ZOA Criticizes Dustin Hoffman For Being Special Guest At Radical, Anti-Israel Muslim Public Affairs

[Purveyor]

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The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized actor Dustin Hoffman for agreeing to be a special guest of the radical, anti-Israel Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Hoffman will be presenting a media award for an anti-Israel film at MPAC’s 22nd Annual Media Awards on April 27 in Los Angeles. The ZOA has also pointed out that Mr. Hoffman in July 2010 backed out of attending the annual Jerusalem Film Festival. Now Hoffman has given unwarranted legitimacy to radical, anti-Israel MPAC.

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ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “We strongly criticize Mr. Hoffman’s shocking and terrible decision to give aid, comfort and legitimacy to this group of Muslim haters of Israel and Jews by accepting an invitation to appear as a special guest at an MPAC function. We are also appalled that he withdrew from appearing at the Jerusalem Film Festival, something which emboldens extreme Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment (BDS) activists who seek to delegitimize Israel as a first step towards ultimately eliminating Israel.

“Muslim extremist organizations that endanger America become much harder to combat if celebrities legitimize them. Dustin Hoffman should admit he has made a mistake and withdraw from this event. Those who care about decency, human rights, truth, justice and Israel should consider never seeing another Dustin Hoffman film.”

MORE...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022755315

http://www.jewocity.com/blog/zoa-criticizes-dustin-hoffman-for-being-special-guest-at-radical-anti-israel-muslim-public-affairs-council-gala/8244

[NYC_SKP]

1. I'm not an expert, but I feel a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians. (nt)

[Purveyor]

2. For the Palestinian people, indeed. Their leadership, not so much, but when you don't have a

pot to piss in, nor a window to throw it out of...what are they to do?

[delrem]

10. What would be an improvement on the Vichy regime, all other things remaining the same?

Unlike with the Vichy regime, with respect I/P we have a situation where no "western" country supports a resistance, so where resistance comes from the only thing left, 100% internally from the solidarity of religious institutions. No secular movement has that depth. This is, of course, a recipe for the resurgence of religious fundamentalism.

[azurnoir]

3. More about the 'Radical antiIsrael' MPAC

Envisioning Peace: Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Calling it the "most complicated and intractable (issue) of our time" MPAC recommends a peaceful solution which will lead to coexistence and mutual respect. "The Muslim Public Affairs Council believes that this dialogue will lead to a strategy to end this conflict that has taken too many lives and has destabilized an entire region of global significance." Their position paper states:.[5]

" At MPAC’s core is an Islamic sensibility that human beings should conduct their lives in accordance with a higher ethical and moral wisdom, tested through the ages and designed to afford maximum dignity and justice to human life. It is these ideals shared by our friends in the interfaith community, that we appeal to as we continue to travel the extremely difficult road of peace between Israelis and Palestinians."
"In addition to offering our position as stated above as clearly as possible with the hopes of facilitating fruitful and honest dialogue and strategizing, we conclude by offering principles for the pro-Israel camp to engage with us in the future in a manner that we believe will yield better results enabling us to have a positive influence on the peace process."

Actions against terrorism

MPAC started "The National Grassroots Campaign to Fight Terrorism" by providing guidelines to American Muslim community leaders to ensure that Mosques are not used by potential terrorists and to monitor activities inside Mosques. This program is instituted in cooperation with Mosques across this great country to regulate what kind of groups may assemble in a Mosque and inform the United States Department of Homeland Security if any suspicious activity takes place.[6]

Large publications have taken a note of MPAC's activities to prevent terrorism on American soil. The Wall Street Journal praised American Muslims for being "part of the solution".[7] The Philadelphia Inquirer said to "credit Muslims who speak out" against terrorism.[7]

This page was last modified on 29 March 2013 at 06:18.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Public_Affairs_Council#Envisioning_Peace:_Israeli-Palestinian_Conflict

http://www.mpac.org/

[Scootaloo]

4. You need quantum physics to perceive the line between Zionism and Islamophobia these days

[azurnoir]

7. well I don't know if Islamophobia entirely covers it for ZOA

as there are quite a few Christian Palestinians and I don't think ZOA exactly favors them either

[delrem]

5. "Muslim extremist organizations that endanger America become much harder to combat...."

That language isn't particular to I/P.

There's a certain pretense going on here that locks topics that mention Israel w.r.t. its territorial wars.
For example, does that prohibition lock threads that refer to "intelligence" that sarin gas was used by Syria vs the jihadists supported by the west? The "intelligence" came from Israel. Israel vis-a-vis Syria is intimately connected to Israel vis-a-vis Palestine, Israel vis-a-vis Lebanon, Israel vis-a-vis Jordan, Israel vis-a-vis Saudi Arabia, Israel vis-a-vis Iran. We all know this.

There are expert journalists reporting to audiences all around the world, except to the USA which won't publish them, about how the Syria war looks to be aiming toward a general Sunni vs Shia conflagration with the aim to take out Shia Iran, and with armament sales in the 10's of billions outfitting Sunni GCC weaponry and the bank accounts of war profiteers. The situation in the ME hasn't got less volatile under President Obama, it has gotten more critical. How can a reasonable discussion of this be conducted without mention of the input of Israel, in the full context?

The USA is all over the middle east, fingers everywhere, and Israel is connected 1-to-1, so a prohibition against threads referencing Israel anywhere except I/P has a profound impact on the scope of discussion re. the WoT, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Iran, ....

[bravenak]

6. Sounds like islamaphobia ( similar to racism) to me!

Who gets to decide what constitutes an extremist group?
Who did they terrorize?
What did they do to be called extremist
Is it in their mission statement to delegitimize Israel?

[azurnoir]

8. well here's a bit of ZOA :)

ZOA: Obama’s Jerusalem Speech Supports/Praises Palestinians; Blames Israel For No Peace

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized and expressed concern at President Barack Obama’s speech delivered before a carefully selected audience of Israeli university students in Jerusalem in which he astonishingly urged students to loudly pressure the democratically-elected Israeli government towards a concessionary policy and on Palestinian statehood; uttered praise rather than criticism of Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah/Palestinian Authority, which continues incitement to hatred and murder against Israel and refused to negotiate for virtually all of the past four years and has turned down two generous offers of statehood; and repeated calls for a Palestinian state that would be Jew-free.

President Obama could not have delivered such an address to Israel’s democratically elected representatives in the Knesset – a venue in which he declined to speak, contrary to custom – because most of Israel understands that Palestinians are unwilling to make peace with Israel, even if that means forgoing a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and therefore they would reject his argument. Instead, President Obama gave a speech to a carefully selected collection of Israeli university students not broadly representative of Israeli attitudes who would respond well to his criticism of Israel and flat-earth statements about the willingness of Palestinians to make peace. At the same time, precisely those students least likely to agree with him were excluded.

The ZOA has been told by authorities in Israel that students thought likely to disagree or protest President Obamas statements were weeded out. Additionally, only certain universities and colleges received invitations. Prominently not invited were students from Ariel University in Samaria, which was likelier than most student bodies to have students that disagree with President Obama. This astonishing exclusion of Ariel students led left-wing Labor Knesset Member Nachman Shai to call on students to boycott President Obama’s speech.

.................................................

So offensive has been this speech to Israel’s government and members of the Knesset that a member of the governing coalition, Miri Regev of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Beiteinu party called Obama’s speech “offensive to Netanyahu … I was surprised by his words about a Palestinian state, that he didn’t mention the word ‘Jerusalem’ and that he said, ‘Leaders must bring peace,’ as if Netanyahu doesn’t want peace.”


http://zoa.org/2013/03/10195161-zoa-obamas-jerusalem-speech-supportspraises-palestinians-blames-israel-for-no-peace/


ZOA: Illegal Arab Settlement: An Expose on Arab Land Theft in Israel"

Q: Doesn't Israel have more important issues to worry about right now?

A: It's all related. Arab missiles are a direct, physical assault on Israel's existence. Arab land theft is an indirect and insidious assault on Israel's existence. Without the world watching, Arab groups hostile to Israel's existence systematically usurp Israel's most precious resource: land.

Q: Do Arabs really steal Israeli land?

Yes, all the time, but it's often not exposed. NGOs, often with Jewish leadership (such as the extremist organization, Peace Now) are more obsessed with cracking down on what they believe is Jewish theft of Arab land in Judea & Samaria (the West Bank). They pursue the demolition of Jewish homes through the Israeli Supreme Court. A disproportionate focus on alleged Jewish theft over rampant Arab theft of Israeli land is obviously a form of discrimination, and more often than not anti-Semitism and/or self-hatred, but you can draw your own conclusions. Regavim is there to ensure Arabs follow rule of law as well.

http://attorneysdefendingisrael.blogspot.com/2012/11/zoa-illegal-arab-settlement-expose-on.html

[shaayecanaan]

9. "Those who care about decency, human rights,

truth, justice and Israel should consider never seeing another Dustin Hoffman film"

That almost sounds like a boycott.

[delrem]

11. But I disagree. *

* with such a boycott

Those who care about decency, human rights, truth, justice and Israel are probably the kind of people who enjoy Dustin Hoffman, because as an actor he shows a total rapport with the character he plays, and over a lifetime of some of the best acting anyone has produced he's proven himself. That kind of acting ability isn't to be taken lightly.

[shira]

12. MPAC is supportive of BDS, the MB, Hamas, Hezbollah....

Last edited Sat Apr 27, 2013, 11:25 AM - Edit history (3)

Yeah, that makes them extremist far right-wingers no liberal should support.

The problem with accepting these extremists as moderate is that genuinely moderate, liberal, secular Muslims are up shit's creek when that happens as they have nowhere else to go and have no one to advocate for them. This is fine for those who don't give a shit & believe Muslims are all the same, but not so much for Muslims who have big issues with extremists. The moderates are the primary victims of radical Islamists. Pretending MPAC represents them does them no favors and should be considered criminal. It's like recognizing the KKK as moderate and telling genuinely liberal christians to just suck it and accept the KKK as their representative moderate leadership.

Total insanity.

It's no wonder secular, liberal Muslims have big problems with western policy, in which the west recognizes radical extreme Islamists as the moderate leadership, rather than working against them and for genuine moderates.

[oberliner]

13. He was a no-show

Update: Hoffman did not personally present the award. According to the communications director of the MPAC: "Mr. Hoffman was not able to attend our gala because he came down with an illness from his trip to Japan. He did send us a recorded message speaking highly of the film."