ZOA ‘appalled’ by Sanders’ Dem. platform choices

ZOA logoNEW YORK (Press Release)–The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is appalled by the fact that Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (D–VT) has chosen for his slate of five delegates to the 15-person Democratic Party Platform drafting committee, three figures who are well known hostile critics and even relentless haters of Israel: the academic Cornel West, James Zogby, the president of the Arab American Institute, and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) (the first Muslim member of Congress). Reports indicate that Senator Sanders would like the Platform to include, among other things,  explicit reference to the so-called and wrongly termed “Israeli occupation of Palestinian Arab lands,” and recognition of the Palestinian Arab “right” to statehood. (Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem are not Arab Lands – when in 1947 the Palestinian Arabs rejected the UN resolution for some of these areas for a Palestinian Arab State, it became unallocated international land. Jordan then illegally occupied these lands from 1948-67. Only two countries recognized Jordan’s occupation – then Jordan relinquished the claims to these lands in 1988.)

The Palestinians have no automatic right to statehood. They have have violated every aspect of the Oslo agreements, allied themselves with Hamas, incite and promote the murder of Jews, pay pensions to the families of Jew-killing terrorists, name schools, streets, and sports teams after terrorists, refuse to outlaw terror groups, have refused to negotiate with Israel for 7 years, and refused to have elections since 2005 – thus creating a terrorist dictatorship.

Cornel West is a fervent supporter of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign to delegitimize Israel. BDS, as openly admitted by its founders, aims for Israel’s delegitimization and eventual elimination, while ignoring genuine human rights abuses committed by myriad other states like China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Syria. West also has denounced Israel’s wrongly termed “occupation” of Gaza as “ugly … vicious …brutal,” and called Gaza as “not just a ‘kind of’ concentration camp, it is the hood on steroids,” even though Israel no longer rules any part of Gaza or half of Judea/Samaria, where 98% of Palestinian Arabs actually live. He has also accused of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of committing “war crimes.”

Reports indicate that Senator Sanders would like the Platform to include, among other things, explicit reference to the so-called and wrongly termed “Israeli occupation of Palestinian Arab lands,” and recognition of the Palestinian Arab “right” to statehood.

James Zogby, longtime head of the Arab American Institute, has accused Israel of committing a “Holocaust” against the Palestinians and has referred to Israelis as “Nazis.” He has also described sitting Members of Congress as “Israel firsters,” an anti-Semitic trope insinuating a charge of dual loyalty against all Americans, Jewish or not, who strongly support Israel. In a 2010 blog post, Zogby disgracefully compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinian Arabs with the Nazi treatment of Jews in Shoah, a classic anti-Semitic charge that insinuates the notion that Israel needs to be destroyed, just as Nazi Germany was. In 1995, he criticized the U.S. government for arresting Hamas terrorist leader Musa Abu Marzook and the Clinton Administration’s counter-terrorism effort to cut off funds to Middle Eastern radical Muslim groups, saying their social welfare activities justified continued U.S. inaction against them.

Representative Ellison has voiced criticism over Israel’s policy in Judea/Samaria and has called for an American role that is far more pro-Palestinian. In 2013, he welcomed, unlike the U.S., the UN General Assembly decision to admit ‘Palestine’ –– Mahmoud Abbas’ terror-promoting Palestinian Authority –– as a non-member state. In the 2014 Gaza war, which stemmed from Hamas launching 20,000 rocket barrages from Gaza at Israeli civilians, Ellison, in an act of false moral equivalence, called on both sides to cease fire –– that is, for Hamas to stop attempting to murder Israelis and on Israelis to cease defending themselves against Hamas rockets: “I call on Hamas to immediately stop launching rockets, and for Israel to cease air strikes and not send in ground troops.”

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “It is absolutely appalling, even frightening that Senator Sanders has nominated such hostile critics and haters of the Jewish State of Israel like Cornel West, James Zogby and Keith Ellison to serve on the committee drafting the Democratic Party’ Platform on the Middle East.

“Such figures are likely to do serious harm and work hard to dilute the Democratic Platform even further beyond the anti-Israel changes to the Platform that occurred in 2012, which we thoroughly documented at the time.

“The ZOA recalls that the Democratic Party Platform in 2012 was drastically rewritten to omit the 2008 Platform’s call for isolating Hamas until it renounces terrorism, recognizes Israel’s right to exist, and abides by past agreements: to oppose Israel’s return to the vulnerable 1949 armistice lines; to oppose the division of Jerusalem; and to support the resettlement of Palestinian refugees of the 1948-9 war and their millions of descendants in a future Palestinian state rather than in Israel.

“Although, after protest, reference to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was inserted into the 2012 Platform. What remains omitted is the need to isolate Hamas, no Israel return to the 1949 armistice lines, and the need to resettle so-called Palestinian refugees and their descendants outside Israel (who were told to leave Israel by the Arab nations during the Arab initiated 1948 war).

“We are therefore deeply worried that diluting support and advocating hostile positions against Israel will continue in the 2016 Democratic Party Platform. This is a moment when the Democratic Party should restore its support for Israel.

“The 2016 Platform should affirm, as the 2008 Platform did, its support for the isolation of Hamas; Jerusalem’s indivisibility; the resettlement of Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants in a future Palestinian state, not Israel; and opposition to an Israeli retreat to the 1949 armistice lines.”

“America should be supporting its human rights-loving, law abiding ally, Israel- not the terror promoting ally of Hamas, the Palestinian Authority.  We urge the Democratic party to maintain bipartisan support for Israel, the most reliable ally of the US.”

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