ADAM TAXIN: ANOTHER SERMON FROM ABE FOXMAN
http://www.examiner.com/jewish-culture-in-philadelphia/jewish-exponent-gives-9-11-op-ed-space-to-sermon-from-adl-s-loathsome-abe-foxman
For the second consecutive week, the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia-subsidized publication Jewish Exponent gave much of its scarce op-ed space to controversial, embattled and widely-loathed Anti-Defamation League (ADL) national director Abraham Foxman. In the current week’s edition, the Exponent basically allowed Foxman’s, via an op-ed (which was published throughout the nation in other local-Jewish Federation-subsidized newspapers) called “Sept. 11: The Day Hate Became Everyone’s Problem,” to be its voice of record in terms of the lessons of 9/11.
The controversial and embattled Foxman has, for 24 years, held a tight grip on the executive position of the ADL. During 2009, this position provided Foxman with a salary of more than $560,000 for his efforts to promote the leftist agenda of the ADL while orwellianly and ostentatiously doing just enough to seem as if confronting actual anti-Semitism to justify (at least to the easily-convinced) his organization’s existence and stated mission.
Overbearing promotion of Foxman by the Jewish Exponent/Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia
In the context of the Foxman op-ed “The Threat of Sharia Law: It’s All a Matter of Myth Making,” which the Exponent dutifully published last week, Foxman, while at the same time acknowledging that “[s]haria [Islamic law] is being used elsewhere around the world in dangerous ways,” attacks those who are vigilant against the infiltration of sharia law into American courts as guilty of invoking a “mythological threat in an effort to pander to bigotry and fear.”
This is typical of Foxman’s tendency talks out of both sides of his mouth in an attempt to “have it both ways,” presumably highlighting and steering different positions toward different potential donor lists. On that note, the ADL’s fundraising, at a high of $73 million in 2006, declined to $68 million in 2007 to $59 million in 2008.
Thus, in summer 2010, Foxman and the ADL opposed the Ground Zero Endzone-Dance Mosque on the grounds that it would be “counterproductive to the healing process,” However, within a few weeks, this opposition somehow evolved into the ADL’s launching of something called “the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques,” which basically cheerleads for, and attacks the opponents of, monster-mosque construction projects that have run into local opposition in various locations throughout the United States.
Playing to various sides in an attempt to appear to be an equal-opportunity hater of hate, as is typical of Foxman, his 9/11 piece includes: “As part of creating trust, it is also important for U.S. officials to recognize and address other forms of domestic extremism coming from white supremacists, anti-government extremists, and environmental and animal-rights extremists.”
It should be noted that, in addition to its two-facedness, Foxman’s Exponent 9/11 op-ed is heavy on blowhardy self-congratulation, such as “For those of us who have been combating hate for decades…” (note: the regularly hateful-toward-Christians-and-conservatives ADL has a tendency to promote itself the ultimate arbiter of “hate.) and “We at the Anti-Defamation League recognized that to keep our nation safe at the expense of basic civil rights was to lose our collective soul…”
Not that this needs be to explained to anyone familiar with Foxman and the ADL, but Foxman’s op-ed, while ponderously presuming to be the arbiter of “[h]ow [we have] as a society done since [9/11/01] in addressing the consequences of hate,” never at any point draws from the contents of the Koran or even minimally details the extremely bloody 1,400-year history (including the current time) of Muslim persecution of non-believers in an attempt to evaluate where “hate” fits into the traditional Muslim ideology. (Minimal consideration of the history of the treatment of non-Muslims by Muslims might, of course, reveal that, in spite of his catchy op-ed title, “hate” became a problem for quite a few infidels long before 9/11.)
Negative reaction toward to Foxman’s 9/11 op-ed
Numerous people who read Foxman’s 9/11 op-ed were critical.
For example, Tom Trento, president of THE UNITED WEST and co-author of Shariah – The Threat to America, said, of Foxman: “He’s got to be on the payroll of CAIR [Council for American-Islamic Relations.] This sounds like one of their press releases.”
Asked about the second-straight-week Foxman op-ed in the Exponent, Lori Lowenthal Marcus, president of the Philadelphia-area-headquartered, unabashedly-Zionist organization Z STREET offered: “Here is just one example of the way in which Abe Foxman doesn’t get it: he thinks that the problem with failing to take serious security measures to prevent future atrocities is that Americans would go whole hog and throw away all basic liberties. No, the problem is that if the terrorists win – and it is not the environmental or animal rights activists, it is the Muslim terrorists, Abe – they will take away all of our liberties. That is why we must stop them, not suck up to them in op-eds, or in other ways appease them.”
Asked about Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia’s active role in promoting Foxman’s views (and, in the process, Foxman’s fundraising efforts), Lowenthal Marcus responded: “What, complain about Federation being who and what they are? … We’re the ones with our eyes open, the rest of the Jewish planet is still in shta shtill mode. I don’t even read the Exponent because it speaks to such a tiny, insular world of frightened sheep and/or those who actually care about who went to which fancy party. Abe Foxman threatens my world, the Exponent is meaningless.”
Moshe Phillips, president of the Philadelphia Chapter of Americans For a Safe Israel/AFSI, was also annoyed about the active promotion of Foxman’s views via charity money. Regarding the non-observantly-Jewish Foxman’s regularly offering himself as a leader of the Jewish people, Phillips said, “The ADL does not speak in our name. Abe Foxman does not speak in our name. Foxman and the ADL have offended Christians and grassroots Jews time and again by attacking the Evangelical Christian community and others on the political right. Abe Foxman has won no elections in the U.S. Jewish community.”
Phillips continued: “On January 21, 2010 the ADL issued a press release attacking Rush Limbaugh. Foxman made the ridiculous charge that Rush made ‘borderline anti-Semitic comments’ on his radio show. Just what the heck is a ‘borderline anti-Semitic comment,’ and who elected Foxman to make such judgments? The Exponent needs to re-think whom they place on the op-ed page and how often. Two weeks in a row of Foxman’s columns is two too many.”
Manhattan attorney Kevin Helteberg was also skeptical of Foxman’s most recent op-ed, saying: “Normal Americans do not look at the towers falling down and start fretting about non-existent hate crimes against Muslim Americans. The hate crime most Americans care about is the 9/11 attack itself.”
Helteberg continued: “As the old saying goes, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Well, crusading against so-called ‘hate crimes’ is Abe Foxman’s (very personally profitable) hammer, so when they don’t exist, it becomes necessary for him to invent them.”
Helteberg added: “I can’t even begin to imagine what bizarro, alternate-reality, fantasy universe Abraham Foxman is living in when he looks back at 9/11 and finds, among the things most worthy of comment, a supposed rise in ‘elevated anti-Muslim atmosphere.'”
“In fact, ever since 9/11, we have been bending over backwards as a society to avoid hurting Muslims’ professed feelings and accommodate their demands, even when those demands seem remarkably consistent with the demands of their coreligionists who are intent on destroying our civilization (and who, we are assured, by people like Foxman, at least when he’s talking out of that side of his mouth, are just a fringe element).”
Why so many distrust and despise Foxman and the ADL
It is worth noting a few of the many ways in which Foxman and the ADL have managed to earn the contempt of patriotic, pro-Israel Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish:
In 2007, Foxman ordered the firing of a New England regional ADL director who had the audacity to suggest that the Turkish (and Kurdish) Muslim extermination of up to 1.5 million Armenian Christians during World War I should be acknowledged as a “genocide,” (Curiously, in 2005, led by Foxman, the ADL gave Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan something called the “Courage To Care Award.” Erdogan has refused to acknowledge the occurrence of the Armenian Genocide, and, under him, the Turkish government has, in various ways, actively attacked those who do, including those in other countries.)
Last year, Foxman was forced to write a letter of apology to Glenn Beck for the ADL’s having sent out “[a] direct-mail piece to some ADL supporters around the country [which] inadvertently misidentified [Beck] on a list of celebrities who had made anti-Semitic statements over the past year,”
Foxman has been criticized in the past as a chazzer for his excessive compensation, for example, as mentioned earlier, arranging that the charity organization he heads pay him a salary of over $560,000 in 2009, (Foxman’s 2009 salary was the highest of any leader of a Jewish “Advocacy and Public Service” organization. In second place was Sara Bloomfield, whose work as head of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum earned her $542,654. No other such Jewish “Advocacy and Public Service” organization leader earned over $500,000.)
Foxman has refused to support Michael Savage, the nation’s most popular Jewish radio host, in his effort to have his name removed from a list of individuals banned from entering the United Kingdom. Foxman told this reporter personally in March that he has no opinion related to the banning of Savage, (Relevant dialogue: Jewish Culture Examiner: Michael Savage is not allowed in Britain, and he claims… . Foxman: I have no position on that. Jewish Culture Examiner: … that it’s because they’re anti-Semitic; they want a Jew in there to balance out the Arabs. Foxman: I have no views on that.),
Foxman played a significant role in winning a presidential pardon from Bill Clinton in 2001 for billionaire tax cheat and international fugitive Marc Rich. Rich just so happened, around that time, to make donations totaling approximately $250,000 to the ADL.
Additionally, Foxman actively opposed efforts by Yale Students to remove former Baxter International CEO Vernon Loucks from his position as Senior Fellow (essentially chairman) of the Yale Corporation (governing body) after Baxter plea-bargained and paid a criminal penalty of $6 million for violating U.S. laws prohibiting compliance with the Arab boycott of Israel.
On a more trivial note, the Philadelphia-area chapter of the ADL annoyingly tried to jump on the bandwagon of the success of the Philadelphia Phillies. The ADL recently prioritized putting its resources and energy into giving Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro, Jr. the initial edition of something called its “Homegrown Hero” award, a public relations ploy built quite transparently around Amaro’s high popularity (especially immediately after the acquisition of free agent pitcher Cliff Lee) and his having been born to a Jewish mother.
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