A Democratic Chorus of ‘No’ Rejects Mention of Jerusalem in Platform
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LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa meeting with Israeli's thenForeign Minister Tzipi Livni in Jerusalem, June 15, 2008
Photo Credit: Olivier Fitoussi /FLASH90
The shocking video of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa trying to push through Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in the Democratic platform highlights the strong reservations that many American Jews are feeling toward the Democratic party.
The huge chorus of ‘no’ that thundered back at Villaraigosa (whom I know personally and respect deeply) was more about rejecting Jerusalem-as-Israel’s-capital from being shoved down the Democrats’ throats. [Editor's note: Villaraigosa deemed the motion to reinstate Jerusalem into the platform had passed, though it was not clear if it actually had].
Now, I know to expect this from the BBC who, at the London Olympics, did not list Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. I also know to expect it from, say, the Palestinian Authority. When I accompanied the Rev. Al Sharpton to Gaza City in 2001 and refused to meet Yasser Arafat, I waited in the Presidential receiving room where there was a map of Israel with a Palestinian flag coloring the entire area. Neither Israel nor an Israeli Jerusalem even existed. But to hear this from a great American political party, which spawned such incredible pro-Israel personalities as Robert Kennedy, Scoop Jackson, Chuck Schumer, and current minority whip Steny Hoyer is quite shocking.
The debate about whether President Obama is favorably inclined toward Israel rages on. My own opinion has been clearly expressed in many published articles. In the summer of 2008 I received a phone call from the Obama campaign asking me to serve as national co-chair of ‘Rabbis for Obama.’ I told them I was flattered but could not accept. I was sure that Obama would go south on Israel, blaming the lack of progress in the peace process on Israeli intransigence rather than Palestinian terrorism. I was unfortunately proven correct. Obama’s first two years as President were taken straight out of Jimmy Carter’s playbook, putting immense pressure on Israel to make concessions without asking much of anything from the Palestinians, until his own self-described ‘shellacking’ in the 2010 midterms forced him to moderate his stance on Israel.
Be that as it may, I have never seen Obama’s unrelenting pressure on Israel as indicative of the Democratic Party in general. What a shame, therefore, to witness today’s reaction to Israel simply having its capital recognized by Democratic Party. My own opponent in New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District, Bill Pascrell, signed the infamous Gaza 54 letter, despite its lie accusing Israel of denying food and medicine to Palestinians in Gaza. Pascrell has also been working tirelessly to keep Imam Muhamad Qatanani, a member of Hamas who regularly lambasts Israel from his pulpit in Paterson, in the country against a concerted effort by the Department of Homeland Security to deport him. And this latest outrage of omitting Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in the official Democratic platform gives me further pause.
What’s going on?
In truth, my feelings are that some of my Democratic brothers and sisters are losing their will to fight evil and choosing moral equivalency instead. It is not just Israel that seem to evoke the Democratic Party’s disdain. The Arabs of Syria are faring no better as they are slaughtered en masse as a Democratic president looks on with barely a whimper from his party to rescue these suffering souls.
Dennis Prager says that those who do not support Israel have a broken moral compass. Israel is a flourishing democracy with one of the most respected independent judiciaries in the world. Hamas is a terrorist organization whose charter calls for Jews to be killed wherever they may be. Hezbollah is another terrorist organization sworn to Israel’s destruction and the Palestinian authority is corrupt to the core, having stolen billions from innocent Palestinians who live in squalor under their oppressive sovereignty. Israel is not perfect. But is there really a choice as to who is in the right?
Jerusalem is the greatest litmus test of all. It is mentioned 600 times in the Hebrew Bible and not once in the Koran. It is replete with thousands of years of Jewish history and housed both of Judaism’s great Temples. It was the seat of Israel’s great king David, who made it his capital, and has been focused on in the Jewish prayers for millennia. Few expressed this better than Elie Wiesel in the full-page ads he took out in newspapers across the world in April 2010 when President Obama first started mumbling of Jerusalem being a divided city:
tell a friendAbout the Author: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi” whom the Washington Post calls “the most famous Rabbi in America,” is the international best-selling author of 29 books, including The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging God in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.
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The Siwss avalanche is growin, as number of pilled leaders. Yesterday, it was Swiss President Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf visited by Israeli Long Knifes. While authorities are denning it, she failed to reappear, maybe beacuse of her new gray eyes or wall in ear.
Today among others I saw walled replacement of Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė and close friend of Bolivian President Evo Morales.
In meantime officials found a body of French President Francisco Hollande and are preparing his funeral. Suggesting at same time Ms. Sienkiewicz will be handed in my hands, as was in case of my uncle Jozef Pilsudski. She would be not refused but if it comes to the nation and the kingdom, the Lord did not changed even by yota.
More: http://tautur.tumblr.com/post/30987649050
I believe political correctness in the Democratic Party intentionally omitted both God and Jerusalem from the party platform.
J-Street has won over many to their point of view that the omission was a good thing.
The Organized Jewish community is not willing to draw clear lines about what constitutes support for Israel.
In this election Jews have no choice but to vote Republican as I will.
Maybe there could be some way to make it clear to the Democratic Party, that the Jewish vote is not automatically theirs, and they could make a new alliance with.
Jews that care about other Jews.
Jean; IMHO I think this was a deliberate effort to appeal to Muslim voters who hate Israel and don't recognize G-d if not called Allah. And since most Jews will blindly vote Democrat, why not?
Yes I think you are right.
Since this article was written, the DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has said that the omission of Jerusalem was just a
technical oversight. She has been caught in several bold faced lies, and I am trying to spread the word that she just made another whopper.
In Al Jazeera, an Arab-American women says that she and her Arab friends lobbied to take Jerusalem out.
Schultz is a Florida Congresswoman, all Jews and all Floridians should consider that the Democratic Party has become an ugly spectacle of intolerance, political correctness, lies, and most of all it is a joke of incompetence.
I am not only ashamed of the Democratic Party but our country as a whole for the way we have abandoned Israel. We have always supported Israel and I know the day we stopped as a nation supporting them is the day our country started to die.
Boteach, your a FOOL!
He's an idealist. You are the fool.
I believe most Jews will vote for Obama against their own interests.
why worry or need the votes or afirmations of others? we know where our capital is and that's all that matters; the IDF will do the rest.
I believe political correctness in the Democratic Party intentionally omitted both God and Jerusalem from the party platform.
J-Street has won over many to their point of view that the omission was a good thing.
The Organized Jewish community is not willing to draw clear lines about what constitutes support for Israel.
In this election Jews have no choice but to vote Republican as I will.
Maybe there could be some way to make it clear to the Democratic Party, that the Jewish vote is not automatically theirs, and they could make a new alliance with.
Jews that care about other Jews.
I believe political correctness in the Democratic Party intentionally omitted both God and Jerusalem from the party platform.
J-Street has won over many to their point of view that the omission was a good thing.
The Organized Jewish community is not willing to draw clear lines about what constitutes support for Israel.
In this election Jews have no choice but to vote Republican as I will.
Maybe there could be some way to make it clear to the Democratic Party, that the Jewish vote is not automatically theirs, and they could make a new alliance with.
Jews that care about other Jews.
I am not only ashamed of the Democratic Party but our country as a whole for the way we have abandoned Israel. We have always supported Israel and I know the day we stopped as a nation supporting them is the day our country started to die.
I am not only ashamed of the Democratic Party but our country as a whole for the way we have abandoned Israel. We have always supported Israel and I know the day we stopped as a nation supporting them is the day our country started to die.
Boteach, your a FOOL!
Boteach, your a FOOL!
I believe most Jews will vote for Obama against their own interests.
I believe most Jews will vote for Obama against their own interests.
why worry or need the votes or afirmations of others? we know where our capital is and that’s all that matters; the IDF will do the rest.
why worry or need the votes or afirmations of others? we know where our capital is and that’s all that matters; the IDF will do the rest.