ZOA Files New Complaint Against Inclusion of J Street, others in WZC
News Press Release
January 15, 2015

ZOA Files New Complaint Against Inclusion Of J Street, “Open Hillel” and New Israel Fund (NIF) In “HaTikvah Slate” In WZC Election

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) is continuing its efforts to try to make sure that the 2015 World Zionist Congress does not include organizations that promote BDS, boycotts against Jewish businesses and international sanctions against Israeli officials who they disagree with.

This week, ZOA filed new supplemental complaints against the misleadingly named “HaTikvah slate” with World Zionist Congress election officials, after ZOA learned that additional members of the “HaTikvah slate” promote boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israeli Jews, and after the “HaTikvah” slate placed a false platform on the new World Zionist Congress election website.

The confusingly-named “Open Hillel” group tries to force the eminent campus organization Hillel International to provide platforms to promote the global BDS movement – while denying platforms to opponents of BDS.

ZOA had previously filed an elections complaint against the “HaTikvah slate” because Partners for a Progressive Israel (PIP) (a major member of that slate) openly promotes boycotts of Israeli Jewish businesses right on PIP’s website, and because Ameinu (another major member of the HaTikvah slate) lobbies U.S. and European governments to impose severe financial and visa sanctions on Jewish Israeli leaders whom Ameinu disagrees with.   Ameinu’s top officials also double as J Street officials or are tied closely to J Street, which engages in extensive de facto promotion of BDS.

ZOA’s supplemental complaint, filed on January 12, 2015, documents the BDS activities of these additional confirmed members of the “HaTikvah slate”:

(1)  “Open Hillel”:  The confusingly-named “Open Hillel” group tries to force the eminent campus organization Hillel International to provide platforms to promote the global BDS movement – while denying platforms to opponents of BDS.  “Open Hillel” was formed in 2012 to attempt to abolish Hillel International’s “Standards of Partnership.”  Hillel International’s reasonable “Standards of Partnership” prohibit campus Hillel facilities from hosting organizations that promote BDS against Israel.  “Open Hillel” brings in speakers who say that Israel should be destroyed and cease to exist. “Open Hillel” is working together with the anti-Israel anti-Semitic hate group “Students for Justice in Palestine” (SJP).   SJP members have violently attacked Jewish students on college campuses.

(2)  Americans for Peace Now (APN):  APN openly promotes boycotts of Jewish Israeli businesses in eastern Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.

(3)   New Israel Fund (NIF):  NIF spent a fortune erecting the BDS infrastructure, and continues to fund BDS groups and their co-conspirators.  NIF grantees Adalah, B’Tselem, and Breaking the Silence also provided the false information to Judge Goldstone which formed the basis of the false (and since discredited) Goldstone report that accused Israel of war crimes.  The BDS movement uses the false Goldstone report as one of its chief weapons to promote BDS against Israel.  The “US Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel” has a web page entitled “Sections of Goldstone Report Very Useful for BDS and related campaigns.”  The NIF also funds groups that hire Arabs to viciously provoke a response from young Israeli soldiers. On the rare occasion when a yound soldier responds, these groups’ cameras film and disseminate the response to try to harm the IDF’s reputation.*

(4)   J-Street:  J Street promotes, honors, and gives major platforms to the leaders of the global BDS movement (including Mustafa Barghouti) at its national conferences and brings top BDS leaders to college campuses.  J Street also promotes BDS on J Street’s website video.  ZOA’s supplemental complaint also documents some of J Street’s other anti-Israel activities, including raising and spending millions of dollars to defeat pro-Israel Congresspersons, involvement with an Iranian regime organization, and J Street’s presidents tie to Fenton Communications – which Qatar contracted with to run a sophisticated anti-Israel campaing.  (Qatar is the largest funder of Hamas).

ZOA’s initial complaint and supplement are both well documented with extensive citations.  The initial complaint is here, and the supplemental complaint is here.

In addition, yesterday the ZOA submitted a false advertising complaint regarding the HaTikvah slate’s platform page, which was published the same day (January 14, 2015) on the official AZM election website for the World Zionist Congress election.

Incredibly, the HaTikvah slate’s platform page falsely states that the HaTikvah slate works to “Combat the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.”  ZOA pointed out that this egregious false advertising is highly likely to mislead voters – because the HaTikvah slate’s platform page tells World Zionist Congress voters the exact opposite of what the HaTikvah slate members are really doing.

*Correction: A previous version of this release also referenced BDS activities of Adalah-NY and attributed these additional BDS activities to the NIF-funded Adalah.   A blogger who stated that he is a friend of persons involved then contacted ZOA.  This blogger stated that Adalah-NY is a separate entity from the NIF-funded Adalah.  The lack of information on Adalah-NY’s directors and associations makes the blogger’s claim that Adalah-NY is a separate entity difficult to confirm.  Apparently neither Adalah nor Adalah-NY is complaining that the other group is using the same name.  It thus seems that neither group has concerns about the other group’s actions which can be understandably be attributed to the other.  Nonetheless, in the event the blogger’s information is correct, ZOA has removed Adalah-NY’s BDS activities from this paragraph.  The paragraph now only discusses Adalah’s activities which help the BDS movement. 

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