Transcript from August 21, 2019
Makori: …About this controversy with Morton Klein. Morton is the president of the Zionist Organization of America. Morton – good to have you on the show with us tonight.
Klein: Good to be here.
Makori: Good to have you with us. I want to start off with your thoughts on the comment that the president initially made that generated all this recent controversy. Let’s watch:
[shows video of President Donald Trump---“Where has the Democratic party gone? Where have they gone where they’re defending these two people over the State of Israel. And I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat - I think it shows either total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
So Morton, how do you interpret that comment?
Klein: Look, it is crystal clear that in response to a question as to whether he, as to what he has to say about the anti-Semitic Congressmen Tlaib and Omar demanding that all aid be cut to Israel, he said these people hate Israel and Jews, and any Jewish person who supports them, is either ignorant or is disloyal to the Jews in Israel – It is crystal clear that’s what he meant, that disloyalty to the Jews in Israel – I find it an abomination that ADL has publicly put out a fundraising letter claiming that President Trump has called-accused Jews of being dual loyalists – not being loyal to America – when of course, he clearly was talking about that Jews, in his opinion, who support these terrible anti-Semites, are disloyal to Jews and to the Jewish State. It’s crystal clear.
Makori: Alright, that’s clearly your position on that. Now as we know, Morton, the President was criticizing the anti-Israel Congresswoman Omar and Tlaib – what do you make of the lack of condemnation for Democrats – for the way that these Congresswomen attacked Israel recently in their press conference? I mean Congresswomen, granted, are entitled to criticize the Israeli government, but they’ve made statements riddled with gross inaccuracies and that’s putting it mildly. I mean they said there’s a Muslim ban in Israel; they said that Israel must end the “occupation” of Palestine and they also equated Israel with apartheid South Africa and we’re not hearing any condemnation there – what do you make of that?
Klein: It is really – as an American citizen – so distressing that when you have these two anti-Semites, these Israelophobes who hate Israel- say that Israel is not a democracy, is not an ally, compared Israel not only to South Africa, but to Nazi Germany, calls them an “evil” state as well as an “apartheid state” – these women meet with Hezbollah supporters and take pictures with them – smiling with them. And - I’m just devastated to see that the leadership of the Democratic party – Pelosi and Steny Hoyer and the rest – not only are not condemning these terrible anti-Semites; they’re defending them. They’re actually saying these people are not anti-Semitic. It’s amazing; these people call anyone with any hint of insensitivity to a black person or Hispanic – they call him a racist in one minute- and here, these women are overtly attacking Jews and the Jewish state with horrible lies and we don’t hear a peep condemning them from the leadership of the Democratic party. It is really shocking to me and frightening to me, frankly as an American citizen. I don’t know what’s going on with the Democratic party.
Makori: I wanna focus on some of those comments that they made – I wanna drill down; if we focus on what they said, there’s a lot of outrage at the terminology used by them. They repeatedly said that Israel must end “the occupation” of Palestine – that Israelis are on Palestinian land. They didn’t say ‘disputed territories’, they didn’t say ‘disputed occupied territories’- they said “end the occupation.” Explain why that is so problematic.
Klein: Well, first of all, it’s amazing - Omar, who’s from Somalia, doesn’t condemn the horrible conditions in Somalia, or the horrible conditions in Sudan or in Syria – only focusing on the Jewish state.
Now this issue of occupation – in 1948, this was land legally controlled, legally controlled by England – England took this portion of Palestine, which was a region - it was never a country or a state, split it in half; said half will go to the Arabs, half to the Jews for two states. When the Arabs turned it down, suddenly, at that point they said no, it’s not their land anymore. Jordan then captured it during the ’48 war – a war whose intent was to destroy the fledgling Jewish state of Israel. From ’48-’67 Jordan illegally occupied it; the UN never recognized it. So first of all, it is not Arab land.
And isn’t it interesting – if it’s Arab land, why is it called Palestine? That’s a Roman Greek name – it’s a Roman Greek name – but about the occupation, Israel has given away all of Gaza, 40% of Judaea and Samaria – the West Bank; that’s where 99% of the Arabs live under their own control, their own rule. They have their own parliament, their own TV, their own media, their own schools, their own police force – they run their own lives except for security. So this is one of the great Orwellian lies that there is an occupation, when occupation means you stole someone else’s sovereign land; it was not the Arabs’ sovereign land and you rule over them, when in fact they rule over themselves.
Makori: At the very least there are dual claims to the land- very quickly Morton, are you concerned that this as a whole thing is making Israel a partisan issue in the thirty seconds we have left?
Klein: Making it what? I didn’t hear that.
Makori: Are you concerned that Israel is becoming more and more of a partisan issue in American politics?
Klein: Only to the extent that more and more Democrats are becoming more hostile to Israel and they’re not attacking the anti-Semites the way the Republican party has attacked the bigots in their party. So yes, I’m worried that we’re not having the strong support in the Democratic party for Israel that used to be there, five years and ten years ago, and this is of great concern. I know there are many Democrats who are very supportive of Israel, but they’ve become frightened to be overtly supportive of Israel because of this far move to the left.
[Watch the clip here.]
Makori: Alright, Mort…
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