Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton Klein and ZOA Chair Mark Levenson, Esq. released the following statement:
The ZOA strongly condemns Senators Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Chris Coons (D-DE), Congressman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and the Israel-hating Jew-hating Squad including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), AOC (D-NY), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Cori Bush (D-MO), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and others in the House of Representatives for making false and dangerous antisemitic statements that are helping to fuel and embolden Arab terrorists’ violent attacks, pogroms, and rocket attacks on innocent Jews and Jewish holy places and properties.
These lawmakers are making absurd, reckless, antisemitic demands that Jewish property rights to Jewish-owned homes in the Shimon HaTzadik/Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, and that Israeli law and Israeli courts are “abhorrent” and must be ignored and trampled on. These lawmakers are also falsely blaming Jews and wrongly attempting to stop Israel’s efforts to defend the Jewish people from more Hamas rocket attacks and other Arab terror attacks against Jews throughout the land of Israel.
For instance, Senator Elizabeth Warren falsely, outrageously tweeted that: “The forced removal of long-time Palestinian residents in Sheikh Jarrah is abhorrent and unacceptable. The Administration should make clear to the Israeli government that these evictions are illegal and must stop immediately.” Similarly, Bernie Sanders falsely and offensively demanded: “The United States must speak out strongly against the violence by government-allied Israeli extremists in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and make clear that the evictions of Palestinian families must not go forward.”
These Senators’ statements ignore that the respected liberal Israeli courts have ruled that the Arabs to be evicted are a few squatters and tenants who refused to pay rent for decades, while living in homes and land legally owned by Jews and since the 1800s in the Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood of Jerusalem (which the Arabs call “Sheikh Jarrah” to de-Judaize it). If a Jewish tenant was evicted for failing to pay rent to an Arab homeowner, no one would say a word.
In fact, in any democracy in the world, including Sanders’ and Warrens’ own U.S.A., people who refuse to pay rent are lawfully evicted every day – and no one claims that this is “abhorrent” or a violation of international law. The real “abhorrent” matter is to twist lawful evictions of a few non-paying tenants into a pretext to foment deadly Hamas missiles, antisemitic riots, synagogue burnings, Yeshiva burnings, and of attacking Jews in the Jewish homeland.
ZOA urges these Senators to watch an informative video tweeted by journalist, entitled “What’s really happening at #SheikhJarrah?” Ms. Schrader implored: “The members of US Congress condemning #Israel over this are acting irresponsibly. As an American Israeli I’m asking them to STOP fanning the flames of antisemitism and incitement to violence.”
Senator Chris Coons also falsely tweeted that “evictions in East Jerusalem, settlement expansion, and home demolitions [are] unilateral actions that place a two-state solution further out of reach.” In other words, Coons is claiming that finally trying to enforce Jewish property rights of Jewish homeowners, and Jews building an extra nursery in their own homes in the Jewish homeland, are impediments to “peace” with Arabs who have refused to negotiate, turned down over-generous peace offers for a state multiple times, and repeatedly demonstrated, in word and deed – especially this past week – that their goal is to murder Jews and destroy Israel.
Senator Coons and others also insultingly called on “all parties to exercise restraint” – which absurdly equates protecting innocent Israelis, on the one hand, to the terrorist organization Hamas, and to the Palestinian Authority (which is paying and inciting Arabs to attack Jews), and to the Arab citizens of Israel who are assaulting and grievously injuring their Jewish neighbors.
Senator Murphy tweeted one-sided concern about a possible ground invasion of Gaza may take Arab civilian lives, and demanded a ceasefire before Israel can destroy Hamas’ rockets. What about the Jewish men, women and children who are being subjected to 3500 of Hamas rockets against civilian sites. Aren’t the Jewish victims of Hamas terror rockets, and standing with Israeli effort to defeat Hamas, deserving of the Senator’s concern?
It is also appalling that Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) blamed Israeli efforts to stop the violent pogroms and attacks against innocent Israelis. Nadler stated: -“I remain deeply concerned by the violence in Jerusalem, including Israeli police violence, and I urge all parties to exercise restraint.”
Seriously? Does Nadler seriously believe that Israel should “exercise restraint” instead of protecting innocent Jews from knife-wielding Arab mobs who are breaking into Jewish homes to attack Jews, burning down Jewish schools and synagogues, shooting Israelis walking on the street, and raining thousands of rockets on all of Israel?
Does Nadler seriously believe that Israeli authorities should do nothing when Arab terrorists stockpile rocks and weapons on the Temple Mount, and use those weapons against Jews praying in Jerusalem?
ACTION ALERT: Please call the above Congresspersons to demand that they retract their harmful anti-Israel statements. The Senate telephone list is here. The House of Representatives telephone list is here.
The vicious anti-Israel, antisemitic bile spewed by the squad, and “BDS Betty” McCollum’s vile blood libel-filled antisemitic bill to try to restrict aid to Israel are adding more fuel to the fire.
As Senator Ted Cruz explained so well: “It’s the angry socialist left — AOC and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar—who are tweeting things that frankly are indistinguishable from what they’d be saying if they were actually the press secretaries for Hamas. You’ve got Omar who is accusing Israel of carrying out acts of terrorism. There is a fundamental difference between a nation defending itself against terrorists and terrorists targeting women and children, which is what Hamas is doing.”
ZOA demands public retractions from all of those who are inciting antisemitic hatred and blaming Israel for defending herself from Arab pogroms and rockets.
ZOA also thanks Senator Ted Cruz and many others in the Senate and the House who have shown that they are real friends by standing up for Israel at this dangerous time when the Jewish people in Israel are being engulfed by the most dangerous antisemitic attacks.
ZOA especially appreciates the 44 Republican Senators who signed a letter to President Biden initiated by Senator Marco Rubio, condemning the Arab terrorists who are launched over a thousand (it’s now up to 3,000) rockets “targeting Israeli civilians and cities, including Israel’s capital Jerusalem.”
Importantly, in recognition of the Iranian regime’s role in supplying Hamas with rockets and rocket-manufacturing capacity, the 44 pro-Israel Senators’ letter sensibly insisted that the U.S. must end negotiations with Iran, and that “the United States “must not do anything to enrich Israel’s enemies, such as by offering sanctions relief to a regime that seeks to destroy Israel. As a longtime friend of the Jewish state, we also urge you to unequivocally support Israel’s right to defend itself against any and all terrorist attacks.”
The 44 pro-Israel Senators who signed this letter were: James Risch, James Inhofe, Pat Toomey, Todd Young, Tom Cotton, Chuck Grassley, Thom Tillis, James Lankford, Steve Daines, John Barrasso, Ron Johnson, Rick Scott, Josh Hawley, Michael Rounds, Dan Sullivan, Cindy Hyde-Smith, Mike Crapo, Roger Marshall, Marsha Blackburn, Mitt Romney, Mike Braun, Deb Fischer, Joni Ernst, Cynthia Lummis, Ben Sasse, John Thune, Tim Scott, Roger Wicker, John Boozman, Kevin Cramer, Bill Hagerty, Ted Cruz, John Hoeven, John Kennedy, Shelley Moore Capito, Michael Lee, Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Tommy Tuberville, John Cornyn, Lisa Murkowski, and Rob Portman. ACTION ALERT: Please join us in calling these 44 pro-Israel Senators to thank them. Please also urge more Senators to sign on to this letter. (The Senate telephone list is here.)