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May 30, 2018

Members of the Jewish community are spending a lot of energy these days still debating the 2016 elections and the pluses and minuses of Bibi Netanyahu. But while we are eating ourselves (and each other) up, one of our neighbors in Southern California opened a new front aimed directly at all of us — all lovers of Zion — left and right, religious and secular, Orthodox and Reform.

At a recent event titled “Challenging Islamophobia with My Vote” at the Islamic Institute of Orange County Council, Greater Los Angeles Area Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Hussam Ayloush declared that Jewish kids joining Israel’s lone soldier program (like Los Angeles’ Max Steinberg z”l) should be investigated by federal authorities by the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) program. This Homeland Security and Department of Justice program was established to deal with the continuing terrorist threats posed by the likes of al-Qaida and ISIS, and efforts to recruit among American Muslims.

I am sharing part of the CAIR director’s comments. You can watch them in full online at memri.org/tv, courtesy of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI):

“You know how many hundreds of Jewish American kids are recruited to join the Israeli occupation army? Hundreds. Every year. They leave their country, leave America, to go join with an army that is engaged, with no debate, in major violations of human rights, and maybe some would argue, and I’m one of them, war crimes. And yet people in America leave this country and go there. No one has ever established a CVE program to see, why would normal Jewish-American kids leave their home and join to be part of an army committing war crimes. Why? But none of that is happening. They go to the American Muslim community, although again and again we’ve seen the numbers of Muslims who join extremist terrorist groups like ISIS and al-Qaida is very, very, very, very tiny. Very tiny. Not justifying these tens of millions, maybe hundreds of millions …”

CAIR’s director has the right to characterize the citizen army of the democratic Jewish State of Israel as war criminals. He can do so because he lives in the world’s greatest democracy, the United States of America. But it is nonetheless a lie.

It is admirable that young people around the world are ready to give up two or more years of their lives to protect their fellow Jews.

There are many young Jewish adults from the United States, Canada, Australia and elsewhere who have volunteered for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) because, since May 14, 1948, it has been the first and only line of defense protecting Israelis from invading Arab armies and terrorist groups bent on annihilating every living Jew in the Holy Land. Thankfully, the IDF succeeded in defeating multiple Arab armies in multiple wars. More recently, it has had to deal with suicide terror, missile attacks and violent ambushes of civilians by Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, backed by their paymasters in Tehran.

In the 21st century, the world’s largest Jewish community resides in the State of Israel, and it is admirable that young people around the world are ready to give up two or more years of their lives to protect their fellow Jews.

Why aren’t these young Jews “investigated” upon their return to the U.S. by Homeland Security? Simple. There is zero evidence that any of them are motivated by hate of anyone, only by love, to help protect their fellow Jews from real enemies, from real bullets and bombs. They weren’t taught to hate growing up in our schools and synagogues, nor were they taught to hate by Israel. Perhaps CAIR should focus on those imams in California who do preach hate against Jews from pulpits in this country and in Great Britain, France and Germany, among other countries.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is concerned about Islamophobia and has tracked it as part of our Digital Terrorism and Hate Project for the last quarter of a century. But statistics do not lie. According to FBI statistics dating back to 1992, the group most targeted for race-based hate is African-Americans and the group most targeted by religion-based hate is American Jews.

CAIR can choose to continue to play the victimhood card, but our diverse community should rise up in one voice to denounce anyone demonizing fellow Americans who are loyal to their country and who proudly maintain their part of a 3,500-year-old love affair between the Jewish people and our ancestral home

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