The CPAC agenda has [...]]]>
The CPAC agenda has not yet been formally released but a file posted by Citizens United to Scribd, a document sharing service, lists the “CPAC Theater Schedule – Sponsored by Citizens United Productions.” Three of the sixteen films scheduled for screenings are right up Frank Gaffney’s—and CPAC-approved Clifford May’s—alley.
They are:
“Iranium”- Ali and I just posted our review of the film on Tehran Bureau. The film is the latest production from the Clarion Fund. Clarion–which appears to be an offshoot of the evangelist, ultra-orthodox, Jerusalem-based Aish-HaTorah– gained notoriety for mailing 28 million copies of “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” to swing state voters before the 2008 presidential election. “Iranium” contains similar themes to the Fund’s previous films, suggesting that a clash of civilizations is imminent and that anti-Semitism and irrational hatred toward Israel are key to understanding the anger and frustration voiced by Muslim countries in opposition to the United States.
“America At Risk: The War With No Name” – A Citizens United Production starring Newt and Callista Gingrich. Talking Points Memo’s Rachel Slajda observed that “America at Risk” bears striking similarities to Clarion Fund films. “This is the end of times. This is the final struggle,” intones a narrator in the film’s trailer.
“The Ground Zero Mosque: Second Wave Of The 911 Attack”— The documentary, executive produced by notorious anti-Jihad blogger Pamela Geller along with associate producer Robert Spencer, will document the anti-Park 51 Islamic community center campaign from last summer. The screening will be followed by “a question and action and strategy session on stopping the mosque.”
With films like these being promoted during the three day conference, it seems safe to say that Islamophobia and anti-Muslim propaganda will continue to find a safe haven at CPAC.
]]>The EDL’s participation in the rally is only the latest step marking the convergence of American pro-Israel hawks with segments of the European far right — a process that we have been tracing over the last couple years. (The radically Islamophobic Dutch MP Geert Wilders will also be a featured speaker at the rally.) It remains to be seen whether the more mainstream Republicans who have been involved in the campaign against Park51 will distance themselves from the neofascist elements who are attempting to cash in on the uproar.
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Mr. Abraham Foxman
National Director
Anti-Defamation League
823 United Nations Plaza
New York, NY 10017
August 4, 2010
Dear Mr. Foxman:
Enclosed please find all ADL address labels your office has ever sent to me in the hope of receiving a contribution.
After the Anti Defamation League’s opposition to the construction of the Park 51 community center complex (usually, if inaccurately, refered to as the “ground zero mosque”), I cannot imagine ever again using an address sticker with my name on it that associates the ADL with “Diversity,” “Tolerance” or “Acceptance.” I also have no desire to see my name associated with that of the ADL, even on an envelope paying my electric bill that no one will bother looking at.
Furthermore, I hereby request that I be expunged from your mailing lists and databases. I also revoke the permission you may have thought you had to give or sell these names to any person or organization.
I note that, in the wake of the approval of the Park 51 project by the relevant authorities, you have backed off somewhat. And I appreciate the fact that you apparently will not be joining Rev. Pat Robertson in the perpetuation of this exercise in histrionic bigotry. Nonetheless, you went much too far in stirring up and fueling Jewish paranoia, lending your voice to the din of intolerance generated by the right wing media and exploited by right wing politicians.
Since you like to collect and retell anecdotes about holocaust survivors and their sensitivities, let me share one with you. Some months ago I took my mother to a synagogoue in Delray Beach, FL, to say kaddish [the memorial prayer for the dead] for my father on the anniversary of his passing, in a congregation made up primarily of elderly Jews.
At one non-crucial point in the service, I needed to use the ladies’ room. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t the only one who had this idea, and I had to wait behind a couple of elderly women. When I was first in the queue, I saw a trembling arthritic woman who had just washed her hands struggling to get a paper towel out of the dispenser so she could dry them. I took 3 or 4 steps toward her and got her a towel.
At the very moment I did so, two stalls became available. The two women waiting behind me promptly swooped into them. I resumed waiting for the next vacancy. Two more women entered and got behind me.
At this point, another woman came into the ladies’ room. She immediately came over to me, rolled up the sleeve of her sweater, revealing the concentration camp number tattooed on her wrist, held it up to me, and whined, “I hate standing in lines.”
I stared at her, shrugged, and then, ignoring her, went into the first available stall.
How could I be so lacking in “sensitivity”? First, three women waiting to use three toilets is a queue, not a “line” like one would have found at a concentration camp in Nazi Germany. Second of all, had the woman simply said, “This is really an emergency!” because she had a bladder control issue, most likely I would have graciously let her in ahead of me. Had I noticed that she had any difficulty standing or walking, I would voluntarily have yielded my place to her without her even asking.
But her waving her wrist in my face had exactly the opposite reaction than what she had hoped for. Instead of feeling sorry for her, I was disgusted. How dare she cheapen and insult the holocaust by using the tattoo on her arm in this way?
Mr. Foxman, without pressing the analogy too far, I had a very similar response when I read your argument against the Cordoba Institute’s plans to build a center in lower Manhattan. Yes, you’re a holocaust survivor, and you claim to be protecting the “sensitivities” of 9/11 survivors, whom you equate with holocaust survivors.
But in doing so you put yourself, and the American Jewish community you claim to speak for, in a very similar position to the whining woman in the ladies’ room: rolling up her sleeve, as she most likely has been doing for the past sixty some-odd years, showing off the number on her arm, and using it manipulatively.
I’m really glad ADL lost this round to Mayor Bloomberg and the relevant New York city authorities. I’m also grateful that rabbis like Marc Schneier, Irwin Kula, Joshua Stanton and numerous others spoke out in favor of Park 51′s being built.
And now you can take my ADL Diversity, Tolerance and Acceptance address labels and stick them wherever you like.
Sincerely,
Dr. Marsha B. Cohen
UPDATE: Fareed Zakaria, of CNN and Newsweek, has written to Foxman, returning the Hubert Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize he was awarded by the ADL in 2005. “You are choosing to use your immense prestige to take a side that is utterly opposed to the animating purpose of your organization,” Zakaria wrote in the letter, published in Newsweek. “Your own statements subsequently, asserting that we must honor the feelings of victims even if irrational or bigoted, made matters worse.” Zakaria returned both his plaque and a $10,000 honorarium.
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