INTO THE FRAY: Temple Mount attack & the demise of the “one-state” theory

By MARTIN SHERMAN

Temple Mount

Even after seven decades living under Israeli sovereignty, and over half a century after military rule over the Arab population was abolished, anti-Israel enmity is alive and kicking among Israeli Arabs

Extending Israeli sovereignty over Judea-Samaria (and eventually over the Gaza Strip) is indeed a necessary condition for ensuring the ability of Israel to endure as the nation state of the Jewish people. It is, however, not a sufficient condition to ensure that worthy objective. In fact, without additional complementary measures, such an initiative on its own is very likely to imperil Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel…in its entirety on both sides of the pre -1967 Green Line. “The Humanitarian Paradigm”, Sovereignty Journal (№8), March, 2017.

Last Friday, three non-Jewish terrorists gunned down two-non-Jewish policemen to express their hatred of the Jewish state.

And yet while many condemned the heinous deed, expressing shock, dismay, and opprobrium at the brutal desecration of the Temple Mount, no one really found it bewilderingly inexplicable or staggeringly aberrant. After all, Judeocidal Arab hatred has always defied rational explanation.

Extinguishing hopes for one-state formula

No less perverse was the fact that the alleged cause of the killers’ homicidal urge was purported to be the “Occupation”, despite the fact that none of the perpetrators were subject to any form of “Occupation” — as they were all Israeli citizens, with full civil rights.

Slain Druze police officers Hayil Satawi and Kamil Shanaan.

But beyond the human tragedy, the hail of bullets that cut short the lives of the two Druze police officers from the Galilee, Hayil Satawi and Kamil Shanaan, inflicted an additional casualty.

For they conclusively cut down any residual credibility that the proposal for a one-state formula — especially as touted by “right wing” pundits — might still have had. Indeed, it totally extinguished any lingering hopes that some kind of coherent, cohesive society could be forged if Israel were to annex Judea-Samaria — and incorporate its Palestinian Arabs into Israel’s permanent population.

As I have written elsewhere, “It would require more than a gigantic leap of unsubstantiated faith to believe that such a measure could precipitate any result other than “Lebanonization” of Israel.” (For good order’s sake — and to cite New York Times columnist, the late A. M. Rosenthal — “Lebanonization refers to the [situation] within a single country so riven with religious and other disputes that [it] becomes impossible to govern.”

Downplaying the danger

Typically one-state proponents seem unaware, or unperturbed, by this unpalatable prospect. Thus, one prominent one-stater sees the process of imposing Israeli sovereignty over Judea-Samaria and its Arab residents as “fairly straightforward”. According to this upbeat prescription: “Israel will apply its laws to Judea and Samaria and govern the areas as normal parts of Israel…Contingent on security concerns…Palestinians will have the right to travel and live anywhere they wish within Israeli territory…Palestinians will have the same legal and civil rights as the rest of the residents and citizens of Israel… Those that receive Israeli citizenship in accordance with Israel’s Citizenship Law will also be allowed to vote in national elections for the Knesset.”

Thus one-state advocates have tried to dismiss the potential for inter-ethnic strife, suggesting that “an Israeli assertion of central authority over the areas [of Judea-Samaria] will likely have a significant moderating impact. Once the population feels there is a central governing authority in place, that sense of order will likely neutralize a significant amount of opposition momentum spurred by anti-Israel animus.”

Clearly, the events on the Temple Mount last Friday shatter the foundations of any such belief.

After all, the gunmen’s conduct — and the reticent reaction of the Israeli-Arab leadership — clearly indicates that, after seven decades of living under Israeli sovereignty, and over half a century after military rule over the Arab population was abolished, “anti-Israel animus” is alive and kicking even among Israeli Arabs — despite decades of “Israeli assertion of central authority” .

Not an isolated incident

Moreover, while Judeophobic terror attacks by Israeli-Arabs are not a frequent occurrence, neither are they virtually unheard of rarities.

Thus for example, on New Year’s Day, 2016, an Israeli-Arab from the village of Arara, just south of Umm al Fahm, the town from which last Friday’s killers hailed, opened fire with an automatic weapon on a crowd in a Tel Aviv pub, killing two and wounding almost ten. The shooter also murdered an Israeli-Arab taxi driver in his attempt to escape.

Significantly, he was provided shelter and logistic support from residents of the village, with whom he discussed plans for additional attacks.

Barely, two months later, two teenage females from the city of Ramle in central Israel, attacked a security guard with large knives, admitting: “we came to kill Jews”.

However, as distressing as these and other individual acts of terror might be, no less disturbing is the reaction of the Israeli-Arab Establishment, including its elected political leadership and prominent civil society organizations.

Reflecting the ambivalent Arab attitude towards lethal attacks by their kinfolk on the Jewish state, was the vague and equivocal condemnation of the Temple Mount attack by the Arab leadership in Israel. Indeed, it was so reticent and reluctant that it even provoked a flash of ire from our meticulously politically-correct President, Reuven Rivlin.

Collaborating with terror?

Referring to the lack of any unambiguous denunciation of the deed almost

President Rueven Rivlin: Anyone who doesn’t denounce terrorism is collaborating with it.”

three days after it was perpetrated, an exasperated Rivlin declared: “The silence and the feeble responses from some Arab political leaders are outrageous…Terrorism must be denounced unconditionally”, adding. “Anyone who doesn’t denounce terrorism is collaborating with it.”

Of course, in recent years there have been far more explicit examples of an elected Israeli-Arab politician brazenly collaborating with terror. Perhaps the most blatant was that of former Knesset member of the Balad faction in the Joint (Arab) List, Basel Ghattas.

Ghattas, a Christian Arab Israeli, from the town of Rameh in the Galilee, was jailed, after he was filmed, abusing his parliamentary privileges, smuggling mobile phones, SIM cards and other items to convicted terrorists in prison for involvement in lethal attacks against Israelis. Despite his sentencing for violation of the Terror Law, Ghattas remained unapologetic, expressing neither remorse nor regret for his actions.

But his was not the only display of identification of elected Arab lawmakers with mortal enemies of the country in whose legislature they serve.

In February 2016, three members of the Joint (Arab) List met with the families of terrorists to express condolences and identification with their suffering, even referring to terrorists who killed three passengers on a bus in Jerusalem as shaheeds (martyrs).

“Never miss an opportunity to support terror…”

Another Arab MK, Jamal Zahalka, has openly identified with the Palestinians’ armed resistance against Israel and publicly called for Arabs to prevent Jews from visiting Judaism’s most holy site by “all means” and at “all costs”.

Hanin Zoabi is of course another Arab lawmaker, who has been conspicuous in her continual expression of anti-Israel enmity over the years, including her 2010 participation aboard the infamous Mavi Marmara, in the attempt to breach the maritime quarantine imposed on the terrorist ruled enclave of Gaza.

Balad faction Knesset Members of Joint ( Arab) List (L-R): Jamal Zahalka, Basel Ghattas, Hanin Zoabi,

In light of these and other manifestation of borderline sedition it is not difficult to understand the caustic censure of Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, who reacted to the ongoing identification with the enemy with fury:”…the Arab MKs don’t miss a single opportunity to support terror.”

Regrettably, the response of Israeli-Arab civil society organizations gives no less cause for concern.

Thus in the immediate wake of the Temple Mount attack, an organization named Adalah — The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights , perversely called for the investigation of….the Israeli police, who swiftly shot the attackers, preventing further casualties !!

So rather than express shock at the defilement of the holy site by the actions of Arab terrorists, and raising questions as to how similar incidents can be avoided, Adalah, generously funded by the US based “New Israel Fund” demanded an “immediate probe of police killings of [the] Al Aqsa Mosque shooting suspects.”

Obscuring Arab malfeasance

Accordingly, instead of focusing on the murderous actions of the Israeli-Arab perpetrators, Adalah purposely tried to divert attention to the reactions of those who cut their homicidal spree short.

In a transparent attempt to obscure Arab malfeasance, while denigrating the preventative response by Israeli forces, it writes with unabashed gall: “the incident raises serious questions regarding police personnel’s compliance with very detailed open-fire regulations”.

This anti-Israel sentiment is reflected in pervasive — albeit, as yet, inert — bias in the general Israeli Arab public. This dormant anti-Zionist proclivity is clearly evident in a 2013 poll conducted by Prof. Sami Smoocha, under the auspices of the University of Haifa and the Israel Democracy Institute, both of whom are decidedly on the Left of the Israeli political spectrum. According to the findings of the study: 55.9% of [Israeli] Arabs resigned themselves to Israel as a state, with a Jewish majority…

However, as Smoocha points out: “resignation… does not mean preference… the Arabs prefer a binational state to a Jewish and democratic state. [N]or does it imply justification of the status quo, since 69.6% of the Arab respondents think that it is not justified that Israel maintains a Jewish majority….”

Ominously, he observes: “The proportion of Arabs denying Israel’s right to exist as a state was… 11.2% in 2003, and 24.5% in 2012. 82.2% of the Arabs in 2012 accused Jews of the Nakba [the “catastrophe” of Jewish victory in the 1948 Independence War]…”

Gloomily, he notes: “The percentage of Arabs holding accommodating and compromising stances has been steadily decreasing and has shrunk to a minority.”

One-statism: The Writing on the wall

Should any further evidence be required as to the dire consequences of a dramatic increase in Israel’s Arab population, they were provided by the results of the 2015 elections, when virtually to a man — and fully enfranchised woman — the Arab sector voted for the vehemently anti-Zionist Joint List. This is a party made up of a motley mélange of communists-cum radical Islamist-cum-leftwing Arab nationalists, whose only unifying factor is their fierce rejection of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Indeed, the political DNA of the Joint List is so rabidly opposed to the Jewish state that it refused to sign a surplus vote sharing agreement even with the far-left Meretz party, because it was still a “Zionist” faction, vividly underscoring its obdurate repudiation of the right of Jews to a state of their own, repudiation, which it seems, Israeli-Arabs endorsed virtually unanimously.

Today, the Joint List — with 13 seats — is the third largest party in the Knesset, with Israel’s (potentially recalcitrant) Arab population within the pre-1967 “Green Line” now at around 20%. Accordingly, little imagination is needed to grasp the dramatic impact — socially, economically, politically — of doubling it to around 40%. — by extending Israeli sovereignty to Judea-Samaria to incorporate the Arab residents in the country’s permanent population (assuming the optimistic demographers are right).

One-statism: The Demographic dilemma

The Temple Mount incident, together with the pervasive anti-Zionist sentiment in the Israeli Arab sector, underscores just how unfounded the optimism of one-staters is that: “Once the population feels there is a central governing authority in place, that sense of order will likely neutralize a significant amount of opposition momentum spurred by anti-Israel animus.”

Indeed, if anything, quite the opposite is true: Reinforced by a huge increase in numbers, the anti-Israel animosity is likely to be commensurately enhanced.

If Israel has no program to significantly reduce the Arab presence in its sovereign territory, it will face a searing demographic dilemma. It can either (a) enfranchise the bulk of the newly annexed Arab population within a reasonable timeline; or (b) it can deny them such enfranchisement.

If it opts for the latter, Israel will inevitably become an undeniable apartheid state — withholding political representation largely on ethnic grounds. As such it is likely to be subjected to crippling international censure and sanctions, imperiling its ability to survive.

 If it opts for the former, it will create a very real danger that the anti-Zionist elements will become the dominant political force in the country, with the Arab vote potentially reaching 25 seats — making it possibly one of the two largest parliamentary factions. If they team up with the radical anti/post Zionist Left, its ability to advance anti-Zionist initiatives will be formidable…

And this is only the tip of the proverbial “iceberg”…which is why I warned (see introductory excerpt): “Extending Israeli sovereignty over Judea-Samaria is indeed a necessary condition for ensuring the ability of Israel to endure as the nation state of the Jewish people…but without additional complementary measures, such an initiative on its own is very likely to imperil Jewish sovereignty over the Land of Israel… on both sides of the pre -1967 Green Line”.

 To be continued…

Martin Sherman is the founder and executive director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

Dr. Martin Sherman, Director of the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies - July 17, 2017

What the Labor Party Primary Says about Israel’s Consensus

By Evelyn Gordon, COMMENTARY

Following Monday’s leadership primary for Israel’s main moderate-left party, much has been written about the outcome and its implications for the party. What I found far more interesting, however, was the campaign itself and what it said about the Israeli consensus. Since the primary electorate consisted solely of Labor Party members, one would have expected the candidates to veer left (and then move back to center in the general election). Instead, both candidates publicly disavowed several ideas popular among left-wing journalists and activists, indicating that those ideas are toxic even on the moderate left.



Ostensibly, winner Avi Gabbay and runner-up Amir Peretz couldn’t be more different. Peretz is a veteran hard-left activist, an early leader of the Peace Now movement, who was advocating Palestinian statehood back when most Israelis still considered the idea anathema. Gabbay is a moderate who once supported Benjamin Netanyahu’s center-right Likud party and, more recently, co-founded the centrist Kulanu party. Yet they sounded almost indistinguishable when answering five questions posed by Haaretz (in Hebrew) before Monday’s run-off (an abbreviated English version is here).

Asked about the idea of unilaterally withdrawing from parts of the West Bank, for instance, both men rejected it. “I don’t believe in unilateral withdrawal,” Gabbay said bluntly. Peretz was wordier, but still quite clear. “We won’t continue to settle the territories, but at the same time, we mustn’t forget the lessons of the unilateral withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza (and also from other conflict areas around the world),” he said.

What makes this surprising is that several Labor-affiliated former senior-defense-officials-turned-activists have been pushing unilateral withdrawal. Among them are former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, the man slated to be Labor’s defense minister had it won the last election, and former Shin Bet security service chief Ami Ayalon, a one-time Labor Knesset member. Thus one might expect the idea to appeal to rank-and-file members.

But Peretz and Gabbay thought otherwise. Israel’s unilateral pullout from Gaza in 2005 resulted in three wars and 16,000 rockets on Israel (compared to zero from the Israeli-controlled West Bank), while its unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 enabled Hezbollah to grow from a terrorist nuisance into a major strategic threat. That terrorist organization’s arsenal of 150,000 rockets is larger than that of most national armies. The candidates evidently concluded that even left-of-center Israelis no longer believe the activist “experts” who persist in denying that unilateral withdrawal endangers Israel’s security.

Moreover, both candidates promised to freeze settlement construction, but only outside the major settlement blocs. This is a sharp rejection of the line the Obama Administration spent eight years peddling—that construction anywhere beyond the 1949 armistice lines, even in areas everyone knows will remain Israeli under any agreement, is an obstacle to peace. It turns out even left-of-center Israelis consider it ludicrous for Israel to stop building in the settlement blocs and large Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem. They simply don’t buy the idea that construction in these areas, which will clearly remain Israeli, is a legitimate excuse for the Palestinians’ ongoing refusal to negotiate.

No less noteworthy was one glaring omission. Though both candidates promised immediate final-status negotiations with the Palestinians and deemed a peace deal essential, their only stated reason for this position was to keep Israel from becoming a binational state. Neither so much as mentioned the fear that Israel could face growing international isolation if it didn’t resolve the conflict. That claim has been a staple of left-wing advocacy for years. It was most famously expressed by former Labor chairman (and former prime minister) Ehud Barak who, in 2011, warned that Israel would face a “diplomatic tsunami” if the conflict continued.

This argument has been getting harder and harder to make in recent years, as Israel’s diplomatic reach has steadily expanded. But it would have sounded particularly fatuous coming just days after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historic visit to Israel, which caused many who had previously parroted Barak’s warning to throw in the towel. Typical headlines from center-left commentators included “Where’s the diplomatic isolation?” and “Modi visit shows Israel can improve foreign ties even without a peace process.” Judging by the fact that neither Peretz nor Gabbay mentioned this argument, they evidently think even Labor Party members will no longer buy it.

As an aside, it’s far from clear that diplomatic ties would continue expanding under a Labor government, because center-left governments typically view the Palestinian issue as their top priority, and therefore devote much less time and energy to expanding ties with the rest of the world. In contrast, since Netanyahu’s government believes a Palestinian deal is currently unobtainable, it has invested enormous effort in expanding Israel’s other diplomatic relationships. And that effort matters.

As Kenya’s UN ambassador said last week, it’s only recently that “the lights have gone on” in Israel and it has started engaging. Previously, he spent years asking Israeli officials, “Why are you not engaged? Where is Israel?” But the possibility that Labor might choose to focus on the Palestinians instead doesn’t change the fact that Israel clearly can expand its diplomacy even without a peace process.

Finally, Peretz and Gabbay both rejected the increasingly popular argument among left-wing activists that fully integrating Israeli Arabs requires inviting elected Arab parties into the governing coalition, no matter how extreme those parties are. They include one parliamentarian doing jail time for smuggling cell phones to imprisoned terrorists, another who calls Arab policemen “traitors,” and a third who canceled a meeting with American Jewish leaders because he “cannot in good conscience” enter a building that houses a Zionist organization. Gabbay, typically blunt, said the Arab parties’ Joint List “includes anti-Zionist elements … so we can’t cooperate with this composition.” Peretz concurred: “Incidents that have occurred in the Joint List undoubtedly make it very hard to add them to any future coalition. Effectively, the difficulty is so great as to make this impossible.”

In short, both men upheld the traditional view that integration requires bolstering Arab moderates rather than bolstering radical politicians who support terrorists and/or want to abolish the Jewish state. Evidently, they believed any other position would repel Labor voters.

The bottom line is that, even among mainstream left-of-center voters, many ideas pushed by left-wing journalists and activists remain toxic. It’s a point worth remembering for all those foreigners who get much of their information from these very same sources.

Those demanding mixed prayer at the Wall are those willing to cede it

Jewish leftists complain about a Wall they demand Israel give to the Arabs in any agreement.

Mark Langfan

Make no mistake. This isn’t a local American-Israeli Jewish dispute over a section of the Western Wall or conversion rights. This is an all-out assault on the security of the nation of Israel by Israeli and American leftists who want to destroy the Netanyahu right-of-center government and impose a two-state solution on the Jews of Israel.

And, for full disclosure, I’m not an Orthodox Jew. Nevertheless, the ultimate hypocrisy of these fulminating Jews is that the very same Jews who are outraged about protecting the “rights” of reform women donning tefillin at the Western Wall, are the exact same Jews who turn around and say Israel has to return to the 1967 lines, divide Jerusalem, and cede the Western Wall.

One can expose any of these hypocrites for the charlatans they are with a simple demand. Every person who self-righteously pontificates to you about how Israel should let Reform Jewish women pray at the Western Wall should demand these Jews make a “Unified Jerusalem” pledge in which they swear they will demand Israel have 100% full control over East Jerusalem. If Israel demanded that American Reform and Conservative Rabbis declare a “Unified Jerusalem” pledge, the issue would die down in an instant.

This American Jewish liberal community's noise about the Western Wall and conversion rights has nothing to do with praying at the Western Wall or conversion rights. This is about American Jews extracting their pound of emotional flesh out of the nation of Israel they officiously claim to love. This is about American leftist billionaires throwing their donations around as if Israel is a kept woman. This is about American Jewish two-Staters who are hysterical because President Trump isn’t extorting Israel into 1967 Auschwitz borders.

That is why these Jews now believe it is their right to bash Israel and try to weaken the Israel-American relationship any way and every way they can. These very same American leftists would not say a word about the Wall if the Israeli government were retreating to the 1967 Green Line and giving up the Western Wall entirely. But they protest vociferously a Jewish government keeping the Wall under the religious status quo that has worked for 50 years.

Where were these Jews from 1948 to 1967 when Jordan occupied East Jerusalem and destroyed over 25 synagogues and used gravestones to build latrines?

These two-faced American Jews should be exposed for what they are. They don’t care a hoot about the Western Wall, they only care about weakening Israel.

So Now American Zionists Want to Boycott Israel - Alan Dershowitz

Editor's note: 

I would like to begin that for the most part I find that I don't really agree with Dershowitz on pretty much anything - including almost everything written in this article. 

With that said however, I think it is a worthwhile read as Dershowitz does make a good point that support for the Jewish state should not be contingent on whether or not it currently represents the image we have set for it (I hold such sentiment for my Ultra-Orthodox Anti-Zionist brethren as well). Israel is our homeland. Jews across the globe are better off becasue of its creation, period.

Being that as it may, I nevertheless must point out that by his own admission, Dershowitz is a post-denominational Jew - go figure out what that means - which in action translates into a state of mind that clearly seeks to strip the Jewish homeland - and its inhabitants for that matter - of the religious identity that gives credence to its claim for the land in the first place.

Unfortunately for Dershowitz, and thankfully for us, the Western wall is not government property and has been for the last two thousand years a shul by Orthodox Jews for Orthodox Jews - however, that does not stop Dershowitz, from stipulating that the government of Israel has a right to come and undo a two thousand year old status quo, after all why would he - tradition means nothing to him (which at times makes me wonder why he be a zionist at all...)

Thankfully, Dershowitz and the whole concept of the post denominational Jew is a dying breed, and with God divine mercy has had a rather short run in the grander scheme of things. (as pointed out by Pew and others...)

by Alan M. Dershowitz, GATESTONE INSTITUTE

“We shall . . . prevent any theocratic tendencies from coming to the fore on the part of our priesthood. We shall keep our priests [by which is meant Rabbis] within the confines of heir temples.” – Theodor Herzl, Der Judenstaat
Tough love may be an appropriate response in family matters, but boycotting a troubled nation which has become a pariah among the hard-left is not the appropriate response to the Israeli government’s recent decisions regarding religion. The answer is not disengagement, but rather greater engagement….

To do otherwise is to engage in a form of BDS – the tactic currently employed by Israel’s enemies to delegitimize the Nation state of the Jewish people. Supporters of BDS will point to these benign boycotts as a way of justifying their malignant ones…. The role of American Jews is limited to persuasion, not coercion.

Several prominent American Zionists – including long-time supporters of Israel – are so outraged at the Israeli government’s recent decision regarding the Western Wall and non-orthodox conversion, that they are urging American Jews to reduce or even eliminate their support for Israel. According to an article by Elliot Abrams in Mosaic, Ike Fisher a prominent member of the AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] board, threatened to “suspend” all further financial support for Israel. Daniel Gordis, a leading voice for Conservative Judaism, urged American Jews to cancel their El Al tickets and fly Delta or United. He also proposed “withholding donations to Israeli hospitals, so that ‘They start running out of money’ and ‘begin to falter.'” This sort of emotional response is reminiscent of the temper tantrum outgoing President Barak Obama engaged in when he refused to veto the UN’s recent anti-Israel resolution.

I strongly disagree both with the Israeli government’s capitulation to the minority of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who wield far too much influence in Israeli politics, and with the proposals to cut back on support for Israel by some of my fellow critics of the Israeli government’s recent decisions with regard to religion.

I strongly support greater separation between religion and state in Israel, as Theodor Herzl outlined in his plan for the nation-state of the Jewish People in Der Judenstaat 120 years ago: “We shall . . . prevent any theocratic tendencies from coming to the fore on the part of our priesthood. We shall keep our priests [by which is meant Rabbis] within the confines of heir temples.” It was David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founding Prime Minister, who made the deal with the Orthodox Rabbinate that violated Herzl’s mandate and knocked down the wall of separation between religion and state. He allocated to the Chief Rabbinate authority over many secular matters, such as marriage, divorce and child custody. He also laid the groundwork for the creation of religious parties that have been a necessary part of most Israeli coalitions for many years.

So, do not blame Israel’s current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for the recent capitulation. His government’s survival depends on his unholy alliance with allegedly holy parties that threaten to leave the coalition and bring down his government unless he capitulated. The alternative to a Netanyahu government might well be far to the right of the current government, both on religious matters and on prospects for peace. Reasonable people may disagree as to whether Netanyahu did the right thing, but I believe that given the choice between the current government and what may well replace it, PM Netanyahu acted on acceptable priorities.

This is not to say that I am happy with the end result. As a post-denominational Jew, I want to see a part of the Western Wall opened to conservative and reform prayer. I also want to see conservative and reform and modern orthodox rabbis deemed fully competent to perform rituals including marriage and divorce. I will continue to fight for these outcomes, and I think we will ultimately be successful. But in the meantime, I will also continue to fly El Al, contribute to Israeli hospitals, attend APAC events, and encourage Americans to support Israel, both politically and financially. To do otherwise is to engage in a form of BDS – the tactic currently employed by Israel’s enemies to delegitimate the Nation state of the Jewish people. Supporters of BDS will point to these benign boycotts as a way of justifying their malignant ones. If BDS is an immoral tactic, as it surely is, so too is punishing the people of Israel for the failure of its government to be fully inclusive of Jews who do not align themselves with the ultra-Orthodox.

Tough love may be an appropriate response in family matters, but boycotting a troubled nation which has become a pariah among the hard-left is not the appropriate response to the Israeli government’s recent decisions regarding religion. The answer is not disengagement, but rather greater engagement with Israel on matters that involve world Jewry. I, too, am furious about the arrogant and destructive threats of the ultra-Orthodox parties in the current government. I, too, would prefer to see a coalition that excluded the ultra-Orthodox parties. I, too, would like to see a high wall of separation that kept the Rabbis out of politics. But I do not live in Israel, and Israel is a democracy. Ultimately it is up to the citizens of Israel to change the current system. The role of American Jews is limited to persuasion, not coercion. In the end, we will be successful in persuading the Israeli people to take the power of religious, coercion out of the hands of the ultra-Orthodox minority because that would not only be good for secular Israelis – who are a majority – but also for religious Israelis. History has proven that separation of state from religion is better not only for the state, but also for religion.

Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School and author of Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law and Electile Dysfunction: A Guide for the Unaroused Voter.

Rabbis Condemn Reform and Conservative Movements for Dividing World Jewry

Rabbis Condemn Reform and Conservative Movements for Dividing World Jewry

Baltimore, MD, July 16, 2017 -- The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), representing nearly 200 North American observant rabbis, today called upon the Reform and Conservative movements to "stop dividing the Jewish People" with what it termed a "disinformation campaign" regarding Israel's Western Wall. The American liberal groups launched a billboard and poster campaign across Israel Thursday featuring the slogan "Free the Western Wall -- Enough of Charedi Control!" Charedim, often called "ultra-Orthodox," are only a minority of Israel's traditional Jews.

According to the CJV, the American-funded posters disenfranchise all traditional Israeli Jews, including refugees from countries like Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Algeria and Morocco, as well as Jews from ancient communities in Italy, Greece, India and elsewhere. None of these are considered "charedi" or "ultra-Orthodox," yet all strictly observe the custom of dividing men and women during prayer.

"This is a disinformation campaign intended to calumny other Jews," said Rabbi Yaakov Menken, Director of the CJV. "It doesn't merely demonize the charedim, it insults all Jews who do not follow Reform's lead in the abandonment of classical Jewish practice."

According to the CJV, this is but one element of an international effort to misrepresent Israel's commitment to democracy and religious freedom. In 2013 the Israeli government built a facility called "Ezrat Yisrael" to facilitate alternative prayers of all kinds at the Western Wall. The American movements claim this section as their own, yet have never filled it.

"On July 11, the fast of the 17th of Tammuz, Ezrat Yisrael stood entirely empty while the traditional section was filled to capacity," said Rabbi Pesach Lerner, a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the CJV. "The American movements know that over 99.9% of Jewish prayers said in Israel accord with traditional practice. They are demanding an 'equal' space for political reasons, while falsely claiming that current facilities for their use are inadequate and discriminatory."

Anat Hoffman, Director of Women of the Wall and the Israel Religious Action Center of the Reform movement, filmed a video on July 4 decrying Ezrat Yisrael as "a second-rate platform for second-rate Jews." During the video, funded by the Reform movement in Israel, she stands only in a small section designed for people to approach and touch the Wall itself without disturbing the archaeological site beneath, while never showing the full expanse of Ezrat Yisrael.

"She and the Reform movement knowingly exploit the fact that most American Jews have not come to Israel to see the truth for themselves," concluded Rabbi Menken. "They should stop this dishonest effort to divide the Jewish People. They should be ashamed."

The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), directed by prominent rabbinic leaders and representing nearly 200 rabbis across North America, articulates an authentic Jewish perspective on current events, and promotes Jewish values through writing and teaching derived from traditional Jewish thought.