American Friends Service Committee hiring Israel-Haters

Notice to Bay Area Haters: you can turn your disdain for Israeli democracy, diversity and innovation into a career.

The American Friends Service Committee is now hiring seasoned haters to demonize and isolate the only democracy in the Middle East, giving local anti-Israel activists an opportunity to transform their animus into a fun and profitable career.

The BDS movement is not and has never been "grassroots"- there is big money supporting this,  and it is led by paid activists. Remember that.

Demonize Israel for fun and profit

The American Friends Service Committee is hiring.  Now our local anti-Israel activists can demonize the only democracy in the Middle East for fun, and for profit. Dalit Baum,  the director of the Middle East Program of the American Friends Service Committee in San Francisco is hiring. Last year Dalit headed the Economic Activism for Palestine Program of Global Exchange (you didn't think these people were volunteers, did you?), and is perhaps best known for her failed attempts to bully Cliff's Variety  , a local retailer into submission

The Job announcement follows:

The Middle East Program of the AFSC (American Friends Service Committee) is looking for interns to support Palestine solidarity campaigns, economic activism and prisoner solidarity projects. Part- to full-time internships available until the end of September, with a possible continuation to a full year internship.

The work will take place at the AFSC San Francisco office. Available stipend is $12 an hour, up to $1200 a month.

We are looking for: someone who cares about the issues, preferably a student activist familiar with Israel/ Palestine. The intern must have excellent computer skills and writing skills, with some experience in research. Preference to Arabic speakers. The tasks may include: Coordinating campus and community organizers; Corporate research for activism; Updating on-line databases; Uploading and sending out information.

Please send your application by July 25th to dbaum@afsc.org. Include your CV and a cover letter, explaining how you fit the requirements and why you are interested in this position. Further include a writing sample of at least one page and two references from people who know your work.

 Its not quite as "grass roots" as the anti-Israel activists would have you believe. Its never been.

 From Arutz Sheva:


Are Israel's leftists pure ideologues or guns for hire? Yotam Feldman, who was born into the leftist camp – his father is liberal lawyer Avigdor Feldman – believes the latter.

In a Hebrew language post at the "Eretz HaEmori" blog, Feldman says that in his life, he has witnessed how Israel's "human rights movement" became a source of income for its activists. He relates how his father's old Subaru "gradually turned" into a BMW, and how the family moved from a rented apartment in Yafo to a spacious Tel Aviv apartment. "

He continues:

"It is a well known but seldom stated fact that a very large part of the leftist activists in Tel Aviv earn their salaries in different ways from the human rights branch. Many of the prominent – and often most vocal – activists in the demonstrations are paid spokespeople, PR people, producers and organizers and of course, lawyers who man the tip of the pyramid in these groups."

"This is a pretty confusing situation because when you are standing in a demonstration or even just engaging in idle talk, it is not clear if the person next to you is expressing his opinion as a result of inner conviction or as an inseparable part of his job…"

BDS fail. Israeli food exports to America increase 50% over the last 5 years

 Anti-Israel activists will be assembling later this month for a BDS meet and greet in upstate New York   The BDS boot camp  run by the American Friends Service Committee and  Jewish Voice for Peace promises “fun in a summer camp-like environment!” , and offers Ramadan meal accommodations. They know their target audience

Perhaps there will be a workshop on keeping up morale in the face of failure.

After twelve years, the BDS campaign  seems to have made no appreciable difference in Israel's economic growth. Israel’s explosive tech industry remains unaffected,  with Google recently purchasing Israeli company Waze for $1 billion. Intel is currently in negotiation to invest $10 billion dollars in the Israel based factories.

Its not just tech.

The last five years have seen a 50% rise in Israeli food exports to the United States. Exports of Israeli foods and beverages to the United States reached a record $224 million in 2012.

From YNET

The Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute (IEICI) recently revealed that in 2012 alone, the US received a record $224 million worth of Israeli food and beverage exports, which represents a 3% increase since 2011 and a 50% increase since 2008, when Israeli food and beverage exports were valued at $144 million...

Several Israeli researchers predict that the amount of Israeli food and beverage exports in the US will double within the next five years....

In the San Francisco Bay Area, one of the hubs of the "delegitimization" of Israel,  Israeli products are readily available, carried by big box chains such as Costco, as well as smaller specialty stores such as Trader Joes.  Independent Grocers  and gourmet shops are carrying more and more Israeli foods. And in spite of the call of "Palestinian civil society", and to the chagrin of anti-Israel activists,  Israeli products can still be found in many of the small Arab and Middle eastern markets around town.

Ora's Organics Israeli Tea at Safeway

Delicious Israeli Olive oil found at the Berkeley Bowl

Israeli Sliced cheese at Costco

Israeli Wines found in a Bay Area Lucky store: The "Buy Israeli goods" symbol is a nice touch

Just some food for thought to the BDS'holes out there...

Aipac protests in the Bay Area

As happens every year, the usual pack of brainwashed supporters of extremist Islamic misogyny and Jew-hate will be out protesting in front of the AIPAC dinners in the Bay Area. Such 'protests' are usually forums for mayhem and socially approved bigotry among a certain class.

This year's sponsors of hatred and opportunistic thuggism in front of hotels:
Progressive Democrats of America-East Bay• Middle East Study Group• Middle East Children’s Alliance • Bay Area Women in Black • Students for Justice in Palestine • 14 Friends of Palestine • Richmond Progressive Alliance • American Friends Service Comm. • Code Pink • Jewish Voice for Peace • ANSWER- SF Bay Area • Friends of Deir Ibzi’a.

Conspicuously absent from any mention is the International Solidarity Movement. That does NOT mean that they do not have any thoughts regarding the matter.


THE ISM?

A dynamite piece in the Contra Costa Times perfectly highlights how utterly despicable some of the people on the anti-Israel side really are.

Quote:
PAUL LARUDEE writes in the Times (Dec. 4) to lament that people in the East Bay will be breaking bread with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). What Larudee does not tell his readers is that he has repeatedly bragged about sharing the bed of a suicide bomber, who had committed mass murder, and that he is a prominent member of the anarchist International Solidarity Movement.
[End quote]

From Would You Rather Break Bread With AIPAC or Share Bed of a Suicide Bomber? by Abraham H. Miller

SOURCE: Readers' Forum, by Abraham H. Miller, Guest Commentary
Posted: 12/11/2010
http://www.contracostatimes.com/columns/ci_16827099?nclick_check=1

Quote:
This group routinely works with such terrorist groups as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Larudee justifies violence as long as the dead and injured are Jews. He is so obsessed with Israel that he helped organized the Gaza Flotilla that was seeded with Islamist fanatics who sought and achieved martyrdom under the ruse of bringing aid to the Hamas-dominated territory.

That aid was so vital to the people of Gaza that Hamas has refused to accept it. It now rots in warehouses in Israel and Egypt.

Undeterred Larudee's latest obsession is to fly an airplane into Gaza in an effort to precipitate a new propaganda event. Larudee is neither a man of peace nor a human-rights activist.

He is a propagandist obsessed with the destruction of Israel by whatever means necessary. In 2006 his terrorist-loving ISM members were photographed carrying AK-47 machine guns, while standing next to members of the terrorist Al Asqa Martyr's Brigade. As someone who has proudly broken bread with
AIPAC, permit me to note some factual errors in Larudee's piece. AIPAC has neither supported nor opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has no positions on those, despite what Larudee says.

In a week when WikiLeaks clearly shows us that it is the Arabs, not the Israelis, who were actively calling for the Obama administration "to remove the head of the snake," Larudee tells us that Israel and AIPAC are the ones promoting war with Iran.

AIPAC supports a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, with both states living in peace, harmony and mutual security. Larudee's anarchist ISM does not.

AIPAC and its predecessors have promoted a strong, mutually beneficial alliance between the United States and Israel. It was Israeli intelligence that gave the United States one of the greatest intelligence coups of the Cold War, the complete text of Khrushev's secret speech to the 20th Party Congress of the Soviet Union. It was Israel that turned over an intact Russian MiG to the United States and an entire working Soviet radar system. Israeli intelligence was the only Western intelligence service ever to pierce the workings of a Politburo and make them available to the United States.

This vital strategic relationship, made more important by contemporary events, has resulted in at least five "secret" American bases on Israeli soil. These bases are vital to American security in the war on terrorism.

Larudee's ISM promotes no one's interest, but its own. In November of 2005, the Arabs of Hebron asked their Orthodox Jewish neighbors to help them in getting rid of ISM activists, whose behavior had become patently offensive to the Arab community.

Larudee's ISM promotes propaganda events, fronts for terrorists, seeks Israel's destruction while he laments that our neighbors will break bread with an organization that promotes the mutual security interests of Israel and the United States, an organization that advocates a two-state solution based on peace and security.

Given a choice between breaking bread with AIPAC or sharing the bed of a suicide bomber, I believe most of us would choose to break bread with AIPAC.
[End quote.]

Abraham H. Miller is emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati. He is a former counterterrorism consultant to the National Institute of Justice.


=================================

http://www.contracostatimes.com/columns/ci_16827099?nclick_check=1

=================================

"AIPAC supports a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, with both states living in peace, harmony and mutual security. Larudee's anarchist ISM does not."

In addition to the anti-Israel organizations listed above, there will be unaffiliated elements with their own agendas among the baying mob. In years past, threats were made towards attendees, and violent incidents occurred. We'll see if this year the Oakland and San Francisco Police Departments are prepared - they have at times been caught off guard by the venom and aggression displayed toward Jews, Israel, and America by the organized fronts and their allies.
I wish the supporters of Israel good luck, and fervently hope that they do not get accidentally caught up in any of the "direct action" planned for today and tomorrow.


---G.P.


=================================

Crossposted here: http://grantpatel.blogspot.com/2010/12/aipac-protests-in-bay-area.html

=================================

Jewish Voice for Peace and AFSC Formally Admit It-- They Are Opposed to the Existence of Israel

Originally posted here Thanks to drmike

At a pro-Hamas demonstration in San Francisco last week, Jewish Voice for Peace and the American Friends Service Committee finally dropped all pretense about their position on Israel. While both of these groups had been vigorously involved in anti-Israel activities for years (and joined together to co-present the now-notorious showing of "Rachel" last summer at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival), each had maintained the pretense that they didn't oppose the existence of a Jewish state per se. They have now decided to admit what we knew all along-- that they are fully and completely aligned with groups that openly call for the elimination of Israel, and that they share the agenda of groups such as al-Awda, International ANSWER, and, in the end, Hamas.

This flyer was handed out at the event; the sponsoring organizations listed include JVP and the Pacific Mountain Region of the American Friends Service Committee. The website of the Bay Area Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid not only endorses the Palestinian BDS movement (which calls for the elimination of Jewish statehood through the so-called "right" of return), but in case anyone misses the subtlety, it also states "We are opposed to imperialism, sectarianism, and Zionism."

Extremist groups such as al-Awda and ANSWER have at least been straightforward about their position-- opposition to any Jewish state while supporting terrorism as "legitimate resistance". JVP and AFSC have been trying for years to claim that they can stand with those groups in public and not pick up their foul stench. They have now given up that charade. JVP should simply complete the task and merge with the so-called "Jewish Anti-Zionist Network", since their positions are now indistinguishable. Perhaps their membership already is.