August 19, 2012  Breitbart.com

When the Inter­na­tional Olympic Com­mit­tee recently denied recog­ni­tion of 11 Israeli Olympians mur­dered dur­ing the Munich Games in its open­ing cer­e­mony, and Mitt Romney’s ad cam­paign dinged Pres­i­dent Obama for not vis­it­ing Israel dur­ing his term, many turn to grass­roots pro-Israel orga­ni­za­tions to assess the dam­age. I can speak can­didly on this as I am a Founder of one: Act For Israel.

While the snub from the IOC was ago­niz­ing and in poor taste, we are grate­ful and con­tin­u­ally inspired by UK Prime Min­is­ter, David Cameron, who paid trib­ute to the Israeli Olympians mur­dered in the 1972 Munich Olympics, call­ing it one of the dark­est days in the Games’ his­tory. Tire­less pro-Israel, grass­roots groups includ­ing CIF Watch launched a 1 Minute for Munich cam­paign to request recog­ni­tion for these beloved and unfor­got­ten ath­letes. Act For Israel along with many oth­ers sup­ported this effort.

As pro-Israel advo­cates, we have a laun­dry list of con­cerns regard­ing Israel and its well-being, though I will touch on the most imme­di­ate and con­cern­ing within our tight-knit community.

• Iran’s per­ilous race to become a nuclear power – This is an ongo­ing con­cern felt around the world for obvi­ous rea­sons. Iran is the most active state sup­porter of ter­ror­ism world­wide, and Israel has infi­nite rea­sons to pre­vent Iran from gain­ing nuclear capa­bil­ity – with the United States being sec­ond. Iran­ian Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Ahmadine­jad has been very vocal about how he wants to erad­i­cate Israel, which he often likens to “can­cer.” The repres­sive Iran­ian leader has often used col­or­ful yet child­ish rhetoric when describ­ing West­ern coun­tries, and in doing so has dubbed the U.S. the big devil and Israel the lit­tle devil. Those who under­es­ti­mate Iran as a global threat are kid­ding them­selves. Any coun­try that threat­ens anni­hi­la­tion of a coun­try then claims it’s mak­ing med­ical iso­topes (secretly under­ground) while refus­ing access to inspec­tors from the Inter­na­tional Atomic Energy Agency has run afoul. If Iran gets a nuclear arse­nal, you can expect the rest of the Mid­dle East to fol­low suit. No sane coun­try wants to see that nuclear tin­der­box come to fruition.

• The PA’s déjà vu move to gain uni­lat­eral dec­la­ra­tion at the UN – The Pales­tin­ian Author­ity is and has always been a bad faith nego­tia­tor. They have walked away from talks after a measly three weeks, and con­tinue to use con­struc­tion as both a pre­con­di­tion and an excuse not to return to the table. They con­tinue vio­lat­ing the Oslo Accords, and then claim Israeli intran­si­gence stale­mated nego­ti­a­tions when this is an egre­gious lie. Pales­tin­ian Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Abbas says one thing to West­ern media and diplo­mats (that he wants peace) and another to the Arab media and diplo­mats (that he’ll never agree to peace). World per­cep­tion has become so skewed that Pales­tini­ans are now seen as some­how enti­tled to every­thing they demand — whether by virtue of “his­toric injus­tice,” “decades of suf­fer­ing,” or com­bi­na­tions of com­plaints devel­oped since the Arab Higher Com­mis­sion refused par­ti­tion in 1947. The fact remains the suf­fer­ing of indi­vid­ual Pales­tini­ans, whose plight under the PLO and Hamas is rid­dled with a list of human rights abuses miles long, has become sub­verted into a highly pro­pa­gan­dized and weaponized national suffering.

• Pierc­ing the “Right of Return” myth – It’s a well-known fact that Fatah (Abbas’s party) and Hamas share the same mis­sion, which entails not agree­ing to peace until all of Israel becomes Pales­tine. This is cur­rently known as the “phased plan,” and it is based on flood­ing Israel with 5 mil­lion plus Pales­tini­ans, dras­ti­cally chang­ing the national char­ac­ter of the Jew­ish state over time to a pre­dom­i­nately Arab-Palestinian state. This is exactly why the “Right of Return” came into play, and it’s why Pales­tin­ian lead­ers wear it like a sec­ond skin. It is the one delu­sion that embod­ies Pales­tin­ian national iden­tity, and the one colos­sal lie that keeps peace from occur­ring and Pales­tini­ans from mak­ing progress.

• Request­ing the U.S. Con­gress to cal­cu­late the REAL num­ber of Pales­tin­ian refugees – Regard­less of whether you’re a demo­c­rat, repub­li­can, lib­er­tar­ian or inde­pen­dent, most allies of Israel can dis­cern the value of cal­cu­lat­ing who is really a Pales­tin­ian and who is not. There are many rea­sons to accu­rately assess this bur­geon­ing pop­u­la­tion esti­mated to bal­loon to 15 mil­lion by 2050 when the cur­rent cal­cu­la­tion of Pales­tini­ans dis­placed by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war total about 30,000. Act For Israel’s Action Alert sup­ports Sen­a­tor Mark Kirk’s water­shed amend­ment to H.R. 5857 Depart­ment of State, For­eign Oper­a­tions, and Related Pro­grams Act, 2013.

• End­ing incite­ment, dele­git­imiza­tion and vio­lence –­ Pales­tini­ans teach their chil­dren that Israel is their birthright, and they indoc­tri­nate their youth at a very young age to hate Jews, Israelis and Israel. This con­certed effort of dele­git­imiza­tion is also why many Mid­dle East­ern coun­tries leave Israel off their maps. The UN’s UNRWA has been just as guilty in this depart­ment by devel­op­ing odi­ous text­books that incite Pales­tini­ans against Israelis and Jews and by pro­mul­gat­ing the notion that Pales­tini­ans should take back Israel by any means. It’s also why UNWRA has failed mis­er­ably and turned itself into one of the world’s largest wel­fare agen­cies, pock­et­ing $4.4 bil­lion in U.S. tax dol­lars since it was founded in 1948, with deplorable results. UNWRA has allowed incite­ment to stay alive and well. Its Deheishe Pales­tin­ian Refugee camp proudly dis­plays a mural of the first female Pales­tin­ian sui­cide bomber while its Aida Pales­tin­ian camp dis­plays a giant key at its entrance sig­ni­fy­ing Pales­tini­ans still hold the key to their “right­ful prop­er­ty” in Israel. Could you imag­ine the bloody car­nage Cal­i­for­nia and Texas would face if Mexico’s gov­ern­ment indoc­tri­nated their cit­i­zens the same way?

• End­ing the bar­rage of mis­siles, bombs, and sui­cide attacks from Gaza & the Sinai – It’s not uncom­mon for dozens of rock­ets to reach Israel from Gaza or the Sinai on reg­u­lar basis. Since June 17, 2012, over 150 rock­ets have hit south­ern Israel. Groups respon­si­ble include Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP, DFLP, PRC, Ansar al-Sunna, Force 17, Army of Islam, Tawhid wal-Jihad, and Abdul­lah Azzam Brigades. With this many ter­ror­ist fac­tions fir­ing mor­tars, qas­sam (made of steel and devel­oped by the mil­i­tary branch of Hamas), al-Quds (home­made), katyusha (first built and fielded in the Soviet Union) and grad (Russ­ian) rock­ets, one would think any ally of Israel would under­stand that secu­rity and safety of Israelis can never be underestimated.

• End­ing the hyp­o­crit­i­cal, anti­se­mitic Dur­ban Review Con­fer­ences – Enough said.

• Encour­ag­ing the U.S. to acknowl­edge Jerusalem as Israel’s cap­i­tal – Jerusalem is Israel’s cap­i­tal. The U.S. con­sid­ers Israel one of its staunchest allies so it only makes sense that the U.S. would also pub­licly rec­og­nize Jerusalem as Israel’s cap­i­tal. Pro-Israel advo­cates strive for this acknowl­edge­ment. Yet admin­is­tra­tion after admin­is­tra­tion has kow­towed to polit­i­cal pres­sures from anti-Israel fac­tions, and has kept the US embassy in Tel Aviv.

• Rebuild­ing Israel’s rela­tion­ship with Egypt – Israel has enjoyed a peace­ful and pros­per­ous trad­ing rela­tion­ship with Egypt since sign­ing their joint 1979 peace treaty, which has since degraded some­what since the Arab Spring and the sub­se­quent expul­sion of Egypt­ian Pres­i­dent Hosni Mubarak. Israel will con­tinue efforts to strengthen its rela­tion­ship with Egypt, as both coun­tries have mutu­ally ben­e­fit­ted from peace eco­nom­i­cally, socially, and security-wise. This rela­tion­ship was tested just last Sun­day with yet another ter­ror­ist attack. The ques­tion remains: Can Egypt love its peo­ple more than it loathes Israel?

• End­ing “Israel Apartheid” and other dele­git­imiza­tion cam­paigns on U.S. cam­puses – Imag­ine if a col­lege held an event where the core mes­sage was to boy­cott all fifty plus Mus­lim coun­tries. The out­rage would be astro­nom­i­cal, and rightly so. Yet ongo­ing mes­sages of hate toward the Jew­ish state are met with yawns. We have not seen this kind of mal­ice towards any other coun­try, and expect all uni­ver­si­ties to have strict poli­cies of deny­ing vile and spite­ful events on cam­pus. There is no excuse for any U.S. uni­ver­sity (or any uni­ver­sity) to host an “Israel Apartheid” event, dele­git­imiza­tion activ­ity, or invite any anti-Israel speaker on campus.

• End­ing all BDS activ­i­ties against Israel – BDS (Boy­cott, Divest and Sanc­tion) was a tool the Nazis used against Jews in the 1930’s. Those who launch, engage, sup­port, or pro­mote BDS activ­i­ties against Israel yet remain silent about geno­cide in Syria (we have wit­nessed many Pales­tin­ian groups engag­ing in this heinous behav­ior the last two years) are hyp­o­crit­i­cal and inhu­mane. There are groups like Stand With Us that have made the erad­i­ca­tion of BDS part of their mis­sion, and we in the pro-Israel com­mu­nity con­sis­tently rec­og­nize their stand­out efforts to edu­cate and teach pro-Israel aware­ness on col­lege cam­puses and beyond.

• Syria’s out­right geno­cide of its peo­ple – No peo­ple, no mat­ter what they believe or who they share alle­giance with should be per­se­cuted and butchered. This is the sec­ond year Syr­ian Pres­i­dent Bashar Assad has con­ducted a geno­ci­dal cam­paign against his own peo­ple, mur­der­ing 19,000 plus and count­ing. Pro-Israel advo­cates have kept this geno­ci­dal issue of Syria alive, and have voiced our dis­dain for the lack of action from the UN, the Arab League, the failed 6 Point Peace plan by UN Envoy Kofi Annan, and the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity as a whole. We feel for the Syr­i­ans’ plight, fear for their well-being, and will con­tinue to alert the world to end this genocide.

• UN Reforms that include revers­ing all efforts to con­demn Israel – When the UN Human Rights Coun­cil elected one of the world’s worst dictator’s to Chair their Coun­cil –– for­mer Libyan Pres­i­dent Muam­mar Gaddafi –– and he nearly snagged an award for his efforts in human rights (LOL), we have learned not to expect much from the UN. What we don’t expect is the sin­gling out and dis­parate treat­ment the UN has given Israel for decades. Oddly, the UN Human Rights Coun­cil has adopted more res­o­lu­tions con­demn­ing Israel than all other states com­bined. This includes pass­ing over coun­tries that have com­mit­ted the most appalling human rights abuses to date (includ­ing geno­cide) or those that con­sis­tently deny the most basic free­doms to its cit­i­zens. The fact remains between the Arab states (22 coun­tries) which are part of the Orga­ni­za­tion of the Islamic Con­fer­ence (56 coun­tries) and the Non-Aligned Move­ment (118 mem­bers) –– all of whom vote against Israel irre­spec­tive of the facts –– prove a clear bias to Israel is com­mon­place. This must change.

• Elect­ing a U.S. pres­i­dent who sup­ports (and vis­its) Israel ­– Lastly, we all want our pres­i­dent to be pro-Israel enough to visit Israel dur­ing his or her first term. We expect the leader of the free world to under­stand it is tan­ta­mount to national sui­cide for Israel to return to its 1967 bor­ders. With Hezbol­lah to Israel’s north and Hamas, the PA and myr­iad ter­ror­ist fac­tions to its South­west – not to men­tion a desta­bi­lized Egypt, a mani­a­cal Iran and a geno­ci­dal Syria — 1967’s threat level pales in com­par­i­son to real­i­ties on the ground today. We expect our POTUS to under­stand the Right of Return is a myth based on his­tor­i­cal false­hoods, and that con­tin­ued cod­dling of it keeps the Pales­tin­ian pop­u­la­tion incited while threat­en­ing Israel as we know it. Isn’t time our pres­i­dent and our State Depart­ment rec­og­nizes the cap­i­tal of Israel is Jerusalem? We cer­tainly think so. And Rom­ney already has.

There is no ques­tion that Israel is our clos­est ally in the Mid­dle East, and it is the only Mid­dle East­ern coun­try which shares our foun­da­tional val­ues of free­dom and democ­racy. With­out con­tin­ued pres­sure on the issues iden­ti­fied here (and unfor­tu­nately many more), we may soon see dra­matic changes in the Mid­dle East that will irrepara­bly harm our national defense. As Amer­i­cans, it is our duty to ensure that Israel remains free, strong and secure.

Photo credit: Getty