Jewish and pro-Israel communities should be on the offensive when it comes to fighting BDS, chairman of the Israeli-American Council Adam Milstein said at the Jerusalem Post Annual Conference.

“BDS is a movement to eradicate the State of Israel, pure and simple,” Adam Milstein told the audience.

He said the movement is becoming a source of renewed anti-semitism in the United States.

“You have to fight fire with fire. We can’t be silent, we can’t be politically correct,” he added. “There is no way we can have a dialogue and a discourse with people who want to eradicate us. We need to be on the offense, attack the attackers, boycott the boycotters.”

Milstein spoke at a panel entitled “The future of the Jewish people and the war against BDS,” which was moderated by Column One writer Caroline Glick, and included the participation of International Fellowship of Christians and Jews President Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, Director of the European Jewish Association Rabbi Menachem Margolin, MK Elazar Stern and CEO of the Harry Triguboff Institute Shalom Norman.

Milstein also spoke about the presence of BDS on US campuses and called students supporting the movement, including the organization Students for Justice in Palestine, “Hamas on campus.”

“The cancer is not just out there on US campuses, but it’s also here within us,” he added.

“It’s not going away, it’s only getting stronger and stronger and it’s incorporating now Jewish students as well.”

Eckstein said he believes the Jewish community is “making a serious mistake” by trying to fight BDS alone.

“We can’t do it alone,” he said. “The way to fight the BDS movement long term is to build strategic alliances and friendships.”

He explained the Christian community, as well as other non-Jewish communities, have the potential to greatly contribute to the fight.

Margolin told the audience that in Europe “BDS is not just a way to attack Israel, it is a way to attack Jewish people,” and fighting the movement is necessary in order to ensure the security of European Jews.

While he agreed that the fight against BDS is important, Stern said he believes it is a “temporary challenge” raised by the Israeli government in order “not to fight the real challenge of the future of the Jewish people.”

Stern said that “if we continue to present our kids in Israel and our kids here with an equation according to which having a Jewish state is to put as many obstacles as you can in the conversion process and exclude women from the right to elect the chief rabbinate,” their connection to the state will not last. This constitutes the main threat to Israel.

CEO of the Harry Triguboff Institute Shalom Norman agreed with Stern’s view and said Israel needs to focus on solving its internal social problems to better fight BDS.

Adam Milstein tells the ‘Post’ why the IAC should be spearheading the battle against BDS.

As national chairman of the Israeli-American Council, an umbrella group of Americans of Israeli descent living in the US, the Los Angeles-based Adam Milstein sees himself as the "connector" between Israel and the US, and at the forefront of fighting the anti-Israel BDS movement.

"We are the nexus between the Israeli and American people,” the affable Milstein says in an interview withJerusalem Post editors during a recent visit to Jerusalem. "We feel that the Israeli American community is equipped and has the information necessary to lead the fight against BDS." Under Milstein's leadership, the IAC has emerged as a powerhouse. Last June, he helped to organize a summit that brought together philanthropists such as Sheldon Adelson, a Republican, and Haim Saban, a Democrat, as well as some 60 American Jewish organizations at the Campus Maccabees summit in Las Vegas, to "harness the full might of the pro-Israel community to defeat the hate groups now spreading anti-Semitism and lies about the Jewish state on America’s college campuses." "We know that BDS is not just an anti-Semitic movement, but a movement to eradicate the State of Israel," Milstein says, sternly. "I don't think the people of Israel understand that. We live in the US and we see what the leaders of this movement are saying. They're saying that Israel should not exist, and that from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, there should be a free Palestine.”

Milstein, who will be participating in a panel discussion on countering BDS at the Jerusalem Post Conference in New York on May 22, strongly believes that the IAC should be leading the battle against the delegitimization of Israel.

"We got a big problem in explaining ourselves when people are not interested in listening. We need to fight back. What Israeli Americans bring to the table is that we are willing to be offensive. We should be at the forefront of the fight against BDS in the United States," he says.

Milstein believes there are some one million Israeli Americans in the US, noting that the IAC reaches about half of them via its 10 nationwide offices.

"We are the fastest growing Jewish organization in the United States," he says. "Our Kenes [conference] started a year and a half ago with 650 people, last year doubled to 1300, and this year we are expecting 2,500 people. AIPAC is an important partner of the IAC – and recognizes that we are the fastest-growing Jewish organization in the US.

The IAC considers itself non-partisan when it comes to both Israel and the US, Milstein says.

"We don't have any political affiliation, not in Israel and not in the United States. We believe that the people of Israel spoke freely and democratically, and we support the people of Israel and the government of Israel, whoever that is. We don't get involved in politics. The same thing in the United States. We don't take sides. So when we have our conferences in DC, we invite people from across the political rainbow." The Haifa-born Milstein, 64, moved with his wife, Gila, from Israel to Los Angeles in 1981, initially to get his masters' degree in business administration at the University of South California. But they kept postponing their return, he became a successful real-estate investor, and so they stayed. Fifteen years ago, they established the philanthropic Adam and Gila Milstein Family Foundation, and today they have three daughters, the last one of whom was born in the US, and three grandchildren.

"We set out to do whatever we can to strengthen the State of Israel, the Jewish people and obviously the strong connection between them, which makes each one of them stronger," he says. "Everything that we do in the foundation, in our personal lives and in the IAC is really to accomplish those two goals." One such project is Sifriyat Pijama B'America (or the Hebrew PJ Library, as it is affectionately called), which delivers free books in Hebrew every month to the children of Israeli families living in the US.

"We started in 2011 with a thousand families, and today we're reaching 18,000 families nationwide on a monthly basis," Milstein says. "The aim was to strengthen Hebrew, Jewish values, and the Israeli American community and today we have expanded the idea through partnering with 200 different Jewish organizations, from schools, JCCs and federations. Sifriyat Pijama B’America is a great story. It paved the way for the IAC. Wherever I go, people tell me, 'You changed my life!'" The idea to establish the IAC (first called the Israel Leadership Council) began after a pro-Israel rally organized by then-Israeli consul-general Ehud Danoch during the Second Lebanon War in 2006. When he noticed the lack of Israelis, Danoch approached a group of businessmen, including Milstein, with a mission to begin a philanthropic organization to engage Israelis living in the US.

"We developed the concept to reach the Israeli community in Los Angeles to become more connected to Israel, to come to the rallies, to help Israel in the case of emergency, but over time, it developed into something much, much bigger than we envisioned," Milstein says. "Our mission today is to reach Israeli-Americans wherever they may be in the US, and unite them into one organization that is very big, very influential and very philanthropic. We understand the challenges that the Israeli people face and we live in America. There's nobody better than us to make the connection between the two people. In this respect, we want to reach out to Latinos, and Christians and Evangelicals and African Americans, and connect with them on mutual interests, in order to make a strong connection between the American people and the Israeli people." Milstein says he is fortunate enough to devote about 80 percent of his time today to philanthropic projects.

"Gila and I wanted to be active philanthropists, and not just write out checks," he said. "It's really everything from A to Z. You have an idea, you want to build a plan, you want to see it come to fruition. You put money in it and you put time into it, and you use all your resources to make ideas happen." Among other things, they bring Jewish and non-Jewish campus leaders to the annual AIPAC conference, and send 40 non-Jewish students annually to Israel on a program similar to Birthright.

Milstein makes a point of maintaining contact with the students after the programs, and he believes some of them will be the leaders of the future.

He says he is motivated by the belief conveyed to him by his modern Orthodox business partner that "whatever we give, God gives us back ten times more," and his desire to keep his own daughters and their families connected to Judaism and Israel.

"I have created my own kind of philanthropy over the years, and I have gotten the reputation that I am some kind of Jewish connector, because I'm funding some 100 organizations and I know who operates in every field," he says, with a knowing smile. "If there is a mission, I know who can help me, and who is irrelevant.”

Milstein sits on the board of several organizations, including what he calls one of the best Israel advocacy groups, StandWithUs, and is always on the lookout for new projects.

"People with ideas come to me, and if I like the ideas, I fund them, often with huge success," he says, taking out his cellular phone. "For example, there is this new phone application called Talk Israel. You download it, it asks you what subject you are interested in, and it sends you articles and videos about the things that you like, which you can share on your social media channel by a push of a button."

“For Zion’s sake will I not hold My peace, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her triumph go forth as brightness, and her salvation as a torch that burneth.” Isaiah 62:1 (The Israel Bible™)

There are nearly one million Israelis living in the United States forming roughly one third of the entire pro-Israel Jewish camp. However, Adam Milstein, chairman of the Israeli-American Council (IAC), hopes to have an even larger voice in support of Israel, by connecting Israelis living in America with Evangelical Christian Zionists.

Sitting down with Breaking Israel News, Milstein explained that the IAC sees the Evangelical community as natural allies in the fight for Israel. “We share the same values, the same beliefs and share a common enemy.”

While the American Jewish establishment has been slow in accepting the friendship and support of the Christian Zionist community, Milstein sees the IAC differently: “Israelis are more pragmatic”.

The real estate entrepreneur and philanthropist is one of the leading voices in the fight against BDS through his prolific presence on Social Media. Milstein was named one of the 25 most influential people on ‘Jewish Twitter’ and writes a regular column for the Huffington Post.

“I look at BDS as a movement to eradicate the State of Israel. It’s not about the economy. They want to destroy us,” Milstein told Breaking Israel News.

However, Milstein’s warning about BDS takes the argument a step further. He has used his platform on social media to call out notorious leaders of BDS for not only their anti-Semitic vitriol, but their animosity towards America.

“BDS leaders hate America’s leadership role around the world,” Milstein wrote in the Huffington Post, quoting Purdue University professor Bill Mullen, who said, “We can build a still-stronger BDS movement beginning in the name of Palestinian freedom and ending in a permanent blow against American empire.”

Milstein warned, “BDS leaders hate America’s democracy – and have even called for violent attacks to overturn our democratic system.” He cited Berkeley Professor Hatem Bazian, the founder of Students for Justice in Palestine who incited a San Francisco rally, who said, “Are you angry? Well, we’ve been watching intifada in Palestine, we’ve been watching an uprising in Iraq, and the question is that what are we doing? How come we don’t have an intifada (armed struggle) in this country…and it’s about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here…They’re going to say [that] some Palestinians are being too radical; well, you haven’t seen radicalism yet!”

For these reasons, it’s a mistake to see BDS as a Jewish problem, claims Milstein.

Of late, Milstein has expanded his network from the influential Jewish mega donors such as Sheldon Adelson and Chaim Saban, with whom he co-founded the Campus Maccabees in June 2015.

For his most recent article, Milstein joined forces with Pastor Carlos Ortiz and co-authored “A Common Fight: Why Christians and Jews are Coming Together to Defeat Hate and Intolerance”.

In the article, the Israeli-American Jew and the Hispanic Pastor warn, “We must not be fooled: BDS was born from a radical Islamic ideology in the Middle East that not only hates Judaism, but also Christianity and America.”