Washington, DC, April 16, 2019 — Twenty diverse pro-Israel organizations sent a joint letter to President Trump today, urging the President to permit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a free hand to extend Israeli sovereignty over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria. The letter comes in response to one from left-wing groups, dominated by arms of the American Reform and Conservative Jewish movements, calling upon the President to indicate that he will "not support any Israeli proposals to annex the West Bank, in whole or in part."

The new letter was organized by Rabbi Pesach Lerner and Rabbi Yaakov Menken of the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV) and Rabbi Yechezkel Moskowitz of the Jewish Heritage Preservation Society. "It is important for those who believe in traditional values, who believe in a strong and safe State of Israel, who appreciate the actions of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, to speak up," said Rabbi Lerner, President of the CJV. "We cannot allow the liberal left to be the only voice."

Signatories on the new letter included well-known organizations such as the Endowment for Middle East Truth, the Rabbinical Alliance of America, the Republican Jewish Coalition, the Zionist Organization of America, and Turning Point USA. "We are delighted to see such a strong alliance of Jewish and non-Jewish, Orthodox and non-Orthodox, political and apolitical organizations joining together in a single letter supporting Israel's right of self-determination," added Rabbi Moskowitz. "But what made this possible is that the letter simply rebuts an effort to pressure Israel to bow to anti-Israel advocates."

The pro-Israel coalition letter fails to address some of the demands found in the first, as some signatories would have preferred. Mort Klein, National President of the Zionist Organization of America, maintained that "the 'two-state solution,' endorsed as the 'only formulation to resolve the conflict' in the earlier letter, is a euphemism for creating an Iranian-Hezbollah-Hamas-Fatah-Palestinian-Arab terror state in the Jewish homeland. It would place all of Israel in existential danger." 

"What was most painful about the previous letter," observed Rabbi Menken, Managing Director of the CJV, "is that it ignores the 3300-year attachment of the Jews to their homeland, ignores the expressed wishes of the Israelis, and claims to know what will 'lead to greater conflict' better than Bibi Netanyahu. Those who support Israel's self-determination, especially with regards to its security needs, cannot afford to sit silent."

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The Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), the largest rabbinic public policy organization in America, articulates and advocates for public policy positions based upon traditional Jewish thought.