The plot against Israel

It’s pretty clear that Laura Raicovich, the ousted executive director of the Queens Museum, doesn’t like Israel, not one bit. Her anti-Israel politics are her right, but it was not her right to go rogue and use her office to try to kill a November ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the 1947 United Nations vote to establish a Jewish state, back when the museum building was the UN headquarters.

Nor was it her right to lie to the museum’s board of directors when they started asking necessary questions.

After an August cancellation, outcry and immediate rescheduling of the event, the board knew something fishy was afoot, and so, asked a law firm to conduct a pro bono probe into what happened.

It was far worse than they, or we, thought. This wasn’t a case of botched communication. It was all about one woman’s animus and a torrent of falsehoods to try covering it up.

The investigation found that Raicovich and now-fired Deputy Director David Strauss from the outset lied to the Israeli government by falsely claiming that Palestinian friends of the museum were upset.

The ones who were upset were Raicovich and Strauss.

Besides deceiving the board multiple times — a firing offense in and of itself — Raicovich also misused museum funds, some of it from public sources, to underwrite her own book project (an antiIsrael screed supporting the frankly anti-Semitic boycott of the Jewish state). She then peddled the tract in the museum’s gift shop, again without informing the board.

Last month, she was forced to resign her $195,000 job and made to refund $4,000 in absconded funds. Deservedly, she received no severance payment.

Also without board knowledge or permission, Raicovich used the museum’s good name to have the institution endorse the fundraising campaign for the creation of a new museum, in guess where? The West Bank, in the family home of artist Emily Jacir, whose works prominently feature the suffering of Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis.

Again, her politics are up to her. But hijacking the clout of a taxpayer-funded museum to support a personal cause is totally forbidden.

Despite the fact that she and Strauss tried to thwart the commemoration of Israel’s birth, it went on as planned with Vice President Mike Pence among the many dignitaries in attendance.

The moving ceremony will be long remembered. Raicovich and Strauss will be forgotten.