Vindman: I Knew Testifying Would Be Okay Because ‘This Is America’

November 19, 2019 By Irene Connelly

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key figure in the impeachment proceedings and a Ukrainian Jewish refugee who arrived in America as a child, testified before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday.

Republican lawmakers and pundits have repeatedly used Vindman’s heritage to question his loyalty to the United States and his credibility as a witness.

Weaving his family’s saga into his testimony, Vindman argued that his immigrant history endowed him with a sense of duty towards his country.

He joined the military, he said, because he decided as a young man “that I wanted to spend my life serving the nation that gave my family refuge from authoritarian oppression.”

Familiarity with the oppressive regime his family fled convinced him of the importance of reporting President Trump’s potential misconduct, he said in his opening statement: “In Russia, my act of expressing my concerns to the chain of command in an official and private channel would have severe personal and professional repercussions and offering public testimony involving the President would surely cost me my life. I am grateful for my father’s brave act of hope 40 years ago and for the privilege of being an American citizen and public servant, where I can live free of fear for mine and my family’s safety.”

At the end of his statement, Vindman addressed his father personally. “Dad, my sitting here today, in the US Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to United States of America in search of a better life for our family,” he said. “Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.”

During questioning, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York asked Vindman why he felt the need to reassure his father of his safety during his opening statement. Vindman responded that in his father’s experience, coming forward against a powerful politician was “the ultimate risk.” However, Vindman said, he felt comfortable doing so now “because this is America. This is the country I have served and defended, that all of my brothers have served, and here right matters.”

Applause broke out as Vindman finished speaking.

Alexander Vindman’s Family Under 24-Hour Security Monitoring After Twitter Targeting By Trump

November 19, 2019 By Ari Feldman

The Army has placed Alexander Vindman, an expert on Ukraine and a central figure in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, and his family under 24-hour security monitoring after Trump targeted Vindman in tweets accusing Vindman of being politically opposed to Trump.

Vindman was one of the people who listened in on Trump’s calls with the Ukrainian president, in which Trump asked for a favor, now understood to be a request that Ukraine investigate Joe Biden and his son for corruption. Vindman expressed his concern over the call with National Security Counsel lawyers, and spoke to the House Intelligence Committee about the call in a closed-door hearing several weeks ago.

U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal that the Army has in recent weeks conducted a security assessment of Vindman and his family’s home and internet presence, and said they are prepared to move the Vindman’s to a military base if there are any threats to their safety.

Vindman said in impeachment hearings on Tuesday that he felt “there was no doubt” that Trump was asking the Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky, to investigate the Bidens in exchange for a state visit to the White House, which Vindman said Tuesday would bolster Zelensky’s political legitimacy in Ukraine and internationally. He wore his dress military uniform, the same outfit he wore for his closed testimony several weeks ago.

Speaking directly to his father at the end of his statement, Vindman said, “Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.”

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at feldman@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

Israeli Settlements No Longer Illegal According To U.S. State Department

November 18, 2019 By Aiden Pink

The United States government no longer considers Israeli settlements inconsistent with international law, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday.

The announcement, which was greeted with support from both Israeli government and opposition figures but harshly criticized by Arab leaders, is the latest example of the Trump administration shifting longstanding policies in ways that Israel supports.

The State Department has stated since 1978 that settlements were, at minimum, in conflict with legal norms. Most other countries agree, if not calling the settlements outright illegal.

Pompeo stated that the new determination, which he said was done by the State Department’s legal team, was “not meant to send a message” for Israel to build more settlements, noting that some of them had been found illegal by Israeli courts.

Pompeo argued that the new policy would help achieve peace in a way that the status quo did not. “We think, in fact, that we’ve increased the likelihood that the vision for peace this administration has - we’ve increased the space for that,” he said.

The secretary also said that the administration’s long-delayed peace plan would be released “when the time is right,” and stated that the legal review was not an attempt to influence Israeli domestic politics. Right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and centrist opposition leader Benny Gantz are both currently negotiating to try to solve a deadlocked parliament after inconclusive elections.

A senior Israeli official told that Netanyahu had worked with the State Department “for a number of months” on the shift in policy.

Gantz praised the move in a tweet Monday. “I applaud the US government for its important statement, once again demonstrating its firm stance with Israel and its commitment to the security of the Middle East,” he wrote. “The fate of the settlements should be determined by agreements that meet security requirements and promote peace.”

But Ayman Odeh, chair of the Joint List of Arab-Israeli parties, slammed the move. “No foreign minister will change the fact that the settlements were built on the occupied land on which an independent Palestinian state will be established alongside the State of Israel,” he wrote.

Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at pink@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink

Mayor Pete Was Totally ‘That Guy’ Posing At Holocaust Memorial

November 18, 2019 By Aiden Pink

Democratic presidential candidate and South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg was criticized on social media on Sunday after a 2017 photo was resurfaced that showed him posing at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial.

is this….at the holocaust memorial in berlin…. pic.twitter.com/8bvmz9Zs7z— ben kesslen (@benkesslen) November 18, 2019

The photo, taken by his husband Chasten in 2016, showed Buttigieg posing among the stones at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Chasten Buttigieg’s caption: “This guy.”

Buttigieg is the Democratic candidate with the most support from American Jews, according to a Forward analysis from July. But he has been criticized by some Jews for promising to put conditions on military aid to Israel.

This kind of thing has happened before. The singer Pink, who is Jewish, was criticized earlier this year for posting Instagram photos of her children running between the stones. And selfies taken there and at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland have long been criticized by many Jews upset that visitors don’t appreciate the sites’ gravity.

Indeed, the photo of Buttigieg, and particularly the accompanying caption, attracted criticism on social media:

And here’s a taste of the reaction: pic.twitter.com/yfHzWoSCfG— Amanda Prestigiacomo (@AmandaPresto) November 18, 2019

I don’t think taking a picture there necessarily has to be disrespectful. But when you see it came out looking like a fashion shoot, maybe don’t post that.— Noah Berlatsky (@nberlat) November 18, 2019

It’s wrong to judge Mayor Pete for taking a touristy photo at a Holocaust memorial. It’s a personal picture posted to his husband’s Instagram account, and not an official campaign photo, which surely would have had a person of color photoshopped in next to him.— hodel in the streets, chava in the sheets (@mrotzie) November 18, 2019

Aiden Pink is the deputy news editor of the Forward. Contact him at pink@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aidenpink

U Of Toronto Student Union Apologizes For Saying Kosher Food Is Too Pro-Israel

November 18, 2019 By Marcy Oster

(JTA) — The Graduate Student Union at the University of Toronto has apologized for “unintentionally caus(ing) harm toward the Jewish community” after a union official suggested that the executive board would not support a campaign by the school’s Hillel to make kosher food available on campus since it is “pro-Israel.”

The union’s External Commissioner in response to a Jewish graduate student’s request for the union to officially support the Kosher Forward Campaign suggested he student union’s Executive Committee might be reluctant to bring such a motion forward to its board of directors since Hillel is “pro-Israel” and that supporting it would go against the “will of the membership.”

The Graduate Student Union voted in 2012 to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS movement against Israel.

The statement issued on Sunday evening also said: “The External Commissioner did not intend to do harm in using this language, but recognizes that this is not an excuse for the harm that the wording of this response caused to the individual receiving it as well as to Jewish students at U of T.”

The statement notes that no official decision has been made on whether to bring the motion forward at the next board meeting.

The union said it has reached out to Hillel and the student who received the email “to request a meeting to discuss how to remedy harm and how to mitigate future harm towards Jewish students on campus.”

In response, the U of T Hillel said it appreciates the student union’s apology and its agreement to consider the kosher food motion but added that “this apology does not address the anti-Semitic nature of their original response. This is the core issue that must be discussed.”

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