Wall Street Journal: The Antiwar Anti-Semites: Peace protest organizers tolerate no dissent
Excerpt: My sin was publicly criticizing the way that A.N.S.W.E.R., one of the four groups sponsoring the San Francisco demonstration, has used the antiwar demonstrations to put forward anti-Israel propaganda. An A.N.S.W.E.R. spokesperson, speaking on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC, said that they didn’t want a “pro-Israel” speaker at their rally….
The other groups have said that while they disagree with A.N.S.W.E.R., they will honor an agreement giving each group an effective veto on speakers. Yet it is inconceivable that these antiwar coalitions would let A.N.S.W.E.R. ban a speaker if he accused that group of racism, sexism or homophobia. Why should anti-Semitism be treated differently, as the acceptable -ism?…
That’s why we recently created a new national organization supporting a “progressive middle path” that is both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian. We call for an end to the occupation, the creation of a Palestinian state and reparations for Palestinian refugees. But we also call for reparations for Jews who fled Arab states, and for Israel’s admission into NATO–or some other equally powerful military alliance–to give the Jewish state genuine security.
Jim Sinkinson
WSJ Op-Ed: Michael Lerner finally gets the ANSWER
Those of us deeply troubled by anti-Semitism on the left
(usually cloaked thinly behind anti-Zionism) will take some bitter
satisfaction in Rabbi Michael Lerner’s comeuppance at the hands of ANSWER, one of the sponsors of recent anti-war rallies, including one this Sunday in San Francisco. Given the agenda of ANSWER, which Lerner certainly knows, it’s hard to fathom his surprise. I urge you to review ANSWER’s endorsers at http://www.internationalanswer.org/endorsers.html (some of the biggest names on the left plus steering committee member, the Free Palestine Alliance), as well as ANSWER’s posture on Israel at
http://www.internationalanswer.org/news/update/071802commission.html .) The people at ANSWER, like most Palestinians, simply do not support a state of Israel—and Lerner knows this well. Peace in the Middle East to these people means the Arabs take it over completely—which many of us have been trying to expose for some time. Is it only now that Lerner understands this to be anti-Semitism? We sympathize with you, Michael, but we told you so.
And that’s all on this thread for me, for now.
