April 24, 2008

NJDC denounces McCain’s ties to Hagee but has nothing to say about Obama and Michael Moore
by Bill Levinson

“How Does McCain Really Feel About Hagee?” by the National Jewish Democratic Council’s David Kim attacks John McCain for accepting the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee. Before we address NJDC’s concerns about Pastor Hagee, we remind our readers that the National Jewish Democratic Council has been totally unresponsive to our well documented requests for it to denounce:

(1) Barack Obama’s pastor and church, which have published blood libels of the United States and Israel while calling upon God to damn America
(2) MoveOn.org’s defamatory advertisement that accuses General David Petraeus of “cooking the books for the White House” and then calls him “General Betray Us.” Obama solicited and accepted MoveOn.org’s endorsement.
(3) Al Sharpton and his National Action Network, both of which have well documented records of inciting hatred of Jews and of white people in general. Obama praised and endorsed Al Sharpton and his organization.

Noting the National Jewish Democratic Council’s refusal to reply on any of these matters, we must conclude that NJDC is willing to condone and tolerate, for reasons of pure political expedience, blood libels of Jews and of the United States, defamation of our Armed Forces, and racism and anti-Semitism of the worst kind.

We are also sure that NJDC will have no problem whatsoever with Obama’s acceptance of Michael Moore’s endorsement even though Moore called the terrorists who are murdering members of our Armed Forces “Minutemen.” If the terrorists and their cheerleaders are with Obama, then NJDC will stand with the terrorists. Ira Forman could prove us wrong by demanding publicly that Obama reject Michael Moore’s endorsement, but we have little fear of that. We doubt that Ira Forman would demand that Obama reject Louis Farrakhan’s endorsement, especially since there is no record of NJDC objecting when Farrakhan offered it.

We, on the other hand, will not condone bigotry from Pastor Hagee even though it might be politically convenient to look the other way. This is the difference between having standards and honor as opposed to being the political equivalent of a cheap street walker, a description that suits the NJDC perfectly. We also stand behind our description of the NJDC as a modern Judenrat or kapo: an entity that uses its nominally Jewish identity to collaborate with, enable, and empower anti-Semites of the worst kind. This was demonstrated by NJDC’s whitewash of MoveOn.org’s sponsorship of anti-Semitic as well as anti-Catholic and even racist hate speech at MoveOn’s now disgraced Action Forum. Now let’s take a look at NJDC’s problems with Hagee.

Hagee on Hurricane Katrina: “All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.” [NPR Fresh Air, 9/18/06]

Hagee makes an argument, with which we disagree, that God punished New Orleans for sin. NJDC is right to condemn this statement, as we do, but NJDC’s hypocrisy and total lack of ethics or character is underscored by its failure to similarly condemn Jeremiah Wright’s material. These include a statement to the effect that the United States deserved 9/11, as well as a request for God to damn America.

Hagee on Islamic Beliefs: Fresh Air host Terry Gross asked if Hagee believed that “all Muslims have a mandate to kill Christians and Jews,” to which Hagee replied, “Well, the Quran teaches that. Yes, it teaches that very clearly.” [NPR Fresh Air, 9/18/06]

The Koran does contain anti-Jewish and anti-Christian hate speech, and Islamic supremacists do use its contents to justify the murder of “infidels.”

Hagee on African-Americans: The San Antonio Express-News reported that Hagee was going to “meet with black religious leaders privately at an unspecified future date to discuss comments he made in his newsletter about a ‘slave sale,’ an East Side minister said Wednesday.” The Express-News reported: “Hagee, pastor of the 16,000-member Cornerstone Church, last week had announced a ‘slave sale’ to raise funds for high school seniors in his church bulletin, ‘The Cluster.’

We cannot believe that the National Jewish Democratic Council is ignorant of these fundraising functions, so we must conclude that NJDC is knowingly and willfully lying (a safe assumption in our experience). Most of us are familiar with “slave sales” from college, in which people volunteer to be “slaves” who will, within reason, perform chores such as carrying a “master’s” books for a day. It is somewhat similar to a “jail and bail” fundraiser in which volunteers sit in a “jail” until bailed out by donors. It has nothing to do with derision of African-Americans.

Hagee on Catholicism: “Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews.” [Jerusalem Countdown by John Hagee]

Our only real concern with Pastor Hagee involves his attacks on the Catholic Church. We cannot condemn MoveOn.org’s even more vicious anti-Catholic hate speech while giving Hagee a pass, even though doing so would be entirely consistent with the ethics of the National Jewish Democratic Council.

Furthermore, even though an organization like NJDC that publishes anti-Christian hate videos (Bubbie versus the GOP) and lies about the Christian computer game “Left Behind: Eternal Forces” has about as much right to complain about Hagee as a pimp has to complain about exploitation and degradation of women, this does not mean that what Hagee has said about the Catholic Church is right. Hagee needs to make it clear that he is talking about the Catholic Church’s distant past and, in the case of his allegations of collaboration with Nazis, either prove his case or retract and apologize for his accusations.

Hagee on LGBT Americans: “The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades.

We share Hagee’s disgust over public displays of behavior that belongs in private, just as overt heterosexual activity should take place in private.

Hagee on Iran: “The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty,” Hagee wrote [in 2006] in the Pentecostal magazine Charisma. “Israel and America must confront Iran’s nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. For Israel to wait is to risk committing national suicide.” [The Nation, 8/8/2006]

This is a keeper, and we encourage our readers to circulate it as widely as possible. The National Jewish Democratic Council is so eager to attack McCain for his acceptance of Hagee’s endorsement that it condemns a statement with which most responsible people agree: Iran has stated openly that it plans to “wipe Israel off the map,” and that it plans to develop nuclear weapons. NJDC is so eager to hurt McCain that it downplays Iran’s genocidal intentions toward millions of people, much as World War II kapos told Jews that the cattle cars were going to take them to nice country resorts instead of extermination camps. The kapos at least had the excuse that they had guns, often literally, to their heads. Yes, NJDC, “Israel and America must confront Iran’s nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. For Israel to wait is to risk committing national suicide,” and the fact that Pastor Hagee said it does not make it untrue.

We guarantee the National Jewish Democratic Council that, should Barack Obama become the nominee, we will use NJDC’s own words to denounce him as totally unfit for public office. NJDC condemned Mitt Romney for appearing at the Henry Ford Museum because Ford published anti-Semitic material that he later retracted and repudiated. If Romney is disqualified for appearing at the museum of a long-dead EX-antisemite, then what are we to say of Obama’s promotion and endorsement of a live and unrepentent one?

If little faults, proceeding on distemper,
Shall not be wink’d at, how shall we stretch our eye
When capital crimes, chew’d, swallow’d and digested,
Appear before us?

…The mercy that was quick in us but late,
By your own counsel is suppress’d and kill’d:
You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy;
For your own reasons turn into your bosoms,
As dogs upon their masters, worrying you.
King Henry V, Act II