NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH AFFAIRS DEMANDS EXPLANATION OF FUNDING OF CONFERENCE TO “COMBAT JUDAIZATION OF JERUSALEM”
The National Council on Jewish Affairs calls on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to explain whether United States tax dollars were spent on State Department consultant Kenneth Insley’s blistering attack on America’s ally Israel and his vicious jabs at members of congress, at an Israel-bashing conference held on February 26-27, in Doha, Qatar.
The “International Conference for the Defense of Occupied Jerusalem,” or, as it was referred to in the English-language media, “Conference on Jerusalem,” was created, according to its organizers, the Arab League, to “combat the Judaization of Jerusalem.”
“Why did Ken Insley, whose official conference listing named the US State Department as his place of employment, tell an already hate-filled audience that Americans’ willingness to turn a blind eye to Israel’s ‘shameful treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, and in Jerusalem’ is the cause of Arab enmity towards America, and that unless a Palestinian State is created ‘there will be Armageddon’,” asked Lori Lowenthal Marcus, NCJA executive committee chair. “Further, why did he suggest to them that they should understand ‘U.S. politicians care more about Israel than the foreign policy interests of their own country?’”
In addition to Insley, thirteen other conference attendees were from the United States and eight from the United Nations. The United States is responsible for nearly a quarter of the UN’s budget.
“We want to know whether Insley, who cast Israel’s leadership as dangerous and responsible for the current impasse, and referred to some Israeli politicians as “pitiful” and “shameless,” was officially representing the US government in his effort to deliberately subvert the US-Israel relationship and if not,” asked Marcus, “when Insley’s financial relationship with the government of the United States will be irrevocably severed.”
Insley, who described himself as having for the past decade, “coordinated many international exchanges with State Department delegations,” even seemed to justify the epithet of racism against Jews when he told the crowd: “Perhaps it is understandable to be perceived as racist when you are considered by some in the world to be God’s own ‘chosen people’.”
Other speakers at the Doha conference included Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas who hammered away on the theme of Israel’s fabrication of Jewish ties to Jerusalem, as well as many others who decried the “Judaization of Jerusalem.”
NCJA is an umbrella organization of Jewish leaders across the United States.
CONTACT: Lori Lowenthal Marcus, lorilowenthalmarcus@gmail.com
Beth Gilinsky, bethgilinsky@gmail.com
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