Yesterday a large group of individuals protesting against Israel staged an illegal demonstration inside one of the Congressional office buildings on Capitol Hill. At least 500 were arrested. The group at the heart of the action calls itself the Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). It is anything but.
The JVP is a virulent, anti-Semitic group that long ago made common cause with Palestinian terrorist groups seeking the destruction of the Jewish state. The JVP is attempting to cast its current efforts in terms of seeking a ceasefire. Its real, and very explicit goal, is to end Israel completely. Israel is in its view an evil, colonialist, racist construct, and it must be destroyed.
The JVP has celebrated Palestinian terrorists and even invited them to speak at its events. It has equated Palestinian terrorists escaping from Israeli jails with Jews escaping the Nazis in World War II. It has organized boycott efforts directed at Israel.
In one instance the JVP published a series of maps online identifying Jewish businesses and groups in the Boston area. It then encouraged supporters to refuse to do business with or support any of the entities identified.
The JVP states its position in regard to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the clearest possible terms.
“We have come to see that Zionism was a false and failed answer to the desperately real question many of our ancestors faced of how to protect Jewish lives from murderous antisemitism in Europe…”
“…the Zionism that took hold and stands today is a settler-colonial movement, establishing an apartheid state where Jews have more rights than others. Our own history teaches us how dangerous this can be…”
“…Zionism, in practice, has resulted in massacres of Palestinian people, ancient villages and olive groves destroyed, families who live just a mile away from each other separated by checkpoints and walls, and children holding onto the keys of the homes from which their grandparents were forcibly exiled…”
The JVP is dismissive of Israeli fears of terrorism perpetrated by Palestinians and effectively blames Israelis for attacks carried out by Muslim terrorist groups. “The uprising happening in Palestine today is the inevitable result of decades of occupation, dispossession, and state violence. The right to resist colonization is enshrined in international law, this resistance will only end when the Israeli government stops brutally oppressing Palestinians…”
Predictably enough the JVP connects the misdeeds of Israel to all the other usual suspects, the United States, white supremacy, slavery, etc.
“1. The ‘special relationship’ between Israel and the United States is rooted in our common national narratives and founding mythology.”
“Settler colonialism and white supremacy is the right, holistic frame with which to understand Israel and Palestine, as well as the U.S.— it helps us understand what we’re really struggling against, and holds us accountable to ways we may inadvertently be serving the status quo.”
“If the basis of the special relationship is a common narrative of ‘manifest destiny’, and the feelings of superiority over others that it engenders, then to resist we must counter that narrative.”
“We have mythical national narratives of two settler colonial peoples, who both believe that we have a divine mandate, to settle a so-called empty or savage land, and make it into a kind of heaven on earth. Ethnic cleansing, even genocide—these are all divinely justified. Israel is to be a light unto nations. What would become the United States, a kind of heaven on earth? Both peoples believe ourselves to be somehow specially chosen by God.”
“Of course, that notion of heaven on earth, or A Light Unto Nations, is predicated on a system of racial and ethnic superiority—who gets to be human and “civilized”, and who is subhuman. Who exists, and who is invisible or must be disappeared. Who can claim the land, and who has no rights to it.”
In the immediate aftermath of the recent Hamas attacks on Israel, which included the slaughter of young people at a music festival and the taking of at least one hundred Israeli hostages, to be tortured, raped, and used as collateral, the JVP issued an immediate statement celebrating the actions of the Palestinians and saying, in effect, that the Israelis killed in cold blood got what they deserved.
“The Israeli government may have just declared war, but its war on Palestinians started over 75 years ago. Israeli apartheid and occupation — and United States complicity in that oppression — are the source of all this violence. Reality is shaped by when you start the clock.”
“The bloodshed of today and the past 75 years traces back directly to U.S. complicity in the oppression and horror caused by Israel’s military occupation. The U.S. government consistently enables Israeli violence and bears blame for this moment. The unchecked military funding, diplomatic cover, and billions of dollars of private money flowing from the U.S. enables and empowers Israel’s apartheid regime. Those who continue calling for “ironclad” U.S. support for the Israeli military are only paving the path to more violence.”
“Inevitably, oppressed people everywhere will seek — and gain — their freedom. We all deserve liberation, safety, and equality. The only way to get there is by uprooting the sources of the violence, beginning with our own government’s complicity.”
What twisted form of self-loathing drives Jews to side with terrorists and advocate for the end of Israel I cannot comprehend.
What is clear, though, is that the JVP stands with suicide bombers, rapists, and murderers, not with civilization and human decency. After all the talk about January 6th, yesterday we saw real terrorism in the Capitol.
I can't understand self hating Jews either. I can't remember the address in the Bible but it talks of Jews having scales on their eyes, unable to see clearly. Prophesy states the Jews will return to the land God designated for them in 'unbelief' (1948). God loves His people, so much so that He will have 12 thousand Jews from each of the 12 tribes minister to their fellow Jews. And don't forget the last two witnesses, that will eventually be killed by the anti-Christ. They will lay in the street while the world celebrates their demise. Was the attack of 10-6 a demonstration of this prophesy? Spoiler alert, after 3 1/2 days the witnesses will be resurrected. There's something about the 3 1/2 time line ...
So you’ve lived in this house in a neighborhood for hundreds of years. One day a group turns up and tells you that this their promised house because God wills it, and you will be evicted without recourse, but because we are a kind people, we will allow you to live in the backyard of the house we took from you. Then at a later date, we tell you that we need some more of the backyard to build an additional house, but you’ll have to live closer to the back wall of the yard. Then we will build a fence around your section because you don’t like the arrangement that we think is wonderful.