On Friday, I posted a comments solicitation, pegged on Joey's much-discussed "Fire Foxman" editorial: Does The ADL Diminish the Threat of Muslim Anti-Semitism? Of the three responses posted, this was the best, by Michael Pine (a.k.a, mhpine):
The problem is that the ADL is increasingly getting caught up in Israel advocacy at the expense of its core mission. (And I say this as a proud Zionist who supports the work of Jewish and interfaith Israel advocacy groups.) If you go to the ADL's webpage, you can see a clear example of this. The homepage is dominated by a campaign to free the Israeli soldiers held hostage by Hamas and Hezbollah. A very worthy campaign for every American Zionist from MeretzUSA to the ZOA to get behind, but should it really be the top priority for the ADL? The homepage also features Foxman's inagural blog post, in which he pontificates on how the U.S. and Israel should relate to Fatah in light of Hamas' takeover of Gaza. When did Foxman become an expert on Middle East diplomatic and security issues? (Around the same time David Brooks because an expert on pop music?)
Its understandable how the ADL began its mission creep into Israel advocacy. Part of the ADL's core mission does involve policing the attacks on the Jewish state. The ADL should, and does, monitor anti-Semitism in Arab and Iranian state media. The ADL should unmask anti-Semitism cloaked in anti-Zionist rhetoric. (Which is why the ADL's efforts to oppose selective boycotts of Israeli academics is appropriate, if not beyond questioning.) But the ADL has gotten significantly offtrack when its agenda becomes virtually indistinguishable from the AJC or the JCPA – and in the case of the Armenian genocide, AIPAC and JINSA. What has made the ADL such an effective organization in comparison to the rest of the American Jewish Alphabet Soup (AJAS) is that it had a clear mission and stuck to it, and that clearly placed the Jewish struggle for anti-Semitism in the context of the larger struggle against bigotry and discrimination. It needs to get back to that mission.
Points for indicating the bait-and-switch tactics of Foxman's apparat, and for using wit and humor to drive the message home. Well done. Michael has a blog, Off the Pine, worth checking out here.
Jewcy routinely plucks promising bloggers and writers from its comments section, not least because encouraging such familiar interactivity is wolfbane to anonymous trolls. In fact, after I click "Submit" on this post, I'm going to offer Michael a paid guest blogging gig for us.
If you haven't already done so, register a user name, fill out a profile, and spill your guts already. Because narcissistic bloviation is much better when it's remunerated. And we're listening.
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