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Open Letter to a Jewish Student re the Olive Tree Initiative

Dear Friend,

As a recent UCI graduate, you recently have written several people to explain the Olive Tree Initiative (OTI) to them.  You explain that you are pro-Israel and would not have co-founded it if you thought it would hurt Israel.  I have read your words with great sympathy, and I share some thoughts.

 

1.  You were active in something you no longer control.  You could not always be at UCI.  Not everyone who succeeded you thinks like you.  With each ensuing year, the OTI has become something that less-devoted Jews have chosen to do also.  Some do it because they hear it is “awesome.”  Cool foods, cool music, and you get to meet people who even know terrorists. ("But don’t worry – Dean Gomez will be there, so it’s safe.")  Some, with little background or contextual knowledge of the region, hear that it is fabulous on a resumé if you want to apply to a major law school or MBA program.  Little by little, the founding generation and its successor have passed, and what is left is an institutional protoplasm that has taken on a life of its own, which you no longer control.  Not every trip to Jenin will be met with responses by Jews who understand why Israel had to smash through those alleys and kill terrorists, in the aftermath of an interminable series of suicide bombings emanating specifically from Jenin-trained suicide terrorists.  Rather, they see the propaganda movie that is shown to UCI Olive Tree Initiative students in Jenin, with the Arab body parts, and they  wonder "why Israel had to be so cruel."  They hear about Jenin as a “Palestinian Refugee Camp” and lack the contextual background and presence of mind to ask how the people in Jenin can call themselves “refugees” if they now supposedly are repatriated and live in the land from which they supposedly fled, “Palestine.”  They hear one or another George Rishmawi telling them at OTI programs about how Israelis literally shoot live ammunition randomly at Arabs. 

They see the Israeli military checkpoints at the Security Fence, and they lack context.  It is like someone who died in the 1990s coming back to life and seeing the TSA security lines at the airport.  If people do not like the long lines and invasive body searches with context, imagine the impact of seeing it without context.  Maybe there will be one or two Jews on the trip who know a bit, although definitely not what you knew.  But you will not be there.  Who will be there to ask the Arab Palestine propagandist – who bemoans the “Israeli occupation” and says “all we ever wanted was our land” – the obvious question:  “You had the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and the Gaza Strip before June 1967, so what were you trying to accomplish when you founded the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964?  What were you trying to liberate when the anti-Israel Arab terrorist movement formally began in 1964?”  Instead, the least-ignorant-Jew on the trip – a far cry from the most knowledgeable Jew – will become the Zionist voice: “Well, East Jerusalem.  I guess Israel should let that be the capital of Arab Palestine, but Israel also should be allowed to have some of Jerusalem.  And Israel should not have cut so deeply into the Arab West Bank – “Palestine” – with that fence just to protect a few settlers who probably don’t belong there.  OK, guys, that’s my compromise, what’s yours?”  Yes, there will be OTI visits with the Israel side, too, for “balance.” But, unlike the monolithic "Palestine" side that does not accept a permanent Jewish-sovereign polity anywhere in the Middle East, the Israel side is, shall we say, "diverse."  There will even be the retired Israeli general who looks back on the 1967 liberation of Jerusalem – “haKotel b’yadeinu!” – and will apologize to the UCI students on the OTI adventure for his having been caught in the same "mindless euphoria” back then that caused Israelis to lose sight of the big picture.  But he will assure his UCI OTI audience that he has atoned over the years and has been active in several “peace” campaigns in recent years, even writing the Israeli Prime Minister that Israel has it all wrong – and, after all, he knows because he served under the Prime Minister’s brother.  That is what you have helped to create for new classes of Jewish students at UCI.

2.  You continually are under the misapprehension that Daniel Wehrenfennig is something more than a grad student who just got a Ph.D. a year ago.  Despite what has been conveyed to you, which you have conveyed to me, he is not a world-famous nor even a significant peace maker.  He has some publications.  I have publications, too.  I published a law review study that was cited by at least nine different prominent federal judges in handing down significant multi-million-dollar federal decisions. That does not make me a Supreme Court justice.  Nor is this fellow Richard Holbrooke.  He is not Henry Kissinger.  He is a fellow with some publications on ideas for citizen involvement in peacemaking, from Northern Ireland to “Occupied Palestine.”  It is like a lovely slim blonde woman or a great-looking hunk of a guy coming to Hollywood and expecting to be hired immediately for a starring role in the first movie for which she or he auditions.  In time, she or he is waiting tables.  At a seedy bar. 

 

You see, the problem is that I come at it from the perspective of someone who not only loves all of Israel, including the communities of Yehuda and Shomron, including the Neve Aliza community I helped establish in 1985 in Karnei Shomron, but also from the perspective of a rabbi.  I am a rabbi who cares about Jews.  This is not a good program for Jews, and it does not bring Jewish students an inch closer to Judaism, to Torah, to Shabbat, to mitzvot.  An OTI Friday night at Aish HaTorah with a group that is 80 percent non-Jewish doesn’t "cut it," particularly when the program spends Shabbat Day  a few hours later in “Arab Palestine.”  A program that appallingly but predictably spends most of Rosh Hashanah in “Palestine” and Jordan doesn’t cut it – even if they tell the Jews that “Hey, if you want to leave the group for two days for your holiday, that’s OK.”  I expect that kind of consideration from a law firm where I work.  I expect that at a public school in Iowa.  That does not "cut it" as a program for Jewish students to be spending two weeks in Israel.

3.  Note that this issue never really energized me until the salaried Hillel director and the Hillel student president each opted to launch mass-distributed character-assassination letters against a member of my shul.  Those letters were sent to me and thousands of other Jews on Shabbat.  What Jewish organization publicly desecrates Shabbat so blithely?  And they really calumniated her.  Can you imagine?  Based on the dozens upon dozens upon dozens of signatures to the letter defaming this woman, every single UCI Jewish student leader, every UCI Jewish student group president and vice-president, every last Jewish group on campus, and dozens other present and former UCI Jewish students all supposedly were so infuriated by her that they supposedly all signed onto a hate-filled letter within a day?  In a lifetime, you will meet many Jewish leaders and even rabbis whom you will think have sold out a bit, slowed down a bit, lost whatever idealism or gleam in their eyes they may ever have had.  You will hear them patronize you and talk to you about “life experience.”  Well, let me tell you:  I have been there, done that.  I also am an activist.  I still respect your fire without seeing you as “some stupid dopey kid who needs to grow up.”  If I thought you were unworthy, I never would be devoting this kind of time and effort to write you as extensively as I am writing you here.  I cherish and value student activists for Israel.  But just as I do not superimpose on you a prejudice that you are too young for a serious discussion, don’t you superimpose on me a prejudice that I am too old. And, as a Jewish activist myself, I will tell you that in forty years of activism, going back to my first campaign – to convince NBC to renew “Star Trek” for another season – I never have gotten that many signatures onto a petition or a letter, that 100% a response, in less than a day.  So there was something rotten and clearly fraudulent about those signatures immediately.  We now have learned from many trying to have their names withdrawn that so many of those signatures were forgeries.

 

I am telling you that the two letters that were mass-distributed that Shabbat bordered on legally actionable slander.  More, the three separate letters were coordinated – a campaign coordinated among the Federation professional, the Hillel professional, and the Hillel student leader.  And those letters not only were nasty, not only may have been legally actionable, but also included – in at least one case – significant forgery of names who did not sign onto it and even opposed it.  Those letters attempted to a destroy a good woman over a possible scrivener’s error, but instead they opened huge new cans of worms, revealing far more than any of us had expected.  That is what it took to wake up many people in this community that something here is not right.  If they can defame and destroy this woman today, and we remain silent, what will stop them from defaming someone else next time?  So those of us who never stopped being activists – just got detoured a few extra exits by the need to rear children, put them through high school and college, and earn income to pay bills for the kinds of personal needs (electric, gas, water) that are not funded by the Federation’s Rose Project – woke up. We found each other.  We started doing some research.  And we could not believe what we learned.

4.  We found, as much to our shock as to our chagrin, that there is a cover-up in play.  Suddenly UCI Hillel conveys that it never has supported or advocated or encouraged UCI Jewish student participation in the Olive Tree Initiative.  First of all, that is a lie.  It is not merely a fabrication, a falsification, or a mendacity.  This is not Foggy Bottom nor “Cat on a Hit Tin Roof.”  Here, we talk plainly.  I am a congregational rabbi in Irvine, a member of the national executive committee of one national rabbinic body, a leader in another national rabbinic body, a former Chief Articles Editor of a prominent law review and former clerk to a nationally prominent federal appeals court judge, and I am saying it plainly:  It is an outright lie by UCI Hillel.  By contrast, the truth is that UCI Hillel actively advocated for and encouraged UCI Jewish student participation in the Olive Tree Initiative, even participating in OTI's founding.  I know what Tzvi Raviv told me, and I know what Bruce Manning told me.  And I am a bit surprised that you seem unaware that Hillel encouraged the formation of OTI. 

 

So, as always happens in politics when the truth gets uncomfortable and difficult to answer, people give up on answering the truth and start creating “straw men” instead, knocking them down gleefully.  So we now are being told by certain Hillel spokespeople that the activists are accusing Hillel of paying money towards OTI.  Not true.  That Hillel is accused of supporting OTI with money.  Not true.  Rather, Hillel stands accused of having been among those encouraging the formation and establishment of OTI, and it stands accused of having used its resources to encourage UCI Jewish students to go on OTI programs.  And it is time for UCI Hillel to stop covering up and instead to admit the truth of its role in the formative year of Olive Tree Initiative. That – along with an apology to the Jewish community and to the Jewish students it misguided.  Similarly, we now are being told that the activists accuse Federation of funding OTI.  Not True.  Of financially supporting OTI.  Not true.  Rather, Federation stands accused of taking Jewish charitable funds during this Great Recession, a time when Jewish Family Services of Orange County was forced to abandon its independence and to merge into Federation because there no longer was enough Jewish charitable money available to it, and giving those Jewish funds towards the airfare and tuition of Jewish students attending the Olive Tree Initiative program. Again, that Federation money made it possible for those UCI Jewish students to travel with OTI to “Palestine” to hear those terrible anti-Israel speeches in “Palestine,” to see that hateful movie in Jenin, to hear George Rishmawi threaten that, if the demands of the “Palestinian peacemakers” are not met this year, then the “peace activists” of “Palestine” may well have no alternative but to turn to violence next year.

5.  More “straw men” ensued.  We were told that, in our ignorance, we are calling OTI anti-Semitic. Not true.  That we are calling Daniel Wehrenfennig anti-Semitic.  Not true.  That we oppose Wehrenfennig because he is a German.  Not true.  That we regard OTI as anti-Israel.  Not true.  That we regard Wehrenfennig as anti-Israel.  Not true.  Rather, what is true is that we regard the OTI as a terribly unfortunate and misguided initiative, clutched at by Dean Michael Drake and Vice President Gomez as a publicity bonanza to show their donors and local politicians that, you see, we are doing something about the Muslim Student Union and its annual “Hate Israel Week” and its incessant disruptions of Jewish speakers ranging from Prof. Daniel Pipes to Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren.  To paraphrase in common parlance, once we cut through the phraseology and rhetoric, we are hearing this: “Look, Jews, we have the Olive Tree Initiative.  So stop bothering us.  And stop telling Merage that, all because he is a Jew, he should stop giving us tens of millions of dollars.  OK?”  Likewise, originally, the Federation and Hillel proudly also bragged about their OTI involvement.  It was once upon a time.  Now, in the face of the revelations about what actually happens at OTI programs, they have reverted.  Now they deny, and once we cut through the phraseology and rhetoric, we are hearing this: “We never said that.  We don’t support it.  We don’t fund it.”  It is like Bill Clinton denying that he had sex with Monica Lewinsky.  “I did not have sex with that woman.”  Then they tell him she preserved a dress with his DNA on it.  “Oh.  Well, in that case . . . .”  So now we are told that it is not Federation money; rather, it is Rose Project money.  But the Federation is the Rose Project, and the Rose Project is the Federation.  Let us hypothesize that Rose came and said to Federation “We want to donate money to start an Institute for Historical Review, to do research disproving that the Holocaust ever happened.  We will fund research to prove the Holocaust is a hoax.”  Would that project be accepted as an utterly independent “Rose Project of the Jewish Federation of Orange County for Denying the Holocaust”?  Let us hypothesize, with greater warmth, that Rose came and said “We have met and tested Jewish kids in Orange County who go to TVT, and we are beyond-shocked at how little they know after twelve years at TVT, so we want to start a million-dollar-fund to start a Modern Orthodox Hebrew Academy in Irvine for grades 1-12.”  Do you think – for a nano-second – that there would be a “Rose Project of the Jewish Federation of Orange County for Establishing an Orthodox  Hebrew Academy in Irvine?”  D’ya think so?  The reality is that the Rose Project’s funding of those airfares and tuitions for the Olive Tree Initiative students is part-and-parcel of a project that the Jewish Federation of Orange County proudly has accepted under its wings, and Federation boastfully has bragged about that financial subventing of OTI whenever it has suited Federation’s public relations purposes, and it has directed donors that way.

6.  More straw men:  We are being told that activists have written that [student name withheld] is anti-Israel because he/ she supported OTI.  Not true.  Rather, we regret that the student or students, who care about Israel, have failed to see the longer-term consequences of their promoting OTI now.  It is called the Law of Unintended Consequences. In the end, then, Jews are the losers – primarily Jewish students.  Think about it:  If this Olive Tree Initiative, which you tell us is so good for the Jews, really were so sound and worthwhile, why would UCI Hillel and the Jewish Federation of Orange County now, before your very eyes, be denying their demonstrable direct involvement in OTI? Alas, this misguided initiative now has spread to two other far-flung UC campuses where there are even fewer Jewish students like you who would know what to say in Jenin.  This is not what may have been intended by those within the Jewish community who helped create it, but this is what has been created, a program that neither will bring peace to the region nor harm it, but will be used manipulatively by third-parties who were not on the original radar, including but not limited to:  (i) the UCI Administration, manipulating this OTI program to excuse themselves for their abysmal record on protecting Jewish students walking along Ring Road during the worst moments of “Hate Israel Week” and failing to assure that the Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the State of Israel could speak with dignity to a UCI audience; and (ii) future Jewish students looking for something awesome for their resumés, while also enjoying an awesome Mideast experience in the hot spots like Jenin, in the company of people who count terrorists among their acquaintances, and maybe parlaying it to a great law or business graduate school – devoting their Mideast experience to “doing OTI” rather than, say, doing Birthright-Israel.  And is it not ironic?  The Olive Tree Initiative already was in full bloom, supposedly having peeled away layers of animosity and distrust that underlay prior Muslim Student Union (MSU) actions endangering UCI as a campus safe for Jews to hear Jewish speakers, when – nevertheless and despite OTI – the MSU still broke up Ambassador Oren’s appearance at UCI.

7.  A final “straw,” perhaps better characterized as “the last straw.” One of the students would tell us that “We students are the new leaders of the American Jewish community.  We are the future.  We know best what is best for UCI.  Your role in the community is to give us the funds.  And otherwise – just butt out.”  And so, a word to a friend.   Irvine is our community, too.  We, too, are its leaders.  In the Irvine and greater Orange County Jewish community, there are nationally prominent experts on Israel and the Middle East, published authors, trained and experienced teachers, leaders capable of offering Israel advocacy training and teaching, Jewish leaders who actually fly across the country to teach and train others.  There are Ph.D.s and scholars, scholarly researchers and exciting speakers.  We are not called upon. Our offered services repeatedly are rejected. So be it.  A $5,000 honorarium from an East Coast Jewish audience pays more than would the pro bono (free of charge) presentation that the same expert among us offers locally as a loving service to the community.  But let us be clear: This issue transcends the students on campus. Perhaps you may have seen Breaking Away, an Academy Award®-winning flick. Its subplot is instructive.  We the Jewish community live here in Irvine today, and we will be living here tomorrow, long after several of today’s UCI college and grad students have moved on.  We have a long-term stake in the community, and we therefore have a stake in the neighborhood campus that brings occasional Jew-haters (including Jewish Jew-haters) out of their respective rat holes and into our midst.  We are asked – even guilted – to contribute money to UCI Hillel, apprised that it is our obligation to do so because we have a stake.  I personally have made such a donation to UCI Hillel.  Some of us even have devoted hundreds of hours of our own personal time to students at UCI, even at the expense of personal family time, vacation time, and at the expense of money.  We have seen students come into Irvine, then move on, much as I moved on in my life 35 years ago from the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University, and subsequently from the Westwood campus of UCLA Law School.  Thus, it is important to recognize that, in the course of a lifetime, many of our respective lives are intersecting concentric circles, elliptical encounters. The world does not revolve around me, and it does not revolve around this or that student.  One day it is about mobilizing the Irvine and Orange County Jewish community to help the former salaried Hillel Director actualize his hopes and agenda, and then he is gone, forgotten, but we still are here.  Jewish organizational professionals come and go.  We have seen the revolving doors at the Irvine Bureau of Jewish Education, the American Jewish Committee, the Tarbut v’ Torah school, and yes at UCI Hillel.  Through each of the transitions, we donate money and time, patience and passion and participation.  One day it is the new Hillel Program Director arriving all excited with big plans, and another day it is someone else with a different program agenda.  But we the Orange County Jewish community remain here, committed and devoted to this place and to our friends and families and dreams, realizing that our tzedakah dollars are being allocated in ways that we find objectionable. 

 

While phantom students’ names are signed to documents without the signatories’ knowledge, assent, authorization – and in some cases over their explicit objections – it is we, the community, that receive the defamatory letters, breaking the peaceful moment as the Shabbat ends.  We do not heatedly return the letters with overheated, over-exercised verbiage, telling the senders: “The students on campus are the leaders of tomorrow, so solicit the Big Gifts and Major Donations from them.  It is they, the students at UCI, who alone are impacted at UCI, so let them tend to themselves, and how dare you approach with a fundraiser’s solicitations those of us who are not on campus?” 

But there is a time for everything under the heavens: A time to be still, and a time to speak.  A time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.  Among us as Jews there always is a time to love and a time for peace.  But this also is a time to speak and time to refrain from embracing.  There will be absolutely no support for the Federation of Orange County from this quarter, nor from those who share my concerns, until the Federation and Hillel publicly withdraw from their associations with the Olive Tree Initiative.  My desk is loaded with ample Jewish charitable alternatives to support, and tzedakah never stops in my home.  But tzedakah must be just.  And there is never a shortage of worthy Jewish causes to support that never would spend a penny of Jewish tzedakah money to fly a local Jewish student to “Palestine” for a film viewing in Jenin depicting the Israeli people as barbaric and cruel murderers.  No, not a charity for me.

-- Rabbi Dov Fischer

 

http://www.rabbidov.com/olivetree.htm

 

 

 

An Open Letter to the Orange County Jewish Community

From Rabbi Dov Fischer

 

There is now a full-blown county-wide community controversy over the forthcoming speech at UCI by George Rishmawi.  In separate letters respectively e-mailed during Shabbat evening November 19, 2010, from the professional directors of both the Orange County Jewish Federation and the Orange County Hillel, it is emphasized that the speaker coming to UCI campus for the “Olive Tree Institute” (OTI) – an institute that the OC Jewish Federation and the OC Federation Rose Project, and the OC Hillel respectively support and endorse – is George S. Rishmawi, not George N. Rishmawi.  In their public letters, the OC Hillel in particular targets for searing personal attack a woman in the Irvine Jewish community, who apparently spearheaded the controversy by first challenging the propriety of the Federation and the Hillel allying so frontally with OTI.  In the letter from Hillel, this woman is explicitly named three separate times in a remarkably personal and disparaging way.  In addition to the Hillel letter, an appended letter, signed by student leaders at UCI whose names were gathered for the letter, names this woman explicitly four times.  I leave it to others to evaluate who wrote the students’ letter and who helped organize the signatures of some one hundred UCI Jewish students, past and present, in a matter of one or two days. However, I am galvanized to write because the effect of the responsive letters by the Orange County Jewish Federation director and the Hillel professional is to delegitimize this lady as a voice in the greater Jewish community.   

I know this lady.  I have spoken with her twice or thrice in the past year, and I know others who have worked with her.  She is a passionate supporter of Israel and a pest, a nudnik, a real annoyance . . . to anyone who fails to act with the energy, passion, and frontal direct path that she feels others should follow. Her approach is not always the right one, but she is a valid participant in the greater community’s support for Israel. So she has annoyed Hillel and the Federation in the past.  And now, having ostensibly conflated George N. Rishmawi with George S. Rishmawi, this lady seems to have been targeted as fair game for explicit ad hominem character assassination, to negate her as a serious voice in the community.  Interestingly, the Simon Wiesenthal Center of Los Angeles also wrote the OC Jewish Federation two or three days ago to express virtually the same concerns that this lady raised.  However, the name of Simon Wiesenthal has not been attacked, nor has the name of the Wiesenthal executive who signed that letter.  Thus, it appears that the Orange County Jewish Federation and Orange County Hillel shied away from “picking on someone your own size.”  Instead, she was targeted.

I therefore write and soon will be posting on my website.  Among other stations I hold in the community are:  Rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, Member National Executive Committee Rabbinical Council of America, former National Vice President Zionist Organization of America, and former Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review.  I comment here on several matters:

1.      Do Not Stand by Your Brother’s Blood.  I have the deepest contempt for people who see someone being slandered or character-assassinated, who further recognize the grave injustice, privately shake their heads with a sense of shame over the injustice that the Jewish community is at it once again, destroying someone daring who challenges a defective aspect of the status quo, but who then remain silent rather than defend someone being attacked.  They fear that, if they speak out to defend, then they also will see their own names and reputations besmirched and sullied by the same people ready to character-assassinate.  So I write to speak out against the attempted character assassination of this lady.  And although I have seen and spoken to her only once in the past five months – for thirty seconds at a wedding that I conducted, where she was but one of the assembled invited guests – I am stating publicly, here and now, that I will stand by her if any further attempt is made after this evening, November 20, to further assassinate or attack her character or motives.

2.      The Enormous Value of Orange County Hillel and Hillel at UCI.  I believe that Jewish students at UCI deserve the fullest, strongest possible programming in Israel education.  Thus, I support UCI Hillel and personally continue to respect its professional director.  I am proud to have my name associated with OC Hillel, on whose Board of Directors I proudly served the past three years.  I am very glad that UCI Hillel has played a critical role in so many ways to support Israel on campus and to advocate for Jewish students at UCI.  UCI Hillel runs an annual pro-Israel week on campus on Ring Round, works closely with UCI Chabad to facilitate aspects of Jewish observance for those students interested in Judaism, and even has coordinated with Hillel of Long Beach to bring Rabbi Drew Kaplan to campus every week for students interested in meeting with a rabbi.  UCI Hillel has met with UCI administrators in the aftermath of Moslem Student Union (MSU) acts of hate. UCI Hillel continues to deserve support.

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3. Absolute, Unequivocal, Utter Rejection of Irresponsible Suggestions That UCI Is Not Safe for Jews. I further reject – absolutely, unequivocally, and utterly – any and all suggestions or intimations that Jewish students are so unsafe as Jews at UCI that they should consider avoiding the school.  I have walked Ring Road many times while wearing my yarmulka, and I never experienced a problem.  I have spoken for the UCI Campus Interfaith Center as an invited speaker on several different occasions at UCI, always being treated respectfully.  There is a robust Jewish presence at UCI, and I condemn – outright condemn and denounce in the strongest possible terms – any suggestion that UCI is less safe for Jews than is any other American campus.

4.  The “Olive Tree Institute” Does Not Deserve Jewish Federation Funding nor Hillel Endorsement as taglit-Birthright Does. I believe it is not responsible for a Jewish organization to bring Jewish students lacking the most maximal possible  education in the area of Israel and Mideast Studies to engage in “dialogue” with trained anti-Israel propagandists and others whose life agendas unalterably are to present the anti-Israel narrative in a gentle, yet sophisticated way.  According to the Orange County Jewish Federation’s chief professional officer, “The Rose Project has, in the past, provided scholarship funds for knowledgeable Jewish students to participate in OTI’s annual trip to the Middle East, in the company of students of other faiths.” This tangible monetary support of OTI by transferring Jewish funds from the Rose Project of the Jewish Federation to the OTI is appalling.  This is, in my opinion, a profound and irresponsible misuse of Jewish communal funds earmarked for Jewish students at this moment in time.  By contrast, the Taglit-Birthright Hillel program is a fabulous investment of Jewish funds in the future of our community.

5.   On George N. Rishmawi and George S. Rishmawi.  The “Olive Tree Initiative” (OTI) is bringing George Rishmawi to UCI.  First, the George Rishmawi it is not bringing is George N. Rishmawi.  In the explicit words of the chief professional officer of the Orange County Jewish Federation, George N. Rishmawi is “despicable.”  That adjective seems sufficient for the moment.  And that brings us to George S. Rishmawi, who apparently is the George Rishmawi coming to UCI under the aegis of the Olive Tree Institute. 

 

6. So Who is George S. Rishmawi?   In the original OTI announcement, the Olive Tree Initiative described George S. Rishmawi as follows:

 

"George S. Rishmawi  is a leader and co-founder of the ISM, the International Solidarity Movement, and the head of the Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies (http://www.sirajcenter.org/), a Palestinian NGO that operates in the West Bank to lead educational tours about Palestine and the Israeli Occupation.

Born in Beit Sahour, a city known for non-violent resistance, George S. Rishmawi  is coming to UC Irvine as a guest of the Olive Tree Initiative, and for those of you interested in becoming part of OTI 4, George is one of our primary contacts in the West Bank." 

 

(Emphases added.) Cf.  http://palsolidarity.org/2007/06/2416/

George S. Rishmawi has devoted himself for years to “resistance against the Israeli occupation.” 

 

The Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies.  The website of the Siraj Center tells more about the Siraj Center and George S. Rishmawi:

 

Siraj organized fact finding missions to Palestine in order for people all over the world to have first hand experience of the on going Israeli occupation by meeting with Palestinians and Israelis and meet face to face with the real issues of illegal settlements, the Israeli Wall, Water issues, borders and refugees. . . . (Emphases added.)

 

As an example of his strategy to use tourism and manipulate children to embarrass Israel and delegitimize Israel’s security concerns, in one case George S. Rishmawi coordinated a donkey ride for Palestinian children that was aimed at creating a horrible anti-Israel media visual depicting Israeli armed forces blocking children from entering Jerusalem on Easter Sunday:

 

It is hoped that the image of the donkey at the checkpoint will speak with the innocence of a Palestine child who would simply ask the world, especially the Christian world, 'why can't we ride to Jerusalem like Jesus anymore?'

 

As Sunday's ride progresses, at some point, the donkeys will approach a military checkpoint, and campaigners hope all the world will see what happens next. Most likely, cameras will snap images, not of palm fronds being thrown under the donkeys feet as 2,000 years ago, but of guns and uniforms blocking the way.

 

"Right now, the checkpoint is heavily militarized," explains Rishmawi. "There is a military base with lots of patrols going back and forth. Rooftops in the area have been camouflaged, and Israeli snipers are all over the place."   (Emphases added.)

 

See  “Children Ask Why They Can’t Enter Jerusalem on a Donkey,”  http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_050318donkey.shtml

 

See also  http://www.sirajcenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5&Itemid=6 .   One of the Siraj Center’s projects is “Abraham Path Walks.”  Click the link on the Siraj Center Home Page, and it brings you to:  http://www.abrahampath.org/downloads/Walking_in_Palestine_detailed_info_110610.pdf   Look at the map on Page 3.

 

 

 

7. More about George S. Rishmawi – and the Palestinian [C]enter for Rapprochement in Between People.  According to the revised announcement by OTI, now posted on Facebook, heralding the visit to UCI by George S. Rishmawi, he also is a former Board Member of the Palestinian [C]enter for Rapprochement in Between People in Beit Sahour.  (Emphases added.)

 

See http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=171310602897452  

 

The Palestinian [C]enter for Rapprochement in Between People (PCR) in Beit Sahour reports its history as follows:

In 2000, we mobilized our dialogue group and international friends for actions to reclaim the military base that was located on town land and was a major issue in the community. We successfully held nonviolent protests at the base (even getting inside the base by the hundreds) and this success led to the formation of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). PCR was heavily involved in ISM for five years, during which it had employed around ninety percent of its efforts and finances to support ISM. PCR hosted ISM in its headquarters until 2005 when the headquarters was moved to Ramallah.

http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?from=&to=en&a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pcr.ps%2Fread%2Fpcr-history

 

8. Gary Fouse Makes an Observation and Asks a Question. Gary Fouse has been teaching ESL at the UCI Extension school for more than a decade, having begun after retiring from the US Drug Enforcement Administration.  He is not Jewish.  He describes having attended many of the Moslem Student Union (MSU)-sponsored events at UCI during his decade on campus. He describes having listened to many of the speakers and on several occasions confronting them with questions. As a retired law enforcement officer of almost 30 years service, he feels he can recognize hate speech and volatile situations. Consequently, he follows these issues at UCI and blogs regarding them.  He observes:

 

In light of Mr Rishmawi's coming appearance to UC Irvine, a controversy has erupted within the Orange County Jewish community. The central question is this: If this speaker is, in fact, a co-founder of the ISM, why are the Rose Project, the Jewish Federation of Orange County, and perhaps, the University of California supporting even indirectly a venture that exposes Jewish students to elements that are devoted to destroying and/or establishing divestment boycotts of Israel?  Those questions are being posed to the above entities as we speak. There may be a legitimate explanation for this, but the associations are troubling to many, and it is fair to ask the questions. On Monday, it will be made clear just what affiliations, if any, this speaker has or has had with the ISM.

 I should note here that if certain Jewish students at UCI or anywhere else are against Israel to begin with -and there are those- then they can go meet with whomever they want to as far as I am concerned -as long as they are not meeting with enemies of the US. But what about Jewish students who have a strong Jewish identity and support Israel?  Do they know exactly who they will be dealing with on these trips to the Holy Land? Perhaps so. Some of them too may decide it is in their interest to do so and hear the other side, which they can decide for themselves. Ditto for bringing certain speakers to campus. I am not questioning the right of this speaker to appear at UCI. But who is supporting this financially?

 

(Emphases added.)  See http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/ .   To that I personally would add, as the father of a Jewish college-age student:  Heck, if my son could have a rare opportunity to get away from his college studies and requirements for a period of time to travel to Israel, to experience the Middle East and Israel, I can think of better ways for Jewish philanthropic funds to be expended on my son than by helping subvent his tuition fee to participate with either George N. Rishmawi (described by the OC Jewish Federation as “despicable”) or George S. Rishmawi. Unless, of course, there is yet another George S. Rishmawi who is not a co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), active in The Palestinian [C]enter for Rapprochement in Between People in Beit Sahour, involved in the Abraham Path Walks that define the word “Israel” out of the map of “Palestine,” or the Siraj Center for Holy Land Studies that sees Israel as an illegal occupation, the Security Wall as an illegal expression of Zionist Apartheid, and that seeks to press Israel on the “refugees.”

 

Or to put it another way:  Has the Jewish Federation of Orange County or OC Hillel ever sponsored UCI college students to attend a similar-length fact-finding inter-cultural visit to the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria (the Jewish West Bank settlements), so that students could fairly gauge for themselves during a comprehensive tour, and living with Jewish families for a week or two up-and-down Judea and Samaria, who those settlers are, hear from those settlers and learn about Jewish roots in the lands of Judea and Samaria?

 

9. The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) – From the Simon Wiesenthal Center.  Which leads to the question:  What is the International Solidarity Movement (ISM)?  In a letter addressed personally to the chief professional officer of the OC Jewish Federation and Jewish Family Services, Rabbi Aron Hier, director of Campus Outreach for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, wrote:

 

I have become aware of an event on November 22, 2010, in which the Olive Tree Initiative will be providing a platform for anti-Israel activist and International Solidarity Movement cofounder George Rishmawi. Further, the Olive Tree Initiative that will be hosting him is funded in part by Jewish philanthropy, through your organization as well as Hillel at UC Irvine.

 

The Simon Wiesenthal Center urges the Jewish Federation to disassociate itself from an event that invites the leader of a group whose own website states the following:

“Apartheid is not going to be defeated by words alone; occupation, oppression and domination are going to be dismantled the same way they were erected — through people’s action. The Israeli army and apartheid in Palestine can be defeated by strategic, disciplined unarmed resistance, utilizing the effective resources Palestinians can mobilize — including international participation.”

We further urge the Jewish Federation to investigate the Olive Tree Initiative, which has selected a speaker who advocates overthrowing the Jewish State. What kind of group would funnel impressionable Jewish students into this “wolf in sheep’s clothing” program that aids and abets the enemies of Israel in their pernicious mission?

 

I look forward to hearing from you about this serious matter.

 

 

Rabbi Aron Hier

Director

Campus Outreach

 

cc:  Rabbi Marvin Hier

      Rabbi Abraham Cooper

      Rabbi Meyer May

 

(Emphases added.)

 

10.The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) – From the Anti-Defamation League.  The International Solidarity Movement (ISM), co-founded by George S. Rishmawi, was studied in an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) background investigatory report:  http://www.adl.org/Israel/israel_int_solidarity.asp

 

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a well-organized movement that spreads anti-Israel propaganda and misinformation and voices support for others who engage in armed resistance against Israel. .  . . ISM’s regimen involves recruiting and coordinating Western volunteers going to Palestinian areas for orientation meetings with Palestinian organizers and to discuss upcoming protests and actions. Once there, these volunteers engage in such tactics as obstructing the activities of the Israeli Army. . . . Since 2001, hundreds of ISM volunteers have placed themselves in front of Israeli Army vehicles, removed concrete boundaries from roads, confronted Israeli troops, and in some cases, stayed in the homes of suicide bombers.

 

 Continuing its report, the ADL further has written:

ISM volunteers often publicize their actions and experiences in the Palestinian areas by preparing statements, articles and diaries and distributing them via the Internet among a variety of anti-Israel groups. Upon return to their home countries, ISM volunteers often describe their experiences in articles and during lectures at high schools, churches, libraries and college and university campuses. Many, though not all such speaking engagements, are organized as part of the ISM-co-sponsored Wheels of Justice bus tour.

During their speaking engagements, ISM volunteers have presented a biased, distinctly anti-Israel view of the Middle East, equating Israel with both apartheid South Africa and Nazi Germany.  For example, during the fourth annual Palestine Solidarity Movement conference at Duke University, Rann Bar-On, a Duke student, ISM member, and one of the conference organizers, compared the treatment of Palestinians by Israel to “Algiers under the French or Poland under the Nazis. There is always violence under occupation.”  The ISM’s Brian Avery criticized the U.S. media for a “campaign of misinformation by Zionist-leaning news editors.”

Numerous ISM volunteers have been arrested, deported and denied entry into Israel.  In response, some ISM volunteers have deceptively sought to enter Israel by changing their name in an effort to circumvent their ban from entering Israel.

Ties to Violent Groups

Although ISM claims to be a non-violent group, some of its volunteers recognize violence as a legitimate means of achieving Palestinian goals. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned that ISM activity “at times” is “under the auspices of Palestinian terrorist organizations.” For example:

Tactics

By using international ISM volunteers, who return to their home countries after a stint with the group and describe their experiences in articles and at lectures, local Palestinian activists have generated international attention to their cause.

ISM received its first substantial media coverage in spring 2002, when volunteers slipped into Yasir Arafat’s compound, bypassing the Israeli military that surrounded it. ISM members executed their second major action that year when they entered the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem during a military standoff between Israeli and Palestinian forces.

ISM volunteers have since taken part in various actions, including the annual Freedom Summer campaign.  Volunteers have resisted the building of the Israeli security fence designed to deter terrorists by establishing a protective barrier between Israel and the West Bank. Referring to it as the “Apartheid Wall,” volunteers have tried to block construction of the security fence in some areas while attempting to tear certain sections down in others.

In the U.S., experienced ISM members recruit volunteers through various other pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel groups and through the ISM’s Web site.  The ISM Web site previously included an “Information Pack,” which provided basic information on getting involved in the anti-Israel cause and offered suggestions, including tips on speaking with the press.  In one section, it suggests that “when possible say ETHNIC CLEANSING” when referring to “the expulsion of Palestinians from historic Palestine in 1948 as well as the current situation.”

The packet also urged volunteers to “say RESISTANCE or RESISTANCE TO INJUSTICE [when] VIOLENCE is mentioned,” and to “emphasize STATE TERRORISM [when] TERRORISM is mentioned.”


11. Conclusion.  In sum, the George S. Rishmawi who is coming to UCI under the aegis of the Olive Tree Institute, an agency funded in whatever part by the Rose Project of the Orange County Jewish Federation, and an accepted adjunct to UCI Hillel’s vision for encouraging UCI Jewish students better to understand the perspective of those opposed to Israel as an occupier, in whole or in part, of Palestine, is neither the same person as George N. Rishmawi nor as any of the other George S. Rishmawis who assuredly may be found in the world.  Nevertheless, he is a skilled, experienced, and gifted tactician in the war against Israel, and his particular area of media-savvy expertise, even during Intifada time, is in presenting the more palatable side of the war to remove a Jewish state of Israel from the map.

 

In the free marketplace of ideas, we can welcome any and all George Rishmawis to UCI to ply their subtle propaganda.  They should be permitted to speak free of the fascist repression that the MSU utilized to silence the Honorable Michael Oren, Ambassador of Israel to the United States, and Prof. Daniel Pipes before him.  And Jewish students at UCI who are curious to hear this George Rishmawi should enjoy themselves.  Nevertheless – all the more so, now that the Jewish Federation of Orange County has merged with Orange County Jewish Family Services – it is highly objectionable that meaningful Jewish community philanthropy has been diverted towards the Olive Tree Initiative in the past, and that such funding diversions have not been foresworn for the future, so that Jewish funds can better be targeted to address the kinds of real family needs that deeply challenge the Orange County Jewish community and its families in this time of great recession.  Every dollar from the Jewish Federation of Orange County towards an Olive Tree Initiative matter represents a dollar less for the real needs of a Jewish community whose children could benefit from so much more Jewish education and whose families include many in dire straits.

 

It is absolutely unacceptable that a lady who is so passionately devoted to the cause of Israel – a cause we all share even in the face of few, if any, George Rishamwis standing alongside Orange County Jews in our deep uncompromising love for Israel – should now be the target of a concerted vilification campaign to humiliate her by name, target her for obloquy, in the effort to shut her up and to cast her as a pariah in the community of Jewish public participants.  And while she and several others may have mixed up their “N”s and “S”s, it is a shame that the Orange County Jewish Federation and the Orange County Hillel lacked the elegance and dignity to mind their Ps and Qs.

 

I hereby am putting on public notice those who may be planning to finish off this lady’s reputation by humiliating and character-assassinating her that I will stand by this lady.  I endorse the letter of Rabbi Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.  Beyond the smoke and mirrors, let it be clear that the burden of proof devolves onto the Jewish Federation and Jewish Family Services of Orange County, the Rose Project of the Jewish Federation, and Orange County Hillel to justify to the Jewish community of Irvine and throughout our County its continued engagement with and endorsement of an agency that perhaps is acceptable for deeply studied dilettantes but that is not a proper investment of Jewish community resources for the education of UCI Jewish students who, having done Birthright, next need a deeper Israel experience to better understand why the bond between the Jewish People and the Land of Israel is immutable, even as the City of United Jerusalem is the only eternal capital of Israel – period. 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Rabbi Dov Fischer

Rav, Young Israel of Orange County

rabbi@yioc.org

 

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