July 13, 2007

A great piece by Joey Kurtzman over at Jewcy.com, “Fire Foxman,” which is really the definitive takedown of the man who turned spurious accusations of anti-Semitism into a major industry. Starting off with how Abe denied the Armenian holocaust in a sickeningly amoral deal with the Turkish lobby, Kurtzman’s indictment details the over-hyped hysterics over Mel Gibson’s “Passion,” the dogmatic insistence that all criticism of Israel is rooted in bigotry, and the $10 million libel judgement against the ADL won by Dorothy and William Quigley. He ends on this note:

“Baseless accusations of antisemitism contribute to a paranoid fundraising atmosphere that makes Foxman’s ADL seem utterly necessary; maybe the Quigleys weren”€™t antisemites, but that doesn”€™t mean your neighbors aren”€™t Hitlerists in disguise. Still, such bullying by the ADL has an inevitable chilling effect: Jewish community leaders, even those who take exception to the ADL’s techniques, fear speaking out lest the ADL accuse them of some crime against the Jewish people. Like all bullies, the ADL is widely disliked, but less widely spoken out against.”

Kudos to Kurtzman for raising his voice against a public nuisance and a menace to civilized discourse. Jewcy.com, by the way, is a consistently interesting site. Check out my debate with Michael Freund on whether we should bomb Iran.

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