Yachad stoops ever lower and becomes increasingly dangerous for Israel supporters in the UK

This is an important update to recent postings.

Earlier this week I reported how Yachad - the anti-Zionist group fraudulently claiming to be 'pro-Israel' - closely partners with the vicious B'Tselem organisation who are so anti-Zionist that they hand over Arabs who sell land to Jews to be tortured and murdered by the Palestine Authority. I'm still waiting for a Yachad response/statement on this.

I then reported on the irony of how Yachad's attempt to delegitimize Israel ended with their own event being sabotaged by antisemites proving that, no matter how low Yachad stoops to kiss the boots of Israel haters, it will never be low enough. The event was the talk by the leftist former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon at Kings College London. Yachad brought Ayalon  to the UK for a lecture tour simply because he is an outspoken critic of the Israeli Government, demanding that Israel make major unilateral concessions to the Palestinians. Most significantly, Ayalon has stated that Israel is 'heading toward being an apartheid state' and much of what he says is used by Israeli haters in their propaganda, hence contributing to the international delegitimization campaign. Also, many believe that Ayalon's disgraceful contribution to the film the Gatekeepers was an act of treason against Israel.

The only reason Yachad brought Ayalon to the UK was because they knew he would speak exclusively about  Israel's faults and blame Israel for most of the problems in the Middle East. By emphasizing his former Shin Bet credentials he was an extremely useful and 'credible Israeli' pushing exactly the Yachad narrative. Now, Ayalon - like most left-wing Israeli useful idiots - genuinely thinks that parroting the narrative of Israel's enemies in the UK will help Israel win friends. But, ultimately, he is still an Israeli who believes in the Jewish State (albeit much reduced and indefensible) and in the eyes of Israel's enemies that makes Ayalon a 'war criminal' who, like every other "Zionist", must be silenced.

So Yachad - whose members are normally among those protesting when Israelis speak in the UK - found themselves on the receiving end of the Israel haters' venom as reported by Richard Millett.


But if you think that this kind of brutal exposure of the futility of Yachad's policy (of adopting the narrative and lies of Israel's enemies) has been a wake-up call then you will be disappointed. As I reported the day after the event their Facebook page actually tried to downplay what happened. But now it gets much worse. Incredibly, Yachad's leader Hannah Weisfeld has written an OpEd in Haaretz (where else do you expect?) with the title It's Not Only pro-Palestinian Students Who Use Intimidation to Silence Free Speech. She says (about the behaviour of the violent antisemites):

This behavior is emulated by members of the Jewish community here in the U.K. who, seeing the behavior of the Israeli government, believe that shutting down voices that disagree with the policies of the Israeli government is now the model of how to be a truly committed supporter of Israel.

She is referring to the fact that pro-Israel Jews had objected to an orthodox synagogue hosting one of the lectures by Ayalon on his Yachad tour of the UK. Given that the only voices that are publicly heard about Israel in the UK are those which are critical of its Government, it is strange that Weisfeld should bring out the censorship card here. Nobody in the Jewish community is trying to to ban her from hosting talks by Ayalon and his ilk. But she thinks she has a right to demand that such talks take place in orthodox synagogues and that is where any sane Israel supporter would draw the line. Does it mean, for example, that Yachad also have the right to demand, say, that Hamas or Hezbollah supporters speak at Zionist Federation events and that failure to do so amounts to censorship?

The fact is that the scenario Weisfeld paints is the perfect inversion of reality. While anti-Israel speakers are everywhere, it is becoming increasingly rare for any strong supporters of Israel to be heard publicly anywhere. Moreover, to demonstrate the hypocrisy of Weisfeld it should be noted that Yachad and their supporters have been at the forefront of trying to ban such pro-Israel speakers from the UK.

The fact is that 80% of the British Jewish community are strong supporters of Israel and ; if they knew what Yachad's true objectives were they would have been totally shunned by now. Yet, not only are Yachad fully embedded in mainstream Jewish organisations (including the Board of Deputies) but they are gaining an increasingly influential role. Most worrying is that they have devoted serious resources to brainwashing young Jews and this is reflected in the fact that they have managed to take over many of the Jewish Student societies (convincing naive Jewish kids that they really are 'pro-Israel, pro-peace').

If anybody thinks my concerns about Yachad are an exaggeration, then you need to know what the highly respected Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz thinks about their sister organisation JStreet in the US. While Derschowitz is a supporter of Israel nobody can accuse him of being a 'right-winger'. He is a Democrat who supported Obama and has been a consistent critic of Israel's policy of retaining East Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Yet this is what he said (Tablet Magazine, August 2015) about the US version of Yachad:

"I think J Street has been the most damaging organization in American history against Israel. It has been the most damaging, more damaging than Students for Justice in Palestine [and] more damaging than the early anti-Zionist Council for Judaism. J Street has done more to turn young people against Israel than any organization in the whole of history. It will go down in history as one of the most virulent, anti-Israel organizations in the history of Zionism and Judaism. It has given cover to anti-Israel attitudes on campus and particularly its approach to Israel's self defense"

Exactly the same is true of Yachad and people need to wake up to this.