Tagged ZOA

Trump administration backs PLO in terror lawsuit, angering conservatives

A view of the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., Dec. 4, 2017. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
March 12, 2018 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Trump administration sided with the Palestine Liberation Organization in a terrorism lawsuit that the Supreme Court may soon consider, drawing an angry rebuke from conservatives, including one of its most steadfast Jewish community defenders, the Zionist Organization of America. In 2015, a federal jury in… Read more »

Trump’s Israel envoy pick shakes up American Jewish status quo

Donald Trump, center, along with his attorney David Friedman, left, exit the Federal Building following their appearance in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Camden, New Jersey, Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010. (Bradley C Bower/Bloomberg News via Getty Images)
December 21, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) -– Nearly six years ago, when President Barack Obama was set to elevate one of his top emissaries to the Jewish community to the Israel ambassadorship, Dan Shapiro asked for – and got – the endorsement of one of Obama’s fiercest pro-Israel critics. “Dan has always spoken… Read more »

Jewish groups urge Israel’s US envoy to reject award from ‘anti-Muslim’ think tank

Ron Dermer, left, Israel's ambassador to the United States, meets with J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami in Jerusalem, April 2010. J Street is among the Jewish groups calling on Dermer to reject an award from a group seen as anti-Muslim. (Courtesy J Street)
November 8, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Reform movement and other liberal Jewish groups are urging Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Ron Dermer, not to accept an award from an organization deemed by the Anti-Defamation League to promulgate anti-Muslim extremism. The ADL itself stopped short of asking Dermer not to accept the award next… Read more »

Will Obama launch a lame-duck Israel surprise? Not likely.

President Barack Obama talks on the phone in the Oval Office, July 15, 2016. (Pete Souza/ official White House photo)
November 8, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – It started several months ago in anxious whispers among pro-Israel leaders. Now it has burst into the open in full-page ads in The New York Times and op-eds in The Wall Street Journal: Does Barack Obama have a lame-duck surprise in store for Israel? Or, as… Read more »

U.S. Jewish groups opposing Israel’s Jewish state law worry about consequences
December 2, 2014 / Ron Kampeas, JTA
Inside the Max Rayne Hand in Hand Jerusalem School. an Arab-Jewish school that was vandalized over the weekend, Nov. 30, 2014. Some opponents of Israel's nation-state bill cite the recent proliferation of attacks on minorities in Israel as evidence that democracy rather than Jewishness needs attention. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – It’s not unusual to hear U.S. Jewish groups speaking out against laws that discriminate and framing their protests as protecting Jewish interests. What’s unusual is that the target this time is the Israeli government and the proposed law emphasizes Jewish rights. At issue is Israel’s nation-state… Read more »

Title VI should be used on true hatemongers, not political opponents
May 3, 2012 / David A.M. Wilensky, JTA

In the eyes of the Zionist Organization of America, the most depraved enemies of the Jewish people are obnoxious college campus loudmouths. As the editor of New Voices, a national magazine by and for Jewish college students, I have a different perspective. The ZOA led the campaign to have… Read more »

Jewish groups should embrace new legal protection for Jewish students
May 1, 2012 / Morton A. Klein and Susan B. Tuchman, JTA

(JTA) — Imagine if the NAACP responded with skepticism to the passage of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and urged African Americans to exercise their civil rights cautiously under this law. Title VI was landmark legislation when it was passed in 1964 to remedy racial and ethnic… Read more »

Did Florida’s legislature endorse a one-state solution and Israeli citizenship for Palestinians?
March 16, 2012 / Ben Harris, JTA
South Carolina Rep. Alan Clemmons with a group of Israeli soldiers at Masada during his visit to Israel, November 2011. (Alan Clemmons via Twitter)

NEW YORK (JTA) — The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a hotly debated issue — but not in the Florida Legislature. Both houses of the state’s Legislature voted unanimously in February to stake out a bold position on the issue — but it’s not entirely clear what, exactly, Florida lawmakers were… Read more »