The political right (in the USA Republican Party RNC-leaning in personal voting patterns) so dislikes the political left (in the USA Democratic Party DNC-leaning voting patterns) fundraising off of far-right extremism that they will demonize and delegitimize anyone in order to kill their aspirational or actual ability to earn a living income from being a 'thought leader' or 'influencer' of public discourse particularly about 'politics.'
When former Congressmember Anthony Weiner (D-NY09 before 2011 redistricting) 'called out' US Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' conflict of interest that rendered him unfit to rule on a 2012 ACA case his twitter feed was lurked on/mined in a use of 'politics of personal destruction' tactics (if one can't refute a message then dispute/demonize/delegitimize the messenger). The disclosure of Anthony Weiner's texting and tweeting of genital pictures forced his resignation and dropping of the issue in corporate media with the biggest influence on public discourse.
Weiner ended up being caught again in 2013 texting or emailing genital pictures to underage girls that ended his NY City mayoral campaign. The FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server (and its possible dissemination of classified info) was reopened Oct 28, 2016 as an 'October surprise' in 2016 when duplicates of emails were found on Huma Abedin’s computer she shared with Anthony Weiner that had influence of undermining Mrs Clinton's presidential campaign. Weiner, by Nov 6, 2017, began serving 21 months in prison as a result of a conviction from the 2013 investigation and prosecution.
The email server investigation had more influence than Donald Trump's "grab 'em by the pussy" statement in the leaked Access Hollywood tape 3 weeks earlier Oct 7, 2016. The greater influence was shown in Trump's eventual electoral vote (not popular vote) Presidential election 'win' despite state by state voter suppression and distribution of 'fake news' (lies) by Russian-'bot' social media accounts where enough voters got their news for free instead of daily or subscription purchases to corporate or independent, reader supported, media. People stopped paying for news, except for internet access and mobile devices, because of increasingly inequitable wealth concentrations to the richest 1% as part of neoliberal economic policies that are inherent parts of neoconservative foreign and national security policies.
When illegally 'outed' former CIA not official cover officer Valerie Plame Wilson was attempting to crowdfund enough money to buy at least a controlling interest in twitter in order to administer terms of service in a way to ban President Donald Trump's account her twitter account was mined/lurked until a Dec 31, 2014 (almost 3 year old) tweet linking to this article. One reply in 2017 to Plame Wilson's 2014 tweet alluded to Israeli PM Netanyahu being investigated for corruption as well as raised the possibility of starting a war to distract from it with 'support the elected leader in wartime' jingoism. Donald Trump's refusal to certify Iran's compliance with the 2015 JCPOA allows the 'bomb Iran' 'option' to enter public discourse further.
The resulting 'outrage' or 'news virus' twisting political disagreement into accusations of prejudice against Jews (prejudice-baiting analogous to 1950's 'red baiting') led to Valerie Plame Wilson resigning from the Ploughshares Fund board of directors and the ending of her fundraising to buy a controlling interest in twitter to ban President Don Trump. As well, the alternative use of any money raised, for the Global Zero campaign to abolish nuclear weapons (bombs) also ended abruptly.
The article by James Kirchick posted at
This discourse is like a game in which the Project for the New American Century, the 1996 “Clean Break” memo, Sheldon Adelson, Leo Strauss, Alcove II at City University, Benjamin Netanyahu, and various Jewish Bush administration officials stand in for numbers on a bingo card. If Giraldi had simply replaced “Jews” with “neocons,” his piece could have been published in any number of respectable publications and Plame wouldn’t be denying accusations she’s an anti-Semite. Their mistake was being too general, castigating all Jews instead of just the Bad Jews.
and the analogy of "numbers on a bingo card" referring to objections to 'neocon' USA foreign and national security policies are as bad an analogy as 'taking tea' or "host[ing] Hamas representatives to tea'
How Rachel Corrie Died: [FINAL Edition]
The Washington Post; Washington, D.C. [Washington, D.C]13 May 2006: A15.
Five weeks later, after taking tea with ISM members [bold emphasis added] in Gaza and visiting the group's office there, two suicide bombers murdered three people and wounded more than 50 in a Tel Aviv cafe. ISM leaders have termed such crimes "resistance" and have supported nonviolence as a public relations supplement to terrorism.
In 2017 Eric Rozenman repeats the reference to 'meeting for tea'
Un-teachable moment: leftist anti-Semitism
August 9, 2017 By Eric Rozenman
The anti-Zionist anti-Semitism infesting Great Britain’s Labour Party has been oft-reported. A Jewish Labour parliamentarian required a bodyguard in the performance of her duties. Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has hosted Hamas representatives to tea [bold emphasis added] at Parliament.
The Washington Post; Washington, D.C. [Washington, D.C]13 May 2006: A15.
Five weeks later, after taking tea with ISM members [bold emphasis added] in Gaza and visiting the group's office there, two suicide bombers murdered three people and wounded more than 50 in a Tel Aviv cafe. ISM leaders have termed such crimes "resistance" and have supported nonviolence as a public relations supplement to terrorism.
In 2017 Eric Rozenman repeats the reference to 'meeting for tea'
Un-teachable moment: leftist anti-Semitism
August 9, 2017 By Eric Rozenman
The anti-Zionist anti-Semitism infesting Great Britain’s Labour Party has been oft-reported. A Jewish Labour parliamentarian required a bodyguard in the performance of her duties. Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has hosted Hamas representatives to tea [bold emphasis added] at Parliament.
If Philip Giraldi had named neocons or zionists, "Bad Jews" in James Kirchick's description, and separated zionism from Judaism then neocon James Kirchick would have followed his own advice to Valerie Plame and demonized her, as well as Giraldi, for singling people out based on faith, ignoring the conflation of nationalism as an inherent part of practicing faith, for less-observant ("frum") secular Jews
Brandeis acknowledged he had been “to a great extent separated from Jews. I am very ignorant in things Jewish.”
back to "liberal reformer" and future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Reform movement Rabbi Stephen S. Wise.
There is continuing, often acrimonious, debate among historians over the acquiescence of State Department officials, Roosevelt’s Jewish advisers, and the president himself in obstructing the rescue of desperate Jewish refugees. Among the more disturbing questions that still requires exploration, as painful as it might be, is the acquiescence of American Jews in Roosevelt’s indifference to the plight of millions of persecuted, imperiled, then relentlessly slaughtered, Jews in Europe.
The two great waves of Jewish immigration to the United States – from Germany in the mid-19th century and Eastern Europe around the turn of the 20th century – accounted for nearly five million American Jews by 1940. They hardly comprised a single unified bloc – religious, social, or cultural. But despite their internal differences and disagreements they shared the fierce determination to demonstrate their loyalty as Americans to the United States and to its elected leaders. That would determine their response, or failure to respond, to what historian David Wyman aptly labeled “the abandonment of the Jews” by the president and his government between 1933 and 1945.
The formative proclamation of American Jewish loyalty came from Louis D. Brandeis, long revered as the American Isaiah. Too Jewish for the Boston Brahmins among whom he practiced law, he was viewed by the respected banker and philanthropist Jacob Schiff as insufficiently Jewish for a position in Woodrow Wilson’s Cabinet. Brandeis acknowledged he had been “to a great extent separated from Jews. I am very ignorant in things Jewish.” It was his stature as a liberal reformer that qualified him for Jewish leadership. His opportunity came when World War I severely impeded the work of the European Zionist movement.
In his memorable definition of Zionism as Americanism, Brandeis proclaimed: “To be good Americans, we must be better Jews, and to be better Jews, we must become Zionists.” Bridging the gap between Jewish and American loyalties, his non sequitur enabled Brandeis to become the revered leader of American Zionism. He unerringly identified, and instantly obliterated, the conflict of divided loyalty that tormented American Jews then and has continued to do so ever since.
Among those who were inspired by Brandeis’s synthesis was the Budapest-born Reform rabbi and progressive reformer Stephen S. Wise, who eventually became tortured by competing claims on his loyalty. Like Brandeis, he was determined to fuse Zionism and Americanism. He embraced Zionism as the modern national affirmation of the striving for social justice proclaimed by the ancient Hebrew prophets and as the Jewish expression of American liberal values. In time, however, Wise came to personify the American Jewish dilemma of divided loyalty.
Wise was instantly attentive to the menace of Nazism. Urging a Jewish boycott of Nazi Germany in 1933, he declared: “The time for prudence and caution is past. We must speak up like men.” But he had his doubts about the new president. After Roosevelt’s nomination Wise had complained to Felix Frankfurter: “There are no deep-seated convictions…. He is all clay and no granite.” The more concerned that Wise became over the Nazi danger to German Jews, the more he despaired over Roosevelt’s failure to respond to it.
Closer to the present day, in 2004 and 2006 similar conflations of zionism and Judaism as a method of outreach to maintain and increase donating members of Jewish community institution (synagogue and federation with JCRC) have been done just as Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and Louis Brandeis did about 100 years ago.
Leo Rennert and David Moses essentially 'whipped' their synagogue base in a more rightward, zionist direction and a more Orthodox, rather than Conservative, direction by replacing religious ritual observance (described in the Yiddish word 'frum') with increased Israel advocacy/zionism. Mike Steinberg of Congregation Beth El of Montgomery County in Bethesda helped in the 'whipping' of views on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in his synagogue as well. I use the term "whipped" or "whipping" as an analogy to House and Senate persuasion to vote a certain way on legislation.
The Reform movement's view on the peace process -- supportive of strong U.S. involvement -- is similar to the interreligious group's aims. But Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said that he is sometimes invited to join initiatives as an individual, and his participation does not necessarily mean he is speaking for the Reform movement.
"It may be an issue where [my organization] doesn't have a position," he said, noting that such distinctions are "case specific."
Saperstein believes that Epstein sufficiently conveyed that he was not representing the entire Conservative movement.
But critics like Steinberg say they find it "hard to believe" that Epstein would be invited to a meeting with the secretary of state if he were not the leader of USCJ.
Waldman said Rennert and Moses were the only two people who complained about Epstein's participation in the meeting, and Epstein said he received much more praise than criticism.
But Moses said he has spoken to members of other local synagogues' Israel committees who were displeased. Steinberg said a number of fellow Beth El members agreed with his views.
Then Likud-leader and now current PM of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, one of James Kirchick's "numbers on a bingo card" in his really bad analogy made to dispute objections to neocon USA foreign and national security policy, was quoted in one Israeli newspaper (Ma'ariv) and aggregated by another Israeli newspaper (Ha'aretz) by 2008. Israeli interests were helped by USA wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as wars in other countries carried out under authority of the same 2001 AUMF. 2017 nuclear war threats, exacerbated by Pres. Donald Trump aggressive speech and tweet rhetoric, North (Democratic People's Republic DPRK) Korea and Iran were named by former President George W. Bush as part of an 'axis of evil' in 2003 before the Iraqi Freedom war in Iraq began while the Enduring Freedom war was being fought in Afghanistan.
Former Iranian President Ahmedinejad corroborated Netanyahu's neoconservative security policy views here
Meanwhile, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast doubt over the veracity of the September 11 attacks Thursday, calling it a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
and was completely wrong here shown by annual reading of victims' names on Sept 11 each year since at the Manhattan memorial site and Freedom Tower, as well as the Virginia Pentagon memorial and Shanksburg, PA, locations. Memorial displays at the sites are privately funded partly by offering donors the opportunity to honor the victims by having names inscribed on the displays.
"Four or five years ago, a suspicious event occurred in New York. A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names," Ahmadinejad told Iranians in the holy city of Qom.
Former Iranian President Ahmedinejad corroborated Netanyahu's neoconservative security policy views here
Meanwhile, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast doubt over the veracity of the September 11 attacks Thursday, calling it a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
and was completely wrong here shown by annual reading of victims' names on Sept 11 each year since at the Manhattan memorial site and Freedom Tower, as well as the Virginia Pentagon memorial and Shanksburg, PA, locations. Memorial displays at the sites are privately funded partly by offering donors the opportunity to honor the victims by having names inscribed on the displays.
"Four or five years ago, a suspicious event occurred in New York. A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names," Ahmadinejad told Iranians in the holy city of Qom.
This link worked in 2008 when I retrieved it but has died by 2017. That is why I copied and pasted the full text of what was originally posted.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975574.html
Last update - 17:34 16/04/2008
Report: Netanyahu says 9/11 terror attacks good for Israel
By Haaretz Service and Reuters
The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel.
"We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor."
Netanyahu reportedly made the comments during a conference at Bar-Ilan University on the division of Jerusalem as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad cast doubt over the veracity of the September 11 attacks Thursday, calling it a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Four or five years ago, a suspicious event occurred in New York. A building collapsed and they said that 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names," Ahmadinejad told Iranians in the holy city of Qom.
"Under this pretext, they [the U.S.] attacked Afghanistan and Iraq and since then, a million people have been killed only in Iraq."
Speaking Wednesday at a news conference on the Iran threat, Netanyahu compared Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler and likened Tehran's nuclear program to the threat the Nazis posed to Europe in the late 1930s.
Netanyahu said Iran differed from the Nazis in one vital respect, explaining that "where that [Nazi] regime embarked on a global conflict before it developed nuclear weapons," he said. "This regime [Iran] is developing nuclear weapons before it embarks on a global conflict."
