“The greatest obstacle to peace in the Middle East is Israel.”
Alissa Wise, Jewish Voice for Peace statement, September 10, 2019
“This message that we [Jews] needed Israel as a refuge from a future genocide, that never sat right with me … I was instinctively repulsed by it.”
Alissa Wise, Facebook, December 15, 2020
Overview
Alissa Wise, who goes by “Rabbi Alissa Wise,” is a long-standing leader of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), an anti-Zionist organization that “proudly” supports the antisemitic Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement against Israel. Wise also supports the “right of return” of all Palestinian refugees, a claim discredited as a means to totally eliminate the state of Israel.Wise’s organization, JVP, strategically seeks to place a “wedge” in the Jewish community, creating disagreement and discord among Jews over their support for Israel. The group partners with antisemitic Palestinian groups, both for ideological reasons and as a way to provide cover for these groups whose goal is to destroy the state of Israel.
Supporting Terrorists
At their national membership meeting in 2017, JVP hosted Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh, who masterminded a bombing in a Jerusalem supermarket that killed two college students. Wise, who appeared in a panel alongside Odeh, said, “We welcome you today, Rasmea, with love, with appreciation, with gratitude for all that you are.”
Later, defending JVP’s decision to invite Odeh to the meeting, Wise described Odeh as “a trusted and beloved community leader” and “a Palestinian elder who has faithfully served her community for decades.”
Odeh is not the only Palestinian terrorist with whom Wise is enamored. After Facebook took down JVP’s promo for a panel featuring terrorist Leila Khaled, Wise lamented Facebook’s decision “... to censor Palestine.”
Khaled, along with Odeh, was a leading member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. Khaled took part in the PFLP hijacking of TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and El Al Flight 219 in 1970.
Khaled has not moderated over the years. She maintains that the Second Intifada – the bloody 2000-2005 Palestinian uprising in Israel in which more than 1,000 civilians were murdered in bus and cafe bombings and shooting attacks – failed because it was not violent enough.
Khaled also advocates for the use of children in terror activities and compares Zionists to Nazis.
Barred From Israel
Wise was barred in 2017 from traveling to Israel as per an Israeli law that prevents entry for activists whose objective is to “harm the state.”
Wise, who was the deputy director of JVP at the time, was traveling to a Israel on a trip co-sponsored by JVP as well as American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), an antisemitic group whose leaders support and finance the terrorist group Hamas.
Harassment Campaign
Over the course of five months in 2021, Wise led a JVP Philly harassment campaign against Jeffrey Yass, a Philadelphia philanthropist and businessman.