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(JTA) — Amichai Chikli, the Israeli Diaspora minister who has antagonized some liberal segments of American Jewry, known as J Road “hostile” to Israel after it retweeted a photograph of the minister from New York Metropolis’s Rejoice Israel Parade.
Chikli was photographed on the June 4 parade making what appeared to many to be an obscene gesture towards a gaggle protesting the Israeli authorities. He and his employees mentioned he was gesturing to the protesters to smile and didn’t intend to make the obscene gesture.
Both manner, the image, taken final week by Ahead reporter Jacob Kornbluh, has change into fodder for Chikli’s critics, who’ve circulated it extensively on-line as proof of his disdain for protesters who oppose Israel’s authorities and its efforts to weaken the judiciary. Yair Lapid, the chief of Israel’s parliamentary opposition, tweeted the photo and wrote, “This authorities by no means ceases to embarrass us internationally.” And J Road shared a tweet by UnXeptable, a protest motion led by expatriate Israelis, that included the picture of Chikli under the phrase “SHAME,” which is a frequent chant at Israeli antigovernment protests.
Chikli, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Celebration, has pushed again. Speaking Monday evening on Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, Chikli responded to the viral picture by attacking organizations and people that had shared it on social media, saying that it was “faux information.”
J Road is a liberal Jewish Center East lobbying group that calls itself “pro-Israel and pro-peace” and has change into a goal for pro-Israel conservatives in america and Israel. The anchors challenged Chikli, saying that J Road is an “necessary” group within the Diaspora and asking why he didn’t clarify to J Road that the picture was misconstrued. (Chikli did reply to Lapid’s tweet together with his clarification, writing that on the event of Israel’s seventy fifth birthday, “we’re allowed to have fun and be blissful.”)
“It’s not an necessary group, it’s hostile,” he mentioned in his Kan look, citing J Road’s advocacy for the 2015 nuclear settlement with Iran, which Israeli governments have reviled. “It’s a hostile group that harms the pursuits of the state of Israel.”
Chikli additionally criticized J Road for receiving funding from George Soros, the liberal Jewish billionaire megadonor who has change into a bogeyman for political conservatives. He mentioned, “I’ve no expectation of J Road, which George Soros funded with $1 million, there’s no turning to him.”
Soros has funded J Road and his charity, the Open Society Foundations, has prior to now funded teams which can be vital of and in some circumstances averse to Israel. Final month, Chikli tweeted, “Criticism of Soros – who funds probably the most hostile organizations to the Jewish individuals and the state of Israel is something however anti-Semitism, fairly the other!”
J Road mentioned Chikli’s tenure has been “disastrous.” Chikli has drawn criticism since he was appointed late final yr due to earlier feedback deriding the Reform motion and LGBTQ Jews.
“Feedback like this present how deeply contemptuous this Israeli authorities is of the overwhelming majority of American Jews, who reject their far-right, anti-democratic agenda,” J Road spokesman Logan Bayroff instructed the Jewish Telegraphic Company. “It’s onerous to think about anybody doing a extra disastrous job of ‘constructing ties with the diaspora’ than Amichai Chikli — who resorts to petty assaults and insults towards anybody who has the spine to face up for elementary Jewish and democratic values.”
Chikli’s spokesperson didn’t return a request for remark.
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