From Israeli elections and Iranian nukes to the mutations of the effort to destroy Israel, in this week’s Action Update we’ll be covering a lot of ground. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the latest.
Israeli Elections
Last week we discussed a bit about how Israel’s parliamentary system works and the health of the Israeli democracy. The last ballot has been counted and the head of Israel’s Likud Party, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be given the opportunity to form a governing coalition with various other parties in the Israeli Knesset.
CUFI takes no position on internal Israeli politics. We respect the Israeli people’s sovereign right to vote as they see fit without foreign interference. We have had a relationship with every Israeli government since CUFI’s founding and this will not change. Our hope, and we will work to achieve this goal, is that the longstanding bipartisan support for the U.S.-Israel relationship will not ebb and flow depending upon who’s in power in Washington or Jerusalem.
Israel is an ally that shares American values, and the U.S.-Israel alliance is in the vital national security interests of both nations. America’s alliance with the Middle East’s sole, stable democracy must transcend domestic politics in both nations.
The Russo-Iranian Alliance Expands
Previously we’ve reported on Iran’s sale of drones and other weapons to Russia to aid Moscow in its war of aggression against Ukraine. In recent days, we’ve learned a bit more about what Iran is hoping to get in return.
According to American intelligence officials, Tehran is seeking Moscow’s help in further developing the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Seeing as leaders in both countries place no value on human life and are solely focused on their own perpetual authoritarian rule, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
This revelation, however, should put to bed the astoundingly foolish American policy (which is down, but not out) of negotiating with Iran, using Russia as the intermediary.
During a 2012 Presidential debate, then-candidate Mitt Romney was mocked by the foreign policy intelligentsia for stating, “Russia… is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe.” Obviously, Romney was right and the so-called foreign policy elites were wrong. As a single-issue organization, we focus exclusively on the Middle East, but Russia is there, playing in Israel’s backyard. The U.S. should view its policy in the region through Romney’s lens and seek every opportunity to minimize successful Russian engagement in the region.
The Enemy Adapts
The Palestinian effort to end the existence of the modern state of Israel is nothing if not dynamic. It started with murderous raids and plane hijackings. It then adapted to suicide bombings. With the creation of Israel’s security fence, terrorists turned to firing rockets, and with the establishment of the Iron Dome Missile defense system, Hamas and their ilk went low tech, with incendiary balloons, stabbings and car ramming attacks.
The terrorists’ allies in the BDS community have displayed the same ability to adapt. They started pressuring companies to simply boycott the Jewish state, but that didn’t work because the American people wouldn’t stand for it. In fact, so repugnant was the BDS communities’ effort to demonize Israel that 34 U.S. states enacted laws and policies which prohibit contracting with and/or investing in companies that participate in a boycott of Israel. So, like their ideological kin at Hamas and Hezbollah, the BDS community adapted. This time around, they are seeking to keep their means of Israel’s destruction hidden from view.
After high-profile defeats, like the efforts to get Airbnb and Ben Jerry’s to boycott the Jewish state, the BDS movement has been working to infiltrate the world of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing. As the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Rich Goldberg explains in a recent op-ed, many of the core tactics employed by the BDS movement in the ESG context mimic those we’ve seen before. Israel is singled-out for criticism in an antisemitic double standard. Companies are bullied. Threats are made. And all the while, international institutions such as the United Nations are used as a fig leaf for laundering anti-Israel “data” thus enabling pro-BDS investment managers to magically come to a conclusion in which Israel is harmed and regular hardworking American investors do not know that their money is being used to effectively boycott the Jewish state.
BDS is a mutating virus, and we at the Action Fund, as well as our allies at a host of organizations representing an incredibly wide and diverse swath of the American electorate, are going to ensure that neither our tax dollars nor our retirement accounts are subsidizing the effort to destroy Israel.
Thank you for standing with us during this pivotal time. And while we are a nonpartisan organization, we feel strongly that every American should exercise their right to vote. Today is election day! So please, go to the polls and make your voice heard.
Sincerely,
