Because of Terrorism Fears and Their Hatred of Jews and Israel
By Deborah Nussbaum Cohen, HAARETZ
NEW YORK – The United States should not accept any Syrian refugees, Zionist Organization of America president Mort Klein told attendees at a gala banquet here Sunday night, adding that many of them hate Jews and Israel. In addition, he said, parents and siblings of terrorists should be deported unless they publicly condemn, in Hebrew and Arabic, the acts of their family member. Klein was speaking to an audience of more than 1,000 people at the 2015 Justice Louis D. Brandeis Award Dinner, held at Manhattan’s Grand Hyatt hotel.
“Don’t bring these refugees here. Treat as pariahs all those who promote radical Islam. … We must crush radical Islam as we crushed Nazism,” Klein said.
Attendees greeted both of Klein’s proposals with wild applause. It was one of several moments of right-wing ideology met by popular – though perhaps, given the $700 per person ticket price, not populist – acclaim.
“I don’t even know the legalities of it,” Klein told Haaretz after the dinner, of the deportation proposal. “I am so frustrated by the horror, the terror almost every day. The streets of Israel are empty, stores are 80 percent down in sales, people aren’t going to the Kotel. This is terrible. We can’t allow them to destroy Israel’s society,” he said, adding that ZOA’s board had not yet approved his idea but he expected it to do so at a meeting later this week. “These are extraordinary times and we need extraordinary measures.”
At the event, which was billed as “ZOA’s Superstar Gala,” actor Jon Voight received the Dr. Miriam & Sheldon Adelson Defender of Israel Award and Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer was given the ZOA’s Dr. Bob Shillman Award for Outstanding Diplomacy.
Dermer, in his remarks, called on world governments to wage war against militant Islam and castigated them for not coming to Israel’s defense during the current round of terrorist attacks. “In the past few weeks, 19 Israelis have been killed and some 200 have been wounded in terror attacks. … But rather than support Israel … we hear outrageous statements about a cycle of violence and the need for both sides to act with restraint.”
“Israel stands on the front lines of this great battle … the international community only blames Israel, libels Israel. … Whether or not the world stands with us, we will not be defeated,” Dermer said. “The Jewish people are no longer a stateless, voiceless, powerless people. Today the Jewish people defend themselves,” he said to enthusiastic applause.
Klein, speaking after Dermer, added, “we of ZOA will never be the ‘sha shtil’ [be quiet] Jews of before.”
Klein was born in a displaced persons camp in Germany to parents who survived the Holocaust. He was 4 when the family immigrated to Philadelphia, and spoke only Yiddish, he told Haaretz. Asked whether he does not feel, particularly in light of his own background, that there is an ethical imperative for the United States to take in refugees, he said: “As a Jew and as a Zionist, why should I want people who hate me to come to America? Especially when a small chunk might commit terrorist acts against my fellow Americans. It’s perfectly rational. No question most of them are not terrorists, but most hate Jews and Israel.
“There are 50 Muslim-majority countries, most of them near Syria. They should be going there. Saudi Arabia hasn’t taken a single Syrian refugee. They should be taking their coreligionists. If there was an Israel during the Holocaust, the Jews would have gone there. They have 50 Muslim Israels.”
Voight, dapper in a tuxedo and fringed yellow scarf, gave a disquisition on Middle East history and made clear that he is a supporter of Greater Israel. Israel “generously gave” back the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians, he said. “It’s no mystery what will happen if they give up Judea and Samaria,” said Voight. A practicing Catholic, the Oscar-winning actor stars in the Showtime series “Ray Donovan” and appears regularly in fundraising telethons for Chabad.
Former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, left, Jon Voight, and Mort Klein at the awards dinner.
Credit: J. Savitsky
“President Barack Obama has really turned his back on Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu,” said Voight, who made a campaign video for Netanyahu before the Israeli election in March.
“We really must pray that the 2016 election will bring in a Republican president. I am certain that the people in this room will be instrumental in bringing that about,” he said to cheers and a standing ovation that also brought Sheldon Adelson to his feet. The Republican kingmaker and Netanyahu benefactor entered the banquet hall on a motorized scooter, accompanied by bodyguards and his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson.
“You have just heard the word of a quintessential defender of Israel,” Adelson told the crowd immediately after Voight spoke.
Yet not all ZOA supporters are ardent Republicans. Susan Presky had come to the gala from her home in the Boston suburb of Newton for the second year in a row. She is a former Democratic voter who, because of what she called the party’s increasing distance from Israel, now considers herself an independent. A lawyer, she backs the ZOA because “this is one of the few organizations that really tells it like it is,” she said. “With all the media bias [against Israel], it’s very important to have a spokesman like Mort Klein.”
Dr. Miriam Adelson, left, and Sheldon Adelson at the rostrum during the awards dinner.
Credit: J. Savitsky
The Adelsons are the ZOA’s biggest donors, Klein told Haaretz after dinner, though he wouldn’t divulge how much they give. In 2013, the last year for which tax records are publicly available, the ZOA had just over $5 million in income, compared to just $1.4 million the previous year. Klein demurred when asked how much the gala raised.
More than 200 college students were at the banquet, including some members of Christians United for Israel on their campuses. The students each paid $25 a ticket, with the balance underwritten by donors including Adelson, Mort Zuckerman and James Tisch, Klein later said.
Other speakers included former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, who recently called on Christians to convert as many Jews as possible, and Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon. Danon quipped that while he’s been in the job just six weeks, “it feels like six years.”
The intention of the current terror “is to make us feel unsafe on our streets. If they are testing our resolve, they will fail,” Danon told the gala attendees. “We will overcome their cruel campaign of stabbings and stonings. The real test is for the international community.”
“There is only one side instigating violence. … Instead of holding Palestinians and [Palestinian] President [Mahmoud] Abbas responsible, the UN responds with more resolutions against Israel. Abbas lies and says Israel plans to make Al-Aqsa Jewish, to incite, he said,” referring to the mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
Though last month France initiated an effort to get international observers stationed on the Temple Mount, “we will not allow an international presence on Har Habayit!” Danon said to enthusiastic applause, using the Hebrew term for what Muslims call Haram al-Sharif. Today housing Muslim holy places Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, it also the location of both the first and second Temples, and is Judaism’s holiest site.
Had Jonathan Pollard been permitted to attend the banquet – it would have been a public coming-out since his release from federal prison last Friday – he surely would have been given a hero’s welcome. But the terms of his parole include a 7 P.M. to 7 A.M. curfew, movement “restricted to a small part of Manhattan” and constant federal monitoring of his online activity, his attorney Elliot Lauer said at the dinner.
“While he is out of prison, he is not free,” Lauer said. The restrictions “make it impossible for him to celebrate Shabbat or holiday with friends and family, and in effect bar him from any normal employment,” since no employer would want the federal government monitoring their business. A petition was filed on Friday in federal court to challenge the parole restrictions, Lauer said.
Lauer called on the ZOA backers to continue supporting the convicted spy’s quest for full emancipation. “He still needs your support to obtain true freedom,” Lauer said. “Am Israel Hai” [the people of Israel lives].”
About the ZOA
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is the oldest and one of the largest pro-Israel organizations in the United States. With offices around the country and in Israel, the ZOA educates the public, elected officials, the media, and college/high school students about the truth of the ongoing Arab war against Israel. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.- Israel relations through educational activities, public affairs programs and our work on Capitol Hill, and to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias in the media, in textbooks, in schools and on college campuses. Under the leadership of such presidents as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, and current President Morton A. Klein, the ZOA has been – and continues to be – on the front lines of Jewish activism. www.zoa.org. For more information contact Mort Klein 212-481-1500.
Brace Yourselves.
Obama will go on TV Tomorrow night and lie to the American People.
Rest might help ease your torment, but to remedy your confusion remember to read “Never Again! A Program For Survival” by Rabbi Meir Kahane.
@ babushka:
I rest my case.
And yet you respond.
Your absence of logic, for which you seek to compensate with a frenzied diatribe, goes far in explaining why you are extinct.
Your disordered screed reeks of guilt, as well it should. You liberal Jews know that you have now twice abandoned your own people. Siding with Roosevelt while he enabled the Holocaust. Siding with Obama as he provides Iran with the money and weapons to instigate yet another Holocaust.
Such betrayal. No wonder you are haunted by your shame.
Please allow me to help you recover from the emotional torment that has so damaged your psyche. Read the following: “Never Again! A Program For Survival” by Rabbi Meir Kahane.
After internalizing this wonderful text, you will immediately feel better. Your dense mental fog will lift. Your pathological need to enable anti-Semites will disappear as if by magic. You will stop crawling on all fours and begin walking upright.
And soon you will be thrilled to hear yourself rejoicing, “I am no longer a self-hating Jew! I am now a higher primate!!”
And a proud Zionist.
God Bless You, and good luck on your recovery.
@ babushka:
BULL. You must be jesting. You have forgotten who your audience is here Caro…oops I mean Babu. I do not think your characterizations and generalizations of both Israelis or Americans are accurate, they are only ugly stereotypes and caricatures, offensive to both, in the extreme, junior high school dropout level of logic, reason and analysis. Certainly not worthy of response in this forum as it demeans the intelligence of the readers and contributors to this excellent blog which strives to clarify rather than obscure.
The Israelis desperately desire peace, and in pursuit of that impossibility have made decisions that are recklessly naive. American Jews are craven egocentric poseurs who care only for themselves, and eagerly abandon their imperiled Jewish brethren in the futile attempt to gain acceptance from their fellow liberals. There is a huge moral distinction between unrealistically grasping at straws and gutlessly stabbing in the back. During the Holocaust, American Jews made a conscious self-serving decision to go morally AWOL. and nothing has changed.
@ babushka:
That is very “broad minded” of you. The Israeli Electorate voted for Shimon Peres and Glick was the eager beaver aide to Rabin designing the implementation of Oslo. Now she is reaping profits from selling ninnys like yourself, her latest book, which demands Israel offer a pathway to citizenship for the very people who have been sending terrorists to kill Jewish men, women and children into Israel since 1948 and before that too.The American Jewish Community, which is quite diverse, is not responsible for policy decisions made by the AIPAC Board of Governors. All of these so called Jewish leaders in The U.S. Are appointed by corrupt institutions, the worst of which are funded by Soros, like j street, which was tossed out of the conference of Jewish Organizations and that was a good start, but do not blame regular Jews here without a voice, no representation, get it. The ZOA represents The American Jewish Community and have bestowed award upon Glick, which she accepted and is now staring a gift horse in the mouth, so to speak. Glick is plenty articulate enough to express clear sharp contrasting differentiation between groups within the community, just as you have in Israel, but Glick likes to beat up on us, when ?Israel itself has all of the same pathologies, even more, one could argue.
@ babushka:
Morton Klein and The ZOA represent a large percentage of what is left of The American Jewish Community. The ZOA has taken positions, courageous positions on issues that Glick highlight, well, for example The Obama Nuclear Agreement with Iran. The ZOA position is not one iota less critical of The Iran Nuclear Deal than is Glick. ditto for literally every issue raised by Glick in her columns and I have read over 90% of them. The ZOA represents the strongest elements of The American Jewish Community, are just as PRO Israel as Glick, if not more so and represent the future of the community. Glick herself has been the recipient of awards given her by Morton Klein. Glick was just recently sponsored by an American think tank in California, which provided for her in every which way they could. The community has been ravaged by 70 to 80% intermarriage for decades, with a high number of mentally incapacitated, drug addiction, profound depression to name a few. We have all kinds of marginal people estranged from The Jewish Community for most or all of their lives and are desperate to be accepted into the greater society. They are weak and they easily succumb, apparently. Then you have leftists who have become reformed rabbis, and conservative, so -called conservative, like the psychologist Michael Lerner, Hilary’s friend, who have brainwashed congregation after congregation with their insane revisionist history and wishful thinking. These sheep people were not responsible for inviting Senator Coons to AIPAC, after he voted to support Obama. It was AIPAC leadership, and who the hell are they. They are not elected by The American Jewish Community, none of me are. It is largely a corrupt clique funded by a few hundred very wealthy leftists, well just like Soros. Israel has the same dirty pool going on there. Look at them, Livni, Paarrots, ShitStreet,Beilin, Sarid, Airey Dairy. Netanyahu almost lost the election to them and was forced to begging for Bennet supporters to switch in order to save Bibi’s butt. The Israeli Jewish Community suffers from the same exact disease. Using Glick’s reasoning, I could make the same unfair generalizations of The Jews in Israel, and I ask you, what does that accomplish except to isolate Israel from her few true supporters. Glick worked under Rabin to design and implement Oslo. She was on the front lines of Oslo, then seeing it was a disaster, one day, took a bath, came out squeaky clean as a new born Likudnik, where she has profited from opposition to Oslo, except for one thing. Her prescription is to offer citizenship to the Arab residents of The Shomron and Judea, which she published in her book, which she pitches whenever she can, Me thinks Babushka is a pseudonym for Glick. Jump in a lake, Glick.
babushka Said:
Who said war has no poetry?
Refugees?
Get rid of all Muslims. Never mind the good the bad and the ugly. Let them sort themselves out in some other world – it’s not our responsibility.
Glick owes the American Jewish community total contempt. These cowards who chose FDR over European Jews now choose Obama over Israeli Jews. Liberal American Jews are sycophants to Gentiles who despise them, which in the human experience makes them uniquely pathetic. No survival instinct. No maternal instinct. Just the lemming equivalents of Sisyphus, condemned by the Gods to forever hoist the burden of their self-loathing.
Caroline is far too kind to these circumcised Fredo Corleones. As a conservative Jew mired in the midst of liberal Jews, I encourage Glick to ramp up the invective.
This position taken by Morton Klein and virtually all of the positions he has taken as ZOA Chief, while also being active in conjunction with AIPAC are noteworthy. In one of her latest screeds, Caroline Glick made clear allegations slandering The American Jewish Community’s historic support for Israel. She claimed that The American Jewish Community was “eager” to forgive a Democratic Senator named COONS, who voted with virtually all of the other Democratic senators in favor of Obama’s dangerous and ludicrous, not to mention pitiful and destructive Iran Nuclear Deal Blunder. Glick made her foul mouthed charge because AIPAC decided not to out and out shun COONS. Glick’s statement stereotyping The American Jewish Community, is both repugnant and Anti-Semetic. Anti Semetism is telling lies about Jews. Glick owes The American Jewish Community an apology. Glick has alot of nerve considering she worked as an aide under Rabin to plan and implement The Oslo Accords, then later, she becomes the “indignant” and self righteous pundit of the right wing. Glick needs to step aside and allow other more honest journalists to represent Israel in the diaspora, absent her counter productive self loathing. Glick was originally from Chicago. Speak for yourself and please stop beating us up, Glick.
Well said. Muslims also hate Western civilization itself and have that in common with our Marxists.