Sadly, in my metaphorical version of this fable, the wolf’s role is played not just by self-avowed anti-Semites. Sure, there are plenty of anti-Semites and it is certainly distressing when you find them living in the same Jewish home as the rest of us. They are the wolves in sheep’s clothing and have formed pro-Israel sounding groups like J Street, B’tselem, New Israel Fund, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Peace Now among others. But make no mistake; these groups are enemies of the Jewish people and Israel.
There are also Jewish Americans who claim to be pro-Israel but who support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign and use terms like “occupier” and “colonizer” to describe the Jewish homeland. Peter Beinart is an example of someone with this psychosis. And of course, there are Jewish Americans who proudly wear their emblazoned anti-Semitism like the yellow stars of the Holocaust including Noam Chomsky, Max Blumenthal, and Norman Finkelstein.
But more ominous and dangerous are the mainstream Jewish organizations — funded and supported by a great many American Jews — that are actually pro-Israel. Unfortunately, many of these organizations are led by Jews who are naïve and misguided at best, delusional and power-hungry at worst. These groups for some unfathomable reason believe that building a big tent will save Israel and the rest of us from the dangerous wolves that salivate and pace around us waiting to pounce at the first possible moment.
AIPAC comes to mind as it proved itself useless last year by remaining silent in the face of the Hagel nomination, allowed itself to be used by the Obama administration in a political ploy to gain support for a military intervention in the Syrian civil war, and fumbled the fight for additional sanctions on Iran as it caved to political pressure. This organization invites foes of Israel into its big tent with claims of access and influence (aka self-serving political expediency).
This week, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs announced its support to include J Street in a bid to join the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. In justifying their decision to support inclusion of a group that not only embraces BDSers under its big tent but that supports negotiations with the terrorist organization Hamas (whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel). JCPA’s president proudly stated, “They’re an important part of the Jewish community. They fit in the picture of a big tent, which is the kind of community we believe in strongly.” What’s next, an invitation to CAIR?
Alas, the insanity does not end there. The UJA-Federations and Jewish Community Relations Council, organizers of the annual Salute to Israel Parade, are mired in their own “open tent” controversy as they continue to double down on the horrific decision to include three anti-Israel, pro-BDS groups in that parade. One group, Partners for Progressive Israel, believes that American Jews “should refuse to purchase any goods or services, including tourism services, made in or by the settlements.” Another, New Israel Fund, has itself funded BDS campaigns that reject Israel’s legitimacy. The third organization, B’Tselem, not only produced a video shown at Israel Apartheid Week on college campuses across the world, its chair has publicly called for “effective sanctions” against Israel. It is a major grantee of NIF.
Speaking of college campuses, there is a new movement afoot among the nation’s Hillels equivalent to the big tent (with J Street at the helm). It is called “Open Hillel” and results from the liberal worship that permeates intellectual discourse and that is strangling Jewish hearts and minds. These lost souls insist on free speech notwithstanding the fact that they wind up inviting anti-Israel hate speech into their big tent. Unfathomably, these same misguided Jews allow pro-Israel speakers to be shouted down — all in the name of what they or the local Islamist agitators claim to be politically-correct speech. From NYU and Northeastern where Students for Justice in Palestine scare and intimidate Jewish students by serving them eviction notices in the purported safety of their dorms (these are far from the metaphorical houses of bricks that their Israeli brethren erected) to Vassar, Cornell, the University of Michigan, and Brandeis, the pro-BDS movement is outpacing any pro-Israel group that attempts to make inroads.