F L A M E : Dear Friend of Israel, dear Friend of FLAME

March, 2015

Dear Friend of Israel, dear Friend of FLAME:

Do you get as upset as I do when the media beat up on Israel---as they do so often these days? Let me update you on the terrible treatment Israel’s been getting in the press lately, but also share some inspiring efforts to fight back.

First let me quickly put Israel’s story in the context of the horrific threats facing the Jewish state---right in her own backyard.

As you know, Israel is on the front lines of the war against global jihad---surrounded by some of the world’s most bloodthirsty terror groups.

Iran-sponsored Hizbollah just killed two more Israeli soldiers on her northwest border with Lebanon. The cruel, murderous Islamic State, as well as al Qaeda, are rampaging---gaining ground---in Syria to Israel’s north and in Iraq to the West. Hamas terrorists in Gaza, just a few miles south of Tel Aviv---who have launched 15,000 rockets at Israeli civilians—are now furiously re-arming after the last war, just a few months ago.

Can you even imagine how Israelis feel about living in that neighborhood?

I’m sorry to report that it gets even scarier. Consider this:

Iran, which has threatened to wipe Israel off the map, continues to develop the nuclear weapons it would need to fulfill its evil intention. U.S.-led negotiations to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions seem to be failing.
Israel recently detected---and killed---four Hizbollah terrorists and two Iranian military, including a general, as they plotted attacks against Israel from Syria, just a few miles from the Golan Heights.
Hamas has provoked wars with Israel in 2008, 2012 and just a few months ago in 2014. Though Israel defeated Hamas soundly in the last war, Hamas is seen as heroic among the Palestinians people, and its popularity has soared. Now the group is poised to violently take over the West Bank as it did Gaza in 2007. This would leave Hamas terrorists and their rockets within steps of Jerusalem, Israel’s capital.

Yet here’s the outrageous part: Even though Israel is fighting bravely on the front lines against the forces of global jihad, it gets precious little support from Western nations (aside from the United States, thank goodness) and a steady drumbeat of criticism from the U.S. and European media.

Indeed, Israel is commonly portrayed in mainstream media as the “bad guy,”---even when it is defending itself against terrorists attacking across its borders.

Here’s a great example: You remember, of course, the unrelenting condemnation Israel received from the media when civilians were killed in the last Gaza war. Even though Hamas was attacking Israel from schools, hospitals and mosques in the center of civilian population centers---blatantly using its people as human shields---the media blamed Israel for civilian deaths!

Yet get this: Today, the U.S. is bombing the atrocious ISIS terror group in Syria and Iraq—and our bombs have unavoidably killed scores of civilians ! Yet where is the daily civilian death count in the New York Times and other media? Have you even read about the civilian deaths caused by U.S. bombings? It’s barely been covered!

That’s not surprising. Thanks to a shocking expose by a former Associated Press reporter based in Jerusalem, we now know that American media have a preconceived notion of the “Israel-Palestinian narrative.”

The media’s accepted “narrative” is this: Israel is the powerful Goliath, and the Palestinians are David, the underdog. Only story lines that fulfill this image are reported.

Palestinian children killed by Israeli artillery while playing in a park? Big story. Hamas militants dressed as civilians launching rockets from a hotel parking lot in central Gaza City? No coverage.

Let me ask you another question: Have you ever heard someone say that Israel doesn’t have good PR?

I suspect we all have. And sometimes it does seem that way. But I’m here to tell you that one group—and its thousands of individual supporters—are standing up and telling the truth about Israel.

The group is FLAME---Facts and Logic About the Middle East. For more than 25 years FLAME has supported the cause of the Jewish state by placing full-page ads in media nationwide.

These ads---powerful public relations efforts that tell Israel’s side of the story---lay out the hard facts, so the American people and our elected representatives continue to provide Israel vital support.

To counter the lies and half-truths promulgated by such media as CNN, NPR and The New York Times, it’s critical today that we tell the truth about these issues:

Hamas was fully to blame for all civilian casualties in Gaza. We cannot depend on the mainstream media to tell this story. We must make clear that Hamas committed war crimes by attacking Israeli civilians and by using its own citizens as human shields by firing rockets from schools, mosques, hospitals and other heavily populated areas. Every child, man and woman killed in Gaza is on the head of Hamas alone. (See the ad we published on this topic, enclosed.)
Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose the single greatest threat to world peace and to Israel’s existence. Despite decades of embargos, sanctions, broken promises and failed negotiations, President Obama refuses to increase economic pressure on Iran with harsher sanctions, as the majority of Congress wishes. We must tell the world: Iran is our enemy, and appeasement will not work. To dismantle Iran’s nuclear weapons capability, we need stronger sanctions now! (See the ad we published on this topic, in the “Ads and Positions” section of this website.)
It’s a mistake for the U.S. to force Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has made a devil’s pact with Hamas, merging with the terror group to rule over their people. Since Hamas stands fundamentally for Israel’s destruction, and since the Palestinians have rejected numerous offers of land for a state in the West Bank, plus a capital in Jerusalem, it’s clear they would rather continue fighting to expel the Jews than build a state of their own.
The U.S. should immediately cease funding the Palestinian Authority. U.S. taxpayers currently donate $665 million per year to the P.A.---our bill over the past 10 years has been more than five billion dollars. Yet the Palestinian economy is nearly bankrupt and Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly rejected generous American-sponsored peace proposals. Now the P.A. has joined the International Criminal Court with the express purpose of prosecuting Israel for war crimes during the last Gaza war! Congress should immediately cut U.S. funding for the Palestinian Authority.

Through FLAME’s ads, which appear in monthly media reaching more than ten million readers---including college students---we have been quite successful in "educating" the American people about these and many other issues, including Iran, the “settlements,” and the myth of Palestinian “refugees.”

You’ll see many examples of these hasbarah---clarifying messages---in the “Ads and Positions” section of this website, so you can see how outspoken and forceful they are.

I hope you agree that these ads spread the real truth about Israel—truth that urgently needs to be told.

I hope you also agree that Israel needs this kind of public relations---an organization to tell the inspiring story about the Jewish state---its virtues, values and accomplishments . . . and its strategic importance for our own country.

Who supports FLAME? We are supported by 30,000 passionate individual donors who love Israel and everything it stands for. They are people who strongly believe Israel deserves a fair shake in the media. Thousands of our supporters are of the Christian faith, and that diversity is very important to us, of course. Most of our Christian supporters are devoted and most generous.

Please be assured that we are an educational non-profit organization and extraordinarily thrifty with the funds that you and other supporters contribute to us. We work out of Spartan offices, almost all our work is contributed pro bono and our part-time office-staff payroll is tiny.

By keeping expenses low, we’re able to publish our messages in major national magazines and metropolitan and small-town newspapers all across the country. We also send our messages, with appropriate cover letters, every month to all U.S. Senators and Representatives, the President and Vice President, the Secretary of State and all Justices of the Supreme Court.

Finally, we place our messages in the campus newspapers at a number of universities. As you know, many campuses are hotbeds of anti-Israel militants promoting the odious BDS movement. We want to make sure that leaders of tomorrow’s generation are informed about the truth of Israel’s just cause.

I know that many appeals are made to you because you are a charitable and generous person and contribute to worthy causes. We know that you cannot contribute to all of them, though many are deserving of support. But please consider the importance and the unique job that FLAME is doing in telling Israel’s noble and righteous story to influential people all over the United States and to all members of the US Congress. I hope you agree that FLAME is most deserving of your generous support.

Thank you very much, shalom and sincerely yours,

Gerardo Joffe, President

P.S. Please consider leaving a bequest to FLAME in your will. As you know, that can have tax advantages, and you will have the satisfaction of knowing you have supported a good cause that fights had for Israel’s benefit.

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