In response to “10 comments on Mike Huckabee and the purveyors of Jewish hate-porn,” July 28.

Chemi Shalev contends that the Zionist Organization of America “should consider changing its name to the Anti-Zionist Organization of America” because we support former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee’s stating that the Iran nuclear deal could lead to the massacre of millions of Jews, as Iranian political and military leaders repeatedly threaten.

Shalev compares Huckabee’s statement to French National Front leader Marine Le Pen likening Muslim street prayers to Nazi occupation and to the notorious picture at a demonstration of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in an SS uniform some weeks before his assassination.

This is absurd. Le Pen’s words bear no comparison to Huckabee’s, which vilified no group. Nor did Huckabee call President Obama a Nazi, or even reminiscent of a Nazi. Rather, he is of the view that Obama is reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain in the dangers he’s inflicting on Jews by making this pact with the genocidally-inclined Iranian mullahs. 

We agree with Huckabee. Shalev, in contrast, is happily persuaded (for reasons he hasn’t shared) that Iran “will be pulverized and, if necessary, incinerated as well” if it threatens Israel. Why this confidence? After all, in 13 years, perhaps less, Iran with be able to go nuclear, by which time, as U.S. President Obama himself admitted, “the breakout times would have shrunk almost down to zero.”

At that point, the remaining options we have today – covert (sabotage, cyber-warfare) and military (precision air strikes with bunker-busting bombs) – will likely have vanished. Enhanced security for the Iranian program under the deal will probably preclude the former, and the new Russian S-300 anti-aircraft system will probably preclude the latter.

Shalev’s chief target, however, seems to be the ZOA and like-minded groups. Why? Because we oppose groups like the New Israel Fund which fund groups supporting Boycotts, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), which delegitimize and harm the Jewish State. That’s why the Israeli government and the ZOA campaign against this scourge.

Morton A. Klein,
National President
Zionist Organization of America

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