Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumNo, Abe Foxman, America is not out to get the Jews
Why, then, is it so crazy to believe that anti-Semitism is the reason Pollard is still in jail? Because to believe that you have to believe that President Barack Obama is an anti-Semite, and his advisers are anti-Semites, too, because Obama has the power to free Pollard, and after five years in the White House he hasnt done so.
I can hear the laughter all the way from Florida: Oh no, who could ever think that Sheikh Barack Hussein Osama bin Obama and his advisers are anti-Semites?
Fine. For the sake of argument with the Jewish Obamaphobes, lets say the current administration is riddled with Jew-haters. But what about George W. Bush? He was president for eight years before Obama, and he also refused to pardon Pollard. Were W. and his people pursuing a vendetta against American Jewry, too?
http://972mag.com/no-abe-foxman-america-is-not-out-to-get-the-jews/86412/
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)I disagree, this is about a calculated use of armor, and has been for a long time.
I would like to believe that Foxman has so over played his hand that he fast becomes
irrelevant..we'll see.
I also don't think this has anything to do with Pollard, much more to do with Kerry and
Obama's framework.
Pathetic conduct, no matter how you look at it.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)and to get people to pay their dues every year, it is important to be seen as doing something, even if that something isnt very much.
For example, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre has a collaboration with Soka Gakkai International in Japan to try and combat anti-semitism. Bear in mind that Japan has virtually no Jews, and virtually no history of anti-semitism.
Soka Gakkai is the Buddhist equivalent of the Jehovah's Witnesses. They are well-meaning, avowedly non-Militarist people who passionately opposed the fascist wartime government in Japan (much as the JWs went to the camps rather than bow down to Hitler). They also conduct field work, going door to door trying to recruit people to their cause.
Like the JWs, Soka Gakkai are also viewed as heretics by the small number of religious Japanese, and hopeless bothersome old fogies by the rest of Japan. Any collaboration with SGI is therefore a non-starter with mainstream Japan for that very reason.
Despite the fact that it is a non-starter, and that even it if weren't, there are no Jews and no anti-semitism, presumably the Simon Wiesenthal Centre feels that there is enough propaganda value in the endeavour to keep it going anyway. A bit like the mosquito nets from NGOs that peasants immediately rip up and use as fish nets until they break within a week.
I think that it is a bit of a calculated ploy by Foxman, but I think his constituents believe in this sort of thing passionately. And the ADL's constituents are a lot older and more right-wing than they would have been previously. Many of them regard anti-semitism as some sort of cosmological constant, lurking there in the ether, ready to strike at any time.
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Foxman is going out on a limb here..essentially calling out Obama and Kerry in a unprecedented
way. I don't buy that this is about Pollard. it's so over the top, even for him. True, his constituents are
more right wing, and I imagine a percentage of them are upset at the prospect of a framework for Israel
that in their minds would be far too compromising.
Even though in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.