June 8, 2012, 2:48 AM
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Saul Alinsky, the godfather of subversive radical political action, had a very clear strategy for undermining and destroying his enemies: Infiltrate, divide and destroy.
Since his disciple Barack Obama was elected US president in 2008, Alinsky's impact on Obama has received a fair amount of attention.
Less noticed has been the adoption of Alinsky's methods by radical leftist Jews in the US and Israel for the purpose of undermining the American Jewish community on the one hand, and Israel's nationalist camp on the other. This week we saw the impact of both campaigns.
The striking weakness of the American Jewish community was exposed on Tuesday with the Democratic primary defeat of Rep. Steve Rothman in New Jersey. In Israel we saw the impact of the campaign to undermine and destroy the nationalist camp with the defeat of the proposed legislation aimed at saving the doomed Givat Haulpana neighborhood in Bet El.
Ahead of the 2008 US presidential elections, the anti-Israel pressure group J Street made a sudden appearance. Claiming to be pro-Israel, the anti-Israel lobby set about neutralizing the power of the American Jewish community by undermining community solidarity. And it has succeeded brilliantly.
Rothman is Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel. His defeat at the polls in New Jersey by Rep. Bill Pascrell owed in large part to openly anti-Semitic activism by Pascrell's Muslim supporters.
According to an investigative report of the primary campaign by the Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo, in February Pascrell's Muslim supporters began castigating Rothman and his supporters as disloyal Americans beholden only to Israel.
Aref Assaf, president of the New Jersey-based American Arab Forum, published a column in the Newark Star Ledger titled, "Rothman is Israel's Man in District 9." He wrote, "As total and blind support becomes the only reason for choosing Rothman, voters who do not view the elections in this prism will need to take notice. Loyalty to a foreign flag is not loyalty to America's [flag]."
These deeply bigoted allegations against Rothman and his supporters were not challenged by Pascrell. Pascrell also did not challenge Arabic-language campaign posters produced by his supporters enjoining the "Arab diaspora community" to elect Pascrell, "the friend of the Arabs." The poster touted the race as "the most important election in the history of the [Arab American] community."
Rather than challenge these anti-Semitic attacks, Pascrell enthusiastically courted the Muslim vote in his district.
Pascrell was a signatory to what became known as the "Gaza-54 letter." Spearheaded by J Street, the 2010 letter, signed by 54 Democratic congressmen, called on Obama to put pressure on Israel to end its "collective punishment" of residents of Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Pascrell's race was far from the only recent instance of anti-Semitism being employed by Democratic candidates to win their elections. In Connecticut's 2006 Democratic Senate primary, anti-Semitic slurs and innuendos were prominent features of Ned Lamont's successful race against Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Defeated in his party's primary, Lieberman was forced to run as an Independent. He owed his reelection to Republican support.
LIEBERMAN'S GENERAL election victory over Lamont did not force all of his fellow Democrats to rethink their use of anti-Semitism as a campaign strategy. At a candidate's debate in this year's Connecticut Democratic Senate primary race, candidate Lee Whitnum attacked her opponent Rep. Chris Murphy as a "whore who sells his soul to AIPAC."
Given the fact that the overwhelming majority of Jewish Americans are supporters of the Democratic Party, it should have been assumed that they would have responded to Whitnum's anti- Semitic slurs by seeking to get her expelled from their party. They also could have been expected to pour resources into defeating candidates like Pascrell who actively court the votes of open Jew-haters. But this didn't happen.
Instead, due to J Street's agitation, and the penetration of the Jewish organizational world by J Street fellow travelers, for the past three years, the American Jewish community has been fighting among itself about what it means to be pro-Israel. At a time when the US Jewish community's party of choice is increasingly falling under the influence of radical leftists and Muslims who reject Israel's right to exist, rather than standing tall, Jewish communities around the US are being neutralized by the solipsism of self-defeating, J-Street-invented issues like whether AIPAC is legitimate and whether Jewish anti-Zionists can be considered pro-Israel.
Equally horrible, if not worse, at a time when Israel is being threatened with annihilation by Iran, and Jewish communities in Europe and Latin America are under physical assault, the voice of the self-obsessed American Jewish community is coming through more and more weakly, with powerful voices questioning the very legitimacy of its collective voice.
In Israel, the success of local Alinskyites was on display this week as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu found himself squaring off against his party's most committed constituency.
The 350,000 Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria and their massive support base inside the Likud, and indeed throughout Israeli society, suffered a tremendous defeat this week.
Netanyahu's decision to torpedo a proposed law that would have prevented the implementation of the Supreme Court-ordered destruction of the Givat Haulpana neighborhood in Beit El has made these Likud members perceive themselves as isolated and in danger.
Just as the American Jewish community needs to recognize the J Street effect to contend with its current condition, so in Israel both sides of the divide in the nationalist camp need to understand how they came to find themselves on opposite sides of the fence.
Misreading what has happened, many are drawing false analogies between Givat Haulpana and the destruction of the Jewish communities in Gaza in 2005 and the destruction of homes in Amona in 2006. In both those previous cases, the destruction of the homes was the consequence of government policy. Then-premier Ariel Sharon wanted to destroy the Jewish communities of Gaza and northern Samaria. Their destruction was the centerpiece of his governing agenda. So, too, his successor Ehud Olmert wanted to destroy Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. He ran on a policy of destroying them in the 2006 elections.
This is not the case with Netanyahu.
Netanyahu can be faulted for not providing sufficient protection to Jewish property rights in Judea and Samaria. He has not permitted Jews to build on state land to make up for the fact that they face market discrimination from the Palestinian Authority which has made it a capital crime to sell private land to Jews. And of course, he bowed to US pressure and instituted the deeply prejudicial temporary construction ban on Jews in 2009 and 2010.
But unlike Sharon and Olmert, Netanyahu has not made the destruction of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria a goal of his government.
To the contrary, he has enacted initiatives to strengthen the Jewish communities there and to raise the general public's awareness of the centrality of Judea and Samaria to Jewish history and heritage.
Netanyahu is not the best friend of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. But he is more a friend than an enemy.
SO IF Netanyahu doesn't oppose the communities of Judea and Samaria, why is he supporting the destruction of Givat Haulpana? The answer is that he and his angry constituents were set up by the radicals who run the state prosecution.
True, the leftist-dominated Supreme Court ordered the government to destroy the neighborhood. But the state prosecution gave the court's justices no other choice.
The case regarding Givat Haulpana exposes several of the pathologies of Israel's legal system. But by far the most glaring pathology it reveals is the politicization of the state prosecution by the radical leftists who run it.
In the event, the radical activist group Yesh Din petitioned the court in the name of a Palestinian who claimed to be the rightful owner of the land on which the neighborhood was built. Yesh Din presented the court with an affidavit in which the Palestinian claimed that the land in question belonged to him. Yesh Din then asked the court to make the state explain why, given the affidavit, the IDF had not yet evacuated the neighborhood.
On its face, the job of the state prosecution couldn't have been more obvious. All they had to do was tell the court that the issue of ownership is contested and that the court should require Yesh Din to adjudicate ownership in the lower courts.
So, too, they ought to have rejected the unsubstantiated assertion that the IDF is required to destroy homes built on private land. There is ample precedent for both positions, including a nearly identical case regarding a neighborhood in Barkan where the land in question belonged - without question - to a private Jewish landowner.
But the state prosecution decided not to take any of those obvious positions. By not questioning the veracity of the affidavit or the assertion that the IDF is required to destroy homes built on private land without the permission of the owner, the state prosecution, which is supposed to represent the elected government, left the justices no choice. All they could do was set a date for the expulsion of the 30 families living in the five apartment buildings. And so they did.
Both the Knesset and Netanyahu seem to recognize that Israel's elected leaders were manipulated by political radicals abusing their positions in the state prosecution to undermine the elected government. And they seem to be taking appropriate action. The Knesset has ordered the state comptroller to investigate the circumstances surrounding the state prosecution's mishandling of the Yesh Din petition. Netanyahu has ordered the construction of 300 buildings in Beit El and 851 homes in all of Judea and Samaria. He has formed a ministerial committee that will oversee the state prosecution's handling of future cases regarding Palestinian claims to land housing Jewish communities.
None of this solves the problem of the 30 families who through no fault of their own are slated to become homeless in the next three weeks because public officials abused their office to throw these families from their homes and divide and destroy the nationalist camp. But it may make prosecutorial malpractice a less attractive option for these homegrown Alinskyites.
The Alinsky strategy is brilliant in its cunning mendacity. And his followers in the American Jewish community and Israel have already succeeded in causing great harm. The stakes are high in both countries. The time has come for the majority of American Jews and Israelis to stop being cowed and confused by their destructive manipulations.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=273110
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Saul Alinsky's destructive techniques were originally meant for the undermining of GENTILE societies.It is poetic justice that they are now being used to undermine Jewish society and...by Jews themselves!
As for George Soros, he is a globalist. In his ambitious global plans the well being of such a small state as Israel is of minor importance.
As is often the case : Jews are the Jews' worst enemies.
It is so breathtaking to see you spin your yarrn in the hope of defending your spinless P.M.,a lap dog who faithfully carries out the orders of his masters and who can't stand up to anything or anyone and with ease threatens and breaks the will of the few remaining true of Likud to follow his disasterous rule.
How many stood up to his treat to fire them if they voted their shallow conscience ? Only 3 from Likud ?
The rest are easily under his evil and threatening influence.
What you left out was the real reason for the destruction of Jewish homes,the International community,primarily the U.S., which the fearful idol worshipers Begin and Barark said with trepidation numerous times would be 'angry' with Israel.
Fear is what rules Israel under the charlatan.
It's very simle to understand the real issue beyond the staged puppet court show.
The Quartet must have Jewish homes turned into rubble and the poodle and puppet Netanyahu on a tight leash must deliver rubble....and the poodle always delivers AND AS YOU PROVE HERE ,YOU WILL GET USED TO THE RUBBLE AND DEFEND THE INDEFINSIBLE.
The Quartet love their devious and treacherous Bibi because they know he can keep his useful idiots of Likud in line as you have proven so well here.
You groupies of the spineless poodle are so easily duped by his 'empty' promise to build more homes in Beit El,you just can't admit you've been duped by a crafty politician of the basest sort.
A most accurate and disheartening assessment of Leftist Jewish influence both here in the US and in Israel. The intensity of the Jew hatred among so called intelligent and "well meaning" Jews is frightening. Voting Democratic Party is an inherited trait as are appeasement and complacency. It has never worked and never will, but obviously we don't seem to learn from our mistakes. Your last paragraph sums it up perfectly,
"The Alinsky strategy is brilliant in its cunning mendacity. And his followers in the American Jewish community and Israel have already succeeded in causing great harm. The stakes are high in both countries. The time has come for the majority of American Jews and Israelis to stop being cowed and confused by their destructive manipulations."
We need people like you to keep reminding us of the true facts, to ignite the fires in Jewish youth. Senior citizens like myself will keep encouraging them, but they are our strength.
G-d bless you Caroline for a job well done. Shabbat shalom.
Thank you Caroline for openly stating that the conspiracy exists, that infiltration has happened and that the infiltrators are manipulating to achieve their goals and even using the force of the state, against the people who pay the debts, do the work and pay additional prices with their bodies and their lives.
It is so very obvious and still we hear nothing of it from so many "news" organizations. I do wonder why that is. Could it be that they know and support those who do these things?
Yes, yes they do.
You have refrained from calling them traitors but that really is the only word, that fits.
"castigating Rothman and his supporters as disloyal Americans beholden only to Israel." - The Alinskyite Jewish Left in the US is beholden to neither US nor Israel. It is neither American nor Jewish but Marxist. Just as for Marx all national identities were equally repugnant (although his own Jewish identity was more hated by him than any other), for all his followers transnational world socialism supercedes any attachment to a people and any patriotism towards their native land.
It's time these people were revealed for what they are - not Jews but extreme leftist agitators bent on destroying everything they touch.
Caroline you served your country well in the military, a correspondent and a religious and conservative voice for the people of Israel.
I believe time has arrived for you to lead.
The Israeli government is in dire need of a leader.
A leader who recognizes the importance of securing the Holy Land, the land G-d entrusted to His people.
A leader who recognizes Israel is a Sovereign Jewish Nation and will not be told how to run the government by outsiders.
A leader who will command and expect the IDF to complete the task of defending the Holy Land when confronted by her enemies.
A leader who stands by One State with Jerusalem an undivided city, the capital of this Sovereign Jewish Nation.
A leader who recognizes G-d led the Jews home to Israel.
Time has come.
At the level of the use and abuse of the court system, the US has displayed its own version of the phenomenon Caroline discusses here -- and some high-powered legal scholars have highlighted both the threat to democracy this involves and the steps necessary to defuse the threat. Caroline and all who side with her on Ulpana-like court-abuse issues in Israel might do well to study what these legal scholars offer and consult them on their thinking.
Specifically (and I'm not on commission from them), I refer to legal scholars Professor Ross Sandler and Professor David Schoenbrod -- in particular, Schoenbrod currently has an appointment at the AEI (American Enterprise Institute), the well-regarded Washington think-tank. Schoenbrod and Sandler are co-authors of the book "Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government."
What the authors focus on for case material is the injunction process and mainly its use and abuse in US environmental law cases. But the intent is for the readership to extrapolate the phenomena described out to other areas of law and the larger, skewed impact on institutional relationships across the American democratic landscape -- not to mention the outright subverting of the collective will of the people as expressed via their legislative electoral decisions.
Part of what Schoenbrod and Sandler discuss is the unhealthy and hard-to-fathom de facto abdication of certain legislative faculties and powers by both state-level legislatures in the US as well as the national body, i.e. the Congress. The sloughing off of such responsibilities opens various little-seen but much-exploited avenues for ideologically undemocratic actors in the bureaucracy as well as NGO legal activists who are essentially their brothers- and sisters-in-arms in policy and ideology terms -- and who can and will labor mightily to obtain all sorts of court judgments.
Caroline and her friends in Knesset circles might do well to seek counsel from Professor Schoenbrod and take serious, concrete steps to re-assert and re-invigorate what are likely to be dormant but powerful Knesset-specific powers outweighing those of anti-Zionist NGO lawfare practitioners. If doing so forces a direct confrontation with Israel's Supreme Court, that will actually be a very salubrious episode for Israeli democracy, Zionist freedom, and Jewish security.
It boggles my mind that, 3527 years after Dathan and Korach, and more recently after the divided kingdom, and the Samaritans, and the sects of the late Second Temple era, and Saul/Paul, and Shabatai ben Tz'vi, and the kapos, now, in the shadow of a potential second Holocaust (G-d forbid), some of our worst enemies are our own people. What type of mental illness afflicts these individuals, who want to destroy K'hilath Ya'akov (the congregation of Jacob)?
Blogger Marvin Schick wrote regarding the Federation betrayal of Jewish day schools here:
http://mschick.blogspot.com/2004/07/betrayal-of-jewish-day-schools.html
Someday, someone more knowledgeable than I will write a bestselling expose about the treason of the Jewish communal structure, which has undermined Jewish education for Jewish children by advertising Quaker (Christian) education for Jewish children (violating several Torah mitz'voth (commandments)), legitimized viciously anti-Israel groups and brought them into the communal structure, mocked Torah observance, lied about Torah content, and replaced the Torah with the platform of the Democrat Party.
These powerful, wealthy individuals are our unelected leaders; I know I was never asked to vote to empower them. Those who know better follow the "sha, shtil" way of thinking; after all, R. Hillel did instruct us not to separate ourselves from the community.
But - what if the communal leaders have separated themselves from Torah? Torah prohibits us from following a majority into transgression.
It is time for a wholesale boycott of the Federations, the JCCs, the JCRCs, the AJCs, the ADLs, the WJCs, the Hillels, the communal newspapers, by all who hold the land and people and Torah of Yis'ra'eil (Israel) dear. We must support only those who define their values by the Mesorah (tradition) - wherever they may be on that long journey.
Yashar ko'ach and good Shabos.
Demographics will sort out this problem over time. Liberal American Jews don't have many children. When they do, a good portion of them are of mixed ancestry. I attended a (very liberal) Reform temple Bar Mitzvah ceremony. A crowd of perhaps 100 people, maybe 10 children, some of which were mine. Mostly grey hairs and grey beards.
Ten years from now, I seriously doubt the temple will have enough congregants to continue on.
This has nothing to do with Alinsky and everything to do with the liberal notion of a big tent. Anyone with a Jewish gene is allowed into the newly formed "big tent Judaism" whether they benefit Judaism or not.Freedom of speech has become such a mantra in the Jewish world that they dare not criticize someone else for what they say...unless of course you are a conservative or have the nerve to call the land Judea and Samaria instead of the West Bank. Real support for Israel is suspect because it doesn't fit into their left-wing world.Their religion is liberal politics first and foremost. Don't get fooled by the reception Bibi received at AIPAC, the majority of people in that room will vote for Obama in the fall and so will most of the people that marched in the Celebrate Israel Parade last Sunday despite the showing of the orthodox community.
This is about Jewish stupidity and lack of common sense and nothing at all to do with some conspiracy. JStreet and the Alinskyites are just benefiting from the demise of the US Jewish community's knowledge of history and religion, that is all. Most Jewish Americans couldn't even tell you who Alinsky was and when their beloved rabbis quote him and hold him up as a paragon of virtue they have no reason to object and when their rabbis tell them how terrific JStreet is and how it represents the true Jewish way they will not object either (yep that is why I left my Temple). Remember for all his posturing and trying to show a different face, the new head of the Reform Movement is a Jstreet founder and advocate of BDS who resigned so he could get elected to his present post.
Israel needs to worry about herself and seek her real friends outside the Jewish community.It might be nice to think that the Jews of America care what happens to their fellow Jews, but they really don't. They care about making their lives easier and if they have to sacrifice Israel to do it without even having set foot in Israel then they will. That is the sad reality...
There's only one kind of good leftist.
If Israel doesn't start making his leftists good and soon, there might no be an Israel for long.
Leftists are like nazis.
There's only one kind of good leftist.
At the same time Bill Clinton was disagreeing with Obama publically last week he was supporting Pascrell. Obama supported Rothman. I am highly suspicious of Obama. Something is amiss. My take on what Bill and others are doing is they are planning for life after Obama. Cry out to American Jews if you wish, but not all the way until the door clangs shut.
Pascrell hasn't yet won the seat. He defeated Rothman in the D primary, but he still has to face the general election, at which his R opponent will be none other than...Shmuley Boteach.
Woman, you rock!
I like the artwork contained in the articles. I don't know if I just noticed or not.
Alinskyite Jews, not Jewish Alinskyites.
Jews can do un-Jewish things. There is nothing Jewish about Alinskyism.
I am not a Jew but I have more love for Israel and the true Jewish people in my little toe than all those so called Jews who were born Jews but want to destroy Israel have in their combined delusional heads. For good reason did Paul say “For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.