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 20th 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—particularly that dinosaur most like ADL, Tyrannosaurus Rex.
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Rev. Ted Pike is director of the National Prayer Network, a Christian/conservative watchdog organization.
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