The Jerusalem Summit is an Israel-based advocacy outfit that brings together Evangelicals, neoconservatives, and hardline pro-Israel figures from across the globe in an effort to shape the debate over the status of Palestine, radical Islam, and what its members view as the "relativism" of the West. Its home page website states: "On the cross-roads of history Jerusalem has produced new ideas which changed the world and advanced it toward the great ideals of Truth and Peace. Now is the time of a world-wide crisis when the new ideas are especially needed for developing an alternative to the twin dangers of modernity: religious totalitarianism of the East, as represented by radical Islam, and moral relativism of the West, as represented by atheistic globalization. New ideas, even the most efficient and needed, are accepted with great difficulties. Jerusalem Summit strives to gather in the capital of Israel the best minds and souls from around the world to present the most innovative socio-political ideas, so that the combined wisdom of participants will propel the best of these ideas to the global status."
According to its June/July 2007 newsletter, among the Summit's core agenda items is cultivating a strategic relationship with Evangelical Christians, a long-standing political strategy of U.S. neoconservatives who have developed close ties with key Christian Right figures like Gary Bauer. According to the newsletter, the Summit endeavors to cultivate "awareness of fact that the Evangelical Christian community is both a strategic ally and a strategic asset for Israel. This is a community which has not only demonstrated its staunch and unflinching support for the State of Israel and the People of Israel, but is also the only segment of humanity which has (a) the spiritual energy, (b) the numerical mass, and (c) the moral resolve to effectively confront the phenomenon of global Islamism."
Other "major strategic avenues," according to the newsletter, are "reframing the paradigm for the resolution of the Palestinian Issue in humanitarian rather than political terms"; and "formulating a Strategic Diplomatic Initiative to confront the advance of global Islamism, primarily by exposing and underscoring the heinous aspects of Gender and Creed Apartheid which characterize this radical theocratic doctrine."
Among the Jerusalem Summit's various agenda items, the status of Palestine gets top billing. The group's website is littered with perspective pieces with titles such as "A Sovereign Palestine? No Chance." The Summit also produced a reevaluation of the discourse regarding Palestine titled "A New Paradigm for the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: From the Political to the Humanitarian," which argues that the " establishment of a Palestinian State must be removed from the international agenda." Arguing that the desire for statehood among Palestinians is driven "less by the aspiration to establish a Palestinian state and more by the aspiration to dismantle a Jewish state," the Summit opines that "if the accepted version of the Palestinian narrative—i.e. a desire for Palestinian self determination and the aspiration for Palestinian statehood—cannot be reconciled with the history of Palestinian behavior, this narrative also must be branded as devoid of any legitimacy." Thus, it concludes, "the de-legitimization of the Palestinian narrative becomes a vital prerequisite to any comprehensive resolution of the Palestinian issue." In the document's summary of actions to be taken, the Summit wraps its militant agenda in humanitarian clothing, arguing that a "win-win" agenda would be to "alleviate, and even eliminate, the humanitarian plight of individual Palestinians"; "ensure the continued security and survival of Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish people"; "provide a Significant Boost to the Economies of the Developing World"; and "transform poverty stricken refugees into affluent émigrés."
Regarding the war on terror, the Summit reprints on its website a May 2007 analysis by Ted Belman, titled "America's Limited Options," that suggests a number of steps the United States must take to "win." These include nurturing "moderate Islam"; outlawing " Islamists and the preaching of political Islam as subversive" and "imprisoning or deporting" anyone who advocates "political Islam"; abandoning "the idea of getting the [Iranian] regime to change and instead getting Iranians to change the regime"; strengthening Israel, in part by abandoning efforts to establish a Palestinian state; and "assuming a unified Iraq cannot be stabilized, the United States should support a federated Iraq where oil revenues are shared but with considerable autonomy to each group."
Among the Jerusalem Summit's core activities is holding conferences in cities across the globe, during which members meet with mainly Christian support groups to discuss issues relevant to Israeli security. Since the group's founding in 2003, such summits have been held in London, Singapore, Cape Town, Jerusalem, Seoul, and Manila.
Leadership of the Jerusalem Summit includes Bauer, a Christian Right figure in the United States and former presidential candidate who serves as the Summit's International Advisory Board chairman, and Dmitry Radyshevsky, the Summit's director. Radyshevsky is a native of Moscow and a veteran journalist and author. In his opening remarks at the first summit in 2003, Radyshevsky outlined the group's objectives using rhetoric long promoted by neoconservatives, including equating radical Islam with communism and totalitarianism, lambasting international organizations, and arguing that Israel is morally superior to other nations. He said:
"The ultimate goal of this Summit is to create an alliance of all individuals and organizations from different nations and faiths who realize the grave danger our democratic civilization faces. I'm talking about the new Totalitarianism, represented by radical Islam, and about moral relativism which erodes our resolve to fight and destroy these evil forces. We see Radical Islam as the third onslaught of Totalitarian Evil on the free mankind in the last 100 years. The first two were Fascism and Communism. The free world managed to defeat them by uniting, working out a joint strategy, and mastering resolve to fight and prevail. Now, too, is the time to unite and lay out a coherent moral and political strategy in that crucial fight. We believe that the center of such an alliance has to be in Jerusalem. Not for nothing these forces of Evil chose Israel as the focus of their attack: here lies the front line of that new battle. If Jerusalem falls, so will fall the entire free world. That's why Jerusalem and Israel have to take moral leadership in forming a joint strategy. We hope that this gathering of outstanding thinkers, political and spiritual leaders will help define that strategy."
The inaugural Jerusalem Summit also featured speeches from such neoconservative and conservative figures as Frank Gaffney, Richard Perle, Alan Keyes, Daniel Pipes, and others.
The Summit claims to be supported by a "presidium," of which Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Pipes are part. Its International Advisory Board includes Rachel Ehrenfeld, Hillel Fradkin, Meyrav Wurmser, Morris Amitay, and Dennis Prager, among many others.
According to its website, the Summit is sponsored by the Michael Cherney Foundation and the National Unity Coalition for Israel. The Cherney Foundation is headed by Michael Cherney, a Russian industrialist who, according to the foundation, is one of Russia's "largest manufacturers and exporters of coal, copper, coke, and ferrous metals." The foundation views its "main overall objective as helping democratic nations in their war on terrorism as well as realization of the intellectual potential of the post-Soviet emigres to Israel and their integration into the Israeli society."
The National Unity Coalition for Israel is a U.S.-based group founded in 1991 by Esther Levens, a rightist pro-Israel activist who has served on the boards of a number of hardline and neoconservative policy and lobbying outfits, including the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the Republican Jewish Coalition. According to its website, the Unity Coalition is "an alliance of Christian and Jewish organizations actively working together to generate support for the State of Israel. With more than 200 autonomous partners, representing more than 40 million Americans, we are the largest network of Pro-Israel groups in the world. Through this grassroots coalition, we deliver a much-needed message to the media and Congress."
Like JINSA, the Summit awards a Henry "Scoop" Jackson Award, named after the Democratic senator from Washington State whose hawkish, pro-Israel politics drew a number of early neoconservative figures to his staff in the 1970s, including the likes of Perle and Gaffney. Recipients of the award have included Perle, who received the first-ever Jerusalem Summit Jackson Award in 2003, and Caroline Cox, a member of the British House of Lords who received the award in 2004. In her acceptance speech, Cox gushed about following Perle in receiving the award, saying that she was " proud to be a successor to Richard Perle, who has fought so hard in the international arena for the preservation of fundamental freedoms and the recognition of their centrality in the political vision of the leaders of the western world—even at times when it was not popular or 'politically correct' to do so. In particular, I will always remember him as a valiant warrior against the domination and barbarity of the 'Evil Empire'."
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