Relishing the terms “Jewish State” and “Zionism” – ones currently derided as shameful instead of sources of pride.
Within much of the hard Left, the word “Zionism” has become code for an allegedly racist, imperialist, colonialist, militarist, and really, really not nice political movement among those hideous Jews who simply refuse to maintain their necessary dhimmi status. A “Zionist” is a bad person to be opposed.
Circulation of facts — not deceptive “Palestinian” narratives — about the Middle East, Israel and terrorism.
This is a reference to the sad truth that within Left intellectual and activist circles, influenced by Post Structural and Post Colonial political theories, truth is no longer about truth, but about politics. Thus what counts is spreading the “narrative.” (The late Edward Said gets much of the credit and/or blame. For those interested in a powerful scholarly response to Professor Said, Ibn Warraq’s Defending the West is a must-read.)
Condemnation of those who revile Israel for actions they ignore when taken by Israel’s enemies and virtually all states throughout history.
This has been one of my themes, of late, as well. Human rights activists are not human rights activists if the only human rights that they care about are the human rights of those who happen to live in Ramallah or Gaza City. If one constantly demonizes and dehumanizes the Jewish state over human rights issues, while not breathing a word about the far, far worse human rights abuses in Darfur or the Congo, than there must be something motivating these people beyond an honest concern for human rights. That much is obvious.
Categorical rejection of agreements with, or concessions to, terrorists (or their supporters) who are dedicated to Israel’s destruction.
In other words, they’re not a big fan of the Left-Jihadi Alliance as outlined by people such as David Horowitz, Andrew McCarthy, and Jamie Glazov, among others.
An IRS agent told Z STREET’s lawyers that the application was delayed because of a Special Israel Policy that requires more intense scrutiny of organizations which have to do with Israel, in part to determine whether they espouse positions on Israel contrary to those of the current Administration.
If this is true, than there is something very, very wrong afoot and people need to speak up. If this is true, then the federal government is targeting people who support the Jewish state merely for supporting the Jewish state in ways that they do not like.
More importantly, it means that our federal government, headed by a guy who used to teach Constitutional Law, is using the IRS as a cudgel to promote ideological conformity.
And that won’t stand no matter what anyone thinks about Israel.
