Anti-immigrant bias at the Guardian

The Guardian's Harriet Sherwood doesn't like those who immigrated from the former Soviet Union to Israel and she isn't afraid to say so in the Guardian (although she is careful to put her most hateful views in the mouths of others). (Read here.)

(T)hey almost overwhelmed Israel, causing a severe housing crisis. Many eventually settled in Russian enclaves in cities such as Ashdod, Petah Tikva and Haifa – and in expanding West Bank settlements, such as Ariel.

"It was a very different type of immigration," said Lily Galili, an Israeli journalist writing a book about the impact of the tidal wave from the former Soviet Union. "The didn't want to integrate. They wanted to lead. They changed the nature of the country."

...and...

"Unfortunately they [immigrants from former Soviet states] have changed the nature of democracy in Israel," said Galili. "There's a certain amount of exaggeration – many things may have changed without them. But they have a different concept of democracy. And they have strengthened and given confidence to the [homegrown] secular rightwing."

A year ago the former US president Bill Clinton caused a furore when he said Russian-speaking Israelis were "an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians".

Russian immigrants were among "the hardest-core people against a division of the land ... They've just got there, it's their country, they've made a commitment to the future there. They can't imagine any historical or other claims that would justify dividing it," Clinton was quoted in Foreign Policy magazine as saying.

Galili pointed to "some sense of alienation between Russian immigrants and native-born Israelis. There is not much social interaction. There are still places for 'Russians' that 'Israelis' don't go and aren't wanted – and vice versa."

But, she added, there would be no going back. "For many years the joke was that Israel had become the 51st state of the US. Instead we have become just another Soviet republic. It's quite a twist in the story."

Would the editors of the Guardian print such things about any other immigrant group in the world?

The blog CIF Watch has posted a column rebutting the Guardian's blanket condemnation of an entire ethnic group with the words of Anastasia, a Soviet emigre to Israel. Anastasia writes:

I am beyond furious at [Harriet Sherwood's] article!

[What she says about Russians] couldn’t be any farther from the truth.

As an immigrant who’s been living here most of my life, I consider myself to be 110% ISRAELI and not Russian or Kazakh (I was born in the republic of Kazakhstan).

My mother is Jewish but I have many friends whose mother are in fact non-Jewish but are similarly supremely dedicated to this country.

It is absolute rubbish that immigrants integrated little and live mostly in “Russian enclaves”.

Many such “unintegrated Russians” are married to “Sabras” (Israelis who were born in Israel), give their kids Israeli names and many even refuse to speak Russian anymore.

This LIE [regarding the] lack of integration is evident everywhere.

I, as with most of the “unintegrated Russians”, have served in the army and, in fact, many of these “unintegrated Russian” young men go to become fighters and officers in the army and fight and DIE side by side with Israel-born soldiers!

We study all together in schools and universities and despite there being “Russian” hang-out places, it is SIMPLY NOT TRUE that [non-Russian] Israelis are NOT wanted there. The FIB that Russians created a housing problem is [also simply not true]. Russians did not come to parasite on this country. They finished “Ulpan” (Hebrew classes for immigrants) and right away began searching for jobs. They can now be found in every single workplace including hospitals, courts, and the media (NOT ONLY Russian media).

The fact that Harriet Sherwood makes a point of singling out Russians is a total double standard. And the following quote by the Russian-hating Israeli journalist, whom [Sherwood] must have had to dig out from some very dark place, which claims “…alienation between Russian immigrants and native-born Israelis [exist because] there is not much social interaction” is also simply not true.

Most of my friends are Israelis, many of my friends are married to Israelis, we party, travel and do everything together! And the older generation is the same.

In short, [Sherwood] evidently didn’t have anything to report about and found, in the much maligned Russian community, a convenient target and scapegoat.

I couldn't agree with Anastasia more.

Read more here: On the liberal and fashionable anti-immigrant racism of the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood � CiF Watch

Now about Bill Clinton: the former president was apparently in a professorial mood when he addressed a meeting of his group Clinton Global Initiative in September 2010. He used that opportunity to expound upon the demographic breakdown of which groups of Israelis stand where with respect to support for peace efforts. (Read here.) Oddly, his thumbnail analysis broke down Israelis into the following groups: Sabras, Ashkenazi immigrants and their children, Moroccan immigrants, and immigrants from the former Soviet Union. He cast the first two of those groups as supporters of peace, the Soviet immigrants as opponents of peace, and the "Moroccans" as the swing vote. I would call Clinton's statement an oversimplification, but that term doesn't do justice to its sheer distortion of a number of complex issues. Setting aside Clinton's idiotic use of the term "Moroccan" to indicate immigrants to Israel from Arab and other Muslim countries, his categories all contain both proponents and opponents of a variety of positions with respect to possible peace proposals. Clinton's casting of the peace process as a monolithic concept which certain ethnic groups support while others oppose not only distorts the complexities of both Israeli politics and the range of potential peace proposals, it serves to further polarize the groups he spoke about. His statement was not only ignorant, it was bigoted, and served to perpetuate the very divisions it purported to oppose.

That assessment of Clinton's statement applies equally to Sherwood's article in the Guardian. It is bigoted, and it serves to perpetuate through its bigotry the very divisions it decries. Such views serve as an obstacle to building the coalitions within Israel for seeking peace. Proponents of peace would do well to avoid resorting to gross ethnic generalizations which tend to polarize rather than bring people together.

No accounting for taste: Glenn Greenwald supports conspiracy monger Alan Hart (...or does he? See comments.)

What does it mean to "like" someone on Facebook?  Salon Columnist Glenn Greenwald says that he is a fan of anti-Israel conspiracy theorist Alan Hart.  I wonder why.  (See screenshot from Hart's website above.  Hart's Facebook widget featuring Greenwald's image is located on the right side.)

Does Greenwald share Alan Hart's belief that, on 9/11, Israeli agents controlled the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center via remote control devices hidden in cell phones?  Does he agree with Hart that Israel has stolen nuclear weapons from a U.S. military base and intends to use them to destroy an American city? (Read my column documenting Hart's conspiracy theories here.)  In May, Hart not only made those bizarre assertions, he also claimed in radio/podcast interviews with conspiracy mongers Kevin Barrett and Alex Jones that he had proof that the World Trade towers were destroyed by controlled demolition, i.e. that explosives had been planted within the buildings and were detonated after the plane crashes to bring down the towers. (This implausible belief is an essential part of truther conspiracy theories.) Hart said in those interviews that his proof for this controlled demolition conspiracy, which he claimed came from a source within "one of the world's leading engineering firms", resided on a laptop to which he didn't then have access because he was away from home on a U.S. speaking tour. That was more than four months ago, and Hart has still not come forward with the computer file that, if it actually existed, would undoubtedly provide him with the biggest scoop of his career as a journalist.  Maybe Hart just hasn't gotten around to looking for it.

I don't believe that Greenwald shares Alan Hart's belief in these bizarre theories, but his "liking" Hart does raise the question: how crazy does an anti-Zionist have to be to be too crazy for Glenn to like?

(The Facebook widget featuring Greenwald's image was found here: Obama speaks at the UN… Goodbye to peace - Alan Hart)

Limbaugh's view of Jews

Here's what Rush Limbaugh had to say yesterday on his program (read here)

LIMBAUGH: Scott Brown had a lot of success with independents, and that's -- that's what Jewish liberals like to call themselves when they're asked. They call themselves independents before they'll refer to themselves as -- as liberals. So if Jewish people who voted 78 percent for Obama -- which is far higher than any other group except African-Americans -- if Jewish people gave Obama 78 percent of their vote, what if they're experiencing buyer's remorse like all these people in Massachusetts did? Do you realize how important this could be? I don't think there's buyer's remorse yet in the black community -- that's still pretty strong.

[...]

LIMBAUGH: To some people, "banker" is code word for Jewish; and guess who Obama is assaulting? He's assaulting bankers. He's assaulting money people. And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there's -- if there's starting to be some buyer's remorse there?

By "some people", Limbaugh apparently means himself.


UPDATE: A friend asked me to translate this from Limbaugh to English. He's saying that Jews a) conceal their liberalism by calling themselves independents and b) are bankers. The first of those gems he pulled out of his butt and the second is a classic anti-Semitic stereotype.

Conservative group attacks TSA nominee as anti-Christian based on his warning about the Christian Identity movement

Errol Southers, President Obama's nominee to head the TSA, has come under attack from a conservative organization for being anti-Christian based on a 2008 interview in which Southers warned of the terrorist threat posed by "Christian Identity" groups. CNS News, which was founded by conservative activist L. Brent Bozell III, has published an article which deliberately conflates Southers' very specific warning about the extremist Christian Identity movement as indicating a bias against anyone with a "Christian identity". (Read here: CNSNews.com - Obama’s TSA Nominee Characterized Groups That Were Domestic Security Threats as ‘Anti-Abortion’ and Having ‘Christian Identity’.)

The Christian Identity movement is a violent, racist and anti-Semitic movement with connections to groups such as Aryan Nations. Adherents of that movement have been responsible for numerous terrorist acts including bombings and murders. Although the CNS article provides the following quote which makes the nature of Southers' concern quite clear, the CNS article deliberately distorts the meaning of the statement. Here's how CNS quotes Southers:

In the interview, Southers was asked whether there were “groups inside the United States that pose a danger to our security?”

“Domestically speaking, a large part, most of the groups we have here in the United States, are white supremacists groups, World Church of the Creator, National Alliance, Aryan Nations. There are some black separatist groups,” said Southers. “What’s interesting about those groups is you find that they are usually either Christian identity groups and/or groups that really have a foothold in our correctional or prison systems in the way of radicalization and recruiting.”

Southers was then asked: “Which home-grown terrorist groups pose the greatest danger to the U.S.?”

“Most of the domestic groups that we have to pay attention to here are white supremacist groups. They're anti-government and in most cases anti-abortion,” he said. “They are usually survivalist-type in nature, identity orientated. If you recall, Buford Furrow came to Los Angeles in, I believe, it was 1999. When he went to three different Jewish institutions, museums, and then wound up shooting people at a children's community center, then shooting a Filipino postal worker later on. Matthew Hale, who's the Pontifex Maximus of the World Church of the Creator out of Illinois, and Ben Smith, who went on a shooting spree in three different cities where he killed a number of African Americans and Jews and Asians that day. Those groups are groups that claim to be extremely anti-government and Christian-identity oriented.”

That statement by Southers is clear. The lede of that CNS article distorts that interview as follows:

Erroll Southers, who President Barack Obama has nominated to head the Transportation Security Administration, described groups that were a domestic security threat as being "anti-abortion" and “Christian-identity oriented."

And then there's that little matter of the headline, which deceptively changes Southers' statement about the Christian Identity movement into one about every person who identifies as a Christian. CNS seems to think that by doing this, and by spelling the word "identity" with a lower-case "i", they can deceive their readers about the nature of Southers' statement. They must think that their readership is very stupid. (Judging by the comments the article has attracted, they may be right.)

Coulter accuses Rev. Barry Lynn of being secretly Jewish

Republican columnist Ann Coulter has accused First Amendment activist Rev. Barry Lynn of being secretly Jewish. Coulter, who not coincidentally is touting a new book, recently wrote in a column that she would provide a free copy of it to anyone who could produce Lynn's bar mitzvah photos or birth announcement. She threw in a "mazel tov!" for good measure. (Read here.) Read her column to get the context. If you do, you'll understand that, to Coulter, activism on behalf of the separation of church and state equals opposition to Christianity; and opposition to Christianity equals Judaism.

Lynn has responded, writing at beliefnet.com (read here):

"You see, I have been attacked by Ann Coulter...again. This one deserves an immediate response.

"She has now claimed that I'm not a real minister -- and not a real Christian -- and has told readers that she would send a free copy of her newest book (sure to become another New York Times bestseller) to the first person who can send her a "copy of my bar mitzvah photos or birth announcement."

"I wonder why my lineage would matter. After all, there are some of Jewish converts to Christianity ... Maybe she is convinced that I am the Antichrist. Many fundamentalists concerned about this matter (including the late Jerry Falwell) believe he is already among us and claim the said figure must be Jewish. Hence, to Ann, I must have been born Jewish."

Lynn, with characteristic good humor, accompanies this with images of his Cameroonian birth certificate (courtesy of Orly Taitz) and a snapshot of him as a baby with his two alien parents.

Fredrick Carlson has an excellent column on Coulter's latest calculatedly offensive remarks. In a column at the Talk2Action blog (which is always a good read), Carlson expresses outrage at Coulter's bigoted smear and diagnoses it perfectly.

"Of course, Rev. Barry Lynn, as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (and a former director of the Washington, DC office of the ACLU) is a proponent of religious freedom and is unopposed to religious expression... But he is routinely smeared by elements of the Religious Right because he and AU are vigorous and effective opponents of theocratic creep and the hijacking of government resources for unconstitutional religious purposes... Coulter gets very specific and suggests that Lynn is so opposed to public religious expression that he is opposed to Christian religious expression by children -- therefore he must be Jewish."

True to form, Wikipedia is already right on the case. Someone has already added Lynn's invented heritage to the article about him there. No source for this information is given. (Read here.)

And the racist community is promoting Coulter's anti-Semitic disinformation. Pat Buchanan's pal James Edwards of the white supremicist group Council of Conservative Citizens and the radio show Political Cesspool has picked up Coulter's theme (read here), writing:

"The vast majority of attacks on public displays of Christianity come from Jewish groups like the American Jewish Committee, the ACLU, the ADL, the SPLC, etc. But there is one fairly prominent organization headed by a Christian which does the same sort of thing. It’s Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It’s run by Rev. Barry Lynn. But Ann Coulter’s not buying it. She believes Barry Lynn is secretly a Jew who’s only pretending to be a Christian in order to attack Christianity."

By the way, contrary to Edwards' comment, the ACLU is not a Jewish organization, it's a front for the international communist conspiracy to fluoridate our water.

To clarify the extremely obvious fact to which I alluded in the lead paragraph, Coulter deliberately creates controversy with an offensive comment whenever she has a book to sell. Her attack on the widows of those killed on 9/11, her pronouncements on God's views concerning the shortcomings of the Jewish religion, and her "raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences" spring immediately to mind. And then there was the time during the 2008 presidential campaign when she called candidate John Edwards a "faggot". I'd call her a shock jock, but they work a lot harder than she does and are sometimes funny. Let's just call her mean as a snake, lazy and opportunistic.

Made for each other: Glenn Beck and Rand Paul agree on "death panels"

A meeting of the minds? Glenn Beck and Rand Paul agree: you don't have to call 'em "death panels", but that's what they are.

It seems to me that Beck comes very close to endorsing Paul's senatorial candidacy here.

from David Neiwert at Crooks and Liars: Beck has a happy fearmongering session on 'death panels' with Rand Paul

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Glenn Beck is becoming the model for the Intentionally Obtuse bloc of America's right wing nutcases: At the very moment when it's becoming virtually unanimous -- even on Fox News -- that all this talk about "death panels" is the biggest load of hooey since black helicopters, he host a segment on his Fox News show with Ron Paul's son, Rand, proclaiming the threat of government-sponsored euthanasia real, real, real.

Of course, it came with a Beckerwockian caveat:

Beck: Tell me about – am I wrong in saying, without any inflammatory speech here, don’t call them “death panels”, just let’s call them what they are – you have a certain amount of money, you have a certain amount of people, you can’t -- they don’t -- you can’t give everything to everybody, isn’t it inevitable that you have to make tough choices?

Paul: Well, you know, the president says he isn’t going to pull the plug on grandma, but what I think he really means is, he’s not going to put the plug in in the first place, because you have to decide, some committee’s going to have to decide, what is the cost-benefit analysis for grandma? Grandma is not just your grandmother, she's a statistic, we have to decide, what is the cost to society to keep her alive? And I think she won't get plugged in. Her ventilator won't be plugged in if she's 92 years old, because society may say we don't have the money to do that.

Sounds like someone has been watching Soylent Green...

Glenn Beck must go.

Glenn Beck's opposition to health care reform, which started as a campaign of deceptive fear-mongering, has descended into an insane attempt to grossly distort the history of the Holocaust and spread an anti-liberal libel. In one shocking hour, of which the following is a highlights reel, he implicated as Nazi fellow-travelers the Progressive movement, environmentalists, Democratic presidents, and a range of individuals whom he considers liberal. He literally blamed them for the Holocaust, then stated unequivocally that liberals intend to put Nazi eugenics policies into place in the United States.

This extremist propagandizing clearly puts Glenn Beck beyond the pale of rational political discourse. Fox News simply must remove him from the air and apologize for broadcasting this.

from progressnotcongress.org: Glenn Beck's show on August 11, 2009 condensed into 10 minutes

Limbaugh compares Dems to Nazis; claims Obama uses Nazi imagery

He claims that the Obama administration is using subtlely Nazi-like imagery in order to... Well, Rush's theory is pretty much off the rails, so the intention of such a purported move isn't entirely clear. In fact, I'm not sure how long this post on Rush Limbaugh's blog will remain, but here's the link for now: Whose Swastikas, Speaker Pelosi?

There, you can read about Rush's

"reaction to the Obama health care logo the other day. I mentioned something about it reminded me of Germany in 1942, the shape of the logo, the people. I said, "I haven't seen this in many, many years." And if you go and take a look at this, you will find that the Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo. I'm going to show you people watching on the Dittocam this, and there you are. The middle frame is the Obama health care logo. At the bottom is an official Nazi logo, eagle and everything, spread wings, or bird with spread wings. Ms. Pelosi has some major apologizing to do. I know that numerous repeated Botox injections can cause blurry vision, but I don't think Ms. Pelosi can use that as an excuse. They are really unraveling. They are really falling apart."

I'd show you Rush's graphic, but it's so dumb, what's the point. OK, I'll show it, via Reason.com:

Good god this is dumb. If use of the caduceus in a logo is inherently fascist, perhaps Limbaugh will protest our National Socialist doctors in the United States Army Medical Corps:

If you manage to trudge through Limbaugh's incoherent rant about Nazi logos and Obama, you'll also be informed that the initial production of the Volkswagen was "right out of the playbook of the environmentalist wackos." Yeah, I don't get it either.

More here and here and here.

UPDATE August 6, 2009 10:25 pm

Turns out that American Thinker has jumped on the dumb Nazi comparison bandwagon (the trend that is sweeping the Republican party!) Read here.

Now this?

Republican Disorderly Conduct

Here's video of one of the many town hall riots organized by the Republicans. These protests, which only target Democrats, are designed to both shut down the meetings and create videos which create the illusion of a grassroots Republican mass-movement rising up to oppose health care reform.




Go to about 2:02 of this video. There's a guy carrying a sign with two SS
lightning bolt symbols (Sig runes). I believe the sign reads "SStop SSocialized Medicine", with the runes starting the first two words.

Have the Republicans really sunk to this level? Amazing. I was going to call this post "Thug Life" until I found out that Rachel Maddow beat me to the punch.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I wonder how many of those participating in this organized campaign of chaos favored arresting Henry Louis Gates for disorderly conduct for speaking in his own home, while they incite riots at public meetings with congressional representatives.

Starting with Think Progress (here), several media outlets have debunked this campaign's claims of being a grass roots movement. They've got the memos which plan in great detail these disruptions of public meetings with our representatives. For starters, check out BradBlog here, and Talking Points Memo here and here.

Here's some more video of a Republican planned town hall disruption, with one activist waving a bible while shouting "the only truth", and another (an elderly woman) with a bumper sticker on her forehead.



Meanwhile, Republican pundit Michelle Malkin used her appearance on ABC's This Week last Sunday to both push the line that this movement was completely grass roots and state with certainty that it would disrupt many more such meetings in August.

It seems that all's fair when the GOP gets desperate.

UPDATE August 4, 2009 10:45 pm

Check out this video of Republican activists ambushing Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut from the blog My Left Nutmeg. That blog found that the hooliganism was sanctioned and facilitated by the state GOP. (Read here.) Especially noteworthy in this planned chaos is the guy who refers to Sen. Dodd's cancer which was diagnosed just last week. The guy shouts out

"How come we don't just give Chris Dodd painkillers? Like a handful of them at a time! He can wash it down with Ted Kennedy's whiskey...!"

Nice.

UPDATE August 5, 2009 9:45 am

Followers of extremist cult leader Lyndon LaRouche are taking part in these demonstrations as well. (Read here.) That piece by Josh Marshall of TPM also cites the case of a protester apparently objecting to all medical research by shouting out that the congressman discussing it was a "Doctor Mengele". Offended yet?

UPDATE August 6, 2009 4:00 pm

Don't bother writing me to say that this isn't a Republican thing. Yes, there are Libertarians, LaRouchies, Ronpaulians. But this thing is a product of Republican PR organizations. Watch this:

Star Ledger whitewashes Rep. Garrett's environmental record

In a puff piece, the Newark Star-Ledger has completely distorted the record of Congressman Scott Garrett with respect to the environment. Bob Braun writes in the Ledger that Garrett "has a reputation as pro-conservation". (Read here.) He doesn't offer any facts to support this conclusion, because there aren't any.

The fact is that, on a scale of 100, Garrett was given a 15% rating by the League of Conservation Voters, an 8% rating by Environment America, and 16% by Republicans for Environmental Protection .

On the other hand, an anti-regulation group called American Land Rights Association gave him 83%. That group OPPOSES pro-conservation legislation.

Braun's statement that Garrett 'has a reputation as pro-conservation' is a complete fabrication. You have the right to your own opinion, Bob, but you do not have the right to your own facts. Now just who do you claim considers him a conservationist?

(Details on Garrett's ratings are available here.)

What does this say about the Orlando Sentinel's readership?

Read the comments for this article in the Orlando Sentinel: 'Shylock' banned from Florida's statutes.

UPDATE: I figured out the proliferation of anti-Semitic comments.  These aren't the Orlando Sentinel's readers, they're David Irving's readers.  (He linked to the article here.)

Alleged Cop-Killer in Pittsburgh Linked to Neo-Nazis and Alex Jones

Read here.

Sudan expels reporter investigating arms industry

from the Christian Science Monitor:  Sudan expels a Canadian contributor to the Monitor

The expulsion of a Canadian journalist from Sudan has brought new attention to Khartoum's uneasy relationship with the news media.

Sudan is a relatively free country – with a vibrant independent media, where other African countries have only state-owned newspapers – but it maintains firm control over local and foreign news organizations through censorship on issues deemed sensitive by the government. In the case of Heba Aly, a Canadian journalist with Egyptian nationality as well, Sudan says it expelled her because of immigration issues, not because of her reporting.

Yet Ms. Aly says it was her investigating of Sudan's arms manufacturing industry that prompted agents from Sudan's national security agency to call her in for a hastily convened meeting this past weekend at a restaurant in Sudan's capital.

It is sensitive issues like the military that have led Sudan to impose censorship rules on its independent newspapers, jail protesting reporters, and to arrest an opposition leader for suggesting that Mr. Bashir should face trial for crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.

"It is pretty paradoxical, because Sudan is a country that does well in press freedoms compared with other African countries," says Ambroise Pierre, Africa desk officer for Reporters Without Borders in Paris. "But the whole climate within the country is one of censorship and self-censorship, where there are many subjects that just cannot be investigated."

Although he admits that any government has the right to decide who enters its borders, and who has the right to work inside its territory, Mr. Pierre says that Sudan makes it very difficult for journalists to play by the rules, to get accreditation, and to obtain work authorization.

"For the last six months, Heba Aly has been fighting to get accredited as a journalist, and she never succeeded," he says. "It's pretty difficult when you are like Heba Aly, trying to do your best as an honest journalist, you are like a hostage of the administration. The government can control who can work, where people can work, and what they can write."

Aly, a freelance reporter who writes for several news organizations including the Monitor and Bloomberg News, says she had been told by a Sudanese official at the time of her arrival that, as an Egyptian passport holder, she could live in Sudan without a residence permit. She says that she maintained her status as a member of the press – with a press card from the Sudanese Ministry of Information – throughout the bulk of her stay in Sudan, but despite months of waiting, she never received a work permit or accreditation as a foreign correspondent residing in Sudan.

While she admits that she worked for her final month, January, without accreditation, she says it was only after she started pursuing a story about Sudan's arms-manufacturing industry that she received a call from National Security agents requesting a meeting. At the meeting, the agents told her that she must leave Sudan by Monday.

"I was never given any written expulsion order, despite my repeated requests," says Aly, who had been detained twice before during her year in Sudan. "I was simply harassed, and was counselled by someone in government that if I did not leave I would be arrested. I was followed, intimidated into leaving the country, and escorted by national security all the way onto the tarmac to board the airplane. The reason they gave me was that I was asking about arms. But they told me the line they would use publicly was that I didn't have my work papers."

Heba Aly works with the Puliter Center.  Her profile and links to some of her articles are available at their website here.  Her report for the radio program PRI's The World is available here.

Hannity anti-Obama source: "Exterminate Jew Power"

Fox News and Sean Hannity have some explaining to concerning why they gave a platform to a self-avowed anti-Semite to smear Obama with obvious lies.

from TPMCafe | Talking Points Memo | Hannity's Witness: "Exterminate Jew Power":

(By Todd Gitlin)

Sean Hannity's Fox News Sunday night kitchen-sink sewer job on Barack Obama, complete with a sound-track cribbed from C- porn flicks, features prominently, as witness of Obama's iniquity, one Andy Martin, "author and journalist," and, though not identified as such on Fox News, perennial political candidate in four states.

Among Martin's contributions to fairness and balance, this nifty aphorism: "I think a community organizer is someone who was in training to overthrow the government of the United States of America."

Martin previously crawled out from under a rock, according to Matthew Mosk in the WP, to "take credit for posting the first article to assert that the Illinois senator was a Muslim." More recently, he claimed, contrary to fact, that Obama, whom he called a "media witch doctor," has "locked his granny away and refused to allow her to be seen" in order to "pretend he has no white relatives."

Martin has been crawling beneath the rocks for quite some time.

According to no less a source than the Unification Church's impeccably right-wing Washington Times of December 22, 1999:

In 1986, when Mr. Martin ran as a Democrat for Connecticut's 3rd Congressional District seat under the name "Anthony R. Martin-Trigona," his campaign committee filed papers saying its purpose was to "exterminate Jew power in America and impeach U.S. District Court of Appeals judges in New York City."

The Washington Times' reporter, Ralph Z. Hallow, went on to say: "a Connecticut federal judge finally barred him from filing any more federal lawsuits without permission. The judge said Mr. Martin has pursued legal actions with 'persistence, viciousness, and general disregard for decency and logic.'"

Hallow went on:

In a New York bankruptcy case, he referred to a judge as a "crooked, slimy Jew." During the bankruptcy dispute, he filed a civil-rights lawsuit claiming Jewish bankruptcy judges and lawyers were conspiring to steal his property. He asked a court to bar "any Jew from having anything to do with plaintiff's property."

In another motion in the case, he wrote: "I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did, when Jew survivors are operating as a wolf pack to steal my property."

According to Hallow, he "ran for the Republican nomination for governor of Florida against the incumbent, Bob Martinez, in 1990. The Florida Republican Party disavowed him because he previously ran for office as a Democrat and because of his anti-Semitic statements."

This is Sean Hannity's idea of a source.

(Hat tip: Harry's Place)

READ JEWISH CURRENTS!

I just wanted to give a subtle endorsement to Jewish Currents magazine, which, like the Jewish Daily Forward (פֿאָרווערטס), is associated with the Workmen's Circle / Arbeter Ring (אַרבעטער־רינג).

The Workmen's Circle website is here; information on joining is here. A subscription to Jewish Currents comes with membership. Wikipedia's article on the Workmen's Circle is here. The Wikipedia article on the Forward is here.

Republican Pundit Denis Prager: "They’d still be gassing Jews" if liberals had their way.

I recently wrote about Republican radio chatterer and opinion-mongering cottage industry Dennis Prager's advocacy of shooting those who write graffiti. (Read here.) I thought that was pretty absurd -- sort of like Swift's Modest Proposal without the irony. Well, it seems that Prager's on a roll. In a speech to an elite group of Republicans at their national convention, Prager has said that, if liberals had their way, they'd still be killing Jews at Auschwitz.

I wonder if Prager has forgotten that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a decidedly liberal Democratic president, was the Commander in Chief responsible for fighting the Third Reich. In fact, if memory serves, it was largely conservative Republicans who objected to our involvement in that fight and interfered with Roosevelt's assisting Britain and preparing for our own defense. I guess Prager and his Republican audience don't let historical facts get in the way of a good smear.

While none of the Republicans in the audience, including several Republican governors, were willing to speak out on the record against Prager's statement, read below for the reaction of one anonymous Republican unwilling to read from the Republican talking points.


from The Forward: Radio Host: Pacifists Couldn’t Stop Auschwitz

Likening liberals to those who appeased Nazi Germany in the run-up to World War II, conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager told 400 Jewish Republican leaders, “They’d still be gassing Jews” if liberals and peace activists had their way.

“The left does not understand that Auschwitz was not liberated by peace activists,” Prager said during a reception honoring GOP governors at the Republican National Convention. “They’d still be gassing Jews if we listened to peace activists,” he said. “Gandhi said to the Jews, ‘Do not resist Hitler.’ Gandhi did a lot of great work in India. You know why? Because when you advocate peaceful resistance against the British, it works. Peaceful resistance against evil does not work.”

Asked later whether some would perceive his remarks as insensitive, Prager called it “inconceivable” that anybody could be offended.

Told that some people might be sensitive about comparisons involving appeasement and the Holocaust, he said, “That’s fine with me, so what?”

At a September 2 event — which was hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition and attracted a who’s who of Jewish Republicans, several governors, state lawmakers, major donors and Sallai Meridor, Israel’s ambassador to the United States — a Jewish leader called the comparison inappropriate.

“The Holocaust is a unique episode in world history and is an issue that should not be used for contrast and comparison with other political or nonpolitical events,” he said. “I think it lessens the memory of those who were murdered in the Holocaust.”

As I have said before, broad historical analogy is the stuff of propaganda, not analysis. Whether coming from the left or the right, using analogies to the Holocaust to score cheap political points is outrageously insensitive to the human suffering behind the history. This is true of anyone who inappropriately throws around the terms "Nazi" and "Holocaust". It was true of George Bush in his bizarre "appeasement" speech before the Israeli Knesset; it's true of Rush Limbaugh with his corny "feminazi" shtick; and it's true of those on the far left and far right who equate Israel with the Third Reich. (The latter is, to my mind, the ultimate in "blame the victim" role reversal, motivated by a psychology of denial similar to that which cast American Indians and black people as villains in U.S. movies and dime novels. It represents the mass-denial of collective guilt by a racist majority.)

The misuse of history to demonize any group is wrong. To debase Holocaust history in this manner to win a presidential election is inexcusable. About this, Prager and his Republican friends have simply lost all perspective.

Republican Dennis Prager advocates shooting graffiti "taggers"

Start with an untenable, extreme position; defend it in spite of its obvious flaws; then posit it as representative of a basic distinction between left and right. That's exactly how Republican radio chatterer, columnist and opinion-mongering cottage industry Dennis Prager ends up writing what must be one of the most howlingly funny examples of unintentional self-parody in recent memory.

from Townhall.com: Dennis Prager "On Shooting Taggers: Why Conservatives and Liberals Differ"

Earlier this month Andrew Sullivan, a well-known writer, once in the center, now on the left, nominated me for what is apparently his lowest badge of distinction for defending citizens who shoot to wound graffiti vandals, or "taggers," while committing their vandalism.

Under the heading, "Malkin Award Nominee," Sullivan provides a quote from my radio show:

"'So you will now say -- I hear the voice of an ACLU member -- 'Dennis, do you think that this guy should have shot these people spray painting graffiti on his shop?' To which my answer is yes. I do. Not to kill. Not to kill. But if he shot them in the legs or in the arms I would have considered the man one of the great advancers of civilization in my time. And that is what divides left from right. Because anybody on the left hearing this would think that this is barbaric whereas I consider not stopping these people in any way that is necessary to be barbaric.' -- Dennis Prager, on his radio show."

Mr. Sullivan provides no commentary because, as I predicted in the excerpt he cites, what I said is so obviously morally offensive to him, no commentary is necessary. It is self-indicting.

To those on the left.

Their differing reactions to graffiti vandals further clarify the philosophical differences between liberals and conservatives.

-cut-

(C)onservatives tend to view higher civilization as more fragile than the left views it. Conservatives believe the line between civilization and barbarism is under constant assault and is not necessarily enduring. That is one reason the right tends to have a higher regard for the police than does the left. Conservatives see the police as "the thin blue line" that separates civilization from barbarians.

So, it is natural that conservatives would see graffiti as vandalism, as an undermining of the very notion of higher civilization, as a public scorning of the common good, as essentially an "F---- you" to society.

Liberals are far more inclined to see graffiti as a mere nuisance, or even as an example of the downtrodden trying to have a voice in a civilization that oppresses young people who are usually members of historically oppressed minorities.

To the conservative, graffiti is an assault on civilization; to the liberal, graffiti is the result of civilization's assault on those who paint the graffiti.

-cut-

My first wish is that taggers be arrested and punished. I also wish for world peace and a cure for cancer. But the real-life choice is almost always between taggers getting away with their vandalism and an irate citizen taking action. Given the destructive nature of tagging -- the moment one sees graffiti, one knows one has entered a largely lawless and violent environment where thugs terrorize innocents -- I prefer something, even if violent, rather than nothing be done.

I have no desire to see a graffiti vandal killed -- my position has always been that only those who cause death deserve death (that is why I oppose the death penalty for any crime except murder). But if enough taggers are wounded, their assault on civilization will decline dramatically. And if one accidentally dies? That would be a tragedy. But here is the bottom line: More innocent people will die if tagging is not stopped than if it is. Graffiti unchecked leads to worse crime.

Those who deface private and public property are not otherwise decent kids who are oppressed and not allowed any other form of self-expression. My sense is that the vast majority of graffiti vandals are headed toward, if not already involved in, a life of sociopathology, including violence.

Indeed, increasingly those graffiti vandals do engage in violence. Citizens who so much as flash their headlights or yell at them to stop have been shot and sometimes murdered.

As in so many other areas, with regard to taggers, right and left see life through opposing moral prisms. On the left, the tagger is viewed as society's victim; on the right, society is viewed as the tagger's victim.

If graffiti can reasonably be countered with small arms fire, what would be appropriate for misuse of eggs, toilet paper and shaving cream on mischief night? Bow and arrow? Machette? (Note for non-U.S. readers: that's a reference to the night prior to Haloween, when young troublemakers traditionally make a mess.)

Based on Prager's use of the phrase "(m)y sense is..." directly preceding his assertion that taggers are violent, his conclusions are better described as "truthy" than true. Readers of this blog or Prager's prattlings should feel free to request from Prager evidence to the contrary. His email address is DennisPrager@DennisPrager.com.

(By the way, did anyone else notice that Prager gratuitously uses the "F" word in his piece, albeit without its other letters -- this in a piece that supposedly defends tradional values of public behavior? WTF?)

Hate radio some Republicans love

You most likely have never heard of a radio program called "The Political Cesspool" or its host James Edwards. Edwards describes himself as a "white separatist" and unabashed racist (read here and here). His program works with and promotes one of the country's largest racist organizations, the "Council of Conservative Citizens". That's what they renamed the "White Citizens Council" after too many church bombings and police beatings of women and children gave segregation a bad name. (Read here and here and here.) But Edwards is a throwback to simpler times. He promotes bigotry against African-Americans and Jews without subtlety or apology. When writing about someone who's Jewish, Edwards tends to use the Goebbels locutions "the Jew so-and-so" or just "Jew so-and-so" (read here). If the target of his hate speech is gay, he'll say "that homosexual so-and-so" (read here). When he provides a forum for David Duke, he doesn't say "neo-Nazi Klan leader David Duke". For him, it's "author and former Louisiana state representative", "a Christian man above reproach" and his "favorite radio patriot".

Besides David Duke, Edwards also promotes the views of people such as Nick Griffin of the British National Party, Professor David Ray Griffin of the "9/11 truth" movement and Professor Walter Block of Jews for Ron Paul (don't ask). (Here's the complete rogues gallery: a list of guests on The Political Cesspool.) While listening to these "esteemed guests", you may hear ads for the Holcaust denial outfit "Institute for Historical Review" which sponsors Edwards' broadcasts (read here).

Edwards also provides a forum for Republican authors like respected television pundit and Nazi apologist author Patrick J. Buchanan (on whose 2000 presidential campaign Edwards worked). Now he's promoting anti-Obama swiftboat smear monger Jerome Corsi. In case you can't pick up Edwards' broadcast where you live and would have missed the Jerome Corsi interview, the neo-Nazi website Stormfront kindly presented the show live via internet stream (read here). Republican bigwig Mary Matalin, who publishes and promotes Corsi's abominable book about Obama (read here), has not revealed whether she listened to the interview on the radio or the neo-Nazi webstream.

Matalin might be interested to see what else is being promoted alongside her star author. Edwards recently posted on his blog a bizarre musical video tribute to Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel (viewable here, but don't bother). Now he's promoting a speech by David Irving, who has been conducting a speaking tour of sorts around the U.S. Edwards calls his promo "Your chance to hear a real Holocaust survivor":

from JAMES EDWARDS:

If you’re anywhere near Alabama, and you want the chance to meet a real hero, mark August 26th on your calendar. That’s the day David Irving, a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust against free speech, will be speaking at the Prattville Holiday Inn. There will be a dinner, followed by a lecture by Mr. Irving. The cost is $20 at the door, but it’s only $16 if you pre-register online here [link deleted] . He’ll be speaking in other places on different dates, so by all means check his schedule at that link and see if he’ll be near you.

Boston Globe reporter's emails reveal anti-Israel bias

Hillel Stavis of Solomonia has uncovered an email exchange revealing a shocking lack of objectivity in Boston Globe reporter Victoria Cheng's coverage of the so-called "Cambridge Peace Commision". It seems that Cheng, a city desk reporter who may be a bit out of her depth in covering the complexities of international affairs, had some trouble maintaining a healthy skepticism with respect to the conclusions of a "fact-finding mission" to Bethlehem concerning Israel's security barrier conducted by the commision and some supportive Cambridge residents.

At her editor's instructions, in order to maintian the appearance of objectivity, Cheng buried in her unquestioning transmission of a report on the evils of Israel's security barrior, a very mild defense of the barrier by Nancy Kaufman of the Jewish Community Relations Council. A delegate to the Cambridge Peace Commision wrote Cheng in response that "Nancy Kaufman recycles the myth that the wall that pens Bethlehem's population is for Israel’s security…" A Commisioner wrote to Cheng complaining that the defense of Israel's policy "struck a discordant note" in an otherwise good report.

Here from Solomonia, is what Cheng emailed in response:

Reporter Cheng, far from having her hackles raised by partisan letter writers telling her how to do her job, was remarkably compliant and in obvious sympathy with her critics. Including Nancy Kaufman's rather tepid defense of the security barrier as a defense against terror attacks was not Ms. Cheng's idea, she wrote. You see, it was her editor's fault. Had she had her way, no dissenting views would have been presented in her column. Here is an excerpt from Ms. Cheng's email dated December 23rd, 2007:

After I submitted my version on Tuesday, my editor got back to me and said that his 'defensive driving' antenna was signaling that we might want to include a quote from somebody who was in favor of the wall. I added this quote in response to his request…In an effort to present a view that might contrast with the quote from the Jewish Community Relations Council, I added Cathy's [Cathy Hoffman, Director of the Cambridge Peace Commission] statement about humanized exchanges with Palestinians.

Ms. Cheng concludes by writing,

…I am sincerely sorry that I couldn't do justice to your trip and I thank you for the understanding you have expressed thus far...please also accept my apologies.

Victoria

In a separate email, the Globe reporter further ingratiated herself to the political pilgrims:

I did indeed speak to Nancy Kaufman and the quote is from our conversation. I understood the problems with what she said at the time [emphasis added] and want to assure you that I would have included more nuanced contextualization of her quote if not for the extremely tight word count.

In closing, Ms. Cheng writes:

I would prefer if you do not mention what I told you about how editing for this article unfolded in the specific detail I revealed to you...I would rather you present it as my simply having told you that I added the quote from the Jewish Community Relations Council in response to a request from him [her editor].

I hope this does not make your task more difficult and I wish you the best of luck. Let me know if I can help out in any way.

Warm wishes,
Victoria.

Read the whole story, including links to background concerning the Cambridge Peace Commision's anti-Israel activism under the aegis of the municipal government, here: Solomonia: Emails Reveal: Boston Globe Reporter Sucks Up to the Cambridge Peace Commission.

Antisemitism in British Culture

The Jerusalem Center on Public Affairs has published a must-read interview with Robert Solomon Wistrich. Wistrich is a professor of history at Hebrew University, director of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism and editor of the journal Antisemitism International.

At the request of the Jerusalem Center, bloggers can only repost the introductory bullet points, not the interview itself. Please take the time to click the link to their website (here) and read the interview in its entirety. Its well worth the click.

from the Jerusalem Center on Public Affairs: Robert Solomon Wistrich >>> "Antisemitism Embedded in British Culture"

• Antisemitism has been present in Great Britain for almost a thousand years of recorded history. In the twelfth century, Catholic medieval Britain was a persecutory society, particularly when it came to Jews. It pioneered the blood libel and the church was a leader in instituting cruel legislation and discriminatory conduct toward Jews.
• English literature and culture are drenched in antisemitic stereotypes. Major British authors throughout the centuries transmitted culturally embedded antisemitism to future generations. Although they did not do so deliberately, it was absorbed and has had a long-term, major impact on British society.
• In the new century the United Kingdom is a European leader in several areas of antisemitism. It holds a pioneering position in promoting academic boycotts of Israel. The same is true for trade-union efforts at economic boycotts. There is also no other Western society where jihadi radicalism has proved as violent and dangerous as in the UK.
• In the UK the anti-Zionist narrative probably has greater legitimacy than in any other Western society. Antisemitism of the "anti-Zionist" variety has achieved such resonance, particularly in elite opinion, that various British media are leaders in this field. Successive British governments neither share nor have encouraged such attitudes-least of all Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They have shown concern over antisemitism and the boycott movement and tried to counteract them. However, Trotskyites who infiltrated the Labour Party and the trade unions in the 1980s have been an important factor in spreading poisonous attitudes. The BBC has also played a role in stimulating pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli attitudes over the years.

(hat tip: Solomonia.com)