NEW YORK (VINnews) — After Amnesty International recently accused Israel of “apartheid” towards Palestinians, the group is continuing to peddle its outrageous statements regarding Israel. In a talk last Wednesday to the Women’s National Democratic Club, the organization’s US director claimed that most American Jews did not want Israel to be a Jewish state, but rather “a safe Jewish space” based on “core Jewish values,” according to a report by Jewish Insider.
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Paul O’Brien said one of Amnesty’s goals in publishing the report, which was roundly criticized by Israeli and American officials, is to “collectively change the conversation” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “It needs to start first and foremost with the Jewish community,” O’Brien, who is not Jewish, said.
O’Brien denied the findings of a 2020 survey conducted by the Ruderman Family Foundation which stated that eight in 10 Jewish Americans identify as “pro-Israel,” and two-thirds feel emotionally “attached” or “very attached” to the Jewish state. He said that “I actually don’t believe that to be true. I believe my gut tells me that what Jewish people in this country want is to know that there’s a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jews, the Jewish people can call home.”
O’Brien added that “I think they can be convinced over time that the key to sustainability is to adhere to what I see as core Jewish values, which are to be principled and fair and just in creating that space.”
On the question of Israel’s current right to exist, O’Brien first said that Israel “shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state,” but then conceded that “Amnesty takes no political views on any question, including the right of the State of Israel to survive.”
In Amnesty’s report, the international human rights organization acknowledges that Israel exists. “The organization engages with the reality of the existence of the State of Israel,” said the report. But O’Brien’s comments undercut that assertion and appear to indicate that Amnesty believes the Jewish state does not have a right to exist.
“The right of the people to self-determination and to be protected is without a doubt something that we believe in, and I personally believe that,” said O’Brien. But “we are opposed to the idea — and this, I think, is an existential part of the debate — that Israel should be preserved as a state for the Jewish people.”
O’Brien’s views were roundly criticized by leaders of Jewish organizations, even those who themselves are highly critical of Israel. William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said in a Friday interview that “If there was any doubt about Amnesty’s credibility as a legitimate voice of authority, it is now abundantly clear that they are firmly entrenched in the cadre of extremist anti-Israel provocateurs.” Earlier he had tweeted that O’Brien’s remarks were outrageous. “It is clear that their true vision is a Middle East without Israel as a Jewish state.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, called on O’Brien to apologize to Jews.
“Your obsessive, relentless focus on Israel, and the erasure of the Jewish right to self-determination illustrates a dangerous degree of bias,” he tweeted.
“Polling shows the vast majority of American Jews, like J Street, support Israel’s future as a democratic state and homeland for the Jewish people,” J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group said on Twitter. “Amnesty USA would be well-served to stick to its expertise in human rights + international law — and not try to assess Jewish public opinion.”
Another anti-Semite trying to push an anti-Semetic agenda. Nothing new. We have suffered from these anti-senitws through golus. It has nothing to do with Israel. If not Israel he’d find another way to spew his hate. Eisav soineh Ed yaakov. Let’s philosophically make timcheh Es zeicher amalek, so that Hashem should finally be mekayem the reality of ki mochei emcheh!
Ok, O’Brien– now say the corollary for the moslem countries. Consistency is important here.
Zol er gayn in drerd!
Jews need NO BODY to give them the right to Israel, go read history, all you idiots
They’re funded by soros
Sounds like he’s been reading some of the comments on this site….
I agree and the Irish should be under British rule. they have no right to an Irish country.
Jew hating leftist scum.
This walking remnant of human debris has no right to exist as a living organism on thus planet.
Why should this shock us, after all some of our own frum Jews have the same opinion, i.e. SATMAR, AIDAH HACHRAIDIS,PELEG
An organization supported buy non religious Jews so what’s new here
If he talks like satan and he looks like satan and even sounds like satan than he’s satan !!!
There is always some peewit calling for the destruction of a country. Some want Israel destroyed. Some want Palestine wiped out. Others insist Ukraine is not a real country.
For all those commentors who compare Satmar to the soneh yisroel O’Brien, you are way off base. Satmar are only expressing the opinion of rov Gedolei Torah who held the gimel shvuos applies to Zionism. O’brien is motivated by sinas yisroel. Even the Satmar Rebbe ztz”l recognized that goyish anti-zionism is really antisemitism.
Bottom line – If Jews do not have the right to exist anywhere on this earth, then neither does he.
Sounds exactly like the opinion Satmar (and clueless litfisha rosh yeshivas who think it’s good for their ratings)
I thought that’s what basically Israel is right now, so ironically, he’s not that far off.
If Israel is truly a Jewish state based on religious principles (like other Muslim countries in the Middle East), the apartheid argument goes out the window.
On the other hand, if Israel is a secular Jewish State based on pure race & identity, then how could one argue against the apartheid label??
Zionism is relevant as utopianism its thankfully dead with a few holdouts in YU and Young IsrEl
He happens to be right, of course, but the idolaters and heretics (Zionists) can’t possibly see beyond their idol.
Most Jews care only about their (terribly mistaken) belief in the Zionist claim that Israel is a “safe haven” for Jews, because they believe the Zionist Big Lie that there is a binary choice between Israel or Hitler’s gas chambers.
Of course, the most elemental knowledge of Zionist treachery during WW II would make them understand that the Zionists are lying about this “safe haven”, too, but that’s besides the point.
The Zionist State is, of course, Zionist, not Jewish. So, the Zionists represent nobody other than themselves – not Jews.
The Zionist State has no legitimate reason to exist because it is based on the lie that it represents Jews, when it really represents only Zionists and actually hates Jews and Judaism other than the Zionist heretical flavor of each, and because of the Zionists’ horrific actions to Jews from even before its State was formally founded in 1948.