September 18, 2008

by Bill Levinson

We thought it was impossible for the National “Jewish” Democratic Council to sink any lower in terms of depravity and pure opportunism. Its effort to disrupt the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations’ Rally to Stop Iran to embarrass Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin hardly surprises us, though. In addition, the National “Jewish” Democratic Council misrepresents Hillary Clinton’s reasons for not attending the rally with Palin.

We sent an E-mail to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and we called the organization as well, to make sure it knows the real nature of the organization with which it is dealing.

NJDC Calls for Withdrawal of Palin Invitation to Iran Rally

Monday’s protest against Ahmadinejad is too important to be tainted by partisanship. Unfortunately, the campaign of Senator John McCain is much more interested in scoring political points than insuring there is bipartisan solidarity around the anti- Ahmadinejad efforts. Therefore, we call upon the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations to withdraw the invitation to Governor Sarah Palin and we applaud Senator Hillary Clinton’s decision to not attend the rally after the attendance of Palin was announced.

By withdrawing Palin’s invitation, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations will be able to return the focus to America’s outrage towards the genocidal musings and nuclear ambitions of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

As with most pronouncements by the National “Jewish” Democratic Council, the above is misleading at best. Hillary Clinton did not withdraw because she thought the event was partisan, or because she did not want to appear with Palin. She was unhappy, and perhaps justifiably so, that the organizers did not tell her that Palin also was going to attend.

Clinton backed out of a protest scheduled for Monday in New York against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s attendance at the opening of the UN General Assembly after learning that organizers also invited the Republican vice presidential nominee without informing her.

The NJDC has never let honor, decency, or the truth get in its way before, so its demand here is hardly surprising. In fact, the very wording of its own blog entry shows that its real problem is with Sarah Palin’s presence: “we applaud Senator Hillary Clinton’s decision to not attend the rally after the attendance of Palin was announced.” In other words, NJDC would not have had a problem with Hillary Clinton’s attendance because she is a prominent Democrat. It has a problem with Sarah Palin’s presence because she is a Republican. Then, after demonstrating its own partisanship, NJDC has the chutzpah to proclaim, “Unfortunately, the campaign of Senator John McCain is much more interested in scoring political points than insuring there is bipartisan solidarity around the anti-Ahmadinejad efforts.”

We remind our readers that the National “Jewish” Democratic Council is without honor. Some time ago, Ira Forman allowed himself to make the following noises at NJDC’s blog:

It is time all of us—organizations and individuals—take the responsibility for outing and yes, even shaming, the purveyors of sinat chinam [baseless hatred] in our community—to protect our values and to protect our community’s genuine political interests.

We immediately stepped forward and identified ourselves as a leader of the efforts to expose Barack Obama for “cavorting with anti-Semites” (Forman’s own words) and challenged NJDC to a point/counterpoint debate. Like a blowhard who proclaims he can lick any man in the bar, and then slinks out the back door when one actually stands up, NJDC made itself scarce when we invited it to put up or stand down. As stated by James Fenimore Cooper’s Last of the Mohicans,

Your tongue is loud in the village, but in battle it is still. None of my young men strike the tomahawk deeper into the war-post–none of them so lightly on the Yengeese. The enemy know the shape of your back, but they have never seen the color of your eyes. Three times have they called on you to come, and as often did you forget to answer.

In any event, we are still waiting for the NJDC to “out and shame us” for educating our readers about Obama’s open association with anti-Semites and racists of the worst kind. As stated by one of our favorite role models,

Take a trumpet, herald;

Ride thou unto the horsemen on yon hill:

If they will fight with us, bid them come down,

Or void the field; they do offend our sight.

King Henry V

It is past time for NJDC to take its blatantly partisan opportunism and get off the Internet. For the record, we have sent the following E-mail to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and we signed our name and provided our phone number.

Please ignore the National “Jewish” Democratic Council’s request to disinvite Palin to your rally.

The National “Jewish” Democratic Council demands that you revoke your invitation to Sarah Palin for your Rally Against Iran. This organization has a long track record of misusing its nominally Jewish identity to mislead Jewish voters, and to damage Jewish-Christian relations. Examples include:

(1) Its whitewash of the anti-Semitic hate speech that MoveOn.org hosted on its now-disgraced Action Forum (2006)
(2) The “Bubbie versus the GOP” video (2004), which portrays Christians, ministers, Jesus, and the Cross in a “This is the Enemy” context. This in turn reinforces the “Jew as Christian hater” stereotype that real anti-Semites have used to incite pogroms for centuries.
(3) A smear of the Christian computer game “Left Behind: Eternal Forces.”

We do not, by the way, agree with the theology behind “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” but this is not an excuse to smear the game by proclaiming that it rewards players for killing people who won’t convert to Christianity. We downloaded the trial version ourselves, and the idea is to use missionaries to convert neutral people (you aren’t allowed to kill them!) while using Christian music to turn evildoers neutral. Violence may be used only against the Antichrist’s armed minions, with Christian music being preferred to violence. (See http://www.israpundit.com/2007/?p=5614). As shown at http://njdc.typepad.com/njdcs_blog/2007/08/pentagon-came-c.html, the NJDC did not change or delete the inaccurate information from its Web site even after being informed of its inacccuracy, and that should tell you plenty about this organization.

The NJDC does not care how many people you alienate by revoking your invitation to Sarah Palin, and it does not care about your organization’s reputation, success, or well-being. All it cares about is its own agenda. I have posted this E-mail to several blogs, along with an overview of the NJDC’s unsavory history.