To: Here & Now Subscribers
From: Jerry Verlin, Editor (jverlin1234@verizon.net)
Subj: Here & Now #1252, 1/19/25
WHILE YOU STAND ON ONE LEG: The consequences of the election are about to commence, and we grassroots U.S. Jews have to make ourselves heard, as will our adversaries, in shaping their course regarding Israel and Jews.
We Grassroots U.S. Jews Must Not Be Silent Now
Awhile back, Philly ZOA interviewed me among others via Zoom on issues confronting us. I was sitting in my den (ok, not in a tux), along with my private library of a thousand Israel books and my fellow library denizen. Along the way, Steve asked me, “What’s that noise in the background? You got girls there?” (I wish.) “No, it’s our pet bird.” “Great, after we get your views on all these issues, we’ll interview him and get his.” “Pointless, Steve.” “Why?” “He’s a parrot. He only says what I say.”
Like my parrot pal, we grassroots U.S. Jews must join in conversations going on around us, but we mustn’t just say what others say when either what they’re saying or the words in which they’re saying it adversely affects us.
Don’t Use Dirty Words Designed to Delegitimize Us
To cite one example of we ourselves using Dirty Words designed to delegitimize us, consider the language in which the Union of Reform Judaism couches its support of “the two-state solution.” In a statement issued last January 30 (bitterly criticized by ZOA, 2/5/24, ZOA Condemns URJ Head Rick Jacobs & Other Reform Jewish Leaders’ Statement Demanding a Palestinian State/etc…), URJ stated its “two-state solution” case using our adversaries’ loaded lexicon of Jewish homeland delegitimizing pejoratives.
In its 1/30/24 statement URJ condemned Israel’s “ongoing West Bank occupation” and called for “halting the construction of West Bank settlements.” It accused Israel of “denying the Palestinians’ right to self-determination” and contemplating “unilateral annexation by Israel of areas of the West Bank.” In an October 2019 statement opposing Jewish National Fund land acquisitions beyond the 1949 ceasefire lines, it referenced “the sovereign borders of the State of Israel, known as the Green Line.” In an April 2019 statement by URJ and other Jewish orgs, it called for two states with borders that would “hew precisely to the 1967 borders” save for any agreed “territorial adjustments.”
Every one of these terms is a Jewish homeland-delegitimizing pejorative. It is a Shanda for Jews to parrot them. We’re not “occupiers” of the Judea-Samaria heart of our homeland. Jewish communities there are not “settlements.” Applying Israeli sovereignty there is not “annexation,” the taking over of another country’s land. The 1949 ceasefire lines were expressly declared not to be international borders. Palestinian Arabs have a Palestine home, where they’re the majority people, Jew-free Jordan, sitting on three-quarters of the Palestine Mandate, plus another Jew-free piece of Palestine, Gaza.
Don’t Acquiesce in Acts that Delegitimize Us
You may have gotten the feeling during election season last fall from, e.g.,
* U.S. Presidential one-sided sanctioning of “settler violence” in Israel, as though it occurs in a vacuum, to borrow a phrase, and not in the context of and in reaction to far vaster Palestinian Authority-paid-for “pay-for-slay” violence against Israelis; and
* U.S. Presidential building of highly visible Port Dearborn on Gaza’s coast
that Muslim-Americans’ votes and financial support are seen as more worth pursuing than ours. One thing for certain: they tout their importance and support conditions more loudly than us.
I’m not saying we should take over college campuses, block traffic, deface statues, etc., but don’t think that just because the election’s over we can just sit back and relax. To cite just one disturbing surviving anti-Israel imbalance, that one-sided sanctioning pf “settlers” won’t be accompanying President Biden out the door. VIN News, this Wednesday, 1/15/25, Biden Extends Sanctions on Judea and Samaria – 5 Days Before His Term Ends:
“JERUSALEM (VINnews) – U.S. President Biden extended on Wednesday for another year the executive order declaring a state of emergency in Judea and Samaria. This order enables the imposition of sanctions on settlers whom the administration defines as violent. The order was set to expire on February 1, and Biden extended it for another year just five days before the end of his term.” [emphasis added]
We hope for renewed support of our homeland and people by President Trump, and his relevant picks – Huckabee, Hegseth, Stefanik and others – are strongly supportive. But even if he is supportive (e.g., by opposing “two-states” and not accusing Israel of causing excessive civilian casualties in fighting terrorists embedded among them), there are forces out there, both in the U.S. and abroad, that aren’t, and they won’t be inactive and silent. Never has there been such international condemnation of Israel – the Pope, the UN, the EU, the International Court with its indictment of Israel’s Prime Minister, and here at home the left-wing elected officials and organizations that see our people’s homeland as “apartheid white colonial settlers,” the college kids and most of the media, and “anti-Zionist” American Jewish organizations. Silence is not an option.
A Grassroots Voices Forum, Independent of Organizations
All of you know by now I’ve just written a book, Here & Now: U.S. Jews and the Issues Confronting Us. The publisher and I are building a website. We hope to include in it a place for a few pro-Israel and Jewish peoplehood grassroots U.S. Jewish bloggers, with lots of commenters on their postings, on, as my book’s title puts it, “U.S. Jews and the Issues Confronting Us,” independent of the particular positions of any organization.
The way it will work is bloggers will just send me postings, which I’ll post in their name and monitor comments for abuse.
The front page of my book says
“It doesn’t matter whether you agree with these ‘best’ of a conservative grassroots U.S. Jew’s weekly analyses over a Quarter Century. They’ll make you think about issues confronting us from Anti-Israel Media Bias to Zionism, and that matters a lot.”
What we hope to do is make the site a continuing commentary on those continuing issues with continuing comment by our grassroots. Have a hankering to be a blogger? Let me know. And be a continuing commenter in any case. Details coming soon.
Regards,
Jerry
