Section II: CounterClaim

Against the ARZA: Vote Reform Slate

THE COORDINATING COUNCIL FOR THE JEWISH HOMELAND/ERETZ HAKODESH, Complainant v. ARZA/Vote Reform, Respondent

TO THE CHAIR AND JUDGES OF THE TRIBUNAL:

The Coordinating Council for the Jewish Homeland (“Eretz Hakodesh” or “EHK”) hereby submits its Counterclaim against the ARZA/Vote Reform and Reconstructionist (“ARZA”) slate concerning its abandonment and contravention of the Jerusalem Program. EHK respectfully requests the American Zionist Movement (“AZM”) Tribunal annul the ARZA slate of delegates to the 38th World Zionist Congress and bar the certification of mandates to persons listed on that slate, in accordance with the directive of the Zionist General Council.

PREAMBLE

As a new entrant into the elections for the World Zionist Congress, Eretz HaKodesh focused its energies upon positive election efforts, rather than negativity from other campaigns.1 The filing of an utterly baseless and denigrating complaint from ARZA, however, forced us to look more deeply into ARZA’s own conduct. We submit this CounterClaim due to ARZA’s deliberate contravention of the Jerusalem Program, including as stated explicitly in a Resolution of the Zionist General Council.

RULES

I. The WZO Constitution and Jerusalem Platform Provide Clear Regulations and Guidelines.

The World Zionist Organization (WZO) is an institution premised on the fundamental principles of Zionism, as defined in the WZO Constitution. That Constitution (Article 1, Section 1) states that the aim of Zionism is “to create for the Jewish People a home in Eretz Yisrael secured by public law.”

1 Eretz HaKodesh was even more meticulous following the AZM Tribunal Ruling on the first ARZA complaint against it.

EHK Reply to ARZA page 15 The first manifesto of the Zionist movement was the Basel Program, adopted unanimously at the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland on Aug. 30, 1897. That manifesto required clear actions, without which the modern State of Israel would not have come into existence. Specifically, it called for the settlement of “Jewish agriculturists, artisans, and tradesmen in Palestine,” organizing a federation of all Jews, strengthening Jewish feeling and consciousness, and pursuing governmental grants necessary to achieve the Zionist purpose.

The Basel manifesto was replaced by the Jerusalem Program in the 1950s. The Jerusalem Program of 1953 stated that “the task of Zionism is the consolidation of the State of Israel, the ingathering of exiles in Eretz Israel, and the fostering of the unity of the Jewish people.” Once again, Zionism was defined as having a task, requiring action. Specifically, it described “the ​ ​ program of work of the World Zionist Organization” as the following:

1. Encouragement of immigration, absorption and integration of immigrants; support of Youth Aliyah; stimulation of agricultural settlement and economic development; acquisition of land as the property of the people. 2. Intensive work for halutziut (pioneering) and hachsharah (training for halutziut). ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 3. Concerted effort to harness funds in order to carry out the tasks of Zionism. 4. Encouragement of private capital investment. 5. Fostering of Jewish consciousness by propagating the Zionist idea and strengthening the Zionist Movement; imparting the values of Judaism; Hebrew education and spreading the Hebrew language. 6. Mobilization of world public opinion for Israel and Zionism. 7. Participation in efforts to organize and intensify Jewish life on democratic foundations, maintenance and defense of Jewish rights.

In its current version, the Jerusalem Program is incorporated into the WZO Constitution as Article 2, Section 2. It “views a Jewish, Zionist, democratic and secure State of Israel to be the expression of the common responsibility of the Jewish people for its continuity and future.” As with the Basel Program and earlier versions of the Jerusalem Program, the current Jerusalem Program offers a clear plan of actions to be encouraged and implemented by those who accept and support it.

Per Article 5, Section 1, individual membership in the World Zionist Organization is limited to those over the age of eighteen who accept the Jerusalem Program and pay membership dues. A national Zionist Federation must likewise accept the Zionist Program (Article 5, Section 2a) and admit members who accept the Constitution and the program of the WZO (Article 7(a)).

The Rules for the 2020 United States Election to the 38th World Zionist Congress require that both an individual voter accept the Jerusalem Program (Article I, Section 2(b)), and that an Election Slate “express the group’s full acceptance of and compliance with the WZO Constitution, the Jerusalem Program and the AZM Constitution.”

EHK Reply to ARZA page 16 II. According to the Determination of the Zionist General Council, “Any organization or person supporting BDS must be excluded from the Zionist movement.”

Resolution 1.2 of the Zionist General Council XXXVII/5, approved in November 2019 (attached hereto as Ex. I) (“ZGC Anti-BDS Resolution”), states that direct or indirect support for either ​ “‘full’ or ‘partial’ BDS is inconsistent with and shall be deemed a violation of the Jerusalem Program… any organization or person supporting BDS must be excluded from the Zionist movement” (emphasis added). ​

The resolution expressly includes and restates “territories controlled by Israel.” It is the ZGC’s position that one who supports any form of boycott directed against Jewish residents of Israel-held territories in Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights or elsewhere is in violation of, rather than a supporter of, the Jerusalem Program.

The resolution highlights the fact that “anti-Jewish boycotts and imposts (the equivalent of ​ sanctions)” were described by Theodor Herzl as “types of persecutions against Jews that made a Jewish State necessary” — decades prior to the advent of the Nazi boycott of ​ 1932. Thus support for BDS is tied to an ancient and hateful Anti-Semitic pattern deplored by Herzl himself. The resolution also says that the Israel Supreme Court called BDS “political terrorism” — and that “BDS directed at territories controlled by Israel is unlawful.” ​ ​

The text of the ZGC Anti-BDS Resolution specifically does not limit its application to new slates or individuals joining an election, national Federation or the World Zionist Organization. Rather, ​ ​ it demands that an organization or person be excluded, removed, if at any time that organization ​ ​ or individual expresses support for BDS. Neither is there grounds to “grandfather in” a slate that ran prior to the 2019 passage of this Resolution. Any slate that now supports even partial BDS, even indirectly, is in violation of the Jerusalem Program and must be excluded from further participation in the Zionist movement.

VIOLATIONS

III. The ARZA slate espouses Divestment by the WZO itself from territories held by Israel.

During a televised election forum on February 25, 2020, ARZA Executive Director Rabbi Josh Weinberg called for the WZO to divest itself from Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria over the 1948 Armistice Green Line.2 Rabbi Weinberg also revealed that the Reform movement even rejected funding to establish such Reform synagogues previously, expressly divesting

2 Debate hosted by Jewish Broadcasting Service. https://jbstv.org/wzc-election-forum-1/ ​

EHK Reply to ARZA page 17 from affiliation with Jewish residents of territories controlled by Israel.3 Divestment from ​ territories controlled by Israel is specifically identified by the ZGC Anti-BDS Resolution as a violation of the Jerusalem Program, requiring that the organization or person be excluded from the Zionist Movement.

Rabbi Mark Golub, who is himself affiliated with the Reform movement and served as lead moderator of the debate, said to Rabbi Weinberg that “for a Reform Rabbi, for a leader of the Reform Movement, to say that you don’t want to build a Reform synagogue in a Jewish city, boggles my mind… would I like to see WZC money build a Reform synagogue anywhere in the ​ world, the answer is yes for me. And I’m just surprised the answer is not for you.” Even at the ​ end of this exchange, Rabbi Weinberg insisted that no, he, representing ARZA, does not want ​ ​ to see the World Zionist Organization fund institutions in Judea and Samaria.

IV. ARZA “Interprets” the Jerusalem Program in ways that openly diverge from and contradict its plain meaning.

The ARZA website devotes a page to the Jerusalem Program, “the official platform of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) and the Zionist Movement.” This page is entitled “The Jerusalem ​ Program Explained” (attached hereto as Ex. V). Yet the page neither presents nor links to the ​ actual text of the Jerusalem Program, but rather offers ARZA’s reinterpretation of it.

The ARZA page expressly states that “The Jerusalem Program is an ideological statement, not a plan of action.” This cannot be reconciled with the many demands placed upon members of the Zionist movement, from Aliyah, to strengthening Israel, to furthering Jewish, Hebrew, and Zionist education. Had the Basel Program been taken as “an ideological statement, not a plan of action” in 1897, the State of Israel would not exist.

Worse, the web page in question does not quote the actual text and its requirements; rather, it offers its own abbreviation of the text itself, but devotes a great deal of attention to how ARZA interprets each one.

1. “The Unity of the Jewish People” is reduced to a transactional relationship. The first foundation of the Jerusalem Program is “The unity of the Jewish people, its bond to its historic homeland Eretz Yisrael, and the centrality of the State of Israel and Jerusalem, its capital, in the life of the nation.”

ARZA comments that “The early Zionists saw ‘unity’ as a one-way street, but today we view unity as best expressed through partnership and mutual responsibility, and it’s bond to its historic homeland Eretz Yisrael.” This entirely distorts the plain meaning of the word unity, which

3 Debate hosted by Jewish Broadcasting Service. https://jbstv.org/wzc-election-forum-1/ ​

EHK Reply to ARZA page 18 means “the state of being united or joined as a whole.”4 True unity is expressed by brotherhood that doesn’t depend upon reciprocity. Family remains family, even the crazy sibling who refuses to talk to you. The Jerusalem Program requires that Jews recognize all of their brethren as such, while ARZA claims that unity is merely a transactional relationship, a “two-way partnership.”

ARZA continues: “There are powerful differences between Eretz Yisrael and Medinat Yisrael.“ It is shocking that ARZA would publish something that reads like a Niturei Karta or Satmar ​ talking point. This clearly diminishes the centrality of the State of Israel in the life of the nation. ​

Furthermore, in the hands of ARZA, this distinction is used to justify divestment from Jewish communities in parts of Eretz Yisrael liberated post-1967, in direct contravention of the ZGC Anti-BDS Resolution (see Section III above), and to condemn Medinat Yisrael when it exercises its right to extend sovereignty over parts of Eretz Yisrael also claimed by others.

2. “Aliyah to Israel” is merely an “ideological statement,” not a plan of action. The second foundation of the Jerusalem Program is “Aliyah to Israel from all countries and the effective integration of all immigrants into Israeli society.” ARZA suggests no Aliyah resources nor offers encouragement, pointing instead to a meeting of the CCAR 23 years ago, in which their rabbis declared Aliyah to be a “Mitzvah” for Reform Jews. This is not at all akin to a Mitzvah in a community in which Mitzvos are demands that must be observed. In the Reform Movement, in which personal autonomy is decisive, a Mitzvah is but a “good deed” that an individual may choose to observe (see “Parashat Ki Tavo: Does the word mitzvah mean ‘good ​ deed’ or ‘commandment’?” attached hereto as Ex. W). ​

Indeed, the movement’s page on Aliyah to Israel (attached hereto as Ex. P), does not even ​ ​ encourage Reform Jews to make Aliyah (!). On the contrary, it begins by saying that “Reform Judaism believes that Jews can live fulfilling and meaningful lives in any part of the world.” Starting a discussion of Aliyah with this truism has the obvious effect of discouraging Aliyah. ​ ​ Nowhere does the page describe Israel as the Jewish homeland, but as “a unique environment in which Jews can express their beliefs, values and heritage” for those who “decide to make their home in Israel.”

3. ARZA describes Israeli society in the language of its enemies. ARZA states that “Contemporary Zionists believe that the yearning to make of the Jewish state an exemplary society has yet to be fulfilled.” This is an amazing and disheartening statement, ​ ​ coming from a purportedly Zionist organization.

The definition of exemplary is “serving as a desirable model; representing the best of its kind.”5 It is difficult to imagine an objective and rational standard by which any current national society can claim to be substantially superior to that of Israel, for all its flaws. Israel is rightly described

4 Oxford Dictionary. See https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/unity ​ 5 Oxford Dictionary. See https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/exemplary ​

EHK Reply to ARZA page 19 as a “beacon of freedom in the Middle East.” There are many who will never accept that Israel might be legitimate, much less exemplary, no matter the obvious reality — but those people do not criticize Israel as a country, but because the majority of its population consists of Jews.

ARZA then goes on to say that “Israeli Arab Palestinians are full citizens of Israel and deserve the same level of governmental support and understanding as Jewish Israelis, marked by mutual respect for the multi-faceted.” This is a blatant distortion of the Jerusalem Platform, which requires mutual respect for the “multi-faceted Jewish people.” The use of “Arab ​ ​ Palestinians” is also offensive — it is a redundancy that grants undue recognition of a colonial province as if it were a person’s national identity. Nowhere does ARZA grant parallel recognition to the inheritors of the “Jewish Palestinians” who lived in Eretz Yisrael in the pre-state years. Rather, ARZA adopts the lexicon of those who vilify Israel in the international arena, in direct contravention of the Jerusalem Program’s goal of “defending the rights of Jews as individuals and as a nation [and] representing the national Zionist interests of the Jewish people.”

4. “Ensuring the Future and the Distinctiveness of the Jewish People” is given no serious consideration. In this section, ARZA merely discusses the endorsement of learning Hebrew in the 23-year-old Miami Platform. It does not discuss the urgent need to strengthen Jewish and Zionist education, or the problem of rampant disaffiliation, assimilation and intermarriage sweeping the American Jewish community.

Even its discussion of Hebrew condescends to Israelis — reducing them to teachers of Hebrew, while claiming that a teacher-student relationship is a “partnership among equals.”

ARZA may entitle this section “Ensuring the future and the distinctiveness of the Jewish people,” but one searches in vain for how ARZA plans to support this critical element of the Jerusalem Program.

5. ARZA highlights “Nurturing mutual Jewish responsibility, defending the rights of Jews as individuals and as a nation,” but not “representing the national Zionist interests of the Jewish people, and struggling against all manifestations of anti-Semitism.” At this writing, the Reform movement is sponsoring a campaign to instigate pressure from the U.S. Congress against Israel’s democratic government in the matter of Israel’s extension of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria (see “Urge the Israeli Government Not to Carry Out Unilateral ​ West Bank Annexation,” attached hereto as Ex. E). Can an organization calling for external ​ pressure upon the government of Israel claim to be “representing the national Zionist interests of the Jewish people”?

EHK Reply to ARZA page 20 More fundamentally, according to the ZGC Anti-BDS Resolution (see Section II above), one cannot support partial divestment and simultaneously be “struggling against all manifestations of anti-Semitism.” ARZA clearly and unequivocally fails this test.

6. ARZA cannot accept “settling the country as an expression of practical Zionism” without equivocation. The Reform movement condemned the Trump Administration for moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem, much to the consternation of many of its own leaders (see “Reforming the Reform ​ movement,” attached hereto as Ex. D), and earning a rare rebuke from Natan Sharansky, then ​ head of the Jewish Agency (see “Jewish Agency chief: Reform criticism of Trump’s Jerusalem ​ move was ‘terrible’,” attached hereto as Ex. F). When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ​ recognized that Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria are legitimate, rather than illegal, “the Reform movement stunned Israelis when its leader Rabbi Rick Jacobs called on President Donald Trump to rescind Pompeo's statement and reinstate the Obama administration’s policy of viewing Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria as the great obstacle to peace” (see “Pompeo, AIPAC and Jewish American priorities,” attached hereto as Ex. S). ​ ​

V. ARZA and Hatikvah caucused and plan to caucus and vote together. The violations of one are directly tied to the other.

The New York Jewish Week described the partnership between ARZA and Hatikvah in the following language (see “As Zionist Elections Get Underway, the Battle for Progressives’ Votes ​ Heats Up,” attached hereto as Ex. Q): ​

The Reform and Hatikvah platforms largely overlap on the issues, with both advocating for a two-state solution and promoting religious equality and women’s rights. “I can’t think of anything where we and ARZA would be in disagreement,” said [Hatikvah Election Campaign Director Hadar] Susskind. As Rabbi Weinberg, president of ARZA, pointed out, the Reform and Hatikvah slates sat together in the previous congress. The two slates are likely to sit together again this year.

This being the case, the open advocacy of the Hatikvah slate on behalf of Partial BDS ​ becomes relevant to the ARZA slate. At the very least, it should be incumbent upon ARZA to ​ explain how it can vote with a slate that supports divestment from territories controlled by Israel, and how Rabbi Weinberg’s stance on WZO investment in those territories is any different from that prohibited by the ZGC Anti-BDS Resolution.

EHK Reply to ARZA page 21 VI. The Hatikvah Slate explicitly rejects the Jerusalem Program, and supports Partial BDS while claiming that Partial BDS is Not BDS.

Kenneth Bob, the President of Ameinu, Treasurer of the Board of Directors of J Street and the Chair of the Hatikvah Slate, writes that “you need to ‘affirm the Jerusalem Program’ as the platform of the World Zionist Organization (WZO). While the language is not how Ameinu necessarily frames Zionism in 2020, clicking on it is simply acknowledging that it is the platform of the WZO, and it is necessary to do so in order to vote.” This is a clear rejection of the Jerusalem Program, and an instruction to voters that they need not personally accept it “in order to vote.”

This quotation appears on a web page attributed to “Ameinu Office” on thirdnarrative.org, a self-described “sister site” to Ameinu.net. The title of that web page is “You Can Vote Now to ​ Curtail Funding Settlements!” (attached hereto as Ex. U). Hatikvah does not merely “oppose the ​ current policy of permanent occupation and annexation” as it says in its platform. Rather, ​ ​ divestment from territories controlled by Israel was a core message of the Hatikvah campaign to prospective voters. ​

During the election forum mentioned above,6 Hatikvah’s Nomi Colton-Max first stated that “the slate does not support BDS.” But when pressed by moderator Rabbi Mark Golub, she admitted that there are members of the HaTikvah coalition who support boycotts against Jewish businesses in Judea and Samaria beyond the 1948 Armistice Line, but declaimed that “I do not believe that a settlement product boycott alone” is support of BDS. This position cannot be ​ reconciled with the ZGC Anti-BDS Resolution.

Delegates and member organizations of the Hatikvah slate have demonstrated their support for Partial BDS in practice. In 2016, Hatikvah delegate Peter Beinart helped spearhead a letter ​ calling for “a targeted boycott of all goods and services from all Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories, and any investments that promote the Occupation” in The New York Review of Books (attached as Ex. K). Young delegate Rikki Baker Keusch, an intern at Ameinu, likewise states clearly: “I support a settlement boycott” (see “The entry law bars too many ​ Zionists,” attached as Ex. L). Delegate Daniel Sokatch is the CEO of the New Israel Fund — ​ according to NGO Monitor, the NIF supports “organizations that lawfully discourage the ​ ​ purchase of goods or use of services from settlements” (profile attached as Ex. M), and the NIF opposes the anti-BDS laws enacted in “numerous U.S. states” specifically cited favorably in ​ ​ Resolution 1.2 (sample attached as Ex. N).

In 2018, when AirBNB announced that it would delist only Jewish properties, but not Arab ones, in Judea and Samaria, Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan, whose portfolio includes Israel’s Anti-BDS activities, responded by encouraging Israelis to cease using the AirBNB platform. Five organizations published an open letter (attached as Ex. O) to Minister Erdan claiming that

6 Debate hosted by Jewish Broadcasting Service. https://jbstv.org/wzc-election-forum-1/ ​

EHK Reply to ARZA page 22 AirBNB’s boycott of individual Jewish residents was “refusing support for the occupation” and should not be “characterized” as BDS. They called AirBNB’s effort “quintissentially pro-Israel,” and Erdan’s condemnations “baseless rhetoric.” The letter also called upon Erdan to stop requesting U.S. state governors to invoke anti-BDS laws against AirBNB — referring to the state laws which the ZGC Anti-BDS Resolution highlighted as productive anti-BDS measures.

All five organizations listed on the letter to Minister Erdan,7 which directly contravened Israel’s Anti-BDS efforts, are component members of the Hatikvah coalition, and four of the five individual signatories are Hatikvah candidates. Three of them, Jeremy Ben-Ami, Daniel Sokatch, and Jill Jacobs, are in leading slots on the Hatikvah slate, and therefore are to be seated at the Congress if the AZM fails to enforce the ZGC Anti-BDS Resolution’s directive.

Again, if ARZA shares the ideology of the aformentioned individuals and organizations, the ZGC Anti-BDS Resolution mandates that its delegates be barred from the World Zionist Congress ​ ​ and the Zionist movement generally.

VII. Both the ARZA and Hatikvah slates regard the Jerusalem Program as a “vague set of general principles” to be distorted or discarded according to “their views of Zionism,” rather than those established by the WZO and ZGC.

In their joint filing before the Tribunal of February 10, 2020, regarding “Complaint Regarding Vicious Campaigning of ZOA Slate Members and Friends of ZOA” (attached as Ex. R), the Hatikvah and ARZA slates asserted as follows (unedited):

The Jerusalem Program constitutes a vague set of general principals, that has been and continues to be open to interpretation by all members of the Zionist Community. It does not constitute rigid principals interpreted only by the ZOA. Accordingly, both ARZA and Hatikvah, like the ZOA, have the right to interpret the meaning of the various planks in the platform in a way that comports with their views of Zionism. Such conduct does not constitute the violation of the Election Rules in anyway.

This statement is patently untrue, and entirely in opposition to the Jerusalem Program. The claim that the Jerusalem Program is “vague” or “open to interpretation” indicates an unvarnished effort to explain away lack of support for the Jerusalem Program and its tenets.

7 J Street, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, Americans for Peace Now, Partners for Progressive Israel and New Israel Fund.

EHK Reply to ARZA page 23 CONCLUSION

VIII. Conclusion / Remedy

The facts are clear. ARZA: Vote Reform rejects the Jerusalem Program, both by re-interpreting every prong of it and acting in clear contravention of it. This is sufficient to annul their slates or take what other action against them is deemed appropriate by the Tribunal.

With regard to ARZA’s support of divestment from territories controlled by Israel, however, that alone is both sufficient and binding.

The American Zionist Movement Tribunal is obligated to follow the unambiguous directive of the Zionist General Council, which determined support for “partial” BDS to be akin to the “anti-Jewish boycotts and imposts” deplored by Theodor Herzl, and thus inherently opposed to the Zionist Movement — “inconsistent with and... a violation of the Jerusalem Program.”

ARZA stated its clear support for divestment from Jewish communities in territories controlled by Israel by the WZO itself, and refuses to accept WZO funding for synagogues in Judea and Samaria. ARZA plans to vote with Hatikvah as it did in the past, and did not change its positions to accord with the ZGC Anti-BDS Resolution after its adoption in 2019. In effect, the Zionist General Council has directed the American Zionist Movement, the recognized Zionist Federation in the United States of America, that the ARZA: Vote Reform slate “must be excluded from the Zionist movement” and annulled.

EHK Reply to ARZA page 24