A.P. photo/ Hazem Bader, Pool -- Tomb of the Patriarchs
Adalah-NY tried to bar the Hebron Fund from holding its annual U.S. fundraiser, in the Mets’ Citi Stadium, Queens, New York. The Mets refused to cancel it. The event is to be on Saturday, November 21. (Reservations and info at www.hebronfund.com or at 718-677-6886.)
The Hebron Fund helps support the Jewish community in the Israeli sector of Hebron. Judaism considers Hebron its second holiest city. It was the capital where David founded the first Jewish kingdom. According to the Bible, its chief holy site, the Cave of the Patriarchs, was purchased by Abraham from a Hittite almost 3,000 years ago, for 300 silver shekels. That sum would be $750,000 in 2009 currency. [One of my critics, “BiasedReporter,” called Abraham an illegal immigrant, an absurd concept to apply back then to Bedouin.]
Why does Adalah-NY oppose the Fund raising? According to my source, David Wilder, spokesman for the Hebron Jewish community, it is because Adalah senses the holiness of the city.
What is Adalah-NY? According to its web site, it is the “’Coalition for Justice in the Middle East’ They ‘began organizing actions in response to the escalation of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip at the end of June and the subsequent [sic] Israeli war on Lebanon in July 2006. Adalah-NY has carried out numerous street protests and educational forums focusing on Israel's assault on Gaza and war against Lebanon, the US' threatened attack on Iran, …It is a grassroots strategic alliance of concerned organizations and individuals in New York, formed to demand an immediate, unconditional, and permanent end to U.S. and U.S.-sponsored Israeli aggression in the Middle East. In response to the continuing injustices committed by the U.S. and Israel, which constitute gross violations of international law, Adalah-NY stands with the people of the Middle East in their demands for justice, equality, democracy, and respect for human rights.”
At this point, my source confused Adalah-NY with an Israeli Arab organization, Adalah, but the former is not a U.S. branch of the latter. I now have removed this implication of a connection, but a'm leaving in some paragraphs about Adalah and writing a new piece about Adalah-NY.
“According to NGO Monitor, this organization represents former MK Azmi Bishara, who, it may be remembered, fled Israel while still a Knesset Member, for fear of being arrested and tried for treason, for having passed intelligence information to Hizbullah during the 2nd Lebanese war.” [He acted like an artillery spotter.]
“Most amazingly, according to NGO Monitor, in 2006 they were funded in the way of almost a half a million dollars by, none other than the New Israel Fund, an extreme left wing US Jewish organization.” (hebron@hebron.com, 11/12.)
Bishara, like other Arab MKs, violated Israeli law by visiting enemy states, where they encouraged the enemy to attack Israel. What does that tell you about the anti-Zionist political donations by New Israel Fund? My earlier articles explained that international law was violated by Hamas and IAEA treaty by Iran. Israel did not commit aggression and the U.S. did not sponsor its self-defense.
Adalah claims to demand democracy, but we have not heard of its demanding democracy of those radical theocracies, Gaza and Iran, among others.
It claims to champion human rights, but not the human rights of the Israeli civilians whom Hamas bombarded, of the Gaza people whose houses and mosques it stores arms in, drawing Israeli fire, and of the Palestinian Arab journalists whom it censors. Those Hamas acts violate international law.
Neither does Adalah demand human rights for Iranians protesting against apparently fraudulent elections but beaten for it, nor for Iranians publishing independent journals.
For another example of unjustified Arab scapegoating of the U.S., click here
For another example of unjustified Arab scapegoating of Israel, click here
For an example of Iran violating its nuclear arms treaty, click here
For an example of religious sanction of deception, click here
Comments
CORRECTION
Dear Mr. Shulman,
Glossing over many errors in your story, let's focus on one vital and easily proveable factual one. Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, one of the groups calling for the cancellation of the Hebron und fundraiser, is completely unrelated to Adalah, the legal center for Arab and Minority Rights in Israel, the group highlighted by NGO Monitor. Adalah in Israel is not involved in the effort to cancel the Hebron Fund dinner, Adalah-NY is, along with many other groups. The word Adalah in Arabic simply means justice, and thus many groups worldwide use the word Adalah in their names. Mr. Wilder has now corrected this most basic factual error in his online articles. Please do the same.
So, to find out why people don't want the Hebron Fund to be hosted by the Mets, you asked....the spokesperson for Hebron settlers.
Brilliant.
Why not ask, say, the people who wrote and signed the initial letter, or any one of the hundreds (over a thousand by now) who have sent similar supporting letters to the Mets asking them not to host racists?
"Klaus" declares me unwilling to criticize Israeli mistakes. Ad hominem attack is low. It also is a snap judgment. If Klaus, had read more of my articles, he would have found much criticism. I have more planned for the next time I publish.
Klaus thinks he knows my itinerary. He does not. I wrote about my security tour of Judea-Samaria, but not, as he puts it, "to see the crimes" Israel committed. I find that Israel is slandered on that. On the other hand, I had to give up a Judean Hills burro-hike with the Society for the Protection of Nature In Israel, because Arabs there do commit crimes.
Klaus also makes a snap judgment about what I know. He asserts I know that Israel is operating illegally there. That would make me a liar. He is out of bounds in such insinuations. Is he a street brawler? I have read the pertinent legal documents and learned commentary, and have explained in the articles he missed the legality of Israel's presence.
He says I watch Fox news. N
Mr. Shulman,
Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East is not related in any way to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab and Minority Rights in Israel, which the group NGO Monitor has written about and that the New Israel Fund supports. David Wilder who you quote and who first asserted that the two organizations were the same organization corrected on the Hebron Fund website his original post that you had quoted Mr. Shulman (Look on the Hebron Fund website under Hebron News, News Archives, at the article "Hebron: The Dream and the Reality." If you have any commitment to factual accuracy you should remove or correct your article.
I live in Israel. I also visited The Cave of the Patriachs this past Thursday. I prayed at my forefahers gaves, without loudspeakers calling me to prayer. The Muslims had their loudspeakers calling people to prayer in an ear deafening volume. Could that be to disturb the Jews at prayer or are the Muslims deaf? Walking peacefully along the Hebron streets I encountered Muslims of all ages walking freely with hate in their eyes and on their faces and this included children of 5-years old.
The Hebron Fund raises money to rebuild Hebron and that is the reason Adalah tried to stop the Hebron fund-raising dinner. They want Hebron free of their rightful owners the Jewish people.
I corrected the article so as not to put it that Adalah-NY is U.S. branch of Adalah, and Israeli Arab organization.
I will be posting an article on Adalah-NY.
Dear Mr. Shulman,
The sole fact that you call the West Bank "judea and samaria", shows your clear bias towards Israel. Your "security tour" was most likely done on behalf of the Israeli gov't. I am familiar with those so-called "security tours". Did you visit the houses that racist settlers have stolen from Palestinians? Did your security tour take you to see how Palestinians live? I doubt it Mr. Shulman.
How can you even call yourself an impartial journalist when you cannot even acknowledge that Hebron is a colony of 400 Jews surrounded by over 140,000 Palestinians (can you call them that? or just Arabs?)
And which pertinent legal documents were you shown? did the IDF show them to you during your "security tour"?
Yea, your security tour must have given you an insight on the 'suffering' of those poor 400 Israelis in Hebron, but you clearly have no idea about the other side, maybe because you are scared that you have been wrong all along.
In addition, I find it sad that you have to deflect attention from what the issue really is all about (that a u.s. baseball team is supporting the continuous COLONISATION of a foreign territory by religious zealots), by telling us how Adalah-ny should be talking about Iran.
Nice try, but that was probably the weakest point of your article.
You also didn't tell us who NGO monitor is....this is your extremely dubious source. (But NGO monitor sounds good and official, right?)
A journalist will strive to be balanced, but your articles lack the knowledge of the "other side of the coin". You clearly have never spent a day with Palestinians in the occupied territories. Have you Mr. Shulman? I have seen the crimes and colonization that Israel continues to carry out and no, I am not arab, nor christian, nor Jewish (just in case you begin to think I might actually have a pre-disposed bias)
So please tell us, Mr. Shulman, what YOUR agenda is.
sincerely,
Klaus
Klaus wrote after I corrected my conflating Adalah-NY as a branch of Adalah, and commented that I had. Nevertheless, his comment makes the same confusion by asserting that I tried to divert attention from the petition (by Adalah-NY) by mentioning Iran in connection with Adalah I don't try to divert attention; to allege it is a conspiracy-paranoid approach. When an NGO purports to support democracy and criticizes others, and unfairly so, for not being democratic, the NGO is fair game for a charge of hypocrisy in sparing some of the world's most inflammable anti-democracies.
More paranoia is Klaus' suspicion about NGO Monitor and my not explaining who it is. I named my source and it has a website to which my home page's link list provides a link. NGO Monitor is headed by a professor and director of a think tank whose articles I have followed for many years, finding them sober. NGO Monitor compares and analyzes NGO's actions with its claims. This introduces accountabilit
Not only does Klaus put words into my mouth, he attributes to me a kind of security tour I did not take. How presumptuous!
He can tell I am biased, because I refer to "Judea-Samaria" and do not call Hebron's Jewish community a colony? "Judea" and "Samaria" are the official and age-old names. "West Bank" is a nickname, coined for pro-Jordanian and pro-Arab propaganda. That is the biased term.
Hebron is treated in my next article on Adalah-NY.
When Klaus sprinkles in words about Jews as racists and stealing property, he shows a bias. See my next article on Adalah-NY.
He challenges my report because I did not see the legal documents. I am not a lawyer. He did not say what he saw, but had an opinion. My reports included court verdicts and explanation and discussion of the evidence. For all his moralizing, Klaus does not acknowledge the foundation fact that the contested properties had been wrested from Jews by ethnic cleansing and then re-purchased. Jews want their pro
When you write about Adalah-NY, will you bother to contact them for comment?
Judea and Samaria are what the jewish people call the West Bank nowadays. It is mainly among the Jewish community (are you jewish?) and outside of Israel that it is referred to as such.
NGO monitor is based in Jerusalem, and it is clearly a pro-Israel organisation. Now you can bash on the UN, b'Tselem and all other int'l organisations, but you cannot use as your impartial source, NGO Monitor..that is poor journalism.
from wikipedia about ngo monitor: its stated objective is to stop other NGOs from promoting perceived "ideologically motivated anti-Israel agendas..
well guess what? ngo monitor is thought to be "guided" by the ministry of foreign affairs of Israel...but im sure thats also a conspiracy, right? everyone is against Israel. Boo-hoo.
I can use the same claim, saying that there is NOT a conspiracy against the Jewish people, and perhaps, just perhaps, there is some truth to Israel's crimes in the west bank and gaza strip.
In addition, you wouldnt know about crimes there because you clearly have not had any contact with Palestinians in the West Bank...have you Mr. Shulman?
"When Klaus sprinkles in words about Jews as racists and stealing property, he shows a bias."
No mr. Shulman, YOU show a bias, and it is very clear. You are indeed not a lawyer as you stated, and perhaps not even a proper journalist.
The religious fundamentalist Jews in Hebron have very little to do with secular or liberal jews in other parts of Israel. Having been there several times, I can tell you those settlers are violent, racist and yes ,they want the arabs to leave, and yes, by any means possible.
Sorry Mr. Shulman, but the city is "holy" to both Jews AND Muslims..and if you dont remember, Hebron is INSIDE the West Bank and it is being illegally occupied by Israeli citizens.
But im sure you wouldnt use a religious idea for the claim of the city? in fact, you should try that in a court of law...see what they tel
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