ADL'S FOXMAN UNDER ATTACK
By Rev. Ted Pike
16 Mar 10
The prestige of Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation
League, has never been lower. A recent biting article by J. J. Goldberg in
the Jewish Forward reveals that criticism of Foxman continues to expand,
especially from leaders of the American Jewish community. Increasingly, American
Jewish intellectuals fear that Foxman, while decrying the anti-Obama “paranoia” of
the religious right, may be a victim of his own paranoid obsession with anti-Semitism
where it doesn’t exist. (See Goldberg article Foxman
Fever Doesn’t Discriminate)
Goldberg: “Foxman is the country’s most prolific anti-Semitism
spotter, the gestalt guy who sees Jew-haters under every bed and invents
them if he can’t find them.” He writes of respected journalist
James Traub’s 2007 New York Times Magazine profile:
In his telling, Foxman is “the hanging-judge of anti-Semitism,” an “anachronism” who
continues to “harp on Jewish insecurity” in a world where
Jews have become “the most widely admired religious group in
America, as well as the most successful.” Portraying him as a
blustering alarmist, Traub seemed bemused by Foxman’s warnings
about “jihadist” anti-Semitism as a serious threat in today’s
world and troubled by Foxman’s focus on “good for the Jews,
bad for the Jews” to the exclusion of broader goals of “promoting
tolerance and diversity.”
Goldberg says this critique is abounding. Recently,
for example, Republicans have been savaging Foxman for … attacking
right-wing extremists even when they support Israel. Last November,
for example, Commentary editor Jonathan Tobin wrote that the ADL had “stepped
over the line” and was trying to stifle criticism of the Obama
administration with the publication of a report, “Rage Grows
in America: Anti-Government Conspiracies,” which warned of anti-democratic
tendencies and intolerance in far-right movements like the Tea Parties
and in the rhetoric of media figures like Glenn Beck.
Goldberg relates how in January, Foxman again faced angry conservatives
over his accusation that Rush Limbaugh committed “borderline
anti-Semitic stereotyping” because he said many Wall Street bankers
are Jewish. Normon Podhoretz scoffed, saying Foxman “has a long
history of seeing an anti-Semite under every conservative bed” and
should “apologize for the defamatory accusation of anti-Semitism
that he himself has hurled against so loyal a friend of Israel as Rush
Limbaugh.”
One activist went so far as to demand “a class-action lawsuit
by ADL donors to demand new leadership,” reports Goldberg.
Perhaps the hardest hit against Foxman came from former ADL vice chairman
Joel Sprayregen. Describing recent ADL history, Sprayregen says, “ADL
stumbled so egregiously. As observed by many, including myself, who
have left the organization, the ADL has declined into an autocracy
where no opinion counts other than that of its long-time national director
Abraham Foxman, whom the New York Times described as “a one-man
Sanhedrin for life.” When Foxman hatches a crackpot idea like
the “Rage Report,” no one can restrain him…Foxman
is driven to justify his half-million dollar-plus salary (matched in
virtually no other Jewish organization)…To generate publicity
for himself, he launches (and then summarily drops) foolish initiatives,
such as his attack on Christian evangelicals, Israel’s most consistent
supporters…” (See Ex-ADL
Leader Blasts ADL/Foxman)
Decline of ADL Power
Such criticism of ADL among Jews is unheard of in ADL’s 97-year
history. In 1982, Israel saturation-bombed Lebanon, killing tens of
thousands of innocent refugees. But criticism from evangelicals was
virtually nonexistent. Apart from a few voices— particularly
Rep. Paul Findley, the Washington Report on Mideast Affairs and
the Spotlight newspaper (now American Free Press)—major
American media considered Israel beyond reproach. There was no substantive
movement to halt or even criticize Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians.
As Israel’s formidable PR representative, ADL had never ridden
higher than at this time. If anyone dared speak the truth—particularly
about anti-Christian/Gentile hatred in rabbinic Judaism’s sacred
Talmudic scriptures or such taboo realities as Jewish control of big
media, Jewish origins of communism, or Jewish control in Congress—ADL
descended in fiery attack from one of its 34 regional offices. It would
enlist local media, particularly Messianic Jews, to destroy the offending “anti-Semite’s” reputation.
When I released my first major video, The Other Israel, in
1987, it spoke the whole truth about Talmudic Judaism through an explosive
new medium. Since publication of my book, Israel: Our
Duty, Our Dilemma, in 1984, I had been treading further on untested
ice than anyone in nearly a half century. The Spotlight said The
Other Israel was so hot they would sell me advertising but not
review the film. The most important question to me was how populist
America would react. Zionist critic Michael Hoffman II told me I would
be setting a record if I sold 50 copies. After three months, I had
sold over ten thousand! (Watch The
Other Israel here.)
ADL went on high alert. In Seattle they summoned a special conference,
including local clergy, to consider this unprecedented threat. They
boasted that in a year and a half they would destroy the National Prayer
Network.
In Portland, my father’s daily radio program, The Claude
Pike Report, aired on Oregon’s largest Christian radio
station, KPDQ, and was an important focal point for Christian/conservative
activism in our state. After we showed my film at a meeting of several
hundred Christian conservatives and leaders in Portland, ADL leapt
into action. It activated the Jewish-owned Oregonian newspaper
to sound the alarm against the “virulent anti-Semitism” we
represented. ADL’s smears against us set off a stampede among
Christian conservative leaders in Oregon to put as much distance
between themselves and the Pikes as possible. Lew Davies, popular
KPDQ talk show host, spent two and a half afternoons on air portraying
me as a raving anti-Semite, virtually no higher than a child molester.
He frankly said he never read my book or saw my video but, with ADL,
the Oregonian and respected figures marshaled against me,
no one seemed bothered by the omission. Asked if he would allow Ted
Pike to give his side, Davies replied that I was beneath representation.
My father was thrown off KPDQ and our reputations
destroyed among tens of thousands of evangelicals in Oregon and Washington.
This was typical of the mistreatment anyone might expect from ADL
if they publicly criticized Israel or matters Jewish through most
of the 20 th century.
How different it is today! Bedeviled by criticism, ADL and the Jewish
state it represents fight to keep operational their historically most
effective tool for self-defense and advancement: their power to defame
as “anti-Semites” anyone who criticizes them.
Yet, Eric
Fingerhut, in the Jerusalem Post, reports that an increasing
number of Israel’s critics now consider it a badge of honor
to be labeled “anti-Semitic” by Israel!
In the late 1980s at their annual New York conference, ADL focused
on Ted Pike and racist Tom Metzger as the two greatest threats to their
agenda. Now, surrounded by a host of adversaries, ADL has gradually
stopped giving me such priority. ADL does have 11 pages of nonsense
against me at their website (Read my rebuttal, My
Response to ADL's Attack). But today my voice in
criticism of Zionist control and oppression has been joined by figures
of such stature as former President Jimmy Carter, academics Mearsheimer
and Walt, Norman Finkelstein, jurist Samuel Goldstone and many others
including the United Nations and European countries. (Half of Europeans
are now critical of Israel, as are three quarters of Spaniards are.)
With Israel’s brutality against the Palestinians increasingly
condemned, the Anti-Defamation League can no longer diversify its damage
control in order to defame lesser critics.
It's an ideal time to destroy ADL!
Evangelicals still Terrified of ADL
More than any force except Jewish media, ADL is destroying the moral
underpinnings of our nation and civilization. ADL now boasts that it
is architect of 45 US state hate laws as well as the federal law. Are
evangelicals seizing this moment to weaken ADL’s destructive
influence? No.
In his article, Goldberg says “Republicans” are heaping
criticism on Foxman for his “Rage Report.” Actually, Republican
leaders who did so, at least initially, were few. Jonathan Tobin blasted
ADL in Commentary. Joseph Farah wrote a piece for World Net
Daily basically warning ADL, “Don’t call me anti-Semitic!” I
wrote a salvo of articles alerting America to ADL’s attack which
soared to reprints on over 100 blogs and websites. In contrast, a cowering
religious right remains eerily silent about ADL’s characterization
of millions of conservatives as “conspirators.” Evangelicals
still remember ADL’s previously unrestrained powers of recrimination.
But such power is fading and could end if evangelicals emerge from
hiding—and give chase! It’s time to drive this bullying,
corrupting, illegal agent of a foreign power from the only remaining
country able to be a beacon of freedom and free speech to the world.
At this auspicious moment, Christian conservatives can make no greater
contribution to liberty than to speak out boldly in criticism of ADL.
ADL must go the way of the dinosaur—including that dinosaur
most like ADL, Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Rev. Ted Pike is director of the National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative
watchdog organization.
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