Even Foxman tells Bibi to stop being a clown

From The Forward yesterday:

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti Defamation League said that the political uproar ignited by Netanyahu’s invitation to speak to a joint meeting of Congress makes such a move unhelpful and therefore it should be scrapped.

“It’s a tragedy of unintended consequences,” Foxman told the Forward, describing how the idea of presenting Israel’s view on Iran spiraled out of control, reaching even the Jon Stewart show, a step, Foxman said, that “turned the whole thing into a circus.”

And what did Jon Stewart say?  Here's Vox.com

"One of our closest foreign allies is taking sides with Republicans against a Democratic president, which creates a major conundrum for Democrats," Stewart said. "I'm reminded of a similar situation, faced by an Israeli king renowned for his wisdom."

Stewart also laid into the Obama administration's excuse for not meeting with Netanyahu when he visits — that the president didn't want to be seen as "meddling" in Israeli politics (Israel's elections are two weeks after the March 3 speech).

"Yes, yes!" Stewart said. "America doesn't wanna meddle in a Middle Eastern nation's domestic politics. I mean, we don't do that!"

He then ran through a list of nearby countries America has, in fact, meddled with: Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey.

"Unless, obviously, a country wanted to nationalize its own oil industry, or looked likely to ally with a rival superpower, or was fighting a proxy war against some other country we didn't like, or would let us put military bases in their country, or send prisoners to their country, or was next to a country we wanted to spy on, or fight with."

"But aside from these very rare instances," Stewart concluded, "we do not meddle with Middle Eastern nations."

I don't know what Foxman's beef is. Between Congress and the White House who'd notice another clown?

Foxman decides to oppose false allegations of antisemitism

And about time too but I am surprised at Abe Foxman, of all people, denouncing a practice that has earned him over half a million dollars a year for the whole of this century and a big chunk of the last one.

Let's have a closer look at this.  Here he is in USA Today:

The Jews of Donetsk, Ukraine, were greeted on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Passover with some deeply unsettling news. A flier apparently on the official letterhead of the self-proclaimed, separatist Donetsk People's Republic announced that all Jews must register with the government or face deportation and confiscation of their property.

While Ukrainian Jewish leaders recognized the flier as a political dirty trick, it caused widespread outrage here in the United States, where just about everyone — from Jewish community leaders to the State Department — was immediately struck by its echoes of the Nazi policies that led to the Holocaust in Europe.

And yet unfortunately, this was just the latest escalation in a series of political maneuvers in Ukraine where the anti-Semitism card has been repeatedly overplayed.

Manufactured incidents of anti-Semitism have been cynically used to discredit political opponents as anti-Semites, whether they are, or not. In recent years, some Ukrainian political operatives have spread rumors that opposing candidates are Jews, likewise whether they are, or not.

Last year, political operatives, presumably of deposed former President Viktor Yanukovych, sent a dozen young men to an opposition rally with T-shirts that read "Beat the Jews!" on one side, and "Svoboda," the name of the ultra-nationalist opposition party, on the other.

Both classical political anti-Semitism and the manufactured, manipulative version rely on a common assumption, that a significant number of Ukrainian citizens do not consider their Jewish compatriots to truly be part of the Ukrainian nation.

That attitude, unfortunately, continues to play a significant role in the Ukrainian nationalist movement. The Svoboda party has a history of anti-Semitism and venerates Stepan Bandera, a leader of the Ukrainian nationalist movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Bandera allied with the Nazis during World War II when he thought it was in the interest of his movement and was complicit in mass killings of Jews and Poles by Ukrainian partisans.

When Jews are considered a natural part of the Ukrainian nation, anti-Semitism in Ukraine should wane and the temptation to use anti-Semitism in politics should follow.

And that will be a relief, because anti-Semitism is a big enough problem without having anyone with a political ax to grind add to it artificially.

A positive first step was taken in today's statement from the U.S., the European Union, Russia and Ukraine, with the firm, clear and direct condemnation of "all expressions of extremism … including anti-Semitism."

To change Ukraine's atmosphere of insecurity, political, civic and religious leaders in Ukraine and Russia must continue to reinforce this message.

I posted a couple of months ago that Foxman is retiring.  If the false allegations of antisemitism is being ditched then he really has nothing more to do.

Anti-Defamation League ditches antisemitic stereotype

It's here in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency mailout:

Abraham Foxman retiring from ADL

February 10, 2014 4:23pm

Abraham Foxman, the longtime national director of the Anti-Defamation League, says he’ll be stepping down in 2015. (David Karp)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, and one of the longest-serving and highest-profile American Jewish organizational leaders, is retiring from his post.
Foxman will step down on July 20, 2015, according to an announcement Monday by the ADL.
“For almost five decades, ADL offered me the perfect vehicle to live a life of purpose both in standing up on behalf of the Jewish people to ensure that what happened during World War II would never happen again and in fighting bigotry and all forms of oppression,” Foxman, 73, said in an ADL news release. “My years at ADL, particularly the 27 spent as National Director, could not have been more rewarding.”

That's right, at least half a million dollars a year. Bullshit can't get much more rewarding than that.

Galliano neither Antisemitic nor Hasidic

Here's a strange report on John Galliano.  Have a look at the picture from the New York Post:



The article it accompanies is headed, Jew-bash designer Galliano's costume mocks faithful and it quotes various Williamsburg residents expressing their disgust at Galliano for mocking them.
Here's an example:

“He’s trying to embarrass people in the Jewish community and make money on clothes [while] dressed like people he has insulted,” fumed Williamsburg community leader Isaac Abraham. It looks like the hairstyle he added was done purposely to insult.”

One writer, Serena French, at the New York Post defended him by saying his latest garb is "Just his way of making amends" but then ended her article:

For the flamboyant designer, this outfit is meant to be an attention grabber. He had a bright spotlight once and probably misses it. He's used to courting controversy and this is the perfect way to put himself back in the conversation on his own terms. Either that or he converted.

 So he's making another antisemitic statement or he's making amends or he's simply grabbing attention.  There's only one way to settle this.  The Jewcy section of Tablet Magazine called in Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League:

According to ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman:

There is no truth to their accusation that John Galliano was dressed in Hasidic garb, and anyone familiar with the dress of traditional Orthodox Jews should not mistake what Galliano is wearing in the photograph as “Hasidic garb.” Hasidim do not wear fedora hats, pinstripe pants, blue jackets or an ascot tie.

“He has spent hours with me and with others in the European Jewish community, including rabbis and Holocaust scholars, in an effort to better understand himself and to learn from his past mistakes. He is trying very hard to atone,” Foxman added.

Now how did a top fashion designer find time to talk to Abe Foxman and yet have no time to talk the New York Post?

Shock as Abe Foxman has to get a proper job

Yup, it had to happen. After two decades of over-inflating the definition and allegation of antisemitism, the Anti-Definition League's annual audit of antisemitic incidents in the USA has reported a fall of 13% according to this Times of Israel report:

The number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United States declined by 13 percent in 2011, an annual audit of anti-Semitic incidents found.

The annual Anti-Defamation League Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents, released Thursday, reported a total of 1,080 incidents of assault, vandalism and harassment, compared to 1,239 incidents reported in 2010.

It is the lowest number of anti-Semitic incidents recorded by ADL in the past two decades, the organization said.

But it's not all doom and gloom for Abe:

The report showed an increase, however, in the number of incidents of school bullying, with Jewish students reporting being harassed and intimidated by their peers using offensive anti-Semitic stereotypes or comments evoking the Nazis or the Holocaust.

No examples, no context, no nothing. That's the kind of thing that keeps Abe in business.