Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Chairman Mark Levenson, Esq. released the following statement:
The Zionist Organization of America strongly praises the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations , the ADL, B’nai Brith, National Council of Young Israel, the Orthodox Union, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), RJC and others for joining the ZOA in supporting President Trump’s historic and game-changing December 11 “Executive Order on Combatting Anti-Semitism.”
This joint Jewish organizational support for the president’s Executive Order is greatly appreciated by ZOA, because it will help Jewish and pro-Israel students who have been suffering from vicious, increasing antisemitic and Israel-bashing harassment and intimidation on their campuses, perpetrated by the antisemitic anti-Israel hate group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), professors and others.
ZOA also strongly again condemns Jeremy Ben Ami’s J Street for harshly opposing this critical action to help Jewish students. J Street once again demonstrated that it is an extremist, radical, anti-Israel group, far out of the mainstream. One must never forget that J Street supporting UN Resolution 2334, which falsely claimed that all the land beyond the “Green Line,” including eastern Jerusalem, the Western Wall, Hebrew University, Hadassah Hospital and the Jewish section of the Old City, is “Occupied Arab Territory.” (The “Green Line” is merely the 1949 Armistice lines marking where the fighting stopped after six Arab nations invaded Israel and seized lands designated for the Jewish state.) Shame on the extremist anti-Israel J Street for again turning its back on Jewish students and Jewish rights and Jewish history.
President Trump’s Executive Order strengthens ZOA’s leading 15 years of battles to first apply and then employ the Civil the Rights Act of 1964, Title VI to protect Jewish students who are victimized by antisemitic harassment, intimidation, discrimination and violence on college campuses. For six years, from 2004 through 2010, ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice, directed by Susan B. Tuchman, Esq., led the battle that culminated in the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), which enforces Title VI, changing its interpretation of the law to recognize that Jewish students who face discrimination based on their actual or perceived ancestry or ethnic characteristics are entitled to Title VI’s protections. Since then, ZOA’s Center for Law and Justice has been employing Title VI to help Jewish and pro-Israel students who are being harassed and discriminated against, and denied their right to a safe, welcoming learning environment, on campuses throughout the country, including UNC, Duke, UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, other City University of New York (CUNY) campuses, Rutgers University, Northeastern University, and others.
ZOA is proud of its recent legal victories at UNC and Duke, which will now have their Mideast programming monitored, and provide instruction on antisemitism to students and professors. (See “What ZOA’s Legal Victory Means for Jewish Students Across the Country – Jewish Telegraphic Agency,” by Susan B. Tuchman and Morton A. Klein, JTA, Nov. 27, 2019.)
The Executive Order likewise strengthens ZOA’s longstanding efforts to apply the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism to assist these Jewish students.
ZOA reiterates its heartfelt thanks to President Trump for assisting our Jewish students. ZOA also thanks the Administration’s Jared Kushner and Ken Marcus of the Office of Civil Rights for their important work on this issue. (See “ZOA Thanks President Trump & Jared Kushner for Wonderful 2019 Hanukkah Gift: An Effective Executive Order to Protect Jewish Students Facing Growing Campus Antisemitism,” Dec. 11, 2019.)