Teaneck—Joshua London, the Zionist Organization of America’s Co-Director of Government Relations, will be speaking in Teaneck on August 6, at 7:30 p.m., at the home of Melissa and Lazer Borgen. The talk is titled, “Promoting Israel’s Interests: A Beltway Insider’s Perspective.”
London previously worked as a lobbyist on behalf of the Orthodox Union. He spends his days working on behalf of ZOA on Capitol Hill, educating members of Congress and their staff about Israel and the Middle East, and strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship. London is known as a savvy and insightful beltway insider as well as an entertaining and knowledgeable speaker. This is his first time speaking in Teaneck.
He said that the biggest error being made again, even as the current war in Gaza rains rockets down on Israel, is believing that the Palestinian Arabs will ever somehow agree to peace, he said. “The total mistake of Oslo is to have placed faith in false hope over experience. Israel hoped that the PLO had actively reformed, and that Arafat desired peace, but that was a lie. The notion that these people reformed themselves, and would or could ever live peacefully alongside Israel, is a lie,” London said. “To date, Palestinian Arab violence and terror has been rewarded, and each successive rejection of terms at the negotiating table has been answered with better terms, sweeter inducements, and zero costs. Palestinian Arab intransigence has created a situation in which Israeli negotiators, with illusions as to the intentions of their adversary, essentially end up negotiating with themselves,” he said.
As U.S. aid continues, London reasoned, and as U.S. support for the Palestinian Authority continues, the forces against Israel continue to grow stronger. In no uncertain terms, London said, the foreign aid funds “a venomous socialization of hatred directed toward Israel, capitalism, and rejectionism, and is a fetid combination of a lamentable, destructive force. Whatever entrepreneurial forces might have been working, with foreign aid, are gone now.” Today, most of the Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria are under 24 years old, and they have been taught to hate Jews with robust zeal, London noted.
ZOA prevails upon fellow Jews to put aside the ideology of peace and look at the realities of the situation. “Open your eyes, look at the hard evidence, not the dream. Do our goals line up with our policies? I don’t pretend to have the solution, but I know we are continuing to feed the problem,” London said. By attempting to broker peace with those who seek to destroy us, we are not furthering the general cause of humanity, London said.
“The ZOA looks at the complexities of the ongoing Arab war against Israel. We look at it in principle, in terms of right and wrong. We don’t represent the United States. We look from the vantage point of the realities on the ground and what is right, and we look to the best interest of Israel, and to further that, the U.S.-Israel relationship,” he said.
London said that ZOA differs from AIPAC and other U.S.-based pro-Israel organizations in that ZOA is not a big tent, consensus-based group focused on bipartisanship. Instead, it has a narrow focus and doesn’t often work on topics that are well-managed by other Jewish organizations. “ZOA is consistently the one lone voice all through the peace process asking the tough questions, pointing to inconvenient truths, so to speak,” London said.
London said a ZOA priority other than questioning the peace process is preventing the U.S. government from pressuring Israel to make decisions that would be detrimental to Jews in Israel.
For more information, or to attend the lecture, RSVP to Laura Fein, Executive Director, ZOA-NJ, (201) 424-1825, or [email protected].
By Elizabeth Kratz
