Steve Linde
Editor-in-Chief, The Jerusalem Post
Sir,
The article, “With Ferguson raging, Arabs and Jews draw parallels with African-American community” (Aug 25, 2014) refers to Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) as a “left-wing pro-two state solution organization.”  This is incorrect – JVP is a radical anti-Zionist group that “endorses neither a one-state solution, nor a two-state solution.”  Indeed, JVP participated in and supported the One State Conference at Harvard in 2012 and routinely partners with a wide range of radical leftist, Islamist, and Arab ultra-nationalist groups to promote its program.

JVP’s leaders claim to be the “Jewish wing of the Palestinian solidarity movement” and define their goal as “driving a wedge” within the American Jewish community regarding Israel.

JVP is an integral part in the anti-Israel BDS campaign and provides a façade of Jewish support for efforts such as the Presbyterian Church’s divestment vote. During the war in Gaza, JVP organized or participated in scores of anti-Israel street protests, and took credit for invading and occupying the offices of numerous Jewish federations in the U.S.

As NGO Monitor’s detailed research shows, JVP provides no evidence for its claims of 100,000 followers.  Further, JVP is able to gain visibility, including in this article, through an annual budget of $1.15 million, but the source of most of this money is carefully hidden. It seems the group’s leaders recognize that revelation of their donors will impeach the credibility they seek to project.
 
Yitzhak Santis
Chief Programs Officer
NGO Monitor
 
 
Apparently Jewish Voice for Peace and assorted anti-Israel agitprop groups have also claimed that the St. Louis County police chief received training in counter-terrorism measures in Israel .  Indeed, in 2011, the  police chief at the time Timothy Fitch went to Israel as part of an ADL sponsored counter-terrorism group.  Fitch is currently retired, and there is  no evidence that Jon Belmer, the current chief of police has been to Israel at all.