It isn\u2019t every day or night that a tax-exempt non-profit American charity rakes in $27 million in the space of a few hours. When it happens in New York at such a well known landmark as the Waldorf-Astoria, arguably the city\u2019s most famous hotel, it should be news, right?<\/p>\n
Wrong, apparently, since not a single TV station nor any New York newspaper, all of which are known for their attention to events in the city\u2019s Jewish community as well as their devotion to Israel, saw fit to cover the annual dinner of the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) this past March 12 which raised that enormous sum.<\/p>\n
Nor, it turns out, did they cover last year\u2019s FIDF fundraiser at the Waldorf which took in almost as much, $26 million, nor the one in 2011, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the organization that featured the presence of six former Israel Defense Forces Chiefs of Staff and collected $23 million.<\/p>\n
More than five weeks after latest dinner, the only paper trails that can be found to the event were in the Jerusalem Post, Ha\u2019aretz (a week later), the New York Jewish Week, and the Forward, the city\u2019s national Jewish weekly which is known for printing articles that the mainstream press and other Jewish publications find too hot to handle. The Jewish Week\u2019s reporter, Tim Boxer, in fact, did not mention the amount raised at the black tie, $1000 a plate affair, until the very last paragraph of the story.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dinner raised $27 million for FIDF which, since 1981, has been supporting educational and recreational facilities for soldiers and their families,\u201d wrote Boxer. \u201cAmong the heavy hitters was Marc Belzberg who announced, \u2018I am donating one million dollars and my first-born son to the IDF in August\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FIDF is an organization that most Americans, including Jews not affiliated with the Jewish establishment, have probably never heard of and that is obviously the intent of those who run what has, in the last few years, become one of the brightest star in the pro-Israel fundraising firmament with a $60 million annual budget, all of which, it cannot be overemphasized, is tax-exempt.<\/p>\n
\u201c[E]stablished \u2026 by Holocaust survivors to provide for the well-being of Israeli soldiers,\u201d according to its website, and headquartered in New York City, the FIDF is a 501c3 not-for-profit corporation that operates 16 regional offices in the United States and Panama. Its mission, in brief, is visible at the top of its website: \u201cTheir job is to look after Israel. Ours is to look after them.\u201d<\/p>\n
True to that motto, the money this \u201ccharity\u201d raises benefits exclusively the soldiers of a foreign country that has not fought a war longer than 33 days in 40 years and whose primary duties have been to protect Israel\u2019s illegal settlements, demolish Palestinian homes, make the lives of ordinary Palestinians miserable, and suppress Palestinian resistance to its ongoing ethnic cleansing by whatever means necessary.<\/p>\n