From: Jewish Federation of New Mexico and Anti-Defamation League, New Mexico

Thanks to the efforts of a mobilized community, we are delighted to report that the efforts of an anti-Israel group calling itself the New Mexico Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Committee failed dismally in their efforts last Sunday to encourage shoppers at Trader Joe’s Uptown Albuquerque location to boycott the store’s supply of Israeli consumer products .

Ironically, the misguided boycott attempt only helped encourage community members to buy-out Trader Joe’s stock of Israeli products. A similar, national boycott of Israeli products sold at Trader Joe’s backfired last summer when Israel supporters flooded the stores specifically to buy Israeli products.

We commend Trader Joe’s for refusing to remove Israeli products based on pressure from this group, and for responding quickly to concerns from the Jewish community. More is available about Trader Joe’s response here:

http://www.adl.org/PresRele/IslME_62/Trader_Joe’s_Boycott.htm

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement – or “BDS” — is part of an aggressive, global campaign to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish State. The below article by Martin Raffel, Senior vice president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, offers more background on this campaign while urging our community and friends of Israel to respond to it with vigor.

Stay educated. Continue to visit www.nmisrael.org to learn more about how you can counter anti-Israel efforts in New Mexico.

By Amos N. Guiora

American decision-makers are on the eve of a decision of monumental importance.

President Barack Obama is considering deploying tens of thousands of additional American soldiers to Afghanistan in a war he called “fundamental to the defense of our people” in his August speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Similarly, Pakistan — an unstable regime with nuclear warheads — is engaged in a fierce internal battle with the Taliban.

If President Obama concludes that using U.S. forces to prevent Afghanistan and Pakistan from falling to the Taliban is an act of legitimate self-defense, then he will face obstacles beyond the strategic and tactical. The recently released “Report of the Goldstone Commission” on the January conflict in Gaza threatens to challenge the legality of the president’s decision.

Much has and will be written about the report — mandated by the U.N. Human Rights Council — regarding what Israel dubbed Operation “Cast Lead.” Some have noted that it is one-sided and lacking objectivity; others have raised significant questions about its intellectual integrity. Even Justice Richard Goldstone now appears to be backing away from aspects of the report he authored.

While Goldstone’s professed surprise that Israel’s enemies would seize on his words seems odd given his extensive experience in international affairs, the issues are far larger than whether Goldstone has been misunderstood.

The essence of the report has long-term ramifications that deserve our immediate attention.

In a nutshell: The report legitimizes terrorism and delegitimizes a nation-state’s right to self-defense as preserved in the U.N. Charter. The fundamental issue is the application of the report to conflicts worldwide — in particular, how nation-states protect their citizens.

Prior to the operation — for four years after Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip — hundreds of thousands of Israelis within a 40-kilometer radius of the Gaza Strip lived in daily fear of Kassam rockets fired in their towns. By largely dismissing that fact, the report all but suggests that nation-states do not have the right to fulfill its principal obligation of protecting its citizens.

By delegitimizing the nation-state’s right to self-defense, the report places American commanders in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in a legal “cross hairs.” If terrorism is legitimate, then counter-terrorism is illegitimate. If that is the case — as the report intimates — then protecting national self-interest is illegitimate.

In other words, the true significance of the report is a minimization of national sovereignty. The ramifications are extraordinary: A fundamental rearticulation of the nation-state’s right to self-defense that may now be deemed no longer legitimate. A nation-state that can’t defend itself is, at the end of the day, unprotected.

President Obama has a serious decision to make with grave consequences for America and the world. The Goldstone report –which incorrectly and dangerously delegitimizes the right to self-defense against terrorism — must not be an added consideration.

To that end, both the administration and its allies must overwhelmingly reject this report. Those the president sends to battle are counting on him, just as he is counting on them. That is the very least the president owes those he places in harm’s way. Our soldiers have our back; we must have theirs.

Amos Guiora will speak for teh Jewish Federation of New Mexico on Monday, November 2nd, 7:00 p.m. at the JCC in Albuquerque. To RSVP, call (505) 821-3214

Amos N. Guiora is a professor of Law at SJ Quinney College of Law, University of Utah. Guiora, who lectured locally last week, was the legal adviser to the Israel Defense Force Commander in Gaza from 1994-97. His latest book is Freedom from Religion: Rights and National Security. E-mail him at: guioraa@law.utah.edu.

See more articles in: Editorial & Opinion

On September 18, 2009, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared, “The pretext (Holocaust) for the creation of the Zionist regime (Israel) is false … It is a lie based on an unprovable and mythical claim.” He later said that, “confronting the Zionist regime is a national and religious duty,” and that Israel “has no future.” Ahmadinejad was speaking to thousands of Iranian government supporters and dozens of opposition activists who gathered for marches commemorating Quds Day, Jerusalem Day, an annual event condemning Israel and expressing solidarity for the Palestinians. The event ended with violent clashes between Ahamdinejad supporters and opposition leaders. Read more from Haaretz and the New York Times.

Ahmadinejad’s hate-filled remarks come days before he is scheduled to address the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York City and as the deadline for talks with the West approaches.

As we enter into the Jewish New Year, the Days of Awe and of Reflection, we must redouble our efforts to confront an Iranian regime that calls for the destruction of the Jewish State, denies the Holocaust, suppresses its people, and pursues nuclear weapons capability. We must continue to make our voices heard and show the world that Ahamadinejad’s regime poses a grave threat to the international community, humanity, and peace.

On September 24, 2009, in conjunction with the opening of the UN General Assembly, Americans will participate in “Stand for Freedom in Iran” events around the country. From New York City to Los Angeles, diverse voices, reflecting a broad range of political, ethnic and religious perspectives, will fill the public arena to voice solidarity with the Iranian people as they seek freedom and human rights. In addition, these events will underscore the urgency of the US and the international community coming together to persuade the Iranian regime, using strong diplomatic and economic measures, to abandon its nuclear weapons program. Participating communities include Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Providence, St. Louis, and Washington, DC.

Please consider creating your own event. The time for concerted community action is now.

From Howard Kohr, AIPAC Executive Director:

It’s an abomination! After years of silence while Israeli towns were bombarded with more than 6,300 Hamas rockets and mortars, the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) last week issued a report accusing Israel of committing war crimes during its defensive operation against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip this winter.

Israeli President Shimon Peres said the report “makes a mockery of history and fails to distinguish between aggressor and those acting in self-defense.”

Fortunately, the U.S. thus far has continued to stand by Israel’s side. Just hours after the report was issued, leaders in the House made numerous statements on behalf of Israel’s right to self defense.

As statements from Congressional leaders continue to come in, I wanted to share just a couple below:

“But for the grave subject matter, the Goldstone report would be laughable. In the self-righteous fantasyland inhabited by the authors, there’s no such thing as terrorism, there’s no such thing as Hamas, there’s no such thing as legitimate self-defense, and war is like a sporting event or a debate…Certainly, the United States should do all that it can to ensure as little time as possible is wasted on this distraction from the real work of making peace.”

–Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia

“It would appear the UN is continuing its relentless anti-Israel bias, accusing the Jewish state of war crimes and crimes against humanity….Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly kicks off another year of anti-U.S., anti-Israel, and anti-freedom activism.”

–Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee

The following was written by David Harris, Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee (AJC.org):

Almost every responsible political leader today expresses a desire to contribute to peace in the Middle East.

Easier said than done. A real effort to promote peace requires an understanding of what motivates the parties to the conflict.

I can’t say I quite get what makes the Palestinians tick. Like the late statesman Abba Eban, I haven’t grasped why Palestinian leaders never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

But I do believe that anyone who genuinely seeks peace, or who aspires to be a friend of the Israeli people, should consider four key factors that inform the Israeli worldview.

First, geography.

The throwaway line these days is that geography no longer matters in an era of long-range missiles. Not so fast.

As the late Sir Isaiah Berlin famously quipped, “The Jews have enjoyed rather too much history and too little geography.”

Israel is a small country, about the size of New Jersey or Wales, and barely two-thirds the size of Belgium. To put it into context, Egypt is approximately fifty times larger than Israel, Saudi Arabia a hundred times.

And there’s more. Until its 1967 war for survival, Israel’s borders, which were nothing more than the armistice lines from the 1948 War of Independence, were nine miles at their narrowest point, near the country’s midsection and most populous area.

When President George W. Bush first saw that narrow width from the vantage point of a helicopter, he was reported to have said, “There are some driveways in Texas longer than Israel is wide.”

Topography matters too.

When the towering Golan Heights were in the hands of Syria before the Six-Day War, for example, Jewish villages and farms below were regularly targeted by Syrian shelling. Ask my wife. She was a volunteer in a kibbutz there. With the Golan Heights in Israel’s hands, those villages and farms no longer have to rush their children into underground shelters.

Second, history.

Notwithstanding Arab claims to the contrary, the Jewish people have been linked to this region for over three thousand years. The bond between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel is central to the historical narrative. The Jewish people were born here, their sacred texts emerged here, their temples were built here, and, even when forcibly exiled, they never stopped dreaming of their return. It is a story, quite frankly, unlike any other in the annals of mankind.

To read the Hebrew Bible, especially the Psalms, is to come across Jerusalem and Zion literally hundreds of times.

The metaphysical and physical link between the Jewish people and its wellsprings of history and holiness must be acknowledged - in the same way as the tie between Islam and Mecca and Medina.

Third, psychology.

Some dismiss Israel’s preoccupation with security as obsessive. How can it be, they ask, that the country with the strongest armed forces in the region feels so beleaguered, so under the gun?

For example, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote, “Closure (on a past that holds the insistent specter of annihilation) is the overcoming of horror. It is the achievement of normality through responsibility. It cannot be attained through the inflation of threats, the perpetuation of fears, or retreat into the victim-hood that sees every act, however violent, as defensive.”

The “inflation of threats”? The “perpetuation of fears”? Is that all there is to Israel’s current situation? Hardly.

While Cohen has sought to recast Iran as a misunderstood country, Israelis hardly share his optimism about Teheran’s intentions.

What is any nation to make of calls for its destruction from another nation that is hell-bent on acquiring the tools to achieve its goal?

And when the threatened nation is Israel, surely, the alarm bells go off - and with good reason.

After all, Israel has a history. So do the Jewish people. And it teaches that there are those who wish to do harm and mean what they say. They are not to be neglected or minimized.

That history also teaches that, all too often, Israel and the Jewish people have stood largely alone in facing the danger. Promises and pledges of help are more often made than kept. Relying on the good will of others has proved a risky proposition.

So yes, Israel has every right, indeed obligation, to take Iran’s nuclear ambitions seriously - just as it has every right, indeed, obligation, to take seriously the 40,000 missiles in Hizbullah’s arsenal in Lebanon and the desire of Hamas in Gaza to emulate Hizbullah’s example.

Are the words of Hamas and Hizbullah, which cry out for Israel’s annihilation, simply to be ignored? Filed away in the drawer of rhetorical excess?

Are those who have themselves been targeted for destruction more than once simply to assume it cannot be tried again and instead get a good night’s sleep?

Moreover, is Syria such a gentle neighbor, with such a sterling record of respect for human rights and the rule of law, that Israel can afford to let its guard down?

Is the Palestinian Authority on Israel’s side simply because it is at odds with Hamas - even as this week’s Fatah congress again revealed that this group, seen as Israel’s best negotiating bet, is unwilling to recognize Israel’s rightful place in the region?

And fourth, yearning.

The survivors of the exiles, the pogroms, the inquisitions, the blood libels, the ghettos and the death camps don’t need lectures about why they should seek “normality”. After all, wasn’t Israel established in such large part precisely to create, at long last, that new condition for the Jews? Normality - nothing more, nothing less.

And yet, it hasn’t entirely come to be, at least not yet.

The fears are there not because they can’t be forgotten, but because the threats endure. And the threats can’t be ignored because the Jewish people’s genetic code includes an early warning system, which tells them that the Iranian regime and its friends just might mean what they say. And that the spinning centrifuges and those liquid-fuel and solid-fuel rockets just might be meant for seven million Israelis.

Israel doesn’t need newspaper columns about the imperatives of peace. It needs credible, committed partners in the search for peace. When it has such partners, as history has amply shown, Israel will go to great territorial lengths, even at risk to its own security, to achieve a solution.

At the end of the day, Israel’s partners don’t have to buy its narrative any more than Israel has to buy theirs.

Yet Israel is asked to recognize their needs - the needs of dignity, justice and respect. And that is indeed a legitimate request for the process of conflict resolution.

So they, in turn, need to take into account the place of geography, history, psychology and yearning in the Israeli worldview, as Anwar Sadat and King Hussein, peacemakers both, did to their everlasting credit.

Then, perhaps, in the words of the Jewish prophet Isaiah, “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, nor shall they learn war anymore.”

On Tuesday, July 21, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, in partnership with United Jewish Communities and Federations, held a conference call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Prime Minister’s Opening Statement

Strengthening the connection of Jewish communities around the world, especially in the United States, to Israel is something that is important both to my government and to me personally. It’s also important for the people of Israel. I look forward to working with all of you and also with Natan Sharansky. Natan is on the line, and will join us after I make a few remarks. I want to work with him and with the Conference of Presidents, with all of you, to advance our common goals. And these are broad, they encompass a lot. They encompass Aliyah and Jewish education and the strengthening of Jewish identity – to the broader and pressing questions of peace and security. And I hope that this will be the first of many conversations that we’ll have in the months and years ahead. So, view this as a pioneering effort. Let’s do it often.

Now, before I take your questions today, I wanted to focus on two pivotal issues: the situation with Iran and the question of peace with the Palestinians. First on Iran – very simply put, if the Iranian regime acquires nuclear weapons, I think this would be a hinge of history. It would present a grave threat to Israel, to the Middle East and to the world at large. The reason I say that is because the recent elections have unmasked the true character of this regime. This is a regime that brutally represses its own people; it sponsors terrorism – not only sponsors it, it supplies the terrorists, it directs them, it finances them, it gives them missiles, it gives them everything – and it’s also determined to acquire nuclear weapons. Understand that a nuclear-armed Iran could provide a nuclear umbrella to terrorists, and it could possibly provide nuclear weapons to terrorists. I think for the sake of the peace of the world and the security of my own country and that of the United States, this must not be allowed to happen. It’s important for me to stress to you that the Iranian people are not our enemies. We remember a time when Israel and Iran had an excellent relationship, better than good, and we know that the Iranian people would like nothing better than to rid themselves of this horrible regime.

When I was in Washington a few months ago, President Obama and I had extensive discussions about this threat. The President has repeatedly stated that Iran must not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, and that all options must remain on the table in dealing with this threat. And of course this is a position that we support. I also think there’s an increasing international understanding about the true nature of this regime and I think there is a growing resolve to thwart the regime’s effort to attain a military nuclear capability. I think this is not merely an Israeli interest; I think it is now the stated interest not merely of our two countries, but I think this is ought to be the interest and is the interest of anyone interested in preserving the peace of the world. Because a nuclear armed Iran threatens the peace of us all.

The second point I wanted to raise is the quest for achieving peace with the Palestinians, a genuine peace. The simplest thing is to begin peace talks, unconditionally. I have offered that, I offer that again. In fact I say that to you tonight. We seek unconditional peace talks with the Palestinians. We’re prepared to begin those talks immediately, and I’m prepared to work with the Palestinians, and of course with President Obama, towards advancing peace with the Palestinians, and towards advancing the President’s idea of a broader peace in the region.

I think that we have to work on five principles that are not preconditions for beginning peace talks, but I think they are clear foundations for a successful completion of peace talks. The first principle is recognition. We are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people. I think that it’s necessary and elementary that the Palestinians be asked to recognize the nation-state of the Jewish people. I think that the absence of the recognition of Israel’s right or of the Jewish people’s right to a state of their own was and remains the source, the root of this conflict. I don’t think we should be myopic about this. I think we have to be very, very clear. The Palestinians so far do not say simply, unequivocally and clearly that they recognize Israel as the Jewish state, a Jewish state not in the religious sense, but a Jewish state as the nation-state of the Jewish people. I think this is not a semantic insistence; it’s a substantive insistence of which there is an immediate derivative, which is the second principle – and that is that the problem of Palestinian refugees will be resolved outside the State of Israel.

You cannot say that you are prepared to make peace with Israel when you don’t recognize Israel as the state of the Jews, and when you insist that this state will be flooded by Palestinian refugees. It just doesn’t make sense. So the first principle is recognition. The second principle is that the problem of the refugees will be resolved outside the State of Israel.

The third point ought to be obvious too, but I make it here too – it all relates to the question of ending the conflict. And that is that a peace treaty actually ends the conflict. It’s not an interim peace treaty from which the conflict is pursued from the Palestinian state that will be established. It’s the end of the conflict. That is, the Palestinians upon the signing of a peace treaty have to say unequivocally that they have no more claims – no more claims either on the question of refugees or on the question of borders or on the question of irredentist claims.

So the first three points that I raised relate to legitimacy, to Israel’s permanent legitimacy: recognition of a Jewish state, the resolution of the refugee problem outside the borders of the Jewish state and the end of claims, the finality of conflict.

The other two points that I wanted to make relate to security. It’s clear that the Palestinian state established should be one that doesn’t threaten the State of Israel. The only way that that will be achieved is by effective demilitarization – this is the fourth point. We need effective measures of demilitarization. I’ll tell you what ineffective measures of demilitarization are: Gaza is an example; Lebanon is an example. There is no effective demilitarization in either place, and in fact, the arrangements that have been put in place, either in the Philadelphi Corridor or in South Lebanon have produced a highly ineffective arrangement where these two places are used as a launching ground for thousands of missiles that have been hurled against us – now in South Lebanon, tens of thousands of missiles are in place, and in Gaza many, many missiles that are being piled up and smuggled inside that area to be launched again. We want effective means of demilitarization. I think this is the fourth point – absolutely essential.

And the fifth point is that whatever arrangements are undertaken in a peace arrangement, in a peace treaty, have to be guaranteed by the international community, led by the United States. That is, we want to have clear demilitarization means and a clear commitment by the international community about the validity and the robustness of these security arrangements. And I don’t seek the international community to actually provide the means of demilitarization. I do seek the international community’s support for those arrangements that will be put on the ground, political support that is.

So these are the five points: recognition, the question of refugees, the end of claims, effective demilitarization means and international political guarantees for those arrangements. These are the five points that have a vast consensus in Israel, not broad consensus, not the majority – vast consensus. And the reason they enjoy vast consensus, and I found this out after I spoke in Bar-Ilan – I knew they enjoyed support, but I didn’t understand they enjoyed such broad support – is because they’re fair and because they’re necessary. And because anybody who has a commonsense and decent approach to the question of peace understands that these are the five foundations, the five prerequisite foundations for completing a genuine peace treaty.

I would add one other which is not in the form of a condition that we put for the end of the conflict, for ending the conflict, but one that I think, at least from experience, could help push along a solution and stabilize it – and that is prosperity. Up to now, I spoke about three conditions that relate to legitimacy: recognition, refugees and the end of claims; and two points that relate to security: demilitarization and international guarantees for demilitarization. But there is a third element, and that is what we can do to push forward the spread of prosperity. I’m not merely talking about us. We can do that, and we are doing that in our own economy, but advancing prosperity in the Palestinian economy. We’ve been doing that. We’ve taken steps that have begun to be recognized a bit in the international community, actually far-reaching steps of liberalizing movement and enabling movement in the West Bank; removing barriers and checkpoints. I’ve recently asked our security establishment to open up the Allenby Bridge so that it is opened for additional hours for movement. I personally head a ministerial committee to unblock several economic projects that have been held up that I think could advance the Palestinian economy. I think we can do an enormous amount to advance tourism and investments, and we’re prepared to do that. This idea of advancing the economic peace is not a substitute for achieving the political peace that I discussed. It’s a way to facilitate it. It helps achieving the peace, and it’s something that we are moving along independently, whether or not the Palestinians collaborate on it is, of course, up to them. But if they do join with us and participate with us, we could move the West Bank economy way up very rapidly, and what this does is help peace. Because obviously if young Palestinians have a job, if investments are made in Ramallah, if restaurants open in Jenin, if businesses flourish in Hebron, this makes peace more possible and more worthwhile for the Palestinians, as opposed to the radical Islamist projection of misery and conflict. And so I think that prosperity is the other element.

So I advocate legitimacy, security and prosperity by advancing recognition of the Jewish state, the settlement of the refugees outside Israel, the end of claims and the end of conflict, effective demilitarization measures and political international guarantees for these matters; but in addition to that, also the advancement of prosperity and economic cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians with the support of the United States and others in the international community. I think there is overwhelming consensus in Israel for this, and I am sure that this is something that could be helped by you, all of you, and everyone else interested in achieving peace.

The 2010 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act (H.R. 3081), the “foreign aid bill,” which allocates economic, military, and humanitarian assistance to America’s allies, is expected to be voted upon by the full House of Representatives next week.

H.R. 3081, introduced by Representative Nita M. Lowey (D-NY), includes $2.775 billion in security aid to Israel, reflecting the 2007 Memorandum of Understanding which stipulates increased assistance to Israel in order to meet increasing threats to its security. Israel uses a large portion of the aid to purchase U.S.-made military equipment.

Urge your representatives in Congress to support the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act (H.R. 3081). If they have already done so, please thank them.

For more information on these resolutions, please click on the below link and search for “H.R. 3081″ in the “Bill Number” search engine.

www.thomas.gov