countries in the world, churning out medical advances at a rapid pace? Israeli scientists created the first computerized, diagnostic instrument for breast cancer without radiation. Israeli medical technicians also developed an ingestible video camera&#8211;tiny enough to fit in a pill&#8211;to observe the small intestine. This medical breakthrough assists doctors in diagnosing cancer and digestive disorders.</p>
<p>Israeli citizens are involved in numerous other <a href="http://www.birthrightisrael.com/site/PageServer?pagename=learn_didyouknow" >medical innovations </a>that are improving the quality of life on earth. Does Mr. Waters encourage his fellow musicians and citizens to not utilize these lifesaving technologies? Of course he does not. Therefore, he is a hypocrite, plain and simple.</p>
<p>Other artists, including The Pixies, Elvis Costello and the Gorillaz, to my knowledge have not formally joined the BDS campaign like Waters, but nonetheless have <a href="http://www.heebmagazine.com/pixies-nix-israel-trip/" >canceled </a>their performances in Israel. Elvis Costello claimed his &#8220;conscience&#8221; wouldn&#8217;t allow him to perform in Israel. The Gorillaz, in a genuinely <a href="http://www.thejc.com/news/world-news/36194/gorillaz-play-syria-boycott-israel" >hypocritical move</a>, performed in Syria &#8212; a country that supports terrorism &#8212; just a few weeks after canceling their gig in Israel.</p>
<p>I would like to ask these musicians: Do you support America&#8217;s war in Iraq? (Of course, they do not.) Then why don&#8217;t you refuse to play in America? The obvious answer is they cannot afford to boycott America or they would be out of business. So basically, they can boycott tiny Israel&#8211;the only country in the world constantly threatened with annihilation from racist, genocidal armies&#8211;because it won’t negatively affect their income. How Courageous!</p>
<p>These artists think they are engaged in a great noble and moral crusade. But they are not. These artists think they are being courageous by boycotting Israel. But they are not. These musicians are cowards, hypocrites and moral idiots as they are shunning the only country in the Middle East that grants Arabs freedom and opportunity. The truth of the matter is that these musicians are only boycotting Israel because it’s a chic leftist cause and it makes them feel good about themselves.</p>
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		<title>Tutu&#8217;s Crusade Against Israel</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-perazzo/desmond-tutus-crusade-against-israels-%e2%80%9capartheid%e2%80%9d/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=desmond-tutus-crusade-against-israels-%25e2%2580%259capartheid%25e2%2580%259d</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 19 May 2010 04:07:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John Perazzo]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=60344</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The former South African archbishop embraces the anti-Semitic message on the American campus.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/tutu.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60345" title="tutu" alt="" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/tutu.jpg" width="375" height="270" /></a></p>
<p>At first blush, the suggestion that a <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6979">Nobel Peace Prize</a> winner would have anything in common with a pack of unabashed, poison-tongued Jew-haters seems preposterous. But Desmond Tutu, the former archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, who in 1984 won the coveted Nobel award for his campaign against apartheid in that country, is today one of the most celebrated supporters of the “Divest from Israel” movement. Particularly widespread on university campuses across America, this movement routinely offers a high-visibility propaganda forum for some of the most rabid, combative anti-Semites of our time.</p>
<p>At its heart, the campus divestment movement aims to cripple Israel&#8217;s economy by compelling universities to withdraw whatever funds they may have invested in Israeli-based or -affiliated corporations. These efforts are founded on the premise that Israel is guilty of practicing apartheid and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people. According to the divestment movement&#8217;s leaders, the human rights violations perpetrated by Israel are on par with those of the former apartheid regime in Desmond Tutu&#8217;s South Africa; many critics go so far as to liken modern Israel to Nazi Germany. When the Associated Students of UC Berkeley recently expressed their wish to have the university divest its money from Israel, Tutu praised their “principled stand” against the “injustice of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and violation of Palestinian human rights.” “[I]t is always an inspiration when young people lead the way and speak truth to power,” said Tutu.</p>
<p>The philosophy underlying the divestment movement has been displayed in stark relief recently at a number of University of California campuses, where Muslim student groups sponsored events under the banner of “Israeli Apartheid Week: A Call to Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Israel.” At a <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=250">Muslim Students Association</a> (MSA) event at UC San Diego, for instance, one MSA member <a href="http://www.campusreform.org/blog/david-horowitz-exposes-genocidal-student-activists">explicitly affirmed</a> that she supported <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6256">Hezbollah</a> leader <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1257">Hassan Nasrallah</a>&#8216;s <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0CEEDB1F3CF930A15756C0A9629C8B63&amp;sec=&amp;spon=&amp;pagewanted=2">assertion that </a>“if Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us [jihadists] the trouble of going after them worldwide.” Meanwhile, UC Irvine&#8217;s <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7382">Muslim Student Union</a> promoted its own “Israeli Apartheid Week” festivities by featuring, as <a href="http://www.msuuci.com/?p=2098%20">guest speakers</a>, such luminaries as <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2204">Norman Finkelstein</a> (who asserts  that the Holocaust has been exaggerated and exploited by Jews to justify Israeli human-rights violations and crimes against humanity); <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2096">Hedy Epstein</a> (who contends that the only “lesson” Jews “learned from the Holocaust” was how to “become the persecutors” of vulnerable people like the Palestinians); <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2173">Hatem Bazian</a> (who, at an <a>American Muslim Alliance</a> conference promoting the creation of an Islamic State of Palestine, approvingly quoted a <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hadith">hadith</a> calling on Muslims to “come and kill” the Jews); <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1599">Alison Weir</a> (who characterizes the Israeli-Arab conflict as nothing more complex than a battle between “the brutalizer and the brutalized”); and <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2102">Amir Abdel Malik-Ali</a> (an open supporter of <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6204">Hamas</a> and Hezbollah who has warned that he and his fellow Muslims “will fight” the Jews “until we are either martyred or until we are victorious”). (Note: the Alison Weir referred to here is not to be confused with the British historian and author <a href="http://alisonweir.org.uk/">Alison Weir</a>)</p>
<p>Such are the worldviews and sentiments of the leading lights in today&#8217;s “Divest from Israel” movement. By no means, however, is it surprising that Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu would support such bellicose rhetoric, given his own long history of condemning and smearing Israel and the Jews. Noting that divestment campaigns helped bring about the end of apartheid in South Africa, a development he calls “one of the crowning accomplishments of the past century,” Tutu is delighted that a “similar movement” now aims to put “an end to the Israeli occupation” in the Middle East. Notably, Tutu makes no call for divestment from any other Middle Eastern nation &#8211; though the political oppression, human rights abuses, and barbaric atrocities characterizing life throughout much of that region dwarf anything that the Palestinians have ever suffered in Israel, to which Tutu refers as America’s “client state.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/29/comment%20">Tutu informs us</a> that his heart breaks whenever he sees “the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks,” and he explains that their evident “suffering” evokes memories of what South African blacks once experienced “when young white police officers prevented us from moving about.” Asserting that “Israel is like Hitler and apartheid,” Tutu has urged Americans to oppose Israeli “injustices” as fervently as they once opposed Nazism and South Africa’s system of racial separation. Putting his contempt for the Jewish state in still fuller context, he once said: “The [South African] apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. Hitler, Mussolini, <a>Stalin</a>, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust.”</p>
<p>In an October 2007 <a href="http://www.zoa.org/sitedocuments/pressrelease_view.asp?pressreleaseID=208%20">op-ed piece</a>, Tutu lamented that because of unnecessarily restrictive Israeli policies, the Palestinian people “cannot move freely from one place to another”; that “a wall separates them from their families and from their incomes”; and that “they are arbitrarily demeaned at checkpoints and unnecessarily beleaguered by capricious applications of bureaucratic red tape.” These things, said Tutu, were reminiscent of “the yoke of oppression that was once our burden in South Africa.” Absent from his lamentations was any recognition that Israel&#8217;s checkpoints and security barrier had been established in direct response to the Palestinians&#8217; relentless campaign of genocidal terrorism. Instead, Tutu reminded his readers that “God’s dream begins with this mutual recognition – we are not strangers, we are kin.” But there again, he had nothing to say about the wholesale rejection of so-called “kinship” by Hamas, the terrorist group whose <a href="http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm">founding charter</a> explicitly calls <em>jihad </em>“an individual duty [that is] binding on every Muslim man and woman,” while it condemns “the Nazism of the Jews” and calls for their extermination.</p>
<p>Tutu&#8217;s morally inverted worldview is not confined solely to matters involving Israel. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, for instance, he described America&#8217;s retaliatory military campaign (against the Taliban and <a>al-Qaeda</a>) as an “utterly reprehensible” exercise in “vengeance” rather than justice. He explained that the hijackers had been “willing to pilot a plane and go to their deaths” because they were making a desperate plea for relief from the “poverty, hunger, and disease” that plagued the people of their homelands. Condemning America&#8217;s greed and self-absorption, Tutu suggested that “a minute fraction of [U.S.] defense budgets would ensure that God’s children everywhere would have clean water, enough to eat, a decent home, a proper education, and accessible and affordable health care.” The terrorists, in other words, were trying to strike a blow for charity and social justice, not Islamic <em>jihad</em>.</p>
<p>While Tutu has been relentless in ridiculing Israel and the United States, he has been far more forgiving of Winnie Mandela, South Africa&#8217;s so-called “Mother of the Nation,” whom the former archbishop professes to love “very deeply.” Prominent in the Soviet-sponsored African National Congress (ANC), which was closely aligned with the South African Communist Party, Mrs. Mandela used her notorious bodyguards in a protracted reign of terror, torture, and murder during the 1980s. The ANC committed innumerable atrocities in the name of liberation, prompting a 1988 Pentagon Report to list it as one of the world&#8217;s “more notorious terrorist groups.” Many ANC victims were physically pummeled and brutalized to death – some of them on the direct orders of Mrs. Mandela. Among the ANC’s preferred methods of torturing suspected political opponents was “necklacing” – a barbaric practice where automobile tires were tied around the necks of victims, filled with gasoline and lit on fire. It is estimated that some 1,000 people were set ablaze in this manner. “With tires and matches we will liberate this country,” crowed the celebrated “Mother” of Tutu&#8217;s nation.</p>
<p>To recap: Desmond Tutu “loves” Winnie Mandela “deeply”; he blames the United States for provoking the 9/11 attacks; and he supports worldwide divestment from a purportedly “Nazi”-like nation that gives its Arab citizens more rights and freedoms than they would be able to enjoy anywhere in the Arab world. These views prove conclusively that honorific titles and prestigious awards do not necessarily correlate with sound moral judgment in their recipients.</p>
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		<title>Israel: A Sin Against God?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mark-d-tooley/israel-a-sin-against-god/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israel-a-sin-against-god</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 19 May 2010 04:00:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Religious Left adds new weaponry to its call "for peace."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/pray1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60523" title="pray" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/pray1.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>Leftist church prelates in the United States continue to rally on behalf of the <a href="http://www.oikoumene.org/gr/resources/documents/other-ecumenical-bodies/kairos-palestine-document.html">Kairos Palestinian Document </a>of 2009. The document was crafted by Palestinian Christians bemoaning the <em>Nakba</em> (“catastrophe”) of Israel&#8217;s founding and condemning the West for not recognizing Hamas. At the same time, the document calls Israel&#8217;s so-called occupation a &#8220;sin against God&#8221; and urges partial divestment against the country.</p>
<p>Recent enthusiasts for the Kairos Palestinian Document (aka &#8220;Kairos&#8221;) include the heads of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), who together represent about 2 million U.S. church members. The Episcopal Church&#8217;s Peace Fellowship has also praised Kairos while some U.S. rabbis understandably condemn it.</p>
<p>&#8220;Palestinian Christian leadership have taken the bold step of declaring this a <em>K</em><em>airos </em>moment, a designation not of chronological time, but of opportunity ripe for momentous action, and a moment that can be lost if the opportunity is not seized,&#8221; rejoiced UCC and Disciples officials, including UCC President Geoffrey Black and Disciples President, Sharon Watkins. They gleefully compared the Kairos Palestinian Document to other ostensibly similar demands for social justice made in apartheid South Africa, Central America, and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Church prelates Black and Watkins hailed the Palestinian document as &#8220;powerful&#8221; and aptly responsive to the &#8220;painful reality of more than 40 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.&#8221;  The UCC and Disciples chiefs declared their full concurrence with the Kairos Document’s supposed affirmation of &#8220;non-violence&#8221; and rejection of  &#8220;extremism.&#8221;  Of course, the &#8220;extremism&#8221; which concerns Kairos the most is Christian and Jewish, not Islamic.  Black and Watkins celebrated Kairos&#8217; call for Palestinian Christians to &#8220;resist evils, including, in their case, the occupation of Palestinian lands.&#8221;  They also urged, with Kairos, a boycott of &#8220;products that are produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank,&#8221; which is essentially an incremental step towards the full anti-Israel divestment that hardcore religious leftists prefer, despite political defeats in recent years.</p>
<p>One such defeat was the Episcopal Church&#8217;s rejection of anti-Israel divestment.  But officials of the denomination&#8217;s unofficial but influential Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF) voted in early May to support divestment and the Palestinian Kairos proclamation.  The EPF, which includes Episcopal Minnesota Bishop Jim Jelinek, backed &#8220;an economic and commercial boycott of products linked to oppression of Palestinian people and occupation of their land.&#8221; Interestingly, EPF was founded in the 1930s to oppose military resistance to Hitlerism. (Read my associate Jeff Walton&#8217;s article <a href="http://www.theird.org/Page.aspx?pid=1485">here.</a></p>
<p>“Economic sanctions can inspire a more useful dialogue and negotiation towards a just and lasting peace in the Middle East,” intoned the supposedly peace-minded Episcopalians.  &#8220;Respect for the dignity of every human being, alongside a vision to put aside the violence of terrorism, oppression and military force is key to moving negotiations forward for a lasting peace for all involved.”</p>
<p>Not all EPF members agreed with the group’s latest anti-Israel push. Washington, D.C. Episcopal Bishop John Bryson Chane, who has himself helped host Iranian ayatollahs at the National Cathedral, still found EPF&#8217;s call for divestment too &#8220;flawed and dangerously unhelpful at this particular time in history.&#8221; He also told Episcopal News Service that sanctions would &#8220;further hurt the critical development of the economy of Palestine and increase the marginalization of the Palestinian people.&#8221;</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) recognized that Kairos&#8217; appeals to peace and impartiality are superficial covers for intensified anti-Israel campaigns. In their response to Kairos last month, the rabbis observed that Kairos &#8220;claims that leading Israel into isolation is the only way there can be a peaceful solution in the Holy Land.&#8221;  And while Kairos professes both to condemn Palestinian &#8220;terrorist bombing&#8221; and Israeli &#8220;economic and military violence&#8221; against Palestinians, its recommendations predictably demand action only against Israel.</p>
<p>Showing more perceptiveness than church leftists who claim they support Israel, the rabbis noted that Kairos &#8220;consistently objects to &#8216;the Occupation,&#8217; without making clear that it is referring exclusively to lands occupied by Israel and in dispute since the Six-Day War of 1967.&#8221;  The rabbis warily but logically observed that Kairos implicitly is &#8220;rejecting the very notion of a Jewish State.&#8221;</p>
<p>The astute rabbis also noticed that Kairos claims to reject violence but still offers &#8220;respect&#8221; and “high esteem for those who have given their life for our nation,” which seems to praise Palestinian suicide bombers. The rabbis likewise observed that Kairos carefully puts Palestinian terrorism in quotation marks.</p>
<p>Admitting that Kairos was endorsed by relatively few Palestinian Christians, the rabbis accurately observed that it has significantly gained high profile endorsements from mainline Protestant elites in the U.S.  The &#8220;acceptance and endorsement of this document by certain other individuals and church groups with which we have enjoyed harmonious interfaith relations has been surprising, disturbing and profoundly disappointing,&#8221; the rabbis declared.  They also warned that &#8220;CCAR would require serious reflection before continuing our common cause with any Church body or organization that endorses or continues to endorse <em>Kairos.&#8221; </em></p>
<p>The Religious Left in the U.S. does not care much for Israel&#8217;s survival but is generally concerned with the value of cordial interfaith relations with Jewish groups in the U.S.  Partly for this reason, anti-Israel divestment campaigns have met defeat in all major U.S. liberal-led denominations. Maybe the CCAR will help to caution the Religious Left away from its casual endorsement of often very raw anti-Israel rhetoric disguised as appeals for peace and mutual co-existence.</p>
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