ZOA wants ‘HaTikvah slate’ disqualified by WZC

ZOA logoNEW YORK (Press Release) — The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) filed an objection/complaint on Monday, Dec. 29,  with the election officials administering the upcoming World Zionist Congress election, to disqualify a group that misleadingly calls itself the “HaTikvah slate,” because the group Ameinu of the “HaTikvah slate” lobbies for international sanctions against Israeli leaders whose political positions they disagree with, and because the group Partners for a Progressive Israel (PPI) of the “HaTikvah slate” promotes boycotts against Israeli Jewish businesses in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.

ZOA’s complaint points out that The World Zionist Organization’s Constitution forbids membership by groups that engage in discrimination based on origin or nationality, and that the groups comprising the so-called “HaTikvah slate” discriminate against Israeli Jews and harms numerous Palestinian Arab employees as well. ZOA’s complaint further notes that such discriminatory boycotts violate New York State’s Human Rights Law, as well as the raison d’etre of the World Zionist Congress.

 

Partners for a Progressive Israel (PPI), also known as MeretzUSA, a leading group in the “HaTikvah slate,” openly boycotts and promotes boycotts against Jewish/Israeli businesses in eastern Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, including cities such as Ariel, Ma’ale Adumim, Hebron, and Efrat. 

 

PPI’s boycott hurts hard working Jews and Arabs who are simply trying to make a living to support their families, and harms peaceful co-existence. For instance, PPI boycotted and hounded SodaStream until SodaStream announced it was moving its plant. The plant move is expected to result in hundreds of Arabs losing well-paying jobs at a company with a stellar record of treating Arabs and Jews equally. SodaStream even had an onsite mosque on its premises.

 

Ameinu, another leading group comprising the “HaTikvah slate,” is lobbying for severe international sanctions to be imposed against certain Jewish Israeli leaders and public figures.   These sanctions include asset freezes and travel exclusions – the same sorts of sanctions that are usually reserved for terrorist regimes.

 

ZOA’s complaint also points to interconnections among the four groups comprising the “HaTikvah slate.”   IRS filings show that Partners for Progressive Israel and Ameinu share an address.  The other two members of the “HaTikvah” slate, Habonim Dror North America and Hashomer Hatzair, appear to be youth arms of the slates’ other members.

 

In addition, the ZOA complaint points to evidence that J Street is part of the same “HaTikvah slate.”   The top three Ameinu officials are also J-Street officials or closely involved with J Street.  In addition, an Ameinu director wrote in 2009 that J Street would be part of the “HaTikvah” slate.   J Street is involved in de facto promotion of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (“BDS”) against Israel, including by featuring the leaders of the BDS movement, including Mustafa Barghouti and Rebecca Vilkomerson, at J Street national conferences and J Street events throughout the country, and by honoring BDS leaders.  Part of the J Street video entitled “Giving Voices to Our Values” also promotes boycotting all of Israel.

 

Both Partners for a Progressive Israel and J Street have also given platforms at their national conferences /symposia to a major leader of the “Lawfare” movement.   “Lawfare” is the use and abuse of court systems to wage war against Israel.

 

In addition to pointing to violations of anti-discrimination provisions of the World Zionist Organization Constitution and the New York State Human Rights Law, ZOA’s complaint provided a historical perspective on why anti-Jewish boycotts are such an anathema, as follows:

 

“We note that discrimination and boycotts against Jews are a particularly egregious violation for a member of the World Zionist Congress to engage in.    The World Zionist Congress and State of Israel were founded in part exactly to prevent such anti-Jewish boycotts and discrimination.  Theodore Herzl repeatedly wrote that boycotts of Jewish businesses were one of the types of anti-Jewish persecution that required the existence of a Jewish State.   In his famous book, The Jewish State, at the beginning of his discussion of “The Jewish Question,” Herzl wrote:

 

“No one can deny the gravity of the situation of the Jews.  Wherever they live in perceptible numbers, they are more or less persecuted.  Their equality before the law, granted by statute, has become practically a dead letter. . . . And attempts are made to thrust them out of business also: “Don’t buy from Jews!”

(Emphasis added.)   Herzl also wrote in The Jewish State about Jews being persecuted by being excluded from certain areas and facilities.   The PPI [Partners for Progressive Israel] boycott acts to exclude Jews and Jewish businesses from stepping foot in the historic Jewish homelands of eastern Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria – including Hebron, Jerusalem suburbs and Maale Adumim (the locations of some of the operations of the Jewish businesses boycotted by PPI).

 

Herzl would roll over in his grave if he knew that the World Zionist Congress that he founded permitted the continued membership of groups that are actively working to “thrust out of business” fellow Jews.   WZO and AZM must not permit its members to demand: “Don’t buy from Jews!” 

 

ZOA’s complaint also points out that: “Herzl would have been horrified to see members of his World Zionist Congress demanding that foreign governments should financially punish leaders of the Jewish State and restrict these Jews from entering the U.S. and Europe.   In The Jewish State, Herzl wrote that financial imposts (penalties) and travel exclusions were among the multitude forms of persecution against Jews.”

 

The ZOA complaint also objected to the “HaTikvah slate”‘s name, because this slate promotes a false image that may mislead voters.   HaTikvah, the national anthem of Israel, speaks of the Jewish soul yearning for 2000 years to live freely in Zion and Jerusalem.   Voters may well assume that a slate named “HaTikvah” shares the same nationalist sentiments.  Voters may thus be misled into voting for a slate that in fact promotes boycotts against Jewish businesses in eastern Jerusalem and other areas encompassed by the song.   The complaint also points out that Ameinu directors have been at the forefront of an effort to remove all Jewish content from the song HaTikvah, and that longtime Ameinu board member Leonard Fein called the song HaTikvah an “insult.”

ZOA President Morton A. Klein said: “For the World Zionist Congress to allow groups to run who demonize Israel, promote placing international sanctions on political leaders they disagree with, and harm Israel and its people (both Jewish and Arab) economically through promoting boycotts, is an affront to the very meaning of Zionism, and does severe harm to Israel. That’s why the ZOA is urging the WJC to disqualify Ameinu and Partners for a Progressive Israel of the so-called “Hatikva slate” from running.”

 

ZOA’s complaint is well documented with extensive citations.  A copy of ZOA’s objection/complaint regarding the “HaTikvah” slate is available here.  

 

The Zionist Organization of America Slate in the Upcoming World Zionist Congress Election:  The Zionist Organization of America will be running an All-Star slate in the upcoming World Zionist Congress elections.   The ZOA slate is led by ZOA National President Morton A. Klein and Irwin Hochberg (past Chairman of the UJA-UJC Jewish Federation of New York and past National Campaign Chair for Israel Bonds), and includes top ZOA officials, board members and activists, students from numerous universities, prominent professors, physicians, a best selling author, a former U.S. Congressman, and the heads of other prominent Jewish organizations.   The ZOA slate includes members of every stream of Judaism and numerous communities, including the Persian-Jewish community, Russian-Jewish community and more!    

 

The ZOA slate is dedicated to: a strong, secure Israel: defending Jews throughout the world; assisting the escape of Jews who are experiencing severe anti-Semitism in Europe and elsewhere; Zionist and Jewish education; fighting against anti-Semitism on college campuses; and defending Israel’s legal, historical, religious and moral rights. 

 

The ZOA slate has received important endorsements, including from the head of the Jewish Agency, Natan Sharansky.

 

We urge everyone to vote for the Zionist Organization of America slate in the World Zionist Congress election, which begins on January 13, 2015 and continues until April 30, 2015.
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Preceding provided by the Zionist Organization of America

3 thoughts on “ZOA wants ‘HaTikvah slate’ disqualified by WZC”

  1. Pingback: Hatikvah Slate calls ZOA charges 'hysterical' - San Diego Jewish World

  2. I find it difficult to understand the Jewish World publishing the scurrilous article about the HaTikvah slate without checking with the AEC of the AZM. The motion was served on PPI on Sunday night at midnight. A few days later Judge Gafni of the AEC dismissed the motion. That should have been checked by the Jewish World. If the reporter had checked with the participants in the HaTikvah slate, these facts would have been learned. Ha Shomer HaTsair and HaBonim Dror are among the oldest Zionist organization started by the Kibbutz movements at the beginning of the 20th century. They both have strong Aliya programs to encourage American Jewish to make Aliya to Israel. PPI and Ameinu have their roots in the Mapam and Mapai parties from which sprang virually all of the leaders of the Sate of Israel in the first 10 years of the existence of the state.

    Finally, the Platform of the Hatikvah slate does not mention BDS but calls for

    s two state solution
    support for youth movements
    Social justice and protection of democratic rights for all Israeli Citizens
    Recognition of all religious streams
    Refugee reform
    and alliance with the Israeli Labor Party and Meretz

    The delegates on the slate come from rabbis and leaders of many different notable Jewish organizations in the US.

    All of this information should have been available for your readership.

    Larry Lerner
    Partners for a Progressive Israel
    20 Crown Drive
    Warren, NJ 07059
    lilerner 3215@gmail.com

  3. The AEC did NOT address the substance of the complaint against the HaTikvah slate. The complaint is now before the World Zionist Congress’s Central Elections Board.

    ZOA’s complaint (also joined in by the Hovei Zion slate) against the HaTikvah slate is very well documented with dozens of citations to Partners’ for Progressive Israel’s own website and the other members of the slate’s statements and activities supporting discriminatory boycotts against Jewish-israel businesses and international sanctions against israeli officials whom they disagree with. Copies of the complaint and supplement to the complaint are on ZOA’s website. There are important reading for anyone who is concerned about anti-Israel boycotts. Here is a very brief summary of the boycott and sanctions activities of major members of the “HaTikvah slate”:

    (1) Partners for a Progressive Israel (PIP) (a major member of the “HaTikvah” slate) promotes discriminatory boycotts of Jewish Israel businesses in 170 industries in Jerusalem, Hebron, Ariel, Efrat, Ma’ale Adumim, etc. right on PIP’s website. Partners for a Progressive Israel’s Chairman Theodore Bikel also promotes cultural/artistic boycotts including boycotting the new Israeli-Jewish arts facility in Ariel.

    (2) Ameinu (another major member of the HaTikvah slate) lobbies U.S. and European governments to impose severe financial and visa sanctions on Jewish Israeli government officials whom Ameinu disagrees with. Ameinu’s top officials also double as J Street officials or are tied closely to J Street, which engages in extensive de facto promotion of BDS.

    (3) “Open Hillel”: The confusingly-named “Open Hillel” group tries to force the eminent campus organization Hillel International to provide platforms to promote the global BDS movement – while denying platforms to opponents of BDS. “Open Hillel” was formed in 2012 to attempt to abolish Hillel International’s “Standards of Partnership.” Hillel International’s reasonable “Standards of Partnership” prohibit campus Hillel facilities from hosting organizations that promote BDS against Israel. “Open Hillel” brings in speakers who say that Israel should be destroyed and cease to exist. “Open Hillel” is working together with the anti-Israel anti-Semitic hate group “Students for Justice in Palestine” (SJP) SJP members have violently attacked Jewish students on college campuses.

    (4) Americans for Peace Now (APN): APN openly promotes boycotts of Jewish Israeli businesses in eastern Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.

    (5) New Israel Fund (NIF): NIF spent large sums of money erecting the BDS infrastructure, and continues to fund BDS groups and their co-conspirators. The NIF-funded Adalah organization’s “Adalah-NY and friends” participated in a “Global BDS Day of Action” with a pro-BDS “flash mob” at Grand Central Station. Adalah’s current Facebook page also brags about “the amazing things we achieved together in 2014 – BDSmovement.net,” and declares “Tell the New York City Council: Don’t Tour Apartheid Israel.” NIF grantees Adalah, B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence also provided the false information to Judge Goldstone which formed the basis of the false (and since discredited) Goldstone report that accused Israel of war crimes. The BDS movement uses the false Goldstone report as one of its chief weapons to promote BDS against Israel. The “US Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel” has a web page entitled “Sections of Goldstone Report Very Useful for BDS and related campaigns.” The NIF also funds groups that hire Arabs to viciously provoke a response from young Israeli soldiers. On the rare occasion when a young soldier responds, these groups’ cameras film and disseminate the response to try to harm the humane IDF’s reputation.

    (6) J-Street: J Street promotes, honors, and gives major platforms to the leaders of the global BDS movement (including Mustafa Barghouti) at its national conferences and brings top BDS leaders to college campuses. J Street also promotes BDS on J Street’s website video.

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