Dan Illouz Pro-Genocide Knesset member to speak in West Orange
Dan Illouz is a Likud member (Netanyahu’s far right party) of Knesset (Israel’s parliament) who has played a lead role in advocating for a policy of continued US armaments from the USA to Israel. He is a genocidal war legislator, on the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committees and he chairs the international trade subcommittee – which for Israel certainly includes munitions and war technology – both on the importing and exporting ends. He is in the thick of it all.
Politically he is closely associated with the politics of Benjamin Netanyahu. He has been an outspoken advocate of Netanyahu’s push for judicial reform that has divided Israel politically.
He has actually been bandied about in Israel media as the “forefront of information for North America” as pertains to “Operation Swords of Iron”. That is what Israel calls the current US supported military operation that has led to the slaughter of approaching 40K of Palestinians in Gaza.
I do not know how many times he has presented his genocide advocacy on behalf of the extremist Netanyahu regime in NJ but he recently spoke in Teaneck on March 7 and will be speaking in West Orange on Sunday, April 14, 10 am at Congregation AABJ&D, 700 Pleasant Valley Way, West Orange, NJ 07052.
Currently Israel is besieged by a growing outcry against Netanyahu – as I wrote this I watched a video of protesters that breached Netanyahu’s living compound. There are 10 of 1000s of Israeli Jews that are among those protesting against Netanyahu’s policies. They are not all necessarily against the genocide of Gazans (some are) – but are critical of the way the effort is being carried out, the prioritization of military goals over gaining the hostage release or other differences over the policy.
The point is – they are criticizing and even demanding the exit of Netanyahu. They are Jews and non-Jews – it is OK to be critical of Netanyahu. It is clear that Dan Illouz is a loyal servant to Netanyahu – he was by his side throughout the judicial reform controversy – so it is ok for us in NJ to oppose Illouz – it is NOT anti-Semitic if we do.
Let’s be clear in this – if we criticize Illouz here we are doing nothing different than the 1000s of Jews and Non-Jews in Israel that are criticizing his boss, Netanyahu. Smearing those who dissent from people like Illouz or Netanyahu as anti-Semitic would be completely fraudulent.
We are not at this time aware of any plans to protest his visit to West Orange which will occur at a Synagogue there. This editor is not specifically suggesting that there SHOULD be a protest. Each action should be evaluated considering the objectives and the capacity for any such action. I have no way of evaluating that on behalf of all of the organizations and individuals that might or might not want to protest.
Certainly religious practices and religious places of worship should be sacrosanct from disruption by protest – when those religious institutions are used for religious purpose. A campaign to continue to receive armaments from the United States paid by US taxpayers is not religious practice – it is policy advocacy. Those opposing such policies have a right to dissent and express their dissent effectively.
FightBackBetter.com is offering some background on Dan Illouz. We are evaluating Dan Illouz’s perspective on the situation in Gaza. He definitely advocates continuing US arming of Israel. That alone makes him WORTHY of being protested.
He led a petition effort in the Knesset to call for extending permanently the funding ban for UNWRA that has exacerbated the suffering and death caused by the war with experts predicting 10s of 1000s of imminent deaths from starvation. The cut of aid was based upon reports of UNWRA members being tied to Hamas – reports that have since been debunked and recanted by media.
When he spoke in Teaneck, according to a Teaneck based pro-Israel website, he advocated the invasion of Rafah, that the “defeat” of Hamas (which requires continued killing) would improve Israel’s Abraham Accords position, he compares the idea of “eradicating Hamas” to World War II and the Nazis, using hyperbole to ramp up excuse for all of the killing and he called for a wider war with Lebanon.
He also made reference without details to some “deradicalizing process” for Palestinians that sounds an awful lot like re-education camps.
All of those policies are worthy of opposition and protest. We are reaching out to several advocacy groups for their feedback on the impact of such a talk on the area communities.
Stay tuned for the possibility of developments around the scheduled April 14 event.
