(APRIL 17, 2021 / PJ Media) The Boston Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), a coalition of Jewish organizations, is set to meet on April 27 to decide whether or not to expel the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) over charges that it is “white supremacist.” Of course, everyone to the right of Pol Pot is a white supremacist these days, as far as the left is concerned. The real sin of ZOA’s national president Mort Klein is that he dared to criticize leftist powerbrokers and to point out that Black Lives Matter (BLM) is not the saintly organization of establishment media myth, but a viciously hateful and anti-Semitic group. Simply telling unwelcome truths about people and causes the left idolizes gets you lumped in with the KKK in this insane age.
It all started last year with a petition from leftist Jewish groups J Street, the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, Women of Reform Judaism and others, calling for the ZOA to be expelled from the Boston JCRC because Klein had made statements that supposedly ventured into “xenophobic and racist territory,” and thus ZOA’s membership was “not compatible with and is in conflict with the mission of JCRC.”
The petition stated: “So long as ZOA enjoys a seat at the American Jewish communal table, we are collectively signaling that their views are a welcome and tolerable part of our communal life. American Jewish institutions must make clear that Klein’s pattern of abuse and bigotry can have no place in our Jewish communal life.”
Among Klein’s “xenophobic and racist statements” were critical remarks about revered, untouchable figures on the left, including George Soros, Barack Obama, and Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Ramallah) and Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu). Why, only a racist could have any remotely negative word to say about them!
The petition also claims that Klein’s criticism of Black Lives Matter “extended well beyond acceptable discourse on race.” This was because Klein tweeted: “BlackLivesMatter is an antisemitic, Israel hating Soros funded racist extremist Israelophobic hate group.” And: “I urge the SPLC to immediately put BlackLivesMatter on their list of hate groups. BLM is a Jew hating, White hating, Israel hating, conservative Black hating, violence promoting, dangerous Soros funded extremist group of haters.”
Klein was right, and he wasn’t the only person who noticed. Haaretz reported in 2018 that “a new platform associated with the Black Lives Matter movement that describes Israel as an ‘apartheid state’ committing ‘genocide’ against the Palestinian people has triggered critical responses from Jewish organizations — even its allies.” And in August 2020, journalist Daniel Greenfield noted that “a Black Lives Matter rioter was caught on video spray painting Free Palestine on the driveway of the Beth Hillel Temple in Kenosha,” and “during the Los Angeles Black Lives Matter riots which targeted the Fairfax community and its large Orthodox Jewish population, Congregation Beth El on Beverly Blvd was spray painted with the hateful message, ‘F___ Israel’, and ‘Free Palestine.’”
Back in 2015, Black Lives Matter operatives visited “Palestine” and linked the jihad against Israel to the race war in the United States.
As far as the left is concerned, however, these are facts that only “racists” dare to notice. ZOA shot back with a statement that challenged the lynch mob on its hypocrisy: “Instead of trying to censor ZOA, these Jewish group should join with Mort Klein, Alan Dershowitz, Caroline Glick and Melanie Phillips in condemning the anti-Semitic Israel-hating platform of the Black Lives Matter/M4BL organization, which promotes anti-Semitic BDS and falsely accuses Israel of perpetrating genocide and apartheid.”
Klein added: “Inappropriate concern was raised due to our legitimately [sic] criticism of the anti-Israel actions and policies of the organization called Black Lives Matter. This was especially hurtful to ZOA since it fully, publicly and unequivocally supports equality and fairness to all races, including, of course, all black lives.”
After reviewing the matter for six months, the JCRC’s Membership Committee voted unanimously that ZOA should not be removed. However, in a nod to the mob, it directed ZOA to make clear that it rejected white supremacism, intoning piously that “no Member Organization of JCRC, through its programs, activities or practices—or through the public leadership platforms of its executive officers—should legitimize or normalize organizations or individuals who embrace white supremacy, white nationalism or the conspiracy theories which underlie these ideologies.”
When the full JCRC Council meets on April 27, its vote on whether to retain or expel the ZOA will be largely based on how well council members believe the organization has complied with this warning. The premise of the petition – that any criticism of Tlaib, Omar, and BLM constitutes racism and white supremacism – is left unchallenged, which does not bode well for the ZOA. But if the JCRC does vote to expel the ZOA, it will only reveal its corruption and betrayal of its own mission, and demonstrate once again the increasing intransigence and fascism of the left. The more leftists move to silence legitimate voices, the more they show their own totalitarian colors, and the more they strip away their own legitimacy.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 21 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad.
This article was originally published in PJ Media and can be viewed here.