Louis Farrakhan blamed the Jews for President Obama's woes, and even Abe Foxman shrugs it off:

"It's the same Farrakhan: ugly and anti-Semitic," Foxman said. "With age he doesn't get milder, he gets uglier."

It seems the only people who really pay any mind to Farrakhan these days are his followers and the Jewish media that relies on this ugly rhetoric for news (perfect example: this post).  But it's interesting to wonder, after over 30 years, if Farrakhan's hateful words are even relevant anymore.

For those of you keeping track at home, the Jimmy Carter Apology Express has NOT been met at the station by the always apoplectic ZOA (Zionist Organization of America). Jimmy Carter (former U.S. President, peanut enthusiast, and erotica writer), in an oddly-timed pre-Christmas apology to American Jews, offered his belated Al-Het for "stigmatizing Israel" over the years.

The gesture was met with both reluctant acceptance by Jewish organizations needing to appear magnanimous (see: Foxman, Abraham) and consternation by various Jewish figures who still dislike Jimmy and/or saw the timing of Carter's apology a little too closely linked to grandson Jason Carter's run for the Georgia State Senate.

The ZOA falls into the latter camp, issuing their rejection some two-and-a-half weeks after the Carter apology was announced. The ZOA was firm in the assessment of Carter's apology, deciding to actually reject it twice. In the second pronouncement, the ZOA references a characteristically harsh op-ed written by Carter in the Guardian literally hours before his apology to American Jews washed ashore in the New World. The ZOA statement called upon the ADL, NJDC, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center (named for a historic lover of apologies) to retract their ambivalent approvals of Carter's apology some fifteen days after they were originally issued.

I'm sure I will eventually have to apologize for asking this, but...how does any of this political pussyfooting help the people actually suffering because of the obstinacy surrounding this conflict?

Yoav Shamir's 2009 documentary Defamation is the one must-see film at this years’ San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. This is not to say that it is the most artistically successful of the current festival lineup. Nor is the reason behind this endorsement Defamation's fast-growing reputation, alongside Simone Bitton’s controversial documentary about the late Rachel Corrie, the logically-titled Rachel. Defamation's notoriety stems from the fact that the documentary takes as its subject matter Jewish preoccupation with anti-Semitism. Defamation is contentious, malicious even, to some, because it's director refuses to accept at face value the belief that Jews are always victims of racism, and sets out to find out who makes such claims today, and why.

The question of anti-Semitism, Shamir notes, has always seemed rather remote, almost irrelevant, personally. As an Israeli, he has never experienced anti-Semitism first hand. In interviews, the filmmaker points at comments made by an American Jewish critic who, in response to Shamir’s first documentary Checkpoint (2003), accused him of being both anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic, citing these attacks as the impetus for Defamation. However, in the film itself, the motivating factor seems to be Shamir’s bafflement by the preoccupation of the Israeli press and politicians alike with anti-Semitism, an obsession that Shamir readily links, rightly or wrongly, with the obsession of American Jews with the subject. Shamir goes on a "personal" road trip to figure it all out. The emphasis here is on the personal, because Shamir explores his own attitude towards it, as much as he focuses on other persons' engagement with the prejudice.

 

The outcome of Shamir's investigation is complex, defying any easy ideological categorizations. Indeed, the director, who is responsible for the cinematography and has also provided the English narration (albeit with a clearly Israeli accent), does not conceal his political convictions. Shamir does not hesitate to comment directly on what his subjects say, and does so not only in the form of asides to the audience, but as direct challenges to their views and opinions. Shamir repeatedly gives up any pretense towards objectivity, and becomes an active participant in the debate created by his seemingly naïve questions. At the same time, Shamir avoids a summary judgment of his interviewees—a common pitfall of political filmmaking—a judgment that would have alienated his audience. On the contrary, he ultimately seems empathetic to those he interviews, irrespective of their opinions.

Shamir’s journey is, in fact, several separate journeys. The film begins with a visit to the editorial staff of Yediot Ahronot, Israel’s biggest daily. There, Noah Klieger, the journalist in charge of covering global anti-Semitism, and a Holocaust survivor himself, assures the director that every country—including western liberal democracies such as the US, Germany, France, the UK—is anti-Semitic to the core. Later in the movie, Shamir finds out from one of Klieger’s apprentices that whereas a rise in anti-Semitism is considered newsworthy, this is not the case for a decline; hence the paper throws into relief news items that would reinforce one’s impression that the former is the case, and suppresses items that would contravene it. Be that as it may, Shamir finds out that in its coverage of anti-Semitism, the paper relies not on its own reporters, but on data provided by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

Next, Shamir travels to the New York offices of the ADL, where Abe Foxman has granted him unprecedented access to its operation, and even allowed him to join himself and members of the League in a tour of Europe and Israel. Shamir looks for an anti-Semitic incident that he could follow and explore in full as a centerpiece for his film. Notwithstanding the officers’ alarm in the face of what they portray as a significant increase in anti-Jewish incidents, they are unable to provide Shamir with a single incident to explore. Because, as the Israeli director quickly finds out, the vast majority of incidents registered come down to overhearing racial slurs, or complaints about being denied days off on Jewish holidays.

Finally, Shamir discovers a noteworthy incident, in which African-Americans have stoned a Jewish school bus. A local Jewish journalist assures him that Jews in the neighborhood do suffer from the anti-Semitism of their African-American neighbors. A street interview with three African-American residents who readily quote the Protocols of the Elders of Zion appears to confirm this. But to Shamir’s great surprise, he also encounters Rabi Hecht, one of Abe Foxman’s critics. Hecht warns of viewing every incident in which Jews and African-Americans are involved as racially motivated and moves to harshly denounce the work of the ADL as counter-productive. One shouldn’t trust, he says, someone who makes a living out of anti-Semitism to provide an impartial account of the phenomenon.

Indeed, as though in agreement with Hecht, Shamir becomes ill at ease when members of Foxman’s coterie tell him that they became active in the organization  as a way to consolidate their own Jewish identity. The director finds even more troubling their affirmation that they look at Israel as their insurance policy, in case Jews become unwelcome in the US. Are they acting in Israel’s best interests, Shamir asks, or in their own? Yet, as he follows Abe Foxman in his meetings with politicians and heads of states around the world, it becomes clear that notwithstanding their difference of opinions, Yoav Shamir cannot stop himself from believing in Foxman’s sincerity, and admiring his inexhaustible energy in pursuing what he believes to be best for world Jewry.

Shamir's Foxman seems quite sympathetic in comparison with the filmmaker's troubled  portrait of one of Foxman's nemeses, Norman Finkelstein. Shamir travels to Minnesota and interviews him both prior to and following his dismissal from DePaul University. One would have assumed that Finkelstein’s claims that the State of Israel and its American stand ins, such as the ADL, make cynical use of the Holocaust to justify their immoral politics vis-à-vis Palestinians would meet with approval. Yet, notwithstanding the merits of Finkelstein’s claims (Shamir does not assess their merit) he emerges as a troubled figure, obsessed and haunted in ways upon which, at least in the film, he refuses to acknowledge. As Finkelstein takes leave of Shamir, he states "Heil Hitler." The director is baffled. Wouldn’t such a provocation undermine Finkelstein’s credibility? Finkelstein insists it is his absolute right to do so, particularly given the immorality of those he criticizes.

Yet, the most troubling journey Shamir takes in this film is not to the US, but to Auschwitz, with a group of Israeli high school students. 30,000 students take this trip each yearm. Shamir follows their preparations for the trip, and their tours of the camp. Two things become manifest through Shamir’s interviews with the students, and as his camera captures their interaction with their teachers and guides. First, the trip is not designed to yield a historical understanding of the Holocaust but, rather, to elicit an emotional reaction that would reinforce the students’ identification with the State of Israel. Such an emotional reaction is deemed the basis for their realizing that Israel is the only place where a Jew can live free of the fear of persecution. Second, in order to elicit such a reaction, the students are repeatedly forewarned that the local Poles are still anti-Semites. They are thus forbidden to interact with the locals, irrespective of circumstances.

The fear instilled in the young students reaches its climax in a very brief, yet disturbing scene. Three elderly Polish men address two Israeli female students. Whereas the students speak Hebrew and some English, the men only speak Polish. They proceed to ask the students where are they from, and whether they are indeed Israelis. Not understanding Polish, the two students infer that the men are speaking ill of Israel, and say that the two are bitches. The girls quickly step away. Later, they repeatedly recount the story of their encounter with this example of local anti-Semitism.

The reaction of the students, Shamir suggests, is not simply the product of adolescent silliness. Notwithstanding the best intentions of their trip's organizers and the worthiness of their educational purposes, the incident is a welcome one. Logically, none of the accompanying adults bothers to dispel the students’ misperceptions. What, then, is the outcome of our obsession with the Holocaust, Shamir ultimately asks. Even if we do not accept Uri Avnery’s assertion in Defamation that anti-Semitism does not exist, this does not exempt us from questioning how it effects  our view of the world, and, most importantly, the way we raise our children. For this reason, we should endeavor to emulate Yoav Shamir's example, by asking these very same questions.

 

Dear Abe,

You've been at the forefront of American Jewish criticism of President Obama's renewed push for Israeli-Arab peace.   After a recent meeting with the President along with 15 other Jewish leaders, you confessed that you continue "to feel uncomfortable with the assumptions that underlie President Obama's approach" to Israel and the Middle East. 

You've charged that President Obama's outreach to the Muslim world is being conducted "at Israel's expense."   For Obama, you say, "there is a need for the US to demonstrate that it can be tough with Israel to win back credibility with Muslims. We are seeing it already on the settlement issue..." 

But being tough on Netanyahu about settlements is not at "Israel's expense."  It is a blessing to Israel, given the grave threat which many Israeli military and political leaders have said the settlements pose to Israel's security, to the very possibility of a two-state solution to its conflict with the Palestinians, and to Israel's ability to remain a democratic Jewish state.   For the last eight years, we've had a president who recklessly squandered American prestige.   He had no credibility to broker an Israeli-Arab accommodation.   He made little more than token efforts to do so, when not trumpeting his outright opposition to negotiations with Syria, despite the unanimous advice of Israel's intelligence and military brass, and its political leadership.  An American president who has regained the confidence of the Arab and Muslim worlds is quite simply a strategic asset to Israel.   American pressure over settlements is an investment in Israel's future, a gift to the Zionist project.   

Nor does pressure need to be applied simultaneously and in equal doses to satisfy some artificial notion of even-handedness.   As Larry Derfner points out in the Jerusalem Post, "The Palestinian Authority has been cracking down on Hamas for a long while, it kept the West Bank miraculously quiet during Operation Cast Lead, it's enforcing the law in city after city... If the PA wasn't giving us peace and we were giving it land - we'd be right to demand that Obama put all the pressure on the Palestinians and none on us.  But the fact is that Abbas and the PA are giving us about as much peace as they're capable of, while we aren't planning on giving them an inch; instead, we're thinking only about how much more conquered land Obama will let us build on."

You've said that President Obama's "notion that we have to pressure Israel to show our bona fides to the Arabs is to buy into their distorted version of history."   You've accused the president of ignoring the history of Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts.   But such criticisms stand reality on its head.   Obama understands all too well why past peace efforts have failed.  His new way is designed to overcome the errors and missteps of the past.  By adopting a regional approach, he is more likely to gain wide Arab backing for historic Palestinian compromises on Jerusalem and refugees, issues which resonate throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds.   By enlisting the help of Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, he stands a better chance of bringing about a unified Fatah-Hamas Palestinian government that will hew to the international and Arab consensus:  a government that will have both the will and the wherewithal to honor its commitments under a peace accord with Israel. 

Obama recognizes that the US cannot help forge peace between Israelis and Palestinians while allowing Syria and Iran to continue to stoke Hezbollah and Hamas extremism. While Bush added fuel to the fires of Arab and Muslim radicalism, Obama is cutting off their oxygen supply, sapping Hezbollah's political power and reinforcing the impetus towards pragmatism in Hamas.  Obama is finally ending the practice, perfected under Bush, of saying one thing--whether about settlements or the president's commitment to help negotiate an accord--and then doing something else. 

You hold up President Bush's "enunciation of the need for a Palestinian state, the road map, Israel's disengagement from Gaza in 2005, and the Annapolis process in 2007" as having "provided opportunities for progress toward peace if the Palestinians were truly interested."  You highlight what "Israel has done in recent years to advance peace:  Israel's offer of a Palestinian state at Camp David in 2000, its unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, also in 2000, and its disengagement from Gaza were all steps upon which there could have been building toward peace."  Instead, you conclude, "the Palestinians responded with rejection, suicide bombs and kidnappings, extremist politics and rockets."

But this Manichean narrative of righteous Israelis and evil Palestinians - the stock-in-trade of right-wing hasbarah - is a cartoon version of what went wrong, ignoring true causes and effects.  Annapolis did not fail because the Palestinians refused to accept another "generous Israeli offer," but because President Bush did nothing to help the parties bridge the gaps, failing to apply diplomatic tools to encourage their agreement to a US-proposed compromise, as President Carter successfully did with Egypt and Israel.   Similarly, Bush did nothing to hold either party accountable for their commitments under the Road Map, even after promising to "ride herd" on both as he left the company of Sharon and Abbas at Aqaba. 

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As Gawker reported yesterday, the Anti-Defamation League has been engaged in a bizarre online campaign to supposedly curb antisemitism by launching e-mail blasts with the subject line, "Jews Have Ruined Our Country." The e-mails go on to list quotes pulled from various Internet message boards that fault "The Jews" for the world's current economic debacle, straight from the world's most-respected pundits, people who post racist tirades on anonymous Internet message boards. There are numerous problems with this scenario, not the least of which is obviously the misguidedness of the ADL's weird deployment of reverse-psychology racism as a means to generate awareness of its cause. What is important to note, however, is that although they are apparently very bad at presenting it, the ADL is spot on in its assertion that a wave of antisemitism is right around the corner.

Antisemitism will never go away. For reasons that have been discussed endlessly over the past 5,000 years, people hate Jews. Additionally, people also hate having nothing to do, and hating Jews and having nothing to do often go hand-in-hand (idle hands really are the devil's plaything). With the economic recession putting record numbers of people out of work and hanging around all day without anything to occupy their stupid minds, a new generation of anti-Jewish fervor is hardly out of the question. The ADL is merely co-opting another recent phenomenon, the pre-emptive strike, in anticipation of the gestating hatred.

Professional genocide denier Abraham Foxman weighs in on John McCain's embrace of a white Louis Farrakhan, the anti-gay, anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim evangelist for nuclear war John Hagee:

Hagee’s endorsement “is not a Jewish issue,” Foxman told the Forward. “Are we troubled by Hagee’s support of McCain and McCain’s acceptance? The answer is no, and that’s where it ends for us.”

The difference “between Farrakhan and Hagee is self-evident,” Foxman said. “So to compare the two and to say: ‘Well, if you ask Obama to distance from Farrakhan — well, Farrakhan is a black racist, an antisemite, anti-Israel, consorts with America’s enemies. Hagee is a supporter of Israel, an advocate of Israel, opposed to antisemitism, and there are issues on which members of the Jewish community and some organizations disagree with, and so from time to time they or we have indicated our disagreement, but it’s not of the same nature or category or being.”

So Foxman's recent losing confrontations with reality haven't humbled him at all.Abe Foxman: "Why should I worry about religious defamation?" Hagee is a supporter of Israel only in the sense that he supports the launch of an aggressive Israeli war, which he devoutly hopes and believes will result in the destruction of Israel beneath a mushroom cloud; he further hopes that, among the contretemps of Israel's extirpation will be your death, and mine, and that of virtually everyone else in America. Such "support" for Israel is rather easy to combine with virulent antisemitism, so it is no surprise that Hagee endorses one of the great historical tropes of antisemitism, namely, that Jews have brought persecution upon themselves by refusing to worship Jesus.

But never mind the facts, and suppose for the sake of argument that Hagee really is a pro-Israel philosemite. Hagee's bigotry is "not a Jewish issue...and that's where it ends" for Foxman. Good to know that the president of the Anti-Defamation League is an overpaid chauvinist who actually couldn't care less about religious or racial defamation. Which raises an important question: Did Foxman flack for the Turkish government's efforts to deny the Ottoman genocide of Armenians out of some warped political calculus, or because he thinks the Turkish position is right on the merits? Or is there no difference between the two positions for Foxman?

Louis Sigel, the rabbi emeritus of my synagogue, died in 2005. The New York Times profile of Rabbi Sigel noted his role in motivating Teaneck, NJ to be the first town to integrate its schools voluntarily:

A law professor who was a member of Temple Emeth stood and asked why the whole community had to be "disturbed" by a problem that he said black residents had created themselves by moving into one end of town.

"The temple's rabbi, Louis J. Sigel, rose," Mr. Damerell wrote. "His rich voice carried throughout the auditorium" as he narrated a story from the Talmud about a man who sees a fire in another part of town and asks, "What have I to do with the needs of the community?"

"Sigel's voice rose in emphasis, 'Such a man destroys the world!'" Mr. Damerell wrote. "Applause exploded through the auditorium."

Fortunately, all Foxman has managed to destroy so far is the ADL's credibility.

Pope Benedict XVI recently decided to reformulate the Catholic Church's traditional Good Friday prayers, which apparently have repeated references to the “darkness” and “blindness” of Jews. According to the Jerusalem Post:

Pope Benedict XVI: pissin off the Yids

The Latin prayers for Good Friday ask Catholics to "pray also for the Jews that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge Our Lord Jesus Christ," and ask God not to "refuse your mercy even to the Jews; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness."

The move upset Jewish leaders, and prompted the Chief Rabbinate [of the UK] to write to the pope expressing their concern.

Abraham H. Foxman, US director of the Anti-Defamation League, said then he was "extremely disappointed and deeply offended" by the reintroduction of "insulting anti-Jewish language" that would "now permit Catholics to utter such hurtful and insulting words."

Jewcy isn’t exactly Foxman’s biggest fan, but he’s making a reasonable degree of sense here.

The Pope recently released the revised version of the prayer, but Jewish leaders still weren’t pleased.
Reuters:

Cardinal Walter Kasper spoke in an interview in a leading Italian newspaper a day after world Jewish leaders said the new prayer could set back inter-religious dialogue by decades.

"I must say that I don't understand why Jews cannot accept that we can make use of our freedom to formulate our prayers," Kasper, a German, told the Corriere della Sera.

Jews criticized the new version because it still says they should recognize Jesus Christ as the savior of all men. It asks that "all Israel may be saved" and keeps an underlying call to conversion that Jewish leaders had wanted omitted.

"We think that reasonably this prayer cannot be an obstacle to dialogue because it reflects the faith of the Church and, furthermore, Jews have prayers in their liturgical texts that we Catholics don't like," Kasper said.

I’m not a big fan of this particular prayer, but I do think Kasper has a point. We have fundamentally different religions. Our prayers should be free to recognize that.

We polled Jewcy writers and other assorted machers for their opinions about the lowest lows and highest highs of Jewish 2007. What follows is a highly subjective and occasionally downright narcissistic look at the past year. Being optimists (no really, we totally think the glass is half-full, and even if it IS half-empty, we’re going to fill it, goddamn it) we started with the bad news to make the good news seem even better:

1.) Abe Foxman refuses to acknowledge Armenian genocide was a genocide, and then changes his mind—sorta.—Richard Silverstein

2.) Dan Pipes and Norman Podhoretz named Middle East advisors to Giuliani campaign.—Richard Silverstein

3.) The Jewish people were issued a collective fashion demerit when those flattering-to-nobody Crocs were named the new Jew Shoe—Amy Guth

4.) The terrible fate of Carol Anne Gotbaum in the Phoenix Airport is frightening for every community, American, Jewish, human, and so on. Gotbaum's story is one known, high profile example of the awful, destructive, inhumane conditions far, far too many suffer in custody in these times throughout our country and throughout the world.—Ed Schwarzchild

5.) Michael Mukasey, an Orthodox Jew and product of Ramaz who refuses to condemn waterboarding as, hello, the product of the Spanish Inquisition that it is, but whose nomination as Attorney General sails thru thanks to ranks-breaking Democratic Jews Dianne ("hey, he's better than Gonzales!") Feinstein and Chuck ("but if we reject Mukasey, the big meanie president and VP will give us somebody scarier!") Schumer.—Marjorie Ingall

6.) Jewish organizations hesitating to come out against torture—Marjorie Ingall

7.) Grace Paley, RIP. On the bright side, she has a posthumous book of poetry coming out this spring.—Elisa Albert

8.) Two words: JOSEPH. LIEBERMAN.—Elisa Albert

9.) Michael Chabon. It's a noir! It's in Alaska! It's Yiddish! It's a gimmicky slog with all the soul of a whale blubber sandwich!—Pat Sauer

10.) My dad, a well-respected rabbi, stalking the Santa Claus at the mall. (He’s fascinated with this mysterious Christian custom.)—Maya Wainhaus

11.) Staying with my (usually very hygienic) religious relatives in Israel the week before Tisha B'Av. They don't bathe or wear clean clothes in the 10 days before the holiday as a sign of mourning, despite the 95 degree heat.—Maya Wainhaus

12.) After Rachel Donadio's fluff piece about the Jewish Book Council in The New York Times, a handful of writers were interested in writing an investigative piece about the organization for Jewcy, but one by one they backed out, each citing serious "fear" of the JBC.—Anonymous writer

13.) Michael Weiss giving in to the glittery lure of Pajamas Media, where the neoconitis is never in remission.—The Jewcy Staff

14.) A couple of entries who would make my Best and Worst list: Noah Feldman and Shalom Auslander, The Bad Boys whose public criticism of various aspects of Orthodox life was embarrassing, annoying, mean-spirited and worth pondering (at least privately).—Gary Rosenblatt

15.) Harvey Weinstein married Georgina Chapman. I'm not sure if that falls under awesome or disaster.—Amy Odell

SEE ALSO: The Most Awesome Events of Jewish 2007

Disagree? Leave your own opinions about the worst things to happen to the Jewish community in the comments section. (Bonus! First person to say "Joey Kurtzman" gets a free Jewcy thong!)

Can't say I'm surprised, really:

President George W Bush has urged US legislators not to pass a resolution declaring the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire to be genocide.

"This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings," he said hours before a vote by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

What might the right response be, then? Perhaps the House Foreign Affairs Committee could call for Turkish reparations to be paid to the families of those who died in the "historic mass killings."

The vote on the resolution, which Jewcy has been supporting together with our Armenian comrades at No Place for Denial, takes place today at 1:30. Here's the website at which you can watch the proceedings live.

Meanwhile, Turkey has been strong-arming the easily wilted Nancy Pelosi.

And Foxman's latest weasel words: "We are opposed in the sense that we do not believe this is the place it should be resolved. We may change our minds we may not."

* Check our always up-to-date list of Jewcy's posts on the ADL/Armenian Genocide issue

Special thanks to Evin Watson for filming the event for Jewcy.

To read more about what we were doing two weeks ago, and why:

* Check our always up-to-date list of Jewcy's posts on the ADL/Armenian Genocide issue

Thank you to Paul for bringing this to my attention in the comments section. Please watch this video if you have any doubts about the ADL's miserable policy on the Armenian Genocide. Watch it even if you don't.

Gershom Gorenberg has an excellent piece in the American Prospect distilling the main points of the ADL-Armenian Genocide fiasco. One of my arguments all along has been that a failure to acknowledge a historical atrocity is also an implicit acquiescence before future atrocities. Indeed, the current Darfur refugee crisis -- and Israel's recent expulsion of 50 Darfuris last month -- becomes a grievous complement to the events of not only 1915, but of 1939:

Olmert, who has an uncanny ability to miss opportunities for leadership, blew this chance as well. In July, he announced that he'd agreed with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that any refugee caught crossing the border would be sent back. That prompted 63 Knesset members, more than half the parliament, to sign a petition against deporting Sudanese refugees, citing "the Jewish people's history as well as the values of democracy and humanity." Nonetheless, authorities sent back a bus of over 50 Africans in late August, most reportedly from Darfur. One official argument is that Al-Qaeda activists could be among the refugees. Lurking behind that is fear -- expressed quietly even by some who oppose deportations -- that large numbers of refugees could change Israel's ethnic character.

Under pressure, the government has announced it will let 500 Darfur refugees stay. Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit -- a rival of Olmert from within his own Kadimah party -- says he'll grant the 500 citizenship. The other Sudanese are to be sent back to Egypt.

As a country of 7 million, it's true, Israel can't solve the Darfur refugee crisis. Then again, the Israeli population is now about one-twentieth that of America just before the Holocaust. If it is enough for Israel to let in 500 people fleeing genocide, then the U.S. could have met its responsibility by taking 10,000 Jews. In fact, 50,000 Jews came to America between 1933 and 1941, according a Yad Vashem scholar. That was insufficient refuge.

I suppose it's not impossible that a member of Al Qaeda could slip past the asylum processors and enter Israel. However, one of the things that makes the Khartoum regime, which has been blessed by Al Qaeda, guilty of genocide is that it is targeting specifically black African Muslims for annihilation and expulsion. A black Darfuri is therefore much less likely to be a Bin Ladenist than, say, a white man from Warsaw claiming Jewish heritage in 1939 was likely to be a Nazi in disguise. This "official" argument centered on Israeli security is not so terribly compelling.

That said, given our own hysterical debate over the perils and promises of immigration to the U.S., it is an absolute crime that we have turned our backs on refugees from Sudan and Iraq.

The Iraqi Diaspora was among the most sophisticated and prosperous in the world up until 2003. It would be a small humanitarian triumph of this war if, given the continued bloodshed and chaos in Iraq, we could add to that population within our own borders, the better to prepare Iraq for a later influx of U.S. visa-holders and naturalized citizens.

Of course, such a reversal of policy might actually help the Bush administration save face, so no, it wouldn't want to do anything so bold as that.

[Note: This is the official Jewcy press release about our upcoming protest of Abe Foxman at the 92nd Street Y. Please copy and paste what's below if you intend to e-mail any news sources or organizations about the event.]

Jewcy Protests Anti-Defamation League Director Abe Foxman at the 92nd Street Y

WHERE: Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street, New York
WHEN: Thursday, Sep 6, 2007 at 7:00 p.m. (The event starts at 8:15 p.m.)

As reported by Jewcy Senior Editor Joey Kurtzman, Abe Foxman has refused to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Weeks after Jewcy called for his ouster, Foxman issued a mealymouthed press release but did nothing else. He has not apologized to Armenians and the Jews he claims to represent. The ADL has not changed its position that it would be a “counterproductive diversion” to support the Congressional resolution affirming the Armenian Genocide.

Jewcy condemns Abe Foxman and the ADL. Our presence outside the 92nd Street Y will be to insist that he and his organization have robbed themselves of moral legitimacy. Foxman must be fired. The ADL must unequivocally recognize Turkey’s organized mass murder of ethnic Armenians and back the Congressional resolution that does so.

We invite anyone who shares our view to join us. We only ask that you respect the seriousness with which Jewcy approaches this issue. Our protest aims to be civilized and peaceful. No bullhorns or microphones will be permitted.

Placards and banners are encouraged, but please stick to the topic at hand.

For more information, please contact Jewcy Associate Editor Michael Weiss at 718-834-8873 or michael@jewcy.com

* Check our always up-to-date list of Jewcy's posts on the ADL/Armenian Genocide issue

If you're planning to attend the Foxman Protest (and I hope you are), here's a Jewcy forum that'll help you coordinate your travel plans. Car pool, arrange meeting points, etc.

We'll be announcing a date for a pre-protest bull session at the Jewcy offices in DUMBO to help make placards and signs for the rally. Stay tuned...

* Check our always up-to-date list of Jewcy's posts on the ADL/Armenian Genocide issue

Sometimes a Google news search works like an Ask Sherlock engine. I don't mean to tread on Joey's well-pounded terrain, but I think I know why the ADL offered its mealymouthed half-recognition of the 20th century's first genocide. Abe Foxman has a book to sell.

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have broadened their notorious thesis, that U.S. foreign policy is perilously controlled by a Zionist Lobby (their caps) consisting of high-powered American Jews, into a volume that's already led to the usual cycle of nonsense: canceled lecture gigs, rescinded invitations, and an overflowing Dershowitz inbox. And as disastrous as it may be to hear this, the one person responsible for rebutting Lobby hobbyhorse is none other than the charming Mr. Foxman himself. This sailed in under the radar in the Times a few days ago:

Also being released on Sept. 4 is “The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control” (Palgrave Macmillan) by Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. The notion that pro-Israel groups “have anything like a uniform agenda, and that U.S. policy on Israel and the Middle East is the result of their influence, is simply wrong,” George P. Shultz, a former secretary of state, says in the foreword. “This is a conspiracy theory pure and simple, and scholars at great universities should be ashamed to promulgate it.”

You don't know whether to laugh or cry, really. But how clear it now seems. The ADL is looking to rob Mearsheimer and Walt of their easy trump: How dare we be accused of propagating the deadliest lie being by the man who believes mass graves are only as real as their Hebraic inhabitants. Foxman will presumably argue that M/W are wrong because, well, his pro-Israel organization just alienated Israel's biggest Muslim ally, so there.

That smile on Tony Judt's face right about now? Ear to ear, baby.

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Tonight the city council of Watertown, Massachusetts, will debate whether a local diversity-education program called "No Place for Hate" should be kicked out of town. The problem with the program is that it is supported by the"No Place for Hate!" proclaims ADL!: (some exceptions may apply, inquire no further for details, says fine print) Anti-Defamation League. And the problem with that is that the ADL has promoted a hate-campaign against 20 percent of the population of Watertown. So you can understand why the townsfolk are perturbed.

I say "hate-campaign" because I assume that "hate" is how the ADL would normally characterize genocide denial, which is precisely what Abe Foxman's ADL has promoted at the expense of the Armenian community, which includes one in five Watertown residents. The Armenian Genocide, the murder of up to 1.5 million Armenians from 1915-1923, is a historical fact. As Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt puts it, “It's not a matter of debate. There is an overwhelming consensus among historians that work in this area that there is no question that this is a genocide. You can't deny this history."

Yet as I’ve written before, Abraham Foxman, head of the ADL, has sought to please his Turkish friends by announcing that iPioneering Historiographer Abraham Foxman: Foxman (here demonstrating Claw manuever) applies his theories differently to Jews and Armenianst is not the place of the Jewish community, nor the place of the U.S. Congress, “to be the arbiter of other people’s history.” The Armenians and Turks need to work out their own history, he says.

This is a novel approach to the study of history. Normally, believe it or not, historians determine historical truth, and we expect the warring parties to accommodate themselves to it. Thus, we don’t expect Bosnian Muslims and Serbs to decide between themselves what took place at Srebrenica. But in this case, Foxman bypasses the historians and asks the Armenians to negotiate their history with those who both perpetrated the genocide and deny the genocide.

For Jews, of course, Foxman takes the more traditional approach to history. He has no time for those who reject the historical record of the Holocaust, and hasn’t yet asked Jews to negotiate a compromise with such people.

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One commenter in the "Fire Foxman" thread calls himself "Just A Jew" but uncannily echoes the sentiments of an anonymous poster who's been haunting these parts saying that Joey is, inter alia, a vile goy with no right to opine on Jewish questions. Even though Joey has registered the domain name Goycy, taking a cue from his eloquent fan, I'd like to state for the record that the Kurtz is indeed 100% halachically Hebrew. More than that, his speech patterns and sweat glands practically herald the coming of the Moshiach.

For the record, Joey's reference to "mongrel" or "FrankenJews" in his dialogue with Jack Wertheimer applied to only a few of us at Jewcy who were born of virgin Gentile mothers (myself included). That's just the kind of Chosen Joe is: always choosing others over himself to speak from authority.

Anyway, some fuckwits are more interesting to read than other fuckwits:

The larger issue beyond the Armenian genocide (I am sure we can all agree at the very least it makes us uncomfortable for any American Jewish leader to do or say anything calling it into question) is where Joey Kurtzman - or Jewcy for that matter - gets off presenting himself as some kind of spokesman for Jewish authenticity. A self-described "mongrel" Jew among a bastion of fellow mongrels, who says that his own Jewishness has at best a vote in his conception of his compartmentalized identity, has no call to criticize any Jewish leader for not sufficiently representing his views. If you can not bring yourself to associate unreservedly with the Jewish people, to cast your lot with the fate of its people and none other, then you have forfeited your right to complain about its leadership. Jews whose Jewishness is not up for debate, who understand that identification with Judaism is of far greater substance than eating a bagel and lox or wearing a Jew-fro, can handle the discussion just fine without you.

The large issue beyond the Armenian genocide is whether Jewcy is the house organ of "Jewish authenticity," whatever that means. Now we're getting somewhere. What's the larger issue beyond the Darfur genocide? Whether Nick Kristof is a boxers or briefs man?

On Friday, I posted a comments solicitation, pegged on Joey's much-discussed "Fire Foxman" editorial: Does The ADL Diminish the Threat of Muslim Anti-Semitism?  Of the three responses posted, this was the best, by Michael Pine (a.k.a, mhpine):

The problem is that the ADL is increasingly getting caught up in Israel advocacy at the expense of its core mission.  (And I say this as a proud Zionist who supports the work of Jewish and interfaith Israel advocacy groups.)  If you go to the ADL's webpage, you can see a clear example of this.  The homepage is dominated by a campaign to free the Israeli soldiers held hostage by Hamas and Hezbollah.  A very worthy campaign for every American Zionist from MeretzUSA to the ZOA to get behind, but should it really be the top priority for the ADL?   The homepage also features Foxman's inagural blog post, in which he pontificates on how the U.S. and Israel should relate to Fatah in light of Hamas' takeover of Gaza.  When did Foxman become an expert on Middle East diplomatic and security issues?  (Around the same time David Brooks because an expert on pop music?) 

Its understandable how the ADL began its mission creep into Israel advocacy.  Part of the ADL's core mission does involve policing the attacks on the Jewish state.  The ADL should, and does, monitor anti-Semitism in Arab and Iranian state media.  The ADL should unmask anti-Semitism cloaked in anti-Zionist rhetoric.  (Which is why the ADL's efforts to oppose selective boycotts of Israeli academics is appropriate, if not beyond questioning.)  But the ADL has gotten significantly offtrack when its agenda becomes virtually indistinguishable from the AJC or the JCPA - and in the case of the Armenian genocide, AIPAC and JINSA.  What has made the ADL such an effective organization in comparison to the rest of the American Jewish Alphabet Soup (AJAS) is that it had a clear mission and stuck to it, and that clearly placed the Jewish struggle for anti-Semitism in the context of the larger struggle against bigotry and discrimination.  It needs to get back to that mission.

Points for indicating the bait-and-switch tactics of Foxman's apparat, and for using wit and humor to drive the message home. Well done.  Michael has a blog, Off the Pine, worth checking out here.

Jewcy routinely plucks promising bloggers and writers from its comments section, not least because encouraging such familiar interactivity is wolfbane to anonymous trolls. In fact, after I click "Submit" on this post, I'm going to offer Michael a paid guest blogging gig for us.

If you haven't already done so, register a user name, fill out a profile, and spill your guts already. Because narcissistic bloviation is much better when it's remunerated. And we're listening. 

I was interested to read Joey Kurtzman’s critique of Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League, and their position on the resolution of the Armenian question in Turkish history.

Before turning to the Armenian-Turkish controversy, let me say that I agree with Kurtzman that Foxman has focused unproductively on an alleged threat to American Jews from believing Christians. It is true that some Christian activists slip into the long-established and repellent tropes of historic Jew-baiting (I dislike the unscientific and anachronistic term “anti-Semitism”), especially when dealing with “the new world order.” But nobody serious can argue that American Christians have been swept by “conversion fever” toward Jews. I have much greater concerns about increased Jew-baiting in the guise of criticism of the neoconservatives, a matter Foxman and ADL have ignored.

One poster, however, asserted that “Foxman has consistently ignored or worse, appeased actual, real and arguably much more dangerous examples of Muslim anti-Semitism here in the U.S.” As a moderate Muslim, I consider this statement partially incorrect. Abe Foxman cannot be accused of appeasing Muslim Jew-baiting. Indeed, I was alarmed not long ago when Foxman was alleged to have declared that ADL cannot undertake dialogue with moderate Muslims because there are no moderate Muslims.

Jew-baiting has long been a problem in the American Muslim community. It is time Muslims admitted the negative character of this phenomenon, mainly caused by the domination in American Islam of ethnic groups among which hatred of Jews has been cultivated by extremist ideologues. African-Americans, Arab-Americans, and Pakistani-Americans make up the overwhelming majority in American Islam. Many African-Americans bring hostility to Jews with them into Islam. Arabs have obviously been saturated with paranoia about Jews, and Pakistanis have come under the spell of Judeophobia thanks to the financial and other penetration of their native country, and its military and intelligence institutions, by Islamist radicals.

Nevertheless, there are more moderate Muslims willing to participate in serious dialogue with Jews and Israelis than is popularly believed. Another poster, replying to Kurtzman, defended Turkey as one of only three Muslim countries that maintain diplomatic relations with Israel – presumably referring to Jordan and Egypt as the other two. This is also inaccurate. Albania, Azerbaijan (a Shia Muslim country), Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzia, Mauritania, Senegal, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan all have diplomatic relations with the Jewish state, and Qatar has never completely cut off its trade relations with Israel. Other Muslim countries, such as Morocco and Oman, have also maintained such back-channel links.

Some of these regimes, e.g. Uzbekistan, have bad human-rights records. But notwithstanding the unhelpful jibes of Sacha Baron Cohen, Kazakhstan, which has made measurable progress toward democratization, is also profoundly committed to Jewish-Muslim dialogue, and has hosted American Jewish religious and community leaders. Most important, Joey Kurtzman’s analysis of Foxman and ADL’s bad posture on Turkey and the Armenians is correct. The term “successful genocide” may be legitimately limited to the Jewish experience, since the Nazi liquidation of European Judaism was uniquely extensive. But it is clear that Turkey has failed to adequately account for its actions against the Armenians during the First World War. This is not a matter of an exclusively Armenian grievance.

Turkish secular Sunni Muslims, members of the Turkish and Kurdish Alevi Muslim minority (as many as 18 million people or 25 percent of the republic’s population, who hew to a fusion of Shia, Sufi, and pre-Islamic Turkish beliefs), other Orthodox Christians in Turkey, and the rest of the Kurds all have a stake in Turkish truth about the Armenians. That is because the Armenians stand for the fate of all religious and ethnic minorities that were submitted to compulsory Turkification by the republic’s government. Even the 500-year old Sephardic Jewish community was forced to adopt Turkish, rather than Judeo-Spanish, as its main medium of culture. The attempt to force all residents of the republic into a single Turkish identity has a complicated history. Suffice it to note here that while they have mainly been identified with Turkish secularism, the same chauvinist attitudes are supported by the Sunni-centric AKP party now in power in Ankara.

And that is the real problem. Turkey has used its relations with Israel and the situation of its Jewish community to blackmail American Jews into silence about the Armenians, to say nothing of the Alevis or Kurds. But Abdullah Gul, who had the arrogance to lobby American Jewish leaders to assist in continued suppression of the truth about the Armenian question, is an AKP Islamist whose party discriminates against all the aforementioned minorities. In addition, the AKP has allowed a dangerous anti-American rhetoric to grow in Turkey, complete with threats to invade Iraqi Kurdistan on the pretext of Kurdish nationalist radicalism. And if that were not enough, a Turkish popular literature proliferates, that is filled with anti-Jewish paranoia. Disreputable accusations had long been taught as history in Saudi Arabian schools: that the Turkish Sephardim, or descendants of those that became Muslim from among the followers of the false messiah Sabbetai Zevi, brought about the fall of the Ottoman caliphate. But such claims are now widely offered in Turkish bookshops.

It has often been said that the treatment of the Jews by a government is a standard by which to judge the civility, stability, and level of human dignity present in a country. By that gauge, Bosnia-Hercegovina is far ahead of some Christian as well as Muslim lands. But in Turkey, the Armenians play this role. The standing of the Armenian victims in Turkish history is the criterion for determining whether Turkey will become truly democratic as well as secular, will grant autonomy to its minorities, and will refrain from pursuing its Kurdophobic tendencies into a disastrous confrontation with the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. American Jews cannot allow their international stature to be compromised by the demands of unreliable allies like Abdullah Gul and the AKP. That alone is an urgent reason to repudiate the unfortunate involvement of Foxman and ADL in Turkish-Armenian affairs.

A recent comment on Joey Kurtzman's piece, "Fire Foxman: Denying the Armenian Genocide should be the last atrocity perpetrated by the ADL chief," makes an interesting point about the real crimes of the Anti-Defamation League's pursuit of trivial cases of perceived anti-Semitism:

It's an interesting article and although I agree with the fundamental point that on Foxman's watch the ADL has become a net negative, I find it curious that the author (and most of the commenters I read, I did not read all) have left out reference to what I believe to be Foxman's greatest crime. In bending over backwards to hyperbolize and vigorously prosecute perceived threats coming from politically correct enemies, (read: Christians) Foxman has consistently ignored or worse, appeased actual, real and arguably much more dangerous examples of Muslim anti-semitism here in the U.S. This is not to say Christian anti-semitism doesn't exist, (I agree with those who spoke out against Mel Gibson's movie) but it is cowardly and disingenious and damaging to legitimate Jewish-Christian partnerships for Foxman and the ADL to steadfastly ignore the threat institutionalized anti-semitism in Wahhabi-funded American Muslim institutions pose to the Jewish American community in favor of beating up on the same old bogeyman just because he knows in so doing he will enjoy the support of liberal media and the greater American Left.

Leave your thoughts on this comment below, and I'll cull the best responses in a subsequent post.

We at Jewcy are delighted that Huffington Post blogger Mark Oppenheimer has gotten on board the Fire Foxman train. On the other hand, we're generally not keen on having writers from media Big Dogs like the Huff Post cruise by and, after a quick read of one of our articles, publish derivative work without so much as a shout out and then suck up all the blogosphere love for themselves. If you email us, Mark, we'll happily send you the outline of a novel we're working on and a couple of ideas we think will be HUGE in Hollywood. We also like small dogs, long walks in crime-ridden areas, and smelly hipsters.

How about throwing some attribution our way, Mark! Maybe mention the original author. It's not like we care or anything, we just don't want you getting a bad rep or catching any unnecessary flack.

Hugs and Kisses,

The Jewcy Staff

• The rising political stardom and the work ahead for Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni. [The New York Times Magazine] [The Los Angeles Times]
• In Jewcy's feature story, Joey Kurtzman asks why the ADL chief is skirting the Armenian genocide. [Jewcy]
• Last Friday, Metallica singer detained at UK airport for "Taliban-like beard." [Yahoo]
  
• Roger Federer wins 5th consecutive Wimbleton title. [The Washington Post]
• Leave Iraq. Now. [The New York Times]
• Finding a place to pray in Cairo. [The Los Angeles Times]
• How YouTube is ruining hip-hop feuds. [Slate.com]

Hey, wha hap'n?I will never understand why Jimmy Carter is deemed worth listening to on any subject whatsoever, let alone why he's considered a lightning rod for controversy. Former president of the United States? Will such an honorific be accorded equal weight when George W. Bush commands it? Nobel Peace Prize winner? Henry Kissinger tossed that award overboard like the Heart of the Ocean.

Now comes a New York Times piece explaining why Carter's new polemic Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid has got rabbis locked in prayer circles, pro-Israel critics declaiming against the most provocative word in that title, and Abe Foxman quivering with rage (because it's Thursday.)

Who cares? Letting Carter grow moralistic about the conduct of foreign states is like hearing Borat lecture someone about table manners. Camp David doesn't quite undo encouraging Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in 1979 the better to destabilize Khomeini's regime (and which act, you'll notice, is not frequently attributed to the Islamic Republic's present intransigence about bowing before U.S. pressure on denuclearization.) Carter followed up his roadmap for Mesopotamia by penning hot and sanctimonious op-eds in 2003 denouncing even the prospect of Saddam's forcible removal from power.

Only Garry Wills, who likes the face of evangelical stupidity beatific and not smirking, thinks Carter has got the right idea for making the Middle East a more hospitable place.

The rest of us can and should treat this former White House occupant the way we treat most energetic retirees: with condescending silence.