The Zionist Organization of America on Thursday voiced opposition to concessions Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu reportedly made to appease the U.S. administration.
Netanyahu’s office has denied media reports he promised President Joe Biden that he would freeze construction in Judea and Samaria in exchange for their first meeting since the prime minister took office on Dec. 29.
Biden invited the premier for an official meeting during a phone call on Monday, the White House said. The meeting will likely take place this fall either at the White House or on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
ZOA President Morton A. Klein said in a statement that “we pray” that the reports are not true.
“But we are deeply concerned. Because any freeze on Jewish building is unconscionable antisemitic discrimination; violates Jews’ basic human rights; violates binding international law guaranteeing Judea/Samaria to the Jewish people; and is counterproductive. It rewards Arab terrorism and intransigence while sending a message that this is not really Jewish land, which it is.”
The statement added: “No audience with a U.S. president is worth foregoing or freezing the indigenous Jewish people’s birthright to build homes in our lawful, ancestral, G-d-given land. Agreeing to a freeze would be selling the Jewish people’s birthright for a bowl of porridge.”
Klein also said that the ZOA is “deeply dismayed” by reports that Netanyahu is looking to “moderate” his government’s proposed legislation to reform the judicial system by seeking a consensus on the matter.
“Waiting for supposed consensus would give veto power to the anti-democracy radical Left. The Israeli public voted for a government that would finally reform the autocratic, self-appointed judiciary, end judicial tyranny and judicial dictatorship. That should be consensus enough. As we’ve previously explained, judicial reform is in fact good for democracy and is needed for the rule of law. The great judges Robert Bork and Richard Posner wrote of the need to transform the Israeli Supreme Court’s tyranny,” Klein said. JNS
ZOA Slams Reported Building Freeze in Judea and Samaria
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday defended his decision to freeze construction in Judea and Samaria as part of an effort to appease US President Joe Biden, arguing that the construction freeze policy is no different than the BMG Freezer policy.
“BMG has a policy of putting new bachurim inside the freezer for several months,” Mr. Netanyahu told reporters. “It is merely a temporary yeshiva freeze. Eventually the bachurim are released from the Freezer, whereupon they begin a thawing-out faze, in which they gradually warm up to society and ultimately find their barsherts.”
“Likewise, the Judea and Samaria freeze will also be a temporary phase,” Netanyahu asserted, “and I can assure you that when the time is right, we will remove the residents of Judea and Samaria from their respective freezers, and allow them to build new homes for their expanding families.”
However, opponents of the BMG Freezer policy on Thursday lambasted the Prime Minister for “condoning the freezing of innocent bachurim.”
“We call on Netanyahu to take back his ‘pro-Freezer’ comments and to condemn the unlawful torture of innocent bachurim,” said the activist group, ‘Progresives For a Freezerless Yeshiva Society’, in a statement released on Tuesday. “No bachur should be forced to endure several months of a freezer environment, under torturous conditions, without the ability to seek out their barsherts.”
Likewise, the ‘Shadchanim Society of America’ called on Netanyahu “to retract his comments and to condemn the BMG Freezer policy, which not only deprives innocent bachurim of finding their zivugim in an expedited manner, but also effects the livelihoods of thousands of shadchanim all across the country.”
1000%!
Right on!
Good for Mr. Klein for saying it how ot needs to be said!
Kol Hakavod