http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=57959 FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
U.S. Jews give Palestinian state endorsement
Orthodox Union abstains in vote on suggested Middle East solution
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Posted: March 03, 2008
10:05 pm Eastern
By Aaron Klein
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
JERUSALEM – The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a coalition of major mainstream U.S. Jewish organizations, has for the first time given endorsement to a Palestinian state.
But the firestorm of nationalist Jewish outrage on the Internet has targeted the Orthodox Union, or O.U., one of the largest U.S. Orthodox Jewish organizations representing hundreds of Orthodox synagogues, which abstained and did not vote against a successful resolution calling for a "two state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Surveys have consistently demonstrated American Orthodox Jews oppose a Palestinian state.
"It is an outrage Jewish organizations would support a Palestinian state and it's a shock the O.U .would abstain," Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, told WND.
"When the Palestinian Authority refuses to arrest terrorists, engages in and glorifies murder against Jews, and puts out maps showing all of Israel is Palestine surrounded by rifles, it becomes clear any Palestinian state will be a terrorist state which will greatly harm Israel," Klein said.
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At a vote last week during its annual meetings, the JCPA resolved "the organized American Jewish community should affirm its support for two independent, democratic and economically viable states – the Jewish state of Israel and a state of Palestine – living side-by-side in peace and security."
The resolution recognized American Jewry's "diverse views about current and future policies of the Israeli government towards settlements," and blamed the standstill in the peace process on Palestinian intransigence.
The Council is an umbrella of 14 major national Jewish groups and 125 local Jewish community relations councils. Among the groups represented by the council are such giants as the American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League , National Council of Bnai Brith, Hadassah, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry and Hillel, the largest Jewish university outreach group.
The O.U. was recipient of the most criticism for abstaining during the vote in which all other groups voted in favor. According to a source at the organization, e-mails have been pouring in from outraged Orthodox Jews.
In a widely circulated e-mail, Pessach Aceman, a Canadian immigrant to Israel and a diarist for the BBC website, lambasted the Orthodox group as a "terror supporting organization through your silence."
"What total hypocrisy this is," wrote Acement. "What this goes to show is that politics and funding rule the airwaves which makes your efforts totally hypocritical."
Ted Belman, who runs the Israpundit blog, posted, "To my mind this resolution is very detrimental as it makes it harder for alternates to be forwarded. By endorsing this resolution are the O.U. and the others saying they support a two state solution regardless if it necessitates the division of Jerusalem?"
In an official clarification, the O.U. released a statement that while it abstained from the final vote endorsing a Palestinian state, the group still managed to insert into the resolution's text a statement explaining Israel's repeated offers to establish a Palestinian state "have been met, time after time, by violence, incitement and terror.”
The organization also successfully vetoed a clause that would have stated the American Jewish community views the establishment or expansion of Israeli communities in the West Bank as an "impediment to peace."
Nadia Matar, director of Woman in Green, a nationalist activist group in Israel, wrote in a widely circulated e-mail the O.U.'s clarifications are not enough.
"So now, after the O.U.'s clarification, we ask the one million dollar question: Why is the O.U. still part of the JCPA? Where is the O.U.'s outrage?" Matar wrote.
Asked by WND whether the O.U. supports a Palestinian state, the organization's executive vice president, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb, answered simply "no."
Weinreb said his group abstained from the vote rather than vote against the resolution "for procedural reasons."
David Luchins, an O.U. officer who represented the organization during the vote, said abstaining "gives the O.U. more of a platform afterwards to explain to everyone why we abstained from the vote."
Rabbi Pessach Lerner, executive vice president of the National Council of Young Israel, another major Orthodox group representing hundreds of synagogues, said his organization, which is not part of the JCPA, opposes a Palestinian state, as do most Orthodox Jews.
"What two state solution? We just need just to look out the window and see the Qassams and Grad rockets and bullets flying. We need to read the papers and listen to the radio. There is a war going on. Now is the time to discuss defense, to guarantee security to the citizens of Israel," said Lerner.
"The only solution that we should be thinking of is security, quiet and the ability to live like normal human beings – without the concern of being shot at," Lerner said.
Topic: The O.U. frauds abstains from voting against pig state (Read 1689 times)