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Contents

Introduction

Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is a U.S.-based organization, which views itself as the “Jewish wing” of the Palestinian solidarity movement. Though JVP regards the organized Jewish community as its “enemy” and “opponent,” it nonetheless demands a seat at the communal table. The strategy, as stated by JVP’s executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson, is to create “a wedge” within the American Jewish community to generate the impression of polarization over Israel. The tactic is to dilute support for Israel in the Jewish community, toward the goal of reducing or eliminating the United States government’s economic, military, and political support for Israel.

In this role, JVP has actively promoted the central dimensions of the political warfare strategy against Israel, which was adopted at the 2001 Durban NGO Forum. This “Durban strategy” includes the tactics of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS), a sustained campaign of demonization such as accusations of “apartheid” and “racism,” and support for a Palestinian claim to a “right of return,” with the ultimate goal of dismantling Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. To these ends, JVP promotes divestment campaigns on U.S. campuses, in mainline churches, and in corporate stockholder meetings by deploying the language of demonization and delegitimization.

JVP works closely with other organizations that promote the Durban strategy, such as Electronic Intifada, American Muslims for Palestine, Adalah-NY, Code Pink, Sabeel, International Solidarity Movement, and the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (of which JVP is an official member).

JVP amplifies the radical anti-Israel agenda through its Rabbinical Council, a youth section called “Young, Jewish and Proud,” and activism within the LGBT community. It also hosts the “Muzzlewatch” website, purporting to expose “McCarthyism” in the Jewish community. Yet, JVP has engaged in the disruption of the programs of organizations with whom JVP disagrees.

JVP’s funding sources are not transparent. Its website carries no information on its donors. Limited financial information on JVP is only available through public IRS documents (990s) and databases, which report a total budget of $876, 529 for 2011.

These sources reveal that JVP has received funding from an Arab-American foundation that also supports Electronic Intifada (the Violet Jabara Charitable trust), the Firedoll Foundation, and the Wallace Global Fund, which all contribute to numerous anti-Israel groups.

Overview

Website: www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org

www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org Based in the U.S. Founded in 1996.

Claimed mission: “JVP seeks an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem; security and self-determination for Israelis and Palestinians; a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on principles established in international law; an end to violence against civilians; and peace and justice for all peoples of the Middle East.”

“JVP seeks an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem; security and self-determination for Israelis and Palestinians; a just solution for Palestinian refugees based on principles established in international law; an end to violence against civilians; and peace and justice for all peoples of the Middle East.” Actual goal: Drive a “wedge” in the Jewish community over Israel while mainstreaming boycotts, divestment and sanctions campaigns (BDS), so as to weaken U.S. support for Israel.

Drive a “wedge” in the Jewish community over Israel while mainstreaming boycotts, divestment and sanctions campaigns (BDS), so as to weaken U.S. support for Israel. Budget : $876, 529 in 2011 (figures for 2012 and 2013 are not available at this date)

: $876, 529 in 2011 (figures for 2012 and 2013 are not available at this date) Executive Director: Rebecca Vilkomerson

Financials

Lack of transparency: JVP does not make any of its financial information available on its website. The organization’s last annual report is from 2005 and is no longer available on its website.

JVP does not make any of its financial information available on its website. The organization’s last annual report is from 2005 and is no longer available on its website. According to JVP’s 990s (filed with US tax authorities), from 2005 to 2011, JVP more than tripled its total revenues. In 2005, total revenues were $269,582. By 2011, revenues amounted to $876,529. Amounts for 2012 are not available at this date.

During this period, JVP’s aggregate total of “contributions and grants received” was $3,527,396. NGO Monitor was able to identify about 10% ($397,700) of JVP’s funding sources during this period. (See Appendix for table of funders.) The sources of the $3,129,696 difference are not available. In 2010, JVP announced, “Thanks to an anonymous donor, every gift we receive before the end of the year will be matched – up to $100,000.”

In 2009, JVP Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson earned $28,457 in salary and other compensation. The following year, her salary was $71,084, and in 2011 her salary was $74,544. Figures for 2012 are not available at this date.

Foundations donating to JVP

(See Appendix for table of funders)

Strategy

Create a “wedge” in the Jewish community to weaken U.S. support for Israel

At a May 13, 2013 Stanford University forum[1] JVP Executive Director Rebecca Vilkomerson described JVP’s goal of creating a “wedge” within the Jewish community over Israel.

“I think part of our job as the Jewish wing of the [Palestinian solidarity] movement, is to facilitate conversations inside the Jewish community… So, I think it’s very important to think sort of how we plan a wedge… So, I think that the more and more we can sort of put that wedge in, saying the Jewish community’s not agreeing on these issues, the more we’ll make progress.” [2] (emphasis added)

This view of JVP’s role is corroborated by Heike Schotten, an anti-Zionist activist and academic active in JVP’s Boston chapter, who was a scheduled panelist at JVP’s 2013 National Member Meeting. She wrote:

“Groups like Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), American Jews for a Just Peace (AJJP), and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) drive a wedge between Zionism and Judaism, demonstrating by their very existence that not all Jews are Zionists (nor are all Zionists Jews). This is of enormous strategic value, particularly in the U.S. context.” (emphasis added)

Another JVP activist, Mark Gunnery, writes of how American Jews can “subvert” US support for Israel:

“Jews can get away with a lot more criticism of Israel than non-Jews. Instead of hiding from these privileges and acting like they don’t exist, we can simultaneously recognize, subvert, and utilize them… The United States maintains a special relationship with Israel that involves providing them diplomatic cover and giving them military aid… Jewish activists can work towards justice in Palestine through shifting public opinion so much that it will become impossible for the US to continue supporting Israel the way it does now. Without US military aid and diplomatic support, Israel could not maintain the system it currently does within its disputed borders. JVP is doing tremendously important and difficult work”

“Go & Learn” Initiative: Mainstream BDS in the Jewish community

In July 2012, JVP initiated the Go & Learn Initiative, “to bring conversation about BDS into Jewish institutional communities.”

Overarching BDS strategy

JVP’s 2005 “Statement on Selective Divestment“ described the organization’s long term strategy of supporting “selective divestment” as a tactical first step in a long-term strategy that eventually will evolve into a call for general divestment once Israel is isolated in the U.S., as part of the Durban Strategy seeking to delegitimize Israel as “the new apartheid state.” The document states:

“The sanctions against South Africa were a tactic at the tail end of a decades-long movement, when the South African government was thoroughly isolated in the US population. As of now, the Israeli government has powerful allies in the United States… enough that it is a significant obstacle to any forward motion, and a guarantee that economic power against the Israeli government is not yet within our reach.

“Our central task by far, and for the foreseeable future, is to educate the public. Our strategic criterion needs to be whether a given campaign helps us educate people, or whether instead it helps our enemies’ disinformation machine. On this score, we face a more hostile environment than our European comrades, and thus we cannot uncritically adopt the decisions of the European Social Forum.[3] (They approved an economic sanctions platform, at the urging of Palestinian activist Mustafa Barghouti.)

“Choosing a strategy that plays into the hands of our opponents is just wrong: when they attack us, and they will, we want to win the fight and have more supporters, not fewer.

“The selective sanctions strategy is quickly gaining adherents… Here in the US, the Presbyterian Church resolved to explore ‘selective divestment…’ (Note that they wisely ‘did not approve a blanket divestment from companies that do business in Israel’.)… The genie is out of the bottle, and we may be entering an entirely new phase in the movement for justice and peace in Palestine/Israel. American Jews have a key role to play in it.” (emphasis added)

Membership

According to a 2011 media report on JVP, “At the moment, there are only 500 core members, but according to [Rebecca] Vilkomerson, 100,000 people are on the group’s lists as having participated in a JVP action or event. ” (emphasis added)

” (emphasis added) While speaking at Stanford University on May 13, 2013, Vilkomerson claimed that “We have 150,000 people on our online support group , we have 35 chapters around the country.”

, we have 35 chapters around the country.” Neither claim is independently verifiable.

Vilkomerson’s 2013 Stanford claim was made in the context of this broad assertion: “ We’re not an insignificant portion of the Jewish community and when the Jewish community tries to present a united face about what the Jewish community thinks about divestment, what the Jewish community thinks about Israel… So, I think it’s very important to think sort of how we plan a wedge. And I think we are at that point now where we can legitimately claim that we can’t say that we are being mainstream, but we are ‘a’ mainstream and we can legitimately say that the Jewish community is split on these issues. ” (emphasis added)

and when the Jewish community tries to present a united face about what the Jewish community thinks about divestment, what the Jewish community thinks about Israel… So, I think it’s very important to think sort of how we plan a wedge. And I think we are at that point now where ” (emphasis added) In answer to the question, “Do I have to be Jewish to join JVP?” on its FAQ page, JVP answers: “No. At JVP, we are inspired by Jewish values and traditions that call for peace and justice. At the same time, we welcome both Jews and allies who advocate for an end to the Israeli occupation and oppose anti-Jewish hatred, anti-Arab racism, and Islamophobia.”

JVP does not discuss how many of its claimed 100,000 or 150,000 “online” supporters are Jewish, nor does it discuss the criteria used to claim inclusion as an integral part of the Jewish community.

The Issues

Support for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)

Boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) targeting Israel is the main component of the “Durban strategy” – adopted by the NGO Forum of the UN’s Durban Conference (2001), and based on the use of false claims of “war crimes,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “apartheid.”

BDS supporters deny the Jewish people the right of national self-determination. This is confirmed by the statements of BDS leaders.

“[The one state solution means] a unitary state, where, by definition, Jews will be a minority.”–Omar Bargouti Founder, Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

“Ending the occupation doesn’t mean anything if it doesn’t mean upending the Jewish state itself…BDS does mean the end of the Jewish state.–Ahmed Moor, Pro-BDS Author

“BDS represents three words that will help bring about the defeat of Zionist Israel and victory for Palestine.”–Ronnie Kasrils

JVP’s Statement on BDS (2011) declares: “ JVP shares the aims of the Palestinian Boycott National Committee – ending the occupation, achieving equality for Palestinians now living in Israel, and recognizing Palestinian refugees’ right of return. JVP focuses our efforts on boycott and divestment campaigns that directly target Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and its blockade of the Gaza Strip… We believe this to be the most effective way for JVP to help bring about the aims we share with the Palestinian BDS call .” (emphasis added)

JVP focuses our efforts on boycott and divestment campaigns that directly target Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and its blockade of the Gaza Strip… .” (emphasis added) BDS leader Omar Barghouti (see above) wrote that the “BDS National Committee (BNC)… sees JVP as an important ally in the US.” Barghouti was listed as a featured speaker at JVP’s 2013 National Member Meeting.

JVP quotes Barghouti in its “Passover Hagaddah 2012/5772,” which also includes a “L’chayim [a toast] to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement.” Among the Hagadah’s “Ten Plagues of the Israeli Occupation” is the “plague” of the “Denial of the Right of Return.”

In 2011, JVP launched a campaign demanding that the U.S. grant Barghouti a visa to enter the country to “speak and debate.” JVP’s action alert described Barghouti as “a key leader of the global movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel’s government.”

After Barghouti received a visa, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that this was the result of “a support campaign led by Jewish Voice for Peace in Oakland.”

Church Divestment

Campus Divestment

JVP supports and actively promotes the BDS agenda on US campuses. JVP campus chapters are engaged in advocating the Palestinian cause on US campuses, including support for pro-BDS resolutions in student governments.

JVP, in partnership with the American Friends Service Committee, is running a Summer BDS Institute for Student Leaders at the Presbyterian Church’s Stony Point Center, in Stony Point, New York. The training is for “all campus activists currently running or hoping to launch BDS campaigns on their campus.”

JVP issued a statement “commending Brooklyn College for hosting forum on BDS” in 2013.

JVP also issued a statement in support of the 2012 BDS Conference at the University of Pennsylvania. The key note speaker was Ali Abunimah (Electronic Intifada co-founder and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse). Other speakers included JVP’s executive director, Rebecca Vilkomerson; Ahmed Moor (see above); Sarah Schulman, member of JVP’s Advisory Board; and Kristin Szremski, Director of Media and Communications of American Muslims for Palestine.

The JVP Brandeis chapter brought “three Palestinians living in the United States” to present “their experiences as three generations of refugees in the States.”

Gabriel Schivone of JVP’s University of Arizona chapter, wrote against “U.S.-Israeli crimes in the occupied territories, their past and possibly future invasions of Lebanon as well as the grave threats the two countries pose to other areas in the region.”

The “Open Hillel” campaign at Harvard

Corporate Divestment

One-State Advocacy

“Our mission statement endorses neither a one-state solution, nor a two-state solution … we have members and supporters on both sides of this question, as well as many others who, like the organization as a whole, are agnostic about it.” In contrast to this rhetoric, JVP participated in and supported the One State Conference at Harvard in 2012. The conference’s website states “our main goal is to educate ourselves and others about the possible contours of a one-state solution and the challenges that stand in the way of its realization.” Several JVP members presented at this conference, including Rabbi Brant Rosen, co-chair of JVP’s Rabbinical Council. There were many scheduled speakers from BDS/one-state NGOs including Electronic Intifada, Mada al-Carmel, Who Profits.

“Right of Return” and Nakba

In 2000, JVP marched in a Washington DC rally supporting a “right to return.”[4]

JVP’s “Passover Hagaddah 2012/5772 declares: “When Israel and the American Jewish community continue to deny the Right of Return to the refugees of 1948 — We say: enough!”

The FAQ page on its website states: “Peace will only be possible when Israel acknowledges the Palestinian refugees’ right of return and negotiates a mutually agreed, just solution based on principles established in international law including return , compensation and/or resettlement.” (emphasis added)

, compensation and/or resettlement.” (emphasis added) “Nakba”: JVP promotes the “Nakba narrative” in its “Nakba Fact Sheet,” which blames Israel exclusively for the Palestinian refugees resulting from the 1948 war. Also, at JVP’s 2013 National Member Meeting, a session was devoted to a workshop to “Train the Trainers” given by the Nakba Education Project (NEP). NEP’s curriculum materials rely heavily on materials produced by the NGOs BADIL and Zochrot, which are dedicated to using the refugee claims to prevent peace based on compromise.

Ending U.S. Security Cooperation with Israel

“The root of ending the Occupation is here in the United States, not in Israel, and we work for an end to US military aid to Israel until the Occupation ends.”

Gaza Flotillas

Programs and Activities

In July 2012, JVP initiated the Go & Learn Initiative, “to bring conversation about BDS into Jewish institutional communities.”

JVP supports the national effort by pro-Palestinian student groups to lobby their respective student governments to issue resolutions calling for divestment.

Videos and ads in support of the UC Berkeley divestment resolution “Berkeley Divest.”

During the 2013 AIPAC National Policy Conference JVP co-sponsored with Avaaz 100 billboard ads in Washington, DC declaring “Jewish and Proud and AIPAC Does Not Speak for Me.” The ad campaign cost $100,000.

Co-opting LGBTQ Issues

JVP exploits LGBTQ issues, most notably through its IsraeliLaundry.org website, which amplifies the “Pinkwashing” campaign against Israel. “Pinkwashing,” as formulated by JVP Advisory Board member Sarah Schulman, is the baseless allegation that Israel employs “a deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life.”

IsraeliLaundry.org links to Electronic Intifada and to Pinkwatching Israel, “launched by queer Arab activists in 2010” and dedicated to “creating a global movement to promote queer-powered calls against pinkwashing and pushing the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment Campaign against Israel to the forefront of the global queer movement.”

In March 2012 JVP’s Seattle chapter participated in a successful effort to pressure the Seattle LGBT Commission, a sub-committee of the Seattle City Council, to cancel a planned program at Seattle City Hall that would have hosted a visiting delegation of Israeli LGBT activists. JVP delivered a “thank you letter” to the LGBT Commission whose signers included Sarah Schulman, Judith Butler (also a JVP Advisory Board member) and filmmaker Barbara Hammer.

Disruptions of Jewish Programs and Muzzling of Free Speech

March 2012: a JVP activist disrupted a workshop at AIPAC’s National Policy Conference.

March 2012: JVP’s Seattle chapter participated in a successful effort to pressure the Seattle LGBT Commission to cancel a program featuring Israeli LGBT activists at Seattle City Hall (see above).

November 2011: JVP activists disrupted a Birthright Israel conference in New York City.

November 2010: JVP activists disrupted the speech of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America.

Partners and Alliances

JVP consistently partners with many radical anti-Israel organizations in co-sponsoring specific programs and collaborating on long-term campaigns. All these groups, as with JVP, promote the central dimensions of the 2001 Durban NGO Forum Declaration, which adopted a strategy for political warfare against Israel: boycotts, divestment and sanctions, a sustained campaign of delegitimization including accusations of “apartheid” and “racism,” and support for a Palestinian claim to a “right of return.”

Adalah – NY

Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition

Advocates for “all Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands of origin,” supports BDS, and rejects the two-state solution: “Zionism is based on ethnic superiority and complete denial of the other, which leaves no room for peace with Zionism in Palestine.”

American Friends Service Committee

American Muslims for Palestine

Supports BDS, “apartheid” accusations, advocates for a “right of return” and one state: “Palestinians are more determined than ever to fight on until total liberation, until every refugee can return, until the land of Palestine is free from the river to the sea!”

Bay Area Women in Black

Electronic Intifada

EI has an extensive BDS section, including academic, consumer, cultural, and church boycotts, commercial divestment, and government sanctions against Israel. See NGO Monitor’s report on EI here.

Code Pink

North American Friends of Sabeel

Global Exchange

International ANSWER Coalition [Act Now to Stop War & End Racism]

Supports BDS, “apartheid” accusations, advocates for a “right of return,” and decries the “racist character of Zionism and its product Israel.”

International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network

Supports BDS, “apartheid” accusations, advocates for a “right of return,” and characterizes Israel and Zionism as “expand(ing) Western capitalist control over and destruction of land, people, and the environment across the region.”

International Socialist Organization

International Solidarity Movement

Middle East Children’s Alliance

Nakba Education Project

Strait Gate Ministries

In June 2013, David Mandel of JVP’s Sacramento chapter sent an email titled “Action opportunities this weekend,” which included an action alert from Charles E. Carlson of Strait Gate Ministries. The action alert announced a protest against a concert honoring Israel in Sacramento, and stated, “Jesus, not Israel, is the fulfillment of Old Testament Prophesy.”

In 2011, JVP’s Colorado chapter co-sponsored a similar vigil with Carlson’s Strait Gate Ministries. Carlson wrote of this, as did Colorado JVP activist Rob Prince. (Friends of Sabeel also co-sponsored this vigil.)

On his website, Carlson writes of “the Zionist influenced banking fraternity” that is “in league with world Zionism,” and that “fortunately, the Internet and thousands of cell phones are not yet Zionist controlled.”

Elsewhere on his website, Carlson writes, “Their Zionese (sic) self-brainwashing makes it possible for them to justify the murder of thousands, including children, in the name of Judeo-Christianity. They’ve been taught that destroying Iraq and Iran, two of the world’s oldest civilizations and no threat at all the the (sic) United States, is ‘biblical.’ This has never been God’s plan; it has only been Israel’s plan.”

Students for Justice in Palestine

US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel

Supports BDS and the “right to return,” “apartheid” accusations, publishes numerous articles supporting “one state.”

US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (USCEIO)

JVP is an official member of this umbrella organization, along with many of the other groups on this list above. The USCEIO supports the BDS, promotes “apartheid” accusations, and supports a “right of return.” The group’s 2012 national conference’s workshops focused on BDS activism in local communities, cultural and academic boycotts of Israel, and engaging “faith communities.” JVP speakers led many of the conference’s workshops.

The group’s 2011 national conference hosted workshops with the following titles: “Crafting and Sharpening Effective BDS Campaigns: Changing the Discourse and Isolating Apartheid Israel” “The Legal & Popular Approaches to Challenge Zionist Organizations in the United States”



Endnotes [1] “Understanding Israel Today: Issues of Democracy, Equality and the Right of Return.” Panelists also included Stanford History Professor Joel Beinin and UC Berkeley Prof. Hatem Bazian, who is also president of American Muslims for Palestine. [2] A copy of the event’s transcript is on file with NGO Monitor.

[3] The European Social Forum, a section of the World Social Forum, is “an open space where civil society groups and movements opposed to neo-liberalism and a world dominated by capital or by any form of imperialism, but engaged in building a society centered on the human person, come together to pursue their thinking, to debate ideas democratically, to formulate proposals, to share their experiences freely and to network for effective action.” Cecilie Surasky, JVP’s Communications Director, attended the 2004 World Social Forum in India and expressed her “surprise” at finding “that the Israel-Palestine conflict and the occupation are not more prominently featured at the conference.”

[4] Many Palestinian and international NGOs promote a so-called Palestinian “right of return.” This refers to the return of Palestinians displaced during the 1948 War of Independence – as well as their descendants – to houses and properties in Israel. For further analysis of these issues, see: “Return of Palestinian Refugees to the State of Israel“ (translated from the Hebrew), Yaffa Zilbershats and Nimra Goren-Amitai, The Metzilah Center for Zionist, Jewish, Liberal, and Humanist Thought, February 2011.