ZOA Capitol Hill Advocacy Mission 2026 Previewed with Mort Klein

JM in the AM. You're listening to a Wednesday morning broadcast and our good friend Mort Klene is with us live via telephone. And uh among other things, we are going to be discussing the ZOA, Zionist Organization of America, ZOA, Capitol Hill Israel Advocacy Mission. It begins Monday with an optional day on June the 8th with Mort Klein and Leo Terrell. And then Tuesday is the day of Israel advocacy with the ZOA. Tuesday, June the 9th is the day from 10 until 5:00 in the Heart Senate office building. Uh there's all the information online at zoa.org/events. zoa.org/events. The ZOA has been in existence since 1897 and since the early 2000s, its national president is Mr. Mort Klein. Mort, a pleasure to welcome you back to JM in the AM. >> Great to be with you. And uh yes, this you know people say to me, what can I do? Things are so bad. What can I do? One of the things a Jew or or not or a sympathetic non-Jew can do is come and lobby with us. That's one thing to give up one day of your life and lobby to to strengthen US Israel relations and promote issues that are beneficial to the Jewish state, which also by the way is beneficial to America. So, uh, I urge everyone that to, uh, sign up at zoa.org for Tuesday, June 9th to come with us and the night before you you can come. We have Leo Terrell speaking at our ZOA dinner the night before. Leo Terrell is one of the top people in the Trump administration fighting anti-semitism. So, it' be a tremendous day and a half. And, uh, this is one way you can do something. So, I I urge everyone, we need all the support we can. And the more people who come to these meetings, the more the message is sent that Americans care about this. So numbers matter. Just showing up matters. More um not only do numbers matter, but I don't know if there's been a uh more important time for Israel advocacy in Washington than now. Um you've been doing this your entire career. What do you have to say to us about what seems to be waning support on both sides of the aisle in Washington toward Israel? >> First of all, this I haven't done this my whole career. I was a biostatistician working in medical research for for 20 years with the great chemist Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel Prize winner. Wow. And when I did that, I only got compliments for my work. now and I now I get criticized because now I'm in I'm in Jewish politics so I get criticized. I guess there's limited targets on one's back in the field of the sciences unlike the field of politics >> and you know we were the only organization I think you were there too who explained that will be a disaster that the gas withdrawal will be a disaster and we za were condemned as extremist as wararm mongers and now we see of course our positions were totally correct and nobody's apologized nobody's apologized to me for the vicious attacks on myself and on ZOA. But uh in fact, if we hadn't given up the Gaz Gaza withdrawal, if we hadn't done it, October 7th couldn't have happened because we would have had 10,000 Jews living there. >> Oh, we're in full agreement with you. You have to address this for us, though. There seems to be waning support on both sides of the aisle in Washington. What's your reaction? >> Well, look, we're 501c3. We don't tell people who to vote for, who to vote against, but in fact, the Republican side is still very strongly pro- Israel. 8020. 8020. The polls show uh the Republicans support Israel over the Palestinian Arabs. It's the Democratic side that in the last 20 years has dissipated. Now, the Democratic side is 8020 against Israel. They support the Arabs over Israel, which is astonishing to support a group of terrorists from Abbas to Hamas to Hisbala to Iran. It makes no sense. But what's among the things that have happened is Obama and Biden led in 5,000 Muslims to America. There's now 6,000 Muslims in the United States. There used to be 1 million. Now there's 6 million. And they, of course, are disproportionately extremely hostile to Jews in Israel. And now and more congressmen have to worry about them as a factor in their own districts. And that's why it's so important for Jews to come out and lobby on June 9th because only two weeks ago uh the Muslims were out were lobbying on Capitol Hill. Uh 1,000 Muslims showed up to lobby. 1,000 Muslims. So we have to do all we can to to you know fight that. And and also we haven't done a good job nah of explaining you mentioned Jerusalem day. Jerusalem is not holy to Muslims. Never mentioned the Quran when they controlled Jerusalem. Almost no Arab leader visited it. We have to make that clear. We have to make clear there's no occupation. There was never a country of Palestine. And Palestine is a Roman name. How is this an Arab country if it has a Roman name Palestine? It used to be Philistia. The Romans took Judea and Samaria, renamed it Philistina because the Philistines were were the the enemy of the Jewish people and they really wanted to stick it to us. Why aren't we explaining there's no occupation? Jerusalem is not holy or Muslims. And also, we have to make clear that Abbas and these people are monsters. Abbas is not a moderate peace. He pays people a lifetime pension to murder Jews. And the more Jews you murder, the higher your pension. We have to scream this from the rooftops that I think if more people knew these types of truths about Abbas and Hamas, especially the college kids would be less inclined to want to support them, they'd become ashamed. We have not made the case for Israel and the Jewish people. And I blame I blame the Israeli officials. They haven't made the case. Jewish leaders and rabbis. We have to get them to start to making speeches, sermons, uh, about that there's no occupation, Jerusalem is not holy to Muslims, and that a Palestinian state would be a disaster. It would give him more land from which to launch terrorist attacks. And and do you know that Gideon Sar, the foreign minister, met with all the Jewish leaders? I was there. He begged us to publicly come out to oppose a Palestinian state publicly because he said he's getting enormous pressure. Do you know not a single Jewish organization of significance except COA came out publicly opposing a state. Dennis Ross Washington Institute for Policy wrote an op-ed saying we need a state. Ted Deutsch American Jewish Committee wrote an oped saying we need a state and not a single group has come out opposing it. We are not promoting our own truths, our own agenda. And I blame again Israel, the Jewish leaders, and the rabbis. We're not promoting the truth. So Jewish people understand the reality of all these situations. >> The Z Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Go ahead. >> I was even something as simple as not using the He also begged to stop using the term West Bank. That dejuda is Judean Samaria. We are Judans from Judea. We are Judeans. Q is a contraction of the word Judean. We should only use the word Judean. In fact, one of the lobbying points we're doing is Senator Cotton and Congresswoman Tenny has legislation to make it illegal in government publications to use the word West Bank and instead must use Jude and Samaria. Now, how can they say Judean Samaria is Arab? So, that's why they they very cleverly use the term West Bank. We got to stop using that term. And I don't know any of the major leaders who who doesn't use the word West Bank. Uh and we have to stop it. >> Mark Klein is with us, Zoa National President. The Capitol Hill Israel Advocacy Mission starts Monday, June 8th. The main day is Tuesday, June the 9th for Israel Advocacy with the ZOA between 10 and 5 in the Hart Senate Office Building. Information about all of this and to register zoa.org/dc. org/dcm mission. Again, that's za.org/dcm mission. Uh, Mort, there has been um a ground swell of opposition to President Trump bringing the United States into this uh action/war against Iran. Uh many in the media and social media specifically and the quote unquote America firsters are painting it as a um a move by the prime minister of Israel to drag Trump and the US into the war to do their bidding uh to go ahead and militarily stop the Iranians uh from their nuclear enrichment activities. Um how do you respond to all of this? How do you respond to this accusation? uh number one about the prime minister um uh manipulating all of this and number two when people would rather when Americans say to you, "I'd rather not be at war and there's no reason for us to be in this war." What's your response? >> This is the most important war to protect America, the West, and Israel, now Israel, since World War II. And by the way, it's been really buried. Do you know only a week ago the Harvard Harris poll, these are major pollsters, shows that 70 to 80% of Americans, 70 to 80% of Americans support this war and support that we have to stop Iran from getting nukes. Most Americans understand that if they get nukes, they could put them onto their intercontinental ballistic missiles. That's intercontinental. That means it's meant for us here in America and this could be a disaster. What? One atomic bomb on one of these ICBMs could destroy a whole city. And I tell you, the case has not been made well enough why this is important. We've been at war with Iran for 47 years. We should have gone to war against Iran, a a real war decades ago. They killed they they captured 52 of our hostages uh in in Tran and held them for 444 days. They killed 241 Marines. They murdered Americans. Iran has. and the SS Cole cobart two African embassies and listen to this and nobody knows this nobody makes the case listen to this in the lawsuit Hablish versus Bin Laden there's a major session in that where they in discovery they found that Iran was behind was facilitating planned funded and trained the Arab terrorists on 911 did you hear that >> Iran was behind 911 for 3,000 Americans. Why isn't Trump and Netanyahu and others screaming about this? This is in a major lawsuit. Even the 9/11 report after 9/11 says the same thing. So, we're talking about a a country that that is a fanatic fanatically religious Muslims. They believe in a literal interpretation of the Quran, which means to destroy the infidels, the non-Muslims. They did 9/11 and they've killed thousands of Americans. They killed a thousand Americans in the Iraq war. And nobody knows this. Whatever Whatever number of people we lose in this war, it is far less than the numbers we would lose if they get nukes and they would use it on us. Why have they buried the uranium uh deep into the mountain if it's for domestic purposes? Why have they said this week they only want to dilute part of the enrich uranium if it's for domestic purposes? You don't need 60% enrichment of uranium. Their goal is to get nukes to destroy Israel and America. But why >> remember every week this is important. Every week they scream death to America. This is the government saying this. It's not a fringe group. It's not the KKK of Iran. It's the government screaming death to America. >> But but why have we lost this PR battle? In other words, uh what what many consider to be mainstream media don't stop focusing on the fact that uh that the US shouldn't be involved in this war. Why have we why have we lost that? And it seems that in past actions like this, uh, the the majority of the population and most media sources were on the on the side of the leader of the United States >> because the media is largely very left-wing and hostile to Israel and hostile to Trump and so they lie that people are against this. The polls show that people support this. And by the way, you asked about Israel forcing America. You mean the nonsense? like Israel, what leverage does Israel have on Trump that if you don't go to war, what what is Israel going to do? They can't do anything. And Trump has said a few weeks ago, Netanyahu never pressured me. Nobody pressured me. I did this for the benefit of America. He said it publicly. By the way, here's something shocking that most people don't know. Our Jewish in the state where I live, Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro two weeks ago said that BB Netanyahu bullied, that's the word he used, bullied Trump into going into a war that's against America's interest. BB didn't bully him. It's a lie. It is in fact absolutely America's interest. If Israel didn't exist, America has to go into this war. And it's shameful that Josh Shapiro would really use a an anti almost an anti-semitic trope saying the Jews have bullied Trump into doing this. We could never bully him. He would we can't we have no leverage on that. >> Well, if this is what you say about Shapiro, I'm not going to ask you about Schumer. >> Well, that Well, there's there's bad and there's worse. Say that again. >> You can say that again. All right. Fort Klein of the ZOA invites everybody to participate and have our voices heard on Capitol Hill as the ZOA heads to Washington for the Israel Advocacy Mission beginning on uh Monday, June the 8th. That optional day, the uh the central part of the mission happens on June the 9th, Tuesday. That's when there'll be Israel Advocacy with the ZOA at the Heart Senate Office Building between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. It's a full day. They are inviting everybody in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, anybody from around the country, anybody from around the world, uh, who would like to come and participate, uh, you can do so. Just go to zoa.org/dcm missission. Again, that's za.orgdc mission. And um you know, Mort, it's an interesting world we're in because we have something that our ancestors never had. A state of Israel, a reunific Jerusalem, uh strong presence, thank God, although we'd love it for it to be stronger in Judea and Samaria. Um this is the time, this is the time in our history, uh with all these tremendous advantages and all these incredible miracles and blessings. this is the time to act on behalf of the future of the Jewish people. >> Who would have believed that two years ago we would have degraded Hamas, degraded Hisbala, degraded Syria, degraded Iran. This is a miracle from Hashem. Nobody could have believed this could happen. And it did happen. We still have plenty of work to do, but miracles have occurred. By the way, in our in our lobbying mission, it includes a lunchon where 25 to 30 senators and congressmen come to our lunchon and speak to us. So, you'll see them firsthand at our lunchon. It's a very exciting day. >> Both both sides of the aisle or one side of the aisle. >> We we invite everybody. We get more Republicans than Democrats, but we do get some Democrats. We do get some Democrats. We invite everybody. >> And people will have access. They'll be able to go and smoo with their own senator if they show up. >> Absolutely. We set up the meetings and you go and you meet with either senator congressman or their senior staff and the senior staff are very influential in the policies that the that their member takes. So, so even if you meet with senior staffers in the meetings, it's is as important really as meeting the congressman or senator. But the Congress and senators themselves come to our lunch and you're going to see them in person right there. >> Kaka Vodmort, great speaking to you. I hope that June 9th is a major success. >> I hope by then my call will have gone will dissipate. >> You need your voice. You need your voice at full strength for the members of Congress. Mort Klein reminds everybody as do we that Israel advocacy with the ZOA happens on Tuesday, June 9th. The ZOA Capitol Hill mission. Register now by going to za.org/dcm mission. zoa.org/dcm mission. Uh that's where you'll find all the information. More coming up. You're listening to a uh Wednesday morning edition of JM in the AM More