Sunrise Movement is a group of young activists dedicated to stopping man-made climate change. The organization has over 400 branches, most of which are located in the US. One of the political branches of the organization located in Washington DC (DC chapter) announced on October 20th on Twitter that it refused to attend the voting rights rally in Washington DC due to the inclusion of Jewish organizations that hold different levels of support for Zionism.
In response to the accusations of antisemitism, Sunrise DC issued a clarification regarding their intentions to boycott the three Jewish organizations for their support of Israel, noting that it was wrong of them to only speak out against Jewish groups that support Israel and not also include “other organizations …with similar positions” in their condemnation. However, the real problem is not their hypocritical apology, but the continued adaptation of the false narrative against Zionism. Their opposition to Zionism is itself an antisemitic stance because opposition to a Jewish state is an attack on millions of Jews inside and outside Israel and the erasure of their ethnic identity.
But, according to archeological findings, journals, various religions, and scholars, the birthplace of the Jewish people is in the Land of Israel. There, a major part of the long history of the Nation occurred. There, its cultural, religion, and national identity was formed. And there, its physical presence has been preserved for centuries. During the many years of exile, the Jewish people never forgot its connection with the land. With the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, Jewish independence, which had been lost 2,000 years earlier, was renewed. It is impossible to break the connection between the Jewish people around the world and the state of Israel.
As for their accusation that Israel has declared Palestinian organizations affiliated with the “Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine” as terror organizations just so that Israel can easily cease its activities, they forgot to mention that the “Popular Front” has targeted Israeli citizens in terror attacks for decades. In fact, the terrorists connected to this terror organization are responsible for some of the largest and most severe terror attacks against Israel. For all these reasons, the “Popular Front” has been declared a terror organization by many countries all over the world, among which are the European Union, the United States, Canada, and more. Among these horrific terror acts was the heinous murder of the Fogel family in 2011, in which 5 members of the family were murdered: the parents- Ehud and Ruth and three of their young children- Yoav (age 11), Elad (age 4) and Hadas (a 3-month-old baby). In 2019, an explosive device planted near a spring where an Israeli family was hiking led to the murder of Rina Shnerb (age 17) and injured her father and brother.
One of the problems of such organizations is that they take on a struggle that many agree with, such as the climate crisis, LGBQT movements, Black lives matter and more, and along the way disseminate to thousands of followers false information about Israel. Calls for a boycott of Jews only based on their identification with the Jewish state, is just a cover for antisemitic discrimination that should have been uprooted from the world long ago. The saddest part is that even in the condemnation messages of the other branches of the Sunrise Movement and within the clarification message of D.C. chapter, there wasn’t a slightest hint of acknowledgment or remorse for the egregiously distorted “facts” written about Israel.
Contributed by CAMERA’s campus advisior in Israel. Tom Yohay
Click here to read the full article in The Times of Israel.
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