Arutz Sheva
by Hana Levi Julian
Thousands of Americans are preparing to protest in New York this Sunday against the Obama administration's increasing hostility towards Israel. The event is scheduled to take place outside the
Israel Consulate
Sunday, April 25 at 1:00 p.m. EDT.
A partial list of organizations who endorsed the demonstration is below.
Beth Gilinsky, head of the Jewish Action Alliance that is sponsoring the event, said, "We are outraged that President [Barack] Obama is scapegoating Israel and wants to expel Jews from their homes in Jerusalem. President Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton show more anger about a Jewish family building a home in Jerusalem than Iran building a nuclear bomb," she added.
Gilinsky was referring to the brouhaha that ensued following a mis-timed announcement that the fourth stage of a seven-year plan for a housing project in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood of Jerusalem had been approved by Israel's Interior Ministry.
The announcement, made during a visit to the region by Vice President Joe Biden, led to weeks of recriminations and condemnations by U.S. officials, beginning with an immediate, harsh condemnation from Biden himself. Less than 24 hours after he left the country, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to scold him for having embarrassed the vice president and the Obama administration, and delivered a list of concessions and demands Israel was expected to fulfill in response. Other Obama officials followed with statements of criticism of their own.
Not one U.S. official at the time made mention of the formal government ceremony held by the Palestinian Authority during Biden's visit -- the naming of a public square in Ramallah to honor Dalah Mughrabi, the terrorist who led an attack that came to be known as the Coastal Road Massacre. In 1978, Mughrabi and her band of terrorists hijacked a tour bus on the coastal highway, murdering 37 innocent civilians and wounding 71 others, including more than a dozen children.
On the night that PA officials gathered to honor Mughrabi, Biden was delivering a speech at Tel Aviv University in which he repeated his condemnation of Israel for proceeding with the three-year-old housing project in a part of the nation's capital restored to Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War, and thus not recognized by the U.S. government. American officials followed up a day later, when Biden had left the country, with more harsh criticism of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his government.
“Vast segments of the Jewish community will not tolerate the president's continuing attacks on Israel. Grassroots Jewry will not be silent,” Gilinsky vowed. A long list of Jewish organizations as well as a number of Christian and other non-Jewish groups have signed on to the event as well.
The demonstration will also feature a taped statement by former New York City mayor Ed Koch, a strong supporter of Obama's presidential campaign. Koch recently expressed his shock and disappointment with the increasing anti-Israel views expressed by the president and the increasing hostility of his administration towards the Jewish State.
Among the organizations who have officially endorsed the upcoming rally are:
AISH Center
Americans for a Safe Israel
Artists 4 Israel
Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors
Christians and Jews United for Israel
Coalition for Israel
Crown Heights Women for the Security and Integrity of Israel
Dr. Joseph Frager, Jerusalem Reclamation Project
NY Assemblyman Dov Hikind
IsraelAlive
Israel Day Concert in the Park
Jewish Political Education Foundation
Dr. Michael Ledeen, Center for Defense of Democracies
Unity Coalition for Israel
Dr. Herbert London, The Hudson Institute
AMCHA, Coalition for Jewish Concerns
Stand With Us
Endowment for Middle East Truth
World Committee for the Land of Israel
Zionist Organization of America
Z Street
More information is available by contacting Ronn Torossian in New York at 212-999-5585. (IsraelNationalNews.com)
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