JVP, a deceptively misnamed organization if there ever was one, is one of the most virulently anti-Israel organizations among the numerous misguided anti-Zionist propagandizing organizations around the world. During the July/August Gaza war, I watched as the local chapter members assembled here in Albany on Lark & Madison flashing banners and broadcasting sensationalized, slanderous slogans condemning Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East with freedom of the press and freedom of worship, for everything from genocide, to being a terrorist state to being an apartheid state to being child murders. These accusations are so far from the truth and so devoid of any documented evidence as to bring into question who are the people and funding behind JVP. Meanwhile I have seen no protests or shouting by these same people or any other other anti-Israel organization regarding the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Syria at the hands of Bashar Assad or the barbaric killings by ISIS or the murders by Hamas of Gazans simply accused, without trial, of collaboration or speaking out against Hamas’s dictatorship.

Even the author of this article propagates any number of falsehoods about Israel’s history and its self defense against missiles from Gaza being lobbed into civilian Israel territory. The author omits/denies how Hamas demonstrably and intentionally forced civilian casualties among Gazans by using their civilians, including children, as human shields. Hamas leadership has even publicly admitted their use of civilians and buildings such as hospitals and apartment towers in this way. The author says that it’s not true that all Palestinians do not want Israel destroyed but omits that these same Arabs elected leadership, especially Hamas but also the PA, who declare over and over again that the destruction of Israel and the return of the land of Israel to Arab control is the ultimate goal of their hostilities. The author uses the phrase “after 60 years of occupation” which is totally untrue as modern Israel was only founded 66 years ago on the tiny sliver territory that the UN, the international community and Jewish people accepted as the 1947 partition…… only to be immediately attacked by 5 Arab nations the next day. Is the author implying that even that tiny sliver of land of the original modern Israel is “occupied territory”???? There is so much misinformation and propaganda that has been spread about Israel, its founding and its actions to survive that uninformed and Israel-bashing people have accepted as factual without serious analysis or credible historical perspective. It is sometimes overwhelming to try and get the truth out when there is such a morass of knee-jerk anti-Israel bias both by Jewish and non-Jewish organizations. Do not be fooled by the inclusion of “Jewish” or “pro-Israel” or “pro-peace” in the names and slogans of some of these organizations. The fact that there are misguided, anti-Israel Jewish people has been a part of our Jewish history from time immemorial. Even the prophet Isaiah warned: “M’harsayikh u-maharivayikh mi-meikh yeitzei’u, “Your destroyers and ravagers shall come from within you.” (49:17) Israel does not lack for enemies, and Jews should not add to them.

The key point is the need for people to truly educate themselves about the history of modern Israel, from the Zionist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to the present; to read credible historians like Efraim Karsh of Kings College, London; to take seriously the several wars of annihilation over the last 66 years that were initiated by the Arab countries; to read and take seriously the genocidal and murderous declarations and charters of the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, and Islamic militant organizations. Israel and the Jewish people have learned over the past century that they do not have the luxury of ignoring such hate-filled, anti-Semitic declarations. I say: Shame on this author and Shame on Jewish Voices for Peace for endangering Israel and the Jewish people by enabling and furthering the aims of these genocidal terrorists and militants through ignoring the entire historical context in which Israel finds it necessary to constantly defend itself against annihilation by its neighbors.