Ever since its inception sixty years ago, Israel has been on the front lines of the struggle to preserve both its very life and the values it embodies of democracy, human rights, tolerance and pluralism against the forces of radical Islam. However, its proud narrative has been lost in an almost deafening cacophony of moral equivalency and political correctness. It is EMET’s mission to tell the truth about Israel’s heroic story, and to bring this truth to policy makers and to the public at large.

We, at EMET, believe that in the perception of the radical Islamists who have waged war against our civilization and  its democratic values, the United States and Israel sit in a common trench. They believe that we, in the United States are the “Great Satan”, while Israel is the “minor Satan”. Each Israel concession, therefore, whether it be land withdrawals or releasing of prisoners with blood on their hands, is therefore regarded in their minds as a victory of the forces of radical Islam over the West. We  regard ourselves as “intellectual revolutionaries” who aim to turn around the prevalent foreign policy paradigm that has been empirically proven to have been a colossal failure, through Israel’s heartbreaking withdrawals from Southern Lebanon in May of 2000 and of Gaza from July and August of 2005. We, at EMET have been educating the public at large, and policymakers within the foreign policy establishment in Washington that our current foreign policy paradigm of “land for peace” has not brought us any closer to its intended objective of “peace”, but has rather been regarded in the eyes of the terrorists who hate both Israel and the United States, as a reward for their terrorist tactics, only further endangering us all. The time is long overdue to re-examine the premises of that paradigm. We also believe that we, in the United States, have a great deal to learn from the sixty years of painful experience that Israel has unfortunately had in dealing with radical Islamic terrorism. We are constantly at work writing and publishing articles, appearing on radio and television, writing  and circulating white papers, arranging for forums and bringing in speakers who can help to educate us here, within the United States, about some of the lessons learned from Israel’s long and arduous struggle with the enemies who hate both nations, equally. We are constantly at work educating them about the growing nature of the very real threat of radical Islam to both nations, and promote speakers who have a similar message.

In that vein, EMET has been the only organization that has undertaken the task of finding a few, rare courageous voices of people who hail from the Muslim and Arab parts of the globe, and who have risked everything, including their very lives to tell the truth about the nature of radical Islam and of the Arab world from which they hail. All of them have “fatwas”, or Islamic death threats, on their heads. We provide them with a forum on  Capitol Hill and offer them some of the honor and recognition, which they so richly deserve. It is our hope that by doing this,  we will not only be rewarding these people for their outstanding heroism, but we might be encouraging others to follow along in the path of the reformers.

EMET at Two Years

Despite the fact that EMET is only two years old, we have managed to accomplish much more in our short existence than many older and much wealthier organizations who have been around for decades.

When outlining our main accomplishments over the past year and a half, we will lump them into a few broad categories:

• Serving as a resource to members of congress, their staffers, administration officials, other policy makers, and the press
• Public education and outreach to the foreign policy community , as well as to the community at large
• Dissemination of current information and white papers on Capitol Hill and to the media
• Speaking at various seminars, and on the radio, being sought out for an opinion by columnists
• Networking together with like-minded organizations to be “force multipliers”

EMET is constantly serving as a resource to members of Congress, staffers, administration officials, other policy makers and the press. Just within the past month, EMET was requested to help Senator Sam Brownback to draft an article regarding “It’s Time for Plan B”, talking about the collapse of the Oslo paradigm, and entertaining alternative solutions, which he will be submitting to a journal, such as “Foreign Affairs”.
 
EMET was also requested to help the Republican Policy Committee with a Sense of the Congress resolution talking about Israel’s inherent right to defend itself against the onslaught of missiles coming from Gaza to the neighboring Israeli town of Sdrerot, (see attached).

We, at EMET, are constantly receiving calls from staffers asking our input as to whether or not their bosses should sign on to certain pieces of legislation. (Because we are a 501c.3, we prefer to keep this as “confidential”).

Ms. Stern has frequently been asked to speak before the Stanton Group, a network of foreign policy stakeholders on Capitol Hill about the situation in the Middle East. Her last talk was picked up by the British “Henry Jackson Society” website.

EMET has taken the video, “Suicide Killers”, which describes the psychopathology of the homicide killer into theaters in Silver Spring, Maryland and Los Angeles, California.  She has also had two luncheons, one for the House Foreign Affairs Committee and one for an ad hoc group of House staffers where this movie was screened.

EMET has made it their business to distribute the movie, “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War against the West”, to every single congressional office.

 EMET has arranged for a luncheon seminar on Capitol Hill with members of the IDF and young staffers, where they speak about how young seventeen and eighteen year old boys are forced to make highly sophisticated, moral decisions, within a split-second of time centering around the issue of constantly being faced with the protection of the Israeli population against the constant threat of terrorism.

At the conclusion of Israel’s war with Hizballah in the summer of 2006, EMET arranged to have a staffer briefing with General Moshe Yaalon, explaining why Israel had no choice but to respond to the attack, ambushing and kidnapping of her soldiers on the border of Southern Lebanon.

Ms. Stern has frequently been requested to speak in the community for synagogues, for college groups, and for a high school group, “Panim el Panim”. She has frequently has been asked to debate representatives of left-of-ceter groups, such as “American Friends of Peace Now.”

Ms. Stern spoke on radio Al Harrah, a State Department radio program, which is satellite-broadcasted into the Arab world, regarding the exploitation of children in the use of warfare, and appealing to the  basic Darwinian, maternal instincts of the women within the Arab and Islamic worlds.

 She was a visiting scholar for the London School of Jewish Studies, during which she met with several members of the British Parliament.

Ms. Stern had been asked to testify before the US Commission on Civil Rights regarding the treatment of Jewish students on American college campuses. She is being consulted with constantly about the revision of a certain piece of legislation,  Title VI of the Higher Education Act.

EMET has brought scholars such as Dr. Emmanuel Navon from Tel Aviv University, directly from the Herzliya Conference  to the community and on to Capitol Hill to talk about the collapse of the Oslo paradigm, and how the public seems to be  way ahead of the  members of the Israeli parliament regarding this.

We have arranged for the Israeli attorney who has successfully sued the Palestinian Authority for the wrongful death of civilians to speak at a luncheon, together with the Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.

Ms. Stern has recently appeared on the nationally syndicated, “The Glen Beck Show”, “The Right Balance” radio show, and the ABC news “Religion on the Line” show.
She has been sought after by journalists such as Cal Thomas, and Jay Ambrose for quotes about the recent situation within the Middle East. She has often been quoted in the Washington Jewish Week and the Forward.

Ms Stern has written articles for: The New Republic online, FrontPageMag.com; The Middle East Quarterly, The Jerusalem Post, the Washington Jewish Week, and the Jewish Press.  She is the midst of writing a book, Fatal Delusions,  which is about the reluctance of policymakers to abandon failed foreign policy paradigms.  The article that  she wrote for The New Republic Online had been picked up by CBSnews.com.

EMET maintains a sophisticated, up-to-date website. It has come to our attention recently that many staffers on Capitol Hill regularly rely on this as a tool for insight and guidance regarding the Middle East.

We also maintain an up to date list of every foreign policy staffer on Capitol Hill, which we, very selectively, use to distribute certain articles and “white papers”  to members and staffers. We also distribute these to select administration officials and journalists.

At least two “white papers” have recently been generated and disseminated by EMET. One was about the Iraqi Study Group Report, and the other was about the behavior of Fatah since the Annapolis summit, and whether or not their objectives are really  that distinct from those of Hamas. We are looking forward to working with a group of our expert analysts in producing a study following the “money trail” of the funds that have already been given to the Palestinian Authority.

Ms. Stern has linked forces with other like-minded organizations, such as the Center for Security Policy, and the Institute for Analysis of Global Security, and has made it her business to “share the intellectual wealth”. We believe that there is strength in numbers, and that when trying to create an intellectual revolution, we cannot do it all alone.

Last year we had our first annual “Rays of Light in the Darkness” dinner, in which we honored some amazing examples of humanity on Capitol Hill,  including five members of the Muslim and Arab world who have risked everything, including their very lives in order to tell the true. These were Brigitte Gabrielle, author of “Because they Hate”, Nonie Darwish, author of “Now they Call me Infidel”, Emilio Dabul, author of many articles for the Wall Street Journal and FrontPageMag.com, Ali Alyami, President of the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia and  Zuhdi Jasser, the President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.
Because of the exposure that they had been given by EMET, some of these courageous individuals have been asked to  return to Washington to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Very recent - February 13th: Met with officials of the Justice and State Department with twenty family members of victims of terrorism. Also present was Heather Cartwright the Assistant Attorney General of the Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism, an office that Ms. Stern had helped to bring about by the passage of the Koby Mandell Act.

February 21: Article in Front Page Mag.com Encouraging Jihad” about this issue.

February 23rd: Spoke at the Stanton Group, a coalition of security hawks on Capitol Hill about the attempted obfuscation of justice by the State Department on the issue of Americans that have been killed by Palestinian terrorists.

February 25th: Was on WABC radio’s “Religion on the Line” regarding this issue.

February 28th: Article in the “Washington Jewish Week”, “On Justice There are No Mixed Messages.”

February 29th: Received a phone call from an official from the Deapartment of State, telling Ms. Stern that “You don’t have to worry..America is going to do the right thing.”

March 1st: Article appeared in the Washington Post, saying that the government will not interfere with the court  rulings against Fatah.

March 14th: Visited members of Capitol Hill educating them about how the Mahmoud Abbas’ official PA, “Al-Hayat Al-Jadida newspaper has  praised the murderer of  the eighth students gunned down on March 5th with the status of “Shahid-Holy Islamic Martyr”, sending its people a direct message supporting the terrorist murders, and encouraging more of the same.

March 19th: At a debate between Robert Satloff and Robert Maley at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Mr. Maley was making the fallacious argument that the litmus test for whether or not we should negotiate with Hamas is whether or not things have gotten better on the ground, and since they haven’t, and they are gaining hold on the ground, we should engage Hamas. During the Q and A, Ms. Stern was able  to bring out the fact that he was committing a fundamental flaw of social science, confusing a correlation with a causal relationship. She suggested that he consider that there might be other factors attributing to the lack of success towards the goal post of peace, besides not negotiating with Hamas that are much more germane, such as the educational system that encourages incitement to hate and kill, and extolling the virtues of martyrdom.

March 25th: Had a showing of “Obsession” on Capitol Hill to educate House staffers about the indoctrination of youngsters by the Palestinian Authority, and how this incitement, not the size and contours of the map of Israel, is what lies at the very root of the conflict in the Middle East.

March 26, 2008: Ms. Stern spoke before the Victory Coalition about the Saudi bequeathal to the American universities of billions of dollars, and the fact that there has been a paucity of academic papers looking objectively at Saudi Arabia, while there has been a disproportionate of academic articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Also spoke about the fact that there is an American law on the books that foreign donations to universities have got to be recorded with the Deapartment of Education. However, this law is unenforced, ignored, and there is no transparency.

April 3rd:    Sent “Fitna”, the movie that had been produced by the Dutch member of Parliament, Geerte Wilders all around the Hill.

On April 5, 2008: Ms. Stern spoke before the Victory Coalition Conference Call on the Update of efforts that the Palestinian Authority has gone through to intervene with the American Judicial Process.

May 29, 2008: Spoke before the Victory Coalition about Updates on the Title VI issue, or the presentation of a biased perspective on university campuses, and in teacher-training workshops for teachers of kindergarten through twelfth grade, thoughout the United States

June 12, 2008: An aid to Senator Jim Bunning had sent us a copy of S970, the Iran Sanctions Proliferation Act to look over for final input before sending it to the Finance Committee for mark-up

June 18, 2008: Our annual Rays of Light in the Darkness Dinner was held. This year’s event was a fabulous success with approximately 200 attendees. We honored those brave members of Congress who have stood up for Israel, the most widely syndicated columnist, Cal Thomas, for constantly speaking the truth, and three Muslims or lapsed Muslims who have risked everything-including their very lives- in order to tell the truth about radical Islam and much of the Arab world from which they hail.

July 2nd, 2008 Ari Rudolph and Michael Sharnoff, teo EMET fellows, spoke before a summer internship program of  Jewish students from Oxford and Cambridge on how to defend Israel from attacks on college campuses.

And we have only just begun.