[justify][large]ADL Will Continue to Fight $9.7 Million Jury Award[/large]
by ANDREA JACOBS, Intermountain Jewish News
DENVER ? With a $10 million guillotine threatening to fall, the Anti-Defamation League will continue fighting a legal battle that began at a press conference here nine years ago.
A federal appeals court in Denver ruled April 22 to uphold a $9.75 million jury award against the ADL and Saul Rosenthal, then Mountain States regional director, for publicly calling an Evergreen, Colo., couple dangerous anti-Semites in 1994.
William and Dee Quigley, who filed a federal lawsuit against the ADL and Rosenthal in 1995, received a $10.5 million jury award in April, 2000.
The ADL, whose annual national budget is $45 million, appealed the verdict the following month.
In April, 2001, U.S. District Court Judge Edward Nottingham reduced the award to $9.75 million. The relatively small reduction appeared to support the jury?s conclusion that the ADL had ?acted recklessly in its efforts to publicize what it perceived to be anti-Semitic conduct.?
The most recent decision on April 22 was handed down by a three judge panel from U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, with one judge dissenting.
Judge Harris Hartz of New Mexico wrote in his dissenting opinion that he would have dismissed the defamation complaint and remanded the case for a new trial.
The ADL is now filing a petition for a rehearing en banc, meaning it will be reviewed by all active judges on the U.S. 10th Circuit Court. Only if one of the judges calls for a vote on the petition will the judges decide whether the full court will hear the case.
The first hurdle faced by the ADL is getting a majority of active judges to agree to hear the case.
?We have a lot of confidence in the appellate judges and the court,? ADL corporate counsel Jill Kahn Meltzer told the Intermountain Jewish News. ?We will try to convince them that the dissenting opinion was correct.?
In 1994, the regional ADL office held a press conference in support of Mitchell and Candace Aronson, a Jewish couple who alleged the Quigleys were conducting a vicious anti-Semitic campaign to force them from their Evergreen neighborhood.
The Aronsons had secretly taped cordless phone conversations made by the Quigleys, who talked about putting fake oven doors on the Aronson home, a reference to the Holocaust; dousing their children in gasoline; and burning crosses on the Aronsons? lawn.
At the press conference, Rosenthal denounced the Quigleys? conversations ?as the worst case of anti-Semitism in Denver? since the murder of talk-show host Alan Berg in 1984.
The Quigleys, who maintained they made those and similar remarks in jest and never intended them to be taken seriously, sued the ADL and Rosenthal in 1995 for defamation, violations of federal wire tap law and invasion of privacy.
The federal panel threw out the invasion of privacy claims on April 22 but let the defamation and federal wire tap claims ? and the monetary award ? stand.
Rosenthal, who left the ADL to pursue other career opportunities in October, 2001, after 18 years at the helm of the local office, told the IJN he was unable to comment because the attorneys were handling all media responses.
Mountain States area director Bruce DeBoskey, who inherited the situation when he became regional head in February, 2002, spoke to the IJN from the ADL?s national leadership conference in Washington, D.C.
?We?re obviously disappointed but we are heartened by the dissenting judge and his arguments,? DeBoskey said.[/justify]
Leo Frank and the Birth of the Anti-Defamation League of B'n
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[justify][large]Adversaries Go Inside ADL's Spying Operation[/large]
Source: The San Francisco Examiner | April 1, 2002
[large]Adversaries Go Inside ADL?s Spying Operation[/large]
The hidden workings of the Anti-Defamation League and how three Bay Area activists were able to uncover a spy operation that reached into the San Francisco Police Department.
By Dan Evans Of The Examiner Staff
Paper trail of deceit.
Locked in a nondescript computer database, a shadowy operative named Roy Bullock kept file upon file on liberal San Francisco Jews who disagreed with Israeli policies.
The files included Social Security numbers, driver?s license numbers, addresses, phone numbers and group memberships. Some of the information was sold to foreign governments, including Israeli and South African intelligence groups.
Shockingly, Bullock was in the employ of a civil rights group whose motto is ?fighting anti-Semitism, bigotry and extremism?: the Anti-Defamation League of B?nai B?rith. Numerous targets of the ADL ? who drew parallels to COINTELPRO, the FBI?s tainted domestic surveillance program ? say the profiling and covert activities continue to this day.
?They are continuing to gather facts,? said Abdeen Jabara, a Manhattan attorney and former president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. ?That, of course, is a euphemism for what we say is private spying.?
Not only were liberal Jews a target, but information also was kept on labor unions, pro-Palestinian organizations, anti-apartheid groups, American Arabs and anti-Semites. After the Federal Bureau of Investigation broke the case in 1993, a number of these targets filed suit against the ADL. The last lawsuit was recently settled.
The settlement in February marked the first time any of the organization?s victims were allowed to speak out. Usually, the ADL demands plaintiffs keep quiet as a condition of any settlement.
Without those constraints, victims Jeffrey Blankfort, Steve Zeltzer and Anne Poirier are revealing the underbelly of an organization that previously had successfully shielded itself from condemnation. They are using the ADL?s own spy as a fulcrum.
Bullock?s relationship with Blankfort and Zeltzer began when he infiltrated a pro-Palestinian group started by the two, both of whom are Jewish. Once inside, Bullock collected and sold information about the two men to the ADL and, possibly the Mossad, the foreign arm of Israeli intelligence.
Although Bullock never met Poirier, he may have sold information on her organization to the South African government. The woman, who lives in Berkeley, ran a scholarship program for South African exiles in the early 1990s. During the course of her lawsuit against the ADL, she discovered the ADL?s operative had sold confidential information to a South African agent in San Francisco for $15,000.
Poirier had never done any work relating to the Middle East, and she was astounded when she found out that the ADL had kept tabs on her. During her nine-year court fight with the group, she found out more than she needed to know about its operation, and now nothing much surprises her.
?They gathered information on anti-apartheid activities,? she said, ?anyone the organization felt, by definition, would be against Israel because they were too left-wing.?
A few files, so what?
The fact the ADL has a file on a group doesn?t imply clandestine activities, said San Francisco regional director Jonathan Bernstein. He resents the implication of the word spying, saying it implies people were being followed around and trailed. That simply wasn?t the case, he said, though he acknowledged he never met Bullock.
?We have files on the NAACP because we?ve done collaborative projects with them,? he said. ?They probably have files on the ADL, too.?
In Bernstein?s eyes, the group?s fact-finding operations are one of its most important missions.
Much of the time, the ?missions? are nothing more than gleaning information from media reports, he said. People employed by the ADL do attend public meetings to keep an eye on people, just as other journalists do.
The area?s top boss, however, repeatedly sidestepped questions on whether fact-finders employed subterfuge to get information. The fact that some of the people being watched by the ADL were Jewish was immaterial, Bernstein said.
Other civil rights groups, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, do similar things on a limited scale, he said.
A representative of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is headquartered in Birmingham, could not be reached for comment.
Because the ADL has 30 regional offices, the organization is much better equipped to ferret out anti-Semitism and other racist behavior.
?It can help us to respond to hate activity before someone gets hurt,? Bernstein said. ?That?s the ultimate objective.?
But are there times when fact-finding becomes a civil rights violation?
The San Francisco office of the American Civil Liberties Union, a group one might expect to have a dim view on the tactics employed by the ADL, refused to comment on the group?s fact-finding activities. Nor would spokeswoman Rachel Swain give a reason for the silence.
Ongoing complaints
Groups have been saying for years that the ADL isn?t the civil rights organization it claims to be, but no one has been listening. Mostly, it?s because those groups have been thinly-veiled anti-Semites, such as the Liberty Lobby, or hate groups such as White Aryan Resistance and the KKK.
But, as vile as some of these groups are, there is a significant amount of evidence that their vitriol is not unfounded. For at least four decades, the ADL continuously has tracked and spied on groups it considers not only a threat to the Jewish community, but to the state of Israel.
Hussein Ibish certainly thinks so. Ibish is the spokesman for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee ? an organization that is, in many ways, the Arab counterpart to the ADL. Though certainly at odds with many Israeli policies, the ADC is not anti-Semitic, and plays a rather moderate role.
?Was the ADL spying on people?? asked Ibish, quickly answering his own question. ?Certainly in San Francisco they were. We know they were engaging in illegal activities to gain information. They, and their operatives, were working hand-in-glove with South African intelligence and Israeli intelligence.?
Meet Mr. Spy
By his own admission, Bullock had been working off the books as a fact-finder for the ADL since the mid-1960s. He would infiltrate not only openly anti-Semitic groups, but also pro-Palestinian and anti-apartheid organizations, usually under false pretenses. Bullock, who is not Jewish, would then pass that information along to the ADL.
He received information about his targets from former San Francisco Police Inspector Tom Gerard, who fled to the Philippines after being indicted in 1994 for illegal use of a police computer. Gerard?s current whereabouts are unknown.
Bullock, who no longer does undercover work for the organization, declined to be interviewed for this article.
Nobody could have known about the extent of Bullock?s surveillance, if police had not seized his computer database in April 1993. It contained thousands of files on liberal Jewish San Franciscans, Arab-Americans, anti-apartheid activists, anti-Semitic groups, and plain ol? white racists.
On April 8, 1993, armed with this information, police in San Francisco and Los Angeles searched the ADL offices in those two cities. In San Francisco, roughly 10 banker?s boxes of information ? 75 percent of which officers said was illegally obtained ? were seized.
A majority of data in those boxes confirmed police suspicions that it had come from Bullock?s computer. On that computer was information on 9,876 people, including 1,394 driver?s licenses. The files were divided into five categories: ?Pinko,? ?Right,? Arabs,? ?Skins,? and ?ANC,? the last standing for African National Congress.
Bullock also told the FBI that he had information on various labor groups. These groups included: the San Francisco Labor Council, the Oakland Educators Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Irish Northern Aid, the International Indian Treaty Council and the Asian Law Caucus.
Lawsuits galore
After the SFPD raid on the ADL offices, then-District Attorney Arlo Smith filed a lawsuit against the organization to stop the spying. The suit was settled that November. Though the ADL acknowledged no wrongdoing, the group agreed to stop using police to get confidential information. The league also agreed to pay $75,000 to a fund used to help stop hate crimes.
On April 18, 1993, 19 people who Bullock kept files on sued the ADL in San Francisco Superior Court. Pete McCloskey, a former Republican congressman from San Mateo County, was the group?s attorney. His wife, Helen, was one of the original plaintiffs.
A few months later, in October, the ADC slapped its Jewish counterpart with a similar lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court. The ADC claimed the ADL passed along information on the group to the Israeli government. The ADC?s suit was settled in October 1996.
The ADL agreed to pay $175,000 toward the Arab group?s legal costs. The ADL also agreed to contribute $25,000 to a foundation, administered by the ADL and the ADC, dedicated to improving relations between Jews and Arabs. The ADL was able to deny all wrongdoing.
Journalistic enterprise?
The McCloskey case, however, would drag on. The main point of contention in that case was whether the ADL could be considered a journalistic enterprise, a point won in court by the ADL.
The ADL publishes hundreds of newsletters, papers and books on a wide range of subjects, attorney David Goldstein said. As with any other journalistic enterprise, it contended it was not required to release its confidential information or sources.
After a 1998 ruling by the 1st District Court of Appeal, giving the ADL journalistic protection, 14 of the remaining 17 plaintiffs ? two had died in the interim ? dropped their cases against the ADL.
On Feb. 22, 2002, the ADL settled with Blankfort, Zeltzer and Poirier.
What held up the process, said McCloskey, was his clients? refusal to sign a confidentially agreement. The three felt they had been viciously wronged, he said, and wanted to publicize that fact.
With the settlement, each of the three plaintiffs received about $50,000. None of the three, or McCloskey, believes the ADL will stop their spying ways.
?It was settled partially out of fatigue,? said the attorney. ?Everyone figured it might be best if we all just moved on.?
Even if the case had continued, said Goldstein, there is a debate over how much the three plaintiffs could prove they had been injured. Most of the contested information consisted of Social Security and driver?s license numbers, which are hardly difficult items to find.
Nine years later, McCloskey is still angry about the case and wants the federal government to revoke the group?s tax-exempt status.
Since they obviously are working in conjunction with the Israeli government, he said, they should register as such. Referring to themselves as an education group, said the attorney, is simply a sham.
Acerbic battle leaves sour taste.
After nearly a decade of fighting the Anti-Defamation League in court, attorney Pete McCloskey is as bitter as a man who consumed a gallon of vinegar.
The former Republican congressman from San Mateo, who recently won a settlement from the civil rights group for three Bay Area residents, is still tending to emotional wounds he endured from the ADL simply for defending his clients? rights.
?They come after anyone that disagrees with them,? he said of the organization?s tactics to paint him as an anti-Semite.
The decorated retired Marine, who represented his San Mateo County district in the House of Representatives from 1967 to 1983, is anything but an ideologue. He was one of the few Republicans who opposed the Vietnam War and fought with President Nixon on numerous occasions.
While he vehemently denies any ties to anti-Semitic or neo-Nazis groups, some of the avenues he chose to express his views have not helped his case.
Anti-Semitic newspaper
While in Congress, McCloskey granted an interview in 1982 with the anti-Semitic newspaper Spotlight. And in May 2000, he gave a speech at a conference of the Institute of Historical Review, a Holocaust revisionist group.
McCloskey spoke to the Spotlight because, he believes, one should speak to people they disagree with as much as people they agree with. The newspaper was the publication of the now-defunct Liberty Lobby.
Though he acknowledged the newspaper?s subscribers were primarily right-wingers and racists, ascribing him similar views are ridiculous, he said.
?Not a year didn?t go by during the years I was in Congress that the Spotlight didn?t blast me as being a liberal Republican,? he said.
In the Oct. 11, 1982 edition of the paper, McCloskey said Republicans were far better politically positioned than Democrats to push for a Palestinian state because GOP candidates were not as beholden to Jewish money to get elected.
?The battle will be for public opinion in the United States, whether the Congress will be willing to back Reagan and stand up to the Jewish lobby in this country,? he said.
However, he also stated in the interview that he disagreed with 90 percent of the group?s views, and suggested that peace in the Middle East would only be realized when the United States gave equal merit to both Arab and Israeli viewpoints.
Disagreement
As for his connection to the Institute of Historical Review, McCloskey said he respected the group?s determination to question historical records. He said he strongly disagreed with the group?s view on the Holocaust, but supported its right to say it.
In a letter last year to the group?s president, Mark Weber, McCloskey spoke of his visits to death camps and his conviction that ?there was a deliberate policy of extermination of Jews, Poles, gypsies and homosexuals by the Nazi leadership.?
McCloskey also suggested Weber?s group give up its views about the Holocaust, and instead focus on what he called the ADL?s distortions of truth, one of them being its claim McCloskey was a Holocaust denier.
?It was like when Bush went down to Bob Jones University, and his political opponents tried to identify him with Bob Jones,? he said, referring to the conservative South Carolina school that, until recently, prohibited interracial dating. ?It?s ridiculous.?
?The primary view of the ADL is that Jews should not be stereotyped or guilty by association,? he continued. ?Yet you see them trying to discredit people by virtue of their association.?
One of his clients, Steve Zeltzer, acknowledged he wasn?t entirely comfortable with McCloskey going to the Institute of Historical Review convention. Still, he said, he supports the right of free speech, even if he strongly disagrees with the content.
?I wouldn?t have done it, and I was opposed to him going,? Zeltzer said. ?I wouldn?t attend one of their conferences. They have a right to say what they want to say, but I don?t support their positions.?
Another client, Anne Poirier, said she had not heard about her attorney?s attendance at the conference and so couldn?t comment on it.
?One thing I know for sure, though, is he?s not an anti-Semite,? said the Berkeley resident. ?I?ll go mano-a-mano with anybody that says so.?
E-mail Dan Evans at devans@sfexaminer.com[/justify]
Source: The San Francisco Examiner | April 1, 2002
[large]Adversaries Go Inside ADL?s Spying Operation[/large]
The hidden workings of the Anti-Defamation League and how three Bay Area activists were able to uncover a spy operation that reached into the San Francisco Police Department.
By Dan Evans Of The Examiner Staff
Paper trail of deceit.
Locked in a nondescript computer database, a shadowy operative named Roy Bullock kept file upon file on liberal San Francisco Jews who disagreed with Israeli policies.
The files included Social Security numbers, driver?s license numbers, addresses, phone numbers and group memberships. Some of the information was sold to foreign governments, including Israeli and South African intelligence groups.
Shockingly, Bullock was in the employ of a civil rights group whose motto is ?fighting anti-Semitism, bigotry and extremism?: the Anti-Defamation League of B?nai B?rith. Numerous targets of the ADL ? who drew parallels to COINTELPRO, the FBI?s tainted domestic surveillance program ? say the profiling and covert activities continue to this day.
?They are continuing to gather facts,? said Abdeen Jabara, a Manhattan attorney and former president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. ?That, of course, is a euphemism for what we say is private spying.?
Not only were liberal Jews a target, but information also was kept on labor unions, pro-Palestinian organizations, anti-apartheid groups, American Arabs and anti-Semites. After the Federal Bureau of Investigation broke the case in 1993, a number of these targets filed suit against the ADL. The last lawsuit was recently settled.
The settlement in February marked the first time any of the organization?s victims were allowed to speak out. Usually, the ADL demands plaintiffs keep quiet as a condition of any settlement.
Without those constraints, victims Jeffrey Blankfort, Steve Zeltzer and Anne Poirier are revealing the underbelly of an organization that previously had successfully shielded itself from condemnation. They are using the ADL?s own spy as a fulcrum.
Bullock?s relationship with Blankfort and Zeltzer began when he infiltrated a pro-Palestinian group started by the two, both of whom are Jewish. Once inside, Bullock collected and sold information about the two men to the ADL and, possibly the Mossad, the foreign arm of Israeli intelligence.
Although Bullock never met Poirier, he may have sold information on her organization to the South African government. The woman, who lives in Berkeley, ran a scholarship program for South African exiles in the early 1990s. During the course of her lawsuit against the ADL, she discovered the ADL?s operative had sold confidential information to a South African agent in San Francisco for $15,000.
Poirier had never done any work relating to the Middle East, and she was astounded when she found out that the ADL had kept tabs on her. During her nine-year court fight with the group, she found out more than she needed to know about its operation, and now nothing much surprises her.
?They gathered information on anti-apartheid activities,? she said, ?anyone the organization felt, by definition, would be against Israel because they were too left-wing.?
A few files, so what?
The fact the ADL has a file on a group doesn?t imply clandestine activities, said San Francisco regional director Jonathan Bernstein. He resents the implication of the word spying, saying it implies people were being followed around and trailed. That simply wasn?t the case, he said, though he acknowledged he never met Bullock.
?We have files on the NAACP because we?ve done collaborative projects with them,? he said. ?They probably have files on the ADL, too.?
In Bernstein?s eyes, the group?s fact-finding operations are one of its most important missions.
Much of the time, the ?missions? are nothing more than gleaning information from media reports, he said. People employed by the ADL do attend public meetings to keep an eye on people, just as other journalists do.
The area?s top boss, however, repeatedly sidestepped questions on whether fact-finders employed subterfuge to get information. The fact that some of the people being watched by the ADL were Jewish was immaterial, Bernstein said.
Other civil rights groups, such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, do similar things on a limited scale, he said.
A representative of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is headquartered in Birmingham, could not be reached for comment.
Because the ADL has 30 regional offices, the organization is much better equipped to ferret out anti-Semitism and other racist behavior.
?It can help us to respond to hate activity before someone gets hurt,? Bernstein said. ?That?s the ultimate objective.?
But are there times when fact-finding becomes a civil rights violation?
The San Francisco office of the American Civil Liberties Union, a group one might expect to have a dim view on the tactics employed by the ADL, refused to comment on the group?s fact-finding activities. Nor would spokeswoman Rachel Swain give a reason for the silence.
Ongoing complaints
Groups have been saying for years that the ADL isn?t the civil rights organization it claims to be, but no one has been listening. Mostly, it?s because those groups have been thinly-veiled anti-Semites, such as the Liberty Lobby, or hate groups such as White Aryan Resistance and the KKK.
But, as vile as some of these groups are, there is a significant amount of evidence that their vitriol is not unfounded. For at least four decades, the ADL continuously has tracked and spied on groups it considers not only a threat to the Jewish community, but to the state of Israel.
Hussein Ibish certainly thinks so. Ibish is the spokesman for the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee ? an organization that is, in many ways, the Arab counterpart to the ADL. Though certainly at odds with many Israeli policies, the ADC is not anti-Semitic, and plays a rather moderate role.
?Was the ADL spying on people?? asked Ibish, quickly answering his own question. ?Certainly in San Francisco they were. We know they were engaging in illegal activities to gain information. They, and their operatives, were working hand-in-glove with South African intelligence and Israeli intelligence.?
Meet Mr. Spy
By his own admission, Bullock had been working off the books as a fact-finder for the ADL since the mid-1960s. He would infiltrate not only openly anti-Semitic groups, but also pro-Palestinian and anti-apartheid organizations, usually under false pretenses. Bullock, who is not Jewish, would then pass that information along to the ADL.
He received information about his targets from former San Francisco Police Inspector Tom Gerard, who fled to the Philippines after being indicted in 1994 for illegal use of a police computer. Gerard?s current whereabouts are unknown.
Bullock, who no longer does undercover work for the organization, declined to be interviewed for this article.
Nobody could have known about the extent of Bullock?s surveillance, if police had not seized his computer database in April 1993. It contained thousands of files on liberal Jewish San Franciscans, Arab-Americans, anti-apartheid activists, anti-Semitic groups, and plain ol? white racists.
On April 8, 1993, armed with this information, police in San Francisco and Los Angeles searched the ADL offices in those two cities. In San Francisco, roughly 10 banker?s boxes of information ? 75 percent of which officers said was illegally obtained ? were seized.
A majority of data in those boxes confirmed police suspicions that it had come from Bullock?s computer. On that computer was information on 9,876 people, including 1,394 driver?s licenses. The files were divided into five categories: ?Pinko,? ?Right,? Arabs,? ?Skins,? and ?ANC,? the last standing for African National Congress.
Bullock also told the FBI that he had information on various labor groups. These groups included: the San Francisco Labor Council, the Oakland Educators Association, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Irish Northern Aid, the International Indian Treaty Council and the Asian Law Caucus.
Lawsuits galore
After the SFPD raid on the ADL offices, then-District Attorney Arlo Smith filed a lawsuit against the organization to stop the spying. The suit was settled that November. Though the ADL acknowledged no wrongdoing, the group agreed to stop using police to get confidential information. The league also agreed to pay $75,000 to a fund used to help stop hate crimes.
On April 18, 1993, 19 people who Bullock kept files on sued the ADL in San Francisco Superior Court. Pete McCloskey, a former Republican congressman from San Mateo County, was the group?s attorney. His wife, Helen, was one of the original plaintiffs.
A few months later, in October, the ADC slapped its Jewish counterpart with a similar lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court. The ADC claimed the ADL passed along information on the group to the Israeli government. The ADC?s suit was settled in October 1996.
The ADL agreed to pay $175,000 toward the Arab group?s legal costs. The ADL also agreed to contribute $25,000 to a foundation, administered by the ADL and the ADC, dedicated to improving relations between Jews and Arabs. The ADL was able to deny all wrongdoing.
Journalistic enterprise?
The McCloskey case, however, would drag on. The main point of contention in that case was whether the ADL could be considered a journalistic enterprise, a point won in court by the ADL.
The ADL publishes hundreds of newsletters, papers and books on a wide range of subjects, attorney David Goldstein said. As with any other journalistic enterprise, it contended it was not required to release its confidential information or sources.
After a 1998 ruling by the 1st District Court of Appeal, giving the ADL journalistic protection, 14 of the remaining 17 plaintiffs ? two had died in the interim ? dropped their cases against the ADL.
On Feb. 22, 2002, the ADL settled with Blankfort, Zeltzer and Poirier.
What held up the process, said McCloskey, was his clients? refusal to sign a confidentially agreement. The three felt they had been viciously wronged, he said, and wanted to publicize that fact.
With the settlement, each of the three plaintiffs received about $50,000. None of the three, or McCloskey, believes the ADL will stop their spying ways.
?It was settled partially out of fatigue,? said the attorney. ?Everyone figured it might be best if we all just moved on.?
Even if the case had continued, said Goldstein, there is a debate over how much the three plaintiffs could prove they had been injured. Most of the contested information consisted of Social Security and driver?s license numbers, which are hardly difficult items to find.
Nine years later, McCloskey is still angry about the case and wants the federal government to revoke the group?s tax-exempt status.
Since they obviously are working in conjunction with the Israeli government, he said, they should register as such. Referring to themselves as an education group, said the attorney, is simply a sham.
Acerbic battle leaves sour taste.
After nearly a decade of fighting the Anti-Defamation League in court, attorney Pete McCloskey is as bitter as a man who consumed a gallon of vinegar.
The former Republican congressman from San Mateo, who recently won a settlement from the civil rights group for three Bay Area residents, is still tending to emotional wounds he endured from the ADL simply for defending his clients? rights.
?They come after anyone that disagrees with them,? he said of the organization?s tactics to paint him as an anti-Semite.
The decorated retired Marine, who represented his San Mateo County district in the House of Representatives from 1967 to 1983, is anything but an ideologue. He was one of the few Republicans who opposed the Vietnam War and fought with President Nixon on numerous occasions.
While he vehemently denies any ties to anti-Semitic or neo-Nazis groups, some of the avenues he chose to express his views have not helped his case.
Anti-Semitic newspaper
While in Congress, McCloskey granted an interview in 1982 with the anti-Semitic newspaper Spotlight. And in May 2000, he gave a speech at a conference of the Institute of Historical Review, a Holocaust revisionist group.
McCloskey spoke to the Spotlight because, he believes, one should speak to people they disagree with as much as people they agree with. The newspaper was the publication of the now-defunct Liberty Lobby.
Though he acknowledged the newspaper?s subscribers were primarily right-wingers and racists, ascribing him similar views are ridiculous, he said.
?Not a year didn?t go by during the years I was in Congress that the Spotlight didn?t blast me as being a liberal Republican,? he said.
In the Oct. 11, 1982 edition of the paper, McCloskey said Republicans were far better politically positioned than Democrats to push for a Palestinian state because GOP candidates were not as beholden to Jewish money to get elected.
?The battle will be for public opinion in the United States, whether the Congress will be willing to back Reagan and stand up to the Jewish lobby in this country,? he said.
However, he also stated in the interview that he disagreed with 90 percent of the group?s views, and suggested that peace in the Middle East would only be realized when the United States gave equal merit to both Arab and Israeli viewpoints.
Disagreement
As for his connection to the Institute of Historical Review, McCloskey said he respected the group?s determination to question historical records. He said he strongly disagreed with the group?s view on the Holocaust, but supported its right to say it.
In a letter last year to the group?s president, Mark Weber, McCloskey spoke of his visits to death camps and his conviction that ?there was a deliberate policy of extermination of Jews, Poles, gypsies and homosexuals by the Nazi leadership.?
McCloskey also suggested Weber?s group give up its views about the Holocaust, and instead focus on what he called the ADL?s distortions of truth, one of them being its claim McCloskey was a Holocaust denier.
?It was like when Bush went down to Bob Jones University, and his political opponents tried to identify him with Bob Jones,? he said, referring to the conservative South Carolina school that, until recently, prohibited interracial dating. ?It?s ridiculous.?
?The primary view of the ADL is that Jews should not be stereotyped or guilty by association,? he continued. ?Yet you see them trying to discredit people by virtue of their association.?
One of his clients, Steve Zeltzer, acknowledged he wasn?t entirely comfortable with McCloskey going to the Institute of Historical Review convention. Still, he said, he supports the right of free speech, even if he strongly disagrees with the content.
?I wouldn?t have done it, and I was opposed to him going,? Zeltzer said. ?I wouldn?t attend one of their conferences. They have a right to say what they want to say, but I don?t support their positions.?
Another client, Anne Poirier, said she had not heard about her attorney?s attendance at the conference and so couldn?t comment on it.
?One thing I know for sure, though, is he?s not an anti-Semite,? said the Berkeley resident. ?I?ll go mano-a-mano with anybody that says so.?
E-mail Dan Evans at devans@sfexaminer.com[/justify]
Nous serons toujours là.
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[justify][large]A Heated Argument About Israel[/large]
June 24, 2009
Letters
A Heated Argument About Israel
To the Editor:
?Fictions on the Ground,? by Tony Judt (Op-Ed, June 22), is the real work of fiction, past, present and future.
Israelis settled in the West Bank because it was deemed part of the historic home of the Jewish people and because the Arabs and the Palestinians rejected opportunities for peace with Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967. The territory in legal terms was undecided because the Palestinians from 1947 rejected the United Nations resolution dividing the land into Arab and Jewish states.
Saying ? as Mr. Judt does ? that Israel will never give up the settlements ignores the fact that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to dismantle 80 percent of the settlements at Camp David; that his successor, Ariel Sharon, dismantled all of the settlements in Gaza; and that Israeli leaders have repeatedly indicated that most of the settlements will go if there is peace, and those held will be part of a swap for Israeli territory.
Settlements are not an obstacle to peace if there is serious peacemaking, peace-teaching and compromise from the other side. As for fictions ? as Mr. Judt has made clear in his writings, his problem is not with Israeli settlements, but with Israel?s very existence as a Jewish state.
Abraham H. Foxman
National Director
Anti-Defamation League
New York, June 22, 2009
?
To the Editor:
Tony Judt does a wonderful job of clarifying why all the ?settlements? are illegal and stand in the way of peace in the Middle East, and of explaining how the small but significant political constituency in Israel prevents meaningful change from taking place.
He rightly calls on the United States to change its stance but neglects to point out how a small but significant constituency in this country plays a similar role. Some of us, presumed to be part of that very constituency, certainly hope that President Obama will disregard the wrongful wishes of that constituency and put the United States on the right side of this issue once and for all.
For the sake of Israel and the wider world, expansion of settlements must stop, and all of them must be dismantled.
Howard Rubinstein
Brooklyn, June 22, 2009
?
To the Editor:
Tony Judt casts the road map for peace in the Middle East exclusively in terms of his lament for the disappearance of the idealistic kibbutzim of his youth and his fury with the policies of the right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet oddly, in the article, the outside world, including the Palestinians, doesn?t seem to exist.
In these difficult times the United States will have enough difficulty brokering a peace between Israel and the Palestinians ? it can?t referee internal Israeli politics. That there are both idealistic and corrupt Israelis and Palestinians is a given. The real issue is how do we pragmatically get to a two-state solution.
Barbara Probst Solomon
New York, June 22, 2009
?
To the Editor:
Tony Judt misleads in many ways, among them by implying that the West Bank was captured by Israel in 1967 from some Palestinian country and not Jordan (which does not seek its return), and contending that Yigal Amir was inspired to assassinate Yitzhak Rabin by ?rabbinical? influence at Bar-Ilan University (Mr. Amir has stated clearly otherwise).
Most egregious, though, is Mr. Judt?s amazing objection to demilitarizing any Palestinian state established in the West Bank, because it would ?have no means of defending itself against aggression.? Considering how the Palestinians in a militarized Gaza responded to Israel?s withdrawal from that territory, raining thousands of rockets onto Israeli cities, for Israel to help establish a weaponized Arab country in its very heart, within range of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, would be to commit national suicide.
(Rabbi) Avi Shafran
Director of Public Affairs
Agudath Israel of America
New York, June 22, 2009
?
To the Editor:
Tony Judt didn?t answer my most basic question: Why does a future Palestinian state have to be free of Jews? If Arabs can live in Israel, why can?t Jews live in Palestine?
By refusing to answer this question, he and all the proponents of a settlement freeze turn the settlement argument into a facade. Because if the settlements don?t have to be removed, then why waste time arguing about what is a settlement, where are the boundaries, what is natural growth?
Making Jews, and only Jews, leave their homes is ethnic cleansing. Isn?t this exactly what Israel?s critics accuse it of?
Jonathan D. Reich
Lakeland, Fla., June 23, 2009
?
To the Editor:
Tony Judt provides a realistic assessment of both the illegality of settlements in international law as well as the collusion of Israeli governments of all tendencies to support them.
As he points out, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu government?s sudden support of a Palestinian state is meaningless because the settlements would remain, something no Palestinian leader could accept. This will enable Mr. Netanyahu and his supporters in this country to claim once again that there is no partner for peace.
While not all Palestinian factions openly accept Israel?s existence, Fatah does.
But Mahmoud Abbas could never accept Mr. Netanyahu?s supposedly sincere offer because the bypass roads for Jews only and the carefully placed settlements would ensure that no viable Palestinian state could be created ? precisely what Israeli rightists and their American lobbies intend.
After all, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon assured President George W. Bush of his support for a Palestinian state in April 2004, he referred to Palestinians in the West Bank having what he called ?transportation contiguity,? meaning tunnels beneath Israeli bypass roads to settlements that only Israelis could use. That constitutes a viable state?
Charles D. Smith
San Diego, June 22, 2009
The writer is a professor of Middle East history at the University of Arizona.
?
To the Editor:
Among the many fictions in Tony Judt?s article was his portrayal of Bar-Ilan University. In his remark about the university, Mr. Judt ignored the tremendous diversity of political opinion and religious observance at Bar-Ilan, Israel?s fastest-growing and largest university, with an academic community of 33,000 students.
Bar-Ilan is a leading force in unifying Israel?s religious and secular communities. More than 60 percent of its students identify as primarily secular. They are attracted by the university?s commitment to a first-class education in the sciences, humanities, law, engineering, business and the arts ? all within a learning environment that fosters Jewish values and promotes dialogue among Israelis from different backgrounds.
Bar-Ilan University stresses the Jewish people?s ties to Israel for more than 3,000 years ? a point that was emphasized in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?s speech. He wanted to speak at a university that is grounded in the Zionist enterprise.
It is the respect that Israelis have for Bar-Ilan University and its efforts to unify Israeli society that led to Prime Minister Netanyahu?s decision to give his recent address at the university?s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
Mark D. Medin
New York, June 22, 2009
The writer is executive vice president and chief executive, American Friends of Bar-Ilan University.
?
To the Editor:
If the Israelis and the Palestinians are ever to come to an agreement ? in three years or 30 years ? becoming much clearer and more honest about what the issues really are will need to come first.
In this regard, the article by Tony Judt is a difficult but important step forward. The truth hurts. The ?settlements? are indeed the key issue. If ?settlements? can be solved, then ?security? will come quite naturally. James Opie
Portland, Ore., June 22, 2009
Copyright 2009-The New York Times Company
[small]www.nytimes.com[/small][/justify]
June 24, 2009
Letters
A Heated Argument About Israel
To the Editor:
?Fictions on the Ground,? by Tony Judt (Op-Ed, June 22), is the real work of fiction, past, present and future.
Israelis settled in the West Bank because it was deemed part of the historic home of the Jewish people and because the Arabs and the Palestinians rejected opportunities for peace with Israel after the Six-Day War in 1967. The territory in legal terms was undecided because the Palestinians from 1947 rejected the United Nations resolution dividing the land into Arab and Jewish states.
Saying ? as Mr. Judt does ? that Israel will never give up the settlements ignores the fact that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to dismantle 80 percent of the settlements at Camp David; that his successor, Ariel Sharon, dismantled all of the settlements in Gaza; and that Israeli leaders have repeatedly indicated that most of the settlements will go if there is peace, and those held will be part of a swap for Israeli territory.
Settlements are not an obstacle to peace if there is serious peacemaking, peace-teaching and compromise from the other side. As for fictions ? as Mr. Judt has made clear in his writings, his problem is not with Israeli settlements, but with Israel?s very existence as a Jewish state.
Abraham H. Foxman
National Director
Anti-Defamation League
New York, June 22, 2009
?
To the Editor:
Tony Judt does a wonderful job of clarifying why all the ?settlements? are illegal and stand in the way of peace in the Middle East, and of explaining how the small but significant political constituency in Israel prevents meaningful change from taking place.
He rightly calls on the United States to change its stance but neglects to point out how a small but significant constituency in this country plays a similar role. Some of us, presumed to be part of that very constituency, certainly hope that President Obama will disregard the wrongful wishes of that constituency and put the United States on the right side of this issue once and for all.
For the sake of Israel and the wider world, expansion of settlements must stop, and all of them must be dismantled.
Howard Rubinstein
Brooklyn, June 22, 2009
?
To the Editor:
Tony Judt casts the road map for peace in the Middle East exclusively in terms of his lament for the disappearance of the idealistic kibbutzim of his youth and his fury with the policies of the right-wing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Yet oddly, in the article, the outside world, including the Palestinians, doesn?t seem to exist.
In these difficult times the United States will have enough difficulty brokering a peace between Israel and the Palestinians ? it can?t referee internal Israeli politics. That there are both idealistic and corrupt Israelis and Palestinians is a given. The real issue is how do we pragmatically get to a two-state solution.
Barbara Probst Solomon
New York, June 22, 2009
?
To the Editor:
Tony Judt misleads in many ways, among them by implying that the West Bank was captured by Israel in 1967 from some Palestinian country and not Jordan (which does not seek its return), and contending that Yigal Amir was inspired to assassinate Yitzhak Rabin by ?rabbinical? influence at Bar-Ilan University (Mr. Amir has stated clearly otherwise).
Most egregious, though, is Mr. Judt?s amazing objection to demilitarizing any Palestinian state established in the West Bank, because it would ?have no means of defending itself against aggression.? Considering how the Palestinians in a militarized Gaza responded to Israel?s withdrawal from that territory, raining thousands of rockets onto Israeli cities, for Israel to help establish a weaponized Arab country in its very heart, within range of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, would be to commit national suicide.
(Rabbi) Avi Shafran
Director of Public Affairs
Agudath Israel of America
New York, June 22, 2009
?
To the Editor:
Tony Judt didn?t answer my most basic question: Why does a future Palestinian state have to be free of Jews? If Arabs can live in Israel, why can?t Jews live in Palestine?
By refusing to answer this question, he and all the proponents of a settlement freeze turn the settlement argument into a facade. Because if the settlements don?t have to be removed, then why waste time arguing about what is a settlement, where are the boundaries, what is natural growth?
Making Jews, and only Jews, leave their homes is ethnic cleansing. Isn?t this exactly what Israel?s critics accuse it of?
Jonathan D. Reich
Lakeland, Fla., June 23, 2009
?
To the Editor:
Tony Judt provides a realistic assessment of both the illegality of settlements in international law as well as the collusion of Israeli governments of all tendencies to support them.
As he points out, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu government?s sudden support of a Palestinian state is meaningless because the settlements would remain, something no Palestinian leader could accept. This will enable Mr. Netanyahu and his supporters in this country to claim once again that there is no partner for peace.
While not all Palestinian factions openly accept Israel?s existence, Fatah does.
But Mahmoud Abbas could never accept Mr. Netanyahu?s supposedly sincere offer because the bypass roads for Jews only and the carefully placed settlements would ensure that no viable Palestinian state could be created ? precisely what Israeli rightists and their American lobbies intend.
After all, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon assured President George W. Bush of his support for a Palestinian state in April 2004, he referred to Palestinians in the West Bank having what he called ?transportation contiguity,? meaning tunnels beneath Israeli bypass roads to settlements that only Israelis could use. That constitutes a viable state?
Charles D. Smith
San Diego, June 22, 2009
The writer is a professor of Middle East history at the University of Arizona.
?
To the Editor:
Among the many fictions in Tony Judt?s article was his portrayal of Bar-Ilan University. In his remark about the university, Mr. Judt ignored the tremendous diversity of political opinion and religious observance at Bar-Ilan, Israel?s fastest-growing and largest university, with an academic community of 33,000 students.
Bar-Ilan is a leading force in unifying Israel?s religious and secular communities. More than 60 percent of its students identify as primarily secular. They are attracted by the university?s commitment to a first-class education in the sciences, humanities, law, engineering, business and the arts ? all within a learning environment that fosters Jewish values and promotes dialogue among Israelis from different backgrounds.
Bar-Ilan University stresses the Jewish people?s ties to Israel for more than 3,000 years ? a point that was emphasized in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?s speech. He wanted to speak at a university that is grounded in the Zionist enterprise.
It is the respect that Israelis have for Bar-Ilan University and its efforts to unify Israeli society that led to Prime Minister Netanyahu?s decision to give his recent address at the university?s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
Mark D. Medin
New York, June 22, 2009
The writer is executive vice president and chief executive, American Friends of Bar-Ilan University.
?
To the Editor:
If the Israelis and the Palestinians are ever to come to an agreement ? in three years or 30 years ? becoming much clearer and more honest about what the issues really are will need to come first.
In this regard, the article by Tony Judt is a difficult but important step forward. The truth hurts. The ?settlements? are indeed the key issue. If ?settlements? can be solved, then ?security? will come quite naturally. James Opie
Portland, Ore., June 22, 2009
Copyright 2009-The New York Times Company
[small]www.nytimes.com[/small][/justify]
Nous serons toujours là.
-
Dejuificator II
- Erudit
- Posts: 552
- Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:47 pm
[justify][large]AIPAC & ADL Refuse to Condemn Ethnic Cleansers[/large]
AIPAC, ADL refuse to condemn inclusion of
ethnic cleansers in new Israel government
By Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada
3 March 2003
[small]http://electronicintifada.net/content/a ... nment/4432[/small]
LEADING PRO-ISRAELI ORGANIZATIONS in the United States have
pointedly refused to condemn Ariel Sharon's inclusion in his new
government of the National Union alliance parties whose members ran
for election on a platform openly advocating the "transfer" -- or
ethnic cleansing -- of the Palestinians. The National Union is made
up of three parties, Moledet, Tekuma and Israel Beitenu and won
seven seats in the recent Israeli election.
The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), widely
regarded as the most influential pro-Israeli group on Capitol Hill,
did not issue any statement marking the formation of the new
government. Rebecca Needler, AIPAC's press secretary explained to me
that, "we don't comment on domestic Israeli issues." When I asked
her if she thought that the inclusion in the Israeli government of a
party that openly espouses ethnic cleansing would make AIPAC's
advocacy work more difficult, Needler replied, "Israel's coalition
government is representative of a true democracy."
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which boasts of "90 years fighting
anti-Semitism, bigotry and extremism," also remained publicly
silent. When I called for a comment, a woman named Sarah in the
media relations office initially told me that, "we don't usually
issue statements on changes of government in democratic countries."
I later received a call from ADL National Director Abraham Foxman. I
asked Foxman if his organization planned to issue a statement
commenting on the inclusion of the National Union parties in the
Israeli government. Foxman's first reply was "Why would we?" I
countered, "because they ran on a platform in favor of physically
removing all the Palestinians from their homeland."
Foxman said that it is "an overstatement to say that the party ran
on a platform of transfer." He claimed that this was just the
personal view of a few individual members. On its website, however,
one of the National Union parties says, "Moledet ("homeland" in
Hebrew) is an ideological political party in Israel that embraces
the idea of population transfer as an integral part of comprehensive
plan to achieve real peace between the Jews and the Arabs Living in
the Land of Israel. [sic] " The party further boasts that, "Moledet
has successfully raised the idea of transfer in the public discourse
and political arena in both Israel and abroad."
The National Union's combined platform states, "Within the framework
of any agreement, it is necessary to solve the Palestinian refugee
problem -- refugees who have spent the past 55 years in refugee
camps. The proposed solution is transfer by agreement (population
exchange) by which the refugees would be settled in Arab countries
in place of Jews who emigrated to Israel from these countries." More
than eighty percent of the population of Gaza and up to forty
percent of the population of the West Bank are refugees.
Foxman explained that since "transfer" is not part of the coalition
agreement, on which the new Israeli government is built, there was
no reason to issue a public comment. "We disagree," he said, "with
many parties on many things, and we don't make statements about
everything." I asked if he didn't think the ADL had a special duty
to respond to proposals that fit the international legal definition
of genocide. Foxman assured me that he thought the idea of transfer
was "unacceptable" and "undemocratic," but made no firm commitment
to condemn the new Israeli government for including parties with a
clear pro-ethnic cleansing platform. Foxman said he had not read the
relevant party platforms "in a while," a remarkable admission from a
man whose organization apparently scrutinizes for evidence of
'anti-Semitism' every obscure pamphlet issued in the backstreets of
Cairo. "I will go back and read them," Foxman assured, "and if
transfer becomes part of the coalition agreement, then you can be
sure you will hear from us."
The very high tolerance for racist and potentially genocidal ideas
that Foxman evinces when they come from Israelis is not evident in
other, lesser cases. For example, when the far-right Freedom Party
made gains in Austria's elections in 2000 on an anti-immigrant
platform, Foxman issued a statement saying, "It is astonishing that
a significant portion of the [Austrian] population is ready to
embrace a party and leadership that espouse xenophobic and nativist
positions and statements." (ADL press release, 1 February 2000)
Foxman and ADL President Howard Berkowitz even flew off to Vienna to
meddle directly in Austrian politics, and met with Austrian
President Thomas Klestil, as well as the president of the Austrian
parliament and other senior officials. According to a 28 February
2000 press release, "The Anti-Defamation League has watched the
political situation in Austria with great concern. After meeting
with elected officials, including President Thomas Klestil, we
remain deeply concerned about the decision by Chancellor Wolfgang
Schuessel to include Joerg Haider's Freedom Party as part of his
coalition."
The idea of "solving" the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by ethnic
cleansing of the Palestinians is gaining increasing exposure in the
United States as well as in Israel. In February 2002, the ubiquitous
daily USA Today published an op-ed calling for "resettling" all the
Palestinians in Jordan, and in May 2002, then US Republican Majority
Leader, Congressman Dick Armey, explicitly backed transfer on
national television. More recently, popular comedian Jackie Mason
wrote an article in The Jewish Press headlined, "Time To Threaten
Arabs With Mass Eviction."
It is hardly surprising that such dangerous notions are becoming
increasingly mainstream when the leading pro-Israeli organizations
utterly fail to condemn them, and not a single American newspaper
devotes an editorial to rejecting them. In such an unrestrained
atmosphere it cannot be long before Sharon is indeed able to openly
espouse "transfer" and still be lauded in Washington as a "man of
peace."
This article was first published in The Daily Star on 3 March 2003
[small]http://dailystar.com.lb/default.aspx[/small][/justify]
AIPAC, ADL refuse to condemn inclusion of
ethnic cleansers in new Israel government
By Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada
3 March 2003
[small]http://electronicintifada.net/content/a ... nment/4432[/small]
LEADING PRO-ISRAELI ORGANIZATIONS in the United States have
pointedly refused to condemn Ariel Sharon's inclusion in his new
government of the National Union alliance parties whose members ran
for election on a platform openly advocating the "transfer" -- or
ethnic cleansing -- of the Palestinians. The National Union is made
up of three parties, Moledet, Tekuma and Israel Beitenu and won
seven seats in the recent Israeli election.
The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), widely
regarded as the most influential pro-Israeli group on Capitol Hill,
did not issue any statement marking the formation of the new
government. Rebecca Needler, AIPAC's press secretary explained to me
that, "we don't comment on domestic Israeli issues." When I asked
her if she thought that the inclusion in the Israeli government of a
party that openly espouses ethnic cleansing would make AIPAC's
advocacy work more difficult, Needler replied, "Israel's coalition
government is representative of a true democracy."
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which boasts of "90 years fighting
anti-Semitism, bigotry and extremism," also remained publicly
silent. When I called for a comment, a woman named Sarah in the
media relations office initially told me that, "we don't usually
issue statements on changes of government in democratic countries."
I later received a call from ADL National Director Abraham Foxman. I
asked Foxman if his organization planned to issue a statement
commenting on the inclusion of the National Union parties in the
Israeli government. Foxman's first reply was "Why would we?" I
countered, "because they ran on a platform in favor of physically
removing all the Palestinians from their homeland."
Foxman said that it is "an overstatement to say that the party ran
on a platform of transfer." He claimed that this was just the
personal view of a few individual members. On its website, however,
one of the National Union parties says, "Moledet ("homeland" in
Hebrew) is an ideological political party in Israel that embraces
the idea of population transfer as an integral part of comprehensive
plan to achieve real peace between the Jews and the Arabs Living in
the Land of Israel. [sic] " The party further boasts that, "Moledet
has successfully raised the idea of transfer in the public discourse
and political arena in both Israel and abroad."
The National Union's combined platform states, "Within the framework
of any agreement, it is necessary to solve the Palestinian refugee
problem -- refugees who have spent the past 55 years in refugee
camps. The proposed solution is transfer by agreement (population
exchange) by which the refugees would be settled in Arab countries
in place of Jews who emigrated to Israel from these countries." More
than eighty percent of the population of Gaza and up to forty
percent of the population of the West Bank are refugees.
Foxman explained that since "transfer" is not part of the coalition
agreement, on which the new Israeli government is built, there was
no reason to issue a public comment. "We disagree," he said, "with
many parties on many things, and we don't make statements about
everything." I asked if he didn't think the ADL had a special duty
to respond to proposals that fit the international legal definition
of genocide. Foxman assured me that he thought the idea of transfer
was "unacceptable" and "undemocratic," but made no firm commitment
to condemn the new Israeli government for including parties with a
clear pro-ethnic cleansing platform. Foxman said he had not read the
relevant party platforms "in a while," a remarkable admission from a
man whose organization apparently scrutinizes for evidence of
'anti-Semitism' every obscure pamphlet issued in the backstreets of
Cairo. "I will go back and read them," Foxman assured, "and if
transfer becomes part of the coalition agreement, then you can be
sure you will hear from us."
The very high tolerance for racist and potentially genocidal ideas
that Foxman evinces when they come from Israelis is not evident in
other, lesser cases. For example, when the far-right Freedom Party
made gains in Austria's elections in 2000 on an anti-immigrant
platform, Foxman issued a statement saying, "It is astonishing that
a significant portion of the [Austrian] population is ready to
embrace a party and leadership that espouse xenophobic and nativist
positions and statements." (ADL press release, 1 February 2000)
Foxman and ADL President Howard Berkowitz even flew off to Vienna to
meddle directly in Austrian politics, and met with Austrian
President Thomas Klestil, as well as the president of the Austrian
parliament and other senior officials. According to a 28 February
2000 press release, "The Anti-Defamation League has watched the
political situation in Austria with great concern. After meeting
with elected officials, including President Thomas Klestil, we
remain deeply concerned about the decision by Chancellor Wolfgang
Schuessel to include Joerg Haider's Freedom Party as part of his
coalition."
The idea of "solving" the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by ethnic
cleansing of the Palestinians is gaining increasing exposure in the
United States as well as in Israel. In February 2002, the ubiquitous
daily USA Today published an op-ed calling for "resettling" all the
Palestinians in Jordan, and in May 2002, then US Republican Majority
Leader, Congressman Dick Armey, explicitly backed transfer on
national television. More recently, popular comedian Jackie Mason
wrote an article in The Jewish Press headlined, "Time To Threaten
Arabs With Mass Eviction."
It is hardly surprising that such dangerous notions are becoming
increasingly mainstream when the leading pro-Israeli organizations
utterly fail to condemn them, and not a single American newspaper
devotes an editorial to rejecting them. In such an unrestrained
atmosphere it cannot be long before Sharon is indeed able to openly
espouse "transfer" and still be lauded in Washington as a "man of
peace."
This article was first published in The Daily Star on 3 March 2003
[small]http://dailystar.com.lb/default.aspx[/small][/justify]
Nous serons toujours là.
-
Dejuificator II
- Erudit
- Posts: 552
- Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:47 pm
[justify][large]AIPAC and Iraq Playing Politics at Ground Zero[/large]
Playing Ethnic Politics At Ground Zero
Sam Smith
MARCH 2003 ?Progressive Review? ? One of the reasons Rep. Jim Moran thinks Jewish leaders are powerful is because the ones he sees are. Jews outside of Washington ? like gun-owners, doctors, and Chamber of Commerce members outside of Washington ? don?t have a strong sense of just how precisely their ?community? is being defined daily by their capital lobbyists.
There is no doubt ? if one considers the ?Jewish community? as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and various large Jewish campaign contributors ? that Rep. Moran was quite correct in saying that they could have had a significant effect on the course of our policy in the Middle East. For example, it took only three days for them to have a significant effect on the course of Rep. Moran?s career, getting his cowardly colleagues to force him out of his House leadership position. Earlier, they helped to have a similar effect on Rep Cynthia McKinney, who went down to defeat thanks in part to an influx of pro-Israel money. AIPAC, after all, is a lobby powerful enough that at its most recent conference, one half of the Senate and one-third of the House showed up.
The fact that the Washington leadership may not accurately reflect the diversity of its national constituency is not uniquely a Jewish problem; it is part of the displacement of democracy from the consensus of the many to the will of a select few that is speeding the decline of the Republic. And never have the selected been fewer than under the present Bush.
In talking about the Jewish manifestation of this, politicians and the media use two different approaches. One is the sanitized patois of ethnic sensitivity as when the perpetually clichéd Eleanor Clift wrote: ?Moran apologized, but the historical echoes that he awakened are so antithetical to what Democrats claim to stand for that he might as well bid goodbye to his political career.?
But in the same article in which he quotes Clift, Greg Pierce of the Washington Times also writes, ?One political analyst said he counseled two Democratic presidential campaigns to call for Moran?s resignation. ?It would be a cheap way to reassure Jewish voters,? he said. ?I don?t understand why they haven?t done it yet.??
In other words, what is considered anti-Semitic when stated at a town meeting, becomes in another context just your standard keen political analysis.
When you look at the facts rather than the Washington rhetoric, you find that Moran was even more right than it appeared at first. A study by Belief Net found that only the Southern Baptist Convention and some Jewish groups supported the military approach and every other listed major denomination opposed it. True, the Southern Baptists were unequivocally in favor of war while the Jewish groups ? Orthodox Union, Union Of American Hebrew Congregations (Reform), and United Synagogue Of Conservative Judaism ? wanted to exhaust other alternatives first, but every other religion Belief Net checked opposed the war including the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Episcopal Church, Greek Orthodox Church in America, Mormons ? Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Presbyterian Church (USA), Quakers ? American Friends Service Committee, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Unitarian Universalist Association. The Catholics weren?t included but the Pope took a clear stand against the war.
So why go to such efforts to deliberately conceal and prevaricate concerning the role of key Jewish organizations in supporting the Iraq invasion?
Part of the answer can be found in none other than the hypocritically outraged Washington Post, in an article written by its White House correspondent, Dana Milbank, last November:
A group of U.S. political consultants has sent pro-Israel leaders a memo urging them to keep quiet while the Bush administration pursues a possible war with Iraq. The six-page memo was sent by the Israel Project, a group funded by American Jewish organizations and individual donors. Its authors said the main audience was American Jewish leaders, but much of the memo?s language is directed toward Israelis. The memo reflects a concern that involvement by Israel in a U.S.-Iraq confrontation could hurt Israel?s standing in American public opinion and undermine international support for a hard line against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. . .
The Iraq memo was issued in the past few weeks and labeled ?confidential property of the Israel Project,? which is led by Democratic consultant Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi with help from Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and Republican pollsters Neil Newhouse and Frank Luntz. Several of the consultants have advised Israeli politicians, and the group aired a pro-Israel ad earlier this year. ?If your goal is regime change, you must be much more careful with your language because of the potential backlash,? said the memo, titled ?Talking About Iraq.?
?It added: ?You do not want Americans to believe that the war on Iraq is being waged to protect Israel rather than to protect America.? In particular, the memo urged Israelis to pipe down about the possibility of Israel responding to an Iraqi attack. ?Such certainty may be Israeli policy, but asserting it publicly and so overtly will not sit well with a majority of Americans because it suggests a pre-determined outcome rather than a measured approach,? it said.?
This is not the first time this strategy has been tried. For example, in January 1991, David Rogers of the Wall Street Journal wrote:
When Congress debated going to war with Iraq, the pro-Israel lobby stayed in the background ? but not out of the fight. Leaders of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee now acknowledge it worked in tandem with the Bush administration to win passage of a resolution authorizing the president to commit U.S. troops to combat. The behind-the-scenes campaign avoided AIPAC?s customary high profile in the Capitol and relied instead on activists-calling sometimes from Israel itself-to contact lawmakers and build on public endorsements by major Jewish organizations. ?Yes, we were active.? says AIPAC director Thomas Dine. ?These are the great issues of our time, If you sit on the sidelines, you have no voice. . . ?
The debate revealed a deep ambivalence among Jewish lawmakers over what course to follow, pitting their generally liberal instincts against their support of Israel. Friends and families were divided. And even as some pro-Israel advocates urged a more aggressive stance, there was concern that the lobby risked damaging Israel?s longer term interests if the issue became too identified with Jewish or pro-Israel polities.
. . . AIPAC took pains to disguise its role, and there was quiet relief that the vote showed no solid Jewish bloc in favor of a war so relevant to Israel. ?It isn?t such a bad idea that we were split,? says one Jewish lawmaker. . .
Pro-Israel PACs have poured money into campaigns for Southern Democrats not immediately identified with their cause. For example, the Alabama delegation voted in a bloc with Mr. Bush in both the House and Senate. At first glance, this can be ascribed to the conservative, pro military character of the state. But pro-Israel PACs have also cultivated Democrats there in recent years.?
It is hard to imagine such a frank description of ethnic politics today. Thus it is not surprising that few know that the aforementioned Thomas Dines ? then executive director of AIPAC and now head of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty ? is a member of the advisory committee of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.
The Post, which didn?t mentioned Dines? involvement in plotting the seizure of Iraq, described the new organization as ?modeled on a successful lobbying campaign to expand the NATO alliance.?
In fact, the last time prior to the war itself that the Post even mentioned AIPAC was back in August before the Iraq invasion plot took full shape. So you had to look elsewhere to find out what the Jewish leadership was up to. For example, the Jerusalem Post reported last October:
After weeks of debate and consideration, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which represents 52 Jewish national groups, announced its support for US military action against Iraq ?as a last resort.? In a statement released Saturday, the Conference of Presidents announced that all of its member groups ?support President [George W.] Bush and the Congress in their efforts to gain unequivocal Iraqi compliance with the obligation to divest itself of weapons of mass destruction and the means to develop such weapons.? The statement also endorsed the Bush administration?s ?efforts to enlist the United Nations and international cooperation to secure Iraqi compliance, including the use of force as a last resort.
The chairman of the group, Mortimer Zuckerman went a bit further, declaring that the failure to attack Iraq would ?ruin American credibility in the Muslim world.?
Now let us imagine that the 52 Jewish organizations had instead reached a consensus that invading Iraq was illegal, unwise, unconstitutional, and an act of reckless endangerment against the whole world. Would that have influenced American policy? Of course it would.
Here?s what happened instead, as described by Nathan Guttmann of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:
An unusual visitor was invited to address the annual conference held last week in Washington by AIPAC, the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States: the head of the Washington office of the Iraqi National Congress, Intifad Qanbar. The INC is one of the main opposition groups outside Iraq, and its leaders consider themselves natural candidates for leadership positions in the post-Saddam Hussein era. Qanbar?s invitation to the conference reflects a first attempt to disclose the links between the American Jewish community and the Iraqi opposition, after years in which the two sides have taken pains to conceal them.
The considerations against openly disclosing the extent of cooperation are obvious ? revelation of overly close links with Jews will not serve the interests of the organizations aspiring to lead the Iraqi people. Currently, at the height of rivalry over future leadership of the country among opposition groups abroad, the domestic opposition and Iraqi citizens, it is most certainly undesirable for the Jewish lobby to forge ? or flaunt ? especially close links with any one of the groups, in a way that would cause its alienation from the others.
?At the current stage, we don?t want to be involved in this argument,? says a major activist in one of the larger Jewish organizations. In the end, Intifad Qanbar did not attend the AIPAC conference. . .
The Jewish groups maintain quiet contacts with nearly every Iraqi opposition group, and in the past have even met with the most prominent opposition leader, Ahmed Chalabi. The main objective was an exchange of information, but there was also an attempt to persuade the Iraqis of the need for good relations with Israel and with world Jewry. . . .
Aside from the annual AIPAC conference, two other major events in the United States last week underscored the gamut of opinions and perspectives in the American Jewish community on the war. The positioning of the AIPAC people behind the coalition forces and behind those who sent them is not surprising. AIPAC is wont to support whatever is good for Israel, and so long as Israel supports the war, so too do the thousands of the AIPAC lobbyists who convened in the American capital.
There is no such uniformity among the various religious Jewish movements, and indecisiveness is still very much the case. In Los Angeles, members of the Conservative movement?s Rabbinical Assembly gathered and tried to clarify their position on the . . . In the end, the issue was submitted to an executive council, which issued a draft resolution that offered support for the war, albeit with reservations. . .
The dilemma is more pronounced among Reform Jews. They also convened last week to formulate a joint position, and they too were careful not to launch any strident criticism of the war itself. . . The only decision relevant to the war was agreement on a prayer for the welfare of the soldiers at the front, and recognition of the fact that there are a variety of opinions on the war. The resolution that was adopted is very far from constituting an expression of support of any kind for the war, but is also far from constituting criticism of it.
The situation is simpler among the Orthodox. Immediately upon the outbreak of the war, the Orthodox Union, the umbrella organization of the community, released a statement that expressed unequivocal support for President Bush and his decision to launch the war on Iraq, which was described as having ?noble aims.?
Despite the ambivalence within the various religious segments of Judaism, not to mention the split among Jews themselves, AIPAC carried on its aggressive pro-war activity with impunity.
Of course they had some help, as Michael Lind pointed out in the New Statesman:
Most neo-conservative defense intellectuals have their roots on the left, not the right. They are products of the largely Jewish-American Trotskyist movement of the 1930s and 1940s, which morphed into anti-communist liberalism between the 1950s and 1970s and finally into a kind of militaristic and imperial right with no precedents in American culture or political history. Their admiration for the Israeli Likud party?s tactics, including preventive warfare such Israel?s 1981 raid on Iraq?s Osirak nuclear reactor, is mixed with odd bursts of ideological enthusiasm for ?democracy.? They call their revolutionary ideology ?Wilsonianism? (after President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky?s theory of the permanent revolution mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism. Genuine American Wilsonians believe in self-determination for people such as the Palestinians.
The neo-con defense intellectuals, as well as being in or around the actual Pentagon, are at the center of a metaphorical ?pentagon? of the Israel lobby and the religious right, plus conservative think-tanks, foundations and media empires. . .
The major link between the conservative think-tanks and the Israel lobby is the Washington-based and Likud-supporting Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, which co-opts many non-Jewish defense experts by sending them on trips to Israel. It flew out the retired General Jay Garner, now slated by Bush to be proconsul of occupied Iraq. In October 2000, he co-signed a JINSA letter that began: ?We . . . believe that during the current upheavals in Israel, the Israel Defense Forces have exercised remarkable restraint in the face of lethal violence orchestrated by the leadership of [the] Palestinian Authority.?
The Israel lobby itself is divided into Jewish and Christian wings. [Pentagon officials Paul] Wolfowitz and [Douglas] Feith have close ties to the Jewish-American Israel lobby. Wolfowitz, who has relatives in Israel, has served as the Bush administration?s liaison to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Feith was given an award by the Zionist Organisation of America, citing him as a ?pro-Israel activist?. While out of power in the Clinton years, Feith collaborating with Perle, co-authored for Likud a policy paper that advised the Israeli government to end the Oslo peace process, reoccupy the territories and crush Yasser Arafat?s government.
Such experts are not typical of Jewish-Americans, who mostly voted for Gore in 2000. The most fervent supporters of Likud in the Republican electorate are southern Protestant fundamentalists. The religious right believes that God gave all of Palestine to the Jews, and fundamentalist congregations spend millions to subsidize Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
Then, of course, there is Israel itself which has been a huge beneficiary of American aid only to have repeatedly thwarted the better efforts of American presidents and other leaders ? including those in Israel ? seeking a bit of rationality in the Middle East. Much of this subversion of sanity has been masochistic; de facto, right wing Israelis have been among the world?s most effective anti-Semites.
In a recent Counterpunch article, Kathleen and Bill Christison offer an explication of this phenomenon;
[Jeff Halper] is an Israeli anthropologist, until his retirement a year ago a professor at Ben Gurion University, a transplant 30 years ago from Minnesota, a harsh critic of Israel?s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and, as founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, one of the leading peace and anti-occupation activists in Israel. . .
Zionism, he says, ?is a very compelling narrative, but it is totally self-contained, a bubble in which Israelis separate themselves from all others.? Israelis regard everyone else as irrelevant. When it is suggested that fear motivates this self-absorption, Halper disagrees. ?It?s not so much fear,? he says; Israelis ?just don?t give a damn. They make everyone else a non-issue. They see themselves as the victim, and if you?re the victim, you?re not responsible for anything you do.?
Anything goes if you are the victim, he explains: you don?t care about the consequences of your actions for other people, you need not take any responsibility for the effect of your policies on others, you don?t care about how others feel. Israelis always think they?re right, he says. They believe everything they do is right because the Jewish nation is ?right,? because they are only responding to what others do to them, only retaliating. ?If you combine three elements: the idea that we are right, with the notion that we?re the victim, and with our great military power,? he says, you have a lethal combination. . . . Israel can act with brutality, but the responsibility, the fault, lies elsewhere.
To define good Jewishness ? or conversely, anti-Semitism ? by one?s reaction to the Sharon government makes no more sense than to define good Americanism by one?s reaction to Bush. Sharon not only blasphemously mocks the lessons supposedly learned from the Holocaust, his policies represent a huge departure from the humanistic and progressive politics that long characterized American Judaism. This tradition, born in European socialism and blended with American populism, helped mightily to form the social democracy our country increasingly enjoyed during the 20th century.
I, in fact, grew up alnost believing that there were three branches of Judiasm: Orthodox, Reform, and Liberal Democratic. And it often seemed that the last was the most powerful. In fact, you couldn?t be an urban progressive of my age without becoming part Jewish.
But history doesn?t stop, and just as greater America moved sharply right after 1980s, so did this country?s Jewish politics. It wasn?t alone. Feminism forgot lower class women, labor forgot its own members, the biggest thing the Congressional Black Caucus did anymore was an annual dinner, the environmental movement became embedded in the Washington bureaucracy, and white liberals in general looked the other way as our civil liberties disintegrated.
To sweep this problem under the bed, to fail to discuss the disaster that pro-Israeli politics have become for fear of being called anti-Semitic is both cowardly and dangerous. At a time when the Washington Post is urging its readers to stock up on several days? food and buy gas masks because of the possible consequences of the internationally criminal policies it so vigorously supports, we no longer have time or tolerance for such cynical games. If you want to die for your own faith, fine, but you have no right to take the rest of the world with you.
The danger of the dishonest debate about the Middle East was well described by Joan Didion in a recent New York Review of Books:
[We need to] demystify the question of why we have become unable to discuss our relationship with the current government of Israel. Whether the actions taken by that government constitute self-defense or a particularly inclusive form of self-immolation remains an open question. The question of course has a history.
This open question, and its history, are discussed rationally and with considerable intellectual subtlety in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Where the question is not discussed rationally, where in fact the question is rarely discussed at all, since so few of us are willing to see our evenings turn toxic, is in New York and Washington and in those academic venues where the attitudes and apprehensions of New York and Washington have taken hold. The president of Harvard recently warned that criticisms of the current government of Israel could be construed as ?anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.?
The very question of the US relationship with Israel, in other words, has come to be seen as unraisable, potentially lethal, the conversational equivalent of an unclaimed bag on a bus. We take cover. We wait for the entire subject to be defused, safely insulated behind baffles of invective and counter-invective. Many opinions are expressed. Few are allowed to develop. Even fewer change.?
We are entangled, in major part, in a religious war in which bin Laden, Bush and Sharon comprise a triptych of theological terror that is putting everyone at great risk. They are each involved in a vicious heresy, falsely defining their own myopic, immoral, and sadistic ambitions as their religion?s moral faith. This is no time for politeness, politics, or silence. And while Jews are far from alone in needing to call their leadership back to sanity, neither are they exempt.
Copyright: Progressive Review[/justify]
Playing Ethnic Politics At Ground Zero
Sam Smith
MARCH 2003 ?Progressive Review? ? One of the reasons Rep. Jim Moran thinks Jewish leaders are powerful is because the ones he sees are. Jews outside of Washington ? like gun-owners, doctors, and Chamber of Commerce members outside of Washington ? don?t have a strong sense of just how precisely their ?community? is being defined daily by their capital lobbyists.
There is no doubt ? if one considers the ?Jewish community? as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and various large Jewish campaign contributors ? that Rep. Moran was quite correct in saying that they could have had a significant effect on the course of our policy in the Middle East. For example, it took only three days for them to have a significant effect on the course of Rep. Moran?s career, getting his cowardly colleagues to force him out of his House leadership position. Earlier, they helped to have a similar effect on Rep Cynthia McKinney, who went down to defeat thanks in part to an influx of pro-Israel money. AIPAC, after all, is a lobby powerful enough that at its most recent conference, one half of the Senate and one-third of the House showed up.
The fact that the Washington leadership may not accurately reflect the diversity of its national constituency is not uniquely a Jewish problem; it is part of the displacement of democracy from the consensus of the many to the will of a select few that is speeding the decline of the Republic. And never have the selected been fewer than under the present Bush.
In talking about the Jewish manifestation of this, politicians and the media use two different approaches. One is the sanitized patois of ethnic sensitivity as when the perpetually clichéd Eleanor Clift wrote: ?Moran apologized, but the historical echoes that he awakened are so antithetical to what Democrats claim to stand for that he might as well bid goodbye to his political career.?
But in the same article in which he quotes Clift, Greg Pierce of the Washington Times also writes, ?One political analyst said he counseled two Democratic presidential campaigns to call for Moran?s resignation. ?It would be a cheap way to reassure Jewish voters,? he said. ?I don?t understand why they haven?t done it yet.??
In other words, what is considered anti-Semitic when stated at a town meeting, becomes in another context just your standard keen political analysis.
When you look at the facts rather than the Washington rhetoric, you find that Moran was even more right than it appeared at first. A study by Belief Net found that only the Southern Baptist Convention and some Jewish groups supported the military approach and every other listed major denomination opposed it. True, the Southern Baptists were unequivocally in favor of war while the Jewish groups ? Orthodox Union, Union Of American Hebrew Congregations (Reform), and United Synagogue Of Conservative Judaism ? wanted to exhaust other alternatives first, but every other religion Belief Net checked opposed the war including the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Episcopal Church, Greek Orthodox Church in America, Mormons ? Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Presbyterian Church (USA), Quakers ? American Friends Service Committee, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Unitarian Universalist Association. The Catholics weren?t included but the Pope took a clear stand against the war.
So why go to such efforts to deliberately conceal and prevaricate concerning the role of key Jewish organizations in supporting the Iraq invasion?
Part of the answer can be found in none other than the hypocritically outraged Washington Post, in an article written by its White House correspondent, Dana Milbank, last November:
A group of U.S. political consultants has sent pro-Israel leaders a memo urging them to keep quiet while the Bush administration pursues a possible war with Iraq. The six-page memo was sent by the Israel Project, a group funded by American Jewish organizations and individual donors. Its authors said the main audience was American Jewish leaders, but much of the memo?s language is directed toward Israelis. The memo reflects a concern that involvement by Israel in a U.S.-Iraq confrontation could hurt Israel?s standing in American public opinion and undermine international support for a hard line against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. . .
The Iraq memo was issued in the past few weeks and labeled ?confidential property of the Israel Project,? which is led by Democratic consultant Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi with help from Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and Republican pollsters Neil Newhouse and Frank Luntz. Several of the consultants have advised Israeli politicians, and the group aired a pro-Israel ad earlier this year. ?If your goal is regime change, you must be much more careful with your language because of the potential backlash,? said the memo, titled ?Talking About Iraq.?
?It added: ?You do not want Americans to believe that the war on Iraq is being waged to protect Israel rather than to protect America.? In particular, the memo urged Israelis to pipe down about the possibility of Israel responding to an Iraqi attack. ?Such certainty may be Israeli policy, but asserting it publicly and so overtly will not sit well with a majority of Americans because it suggests a pre-determined outcome rather than a measured approach,? it said.?
This is not the first time this strategy has been tried. For example, in January 1991, David Rogers of the Wall Street Journal wrote:
When Congress debated going to war with Iraq, the pro-Israel lobby stayed in the background ? but not out of the fight. Leaders of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee now acknowledge it worked in tandem with the Bush administration to win passage of a resolution authorizing the president to commit U.S. troops to combat. The behind-the-scenes campaign avoided AIPAC?s customary high profile in the Capitol and relied instead on activists-calling sometimes from Israel itself-to contact lawmakers and build on public endorsements by major Jewish organizations. ?Yes, we were active.? says AIPAC director Thomas Dine. ?These are the great issues of our time, If you sit on the sidelines, you have no voice. . . ?
The debate revealed a deep ambivalence among Jewish lawmakers over what course to follow, pitting their generally liberal instincts against their support of Israel. Friends and families were divided. And even as some pro-Israel advocates urged a more aggressive stance, there was concern that the lobby risked damaging Israel?s longer term interests if the issue became too identified with Jewish or pro-Israel polities.
. . . AIPAC took pains to disguise its role, and there was quiet relief that the vote showed no solid Jewish bloc in favor of a war so relevant to Israel. ?It isn?t such a bad idea that we were split,? says one Jewish lawmaker. . .
Pro-Israel PACs have poured money into campaigns for Southern Democrats not immediately identified with their cause. For example, the Alabama delegation voted in a bloc with Mr. Bush in both the House and Senate. At first glance, this can be ascribed to the conservative, pro military character of the state. But pro-Israel PACs have also cultivated Democrats there in recent years.?
It is hard to imagine such a frank description of ethnic politics today. Thus it is not surprising that few know that the aforementioned Thomas Dines ? then executive director of AIPAC and now head of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty ? is a member of the advisory committee of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq.
The Post, which didn?t mentioned Dines? involvement in plotting the seizure of Iraq, described the new organization as ?modeled on a successful lobbying campaign to expand the NATO alliance.?
In fact, the last time prior to the war itself that the Post even mentioned AIPAC was back in August before the Iraq invasion plot took full shape. So you had to look elsewhere to find out what the Jewish leadership was up to. For example, the Jerusalem Post reported last October:
After weeks of debate and consideration, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which represents 52 Jewish national groups, announced its support for US military action against Iraq ?as a last resort.? In a statement released Saturday, the Conference of Presidents announced that all of its member groups ?support President [George W.] Bush and the Congress in their efforts to gain unequivocal Iraqi compliance with the obligation to divest itself of weapons of mass destruction and the means to develop such weapons.? The statement also endorsed the Bush administration?s ?efforts to enlist the United Nations and international cooperation to secure Iraqi compliance, including the use of force as a last resort.
The chairman of the group, Mortimer Zuckerman went a bit further, declaring that the failure to attack Iraq would ?ruin American credibility in the Muslim world.?
Now let us imagine that the 52 Jewish organizations had instead reached a consensus that invading Iraq was illegal, unwise, unconstitutional, and an act of reckless endangerment against the whole world. Would that have influenced American policy? Of course it would.
Here?s what happened instead, as described by Nathan Guttmann of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:
An unusual visitor was invited to address the annual conference held last week in Washington by AIPAC, the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States: the head of the Washington office of the Iraqi National Congress, Intifad Qanbar. The INC is one of the main opposition groups outside Iraq, and its leaders consider themselves natural candidates for leadership positions in the post-Saddam Hussein era. Qanbar?s invitation to the conference reflects a first attempt to disclose the links between the American Jewish community and the Iraqi opposition, after years in which the two sides have taken pains to conceal them.
The considerations against openly disclosing the extent of cooperation are obvious ? revelation of overly close links with Jews will not serve the interests of the organizations aspiring to lead the Iraqi people. Currently, at the height of rivalry over future leadership of the country among opposition groups abroad, the domestic opposition and Iraqi citizens, it is most certainly undesirable for the Jewish lobby to forge ? or flaunt ? especially close links with any one of the groups, in a way that would cause its alienation from the others.
?At the current stage, we don?t want to be involved in this argument,? says a major activist in one of the larger Jewish organizations. In the end, Intifad Qanbar did not attend the AIPAC conference. . .
The Jewish groups maintain quiet contacts with nearly every Iraqi opposition group, and in the past have even met with the most prominent opposition leader, Ahmed Chalabi. The main objective was an exchange of information, but there was also an attempt to persuade the Iraqis of the need for good relations with Israel and with world Jewry. . . .
Aside from the annual AIPAC conference, two other major events in the United States last week underscored the gamut of opinions and perspectives in the American Jewish community on the war. The positioning of the AIPAC people behind the coalition forces and behind those who sent them is not surprising. AIPAC is wont to support whatever is good for Israel, and so long as Israel supports the war, so too do the thousands of the AIPAC lobbyists who convened in the American capital.
There is no such uniformity among the various religious Jewish movements, and indecisiveness is still very much the case. In Los Angeles, members of the Conservative movement?s Rabbinical Assembly gathered and tried to clarify their position on the . . . In the end, the issue was submitted to an executive council, which issued a draft resolution that offered support for the war, albeit with reservations. . .
The dilemma is more pronounced among Reform Jews. They also convened last week to formulate a joint position, and they too were careful not to launch any strident criticism of the war itself. . . The only decision relevant to the war was agreement on a prayer for the welfare of the soldiers at the front, and recognition of the fact that there are a variety of opinions on the war. The resolution that was adopted is very far from constituting an expression of support of any kind for the war, but is also far from constituting criticism of it.
The situation is simpler among the Orthodox. Immediately upon the outbreak of the war, the Orthodox Union, the umbrella organization of the community, released a statement that expressed unequivocal support for President Bush and his decision to launch the war on Iraq, which was described as having ?noble aims.?
Despite the ambivalence within the various religious segments of Judaism, not to mention the split among Jews themselves, AIPAC carried on its aggressive pro-war activity with impunity.
Of course they had some help, as Michael Lind pointed out in the New Statesman:
Most neo-conservative defense intellectuals have their roots on the left, not the right. They are products of the largely Jewish-American Trotskyist movement of the 1930s and 1940s, which morphed into anti-communist liberalism between the 1950s and 1970s and finally into a kind of militaristic and imperial right with no precedents in American culture or political history. Their admiration for the Israeli Likud party?s tactics, including preventive warfare such Israel?s 1981 raid on Iraq?s Osirak nuclear reactor, is mixed with odd bursts of ideological enthusiasm for ?democracy.? They call their revolutionary ideology ?Wilsonianism? (after President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky?s theory of the permanent revolution mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism. Genuine American Wilsonians believe in self-determination for people such as the Palestinians.
The neo-con defense intellectuals, as well as being in or around the actual Pentagon, are at the center of a metaphorical ?pentagon? of the Israel lobby and the religious right, plus conservative think-tanks, foundations and media empires. . .
The major link between the conservative think-tanks and the Israel lobby is the Washington-based and Likud-supporting Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, which co-opts many non-Jewish defense experts by sending them on trips to Israel. It flew out the retired General Jay Garner, now slated by Bush to be proconsul of occupied Iraq. In October 2000, he co-signed a JINSA letter that began: ?We . . . believe that during the current upheavals in Israel, the Israel Defense Forces have exercised remarkable restraint in the face of lethal violence orchestrated by the leadership of [the] Palestinian Authority.?
The Israel lobby itself is divided into Jewish and Christian wings. [Pentagon officials Paul] Wolfowitz and [Douglas] Feith have close ties to the Jewish-American Israel lobby. Wolfowitz, who has relatives in Israel, has served as the Bush administration?s liaison to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Feith was given an award by the Zionist Organisation of America, citing him as a ?pro-Israel activist?. While out of power in the Clinton years, Feith collaborating with Perle, co-authored for Likud a policy paper that advised the Israeli government to end the Oslo peace process, reoccupy the territories and crush Yasser Arafat?s government.
Such experts are not typical of Jewish-Americans, who mostly voted for Gore in 2000. The most fervent supporters of Likud in the Republican electorate are southern Protestant fundamentalists. The religious right believes that God gave all of Palestine to the Jews, and fundamentalist congregations spend millions to subsidize Jewish settlements in the occupied territories.
Then, of course, there is Israel itself which has been a huge beneficiary of American aid only to have repeatedly thwarted the better efforts of American presidents and other leaders ? including those in Israel ? seeking a bit of rationality in the Middle East. Much of this subversion of sanity has been masochistic; de facto, right wing Israelis have been among the world?s most effective anti-Semites.
In a recent Counterpunch article, Kathleen and Bill Christison offer an explication of this phenomenon;
[Jeff Halper] is an Israeli anthropologist, until his retirement a year ago a professor at Ben Gurion University, a transplant 30 years ago from Minnesota, a harsh critic of Israel?s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and, as founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, one of the leading peace and anti-occupation activists in Israel. . .
Zionism, he says, ?is a very compelling narrative, but it is totally self-contained, a bubble in which Israelis separate themselves from all others.? Israelis regard everyone else as irrelevant. When it is suggested that fear motivates this self-absorption, Halper disagrees. ?It?s not so much fear,? he says; Israelis ?just don?t give a damn. They make everyone else a non-issue. They see themselves as the victim, and if you?re the victim, you?re not responsible for anything you do.?
Anything goes if you are the victim, he explains: you don?t care about the consequences of your actions for other people, you need not take any responsibility for the effect of your policies on others, you don?t care about how others feel. Israelis always think they?re right, he says. They believe everything they do is right because the Jewish nation is ?right,? because they are only responding to what others do to them, only retaliating. ?If you combine three elements: the idea that we are right, with the notion that we?re the victim, and with our great military power,? he says, you have a lethal combination. . . . Israel can act with brutality, but the responsibility, the fault, lies elsewhere.
To define good Jewishness ? or conversely, anti-Semitism ? by one?s reaction to the Sharon government makes no more sense than to define good Americanism by one?s reaction to Bush. Sharon not only blasphemously mocks the lessons supposedly learned from the Holocaust, his policies represent a huge departure from the humanistic and progressive politics that long characterized American Judaism. This tradition, born in European socialism and blended with American populism, helped mightily to form the social democracy our country increasingly enjoyed during the 20th century.
I, in fact, grew up alnost believing that there were three branches of Judiasm: Orthodox, Reform, and Liberal Democratic. And it often seemed that the last was the most powerful. In fact, you couldn?t be an urban progressive of my age without becoming part Jewish.
But history doesn?t stop, and just as greater America moved sharply right after 1980s, so did this country?s Jewish politics. It wasn?t alone. Feminism forgot lower class women, labor forgot its own members, the biggest thing the Congressional Black Caucus did anymore was an annual dinner, the environmental movement became embedded in the Washington bureaucracy, and white liberals in general looked the other way as our civil liberties disintegrated.
To sweep this problem under the bed, to fail to discuss the disaster that pro-Israeli politics have become for fear of being called anti-Semitic is both cowardly and dangerous. At a time when the Washington Post is urging its readers to stock up on several days? food and buy gas masks because of the possible consequences of the internationally criminal policies it so vigorously supports, we no longer have time or tolerance for such cynical games. If you want to die for your own faith, fine, but you have no right to take the rest of the world with you.
The danger of the dishonest debate about the Middle East was well described by Joan Didion in a recent New York Review of Books:
[We need to] demystify the question of why we have become unable to discuss our relationship with the current government of Israel. Whether the actions taken by that government constitute self-defense or a particularly inclusive form of self-immolation remains an open question. The question of course has a history.
This open question, and its history, are discussed rationally and with considerable intellectual subtlety in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Where the question is not discussed rationally, where in fact the question is rarely discussed at all, since so few of us are willing to see our evenings turn toxic, is in New York and Washington and in those academic venues where the attitudes and apprehensions of New York and Washington have taken hold. The president of Harvard recently warned that criticisms of the current government of Israel could be construed as ?anti-Semitic in their effect if not their intent.?
The very question of the US relationship with Israel, in other words, has come to be seen as unraisable, potentially lethal, the conversational equivalent of an unclaimed bag on a bus. We take cover. We wait for the entire subject to be defused, safely insulated behind baffles of invective and counter-invective. Many opinions are expressed. Few are allowed to develop. Even fewer change.?
We are entangled, in major part, in a religious war in which bin Laden, Bush and Sharon comprise a triptych of theological terror that is putting everyone at great risk. They are each involved in a vicious heresy, falsely defining their own myopic, immoral, and sadistic ambitions as their religion?s moral faith. This is no time for politeness, politics, or silence. And while Jews are far from alone in needing to call their leadership back to sanity, neither are they exempt.
Copyright: Progressive Review[/justify]
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[justify]American Jews Support Direct Negotiations
Press Release Israel / Middle-East
New ADL Poll: American Jews Support Direct Negotiations Between the Parties as Path to Two-State SolutionStrong Support for Israel and the U.S. to Act Against Iran If NeededWashington, DC, April 20, 2009 ? The steadfast support of American Jews for Israel, for Israel?s action in Gaza and for Israel?s right, if all else fails, to use military force to destroy Iran?s nuclear facilities, was reaffirmed by a survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The findings show that, overwhelmingly, American Jews believe that Israel is committed to peace with the Palestinians and reject the notion that America should pressure Israel to make peace.
The national telephone survey of 1,200 American Jews was conducted by Marttila Communications between March 31 and April 8 and has a margin of error of +/-2.8% for questions answered by the 1,200. The survey also used the technique of ?split sampling? a process in which questions were asked of two demographically representative national samples of 600 each, with a margin of error of +/-4%.
Survey Highlights
? By a margin of 73%-2%, American Jews believe that Israel is doing more to bring peace to the region than the Palestinians (view graph).
? 74% believe that Hamas is not interested in peace, while 52% believe Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is (view graph).
? 61% of American Jews support the future creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza (view graph).
? Asked about the US role in the peace process, a small plurality (47%) believe the parties need to solve their own problems with the US playing the role of facilitator; versus 44% who believe peace depends on continuing US leadership and involvement (view graph).
? There is eroding support for Israel?s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza; as late as January 2009, 63% of American Jews still supported it. Now, it?s down to 54% (view graph).
? Sympathy with Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians is overwhelming ? 80% for Israel, versus 6% for the Palestinians (view graph).
? 74% approve of Israel?s military action in Gaza, and by a margin of 66%-28%, American Jews supported the notion that Israel?s military response in Gaza was appropriate and not excessive (view graph).
? 73% support Israel?s right to close the borders to Gaza to prevent resupply of arms even if it slows down humanitarian relief (view graph).
? Regarding Iran, a significant majority (58%-27%) believe that if diplomatic and economic steps fail to get Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program, they would support Israel?s right to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities. And, under similar circumstances, American Jews would similarly support US military action by 55%-27% (view graph).
? 50% of American Jews support US direct negotiations with Iran without preconditions, while 45% believe the US should not enter into negotiations until Iran agrees to suspend its uranium enrichment (view graph).
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, said the survey demonstrates that, ?contrary to certain reports that American Jewish support for Israel is waning and that American Jews would welcome pressure by the U.S. on Israel, American Jews continue to support Israel overwhelmingly and advocate direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians as the best path for peace.?
Mr. Foxman said the findings show that, ?American Jews continue to believe that Israel wants peace with its neighbors, and continue to understand the threats to Israel and its legitimate right to defend itself, whether against Hamas rockets or Iran nuclear capabilities. That support for Israel will be very significant as the Jewish state faces immense challenges in the months and years ahead.?
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world?s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.[/justify]
Press Release Israel / Middle-East
New ADL Poll: American Jews Support Direct Negotiations Between the Parties as Path to Two-State SolutionStrong Support for Israel and the U.S. to Act Against Iran If NeededWashington, DC, April 20, 2009 ? The steadfast support of American Jews for Israel, for Israel?s action in Gaza and for Israel?s right, if all else fails, to use military force to destroy Iran?s nuclear facilities, was reaffirmed by a survey commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The findings show that, overwhelmingly, American Jews believe that Israel is committed to peace with the Palestinians and reject the notion that America should pressure Israel to make peace.
The national telephone survey of 1,200 American Jews was conducted by Marttila Communications between March 31 and April 8 and has a margin of error of +/-2.8% for questions answered by the 1,200. The survey also used the technique of ?split sampling? a process in which questions were asked of two demographically representative national samples of 600 each, with a margin of error of +/-4%.
Survey Highlights
? By a margin of 73%-2%, American Jews believe that Israel is doing more to bring peace to the region than the Palestinians (view graph).
? 74% believe that Hamas is not interested in peace, while 52% believe Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is (view graph).
? 61% of American Jews support the future creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza (view graph).
? Asked about the US role in the peace process, a small plurality (47%) believe the parties need to solve their own problems with the US playing the role of facilitator; versus 44% who believe peace depends on continuing US leadership and involvement (view graph).
? There is eroding support for Israel?s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza; as late as January 2009, 63% of American Jews still supported it. Now, it?s down to 54% (view graph).
? Sympathy with Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians is overwhelming ? 80% for Israel, versus 6% for the Palestinians (view graph).
? 74% approve of Israel?s military action in Gaza, and by a margin of 66%-28%, American Jews supported the notion that Israel?s military response in Gaza was appropriate and not excessive (view graph).
? 73% support Israel?s right to close the borders to Gaza to prevent resupply of arms even if it slows down humanitarian relief (view graph).
? Regarding Iran, a significant majority (58%-27%) believe that if diplomatic and economic steps fail to get Iran to halt its uranium enrichment program, they would support Israel?s right to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities. And, under similar circumstances, American Jews would similarly support US military action by 55%-27% (view graph).
? 50% of American Jews support US direct negotiations with Iran without preconditions, while 45% believe the US should not enter into negotiations until Iran agrees to suspend its uranium enrichment (view graph).
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, said the survey demonstrates that, ?contrary to certain reports that American Jewish support for Israel is waning and that American Jews would welcome pressure by the U.S. on Israel, American Jews continue to support Israel overwhelmingly and advocate direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians as the best path for peace.?
Mr. Foxman said the findings show that, ?American Jews continue to believe that Israel wants peace with its neighbors, and continue to understand the threats to Israel and its legitimate right to defend itself, whether against Hamas rockets or Iran nuclear capabilities. That support for Israel will be very significant as the Jewish state faces immense challenges in the months and years ahead.?
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world?s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.[/justify]
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[justify][large]A Mockery of Justice The Great Sedition Trial of 1944
By Michael Collins Piper & Ken Hoop[/large]
According to historian Harry Elmer Barnes?this magazine?s namesake? who was one of FDR?s leading critics from the academic arena, the purpose of the Great Sedition Trial was to make the Roosevelt administration ?seem opposed to fascism? when, in fact, the administration was pursuing totalitarian policies. Too few Americans today know of this travesty, a shameful blot on U.S. history.
Judges and lawyers alike will tell you the mass sedition trial of World War II will go down in legal history as one of the blackest marks on the record of American jurisprudence. In the legal world, none can recall a case where so many Americans were brought to trial for political persecution and were so arrogantly denied the rights granted [guaranteed?Ed.] an American citizen under the Constitution.?1
This is how the Chicago Tribune, then a voice for America First in a media world already brimming with internationalism, described the infamous war time ?show trial? and its aftermath.
?The Great Sedition Trial? formally came to an unexpected halt on November 30, 1944, having been declared a mistrial upon the death of the presiding judge. Yet, the case continued to hang in limbo with Justice Department prosecutors angling for a retrial.
However, on November 22, 1946, Judge Bolitha Laws of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, dismissed the charges against the defendants, saying that to allow the case to continue would be ?a travesty on justice.?2
Although the Justice Department prosecutors appealed the dismissal, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld Judge Laws? ruling and, as a consequence, the saga of the Great Sedition Trial at long last came to a close. This brought to an end five years of harassment that the defendants had suffered, including?for some?periods of imprisonment.
Judge Laws had thus called a halt to this Soviet-style attack on American liberty. Sanity had prevailed and the case was shelved forever. The war was over and the one individual who was the prime mover behind the trial?Franklin D. Roosevelt?was dead.
According to historian Ronald Ra dosh, a self-styled ?progressive? who has written somewhat sympathetically of the pre-World War II critics of the Roosevelt administration, ?FDR had prodded Attorney General Francis Biddle for months, asking him when he would indict the seditionists.?3 Biddle himself later pointed out that FDR ?was not much interested . . . in the constitutional right to criticize the government in wartime.?4
However, as we shall see, there were powerful forces at work behind the scenes prodding FDR. And they, more than FDR, played a major role in pushing the actual investigation Biddle was not enthusiastic to undertake.
Although there was a grand total of 42 people (and one newspaper) indicted?over the course of three separate indictments, beginning with the first indictment, which was handed down on July 21, 1942, the number of those who actually went on trial was 30, and several of them were severed from the trial as it proceeded.
Roosevelt?s biographer, James McGregor Burns, waggishly called the trial ?a grand rally of all the fanatic Roosevelt haters.?5 But there?s much more to the story than that.
In fact, there were a handful of influential figures among the indictees. Among them included:
? Noted German-American poet, essayist and social critic, George Sylvester Viereck (a well-known foreign publicist for the German government as far back as World War I);
? Former American diplomat and economist Lawrence Dennis, an informal behind-the-scenes advisor to some of the more prominent congressional critics of the Roosevelt administration;
? Mrs. Elizabeth Dilling of Chicago, an outspoken and highly articulate author and lecturer who was well re garded and widely known nationally as a leader of the anti-communist movement and a fierce opponent of the ad ministration;
? Rev. Gerald Winrod of Kansas. With a national following and wide-ranging connections among Christian ministers and lay leaders throughout the country, Winrod had emerged as a force to be reckoned with. In 1938 he ran a strong race for the U.S. Senate. (One of Winrod?s protégés was none other than evangelist Billy Graham, who is said to have ?learned much but kept quiet publicly about what he learned privately?6 as a young man traveling with Winrod.) And:
? William Griffin, a New York-based publisher with strong connections in the Roman Catholic Church. Many American Catholics were strongly anti-communist, and Irish-American Catholics, in particular, were generally skeptical of FDR?s war policies at a time when, it will be remembered, the government of Ireland remained neutral in the war being waged against Germany by the United States and England, Ireland?s traditional enemy.
However, most of those who finally went to trial were little known and hardly influential on a national level, other than the few exceptions just noted. Among the defendants were: a sign painter who was 80 percent deaf, a Detroit factory worker, a waiter and a maid.
In short, they were at best ?average? Americans, without the means or the opportunity to be able to conduct the kind of seditious and internationally connected conspiracy that the government had charged, nor were they in any position to defend themselves against the unlimited resources of the central government. In many cases, the defendants were paupers, virtually penniless. Many of them were ?one-man? publishers, reaching small audiences?hardly a threat to the mighty forces that controlled the New Deal. Several were very elderly. Few of the indictees even knew each other before the trial, despite the fact that the indictments charged them with being part of a grand conspiracy, orchestrated by Adolf Hitler, to undermine the morale of the American military during wartime.
Lawrence Dennis commented later that: ?One of the most significant features of the trial was the utter insignificance of the defendants in relation to the great importance which the government sought to give to the trial by all sorts of publicity-seeking devices.?7
Unfortunately, in this brief study of the tangled circumstances surrounding the great sedition trial, we will be un able to provide all of the defendants the recognition they deserve. But by virtue of having been targeted for destruction by the Roosevelt administration and its behind-the-scenes allies for their patriotic anti-war stand, this handful of otherwise insignificant Americans became folk heroes.
Thanks to their more vocal compatriots, such as, perhaps most notably, Lawrence Dennis, we are able to commemorate the details of their plight today.
According to Dennis, it was the design of the sedition trial to target not the big-name critics of the Roosevelt war policies, but instead to use the publicity surrounding the trial to frighten the vast numbers of potential grass-roots critics of the intervention in the Eurasian war into silence, essentially showing them that, they, too, could end up in the dock if they were to dare to speak out as the defendants had in opposition to the administration?s policies.
Wrote Dennis:
The crackpots, so-called, or the agitators, are never intimidated by sedition trials. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
The people who are intimidated by sedition trials are the people who have not enough courage or enough indiscretion ever to say or do anything that would get them involved in a sedition trial. And it is mainly for the purpose of intimidating these more prudent citizens that sedition trials are held . . .
A government seeking to suppress certain dangerous ideas and tendencies and certain types of feared opposition will not, if its leaders are smart, indict men like Col. [Charles] Lindbergh or senators [Burton] Wheeler [D-Mont.], [Robert] Taft [R-Ohio] and Gerald Nye [R-N.D.], who did far more along the line of helping the Nazis by opposing Roosevelt?s foreign policy as charged against the defendants than any of the defendants.
The chances of conviction would be nil, and the cry of persecution would resound throughout the land.
It is the weak, obscure and indiscreet who are singled out by an astute politician for a legalized witch-hunt. The political purpose of intimidating the more cautious and respectable is best served in this country by picking for a trick indictment and a propaganda mass trial the most vulnerable rather than the most dangerous critics; the poorest rather than the richest; the least popular rather than the most popular; the least rather than the most important and influential.
This is the smart way to get at the more influential and the more dangerous. The latter see what is done to the less influential and less important, and they govern themselves accordingly. The chances of convicting the weaker are better than of convicting the stronger . . .?8
One of the defendants?one of the weaker, less influential and less important, insignificant Americans targeted by FDR?was Elmer J. Garner of Wichita, Kansas. This elderly American patriot died three weeks after the trial began.
Sen. William Langer (R-N.D.), an angry critic of the trial, described the victim in a speech on the floor of the Senate. Garner, he said, was:
?A little old gentleman of 83, almost stone deaf, with three great-grandchildren. After he lost the mailing permit for his little weekly paper, he lived with his aged wife through small donations, keeping a goat and a few chickens and raising vegetables on his small home plot.
?Held in the [Washington, D.C.] jail for several weeks, for lack of bond fees, and finally impoverished by three indictments and forced trips and stays in Washington, he died alone in a Washington rooming house early in this trial, with 40 cents in his pocket. His body was shipped naked in a wooden box to his ailing, impoverished widow, his two suits and typewriter being held, so that clothing had to be purchased for his funeral. That is one of the dangerous men about whom we have been hearing so much.?9
According to attorney Henry Klein, an American Jew who defied the ADL by boldly serving as defense counsel for another of the defendants, Garner?who was a first cousin of FDR?s first vice president (1933-1941), John Nance Garner?died at his typewriter in a tiny room in a Washington flophouse, typing out his defense.10
Who was it, then, that brought about the series of events that led to the indictment of Elmer Garner and his both more distinguished and perhaps even less distinguished fellow ?seditionists??
It was, of course, Franklin D. Roosevelt who ordered the Justice Department investigation. Attorney General Francis Biddle (who opposed this blatantly political prosecution), followed the president?s orders. And Assistant Attorney General William Power Maloney handled the day-to-day details of the investigation that won the indictments before a federal grand jury in Washington. But behind the scenes there were other forces at work: the power brokers who dictated the overall grand design of the Roosevelt administration and its foreign and domestic policies.
In A Trial on Trial, his sharply written critique of the trial, which is a veritable dissection of the fraud that the trial represented, Lawrence Dennis and his co-author, Maximilian St. George (who was Dennis? counsel during the trial, although Dennis?not an attorney?did most of the legal work himself), concluded?based upon very readily available evidence in the public record?that the three prime movers behind the trial were?in his words?extreme leftists, organized Jew ish groups, and internationalists in general, all of whom were loud and persistent advocates of the trial, editorializing in favor of the investigation and indictments in their newspapers and through media voices such as radio personality Walter Winchell.
However, Dennis pointed out, ?the internationalists behind the trial are not as easy to link with definite agitation for this prosecution as are the leftists and the Jewish groups.?11 Den nis stated unequivocally: ?One of the most important Jewish organizations behind the sedition trial was the B?nai B?rith [referring, specifically, to the B?nai B?rith adjunct known as the Anti-Defamation League or ADL].?12
According to Dennis: ?Getting the federal government to stage such a trial, like getting America into the war, was a ?must? on the agenda of the fighters against isolationism and anti-Semitism.13
?What the people behind the trial wanted to have judicially certified to the world was that anti-Semitism is a Nazi idea and that anyone holding this idea is a Nazi, who is thereby violating the law?in this instance, by causing insubordination in the armed forces?through his belief in or advocacy of this idea.?14
This was not just Dennis?s conclusion, by any means. One of the other defendants, David Baxter, later pointed out that a United Press report published in 1943 said:
Under pressure from Jewish organizations, to judge from articles appearing in publications put out by Jews for Jews, the [indictment] . . . was drawn to include criticisms of Jews as ?sedition.?
It appeared that a main purpose of the whole procedure, along with outlawing unfavorable comments on the administration, was to set a legal precedent of judicial interpretations and severe penalties which would serve to exempt Jews in America from all public mention except praise, in contrast to the traditional American viewpoint which holds that all who take part in public affairs must be ready to accept full free public discussion, either pro or con.15
?In a word,? commented Dennis, ?the sedition trial as politics was smart. It was good politics.?16
Baxter himself determined in later years that certain Jewish groups, specifically the ADL, had been prime movers behind the Justice Department investigation that resulted in the indictments of the defendants in the sedition trial. According to Baxter, commenting many years later:
I demanded, through the Freedom of Information Act, that the FBI turn over to me its investigation records of my activities during the early 1940s leading up to the Sedition Trial. I learned that the investigation had extended over several years and covered hundreds of pages . . . The FBI blocked out the names of those who had given information about me, much of it as false as anything could be. I was never given a chance to face these people and make them prove their accusations. Yet everything they said went into the investigation records.
Oddly enough, in a great many cases, it wasn?t the FBI that conducted the investigation, but the Anti-Defamation League, with the FBI merely receiving the reports of the ADL investigators. One can hard ly tell from the reports whether a given person was an FBI or an ADL agent. But at the time all this was so hush-hush that I didn?t even suspect the web-spinning going on around me. I hadn?t considered myself that important.17
For his own part, commenting on the way that the FBI had been used by the ADL, for example, Lawrence Dennis pointed out: ?The FBI, like the atomic bomb and so many other useful and dangerous tools, is an instrument around the use of which new safeguards against abuse by unscrupulous interests must soon be created.?18
[To our shame, Americans did not learn that lesson, in light of FBI intrigue alongside the ADL, later exposed in the course of such controversies as the holocaust at Waco, the slaughter of the Wea ver family members at Ruby Ridge, Idaho and the mysterious Oklahoma City bombing.?Ed.]
Writing in his 1999 book, Mon tana?s Lost Cause (see review on page 27), a study of Sen. Burton Wheel er and other members of Mon tana?s congressional delegation who opposed the Roosevelt administration?s war in Europe, historian Roger Roots also points out another fascinating cog in the be hind-the-scenes maneuvering that led to the sedition trial:
The Jewish-owned Washington Post assisted in the detective work of the Justice Department from the beginning. Dillard Stokes, the [Post] columnist who was most conspicuous in his insider reporting of the sedition grand jury proceedings, actually became part of the Justice Department?s case against the isolationists when he wrote requests to numerous of the defendants to send their literature to him under an assumed name. It was this that allowed defendants to be brought from the farthest reaches of the country into the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C.19
David Baxter elaborated on the role played by the Post columnist Stokes, who used the pseudonym ?Jefferson Breem,? in order to obtain some of the allegedly seditious literature that had been published by some of the defendants:
In order to try us in Washington as a group, it was necessary to establish that a crime had been committed in the District of Columbia, thus giving jurisdiction to the federal courts there. So the grand jury, which was obviously con trolled by the prosecutor, charged us with the crime of sedition, and then established District of Columbia jurisdiction to try us on the grounds that a District of Columbia resident, ?Jefferson Breem,? had received the allegedly seditious literature. Thus was the alleged ?crime? committed in the capital. The defendants were charged with having conspired in the District of Columbia, despite the fact that I had never been in Washington in my life until ordered there by the grand jury.20
Kirkpatrick Dilling, now an attorney in Chicago but then a young man in uniform and the son of one of the more prominent defendants, Elizabeth Dilling, pointed out in a letter to TBR publisher Willis Carto that: ?My mother was indicted with many others, most of whom she had never had any contact with whatsoever. For example, some of such co-indictees were members of the German-American Bund. My mother said they were included to give the case a ?sauerkraut flavor.? ?21
Later, during the trial itself, the afore mentioned Sen. Langer, scored what he described as: ?the idea of bringing together for one trial in Washington 30 people who never saw each other, who never wrote to each other, some of whom did not know that the others existed, with some of them allegedly insane and the majority of them unable to hire a lawyer.
?And remember,? Langer pointed out, ?[the defendants] were brought to Washington from California and [Illinois] and other states a long way from Washington, placed in one room and all tried at the same time, with the 29 sitting idly by while the testimony against one of them may go on for weeks and weeks and weeks, the testimony of a man or woman [whom the] other defendants never saw before in their lives. That is what is taking place in Washington [the District of Columbia] here today.?22
As mentioned previously, there were actually three indictments handed down. The first indictment came on July 21, 1942. The indictments came as a surprise to more than a few people, including the defendants. As David Baxter said: ?Actually, at that time I was simply a New Deal Democrat interested in what was going on in the country politically.?23 But as a consequence of the indictment, he was being accused of sedition by the very regime he had once supported.
Elizabeth Dilling learned of her indictment on the radio. The nature of one of the charges against Mrs. Dilling exposes precisely how trumped up the sedition trial was from the start. The indictment charged that Mrs. Dilling had committed ?sedition? by reprinting, in the pages of her newsletter, a speech in Congress by Rep. Clare Hoffman (R-Mich.), an administration critic, in which the congressman quoted an American soldier in the Philippines who complained his outfit lacked bombers because the planes had been given to Britain.24 This ostensibly was dangerous to military morale.
But Mrs. Dilling?s many supporters around the country rose to her defense, raising money through dances, dinners and bake sales. Mrs. Dilling, ever courageous, would not let even a federal criminal indictment silence her. She still continued to speak out.
On August 17, 1942 Sen. Robert A. Taft spoke out against the indictment:25 ?I am deeply alarmed by the growing tendency to smear loyal citizens who are critical of the national administration and of the conduct of the war . . .
?Something very close to fanaticism exists in certain circles. I cannot understand it?cannot grasp it. But I am sure of this: Freedom of speech itself is at stake, unless the general methods pursued by the Department of Justice are changed.?26
Taft noted that the indictment, in his words, was ?adroitly drawn?27 and said it claimed that groups such as the Coalition of Patriotic Societies were linked to the accused conspirators. The coalition, Taft noted, included among its member organizations such groups as the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and the Sons of the American Revolution, among others.
On the basis of the way in which the indictment was written, Taft said, a considerable number of members of both the House and the Senate could also be indicted, along with a considerable number of the nation?s newspaper editors.
The second indictment came on January 4, 1943. Lawrence Dennis summarized the nature of the indictments: ?The first indictment charged conspiracy to violate the seditious propaganda sections of both the wartime Espionage Act of 1917 and the peacetime Smith Act of 1940, sometimes called the Alien Registration Act. This indictment . . . was that the defendants had conspired to spread Nazi propaganda for the purpose of violating the just mentioned laws. The government case consisted of showing the similarity between the propaganda themes of the Nazis and the defendants.?28
However, as Dennis pointed out, for a conviction on such an indictment to stand under the law, it is necessary to prove similarity of intent of the persons accused rather than similarity of content of what they said.
?The weaknesses of these first two indictments were that they fitted neither the law nor the evidence. The government?s difficulty was that, to please the people behind the trial, it had had to indict persons whose only crime was isolationism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism when there was no law on the statute books against these ?isms.? The two laws chosen for the first two indictments penalized advocacy of the overthrow of the government by force and of insubordination in the armed forces.?29
Several new defendants were added with the second indictment. Among them was Frank Clark. Considering the charge that Clark (and the others) had been conspiring to undermine the morale of the American military, it is worth noting that Clark was ?a highly decorated veteran of World War I, who was wounded eight times in action. Clark had been an organizer of the famous Bonus March of World War I veterans to Washington in the 1920s. He had lobbied for early payment of veterans? bonuses that had been promised to the war?s veterans, returning home a hero. When arrested, he lacked enough money to hire a lawyer.?30
All of this, however, meant nothing in the course of the ongoing effort by the Roosevelt administration to silence its critics and to prevent more and more Americans from speaking out.
Throughout this period, the major media was rife with reports of how a group of Americans, in league with Hitler and the German National Socialists, were trying to destroy America from within and how the Roosevelt administration was bravely taking on this conspiracy. However, the Justice Department had made a misstep and the second indictment, like the first, was thrown out.
As Roger Roots notes, ?The indictment was unlawful. It was discarded due to the obvious absence of evidence for conviction, among other flaws. Past Supreme Court decisions clearly showed that a conviction for advocating the overthrow of the government by violent force must include some evidence of actual plans to use violence, not just political literature. Again, the indictment was never dismissed formally but simply retired.?31
Sen. Burton Wheeler, in particular, was a harsh critic of the Justice Department and publicly made clear his intention, as new head of the Senate Judiciary Committee following the 1942 elections, to keep a close watch on the affair as it unfolded. As far as the legal procedures used in the first two indictments, he declared: ?If it happened in most jurisdictions of this country, the prosecuting attorneys would be held for contempt of court.?32
Thus, despite all the determined efforts of the Justice Department and its allies in the Anti-Defamation League and at The Washington Post, the first two indictments were indeed thrown out as defective.
On March 5, 1943 Judge Jesse C. Adkins dismissed the count in the indictment that accused the defendants of conspiring together ?on or about the first day of January 1933, and continuously thereafter up to and including the date of the filing? of the indictment since, as the judge held, the law which the defendants were accused of conspiring to violate had not been enacted until 1940.33 At this juncture, under pressure from Sen. Wheeler, Attorney General Biddle agreed to remove prosecutor William Power Maloney as the chief ?Nazi-hunter.?
Thus, a new Justice Department prosecutor entered into the case, O. John Rogge. As defendant David Baxter pointed out, Rogge was a fitting choice for the administration?s chief point man in this Soviet-style show trial:
It later turned out that Rogge had been a good friend of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, was involved in numerous communist front groups, and had visited Russia, where he spoke in the Kremlin and laid a wreath at the grave of American Communist Party co-founder John Reed in Red Square. His wreath was inscribed: ?In loving memory from grateful Americans.? . . . Rogge was an American delegate to a world communist ?peace conference? in Paris and was a lawyer for many communists in trouble with the law. He was the attorney for David Greenglass, the atomic spy who saved his own life by turning state?s evidence against his sister and brother-in-law, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg [who] went to the electric chair for turning over U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviets. [Rogge] was thus eventually exposed for what he was. No wonder he was so fanatical in his hatred against the Sedition Trial defendants, all of whom were anti-communists.34
Rogge was an ideal choice for the Roosevelt administration and its allies, who were determined to pursue the prosecution, one way or the other. He moved forward relentlessly.
As Roger Roots points out: ?Not wishing to waste momentum, the government reconvened another grand jury, resubmitted the same pamphlets, publications, and materials that the previous grand jury had already seen, re-called the same testimony of the witnesses, and once again pleaded the grand jury to return yet another indictment.?35
The third (and final) indictment was handed down on January 3, 1944. In fact, Rogge and his Justice Department allies had decided to take a new tack and added eight new names (including Lawrence Dennis, who had not been named in the first indictments) and dismissed 12 defendants who had been named.
Among those whose names were dismissed were influential New York Catholic lay leader William Griffin and his newspaper, The New York Evening Enquirer (the only publication indicted) former American diplomat Ralph Town send of San Francisco and Washington, D.C. and Paquita (?Mady?) de Shishmareff, the well-to-do American-born widow of a former Russian czarist military figure.
Townsend, who had enraged the Roosevelt administration by opposing its anti-Japanese policies in the Pacific, had written an explosive book, Ways That Are Dark, highly critical of imperial China.* But although he was now ?free,? he and his family had been broken financially by the indictment, and, according to his late wife, Janet, many of their close friends deserted them in this time of crisis.
?It was a very difficult period in our lives,? she later recalled. ?But it didn?t prevent Ralph from continuing to speak out.?36 Townsend did continue to speak out, and in later years he became a friend of Willis A. Carto, publisher of The Barnes Review, and, today, portions of Townsend?s personal library are a part of TBR?s archives.
Tony Blizzard, who is now research director for Liberty Lobby, the Washing ton-based populist institution, was a protégé in the early 1960s of Paquita de Shishmareff (who wrote as L. Fry) and he recently commented on the circumstances surrounding the decision to drop the indictment against her?along with some fascinating, little-known details about this remarkable woman. In Blizzard?s in formed estimation:
One of the reasons they dropped the indictment against Mady was precisely because they knew they were dealing with a very sharp lady with a great deal of brain power. A woman of the old school, Mady would never put herself in the forefront, but she knew how to use the strengths of the men around her. She also was a woman of some means?unlike most of the other defendants?and was a formidable opponent.
The government clearly decided that it was in their best interests to dismiss the case against her. There was no way they could ever make ?Nazis? out of all of these defendants, whose only real ?crime? was exposing Jewish pow er as long as Mady was on the dock with the rest of them.
The prosecutors knew quite well, although it was not widely known then nor is it widely known today, that it was Mady who had supplied Henry Ford virtually all of the information that Ford had published in his controversial series about Jewish power in The Dearborn Independent. With her wide-ranging, high-level connections, Mady was an encyclopedic storehouse of inside in formation about the power elite.
The last thing the prosecution wanted was for Mady to take the stand. By releasing her as a defendant, they eliminated, to them, what was a very frightening possibility.37
But there were 30 others who were not so lucky as Paquita de Shishmareff, Ralph Townsend and the others who had been released, and their trial commenced on April 17, 1944 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colum bia.
Kirkpatrick Dilling, son of defendant Elizabeth Dilling, captured the essence of the indictment. According to Dilling, ?The indictment was premised on an alleged ?conspiracy to undermine the morale of the armed forces.? Thus criticizing President Roosevelt, who was armed forces commander in chief was an alleged overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. Denouncing our ally, communist Soviet Russia, was a further alleged overt act. Opposing communism was an alleged overt act because our enemy Hitler had also opposed communists.?38
Ironically, while his mother was on trial for her alleged participation in this ?conspiracy to undermine the morale of the armed forces,? Kirkpatrick Dilling was promoted from corporal to second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.39
Other defendants, including George Sylvester Viereck, George Death er age, Robert Noble and Rev. Gerald Winrod, also had sons in the U.S. Armed Forces during this period.40 Viereck?s son died in combat while his father was on trial and in prison (see the memorial poem on these pages).
Presiding as judge at the trial was ex-Iowa Democratic Congressman Edward C. Eicher, a New Deal stalwart who had served a brief period as chairman of FDR?s Securities and Exchange Com mis sion (SEC) after being defeated for re-election to Congress. After Eicher?s term at the SEC, FDR then appointed Eicher to the judgeship. And serving as prosecutor was Eicher?s former legal counsel at the SEC, the aforementioned O. John Rogge. 41
It seemed that the case was ?fixed? from top to bottom.
Albert Dilling, the attorney, who represented his wife Elizabeth Dilling, called for a congressional investigation of the trial on the grounds that it was impossible for such a trial to be fair during wartime.42 But that was not enough to stop the trial juggernaut.
Although proving ?sedition? was the ostensible purpose of the prosecution, Lawrence Dennis reached other conclusions about the actual political basis for the trial: ?The trial was conceived and staged as a political instrument of propaganda and intimidation against certain ideas and tendencies which are popularly spoken of as isolationism, anti-communism and anti-Semitism. The biggest single idea of the trial was that of linking Nazism with isolationism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism.?43 How ever, as Dennis pointed out:
American isolationism was born with George Washington?s Farewell Address, not with anything the Nazis ever penned. As for ?anti-Semitism,? it has flourished since the dawn of Jewish history. It is as old and widespread as the Jews . . . As for anti-communism, while it was one of Hitler?s two or three biggest ideas, it is in no way peculiar to Hitler or the Nazis, any more than anti-capitalism is peculiar to the Russian communists.44
To add shock value to the indictment, the government?in an accompanying bill of particulars, which was basically a rehash of the history of the Nazi Party in Germany?named German Chancellor Adolf Hitler as a ?co-conspirator.?
During the trial, the prosecutor, Rogge, charged that Hitler had picked the defendants to head a Nazi occupation government in the United States once Germany won the war.45
What the prosecutor was essentially trying to do, according to Lawrence Dennis, was ?to perfect a formula to convict people for doing what was against no law. It boiled down to choosing a crime which the Department of Justice would undertake to prove equaled anti-Semitism, anti-communism and isolationism. The crime chosen was causing insubordination in the armed forces. The law was the Smith Act,?46 which had been enacted in 1940.
As Dennis pointed out: ?One of the many ironies of the mass sedition trial was that the defendants were charged with conspiring to violate a law aimed at the communists and [of using] a communist tactic?that of trying to undermine the loyalty of the armed forces. What makes this so ironic is the fact that many of the defendants, being fanatical anti-communists, had openly supported the enactment of this law.?48
Defendant David Baxter later re called:
After Hitler and Stalin concluded a treaty, American communists enthusiastically endorsed those of us who opposed getting into the European war between Germany and the British-French alliance. The communists even stomached the Jewish issue that some of us raised, and many Jewish communists, who wanted the United States to join the war against Hitler, left their party. All that changed overnight, however, when war broke out between Germany and Russia. The communists then turned against us with a vengeance and eagerly backed FDR and American participation in the war to save the Soviets.48
Lawrence Dennis?s assessment of the government?s case is reminiscent of that of Kirkpatrick Dilling: ?The pattern of the prosecution gradually emerged something like this: Our country is at war; Russia is our ally; the Russian government is communist; these defendants fight communism; they are therefore weakening the ties between the two countries; this is interfering with the war efforts; this in turn is injuring the morale of the armed forces. The indictees should therefore be sent to prison.?49
Henry H. Klein, an outspoken Jewish anti-communist, was the attorney who represented defendant Eugene Sanctuary, and he took issue with the very constitutionality of the trial.
?This alleged indictment,? thundered Klein in his opening address to the jury, ?is under the peace-time statute, not under the wartime act, and the writings and speeches of these defendants were made when this nation was at peace, and under a Constitution which guarantees free press and free speech at all times, including during wartime, until the Constitution is suspended, and it has not yet been suspended. These people believed in the guarantees set forth in the Constitution, and they criticized various acts of the administration.?50
About his own client, Klein noted: ?He is 73 years old and devoutly religious. He and his wife ran the Presbyterian foreign mission office in New York City for many years, and he has written and published several hundred sacred and patriotic songs.?51 One of those songs, Klein noted, was Uncle Sam We Are Standing by You and was published in June of 1942, well after the war had begun?hardly the actions of the dangerous seditionist that the prosecution and the sympathetic press painted Sanctuary to be.
As far as Lawrence Dennis?s purported sedition was concerned, ?the prosecution had attempted to prove its case exclusively by placing in evidence seven excerpts from his public writings, reprinted in the publication of the German-American Bund rather than as originally published.?52 In other words, the ?evidence? that Dennis had committed sedition was because he had written something (published and freely available to the public) that was later reprinted by a group sympathetic to Nazi Germany?not that Dennis himself had actively done anything to stir dissension among the American armed forces. According to Dennis:
The government?s prosecution theory said, in effect: ?We postulate a world conspiracy, the members of which all conspired to Nazify the entire world by using the unlawful means of undermining the loyalty of the armed forces. We ask the jury to infer the existence of such a conspiracy from such evidence as we shall submit about the Nazis. We shall then ask the jury to infer that the defendants joined this conspiracy from the nature of the things they said and did. We do not need to show that the defendants ever did or said anything that directly constituted the crime of impairing the morale or loyalty of the armed forces. Our thesis is that Nazism was a world movement, which, by definition, was also a conspiracy to undermine the loyalty of the armed forces and that the defendants were members of the Nazi world movement.?53
There was no more reason to bring out in a charge of conspiracy to cause military insubordination the facts that most of the defendants were anti-Semites, isolationists or anti-communists than there would have been in a trial of a group of New York City contractors on a charge of conspiring to defraud the city to bring out the facts that the defendants were all Irish or Jews and had always voted the Democratic ticket.54
Eugene Sanctuary?s attorney, Henry Klein, pulled no punches when he laid out the defense, declaring:
We will prove that this persecution and prosecution was undertaken to cover the crimes of government?remember that.
We will prove that it was undertaken by order of the president, in spite of the opposition of Attorney General Biddle.
We will prove that Mr. Rogge was selected for this job of punishing these defendants because no one else in the Department of Justice felt that he could find sufficient grounds in to spell out a crime against these defendants.
We will prove that the communists control not only our government but our politics, our labor organizations, our agriculture, our mines, our industries, our war plants and our armed encampments.
We will prove that the law under which these defendants are being tried was enacted at the repeated demands of the heads of our armed forces to prevent communists from destroying the morale of our soldiers, sailors, marine and air forces [and that this prosecution] was undertaken to protect communists who were and are guilty of the very crimes charged against these defendants who are utterly innocent and have been made the victims of this law.55
Klein minced no words when he told the jury that Jewish organizations were using the trial for their own ends:
We will prove that this persecution was instigated by so-called professional Jews who make a business of preying on other Jews by scaring them into the belief that their lives and their property are in danger through threatened pogroms in the United States [and that] anti-Semitism charged in this so-called indictment, is a racket, that is being run by racketeers for graft purposes.56
Klein also forcefully made the allegation that FBI agents had been acting as agents provocateurs, attempting to stir up acts of sedition:
We will show that the most vicious written attack on Jews and on the Roosevelt administration emanated from the office of the FBI by one of its agents, and that the purpose of this attack was to provoke others to do likewise. We will show that this agent also drilled his underlings in New York with broom sticks preparatory to ?killing Jews.?57
Klein also put forth a rather interesting allegation about the source of certain funds purportedly supplied by Nazi Germany to no less than Franklin D. Roosevelt himself. According to Klein: ?We will show that large sums of Hitler money helped finance Mr. Roosevelt?s campaign for re-election in 1936 and that right at this moment, British, American and German capital and industry are cooperating together in South America and other parts of the world.?58
What Klein alleged about international collaboration of high-finance capitalism has been part of the lore of the populist right and the populist left for over a century and is a theme that has been analyzed in scores of books, monographs and other literature, but largely ignored in the so-called academic mainstream.
According to Lawrence Reilly?s ac count of the sedition trial, Klein?s speech was a critical turning point in the defense: ?Klein did much in his brief speech to torpedo Rogge?s case by bringing to light the hidden agencies responsible for its existence.?59
However, noted Reilly, even many of the daily newspapers which opposed the trial editorially were afraid to discuss this hidden aspect of the case that Klein had dared bring forth in open court. Reilly said that readers were often left ?confused?60 because the papers never touched on the real factors involved. Some of these ?friendly? papers, Reilly noted, insisted on referring to the defendants as ?crackpots.?
But the fact is that, as a direct consequence of his offensive against the ADL and the other Jewish groups that had played a part in orchestrating the trial, Klein was targeted, specifically because he was Jewish, by organized Jewish groups that resented Klein?s defense of the purported ?anti-Semites? and ?seditionists.?
For his own part, Lawrence Dennis stood up in court to take on his own defense and delivered what even liberal writer Charles Higham was inclined to acknowledge was ?a high-powered ad dress?61 calling Rogge?s outline of the government case, ?corny, false, fantastic, untrue, unproveable and unsound [and describing the trial as] a Roosevelt administration fourth-term conspiracy [and] another Dreyfus case [in which the government was] trying to write history in the heat of battle.?62 To the loud applause of his fellow defendants, Dennis declared: ?Pearl Harbor did not suspend the Bill of Rights.?63
A critical juncture in the case came when one of the defense attorneys, James Laughlin (a public defender representing Ernest Elmhurst) said in open court that it would be impossible for the trial to continue unless the private files of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B?nai B?rith could be impounded and introduced as evidence.
It was clear that much of the prosecution was based on the ADL?s ?fact finding? and Laughlin concluded that it would be necessary to determine precisely what the ADL had provided the government if the defendants would be able to put on an effective defense.
The judge seemed prepared to ignore Laughlin?s motion, but the clever attorney had already prepared copies of his motion in advance and distributed copies of the motion to the press. As a direct consequence, Washington newspapers reported that the ADL files had been made an issue in the case. As Reilly summarized the situation: ?Laughlin had placed the spotlight upon the big secret of the case.?64 This, according to Reilly, was ?a bomb, which, some have said, had more to do with demoralizing [the prosecution?s] case than any other single [factor].?65
At that point, there seemed to be a strange turnabout in the way that the press supporting the trial began looking at the case. Even The Washington Post (which had played a part in orchestrating the trial by lending the services of its reporter, Dillard Stokes, to the joint ADL-FBI investigation) ?completely reversed itself,? according to Reilly, ?and started demanding that the case be brought to a quick conclusion.?66
In short, The Post wanted to keep ?the big secret? of the case?behind-the-scenes orchestration of the case by the ADL?under wraps and now seemed to be calling to bring the trial to a rapid conclusion before the truth came out.
The Post even commented editorially that: ?We fear that, whatever may be the outcome of this trial, it will stand as a black mark against American justice for many years to come.?67 As David Baxter later remarked: ?Such were the remarkable words of the very paper whose own reporter had plotted with the original prosecutor to entrap the defendants and bring them to trial in Washington.?69
Despite these concerns, Rogge seemed to intensify his efforts. There was clearly a great deal of behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the prosecutor and his backers as to how to deal with the challenge that had been presented. Since the judge never ordered the ADL?s files impounded, Rogge was free to move forward. He was determined to carry the trial through to conclusion, and he had many more witnesses to present.
Author Roger Roots describes the course of events as follows:
Day after day, the trial wore on. Page after page of publications authored by the defendants was introduced into evidence, giving rise [among] all in attendance to the idea that it was their writings which were really on trial. The government announced that it intended to introduce 32,000 exhibits. It became obvious that what the defendants were really being prosecuted for was ?Jew-baiting? which gave an indication of one principal source of the prosecution?s support. It became one of the longest and most expensive trials in U.S. history. In essence, the trial was little more than an assault against free speech.69
As the trial proceeded, outspoken trial critic Sen. William Langer visited defendants in jail and defied the media and its allies in the prosecution by publicly escorting defendant Elizabeth Dilling in and out of court and around Washington while she was on bail.70
Said Roots: ?The government worked with unlimited funds, unlimited personnel, and unlimited access to intelligence information. The defense had to work with mostly court-appointed lawyers who were unacquainted with the defendants and the arguments of the case.?71
What is particularly interesting, as pointed out by liberal historian Glenn Jeansonne, is that: ?Many of the defense attorneys were liberals unsympathetic with the clients? beliefs. But they came to see the defendants? side on a human basis, and instead of conducting a perfunctory defense, as many observers had expected, they put up a vigorous de fense.?72
Even Charles Higham, who, writing retrospectively, was an enthusiastic advocate of the trial, pointed out that ?after two and a half months, neither defendants nor prosecution had managed to present a satisfactory case,?73 and, ultimately, ?both press and public were beginning to lose interest in the case.?74
At the same time, according to Paquita de Shishmareff, the defendants had managed to survive and develop their own way of dealing with their predicament: ?Their physical lives were made almost impossible. They got little to eat and were hamstrung in every way possible. But when they got into court, it was such a farce they really just enjoyed themselves.?75
At one point, when the prosecutor was solemnly reading off a list of names of individuals?allies of the Roosevelt administration who had been attacked in some way by the defendants?defendant Edward James Smythe shouted out, ?and Eleanor Roosevelt,? resulting in laughter from the courtroom.76 Smythe didn?t want Mrs. Roosevelt?s name to go unrecorded in the pantheon of villainy.
This, by the way, was only one of many amusing events that took place during this circus. In many respects, the sedition trial could be the basis for a Hollywood comedy, the serious and scandalous violation of the rights of the defendants notwithstanding.
But this is not to suggest that the sedition trial was all a lot of merriment for the attorneys or for the defendants. Far from it. Two of the attorneys had a shot fired at them as they drove in their car. One of those attorneys lost a 12-year law association. Another was beaten by five thugs and hospitalized for five days.
Henry Klein was harassed relentlessly, held in contempt of court for his defense of his client, and, then, ultimately, driven from the case altogether (although the contempt of court charges were eventually overturned).
In addition, strenuous efforts were made to keep the defendants who were out on bail from holding jobs during the course of the trial, a particular problem for those who were not of independent means (and that was most of them).
One defendant, Ernest Elmhurst, got a job as a headwaiter in a Washington hotel in order to make ends meet during the trial, but the ADL?s leading broadcasting voice, Walter Winchell, learned of Elmhurst?s employment and agitated on his widely heard radio show for Elmhurst?s firing, resulting in Elmhurst?s dismissal.77
As the trial dragged on, however, the government began to realize that its efforts were going nowhere. Roger Roots points out: ?The prosecution had undoubtedly expected one or more of the defendants to break and testify against the others . . . [Yet] not one defendant gave any indication of such an inclination. Though they disagreed and some even disliked each other, they came together as a cohesive unit.?78
David Baxter had the pleasure to learn that he was going to be severed from the trial and the charges dismissed. His increasing deafness made it impossible for Baxter to have a fair trial. Baxter recalls that Judge Eicher called Baxter into his chamber, smiled, held out his hand, and said: ?Go back to California and forget about it, Dave.?79
The judge reportedly told Baxter that if Baxter and his wife wanted to buy a car to return to California, he would help and handed Baxter a roll of gasoline coupons (which, during wartime, were severely rationed). Despite everything, it seems, even the judge realized what a farce the trial really was.
It was something totally unexpected that brought the trial to a halt: Judge Eicher?s sudden death on November 29, 1944. The judge?s demise came at a point where Rogge was not even halfway through the prosecution?s case. At this point he had brought 39 witnesses to the stand, and expected to present 67 more. The defense had not even yet begun.80
Defendant David Baxter later commented (reflecting on his own friendly personal experience with the judge): ?That trial could have killed any judge with a Christian conscience and any semblance of fairness. I felt genuinely sorry about Judge Eicher?s death.?81 Rogge accused the defense of having effectively killed the judge by having put up such a defense that it made the judge?s life (and that of the prosecutor) uncomfortable. Under the circumstances, it was apparent that there was no way that the case could continue on a fair basis.
As a consequence, after a period of legal haggling on both sides (with one defendant, Prescott Dennett, actually asking for the trial to continue, determined to present his defense after having been tried and convicted in the media), a mistrial was declared.
Prodded primarily by Jewish groups, Prosecutor Rogge hoped to be able to keep the case alive and set a new trial in motion. But by the spring of 1945, the trial?s chief instigator, President Roos velt, was dead, and the war had come to a close. Rogge, however, continued to ask for delays in setting a new trial date. Since Germany had fallen, Rogge claimed, he was confident that he could find ?evidence? in the German archives that the sedition trial defendants had been Nazi collaborators. However, according to historian Glen Jeansonne, no friend of the purported seditionists, ?nothing Rogge found proved the existence of a conspiracy?82 between the Ger man government and the defendants.
Undaunted, Rogge launched a na tion wide lecture tour that was, not surprisingly, conducted under the auspices of B?nai B?rith. The combative and loquacious Rogge, prodded by his sponsors, could not contain himself in his enthusiastic recounting of the events of the trial and of the personalities in volved and, in the end, was fired by the Justice Department on October 25, 1946, for leaking information to the press.83 At that time Rogge was ordered to hand over all Justice Department and FBI documents in his possession. The Justice Department had apparently decided that Rogge had outlived his usefulness.
Less than a month later, District Judge Bolitha Laws dismissed the charges altogether, declaring that the defendants had not received a speedy trial as guaranteed by the Constitution. Although the Justice Department ap pealed, the dismissal was upheld on June 30, 1947 by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ?Great Sedition Trial? thus came to a close.
As even defendant Lawrence Dennis was moved to comment:
Some or all may even have been guilty of conspiring to undermine the loyalty of the armed forces, but not as charged by the [government] . . . Nothing in the evidence brought out during the trial proved or even suggested that any one of the defendants was ever guilty of any such conspiracy, except on the prosecution theory. And on that theory, opponents of President Roosevelt?s pre-Pearl Harbor foreign policy and steps in foreign affairs, such as Col. Lindbergh, Sen. Taft, Sen. Nye or Sen. Wheeler, and Col. McCormick, publisher of The Chicago Tribune, would be equally guilty.
Indeed, the prosecution case, according to the prosecution theory, would have been much stronger against these prominent isolationists than it ever could be against the less important defendants in the Sedition Trial.84
Many years later it is grimly amusing to note that organized Jewish groups and Jewish newspapers attacked the attorney general, Francis Biddle, for having failed to see the sedition trial through to the bitter end and achieve the conviction of the defendants. Lawrence Dennis wryly commented that all of this showed a great deal of ingratitude on their part.
According to Dennis: ?It shows what a public servant gets for attempting to do dirty work to the satisfaction of minority pressure groups. Biddle did the best anyone in his position could do to carry out the wishes of the people behind the trial. They simply did not appreciate the difficulties of railroading to jail their political enemies without evidence of any acts in violation of the law.?85
Dennis added a further warning for those who would allow themselves to be caught up in promoting ?show trials? such as that which was effected in the Great Sedition Trial of 1944: ?What the government does today to a crackpot, so-called,? Dennis said, ?it may do to an elder statesman of the opposition the day after tomorrow.86
?The trial made history,? Dennis said, ?but not as the government had planned. It made history as a government experiment, which went wrong. It was a Department of Justice experiment in imitation of a Moscow political propaganda trial.?87
There are at least five definitive conclusions which can be drawn about this trial, based upon all that is in the historical record:
1) The defendants charged were largely on trial for having expressed views that were either anti-Jewish or anti-communist or both. The actions of the defendants had little or nothing to do with encouragement of dissension or insurrection within the U.S. armed forces. In short, the ?sedition? trial was a fraud from the start.
2) The prime movers behind the prosecution were private special interest groups representing powerful Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B?nai B?rith that were closely allied with the Roosevelt regime in power.
3) As a consequence, high-level politicians (including the U.S. president) and bureaucrats beholden to those private interests used their influence to ensure that the police powers of the government were used to advance the demands of those private pressure groups agitating for the sedition trial.
4) Major media voices (such as The Washington Post), working with the ADL and allied with the ruling regime, were prime players in promoting and facilitating the events that led to the trial.
5) The police powers of government can easily be abused, and innocent citizens, despite Constitutional guarantees of protection, can be persecuted under color of law, their innocence notwithstanding.
About a decade after ?The Great Sedition Trial? had come to a close, the major media in America began devoting much energy to denouncing so-called anti-communist ?witch-hunts? by Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy and others, the media (not to mention ?mainstream? historians) never drew the obvious parallel with the precedent for such witch-hunting that had been set by the activities of the ADL and its allies in the Roosevelt administration who had orchestrated the sedition trial.
The events of ?The Great Sedition Trial? are a black page of American history (and little known at that). Civil libertarians should take note: It can happen here, and it did.[/justify]
By Michael Collins Piper & Ken Hoop[/large]
According to historian Harry Elmer Barnes?this magazine?s namesake? who was one of FDR?s leading critics from the academic arena, the purpose of the Great Sedition Trial was to make the Roosevelt administration ?seem opposed to fascism? when, in fact, the administration was pursuing totalitarian policies. Too few Americans today know of this travesty, a shameful blot on U.S. history.
Judges and lawyers alike will tell you the mass sedition trial of World War II will go down in legal history as one of the blackest marks on the record of American jurisprudence. In the legal world, none can recall a case where so many Americans were brought to trial for political persecution and were so arrogantly denied the rights granted [guaranteed?Ed.] an American citizen under the Constitution.?1
This is how the Chicago Tribune, then a voice for America First in a media world already brimming with internationalism, described the infamous war time ?show trial? and its aftermath.
?The Great Sedition Trial? formally came to an unexpected halt on November 30, 1944, having been declared a mistrial upon the death of the presiding judge. Yet, the case continued to hang in limbo with Justice Department prosecutors angling for a retrial.
However, on November 22, 1946, Judge Bolitha Laws of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, dismissed the charges against the defendants, saying that to allow the case to continue would be ?a travesty on justice.?2
Although the Justice Department prosecutors appealed the dismissal, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld Judge Laws? ruling and, as a consequence, the saga of the Great Sedition Trial at long last came to a close. This brought to an end five years of harassment that the defendants had suffered, including?for some?periods of imprisonment.
Judge Laws had thus called a halt to this Soviet-style attack on American liberty. Sanity had prevailed and the case was shelved forever. The war was over and the one individual who was the prime mover behind the trial?Franklin D. Roosevelt?was dead.
According to historian Ronald Ra dosh, a self-styled ?progressive? who has written somewhat sympathetically of the pre-World War II critics of the Roosevelt administration, ?FDR had prodded Attorney General Francis Biddle for months, asking him when he would indict the seditionists.?3 Biddle himself later pointed out that FDR ?was not much interested . . . in the constitutional right to criticize the government in wartime.?4
However, as we shall see, there were powerful forces at work behind the scenes prodding FDR. And they, more than FDR, played a major role in pushing the actual investigation Biddle was not enthusiastic to undertake.
Although there was a grand total of 42 people (and one newspaper) indicted?over the course of three separate indictments, beginning with the first indictment, which was handed down on July 21, 1942, the number of those who actually went on trial was 30, and several of them were severed from the trial as it proceeded.
Roosevelt?s biographer, James McGregor Burns, waggishly called the trial ?a grand rally of all the fanatic Roosevelt haters.?5 But there?s much more to the story than that.
In fact, there were a handful of influential figures among the indictees. Among them included:
? Noted German-American poet, essayist and social critic, George Sylvester Viereck (a well-known foreign publicist for the German government as far back as World War I);
? Former American diplomat and economist Lawrence Dennis, an informal behind-the-scenes advisor to some of the more prominent congressional critics of the Roosevelt administration;
? Mrs. Elizabeth Dilling of Chicago, an outspoken and highly articulate author and lecturer who was well re garded and widely known nationally as a leader of the anti-communist movement and a fierce opponent of the ad ministration;
? Rev. Gerald Winrod of Kansas. With a national following and wide-ranging connections among Christian ministers and lay leaders throughout the country, Winrod had emerged as a force to be reckoned with. In 1938 he ran a strong race for the U.S. Senate. (One of Winrod?s protégés was none other than evangelist Billy Graham, who is said to have ?learned much but kept quiet publicly about what he learned privately?6 as a young man traveling with Winrod.) And:
? William Griffin, a New York-based publisher with strong connections in the Roman Catholic Church. Many American Catholics were strongly anti-communist, and Irish-American Catholics, in particular, were generally skeptical of FDR?s war policies at a time when, it will be remembered, the government of Ireland remained neutral in the war being waged against Germany by the United States and England, Ireland?s traditional enemy.
However, most of those who finally went to trial were little known and hardly influential on a national level, other than the few exceptions just noted. Among the defendants were: a sign painter who was 80 percent deaf, a Detroit factory worker, a waiter and a maid.
In short, they were at best ?average? Americans, without the means or the opportunity to be able to conduct the kind of seditious and internationally connected conspiracy that the government had charged, nor were they in any position to defend themselves against the unlimited resources of the central government. In many cases, the defendants were paupers, virtually penniless. Many of them were ?one-man? publishers, reaching small audiences?hardly a threat to the mighty forces that controlled the New Deal. Several were very elderly. Few of the indictees even knew each other before the trial, despite the fact that the indictments charged them with being part of a grand conspiracy, orchestrated by Adolf Hitler, to undermine the morale of the American military during wartime.
Lawrence Dennis commented later that: ?One of the most significant features of the trial was the utter insignificance of the defendants in relation to the great importance which the government sought to give to the trial by all sorts of publicity-seeking devices.?7
Unfortunately, in this brief study of the tangled circumstances surrounding the great sedition trial, we will be un able to provide all of the defendants the recognition they deserve. But by virtue of having been targeted for destruction by the Roosevelt administration and its behind-the-scenes allies for their patriotic anti-war stand, this handful of otherwise insignificant Americans became folk heroes.
Thanks to their more vocal compatriots, such as, perhaps most notably, Lawrence Dennis, we are able to commemorate the details of their plight today.
According to Dennis, it was the design of the sedition trial to target not the big-name critics of the Roosevelt war policies, but instead to use the publicity surrounding the trial to frighten the vast numbers of potential grass-roots critics of the intervention in the Eurasian war into silence, essentially showing them that, they, too, could end up in the dock if they were to dare to speak out as the defendants had in opposition to the administration?s policies.
Wrote Dennis:
The crackpots, so-called, or the agitators, are never intimidated by sedition trials. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.
The people who are intimidated by sedition trials are the people who have not enough courage or enough indiscretion ever to say or do anything that would get them involved in a sedition trial. And it is mainly for the purpose of intimidating these more prudent citizens that sedition trials are held . . .
A government seeking to suppress certain dangerous ideas and tendencies and certain types of feared opposition will not, if its leaders are smart, indict men like Col. [Charles] Lindbergh or senators [Burton] Wheeler [D-Mont.], [Robert] Taft [R-Ohio] and Gerald Nye [R-N.D.], who did far more along the line of helping the Nazis by opposing Roosevelt?s foreign policy as charged against the defendants than any of the defendants.
The chances of conviction would be nil, and the cry of persecution would resound throughout the land.
It is the weak, obscure and indiscreet who are singled out by an astute politician for a legalized witch-hunt. The political purpose of intimidating the more cautious and respectable is best served in this country by picking for a trick indictment and a propaganda mass trial the most vulnerable rather than the most dangerous critics; the poorest rather than the richest; the least popular rather than the most popular; the least rather than the most important and influential.
This is the smart way to get at the more influential and the more dangerous. The latter see what is done to the less influential and less important, and they govern themselves accordingly. The chances of convicting the weaker are better than of convicting the stronger . . .?8
One of the defendants?one of the weaker, less influential and less important, insignificant Americans targeted by FDR?was Elmer J. Garner of Wichita, Kansas. This elderly American patriot died three weeks after the trial began.
Sen. William Langer (R-N.D.), an angry critic of the trial, described the victim in a speech on the floor of the Senate. Garner, he said, was:
?A little old gentleman of 83, almost stone deaf, with three great-grandchildren. After he lost the mailing permit for his little weekly paper, he lived with his aged wife through small donations, keeping a goat and a few chickens and raising vegetables on his small home plot.
?Held in the [Washington, D.C.] jail for several weeks, for lack of bond fees, and finally impoverished by three indictments and forced trips and stays in Washington, he died alone in a Washington rooming house early in this trial, with 40 cents in his pocket. His body was shipped naked in a wooden box to his ailing, impoverished widow, his two suits and typewriter being held, so that clothing had to be purchased for his funeral. That is one of the dangerous men about whom we have been hearing so much.?9
According to attorney Henry Klein, an American Jew who defied the ADL by boldly serving as defense counsel for another of the defendants, Garner?who was a first cousin of FDR?s first vice president (1933-1941), John Nance Garner?died at his typewriter in a tiny room in a Washington flophouse, typing out his defense.10
Who was it, then, that brought about the series of events that led to the indictment of Elmer Garner and his both more distinguished and perhaps even less distinguished fellow ?seditionists??
It was, of course, Franklin D. Roosevelt who ordered the Justice Department investigation. Attorney General Francis Biddle (who opposed this blatantly political prosecution), followed the president?s orders. And Assistant Attorney General William Power Maloney handled the day-to-day details of the investigation that won the indictments before a federal grand jury in Washington. But behind the scenes there were other forces at work: the power brokers who dictated the overall grand design of the Roosevelt administration and its foreign and domestic policies.
In A Trial on Trial, his sharply written critique of the trial, which is a veritable dissection of the fraud that the trial represented, Lawrence Dennis and his co-author, Maximilian St. George (who was Dennis? counsel during the trial, although Dennis?not an attorney?did most of the legal work himself), concluded?based upon very readily available evidence in the public record?that the three prime movers behind the trial were?in his words?extreme leftists, organized Jew ish groups, and internationalists in general, all of whom were loud and persistent advocates of the trial, editorializing in favor of the investigation and indictments in their newspapers and through media voices such as radio personality Walter Winchell.
However, Dennis pointed out, ?the internationalists behind the trial are not as easy to link with definite agitation for this prosecution as are the leftists and the Jewish groups.?11 Den nis stated unequivocally: ?One of the most important Jewish organizations behind the sedition trial was the B?nai B?rith [referring, specifically, to the B?nai B?rith adjunct known as the Anti-Defamation League or ADL].?12
According to Dennis: ?Getting the federal government to stage such a trial, like getting America into the war, was a ?must? on the agenda of the fighters against isolationism and anti-Semitism.13
?What the people behind the trial wanted to have judicially certified to the world was that anti-Semitism is a Nazi idea and that anyone holding this idea is a Nazi, who is thereby violating the law?in this instance, by causing insubordination in the armed forces?through his belief in or advocacy of this idea.?14
This was not just Dennis?s conclusion, by any means. One of the other defendants, David Baxter, later pointed out that a United Press report published in 1943 said:
Under pressure from Jewish organizations, to judge from articles appearing in publications put out by Jews for Jews, the [indictment] . . . was drawn to include criticisms of Jews as ?sedition.?
It appeared that a main purpose of the whole procedure, along with outlawing unfavorable comments on the administration, was to set a legal precedent of judicial interpretations and severe penalties which would serve to exempt Jews in America from all public mention except praise, in contrast to the traditional American viewpoint which holds that all who take part in public affairs must be ready to accept full free public discussion, either pro or con.15
?In a word,? commented Dennis, ?the sedition trial as politics was smart. It was good politics.?16
Baxter himself determined in later years that certain Jewish groups, specifically the ADL, had been prime movers behind the Justice Department investigation that resulted in the indictments of the defendants in the sedition trial. According to Baxter, commenting many years later:
I demanded, through the Freedom of Information Act, that the FBI turn over to me its investigation records of my activities during the early 1940s leading up to the Sedition Trial. I learned that the investigation had extended over several years and covered hundreds of pages . . . The FBI blocked out the names of those who had given information about me, much of it as false as anything could be. I was never given a chance to face these people and make them prove their accusations. Yet everything they said went into the investigation records.
Oddly enough, in a great many cases, it wasn?t the FBI that conducted the investigation, but the Anti-Defamation League, with the FBI merely receiving the reports of the ADL investigators. One can hard ly tell from the reports whether a given person was an FBI or an ADL agent. But at the time all this was so hush-hush that I didn?t even suspect the web-spinning going on around me. I hadn?t considered myself that important.17
For his own part, commenting on the way that the FBI had been used by the ADL, for example, Lawrence Dennis pointed out: ?The FBI, like the atomic bomb and so many other useful and dangerous tools, is an instrument around the use of which new safeguards against abuse by unscrupulous interests must soon be created.?18
[To our shame, Americans did not learn that lesson, in light of FBI intrigue alongside the ADL, later exposed in the course of such controversies as the holocaust at Waco, the slaughter of the Wea ver family members at Ruby Ridge, Idaho and the mysterious Oklahoma City bombing.?Ed.]
Writing in his 1999 book, Mon tana?s Lost Cause (see review on page 27), a study of Sen. Burton Wheel er and other members of Mon tana?s congressional delegation who opposed the Roosevelt administration?s war in Europe, historian Roger Roots also points out another fascinating cog in the be hind-the-scenes maneuvering that led to the sedition trial:
The Jewish-owned Washington Post assisted in the detective work of the Justice Department from the beginning. Dillard Stokes, the [Post] columnist who was most conspicuous in his insider reporting of the sedition grand jury proceedings, actually became part of the Justice Department?s case against the isolationists when he wrote requests to numerous of the defendants to send their literature to him under an assumed name. It was this that allowed defendants to be brought from the farthest reaches of the country into the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C.19
David Baxter elaborated on the role played by the Post columnist Stokes, who used the pseudonym ?Jefferson Breem,? in order to obtain some of the allegedly seditious literature that had been published by some of the defendants:
In order to try us in Washington as a group, it was necessary to establish that a crime had been committed in the District of Columbia, thus giving jurisdiction to the federal courts there. So the grand jury, which was obviously con trolled by the prosecutor, charged us with the crime of sedition, and then established District of Columbia jurisdiction to try us on the grounds that a District of Columbia resident, ?Jefferson Breem,? had received the allegedly seditious literature. Thus was the alleged ?crime? committed in the capital. The defendants were charged with having conspired in the District of Columbia, despite the fact that I had never been in Washington in my life until ordered there by the grand jury.20
Kirkpatrick Dilling, now an attorney in Chicago but then a young man in uniform and the son of one of the more prominent defendants, Elizabeth Dilling, pointed out in a letter to TBR publisher Willis Carto that: ?My mother was indicted with many others, most of whom she had never had any contact with whatsoever. For example, some of such co-indictees were members of the German-American Bund. My mother said they were included to give the case a ?sauerkraut flavor.? ?21
Later, during the trial itself, the afore mentioned Sen. Langer, scored what he described as: ?the idea of bringing together for one trial in Washington 30 people who never saw each other, who never wrote to each other, some of whom did not know that the others existed, with some of them allegedly insane and the majority of them unable to hire a lawyer.
?And remember,? Langer pointed out, ?[the defendants] were brought to Washington from California and [Illinois] and other states a long way from Washington, placed in one room and all tried at the same time, with the 29 sitting idly by while the testimony against one of them may go on for weeks and weeks and weeks, the testimony of a man or woman [whom the] other defendants never saw before in their lives. That is what is taking place in Washington [the District of Columbia] here today.?22
As mentioned previously, there were actually three indictments handed down. The first indictment came on July 21, 1942. The indictments came as a surprise to more than a few people, including the defendants. As David Baxter said: ?Actually, at that time I was simply a New Deal Democrat interested in what was going on in the country politically.?23 But as a consequence of the indictment, he was being accused of sedition by the very regime he had once supported.
Elizabeth Dilling learned of her indictment on the radio. The nature of one of the charges against Mrs. Dilling exposes precisely how trumped up the sedition trial was from the start. The indictment charged that Mrs. Dilling had committed ?sedition? by reprinting, in the pages of her newsletter, a speech in Congress by Rep. Clare Hoffman (R-Mich.), an administration critic, in which the congressman quoted an American soldier in the Philippines who complained his outfit lacked bombers because the planes had been given to Britain.24 This ostensibly was dangerous to military morale.
But Mrs. Dilling?s many supporters around the country rose to her defense, raising money through dances, dinners and bake sales. Mrs. Dilling, ever courageous, would not let even a federal criminal indictment silence her. She still continued to speak out.
On August 17, 1942 Sen. Robert A. Taft spoke out against the indictment:25 ?I am deeply alarmed by the growing tendency to smear loyal citizens who are critical of the national administration and of the conduct of the war . . .
?Something very close to fanaticism exists in certain circles. I cannot understand it?cannot grasp it. But I am sure of this: Freedom of speech itself is at stake, unless the general methods pursued by the Department of Justice are changed.?26
Taft noted that the indictment, in his words, was ?adroitly drawn?27 and said it claimed that groups such as the Coalition of Patriotic Societies were linked to the accused conspirators. The coalition, Taft noted, included among its member organizations such groups as the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and the Sons of the American Revolution, among others.
On the basis of the way in which the indictment was written, Taft said, a considerable number of members of both the House and the Senate could also be indicted, along with a considerable number of the nation?s newspaper editors.
The second indictment came on January 4, 1943. Lawrence Dennis summarized the nature of the indictments: ?The first indictment charged conspiracy to violate the seditious propaganda sections of both the wartime Espionage Act of 1917 and the peacetime Smith Act of 1940, sometimes called the Alien Registration Act. This indictment . . . was that the defendants had conspired to spread Nazi propaganda for the purpose of violating the just mentioned laws. The government case consisted of showing the similarity between the propaganda themes of the Nazis and the defendants.?28
However, as Dennis pointed out, for a conviction on such an indictment to stand under the law, it is necessary to prove similarity of intent of the persons accused rather than similarity of content of what they said.
?The weaknesses of these first two indictments were that they fitted neither the law nor the evidence. The government?s difficulty was that, to please the people behind the trial, it had had to indict persons whose only crime was isolationism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism when there was no law on the statute books against these ?isms.? The two laws chosen for the first two indictments penalized advocacy of the overthrow of the government by force and of insubordination in the armed forces.?29
Several new defendants were added with the second indictment. Among them was Frank Clark. Considering the charge that Clark (and the others) had been conspiring to undermine the morale of the American military, it is worth noting that Clark was ?a highly decorated veteran of World War I, who was wounded eight times in action. Clark had been an organizer of the famous Bonus March of World War I veterans to Washington in the 1920s. He had lobbied for early payment of veterans? bonuses that had been promised to the war?s veterans, returning home a hero. When arrested, he lacked enough money to hire a lawyer.?30
All of this, however, meant nothing in the course of the ongoing effort by the Roosevelt administration to silence its critics and to prevent more and more Americans from speaking out.
Throughout this period, the major media was rife with reports of how a group of Americans, in league with Hitler and the German National Socialists, were trying to destroy America from within and how the Roosevelt administration was bravely taking on this conspiracy. However, the Justice Department had made a misstep and the second indictment, like the first, was thrown out.
As Roger Roots notes, ?The indictment was unlawful. It was discarded due to the obvious absence of evidence for conviction, among other flaws. Past Supreme Court decisions clearly showed that a conviction for advocating the overthrow of the government by violent force must include some evidence of actual plans to use violence, not just political literature. Again, the indictment was never dismissed formally but simply retired.?31
Sen. Burton Wheeler, in particular, was a harsh critic of the Justice Department and publicly made clear his intention, as new head of the Senate Judiciary Committee following the 1942 elections, to keep a close watch on the affair as it unfolded. As far as the legal procedures used in the first two indictments, he declared: ?If it happened in most jurisdictions of this country, the prosecuting attorneys would be held for contempt of court.?32
Thus, despite all the determined efforts of the Justice Department and its allies in the Anti-Defamation League and at The Washington Post, the first two indictments were indeed thrown out as defective.
On March 5, 1943 Judge Jesse C. Adkins dismissed the count in the indictment that accused the defendants of conspiring together ?on or about the first day of January 1933, and continuously thereafter up to and including the date of the filing? of the indictment since, as the judge held, the law which the defendants were accused of conspiring to violate had not been enacted until 1940.33 At this juncture, under pressure from Sen. Wheeler, Attorney General Biddle agreed to remove prosecutor William Power Maloney as the chief ?Nazi-hunter.?
Thus, a new Justice Department prosecutor entered into the case, O. John Rogge. As defendant David Baxter pointed out, Rogge was a fitting choice for the administration?s chief point man in this Soviet-style show trial:
It later turned out that Rogge had been a good friend of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, was involved in numerous communist front groups, and had visited Russia, where he spoke in the Kremlin and laid a wreath at the grave of American Communist Party co-founder John Reed in Red Square. His wreath was inscribed: ?In loving memory from grateful Americans.? . . . Rogge was an American delegate to a world communist ?peace conference? in Paris and was a lawyer for many communists in trouble with the law. He was the attorney for David Greenglass, the atomic spy who saved his own life by turning state?s evidence against his sister and brother-in-law, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg [who] went to the electric chair for turning over U.S. atomic secrets to the Soviets. [Rogge] was thus eventually exposed for what he was. No wonder he was so fanatical in his hatred against the Sedition Trial defendants, all of whom were anti-communists.34
Rogge was an ideal choice for the Roosevelt administration and its allies, who were determined to pursue the prosecution, one way or the other. He moved forward relentlessly.
As Roger Roots points out: ?Not wishing to waste momentum, the government reconvened another grand jury, resubmitted the same pamphlets, publications, and materials that the previous grand jury had already seen, re-called the same testimony of the witnesses, and once again pleaded the grand jury to return yet another indictment.?35
The third (and final) indictment was handed down on January 3, 1944. In fact, Rogge and his Justice Department allies had decided to take a new tack and added eight new names (including Lawrence Dennis, who had not been named in the first indictments) and dismissed 12 defendants who had been named.
Among those whose names were dismissed were influential New York Catholic lay leader William Griffin and his newspaper, The New York Evening Enquirer (the only publication indicted) former American diplomat Ralph Town send of San Francisco and Washington, D.C. and Paquita (?Mady?) de Shishmareff, the well-to-do American-born widow of a former Russian czarist military figure.
Townsend, who had enraged the Roosevelt administration by opposing its anti-Japanese policies in the Pacific, had written an explosive book, Ways That Are Dark, highly critical of imperial China.* But although he was now ?free,? he and his family had been broken financially by the indictment, and, according to his late wife, Janet, many of their close friends deserted them in this time of crisis.
?It was a very difficult period in our lives,? she later recalled. ?But it didn?t prevent Ralph from continuing to speak out.?36 Townsend did continue to speak out, and in later years he became a friend of Willis A. Carto, publisher of The Barnes Review, and, today, portions of Townsend?s personal library are a part of TBR?s archives.
Tony Blizzard, who is now research director for Liberty Lobby, the Washing ton-based populist institution, was a protégé in the early 1960s of Paquita de Shishmareff (who wrote as L. Fry) and he recently commented on the circumstances surrounding the decision to drop the indictment against her?along with some fascinating, little-known details about this remarkable woman. In Blizzard?s in formed estimation:
One of the reasons they dropped the indictment against Mady was precisely because they knew they were dealing with a very sharp lady with a great deal of brain power. A woman of the old school, Mady would never put herself in the forefront, but she knew how to use the strengths of the men around her. She also was a woman of some means?unlike most of the other defendants?and was a formidable opponent.
The government clearly decided that it was in their best interests to dismiss the case against her. There was no way they could ever make ?Nazis? out of all of these defendants, whose only real ?crime? was exposing Jewish pow er as long as Mady was on the dock with the rest of them.
The prosecutors knew quite well, although it was not widely known then nor is it widely known today, that it was Mady who had supplied Henry Ford virtually all of the information that Ford had published in his controversial series about Jewish power in The Dearborn Independent. With her wide-ranging, high-level connections, Mady was an encyclopedic storehouse of inside in formation about the power elite.
The last thing the prosecution wanted was for Mady to take the stand. By releasing her as a defendant, they eliminated, to them, what was a very frightening possibility.37
But there were 30 others who were not so lucky as Paquita de Shishmareff, Ralph Townsend and the others who had been released, and their trial commenced on April 17, 1944 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colum bia.
Kirkpatrick Dilling, son of defendant Elizabeth Dilling, captured the essence of the indictment. According to Dilling, ?The indictment was premised on an alleged ?conspiracy to undermine the morale of the armed forces.? Thus criticizing President Roosevelt, who was armed forces commander in chief was an alleged overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. Denouncing our ally, communist Soviet Russia, was a further alleged overt act. Opposing communism was an alleged overt act because our enemy Hitler had also opposed communists.?38
Ironically, while his mother was on trial for her alleged participation in this ?conspiracy to undermine the morale of the armed forces,? Kirkpatrick Dilling was promoted from corporal to second lieutenant in the U.S. Army.39
Other defendants, including George Sylvester Viereck, George Death er age, Robert Noble and Rev. Gerald Winrod, also had sons in the U.S. Armed Forces during this period.40 Viereck?s son died in combat while his father was on trial and in prison (see the memorial poem on these pages).
Presiding as judge at the trial was ex-Iowa Democratic Congressman Edward C. Eicher, a New Deal stalwart who had served a brief period as chairman of FDR?s Securities and Exchange Com mis sion (SEC) after being defeated for re-election to Congress. After Eicher?s term at the SEC, FDR then appointed Eicher to the judgeship. And serving as prosecutor was Eicher?s former legal counsel at the SEC, the aforementioned O. John Rogge. 41
It seemed that the case was ?fixed? from top to bottom.
Albert Dilling, the attorney, who represented his wife Elizabeth Dilling, called for a congressional investigation of the trial on the grounds that it was impossible for such a trial to be fair during wartime.42 But that was not enough to stop the trial juggernaut.
Although proving ?sedition? was the ostensible purpose of the prosecution, Lawrence Dennis reached other conclusions about the actual political basis for the trial: ?The trial was conceived and staged as a political instrument of propaganda and intimidation against certain ideas and tendencies which are popularly spoken of as isolationism, anti-communism and anti-Semitism. The biggest single idea of the trial was that of linking Nazism with isolationism, anti-Semitism and anti-communism.?43 How ever, as Dennis pointed out:
American isolationism was born with George Washington?s Farewell Address, not with anything the Nazis ever penned. As for ?anti-Semitism,? it has flourished since the dawn of Jewish history. It is as old and widespread as the Jews . . . As for anti-communism, while it was one of Hitler?s two or three biggest ideas, it is in no way peculiar to Hitler or the Nazis, any more than anti-capitalism is peculiar to the Russian communists.44
To add shock value to the indictment, the government?in an accompanying bill of particulars, which was basically a rehash of the history of the Nazi Party in Germany?named German Chancellor Adolf Hitler as a ?co-conspirator.?
During the trial, the prosecutor, Rogge, charged that Hitler had picked the defendants to head a Nazi occupation government in the United States once Germany won the war.45
What the prosecutor was essentially trying to do, according to Lawrence Dennis, was ?to perfect a formula to convict people for doing what was against no law. It boiled down to choosing a crime which the Department of Justice would undertake to prove equaled anti-Semitism, anti-communism and isolationism. The crime chosen was causing insubordination in the armed forces. The law was the Smith Act,?46 which had been enacted in 1940.
As Dennis pointed out: ?One of the many ironies of the mass sedition trial was that the defendants were charged with conspiring to violate a law aimed at the communists and [of using] a communist tactic?that of trying to undermine the loyalty of the armed forces. What makes this so ironic is the fact that many of the defendants, being fanatical anti-communists, had openly supported the enactment of this law.?48
Defendant David Baxter later re called:
After Hitler and Stalin concluded a treaty, American communists enthusiastically endorsed those of us who opposed getting into the European war between Germany and the British-French alliance. The communists even stomached the Jewish issue that some of us raised, and many Jewish communists, who wanted the United States to join the war against Hitler, left their party. All that changed overnight, however, when war broke out between Germany and Russia. The communists then turned against us with a vengeance and eagerly backed FDR and American participation in the war to save the Soviets.48
Lawrence Dennis?s assessment of the government?s case is reminiscent of that of Kirkpatrick Dilling: ?The pattern of the prosecution gradually emerged something like this: Our country is at war; Russia is our ally; the Russian government is communist; these defendants fight communism; they are therefore weakening the ties between the two countries; this is interfering with the war efforts; this in turn is injuring the morale of the armed forces. The indictees should therefore be sent to prison.?49
Henry H. Klein, an outspoken Jewish anti-communist, was the attorney who represented defendant Eugene Sanctuary, and he took issue with the very constitutionality of the trial.
?This alleged indictment,? thundered Klein in his opening address to the jury, ?is under the peace-time statute, not under the wartime act, and the writings and speeches of these defendants were made when this nation was at peace, and under a Constitution which guarantees free press and free speech at all times, including during wartime, until the Constitution is suspended, and it has not yet been suspended. These people believed in the guarantees set forth in the Constitution, and they criticized various acts of the administration.?50
About his own client, Klein noted: ?He is 73 years old and devoutly religious. He and his wife ran the Presbyterian foreign mission office in New York City for many years, and he has written and published several hundred sacred and patriotic songs.?51 One of those songs, Klein noted, was Uncle Sam We Are Standing by You and was published in June of 1942, well after the war had begun?hardly the actions of the dangerous seditionist that the prosecution and the sympathetic press painted Sanctuary to be.
As far as Lawrence Dennis?s purported sedition was concerned, ?the prosecution had attempted to prove its case exclusively by placing in evidence seven excerpts from his public writings, reprinted in the publication of the German-American Bund rather than as originally published.?52 In other words, the ?evidence? that Dennis had committed sedition was because he had written something (published and freely available to the public) that was later reprinted by a group sympathetic to Nazi Germany?not that Dennis himself had actively done anything to stir dissension among the American armed forces. According to Dennis:
The government?s prosecution theory said, in effect: ?We postulate a world conspiracy, the members of which all conspired to Nazify the entire world by using the unlawful means of undermining the loyalty of the armed forces. We ask the jury to infer the existence of such a conspiracy from such evidence as we shall submit about the Nazis. We shall then ask the jury to infer that the defendants joined this conspiracy from the nature of the things they said and did. We do not need to show that the defendants ever did or said anything that directly constituted the crime of impairing the morale or loyalty of the armed forces. Our thesis is that Nazism was a world movement, which, by definition, was also a conspiracy to undermine the loyalty of the armed forces and that the defendants were members of the Nazi world movement.?53
There was no more reason to bring out in a charge of conspiracy to cause military insubordination the facts that most of the defendants were anti-Semites, isolationists or anti-communists than there would have been in a trial of a group of New York City contractors on a charge of conspiring to defraud the city to bring out the facts that the defendants were all Irish or Jews and had always voted the Democratic ticket.54
Eugene Sanctuary?s attorney, Henry Klein, pulled no punches when he laid out the defense, declaring:
We will prove that this persecution and prosecution was undertaken to cover the crimes of government?remember that.
We will prove that it was undertaken by order of the president, in spite of the opposition of Attorney General Biddle.
We will prove that Mr. Rogge was selected for this job of punishing these defendants because no one else in the Department of Justice felt that he could find sufficient grounds in to spell out a crime against these defendants.
We will prove that the communists control not only our government but our politics, our labor organizations, our agriculture, our mines, our industries, our war plants and our armed encampments.
We will prove that the law under which these defendants are being tried was enacted at the repeated demands of the heads of our armed forces to prevent communists from destroying the morale of our soldiers, sailors, marine and air forces [and that this prosecution] was undertaken to protect communists who were and are guilty of the very crimes charged against these defendants who are utterly innocent and have been made the victims of this law.55
Klein minced no words when he told the jury that Jewish organizations were using the trial for their own ends:
We will prove that this persecution was instigated by so-called professional Jews who make a business of preying on other Jews by scaring them into the belief that their lives and their property are in danger through threatened pogroms in the United States [and that] anti-Semitism charged in this so-called indictment, is a racket, that is being run by racketeers for graft purposes.56
Klein also forcefully made the allegation that FBI agents had been acting as agents provocateurs, attempting to stir up acts of sedition:
We will show that the most vicious written attack on Jews and on the Roosevelt administration emanated from the office of the FBI by one of its agents, and that the purpose of this attack was to provoke others to do likewise. We will show that this agent also drilled his underlings in New York with broom sticks preparatory to ?killing Jews.?57
Klein also put forth a rather interesting allegation about the source of certain funds purportedly supplied by Nazi Germany to no less than Franklin D. Roosevelt himself. According to Klein: ?We will show that large sums of Hitler money helped finance Mr. Roosevelt?s campaign for re-election in 1936 and that right at this moment, British, American and German capital and industry are cooperating together in South America and other parts of the world.?58
What Klein alleged about international collaboration of high-finance capitalism has been part of the lore of the populist right and the populist left for over a century and is a theme that has been analyzed in scores of books, monographs and other literature, but largely ignored in the so-called academic mainstream.
According to Lawrence Reilly?s ac count of the sedition trial, Klein?s speech was a critical turning point in the defense: ?Klein did much in his brief speech to torpedo Rogge?s case by bringing to light the hidden agencies responsible for its existence.?59
However, noted Reilly, even many of the daily newspapers which opposed the trial editorially were afraid to discuss this hidden aspect of the case that Klein had dared bring forth in open court. Reilly said that readers were often left ?confused?60 because the papers never touched on the real factors involved. Some of these ?friendly? papers, Reilly noted, insisted on referring to the defendants as ?crackpots.?
But the fact is that, as a direct consequence of his offensive against the ADL and the other Jewish groups that had played a part in orchestrating the trial, Klein was targeted, specifically because he was Jewish, by organized Jewish groups that resented Klein?s defense of the purported ?anti-Semites? and ?seditionists.?
For his own part, Lawrence Dennis stood up in court to take on his own defense and delivered what even liberal writer Charles Higham was inclined to acknowledge was ?a high-powered ad dress?61 calling Rogge?s outline of the government case, ?corny, false, fantastic, untrue, unproveable and unsound [and describing the trial as] a Roosevelt administration fourth-term conspiracy [and] another Dreyfus case [in which the government was] trying to write history in the heat of battle.?62 To the loud applause of his fellow defendants, Dennis declared: ?Pearl Harbor did not suspend the Bill of Rights.?63
A critical juncture in the case came when one of the defense attorneys, James Laughlin (a public defender representing Ernest Elmhurst) said in open court that it would be impossible for the trial to continue unless the private files of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B?nai B?rith could be impounded and introduced as evidence.
It was clear that much of the prosecution was based on the ADL?s ?fact finding? and Laughlin concluded that it would be necessary to determine precisely what the ADL had provided the government if the defendants would be able to put on an effective defense.
The judge seemed prepared to ignore Laughlin?s motion, but the clever attorney had already prepared copies of his motion in advance and distributed copies of the motion to the press. As a direct consequence, Washington newspapers reported that the ADL files had been made an issue in the case. As Reilly summarized the situation: ?Laughlin had placed the spotlight upon the big secret of the case.?64 This, according to Reilly, was ?a bomb, which, some have said, had more to do with demoralizing [the prosecution?s] case than any other single [factor].?65
At that point, there seemed to be a strange turnabout in the way that the press supporting the trial began looking at the case. Even The Washington Post (which had played a part in orchestrating the trial by lending the services of its reporter, Dillard Stokes, to the joint ADL-FBI investigation) ?completely reversed itself,? according to Reilly, ?and started demanding that the case be brought to a quick conclusion.?66
In short, The Post wanted to keep ?the big secret? of the case?behind-the-scenes orchestration of the case by the ADL?under wraps and now seemed to be calling to bring the trial to a rapid conclusion before the truth came out.
The Post even commented editorially that: ?We fear that, whatever may be the outcome of this trial, it will stand as a black mark against American justice for many years to come.?67 As David Baxter later remarked: ?Such were the remarkable words of the very paper whose own reporter had plotted with the original prosecutor to entrap the defendants and bring them to trial in Washington.?69
Despite these concerns, Rogge seemed to intensify his efforts. There was clearly a great deal of behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the prosecutor and his backers as to how to deal with the challenge that had been presented. Since the judge never ordered the ADL?s files impounded, Rogge was free to move forward. He was determined to carry the trial through to conclusion, and he had many more witnesses to present.
Author Roger Roots describes the course of events as follows:
Day after day, the trial wore on. Page after page of publications authored by the defendants was introduced into evidence, giving rise [among] all in attendance to the idea that it was their writings which were really on trial. The government announced that it intended to introduce 32,000 exhibits. It became obvious that what the defendants were really being prosecuted for was ?Jew-baiting? which gave an indication of one principal source of the prosecution?s support. It became one of the longest and most expensive trials in U.S. history. In essence, the trial was little more than an assault against free speech.69
As the trial proceeded, outspoken trial critic Sen. William Langer visited defendants in jail and defied the media and its allies in the prosecution by publicly escorting defendant Elizabeth Dilling in and out of court and around Washington while she was on bail.70
Said Roots: ?The government worked with unlimited funds, unlimited personnel, and unlimited access to intelligence information. The defense had to work with mostly court-appointed lawyers who were unacquainted with the defendants and the arguments of the case.?71
What is particularly interesting, as pointed out by liberal historian Glenn Jeansonne, is that: ?Many of the defense attorneys were liberals unsympathetic with the clients? beliefs. But they came to see the defendants? side on a human basis, and instead of conducting a perfunctory defense, as many observers had expected, they put up a vigorous de fense.?72
Even Charles Higham, who, writing retrospectively, was an enthusiastic advocate of the trial, pointed out that ?after two and a half months, neither defendants nor prosecution had managed to present a satisfactory case,?73 and, ultimately, ?both press and public were beginning to lose interest in the case.?74
At the same time, according to Paquita de Shishmareff, the defendants had managed to survive and develop their own way of dealing with their predicament: ?Their physical lives were made almost impossible. They got little to eat and were hamstrung in every way possible. But when they got into court, it was such a farce they really just enjoyed themselves.?75
At one point, when the prosecutor was solemnly reading off a list of names of individuals?allies of the Roosevelt administration who had been attacked in some way by the defendants?defendant Edward James Smythe shouted out, ?and Eleanor Roosevelt,? resulting in laughter from the courtroom.76 Smythe didn?t want Mrs. Roosevelt?s name to go unrecorded in the pantheon of villainy.
This, by the way, was only one of many amusing events that took place during this circus. In many respects, the sedition trial could be the basis for a Hollywood comedy, the serious and scandalous violation of the rights of the defendants notwithstanding.
But this is not to suggest that the sedition trial was all a lot of merriment for the attorneys or for the defendants. Far from it. Two of the attorneys had a shot fired at them as they drove in their car. One of those attorneys lost a 12-year law association. Another was beaten by five thugs and hospitalized for five days.
Henry Klein was harassed relentlessly, held in contempt of court for his defense of his client, and, then, ultimately, driven from the case altogether (although the contempt of court charges were eventually overturned).
In addition, strenuous efforts were made to keep the defendants who were out on bail from holding jobs during the course of the trial, a particular problem for those who were not of independent means (and that was most of them).
One defendant, Ernest Elmhurst, got a job as a headwaiter in a Washington hotel in order to make ends meet during the trial, but the ADL?s leading broadcasting voice, Walter Winchell, learned of Elmhurst?s employment and agitated on his widely heard radio show for Elmhurst?s firing, resulting in Elmhurst?s dismissal.77
As the trial dragged on, however, the government began to realize that its efforts were going nowhere. Roger Roots points out: ?The prosecution had undoubtedly expected one or more of the defendants to break and testify against the others . . . [Yet] not one defendant gave any indication of such an inclination. Though they disagreed and some even disliked each other, they came together as a cohesive unit.?78
David Baxter had the pleasure to learn that he was going to be severed from the trial and the charges dismissed. His increasing deafness made it impossible for Baxter to have a fair trial. Baxter recalls that Judge Eicher called Baxter into his chamber, smiled, held out his hand, and said: ?Go back to California and forget about it, Dave.?79
The judge reportedly told Baxter that if Baxter and his wife wanted to buy a car to return to California, he would help and handed Baxter a roll of gasoline coupons (which, during wartime, were severely rationed). Despite everything, it seems, even the judge realized what a farce the trial really was.
It was something totally unexpected that brought the trial to a halt: Judge Eicher?s sudden death on November 29, 1944. The judge?s demise came at a point where Rogge was not even halfway through the prosecution?s case. At this point he had brought 39 witnesses to the stand, and expected to present 67 more. The defense had not even yet begun.80
Defendant David Baxter later commented (reflecting on his own friendly personal experience with the judge): ?That trial could have killed any judge with a Christian conscience and any semblance of fairness. I felt genuinely sorry about Judge Eicher?s death.?81 Rogge accused the defense of having effectively killed the judge by having put up such a defense that it made the judge?s life (and that of the prosecutor) uncomfortable. Under the circumstances, it was apparent that there was no way that the case could continue on a fair basis.
As a consequence, after a period of legal haggling on both sides (with one defendant, Prescott Dennett, actually asking for the trial to continue, determined to present his defense after having been tried and convicted in the media), a mistrial was declared.
Prodded primarily by Jewish groups, Prosecutor Rogge hoped to be able to keep the case alive and set a new trial in motion. But by the spring of 1945, the trial?s chief instigator, President Roos velt, was dead, and the war had come to a close. Rogge, however, continued to ask for delays in setting a new trial date. Since Germany had fallen, Rogge claimed, he was confident that he could find ?evidence? in the German archives that the sedition trial defendants had been Nazi collaborators. However, according to historian Glen Jeansonne, no friend of the purported seditionists, ?nothing Rogge found proved the existence of a conspiracy?82 between the Ger man government and the defendants.
Undaunted, Rogge launched a na tion wide lecture tour that was, not surprisingly, conducted under the auspices of B?nai B?rith. The combative and loquacious Rogge, prodded by his sponsors, could not contain himself in his enthusiastic recounting of the events of the trial and of the personalities in volved and, in the end, was fired by the Justice Department on October 25, 1946, for leaking information to the press.83 At that time Rogge was ordered to hand over all Justice Department and FBI documents in his possession. The Justice Department had apparently decided that Rogge had outlived his usefulness.
Less than a month later, District Judge Bolitha Laws dismissed the charges altogether, declaring that the defendants had not received a speedy trial as guaranteed by the Constitution. Although the Justice Department ap pealed, the dismissal was upheld on June 30, 1947 by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The ?Great Sedition Trial? thus came to a close.
As even defendant Lawrence Dennis was moved to comment:
Some or all may even have been guilty of conspiring to undermine the loyalty of the armed forces, but not as charged by the [government] . . . Nothing in the evidence brought out during the trial proved or even suggested that any one of the defendants was ever guilty of any such conspiracy, except on the prosecution theory. And on that theory, opponents of President Roosevelt?s pre-Pearl Harbor foreign policy and steps in foreign affairs, such as Col. Lindbergh, Sen. Taft, Sen. Nye or Sen. Wheeler, and Col. McCormick, publisher of The Chicago Tribune, would be equally guilty.
Indeed, the prosecution case, according to the prosecution theory, would have been much stronger against these prominent isolationists than it ever could be against the less important defendants in the Sedition Trial.84
Many years later it is grimly amusing to note that organized Jewish groups and Jewish newspapers attacked the attorney general, Francis Biddle, for having failed to see the sedition trial through to the bitter end and achieve the conviction of the defendants. Lawrence Dennis wryly commented that all of this showed a great deal of ingratitude on their part.
According to Dennis: ?It shows what a public servant gets for attempting to do dirty work to the satisfaction of minority pressure groups. Biddle did the best anyone in his position could do to carry out the wishes of the people behind the trial. They simply did not appreciate the difficulties of railroading to jail their political enemies without evidence of any acts in violation of the law.?85
Dennis added a further warning for those who would allow themselves to be caught up in promoting ?show trials? such as that which was effected in the Great Sedition Trial of 1944: ?What the government does today to a crackpot, so-called,? Dennis said, ?it may do to an elder statesman of the opposition the day after tomorrow.86
?The trial made history,? Dennis said, ?but not as the government had planned. It made history as a government experiment, which went wrong. It was a Department of Justice experiment in imitation of a Moscow political propaganda trial.?87
There are at least five definitive conclusions which can be drawn about this trial, based upon all that is in the historical record:
1) The defendants charged were largely on trial for having expressed views that were either anti-Jewish or anti-communist or both. The actions of the defendants had little or nothing to do with encouragement of dissension or insurrection within the U.S. armed forces. In short, the ?sedition? trial was a fraud from the start.
2) The prime movers behind the prosecution were private special interest groups representing powerful Jewish organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B?nai B?rith that were closely allied with the Roosevelt regime in power.
3) As a consequence, high-level politicians (including the U.S. president) and bureaucrats beholden to those private interests used their influence to ensure that the police powers of the government were used to advance the demands of those private pressure groups agitating for the sedition trial.
4) Major media voices (such as The Washington Post), working with the ADL and allied with the ruling regime, were prime players in promoting and facilitating the events that led to the trial.
5) The police powers of government can easily be abused, and innocent citizens, despite Constitutional guarantees of protection, can be persecuted under color of law, their innocence notwithstanding.
About a decade after ?The Great Sedition Trial? had come to a close, the major media in America began devoting much energy to denouncing so-called anti-communist ?witch-hunts? by Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy and others, the media (not to mention ?mainstream? historians) never drew the obvious parallel with the precedent for such witch-hunting that had been set by the activities of the ADL and its allies in the Roosevelt administration who had orchestrated the sedition trial.
The events of ?The Great Sedition Trial? are a black page of American history (and little known at that). Civil libertarians should take note: It can happen here, and it did.[/justify]
Nous serons toujours là.
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Dejuificator II
- Erudit
- Posts: 552
- Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:47 pm
[justify]Source: American Dissident Voices
[large]A New Outlet for American Dissident Voices[/large]
We are sorry to have to say it, but it is a constant battle to secure my right to speak freely on the public airwaves. There are many threats to the continued airing of this program. One is the so-called ?Fairness Doctrine? which is now making its way through Congress. It is very important for all of you to understand just what this so-called ?Fairness Doctrine? is all about.
The Doctrine is promoted as a way to ensure that all points of view on controversial issues of public importance are presented on radio and television stations. Its actual effect, its intended effect is the exact opposite ? it will stifle the expression of all non-Establishment points of view.
Here?s how it works: Under the Doctrine, if a station airs a program dealing with a controversial issue ? say this program, for example ? any individual or group with an opposing point of view on that issue would be able to force the station to air its opposing point of view free of charge. If the Communist Workers Party or the NAACP don?t like what I say on the radio, they would be able to demand equal time without paying for it. This, of course, would create a legal and logistical nightmare for radio and television licensees, with the ultimate effect that they would be unwilling to air any controversial programs at all, just to avoid all the hassle. Another effect, also intended by the framers of the so-called ?Fairness Doctrine,? would be to put the final decision of what individuals and groups are given free time to air their views into the hands of the Federal courts. We much prefer the present situation, where honorable Americans are still free to purchase time on independent stations. If someone opposes our views, then, by God, let them purchase time just like we do! Today, by purchasing expensive airtime with funds donated by our listeners, we are at least able to add our ounce or two of truth to counterbalance the 10,000 tons of lies on the other side of the scale. But that is exactly the situation that the enemies of freedom want to put an end to. America?s enemies already control 99.9% of what is broadcast on the AM, FM, and TV dials. They don?t need to and don?t want to purchase time to debate us. They want to use this law to intimidate stations into cancelling us. Americans need to say, ?Thanks, but NO THANKS? to their Congressman, and urge them to reject the misnamed ?Fairness Doctrine.?
Another form of intimidation practiced by America?s enemies is economic intimidation. It is often used to try to get American Dissident Voices thrown off the air. Here?s how it usually works: agents of the criminal foreign spy agency, the Anti-Defamation League of B?nai B?rith or ADL for short, either openly in their official capacity, or covertly, depending upon the strength and reputation of the ADL in the town where the station is located; approach the radio station or some of its major advertisers. Pressure is applied, by threats of advertising boycotts or cancellation of lucrative contracts, or unfavorable publicity is threatened, backed up with proof of ADL influence in the newsroom. Sometimes well-known politicians who are ADL properties are brought in if the initial pressure fails to produce the desired effect. Sometimes, economic intimidation comes from local leftist or minority activists, too. In either case, the result is a stifling of freedom of speech. Unfortunately, economic intimidation sometimes works, and it is with regret that I must announce that the two stations owned by the Positive Radio Group, with whom we have had an excellent relationship for over a year, have cancelled this program.
October 2nd will be the last day that American Dissident Voices will be carried on WKGM, Virginia Beach, Virginia; and on WNOW, Charlotte, North Carolina. Listeners to those two stations should get out paper and pencil and write the following information down. To replace WKGM and WNOW, we have signed on with 50,000-Watt station WLAC-1510 in Nashville, Tennessee. We?ll start on WLAC on October 16th. WLAC covers the Charlotte and Virginia Beach areas as well as all of the Southeastern US, the Gulf Coast states, and the Midwest east of the Mississippi River. Beginning October 16th, and every Saturday thereafter, we?ll be on WLAC, 1510 on your AM dial, at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time, 10:30 p.m. Central Time. That?s every Saturday, 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time, at 1510 on your AM dial. Drop us a line and let us know how it?s coming in. We?ll give you the address in a few moments.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no better way to educate yourself, or open the eyes of your friends and family, than with the brilliant speech by Professor Revilo P. Oliver entitled What We Owe Our Parasites. What We Owe Our Parasites is an amazing speech, quite possibly the finest patriotic speech ever committed to cassette tape. Dr. Oliver was for 32 years Professor of the Classics at the University of Illinois, and has been a patriotic leader since 1954. He is not only an outstanding scholar, but is also one of greatest living stylists in the English language. With brilliant wit and humor, and an inspiring sweep of history, Dr. Oliver will explain to you the subversion of our nation and what it is about us that has made us such willing dupes of our enemies. There is no speech which can remotely compare in sheer intellectual impact to Dr. Oliver?s What We Owe Our Parasites. It is now available to every listener who contributes $12 or more to keep this program on the air as our Radio Offer Number 7. To receive this brilliant speech by a master of the orator?s art, just send the largest gift you can afford today, a minimum of $12, to National Vanguard Books, Department R, PO Box 90, Hillsboro WV 24946 USA, and remember to ask for Radio Offer Number 7.
Until next week, this is Kevin Alfred Strom telling you to keep on thinking free.[/justify]
[large]A New Outlet for American Dissident Voices[/large]
We are sorry to have to say it, but it is a constant battle to secure my right to speak freely on the public airwaves. There are many threats to the continued airing of this program. One is the so-called ?Fairness Doctrine? which is now making its way through Congress. It is very important for all of you to understand just what this so-called ?Fairness Doctrine? is all about.
The Doctrine is promoted as a way to ensure that all points of view on controversial issues of public importance are presented on radio and television stations. Its actual effect, its intended effect is the exact opposite ? it will stifle the expression of all non-Establishment points of view.
Here?s how it works: Under the Doctrine, if a station airs a program dealing with a controversial issue ? say this program, for example ? any individual or group with an opposing point of view on that issue would be able to force the station to air its opposing point of view free of charge. If the Communist Workers Party or the NAACP don?t like what I say on the radio, they would be able to demand equal time without paying for it. This, of course, would create a legal and logistical nightmare for radio and television licensees, with the ultimate effect that they would be unwilling to air any controversial programs at all, just to avoid all the hassle. Another effect, also intended by the framers of the so-called ?Fairness Doctrine,? would be to put the final decision of what individuals and groups are given free time to air their views into the hands of the Federal courts. We much prefer the present situation, where honorable Americans are still free to purchase time on independent stations. If someone opposes our views, then, by God, let them purchase time just like we do! Today, by purchasing expensive airtime with funds donated by our listeners, we are at least able to add our ounce or two of truth to counterbalance the 10,000 tons of lies on the other side of the scale. But that is exactly the situation that the enemies of freedom want to put an end to. America?s enemies already control 99.9% of what is broadcast on the AM, FM, and TV dials. They don?t need to and don?t want to purchase time to debate us. They want to use this law to intimidate stations into cancelling us. Americans need to say, ?Thanks, but NO THANKS? to their Congressman, and urge them to reject the misnamed ?Fairness Doctrine.?
Another form of intimidation practiced by America?s enemies is economic intimidation. It is often used to try to get American Dissident Voices thrown off the air. Here?s how it usually works: agents of the criminal foreign spy agency, the Anti-Defamation League of B?nai B?rith or ADL for short, either openly in their official capacity, or covertly, depending upon the strength and reputation of the ADL in the town where the station is located; approach the radio station or some of its major advertisers. Pressure is applied, by threats of advertising boycotts or cancellation of lucrative contracts, or unfavorable publicity is threatened, backed up with proof of ADL influence in the newsroom. Sometimes well-known politicians who are ADL properties are brought in if the initial pressure fails to produce the desired effect. Sometimes, economic intimidation comes from local leftist or minority activists, too. In either case, the result is a stifling of freedom of speech. Unfortunately, economic intimidation sometimes works, and it is with regret that I must announce that the two stations owned by the Positive Radio Group, with whom we have had an excellent relationship for over a year, have cancelled this program.
October 2nd will be the last day that American Dissident Voices will be carried on WKGM, Virginia Beach, Virginia; and on WNOW, Charlotte, North Carolina. Listeners to those two stations should get out paper and pencil and write the following information down. To replace WKGM and WNOW, we have signed on with 50,000-Watt station WLAC-1510 in Nashville, Tennessee. We?ll start on WLAC on October 16th. WLAC covers the Charlotte and Virginia Beach areas as well as all of the Southeastern US, the Gulf Coast states, and the Midwest east of the Mississippi River. Beginning October 16th, and every Saturday thereafter, we?ll be on WLAC, 1510 on your AM dial, at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time, 10:30 p.m. Central Time. That?s every Saturday, 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time, at 1510 on your AM dial. Drop us a line and let us know how it?s coming in. We?ll give you the address in a few moments.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no better way to educate yourself, or open the eyes of your friends and family, than with the brilliant speech by Professor Revilo P. Oliver entitled What We Owe Our Parasites. What We Owe Our Parasites is an amazing speech, quite possibly the finest patriotic speech ever committed to cassette tape. Dr. Oliver was for 32 years Professor of the Classics at the University of Illinois, and has been a patriotic leader since 1954. He is not only an outstanding scholar, but is also one of greatest living stylists in the English language. With brilliant wit and humor, and an inspiring sweep of history, Dr. Oliver will explain to you the subversion of our nation and what it is about us that has made us such willing dupes of our enemies. There is no speech which can remotely compare in sheer intellectual impact to Dr. Oliver?s What We Owe Our Parasites. It is now available to every listener who contributes $12 or more to keep this program on the air as our Radio Offer Number 7. To receive this brilliant speech by a master of the orator?s art, just send the largest gift you can afford today, a minimum of $12, to National Vanguard Books, Department R, PO Box 90, Hillsboro WV 24946 USA, and remember to ask for Radio Offer Number 7.
Until next week, this is Kevin Alfred Strom telling you to keep on thinking free.[/justify]
Nous serons toujours là.
-
Dejuificator II
- Erudit
- Posts: 552
- Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:47 pm
[justify][large]Anti Defamation League and The FBI[/large]
More on FOIA; The Anti-Defamation League and the FBI
Dec 29, 2002
IN THIS MESSAGE
* More on FOIA
* The Anti-Defamation League and the FBI
______________________________________________
Freedom of Information: attempts, procedures etc
"The Freedom of Information Act process is obviously under heavy attack
[administrative, foot-dragging, statutory thrusts] from the
Bush/Ashcroft et al. forces -- and certainly doesn't seem to be getting
any substantive defense from the Democrats. Much of the "mechanism",
however, is still intact . . . ." The mechanism may be technically
intact in that all the steps are still there. But Asscroft ordered the
agencies, in the wake of 911, to routinely not disclose. The effect is
to add another step to the mechanism--going to court to get disclosure.
I don't know how closely the agencies have followed Asscroft's advice.
And some cautionary notes: The request goes into the file of the
requester and probably the subject's file, to. So that should be in the
mind of the person drafting it.
Second, no reason for wanting the material need be given; it's entirely
irrelevant. Giving the kinds of reasons that exist here, it seems to
me, just waves red flags (double meaning intended) that might move the
request from the regular track to the high resistance track. A
countervailing consideration is when the requester thinks there might be
information not indexed or filed under the subject's name but in the
file maintained on an organization. So the requester should consider
whether to ask that the search include the files on named organizations.
FBI field offices sometimes have information they didn't send to
Washington, so consider querying selected offices in addition to
headquarters.
- Reber Boult
============================================
The Anti-Defamation League and the FBI
Note by Hunterbear:
There's been something of a discussion today on a couple of Left lists --
including that of Socialists Unmoderated [SPUSA] -- about the
Anti-Defamation League. The consensus certainly is -- and quite
accurately -- that ADL is a reactionary outfit indeed. Here is a post on
that -- which includes a little personal experience on my part -- which I
sent out early last June to several lists. Now on our large website, I'm
reposting it on several lists -- including a few that never saw it.
Following my comment is a very revealing ADL news release about its
cooperation with FBI.
ADL AND FBI [HUNTER GRAY 6/8/02]
Note by Hunterbear:
The fact that the Anti-Defamation League is working very conspicuously with
the FBI -- and at a point where FBI is functioning in a more openly repressive fashion than it has in decades [FBI, of course, has
always been repressive as hell], should come as absolutely no surprise to
anyone even generally familiar with the civil liberties turf in the United
States. ADL has been doing this as long as I, at least, can remember -- and
one of its traditional areas of concern has always been everything from
militant liberalism into and across the Left spectrum [with the exception of
right-wing "social democrats."]
About ten years or so ago, the now very well established and broad-based and
always quite circumspect American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, then
spearheaded by former US Senator James Abourezk from South Dakota [married
to a Rosebud Sioux and a major figure in Indian rights], released documents
that had been secretly issued by ADL: its so-called list of "subversive
organizations" which numbered into the hundreds -- and included, among
others, not only the various racist and anti-Semitic hate groups -- BUT also
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, all sorts of Native American
and Chicano and Black and Asian rights organizations, virtually everything
on the Left, labor unions, liberal outfits, Islamic groups, social
justice-oriented Christian church organizations -- and on and on and on.
All of this was in the context of ADL working covertly with various police
organizations and operations.
My own experiences with ADL were many, many years ago and relatively
minimal -- but not friendly. In the Southern Movement days, ADL was working
with the right-wing Jay Lovestone elements in AFL-CIO [mostly on the AFL end
of it] to "track" and hunt alleged "subversives" in the Civil Rights
Movement -- with an especial focus on SNCC and SCEF [I was the SCEF Field
Organizer.] On the other hand, its influence in the hard-core South was
essentially nil and its sabotaging thrusts occurred mostly in the North,
East, and West Coast regions.
In the late Fall, 1963, veteran activist Miss Ella J. Baker [Advisor to
SNCC, Consultant to SCEF -- and an old and dear friend always] and I [as
SCEF Organizer] spent a few hard-traveling and very demanding weeks on a
speaking tour in the North and West, building support for the Civil Rights
Bill [to become the 1964 CR Act] and for the Movement generally. This
trip -- focused on church and labor and academic groups -- went extremely
well.
A year later -- late in 1964 -- I did a shorter solo run which was mostly in
the Western Mountain states. By this time, the old national solidarity
behind the Southern Movement was beginning to crack: many northern liberals
were "tired" and wanted to feel that the passage of the '64 CR Act was the
apex, various ideological divisions within the Movement were becoming more
and more publicly apparent, war clouds in Southeast Asia were very visible,
there had been several Northern ghetto upheavals, the integrationist /
separatist debates were obviously incipient, a plethora of New Left outfits
had emerged -- many healthy, and some not so. In addition, FBI COINTELPRO
was in full swing.
That late 1964 speaking trip of mine in the West, focused mostly on labor
and academic sectors, was quite successful -- very large turnouts -- but
there were occasionally turbulent dimensions. John Birchers and Young
Americans for Freedom et al were traditional, frequent and noisy nuisances.
Now and then, there were very ultra-Left thrusts which may well have been in
actuality COINTELPRO.
But, in at least one setting, ADL was definitely involved as a would-be
sabotaging force.
That was at Colorado State, Greeley, where my host was an internationally
known educator and where most of the people who came to hear me were
faculty, labor officials, and Chicano and Black civil rights activists. No
visible problems -- but I was told that one faculty person at Greeley, who
did not come to the meeting, had advised everyone in advance that I and SCEF
were very "suspect" and "probably Communists" and he cited information he'd
gotten from the ADL regional office at Denver. No one listened to him and
the meeting at Greeley and environs was an excellent one.
My next engagement was at Denver and, as soon as I got there, I went to the
ADL Regional Office and raised High Hell with its director [while grinning
junior staff, out of his sight, and in my general age range,
enthusiastically signaled me to lay it on him.] For his part, he beat a
very hasty retreat indeed, blamed the Greeley prof for everything, and
apologized profusely. I had brought with me on this trip a great deal of
United Klans and other Klan-type White supremacist material from the Deep
Dixie setting in which I was deeply involved -- and I left some of that with
them. Although I invited him, he did not come to my large Denver meeting
which had many officials from the Mine-Mill and OCAW international offices,
other labor people, Native Americans, many academics and students, and a
large number of Black and Chicano activists. There, a very weird and
ostensibly far, far Left threesome tried to disrupt things -- but got
nowhere.
So my own experiences with ADL have been neither extensive nor friendly.
Still, the Colorado thing was certainly revealing -- and the ADL connections
with the Lovestone finks in AFL-CIO were also becoming more and more
apparent to many of us working in the Southern battlefields. Decades later,
when I saw, via American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the massive ADL
"subversive list," I was certainly not surprised at all.
Nor am I at all surprised now to see ADL cooperating so openly and
congenially with FBI -- in the blank-check name, of course, of "national
security."
Hunter Gray [ Hunterbear ]
========================================
Law Enforcement From Across The U.S. Participate In Joint ADL-FBI
Conference On Terrorism
Anti-Defamation League
6/6/02 staff
More than 500 representatives of federal, state and local law enforcement
agencies were briefed on extremist and terrorist threats during a daylong
conference co-sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation.
The May 31 program, held at the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA, was an
outgrowth of ADL's longtime involvement in providing information and
training to law enforcement on threats posed by extremists. The conference,
"Extremist and Terrorist Threats: Protecting America After 9/11" included
presentations from ADL, FBI and other nationally recognized experts on
extremist groups, investigative techniques, counterterrorism strategies,
domestic security and threat assessment.
"Now more than ever, law enforcement must have the resources and know-how to
prevent future acts of terrorism," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National
Director. "In order to assess threats against the United States, law
enforcement must have credible information about domestic and foreign
extremists whose rhetoric promotes violence. Through our network of regional
offices and our experts in the field, ADL is uniquely suited to aid in the
war against terrorism. This conference was an opportunity for law
enforcement and extremism watchdogs to compare notes and forge alliances."
The conference brought together representatives of federal, state and local
law enforcement from every region of the U.S., and included participants in
the FBI National Academy, ADL regional directors, area counsels and
investigative researchers.
The program featured opening remarks from Mr. Foxman and Dr. Kathleen L.
McChesney, the FBI's Executive Assistant Director for Law Enforcement
Services. The plenary session, "Right and Left, Domestic and Foreign: An
Overview of Extremist and Terrorist Movements and Groups," featured
presentations from Dr. Bruce Hoffman, Director of the Washington office of
The Rand Corporation; Greg Comcowich, Intelligence Research Specialist in
the FBI's Counterterrorism Division; and Mark Pitcavage, ADL Director of
Fact Finding.
James T. Caruso, the FBI's Deputy Executive Assistant Director for
Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence, delivered the keynote address.
Five concurrent workshops focused on Threat Assessment on the State and
Local Level; Strategies for Police-Community Cooperation to Combat Extremism
and Terrorism; The Changing Role of Law Enforcement: Policy, People and
Technology; Inside the Minds of Terrorists and Extremists; and New
Partnerships: Law Enforcement, the Military and Non-Governmental
Organizations. Among the presenters were police chiefs from Arlington, VA,
Irvine, CA, and Spokane, WA; and officials from the U.S. Army Criminal
Investigation Command; the U.S. Army War College, the International
Association of Chiefs of Police, and ADL and FBI professionals.
David Friedman, Director of ADL's Washington, D.C. Regional Office, and
Louis Quijas, Assistant Director for the FBI's Office of Law Enforcement
Coordination, delivered closing remarks.
EDITORS NOTE: Additional information on extremist groups and ideologies, and
the League's partnerships with law enforcement agencies across the country,
is available at ADL's online Law Enforcement Agency Resource Network, at
www.adl.org/LEARN.
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading
organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that
counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hunter Gray [ Hunterbear ]
www.hunterbear.org ( strawberry socialism )
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´[/justify]
More on FOIA; The Anti-Defamation League and the FBI
Dec 29, 2002
IN THIS MESSAGE
* More on FOIA
* The Anti-Defamation League and the FBI
______________________________________________
Freedom of Information: attempts, procedures etc
"The Freedom of Information Act process is obviously under heavy attack
[administrative, foot-dragging, statutory thrusts] from the
Bush/Ashcroft et al. forces -- and certainly doesn't seem to be getting
any substantive defense from the Democrats. Much of the "mechanism",
however, is still intact . . . ." The mechanism may be technically
intact in that all the steps are still there. But Asscroft ordered the
agencies, in the wake of 911, to routinely not disclose. The effect is
to add another step to the mechanism--going to court to get disclosure.
I don't know how closely the agencies have followed Asscroft's advice.
And some cautionary notes: The request goes into the file of the
requester and probably the subject's file, to. So that should be in the
mind of the person drafting it.
Second, no reason for wanting the material need be given; it's entirely
irrelevant. Giving the kinds of reasons that exist here, it seems to
me, just waves red flags (double meaning intended) that might move the
request from the regular track to the high resistance track. A
countervailing consideration is when the requester thinks there might be
information not indexed or filed under the subject's name but in the
file maintained on an organization. So the requester should consider
whether to ask that the search include the files on named organizations.
FBI field offices sometimes have information they didn't send to
Washington, so consider querying selected offices in addition to
headquarters.
- Reber Boult
============================================
The Anti-Defamation League and the FBI
Note by Hunterbear:
There's been something of a discussion today on a couple of Left lists --
including that of Socialists Unmoderated [SPUSA] -- about the
Anti-Defamation League. The consensus certainly is -- and quite
accurately -- that ADL is a reactionary outfit indeed. Here is a post on
that -- which includes a little personal experience on my part -- which I
sent out early last June to several lists. Now on our large website, I'm
reposting it on several lists -- including a few that never saw it.
Following my comment is a very revealing ADL news release about its
cooperation with FBI.
ADL AND FBI [HUNTER GRAY 6/8/02]
Note by Hunterbear:
The fact that the Anti-Defamation League is working very conspicuously with
the FBI -- and at a point where FBI is functioning in a more openly repressive fashion than it has in decades [FBI, of course, has
always been repressive as hell], should come as absolutely no surprise to
anyone even generally familiar with the civil liberties turf in the United
States. ADL has been doing this as long as I, at least, can remember -- and
one of its traditional areas of concern has always been everything from
militant liberalism into and across the Left spectrum [with the exception of
right-wing "social democrats."]
About ten years or so ago, the now very well established and broad-based and
always quite circumspect American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, then
spearheaded by former US Senator James Abourezk from South Dakota [married
to a Rosebud Sioux and a major figure in Indian rights], released documents
that had been secretly issued by ADL: its so-called list of "subversive
organizations" which numbered into the hundreds -- and included, among
others, not only the various racist and anti-Semitic hate groups -- BUT also
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, all sorts of Native American
and Chicano and Black and Asian rights organizations, virtually everything
on the Left, labor unions, liberal outfits, Islamic groups, social
justice-oriented Christian church organizations -- and on and on and on.
All of this was in the context of ADL working covertly with various police
organizations and operations.
My own experiences with ADL were many, many years ago and relatively
minimal -- but not friendly. In the Southern Movement days, ADL was working
with the right-wing Jay Lovestone elements in AFL-CIO [mostly on the AFL end
of it] to "track" and hunt alleged "subversives" in the Civil Rights
Movement -- with an especial focus on SNCC and SCEF [I was the SCEF Field
Organizer.] On the other hand, its influence in the hard-core South was
essentially nil and its sabotaging thrusts occurred mostly in the North,
East, and West Coast regions.
In the late Fall, 1963, veteran activist Miss Ella J. Baker [Advisor to
SNCC, Consultant to SCEF -- and an old and dear friend always] and I [as
SCEF Organizer] spent a few hard-traveling and very demanding weeks on a
speaking tour in the North and West, building support for the Civil Rights
Bill [to become the 1964 CR Act] and for the Movement generally. This
trip -- focused on church and labor and academic groups -- went extremely
well.
A year later -- late in 1964 -- I did a shorter solo run which was mostly in
the Western Mountain states. By this time, the old national solidarity
behind the Southern Movement was beginning to crack: many northern liberals
were "tired" and wanted to feel that the passage of the '64 CR Act was the
apex, various ideological divisions within the Movement were becoming more
and more publicly apparent, war clouds in Southeast Asia were very visible,
there had been several Northern ghetto upheavals, the integrationist /
separatist debates were obviously incipient, a plethora of New Left outfits
had emerged -- many healthy, and some not so. In addition, FBI COINTELPRO
was in full swing.
That late 1964 speaking trip of mine in the West, focused mostly on labor
and academic sectors, was quite successful -- very large turnouts -- but
there were occasionally turbulent dimensions. John Birchers and Young
Americans for Freedom et al were traditional, frequent and noisy nuisances.
Now and then, there were very ultra-Left thrusts which may well have been in
actuality COINTELPRO.
But, in at least one setting, ADL was definitely involved as a would-be
sabotaging force.
That was at Colorado State, Greeley, where my host was an internationally
known educator and where most of the people who came to hear me were
faculty, labor officials, and Chicano and Black civil rights activists. No
visible problems -- but I was told that one faculty person at Greeley, who
did not come to the meeting, had advised everyone in advance that I and SCEF
were very "suspect" and "probably Communists" and he cited information he'd
gotten from the ADL regional office at Denver. No one listened to him and
the meeting at Greeley and environs was an excellent one.
My next engagement was at Denver and, as soon as I got there, I went to the
ADL Regional Office and raised High Hell with its director [while grinning
junior staff, out of his sight, and in my general age range,
enthusiastically signaled me to lay it on him.] For his part, he beat a
very hasty retreat indeed, blamed the Greeley prof for everything, and
apologized profusely. I had brought with me on this trip a great deal of
United Klans and other Klan-type White supremacist material from the Deep
Dixie setting in which I was deeply involved -- and I left some of that with
them. Although I invited him, he did not come to my large Denver meeting
which had many officials from the Mine-Mill and OCAW international offices,
other labor people, Native Americans, many academics and students, and a
large number of Black and Chicano activists. There, a very weird and
ostensibly far, far Left threesome tried to disrupt things -- but got
nowhere.
So my own experiences with ADL have been neither extensive nor friendly.
Still, the Colorado thing was certainly revealing -- and the ADL connections
with the Lovestone finks in AFL-CIO were also becoming more and more
apparent to many of us working in the Southern battlefields. Decades later,
when I saw, via American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the massive ADL
"subversive list," I was certainly not surprised at all.
Nor am I at all surprised now to see ADL cooperating so openly and
congenially with FBI -- in the blank-check name, of course, of "national
security."
Hunter Gray [ Hunterbear ]
========================================
Law Enforcement From Across The U.S. Participate In Joint ADL-FBI
Conference On Terrorism
Anti-Defamation League
6/6/02 staff
More than 500 representatives of federal, state and local law enforcement
agencies were briefed on extremist and terrorist threats during a daylong
conference co-sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation.
The May 31 program, held at the FBI Academy in Quantico, VA, was an
outgrowth of ADL's longtime involvement in providing information and
training to law enforcement on threats posed by extremists. The conference,
"Extremist and Terrorist Threats: Protecting America After 9/11" included
presentations from ADL, FBI and other nationally recognized experts on
extremist groups, investigative techniques, counterterrorism strategies,
domestic security and threat assessment.
"Now more than ever, law enforcement must have the resources and know-how to
prevent future acts of terrorism," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National
Director. "In order to assess threats against the United States, law
enforcement must have credible information about domestic and foreign
extremists whose rhetoric promotes violence. Through our network of regional
offices and our experts in the field, ADL is uniquely suited to aid in the
war against terrorism. This conference was an opportunity for law
enforcement and extremism watchdogs to compare notes and forge alliances."
The conference brought together representatives of federal, state and local
law enforcement from every region of the U.S., and included participants in
the FBI National Academy, ADL regional directors, area counsels and
investigative researchers.
The program featured opening remarks from Mr. Foxman and Dr. Kathleen L.
McChesney, the FBI's Executive Assistant Director for Law Enforcement
Services. The plenary session, "Right and Left, Domestic and Foreign: An
Overview of Extremist and Terrorist Movements and Groups," featured
presentations from Dr. Bruce Hoffman, Director of the Washington office of
The Rand Corporation; Greg Comcowich, Intelligence Research Specialist in
the FBI's Counterterrorism Division; and Mark Pitcavage, ADL Director of
Fact Finding.
James T. Caruso, the FBI's Deputy Executive Assistant Director for
Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence, delivered the keynote address.
Five concurrent workshops focused on Threat Assessment on the State and
Local Level; Strategies for Police-Community Cooperation to Combat Extremism
and Terrorism; The Changing Role of Law Enforcement: Policy, People and
Technology; Inside the Minds of Terrorists and Extremists; and New
Partnerships: Law Enforcement, the Military and Non-Governmental
Organizations. Among the presenters were police chiefs from Arlington, VA,
Irvine, CA, and Spokane, WA; and officials from the U.S. Army Criminal
Investigation Command; the U.S. Army War College, the International
Association of Chiefs of Police, and ADL and FBI professionals.
David Friedman, Director of ADL's Washington, D.C. Regional Office, and
Louis Quijas, Assistant Director for the FBI's Office of Law Enforcement
Coordination, delivered closing remarks.
EDITORS NOTE: Additional information on extremist groups and ideologies, and
the League's partnerships with law enforcement agencies across the country,
is available at ADL's online Law Enforcement Agency Resource Network, at
www.adl.org/LEARN.
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading
organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that
counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hunter Gray [ Hunterbear ]
www.hunterbear.org ( strawberry socialism )
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´[/justify]
Nous serons toujours là.
-
Dejuificator II
- Erudit
- Posts: 552
- Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:47 pm
[justify][large]Anti Defamation League Case Upheld[/large]
Source: Associated Press | April 4, 2001
DENVER (AP National) ? A federal judge upheld a jury?s findings that the Anti-Defamation League defamed a couple by publicly accusing them of being anti-Semitic, but reduced punitive damages against the organization.
U.S. District Court Judge Edward Nottingham said Tuesday that evidence was sufficient to support the jury?s conclusion that the ADL ?acted recklessly in its efforts to publicize what it perceived to be anti-Semitic conduct.?
In April 2000, a jury awarded William and Dorothy Quigley $10.5 million in damages, saying the organization had gone too far in accusing the couple of anti-Semitism stemming from a dispute with their Jewish neighbors.
Nottingham reduced the amount the ADL must pay the Quigleys to $9.75 million. But Dorothy Quigley will receive interest that Nottingham estimated could add $545,000 to the total payment.
A statement from Long & Jaudon, the law firm representing the ADL?s Mountain States chapter, promised an appeal, citing ?reversible errors made during both pretrial and trial proceedings.?
The Quigleys and Mitchell and Candace Aronson had been neighbors and friends in the upscale mountain community of Evergreen, 15 miles west of Denver. The Aronsons? large dog allegedly attacked the Quigleys? smaller dog, and a feud followed.
The Aronsons claimed the Quigleys made anti-Semitic remarks in telephone conversations on their cordless phone. The Aronsons overheard and taped the conversations, violating federal anti-wiretap laws.
At a news conference in support of the Aronsons, ADL leaders claimed the Quigleys were anti-Semites.
Nottingham reduced the jury award because the Quigleys had already received compensation from another lawsuit involving the wiretaps.
03AP-NY-04-04-01 1757EDT[/justify]
Source: Associated Press | April 4, 2001
DENVER (AP National) ? A federal judge upheld a jury?s findings that the Anti-Defamation League defamed a couple by publicly accusing them of being anti-Semitic, but reduced punitive damages against the organization.
U.S. District Court Judge Edward Nottingham said Tuesday that evidence was sufficient to support the jury?s conclusion that the ADL ?acted recklessly in its efforts to publicize what it perceived to be anti-Semitic conduct.?
In April 2000, a jury awarded William and Dorothy Quigley $10.5 million in damages, saying the organization had gone too far in accusing the couple of anti-Semitism stemming from a dispute with their Jewish neighbors.
Nottingham reduced the amount the ADL must pay the Quigleys to $9.75 million. But Dorothy Quigley will receive interest that Nottingham estimated could add $545,000 to the total payment.
A statement from Long & Jaudon, the law firm representing the ADL?s Mountain States chapter, promised an appeal, citing ?reversible errors made during both pretrial and trial proceedings.?
The Quigleys and Mitchell and Candace Aronson had been neighbors and friends in the upscale mountain community of Evergreen, 15 miles west of Denver. The Aronsons? large dog allegedly attacked the Quigleys? smaller dog, and a feud followed.
The Aronsons claimed the Quigleys made anti-Semitic remarks in telephone conversations on their cordless phone. The Aronsons overheard and taped the conversations, violating federal anti-wiretap laws.
At a news conference in support of the Aronsons, ADL leaders claimed the Quigleys were anti-Semites.
Nottingham reduced the jury award because the Quigleys had already received compensation from another lawsuit involving the wiretaps.
03AP-NY-04-04-01 1757EDT[/justify]
Nous serons toujours là.
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Dejuificator II
- Erudit
- Posts: 552
- Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:47 pm
[justify]Source: Institute for Historical Review, [small]http://www.ihr.org[/small]
[large]Anti-Defamation League Suffers Major Legal Defeat[/large]
Colorado Jury Orders Jewish Group to Pay $10.5 Million for Defamatory Statements
In a legal decision rich with irony, a jury in a federal court case in Denver, Colorado, has found that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a powerful Jewish special interest group, had defamed a local couple. On April 28, 2000, the jurors awarded $10.5 million in damages to William and Dorothy Quigley. This is the first court verdict ever against the influential 87-year-old organization. The award, a quarter of the ADL?s $45 million annual budget, was substantially more than the Quigleys had requested.
At a 1994 news conference, the ADL had accused the Quigleys, a couple in the Denver suburb of Evergreen, of perpetrating the worst anti-Semitic incident in the area in ten years. The ADL accused them of launching a campaign against their Jewish neighbors, Mitchell and Candace Aronson, to run them out of town and threatening to commit acts such as painting oven doors on their neighbors? home. Concluding a four week trial, the jury found that more than 40 statements by Saul F. Rosenthal, director of the ADL?s Mountain States chapter, were defamatory and ?not substantially true.?
The Quigleys, who are Roman Catholic, and the Aronsons ? neighbors on the same street two houses away ? got along until the Aronsons? large dog allegedly attacked the Quigley?s smaller dog. As the dispute escalated, Mitchell Aronson tuned in a police scanner to eavesdrop on private conversations by the Quigleys over their cordless telephone. The Aronsons? nearly 100 hours of recorded telephone conversations violated the amended federal wiretap law, which makes it illegal to record conversations on a cordless telephone, to transcribe the material, and to use the transcriptions for any purpose.
The Aronsons sought help from the ADL, whose local director publicly denounced the Quigleys as anti-Semites. Director Rosenthal illegally used the tapes to charge at a news conference in December 1994 that the Quigleys were engaged in ?a vicious anti-Semitic campaign.? He expanded on these charges later that same day in an interview on a Denver radio talk show.
No overt acts or physical actions followed any of the recorded conversations.
Acting on complaints from the Aronsons, the local District Attorney filed ethnic intimidation charges against the Quigleys. But the county prosecutor later dropped the charges and, in an open letter, apologized to the couple, saying he had found no evidence that either had engaged in ?anti-Semitic conduct or harassment.? The DA also paid the Quigleys $75,000 as part of an out-of-court settlement.
Lawsuits by the Aronsons and the Quigleys against each other were eventually resolved, with no exchange of money.
In their lawsuit against the ADL and its local director, the Quigleys charged not only that the ADL had defamed them, but that the Jewish group was supportive of the illegal invasion of their privacy through its use of the improperly recorded telephone conversations.
During closing arguments, Quigley attorney Jay Horowitz said that while Dorothy Quigley had a ?big mouth,? and may have said things over the telephone that she later regretted, there is no evidence that the Quigleys were anti-Semites. When talking about damages suffered by the Quigleys, Horowitz noted that William Quigley, who was employed by United Artists theaters, was a marked man because of the ADL?s public allegations of anti-Semitism. His income, Horowitz argued, was less than half of what it would have been.
The numerous damage awards include one million dollars in economic and non-economic damages for William Quigley and $500,000 for Dorothy Quigley. The couple was also awarded more than $8.7 million in punitive damages and other, lesser amounts.
The ADL is appealing the verdict, expressing confidence that the jury?s award will be reduced, or even that the verdict will be thrown out altogether.
The Washington Jewish Week, a paper that serves the Jewish community of the nation?s capital, commented with sympathetic concern in an editorial: ?In a disturbing irony, the Jewish world?s premier discrimination fighter, whose mission is ?to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment for all people alike,? found itself convicted of defamation ? When does being in the forefront mean invading someone?s personal privacy, and even violating the human dignity that ADL holds so dear??
The Denver court?s verdict shows that the sometimes seemingly invincible Jewish activist group is not invulnerable. Unlike prominent political and social figures, who are often beholden to special interest groups such as the ADL, independent-spirited citizens, acting as jurors, can sometimes still defy such powerful organizations.
The ADL?s defeat in a Denver court was a consequence of its own arrogance in recklessly defaming the Quigleys. Such brazen contempt ? not only for decency and common ethics, but even the law ? is nothing new for the ADL. Similar arrogance was also manifest in the ADL?s extensive spying operation, which was uncovered in 1993, and its decades of censorship and intimidation activities directed against libraries, book publishers, journalists and Internet service providers. (See The Watchdogs: A Close Look at Anti-Racist ?Watchdog Groups?, a well documented 102-page booklet by independent researcher Laird Wilcox [and available through the IHR].)
Although the ADL claims to fight discrimination and promote ?fair treatment,? for decades it has been a staunch defender of Israel and its well-entrenched policies of discrimination against non-Jews, and of the Zionist state?s wars of aggression and numerous violations of international law. Similarly, in the United States the ADL upholds a double standard in ardently promoting Jewish ethnic-religious particularism while protesting comparable ethnic-racial particularism by non-Jews.
(Sources: ?Charges of bigotry backfire,? The Denver Post, April 29, 2000; M. Janofsky, ?Privacy Rights Win Over Bias Charges in Defamation Case,? The New York Times, May 13, 2000; ?ADL won?t be deterred by court defeat,? JTA, Washington Jewish Week, May 18, 2000, p. 14; ?Defaming Defamers?,? Editorial, Washington Jewish Week, May 16, 2000, p. 16; H. Berkowitz & A. Foxman, ?ADL in Denver: setting the record straight,? Washington Jewish Week, May 25, 2000, p. 18.)[/justify]
[large]Anti-Defamation League Suffers Major Legal Defeat[/large]
Colorado Jury Orders Jewish Group to Pay $10.5 Million for Defamatory Statements
In a legal decision rich with irony, a jury in a federal court case in Denver, Colorado, has found that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a powerful Jewish special interest group, had defamed a local couple. On April 28, 2000, the jurors awarded $10.5 million in damages to William and Dorothy Quigley. This is the first court verdict ever against the influential 87-year-old organization. The award, a quarter of the ADL?s $45 million annual budget, was substantially more than the Quigleys had requested.
At a 1994 news conference, the ADL had accused the Quigleys, a couple in the Denver suburb of Evergreen, of perpetrating the worst anti-Semitic incident in the area in ten years. The ADL accused them of launching a campaign against their Jewish neighbors, Mitchell and Candace Aronson, to run them out of town and threatening to commit acts such as painting oven doors on their neighbors? home. Concluding a four week trial, the jury found that more than 40 statements by Saul F. Rosenthal, director of the ADL?s Mountain States chapter, were defamatory and ?not substantially true.?
The Quigleys, who are Roman Catholic, and the Aronsons ? neighbors on the same street two houses away ? got along until the Aronsons? large dog allegedly attacked the Quigley?s smaller dog. As the dispute escalated, Mitchell Aronson tuned in a police scanner to eavesdrop on private conversations by the Quigleys over their cordless telephone. The Aronsons? nearly 100 hours of recorded telephone conversations violated the amended federal wiretap law, which makes it illegal to record conversations on a cordless telephone, to transcribe the material, and to use the transcriptions for any purpose.
The Aronsons sought help from the ADL, whose local director publicly denounced the Quigleys as anti-Semites. Director Rosenthal illegally used the tapes to charge at a news conference in December 1994 that the Quigleys were engaged in ?a vicious anti-Semitic campaign.? He expanded on these charges later that same day in an interview on a Denver radio talk show.
No overt acts or physical actions followed any of the recorded conversations.
Acting on complaints from the Aronsons, the local District Attorney filed ethnic intimidation charges against the Quigleys. But the county prosecutor later dropped the charges and, in an open letter, apologized to the couple, saying he had found no evidence that either had engaged in ?anti-Semitic conduct or harassment.? The DA also paid the Quigleys $75,000 as part of an out-of-court settlement.
Lawsuits by the Aronsons and the Quigleys against each other were eventually resolved, with no exchange of money.
In their lawsuit against the ADL and its local director, the Quigleys charged not only that the ADL had defamed them, but that the Jewish group was supportive of the illegal invasion of their privacy through its use of the improperly recorded telephone conversations.
During closing arguments, Quigley attorney Jay Horowitz said that while Dorothy Quigley had a ?big mouth,? and may have said things over the telephone that she later regretted, there is no evidence that the Quigleys were anti-Semites. When talking about damages suffered by the Quigleys, Horowitz noted that William Quigley, who was employed by United Artists theaters, was a marked man because of the ADL?s public allegations of anti-Semitism. His income, Horowitz argued, was less than half of what it would have been.
The numerous damage awards include one million dollars in economic and non-economic damages for William Quigley and $500,000 for Dorothy Quigley. The couple was also awarded more than $8.7 million in punitive damages and other, lesser amounts.
The ADL is appealing the verdict, expressing confidence that the jury?s award will be reduced, or even that the verdict will be thrown out altogether.
The Washington Jewish Week, a paper that serves the Jewish community of the nation?s capital, commented with sympathetic concern in an editorial: ?In a disturbing irony, the Jewish world?s premier discrimination fighter, whose mission is ?to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment for all people alike,? found itself convicted of defamation ? When does being in the forefront mean invading someone?s personal privacy, and even violating the human dignity that ADL holds so dear??
The Denver court?s verdict shows that the sometimes seemingly invincible Jewish activist group is not invulnerable. Unlike prominent political and social figures, who are often beholden to special interest groups such as the ADL, independent-spirited citizens, acting as jurors, can sometimes still defy such powerful organizations.
The ADL?s defeat in a Denver court was a consequence of its own arrogance in recklessly defaming the Quigleys. Such brazen contempt ? not only for decency and common ethics, but even the law ? is nothing new for the ADL. Similar arrogance was also manifest in the ADL?s extensive spying operation, which was uncovered in 1993, and its decades of censorship and intimidation activities directed against libraries, book publishers, journalists and Internet service providers. (See The Watchdogs: A Close Look at Anti-Racist ?Watchdog Groups?, a well documented 102-page booklet by independent researcher Laird Wilcox [and available through the IHR].)
Although the ADL claims to fight discrimination and promote ?fair treatment,? for decades it has been a staunch defender of Israel and its well-entrenched policies of discrimination against non-Jews, and of the Zionist state?s wars of aggression and numerous violations of international law. Similarly, in the United States the ADL upholds a double standard in ardently promoting Jewish ethnic-religious particularism while protesting comparable ethnic-racial particularism by non-Jews.
(Sources: ?Charges of bigotry backfire,? The Denver Post, April 29, 2000; M. Janofsky, ?Privacy Rights Win Over Bias Charges in Defamation Case,? The New York Times, May 13, 2000; ?ADL won?t be deterred by court defeat,? JTA, Washington Jewish Week, May 18, 2000, p. 14; ?Defaming Defamers?,? Editorial, Washington Jewish Week, May 16, 2000, p. 16; H. Berkowitz & A. Foxman, ?ADL in Denver: setting the record straight,? Washington Jewish Week, May 25, 2000, p. 18.)[/justify]
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Dejuificator II
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[justify][large]Anti Defamation Leagues National Director Is Crazy Like a Foxman[/large]
Republished with permission Of Lenni Brenner
The Anti-Defamation League's National Director
is crazy like a Foxman
by Lenni Brenner
ABRAHAM FOXMAN, the ADL's National Director, is well and
truly crazy, and for two reasons: 1) He libeled me and 2) he thinks
he can get away with it.
The saying is that one good turn deserves another. Since
Foxman and the ADL have spread malicious nonsense about me, I will
tell the exact truth about them, putting their dishonesty about my
ideas within the context of the ADL's unending history of
right-wing stupidity and dishonor.
In October 1993, Foxman gave a speech at a Paris conference on
xenophobia. Later he adapted it as an article, "Holocaust Denial:
The Growing Danger," published in an ADL magazine, Dimensions: A
Journal of Holocaust Studies, vol. 8, number 1, released in the
Spring of 1994. There we find the following remarks:
"Another aspect of Holocaust 'revisionist' thinking can be
found on the radical left. A writer named Lenni Brenner maintains
that Zionists, in effect, were in league with the Nazis. He asserts
that there was a close link between elements of the Zionist
movement and the Nazi party, that Zionists were willing to foster
and exploit anti-Semitism in Europe to bring about a Zionist state,
and that they had proposed an alliance with Nazi Germany."
"Brenner's thesis, with its coupling of Zionists with Nazis,
serves as a propaganda tool to undermine Israel: as such, it has
found favor with the American radical left, and with the press of
the former Soviet Union. The erstwhile Soviet daily Izvestia wrote
of his work: 'During the World War, Brenner points out, Zionism
showed its real meaning: for the sake of its ambitions, it
sacrificed the blood of millions of Jews.' Brenner has also won
approval on the other end of the spectrum, the neo-fascist right:
His books have been promoted by the Institute for Historical
Review." [1]
Has Foxman even read me on Zionism's role during the Nazi
era? His speech and article unmistakably relied on "Hitler's
Apologists: The Anti-Semitic Propaganda of Holocaust Revisionism,"
prepared by Marc Caplan of the Research and Evaluation Department
of the ADL, in 1993. Here we find the original, slightly longer,
but no more honest, version of Foxman's libel, labeled "A
Revisionist Echo on the Left." Foxman's two paragraphs on me are
virtually the same as Caplan's first two paragraphs. Caplan added
that
"In 1987 this point of view surfaced in England, when a
stridently anti-Zionist play, 'Perdition,' by Jim Allen, was
scheduled for production at London's prestigious Royal Court
Theater. The play generated intense public controversy and,
finally, it did not open. The writer acknowledged Brenner's work as
a source in writing his play, which portrayed a wartime Zionist
leader who allegedly collaborated with the Nazis to save his family
and other Zionists while deserting the rest of the community. Allen
said he was seeking to mount 'the most lethal attack on Zionism
ever written.'" [2]
I've written four books and about 100 articles. Jim Allen is
a prize-winning British playwright. I defy the ADL to point to one
word in either of our writings that supports even a particle of the
Holocaust revisionists' depravity.
In the February 18, 1985 New Republic, Eric Breindel, now an
editor of the New York Post, reported that my first book, Zionism
in the Age of the Dictators,
"has been applauded, and made available by the Institute for
Historical Review, a pseudo-scientific flat-earth society which
endeavors to prove that the Holocaust was a hoax." [3]
Not having seen anything on the book by the Institute, I wrote
them and received a letter from Tom Marcellus of the IHR. They had
'promoted' the book on two occasions. They sent me a booklist:
"397. ZIONISM IN THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS: A REAPPRAISAL by
Lenni Brenner. An astounding, bombshell expose of the active
collaboration between Nazis and Zionists, by a courageous
anti-Zionist Jew who spent years piecing together the story.
Details the close links between the 'Zionist Revisionism' movement
(to which both the young Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir
belonged) and the Jewish question experts of the Nazi Party,
Brenner's charge, overwhelmingly documented: that Zionism and its
leaders from the beginning were prepared to go to any lengths to
achieve their goal of a state in Palestine -- lengths that included
fostering and exploiting anti-Semitism in Europe, and proposing an
alliance with Germany at the zenith of that nation's power. This
book has certain surviving WWII-era Zionists quaking in their boots
-- including the present Prime Minister of Israel!" [4]
The IHR's letter went on:
We also promoted it in an IHR Newsletter of a couple of years
ago, but the remaining copies of that issue and the records
concerning it were all lost in an arson that completely destroyed
our business address and inventory on 4 July last. [5]
I replied to Marcellus in a letter, on April 11, 1985. I
quoted from it in my third book, Jews In America Today, published
in 1986:
"The depravity of the Institute is clearly expressed in a box,
'The Holocaust,' in the same booklet: 'A catch-all term to identify
the alleged extermination of European Jewry which insists on the
following presumptions: 1) The Nazis executed a deliberate plan to
destroy (not resettle) European Jewry, (2) Six million or more Jews
perished as a result, and (3) A majority of these were killed by
poison gas (Zyklon B) in gas chambers designed for the purpose of
taking human life en masse. This is the orthodox or Establishment
view. A subscriber to this view could be called an
EXTERMINATIONIST: whereas one who endeavors to show that one or
more of the above presumptions is not factual is a REVISIONIST.'"
"All of the above is bullshit. I share not one iota of your
mad ideology. I am your implacable opponent. I do not believe you
have any right to exist.... and I support any and all attempts, by
any and all, Zionist or anti-Zionist, to bust up your institute and
your meetings. [6]
I had sent a letter to the New Republic, in response to
Breindel, but Martin Peretz's strange journal wouldn't run it.
Fortunately Alex Cockburn defended me in June 29, 1985 Nation.
Breindel replied, in the August 1, 1985 Nation. Cockburn retorted
that
"Breindel is fond of saying that the Institute... applauds and
disseminates Brenner's work, though he denies that he is thus
trying to saddle Brenner with the Institute's views. But of course
that is what Breindel has been trying to do.... The Institute lists
Brenner's book as it does books by such diverse people as A.P.J.
Taylor, former Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett and New
Republic contributors Ronald Radosh and Allen Weinstein. [7]
Caplan and Foxman may have read of this in the New Republic
and The Nation. But at any rate Caplan certainly was aware of my
opinion of the IHR when he wrote Hitler's Apologists. He had
attacked me in a previous ADL pamphlet, "Jew-Hatred As History. An
Analysis of the Nation of Islam's and The Secret Relationship
Between Blacks and Jews." In that screed he had quoted -- out of
context, of course -- from Jews In America Today. So he certainly
read of the entire IHR episode, as I devoted six pages to it.
It is in order for me to dismiss the Institute's praise of
Zionism in the Age of the Dictators by saying that this is of no
more importance the fact that roaches like gourmet cooking just as
much as you do. But readers are entitled to know why these nutsies
liked it. Basically, they minimize the Holocaust: ?Aw right, so
Hitler didn't exactly like Jews. And he rounded them up, as
enemies, and some of them died of disease. And besides, what about
Roosevelt rounding up the Japanese Americans on the West Coast? And
look at Stalin's Katyn massacre, and Churchill's horrific bombing
of Dresden, and the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here the
Yids are, yelling about Hitler, while the Allied leaders were
monsters, just like Hitler. Damned if it isn't true that everyone
has skeletons in their closet. Why go on dumping on po' ol' Adolf?'
Given this loony psychology, their catalogue is full of books on
Allied crimes, no less crimes for being emphasized by these
crazies. In the same way, my exposure of real Zionist activities
during the Nazi era became additional 'proof' that Hitler was no
worse than the rest of the wicked world.
As I don't waste my time reading such crackpots, I have no
idea if they still even mention my book. Certainly they are insane
if they went on praising me, or my book, after I told them that I
hailed anyone who burns their headquarters. As the ADL monitors
their publications, it is reasonable to think that the ADL would
have mentioned this in their attacks on me.
Caplan's paragraph re Jim Allen's Perdition is disingenuous in
its omissions. Allen is a prize-winning British TV playwright.
Perdition was based on a chapter in Zionism in the Age of the
Dictators, dealing with the role of Rezs-Kasztner, a Zionist leader
in Nazi-occupied Hungary in 1944. The play was driven out of the
Royal Court Theatre by a Zionist campaign, but their methods
alienated public opinion. David Cesarani, now an editor of Patterns
of Prejudice, published by the London Jewish establishment's
Institute of Jewish Affairs, admitted this in the July 3, 1987
Jewish Chronicle:
"Was it worth all the fuss? Had the play gone on, it would
have been seen by around 2,000 people. It might have attracted some
bad reviews and then disappeared.... In the event.... Personal
representations coincided with the threat of a mass protest outside
the theatre, the combined effect of which made it seem as if
pressure was being applied.... This was (theatre director) Stafford
Clark's autonomous decision, but the clamour made it appear
disastrously as if he had been bullied into censoring the play....
It is certainly difficult to know how to respond...without
resorting to heavy-handed methods. [8]
In fact Perdition was produced, first in print, then as a
reading at the Edinburgh Festival in 1987 and then in London in
May, 1988. It received massive media attention, including favorable
reviews. Stuart Hood reflected on the print version in the July 10,
1987 Guardian:
"There are certain themes from the history of the Second World
War which are subject to taboos.... (T)he Holocaust has come to
play an important ideological role. It has been in this sense
appropriated by the state of Israel and the Zionist movement. It
has thus become a shield against criticism of the policies and
actions of that state and of Zionism itself...... Allen was a bold
man to write Perdition.... Although he develops his argument with
understanding of the terrible dilemmas of the main persons
involved, his criticism of the role of Zionist ideology, then and
now, has led to his being accused of anti-Semitism, of which his
whole political past is a denial.... By refusing to stage a play
which honestly and compassionately examines a terrible moment in
human history, the Royal Court was guilty of failure of nerve, of
civil courage. By giving way to powerful lobbying it has reinforced
an indefensible political taboo." [9]
There is more to this story. The Jewish Chronicle for November
27, 1992 was forced to run an article which announced that
"The collapse of a libel action has allowed the controversial
anti-Zionist play 'Perdition' to be published in full for the first
time.... Pluto Press, omitted several pages from the original text
because of a libel action which was brought by Nathan Dror, a
senior figure in the Israeli Labour Federation, who headed the
Jewish rescue committee in Switzerland during the war. He brought
the action... for references to a letter quoted in 'Perdition,'
allegedly written by Mr. Dror during the Second World War, which
claimed Jewish deaths would help justify the foundation of a Jewish
state. The action, heard in the High Court in London, collapsed due
to lack of evidence." [10]
Dror's letter will be quoted below, in its proper
chronological place. I had quoted it in my book, which appeared in
Britain and America, in 1983. Dror didn't sue me. But when Allen
quoted the same letter, he was sued. Because of Britain's
reactionary libel laws, the publisher was compelled to print
Allen's play with a blank space where the letter was cited because
the libel case was before the courts. I had an accompanying essay
in that printing of the play, and had the unique experience for an
American writer, of having it in effect censored, with similar
blank spaces where I also quoted the letter.. II - Zionism and the
Nazis: The documentary record
By now two things should be clear to open-minded readers: l)
My ideas regarding Zionism's role during the Holocaust have nothing
in common with Holocaust revisionists, who deny that the Holocaust
happened, and 2) the Zionist movement has used both libel and a
spurious libel suit in its attempt to keep the facts from the
public. But at this point readers are better informed as to what I
didn't say than what I do say re Zionism's Holocaust role.
Naturally I refer them to Zionism in the Age of the Dictators,
which is obtainable in bookstores and libraries. But for now I will
describe some of the low points of their activities, using a small
part of the documentation included in my book.
The Nazis came to power in January, 1933. On June 21 the
Zionistische Vereinigung fur Deutschland (the Zionist Federation of
Germany) sent a memorandum to the Nazi Party. The document first
saw the light of day in 1961, when it was printed in Israel, but in
German. The Nazis were asked, very politely:
"(M)ay we therefore be permitted to present our views, which,
in our opinion, makes possible a solution in keeping with the
principles of the new German State of National Awakening and which
at the same time might signify for Jews a new ordering of the
conditions of their existence..."
"(A)n answer to the Jewish question truly satisfying to the
national state can be brought about only with the collaboration of
the Jewish movement that aims at a social, cultural, and moral
renewal of Jewry...a rebirth of national life, such as is occurring
in German life through adhesion to Christian and national values,
must also take place in the Jewish national group. For the Jew,
too, origin, religion, community of fate and group consciousness
must be of decisive significance in the shaping of his life...."
"On the foundation of the new state, which has established the
principle of race, we wish so to fit our community into the total
structure so that for us too, in the sphere assigned to us,
fruitful activity for the Fatherland is possible... Our
acknowledgment of Jewish nationality provides for a clear and
sincere relationship to the German people and its national and
racial realities. Precisely because we do not wish to falsify these
fundamentals, because we, too, are against mixed marriage and for
the maintaining of the purity of the Jewish group... (R)ootedness
in one's own spirituality protects the Jew from becoming the
rootless critic of the national foundation of German essence. The
national distancing which the state desires would thus be brought
about easily as the result of an organic development... We believe
in the possibility of an honest relationship of loyalty between a
group-conscious Jewry and the German state..."
"For its practical aims, Zionism hopes to be able to win the
collaboration even of a government fundamentally hostile to Jews,
because in dealing with the Jewish question no sentimentalities are
involved but a real problem whose solution interests all peoples,
and at the present moment especially the German people."
"The realization of Zionism could only be hurt by resentment
of Jews abroad against the German development. Boycott propaganda
-- such as is currently being carried on against Germany in many
ways -- is in essence un-Zionist, because Zionism wants not to do
battle but to convince and to build... Our observations, presented
herewith, rest on the conviction that, in solving the Jewish
problem according to its own lights, the German Government will
have full understanding for a candid and clear Jewish posture that
harmonizes with the interests of the state." [11]
I admit to being the Shakespeare of our times, but I didn't
make that up. Indeed the Lenni Brenner of the Elizabethean age
didn't have the imagination to concoct anything as grotesque as
this memorandum. It is found, complete, in A Holocaust Reader,
edited by the late Lucy Dawidowicz. But let's not stop here. Let's
look at some more Zionist wonderfulness.
The Nazis used the World Zionist Organization to break the
efforts of those Jews who were trying to boycott German goods.
German Jews could put money into a Berlin bank. It was then used to
buy export goods which were sold in Palestine. When the emigres
arrived there, they would receive payment for the goods that had
been sold. German Jews were attracted to this scheme because it was
the least painful way of getting their wealth out of the country.
However, with the Nazis determining the rules, they naturally got
worse with time. By 1938 users of the "Transfer Agreement" were
losing 30% and even 50% of their money. But this was still three
times, and eventually five times better than the losses endured by
Jews whose money went to other destinations.
The WZO naturally wanted better terms. Accordingly, in 1937,
the Haganah, the military arm of the Labor Zionists, who dominated
the Jewish Agency, the WZO's headquarters in Palestine, obtained
Berlin's permission to negotiate directly with the
Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Security Service of the SS. A Haganah
agent, Feival Polkes, arrived in Germany on February 26, 1937 and
Adolf Eichmann was assigned to negotiate with him. Their
conversations were recorded in a report by Eichmann's superior,
Franz-Albert Six. It was found in SS files captured by the
Americans at the end of WWII. David Yisraeli, a well-known Israeli
scholar, reprinted it, in German, in his PhD thesis, The Palestine
Problem in German Politics 1889-1945:
"Polkes is a national-Zionist... As a Haganah man he fights
against Communism and all aims of Arab-British friendship... He
declared himself willing to work for Germany in the form of
providing intelligence as long as this does not oppose his own
political goals. Among other things he would support German foreign
policy in the Near East. He would try to find oil sources for the
German Reich without affecting British spheres of interest if the
German monetary regulations were eased for Jewish emigrants to
Palestine." [12]
Polkes had to cut short his visit. But in October it was the
Zionists' turn to receive Eichmann. He arrived in Haifa on October
2, 1937. Polkes took him to a kibbutz, but the British CID had
become aware of Eichmann's presence and expelled him to Egypt.
Polkes followed him and further discussions were held in Cairo. The
German report, photocopied in its entirety in volume five of John
Mendelsohn's Holocaust, gives us the rationale for the Haganah's
would-be collaboration:
"(I)n Jewish nationalist circles people were very pleased with
the radical German policy, since the strength of the Jewish
population in Palestine would be so far increased thereby that in
the foreseeable future the Jews could reckon upon numerical
superiority over the Arabs in Palestine." [13]
Polkes passed on two pieces of intelligence information to the
Nazis:
"(T)he Pan-Islamic World Congress convening in Berlin is in
direct contact with two pro-Soviet Arab leaders: Emir Shekib Arslan
and Emir Adil Arslan.... The illegal Communist broadcasting station
whose transmission to Germany is particularly strong, is, according
to Polkes' statement, assembled on a lorry that drives along the
German-Luxembourg border when transmission is on the air." [14]
The Laborites main Zionist rivals in the '30s were the
"Zionist-Revisionist" followers of Vladimir Jabotinsky. Their
Revisionism had nothing in common with present-day Holocaust
Revisionism. They wanted to revise the Zionist and British policy
towards the Palestinians. They wanted to crush them by force, with
an "iron wall" of weaponry. Today they are the dominant ideological
tendency in Israel's opposition Likud bloc.
As the British weren't in Palestine to do Jabotinsky's
bidding, he and his movement looked to Mussolini's Italy as a
potential replacement for Britain as Zionism's then necessary
imperial patron against overwhelming Palestinian numbers. While
Jabotinsky insisted that he personally didn't like Fascism,
Wolfgang von Weisl, the Revisionists' financial director, had no
hesitation about telling a Bucharest paper that although opinions
among the Revisionists varied, in general they sympathized with
Fascism. He eagerly announced that he personally was a supporter of
Fascism, and he rejoiced at the victory of Fascist Italy in
Abyssinia as a triumph of the White races against the Black. [15]
Italy was quite willing to support the Revisionists, who were
obviously the Fascists of Zionism. In 1934 Mussolini allowed the
Betar, the Revisionist youth group, to set up a squadron at the
maritime academy at Civitavecchia run by the Blackshirts. The March
1936 issue of L'Idea Sionistica, the Revisionists' Italian
magazine, described the ceremonies at the inauguration of the Betar
squad's headquarters:
"The order -- 'Attention!' A triple chant ordered by the
squad's commanding officer -- 'Viva L'Italia! Viva IL Re! Viva IL
Duce!' resounded, followed by the benediction which rabbi Aldo
Lattes invoked in Italian and in Hebrew for God, for the king and
for IL Duce ... Giovinezza (the Fascist Party's anthem) was sung
with much enthusiasm by the Betarim." [16]
Even after the outbreak of WWII, a wing of Jabotinsky's
following tried to get the patronage of the Axis powers. According
to their crackpot notions, Britain was the main enemy of Jewry
because London controlled Palestine and wouldn't establish a Jewish
state which, they believed, was the only solution to anti-Semitism.
Accordingly they sent an agent to Lebanon, then run by the
Vichy-French regime. He delivered a memorandum to a German
diplomat. After the war it was found in the files of the German
embassy in Turkey. The Ankara document called itself a "Proposal of
the National Military Organization (Irgun Zvai Leumi) Concerning
the Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe and the Participation
of the NMO in the War on the side of Germany." It is dated *11
January 1941. At that time they still thought of themselves as the
real Irgun, Jabotinsky's underground terrorists. Later they adapted
the name Lohami Herut Yisrael, Fighters for the Freedom of Israel.
However they are universally known as the Stern Gang, the name
given to them by the British, after their founder, Avraham Stern.
Their entire document is reprinted in Yisraeli's thesis, in German.
They told the Nazis that
"The evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe is a
precondition for solving the Jewish question; but this can only be
made possible and complete through the settlement of those masses
in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine, and through the
establishment of a Jewish state in its historical boundaries... The
NMO... is of the opinion that... The establishment of the
historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and
bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest
of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in
the Near East. Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in
Palestine, under the condition the above-mentioned national
aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognized on the
side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war
on Germany's side." [17]
At the time the Sternists were a numerically insignificant
minority of the Zionist movement and were reviled as the pro-Nazi
loons that they obviously were. This monstrous offer took on vastly
greater contemporary significance when one of their leaders,
Yitzhak Yzernitsky, later became prime minister of Israel under his
underground name, Yitzhak Shamir. As it happened, I was in
Jerusalem when Menachem Begin nominated him as his successor and
had the complete text of the traitors' memorandum printed, in
English, in an Arab-owned paper. An Israeli daily used the occasion
to confront Shamir on this episode. The story was picked up in the
21 October 1983 London Times. Yes, Shamir admitted,
"There was a plan to turn to Italy for help and to make
contact with Germany on the assumption that these could bring about
a massive Jewish immigration.. I opposed this, but I did join Lehi
after the idea of contacts with the Axis countries was dropped."
[18]
Even if we were to take this fairy tale as gospel, didn't
Shamir confess to knowingly joining a pro-Nazi movement? But he was
lying. In 1963, Gerold Frank wrote The Deed, a study of the 1944
Stern Gang assassination of Lord Moyne, Churchill's High
Commissioner for the Middle East. Frank tells of an incident
shortly after Jabotinsky's death, on August 3, 1940. The Jabotinsky
loyalists, led by David Raziel, and the Sternists sent speakers to
try to convince the undecided among the Irgun to go with them.
Frank relates that
"(T)he movement all but disintegrated. In September Stern
walked out and set up his own group... Eliahu (Bet Zouri) and David
Danon... were summoned to a remote schoolhouse... (T)hey were to be
addressed by a representative of each faction... (A) short,
square-shouldered, square-faced, muscular man awaited them. Itzhak
Yizernitsky... spoke tersely, summing up the reasons behind Stern's
decision to walk out... 'Men!' His deep voice rumbled, 'If you want
to smell fire and powder, come with us!' (pp. 91-3)... David, for
his part, could not forget Yizernitsky's 'fire and powder' remark
in the days immediately following the Raziel-Stern split." [19]
Frank had covered the trial of the two Stern Gang youths who
killed Moyne. Shamir organized the slaying. In 1963 Frank had no
reason to invent Yizernitsky-Shamir's speech, which is a minor
incident in the book. But Shamir had the best reason in the world
to make up his 1983 fraud. The world was still naive. It wasn't
ready for an Israeli Prime Minister who would admi t that he wanted
to ally himself with Hitler.
By 1994, when Shamir wrote his memoirs, Summing Up, he had
abandoned his lie about only joining the Sternists after they had
given up their treason to the Jews. Now we are told that ³In
September 1940, my life altered too, for I left the Irgun with Yair
(Stern's nom de guerre - LB) to enter the deeper underground from
which Lehi fought our outlawed war against the British. [20] But he
still cannot honestly deal with his own personal treason. He
doesn't even mention their memorandum, known to all scholars, of
course, but he rationalizes it away:
"What Yair hoped for was that the Nazis, so eager to rid
themselves of Jews, would help to bring the majority of Jews from
Europe, thru the British blockade, to Palestine, thus making havoc
of British illusions regarding post-war control of the Middle East,
facilitating Allied defeat and, possibly, if Britain knew what was
afoot, even producing the withdrawal of the White Paper (limiting
Jewish immigration - LB). Whatever the result, he reasoned, Jews
would be brought to Palestine. He didn't make this plan public, but
Lehi termed the world war a conflict between the forces of evil,
between Gog and Magog, and made unmistakable its position -- again
it must be remembered that all this was in 1940 and 1941 -- when it
was reasonable to feel that there was little for Jews to chose from
between the Germans and the British. All that counted for Yair was
that this idea might, after all, be a way to save Jews about whom,
no one else, least of all the British, seemed to care. Nothing came
of it, of course. By that time, though no one yet knew it, the
Nazis were already at work on a very different solution to the
Jewish problem. In the meanwhile, however, Lehi was not only feared
and disapproved of by the Yishuv (the Jews of Palestine - LB), but
also suspected of fifth column activities by a public that went on
believing -- incredibly, in the face of accumulating evidence to
the contrary -- that the British would open the gates of Palestine
to the anguished Jews and which refused to be weaned of emotional
and political dependence on Britain." [21]
The destruction of Hungarian Jewry is one of the most tragic
chapters in the Holocaust. When the Germans occupied Hungary, on
March 19, 1944, its Jewish community leaders knew what to expect,
as the country had been a refuge for Polish and Slovakian Jews. In
postwar years, the role of Rezsö Kasztner, a leader of the Budapest
Rescue Committee, was subjected to detailed scrutiny in Israeli
courtrooms.
In 1953 the Ben-Gurion government prosecuted an elderly
pamphleteer, Malchiel Gruenwald, for having libeled Kasztner as a
collaborator for his dealings with Eichmann in 1944. Gruenwald
denounced Kasztner for having kept silent about German lies that
the Hungarian Jews were only being resettled at Kenyermezo, in
Hungary. In return, he was allowed to organize a special train to
Switzerland, and place his family and friends on it. Further,
Gruenwald claimed, Kasztner later protected SS Colonel Becher from
hanging as a war criminal by claiming that he saved Jewish lives.
On June 21, 1955, Judge Benjamin Halevi found that there had
been no libel of Kasztner, apart from the fact that he hadn't been
motivated by monetary considerations. Later yet, Ben Hecht, a
Zionist, and one of the most famous American writers of his day,
wrote up the trial and its appeal in his book, Perfidy. Hecht
quoted Halevi's declaration that
"The Nazis' patronage of Kasztner, and their agreement to let
him save six hundred prominent Jews, were part of the plan to
exterminate the Jews. Kasztner was given a chance to add a few more
to that number. The bait attracted him. The opportunity of rescuing
prominent people appealed to him greatly. He considered the rescue
of the most important Jews as a great personal success and a
success for Zionism." [22]
The Labor government remained loyal to their party comrade and
appealed the case. Attorney-General Chaim Cohen put the fundamental
issue before the Supreme Court:
"Kasztner did nothing more and nothing less than was done by
us in rescuing the Jews and bringing them to Palestine... You are
allowed --in fact it is your duty -- to risk losing the many in
order to save the few...It has always been our Zionist tradition to
select the few out of many in arranging the immigration to
Palestine. Are we therefore to be called traitors?" [23]
On March 3, 1957 Kasztner was gunned down by right-wing
Zionist assassins. However the Supreme Court handed down its
decision in the case on January 17, 1958. It ruled, 5 to O, that
Kasztner had perjured himself on Becher's behalf, But it concluded,
3 to 2, that he could not be legitimately considered a
collaborator. The most forceful majority argument was presented by
Judge Shlomo Chesin:
"The question is not whether a man is allowed to kill many in
order to save a few, or vice-versa. The question is altogether in
another sphere and should be defined as follows: a man is aware
that a whole community is awaiting its doom. He is allowed to make
efforts to save a few, although part of his efforts involve
concealment of truth from the many; or should he disclose the truth
to the many though it is his best opinion that this way everybody
will perish. I think the answer is clear. What good will the blood
of the few bring if everyone is to perish?... There is no law,
either national or international, which lays down the duties of a
leader in an hour of emergency toward those who rely on leadership
and are under his instructions." [24]
Indeed the most important aspect of the trial was its full
exposure of the working philosophy of the WZO throughout the Nazi
era: the sanctification of the betrayal of the many in the interest
of a selected immigration. Once we understand this, we can deal
with Nathan Dror's letter.
The Nazis began taking the Jews of Slovakia in March 1942.
Rabbi Michael Dov-Ber Weissmandel, a member of the Agudat Yisrael,
an ultra-Orthodox political party, contacted Dieter Wisliceny,
Eichmann's representative, and told him that he was in touch with
the leaders of world Jewry. Would the Nazi take money for
Slovakia's Jews? Money was paid and the surviving Jews were spared
until 1944.[/justify]
Republished with permission Of Lenni Brenner
The Anti-Defamation League's National Director
is crazy like a Foxman
by Lenni Brenner
ABRAHAM FOXMAN, the ADL's National Director, is well and
truly crazy, and for two reasons: 1) He libeled me and 2) he thinks
he can get away with it.
The saying is that one good turn deserves another. Since
Foxman and the ADL have spread malicious nonsense about me, I will
tell the exact truth about them, putting their dishonesty about my
ideas within the context of the ADL's unending history of
right-wing stupidity and dishonor.
In October 1993, Foxman gave a speech at a Paris conference on
xenophobia. Later he adapted it as an article, "Holocaust Denial:
The Growing Danger," published in an ADL magazine, Dimensions: A
Journal of Holocaust Studies, vol. 8, number 1, released in the
Spring of 1994. There we find the following remarks:
"Another aspect of Holocaust 'revisionist' thinking can be
found on the radical left. A writer named Lenni Brenner maintains
that Zionists, in effect, were in league with the Nazis. He asserts
that there was a close link between elements of the Zionist
movement and the Nazi party, that Zionists were willing to foster
and exploit anti-Semitism in Europe to bring about a Zionist state,
and that they had proposed an alliance with Nazi Germany."
"Brenner's thesis, with its coupling of Zionists with Nazis,
serves as a propaganda tool to undermine Israel: as such, it has
found favor with the American radical left, and with the press of
the former Soviet Union. The erstwhile Soviet daily Izvestia wrote
of his work: 'During the World War, Brenner points out, Zionism
showed its real meaning: for the sake of its ambitions, it
sacrificed the blood of millions of Jews.' Brenner has also won
approval on the other end of the spectrum, the neo-fascist right:
His books have been promoted by the Institute for Historical
Review." [1]
Has Foxman even read me on Zionism's role during the Nazi
era? His speech and article unmistakably relied on "Hitler's
Apologists: The Anti-Semitic Propaganda of Holocaust Revisionism,"
prepared by Marc Caplan of the Research and Evaluation Department
of the ADL, in 1993. Here we find the original, slightly longer,
but no more honest, version of Foxman's libel, labeled "A
Revisionist Echo on the Left." Foxman's two paragraphs on me are
virtually the same as Caplan's first two paragraphs. Caplan added
that
"In 1987 this point of view surfaced in England, when a
stridently anti-Zionist play, 'Perdition,' by Jim Allen, was
scheduled for production at London's prestigious Royal Court
Theater. The play generated intense public controversy and,
finally, it did not open. The writer acknowledged Brenner's work as
a source in writing his play, which portrayed a wartime Zionist
leader who allegedly collaborated with the Nazis to save his family
and other Zionists while deserting the rest of the community. Allen
said he was seeking to mount 'the most lethal attack on Zionism
ever written.'" [2]
I've written four books and about 100 articles. Jim Allen is
a prize-winning British playwright. I defy the ADL to point to one
word in either of our writings that supports even a particle of the
Holocaust revisionists' depravity.
In the February 18, 1985 New Republic, Eric Breindel, now an
editor of the New York Post, reported that my first book, Zionism
in the Age of the Dictators,
"has been applauded, and made available by the Institute for
Historical Review, a pseudo-scientific flat-earth society which
endeavors to prove that the Holocaust was a hoax." [3]
Not having seen anything on the book by the Institute, I wrote
them and received a letter from Tom Marcellus of the IHR. They had
'promoted' the book on two occasions. They sent me a booklist:
"397. ZIONISM IN THE AGE OF THE DICTATORS: A REAPPRAISAL by
Lenni Brenner. An astounding, bombshell expose of the active
collaboration between Nazis and Zionists, by a courageous
anti-Zionist Jew who spent years piecing together the story.
Details the close links between the 'Zionist Revisionism' movement
(to which both the young Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir
belonged) and the Jewish question experts of the Nazi Party,
Brenner's charge, overwhelmingly documented: that Zionism and its
leaders from the beginning were prepared to go to any lengths to
achieve their goal of a state in Palestine -- lengths that included
fostering and exploiting anti-Semitism in Europe, and proposing an
alliance with Germany at the zenith of that nation's power. This
book has certain surviving WWII-era Zionists quaking in their boots
-- including the present Prime Minister of Israel!" [4]
The IHR's letter went on:
We also promoted it in an IHR Newsletter of a couple of years
ago, but the remaining copies of that issue and the records
concerning it were all lost in an arson that completely destroyed
our business address and inventory on 4 July last. [5]
I replied to Marcellus in a letter, on April 11, 1985. I
quoted from it in my third book, Jews In America Today, published
in 1986:
"The depravity of the Institute is clearly expressed in a box,
'The Holocaust,' in the same booklet: 'A catch-all term to identify
the alleged extermination of European Jewry which insists on the
following presumptions: 1) The Nazis executed a deliberate plan to
destroy (not resettle) European Jewry, (2) Six million or more Jews
perished as a result, and (3) A majority of these were killed by
poison gas (Zyklon B) in gas chambers designed for the purpose of
taking human life en masse. This is the orthodox or Establishment
view. A subscriber to this view could be called an
EXTERMINATIONIST: whereas one who endeavors to show that one or
more of the above presumptions is not factual is a REVISIONIST.'"
"All of the above is bullshit. I share not one iota of your
mad ideology. I am your implacable opponent. I do not believe you
have any right to exist.... and I support any and all attempts, by
any and all, Zionist or anti-Zionist, to bust up your institute and
your meetings. [6]
I had sent a letter to the New Republic, in response to
Breindel, but Martin Peretz's strange journal wouldn't run it.
Fortunately Alex Cockburn defended me in June 29, 1985 Nation.
Breindel replied, in the August 1, 1985 Nation. Cockburn retorted
that
"Breindel is fond of saying that the Institute... applauds and
disseminates Brenner's work, though he denies that he is thus
trying to saddle Brenner with the Institute's views. But of course
that is what Breindel has been trying to do.... The Institute lists
Brenner's book as it does books by such diverse people as A.P.J.
Taylor, former Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett and New
Republic contributors Ronald Radosh and Allen Weinstein. [7]
Caplan and Foxman may have read of this in the New Republic
and The Nation. But at any rate Caplan certainly was aware of my
opinion of the IHR when he wrote Hitler's Apologists. He had
attacked me in a previous ADL pamphlet, "Jew-Hatred As History. An
Analysis of the Nation of Islam's and The Secret Relationship
Between Blacks and Jews." In that screed he had quoted -- out of
context, of course -- from Jews In America Today. So he certainly
read of the entire IHR episode, as I devoted six pages to it.
It is in order for me to dismiss the Institute's praise of
Zionism in the Age of the Dictators by saying that this is of no
more importance the fact that roaches like gourmet cooking just as
much as you do. But readers are entitled to know why these nutsies
liked it. Basically, they minimize the Holocaust: ?Aw right, so
Hitler didn't exactly like Jews. And he rounded them up, as
enemies, and some of them died of disease. And besides, what about
Roosevelt rounding up the Japanese Americans on the West Coast? And
look at Stalin's Katyn massacre, and Churchill's horrific bombing
of Dresden, and the A-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here the
Yids are, yelling about Hitler, while the Allied leaders were
monsters, just like Hitler. Damned if it isn't true that everyone
has skeletons in their closet. Why go on dumping on po' ol' Adolf?'
Given this loony psychology, their catalogue is full of books on
Allied crimes, no less crimes for being emphasized by these
crazies. In the same way, my exposure of real Zionist activities
during the Nazi era became additional 'proof' that Hitler was no
worse than the rest of the wicked world.
As I don't waste my time reading such crackpots, I have no
idea if they still even mention my book. Certainly they are insane
if they went on praising me, or my book, after I told them that I
hailed anyone who burns their headquarters. As the ADL monitors
their publications, it is reasonable to think that the ADL would
have mentioned this in their attacks on me.
Caplan's paragraph re Jim Allen's Perdition is disingenuous in
its omissions. Allen is a prize-winning British TV playwright.
Perdition was based on a chapter in Zionism in the Age of the
Dictators, dealing with the role of Rezs-Kasztner, a Zionist leader
in Nazi-occupied Hungary in 1944. The play was driven out of the
Royal Court Theatre by a Zionist campaign, but their methods
alienated public opinion. David Cesarani, now an editor of Patterns
of Prejudice, published by the London Jewish establishment's
Institute of Jewish Affairs, admitted this in the July 3, 1987
Jewish Chronicle:
"Was it worth all the fuss? Had the play gone on, it would
have been seen by around 2,000 people. It might have attracted some
bad reviews and then disappeared.... In the event.... Personal
representations coincided with the threat of a mass protest outside
the theatre, the combined effect of which made it seem as if
pressure was being applied.... This was (theatre director) Stafford
Clark's autonomous decision, but the clamour made it appear
disastrously as if he had been bullied into censoring the play....
It is certainly difficult to know how to respond...without
resorting to heavy-handed methods. [8]
In fact Perdition was produced, first in print, then as a
reading at the Edinburgh Festival in 1987 and then in London in
May, 1988. It received massive media attention, including favorable
reviews. Stuart Hood reflected on the print version in the July 10,
1987 Guardian:
"There are certain themes from the history of the Second World
War which are subject to taboos.... (T)he Holocaust has come to
play an important ideological role. It has been in this sense
appropriated by the state of Israel and the Zionist movement. It
has thus become a shield against criticism of the policies and
actions of that state and of Zionism itself...... Allen was a bold
man to write Perdition.... Although he develops his argument with
understanding of the terrible dilemmas of the main persons
involved, his criticism of the role of Zionist ideology, then and
now, has led to his being accused of anti-Semitism, of which his
whole political past is a denial.... By refusing to stage a play
which honestly and compassionately examines a terrible moment in
human history, the Royal Court was guilty of failure of nerve, of
civil courage. By giving way to powerful lobbying it has reinforced
an indefensible political taboo." [9]
There is more to this story. The Jewish Chronicle for November
27, 1992 was forced to run an article which announced that
"The collapse of a libel action has allowed the controversial
anti-Zionist play 'Perdition' to be published in full for the first
time.... Pluto Press, omitted several pages from the original text
because of a libel action which was brought by Nathan Dror, a
senior figure in the Israeli Labour Federation, who headed the
Jewish rescue committee in Switzerland during the war. He brought
the action... for references to a letter quoted in 'Perdition,'
allegedly written by Mr. Dror during the Second World War, which
claimed Jewish deaths would help justify the foundation of a Jewish
state. The action, heard in the High Court in London, collapsed due
to lack of evidence." [10]
Dror's letter will be quoted below, in its proper
chronological place. I had quoted it in my book, which appeared in
Britain and America, in 1983. Dror didn't sue me. But when Allen
quoted the same letter, he was sued. Because of Britain's
reactionary libel laws, the publisher was compelled to print
Allen's play with a blank space where the letter was cited because
the libel case was before the courts. I had an accompanying essay
in that printing of the play, and had the unique experience for an
American writer, of having it in effect censored, with similar
blank spaces where I also quoted the letter.. II - Zionism and the
Nazis: The documentary record
By now two things should be clear to open-minded readers: l)
My ideas regarding Zionism's role during the Holocaust have nothing
in common with Holocaust revisionists, who deny that the Holocaust
happened, and 2) the Zionist movement has used both libel and a
spurious libel suit in its attempt to keep the facts from the
public. But at this point readers are better informed as to what I
didn't say than what I do say re Zionism's Holocaust role.
Naturally I refer them to Zionism in the Age of the Dictators,
which is obtainable in bookstores and libraries. But for now I will
describe some of the low points of their activities, using a small
part of the documentation included in my book.
The Nazis came to power in January, 1933. On June 21 the
Zionistische Vereinigung fur Deutschland (the Zionist Federation of
Germany) sent a memorandum to the Nazi Party. The document first
saw the light of day in 1961, when it was printed in Israel, but in
German. The Nazis were asked, very politely:
"(M)ay we therefore be permitted to present our views, which,
in our opinion, makes possible a solution in keeping with the
principles of the new German State of National Awakening and which
at the same time might signify for Jews a new ordering of the
conditions of their existence..."
"(A)n answer to the Jewish question truly satisfying to the
national state can be brought about only with the collaboration of
the Jewish movement that aims at a social, cultural, and moral
renewal of Jewry...a rebirth of national life, such as is occurring
in German life through adhesion to Christian and national values,
must also take place in the Jewish national group. For the Jew,
too, origin, religion, community of fate and group consciousness
must be of decisive significance in the shaping of his life...."
"On the foundation of the new state, which has established the
principle of race, we wish so to fit our community into the total
structure so that for us too, in the sphere assigned to us,
fruitful activity for the Fatherland is possible... Our
acknowledgment of Jewish nationality provides for a clear and
sincere relationship to the German people and its national and
racial realities. Precisely because we do not wish to falsify these
fundamentals, because we, too, are against mixed marriage and for
the maintaining of the purity of the Jewish group... (R)ootedness
in one's own spirituality protects the Jew from becoming the
rootless critic of the national foundation of German essence. The
national distancing which the state desires would thus be brought
about easily as the result of an organic development... We believe
in the possibility of an honest relationship of loyalty between a
group-conscious Jewry and the German state..."
"For its practical aims, Zionism hopes to be able to win the
collaboration even of a government fundamentally hostile to Jews,
because in dealing with the Jewish question no sentimentalities are
involved but a real problem whose solution interests all peoples,
and at the present moment especially the German people."
"The realization of Zionism could only be hurt by resentment
of Jews abroad against the German development. Boycott propaganda
-- such as is currently being carried on against Germany in many
ways -- is in essence un-Zionist, because Zionism wants not to do
battle but to convince and to build... Our observations, presented
herewith, rest on the conviction that, in solving the Jewish
problem according to its own lights, the German Government will
have full understanding for a candid and clear Jewish posture that
harmonizes with the interests of the state." [11]
I admit to being the Shakespeare of our times, but I didn't
make that up. Indeed the Lenni Brenner of the Elizabethean age
didn't have the imagination to concoct anything as grotesque as
this memorandum. It is found, complete, in A Holocaust Reader,
edited by the late Lucy Dawidowicz. But let's not stop here. Let's
look at some more Zionist wonderfulness.
The Nazis used the World Zionist Organization to break the
efforts of those Jews who were trying to boycott German goods.
German Jews could put money into a Berlin bank. It was then used to
buy export goods which were sold in Palestine. When the emigres
arrived there, they would receive payment for the goods that had
been sold. German Jews were attracted to this scheme because it was
the least painful way of getting their wealth out of the country.
However, with the Nazis determining the rules, they naturally got
worse with time. By 1938 users of the "Transfer Agreement" were
losing 30% and even 50% of their money. But this was still three
times, and eventually five times better than the losses endured by
Jews whose money went to other destinations.
The WZO naturally wanted better terms. Accordingly, in 1937,
the Haganah, the military arm of the Labor Zionists, who dominated
the Jewish Agency, the WZO's headquarters in Palestine, obtained
Berlin's permission to negotiate directly with the
Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Security Service of the SS. A Haganah
agent, Feival Polkes, arrived in Germany on February 26, 1937 and
Adolf Eichmann was assigned to negotiate with him. Their
conversations were recorded in a report by Eichmann's superior,
Franz-Albert Six. It was found in SS files captured by the
Americans at the end of WWII. David Yisraeli, a well-known Israeli
scholar, reprinted it, in German, in his PhD thesis, The Palestine
Problem in German Politics 1889-1945:
"Polkes is a national-Zionist... As a Haganah man he fights
against Communism and all aims of Arab-British friendship... He
declared himself willing to work for Germany in the form of
providing intelligence as long as this does not oppose his own
political goals. Among other things he would support German foreign
policy in the Near East. He would try to find oil sources for the
German Reich without affecting British spheres of interest if the
German monetary regulations were eased for Jewish emigrants to
Palestine." [12]
Polkes had to cut short his visit. But in October it was the
Zionists' turn to receive Eichmann. He arrived in Haifa on October
2, 1937. Polkes took him to a kibbutz, but the British CID had
become aware of Eichmann's presence and expelled him to Egypt.
Polkes followed him and further discussions were held in Cairo. The
German report, photocopied in its entirety in volume five of John
Mendelsohn's Holocaust, gives us the rationale for the Haganah's
would-be collaboration:
"(I)n Jewish nationalist circles people were very pleased with
the radical German policy, since the strength of the Jewish
population in Palestine would be so far increased thereby that in
the foreseeable future the Jews could reckon upon numerical
superiority over the Arabs in Palestine." [13]
Polkes passed on two pieces of intelligence information to the
Nazis:
"(T)he Pan-Islamic World Congress convening in Berlin is in
direct contact with two pro-Soviet Arab leaders: Emir Shekib Arslan
and Emir Adil Arslan.... The illegal Communist broadcasting station
whose transmission to Germany is particularly strong, is, according
to Polkes' statement, assembled on a lorry that drives along the
German-Luxembourg border when transmission is on the air." [14]
The Laborites main Zionist rivals in the '30s were the
"Zionist-Revisionist" followers of Vladimir Jabotinsky. Their
Revisionism had nothing in common with present-day Holocaust
Revisionism. They wanted to revise the Zionist and British policy
towards the Palestinians. They wanted to crush them by force, with
an "iron wall" of weaponry. Today they are the dominant ideological
tendency in Israel's opposition Likud bloc.
As the British weren't in Palestine to do Jabotinsky's
bidding, he and his movement looked to Mussolini's Italy as a
potential replacement for Britain as Zionism's then necessary
imperial patron against overwhelming Palestinian numbers. While
Jabotinsky insisted that he personally didn't like Fascism,
Wolfgang von Weisl, the Revisionists' financial director, had no
hesitation about telling a Bucharest paper that although opinions
among the Revisionists varied, in general they sympathized with
Fascism. He eagerly announced that he personally was a supporter of
Fascism, and he rejoiced at the victory of Fascist Italy in
Abyssinia as a triumph of the White races against the Black. [15]
Italy was quite willing to support the Revisionists, who were
obviously the Fascists of Zionism. In 1934 Mussolini allowed the
Betar, the Revisionist youth group, to set up a squadron at the
maritime academy at Civitavecchia run by the Blackshirts. The March
1936 issue of L'Idea Sionistica, the Revisionists' Italian
magazine, described the ceremonies at the inauguration of the Betar
squad's headquarters:
"The order -- 'Attention!' A triple chant ordered by the
squad's commanding officer -- 'Viva L'Italia! Viva IL Re! Viva IL
Duce!' resounded, followed by the benediction which rabbi Aldo
Lattes invoked in Italian and in Hebrew for God, for the king and
for IL Duce ... Giovinezza (the Fascist Party's anthem) was sung
with much enthusiasm by the Betarim." [16]
Even after the outbreak of WWII, a wing of Jabotinsky's
following tried to get the patronage of the Axis powers. According
to their crackpot notions, Britain was the main enemy of Jewry
because London controlled Palestine and wouldn't establish a Jewish
state which, they believed, was the only solution to anti-Semitism.
Accordingly they sent an agent to Lebanon, then run by the
Vichy-French regime. He delivered a memorandum to a German
diplomat. After the war it was found in the files of the German
embassy in Turkey. The Ankara document called itself a "Proposal of
the National Military Organization (Irgun Zvai Leumi) Concerning
the Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe and the Participation
of the NMO in the War on the side of Germany." It is dated *11
January 1941. At that time they still thought of themselves as the
real Irgun, Jabotinsky's underground terrorists. Later they adapted
the name Lohami Herut Yisrael, Fighters for the Freedom of Israel.
However they are universally known as the Stern Gang, the name
given to them by the British, after their founder, Avraham Stern.
Their entire document is reprinted in Yisraeli's thesis, in German.
They told the Nazis that
"The evacuation of the Jewish masses from Europe is a
precondition for solving the Jewish question; but this can only be
made possible and complete through the settlement of those masses
in the home of the Jewish people, Palestine, and through the
establishment of a Jewish state in its historical boundaries... The
NMO... is of the opinion that... The establishment of the
historical Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, and
bound by a treaty with the German Reich, would be in the interest
of a maintained and strengthened future German position of power in
the Near East. Proceeding from these considerations, the NMO in
Palestine, under the condition the above-mentioned national
aspirations of the Israeli freedom movement are recognized on the
side of the German Reich, offers to actively take part in the war
on Germany's side." [17]
At the time the Sternists were a numerically insignificant
minority of the Zionist movement and were reviled as the pro-Nazi
loons that they obviously were. This monstrous offer took on vastly
greater contemporary significance when one of their leaders,
Yitzhak Yzernitsky, later became prime minister of Israel under his
underground name, Yitzhak Shamir. As it happened, I was in
Jerusalem when Menachem Begin nominated him as his successor and
had the complete text of the traitors' memorandum printed, in
English, in an Arab-owned paper. An Israeli daily used the occasion
to confront Shamir on this episode. The story was picked up in the
21 October 1983 London Times. Yes, Shamir admitted,
"There was a plan to turn to Italy for help and to make
contact with Germany on the assumption that these could bring about
a massive Jewish immigration.. I opposed this, but I did join Lehi
after the idea of contacts with the Axis countries was dropped."
[18]
Even if we were to take this fairy tale as gospel, didn't
Shamir confess to knowingly joining a pro-Nazi movement? But he was
lying. In 1963, Gerold Frank wrote The Deed, a study of the 1944
Stern Gang assassination of Lord Moyne, Churchill's High
Commissioner for the Middle East. Frank tells of an incident
shortly after Jabotinsky's death, on August 3, 1940. The Jabotinsky
loyalists, led by David Raziel, and the Sternists sent speakers to
try to convince the undecided among the Irgun to go with them.
Frank relates that
"(T)he movement all but disintegrated. In September Stern
walked out and set up his own group... Eliahu (Bet Zouri) and David
Danon... were summoned to a remote schoolhouse... (T)hey were to be
addressed by a representative of each faction... (A) short,
square-shouldered, square-faced, muscular man awaited them. Itzhak
Yizernitsky... spoke tersely, summing up the reasons behind Stern's
decision to walk out... 'Men!' His deep voice rumbled, 'If you want
to smell fire and powder, come with us!' (pp. 91-3)... David, for
his part, could not forget Yizernitsky's 'fire and powder' remark
in the days immediately following the Raziel-Stern split." [19]
Frank had covered the trial of the two Stern Gang youths who
killed Moyne. Shamir organized the slaying. In 1963 Frank had no
reason to invent Yizernitsky-Shamir's speech, which is a minor
incident in the book. But Shamir had the best reason in the world
to make up his 1983 fraud. The world was still naive. It wasn't
ready for an Israeli Prime Minister who would admi t that he wanted
to ally himself with Hitler.
By 1994, when Shamir wrote his memoirs, Summing Up, he had
abandoned his lie about only joining the Sternists after they had
given up their treason to the Jews. Now we are told that ³In
September 1940, my life altered too, for I left the Irgun with Yair
(Stern's nom de guerre - LB) to enter the deeper underground from
which Lehi fought our outlawed war against the British. [20] But he
still cannot honestly deal with his own personal treason. He
doesn't even mention their memorandum, known to all scholars, of
course, but he rationalizes it away:
"What Yair hoped for was that the Nazis, so eager to rid
themselves of Jews, would help to bring the majority of Jews from
Europe, thru the British blockade, to Palestine, thus making havoc
of British illusions regarding post-war control of the Middle East,
facilitating Allied defeat and, possibly, if Britain knew what was
afoot, even producing the withdrawal of the White Paper (limiting
Jewish immigration - LB). Whatever the result, he reasoned, Jews
would be brought to Palestine. He didn't make this plan public, but
Lehi termed the world war a conflict between the forces of evil,
between Gog and Magog, and made unmistakable its position -- again
it must be remembered that all this was in 1940 and 1941 -- when it
was reasonable to feel that there was little for Jews to chose from
between the Germans and the British. All that counted for Yair was
that this idea might, after all, be a way to save Jews about whom,
no one else, least of all the British, seemed to care. Nothing came
of it, of course. By that time, though no one yet knew it, the
Nazis were already at work on a very different solution to the
Jewish problem. In the meanwhile, however, Lehi was not only feared
and disapproved of by the Yishuv (the Jews of Palestine - LB), but
also suspected of fifth column activities by a public that went on
believing -- incredibly, in the face of accumulating evidence to
the contrary -- that the British would open the gates of Palestine
to the anguished Jews and which refused to be weaned of emotional
and political dependence on Britain." [21]
The destruction of Hungarian Jewry is one of the most tragic
chapters in the Holocaust. When the Germans occupied Hungary, on
March 19, 1944, its Jewish community leaders knew what to expect,
as the country had been a refuge for Polish and Slovakian Jews. In
postwar years, the role of Rezsö Kasztner, a leader of the Budapest
Rescue Committee, was subjected to detailed scrutiny in Israeli
courtrooms.
In 1953 the Ben-Gurion government prosecuted an elderly
pamphleteer, Malchiel Gruenwald, for having libeled Kasztner as a
collaborator for his dealings with Eichmann in 1944. Gruenwald
denounced Kasztner for having kept silent about German lies that
the Hungarian Jews were only being resettled at Kenyermezo, in
Hungary. In return, he was allowed to organize a special train to
Switzerland, and place his family and friends on it. Further,
Gruenwald claimed, Kasztner later protected SS Colonel Becher from
hanging as a war criminal by claiming that he saved Jewish lives.
On June 21, 1955, Judge Benjamin Halevi found that there had
been no libel of Kasztner, apart from the fact that he hadn't been
motivated by monetary considerations. Later yet, Ben Hecht, a
Zionist, and one of the most famous American writers of his day,
wrote up the trial and its appeal in his book, Perfidy. Hecht
quoted Halevi's declaration that
"The Nazis' patronage of Kasztner, and their agreement to let
him save six hundred prominent Jews, were part of the plan to
exterminate the Jews. Kasztner was given a chance to add a few more
to that number. The bait attracted him. The opportunity of rescuing
prominent people appealed to him greatly. He considered the rescue
of the most important Jews as a great personal success and a
success for Zionism." [22]
The Labor government remained loyal to their party comrade and
appealed the case. Attorney-General Chaim Cohen put the fundamental
issue before the Supreme Court:
"Kasztner did nothing more and nothing less than was done by
us in rescuing the Jews and bringing them to Palestine... You are
allowed --in fact it is your duty -- to risk losing the many in
order to save the few...It has always been our Zionist tradition to
select the few out of many in arranging the immigration to
Palestine. Are we therefore to be called traitors?" [23]
On March 3, 1957 Kasztner was gunned down by right-wing
Zionist assassins. However the Supreme Court handed down its
decision in the case on January 17, 1958. It ruled, 5 to O, that
Kasztner had perjured himself on Becher's behalf, But it concluded,
3 to 2, that he could not be legitimately considered a
collaborator. The most forceful majority argument was presented by
Judge Shlomo Chesin:
"The question is not whether a man is allowed to kill many in
order to save a few, or vice-versa. The question is altogether in
another sphere and should be defined as follows: a man is aware
that a whole community is awaiting its doom. He is allowed to make
efforts to save a few, although part of his efforts involve
concealment of truth from the many; or should he disclose the truth
to the many though it is his best opinion that this way everybody
will perish. I think the answer is clear. What good will the blood
of the few bring if everyone is to perish?... There is no law,
either national or international, which lays down the duties of a
leader in an hour of emergency toward those who rely on leadership
and are under his instructions." [24]
Indeed the most important aspect of the trial was its full
exposure of the working philosophy of the WZO throughout the Nazi
era: the sanctification of the betrayal of the many in the interest
of a selected immigration. Once we understand this, we can deal
with Nathan Dror's letter.
The Nazis began taking the Jews of Slovakia in March 1942.
Rabbi Michael Dov-Ber Weissmandel, a member of the Agudat Yisrael,
an ultra-Orthodox political party, contacted Dieter Wisliceny,
Eichmann's representative, and told him that he was in touch with
the leaders of world Jewry. Would the Nazi take money for
Slovakia's Jews? Money was paid and the surviving Jews were spared
until 1944.[/justify]
Nous serons toujours là.
-
Dejuificator II
- Erudit
- Posts: 552
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[justify]Weissmandel became one of the outstanding Jewish rescue
figures during the Holocaust because he was the first to demand
that the Allies bomb Auschwitz.. His post-war book, Min HaMaitzer
(From the Depths) written in Talmudic Hebrew, also tells of his
further efforts to pay off the Nazis to save Jewish lives.
Wisliceny took the matter up with Berlin and told the rabbi, in
1943, that he could have all the Jews in western Europe and the
Balkans for $2 million in American money, then a substantial sum.
Weissmandel sent a courier to Switzerland to try to get the money
from Jewish organizations. The courier brought back a letter from
Nathan Schwalb, the representative of the Hechalutz, a youth
section of the Labor Party. Dror is Schwalb's Zionist, i.e.,
Hebrew, name. Weissmandel described the document:
"There was another letter in the envelope, written in a
strange foreign language and at first I could not decipher at all
which language it was until I realized that this was Hebrew written
in Roman letters, and written to Schwalb's friends in Pressburg
(Bratislava)... It is still before my eyes, as if I had reviewed it
a hundred and one times. This was the content of the letter: 'Since
we have the opportunity of this courier, we are writing to the
group that they must constantly have before them that in the end
the Allies will win. After their victory they will divide the world
again between the nations, as they did at the end of the first
world war. Then they unveiled the plan for the first step and now,
at the war's end, we must do everything so that Eretz Yisroel will
become the state of Israel, and important steps have already been
taken in this direction. About the cries coming from your country,
we should know that all the Allied nations are spilling much of
their blood, and if we do not sacrifice any blood, by what right
shall we merit coming before the bargaining table when they divide
nations and lands at the war's end? Therefore it is silly, even
impudent, on our part to ask these nations who are spilling their
blood to permit their money into enemy countries in order to
protect our blood -- for only with blood shall we get the land. But
in respect to you, my friends, atem taylu, and for this purpose I
am sending you money illegally with this messenger.'" [25]
The letter startled rabbi Weissmandel, to say the least. He
pondered over it many times:
"After I had accustomed myself to this strange writing, I
trembled, understanding the meaning of the first words which were
'only with blood shall we attain land.' But days and weeks went by,
and I did not know the meaning of the last two words. Until I saw
from something that happened that the words 'atem taylu' were from
'tiyul' (to walk which was their special term for 'rescue.') In
other words: you my fellow members, my 19 or 20 close friends, get
out of Slovakia and save your lives and with the blood of the
remainder --the blood of all the men, women, old and young and the
sucklings -- the land will belong to us. Therefore, in order to
save their lives it is a crime to allow money into enemy territory
--but to save you beloved friends, here is money obtained
illegally." [26]
He went on: ³It is understood that I do not have these letters
--for they remained there and were destroyed with everything else
that was lost. [27]
Weissmandel assured us that the dedicated Zionist rescue
workers in Slovakia were appalled by Schwalb-Dror's letter. But it
expressed the morbid thoughts of the rancid elements running the
WZO: Instead of Zionism being the hope of the Jews, their blood was
to be the salvation of Zionism.
Reasonable readers have seen for themselves that the ADL
libeled me. But they may say that 'every movement has its lunatic
fringe. Libelers are not reviewers. What do responsible Zionist
historians have to say about Brenner and his charges?'
Walter Laqueur, the chairman of the International Research
Council of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at
Georgetown University, devoted six pages to attacking me in the
November 2, 1987 New Republic. (Again, I sent in a reply, but
Martin Peretz has no honor and his magazine did not run it.)
Laqueur insists that
"Even if all his facts were correct, Brenner's book would not
be a serious study of Zionism, any more than a collection of
profiles in scurrility from Benedict Arnold to Al Capone would be
a serious history of the United States." [28]
Surely Capone wasn't the last American rogue! At any rate,
after showing me to be the monster that I surely am, this Zionist
defense attorney makes a few concessions concerning my charges:
"It is quite true that some Zionists should not have looked
for Mussolini's support, even in the 1920s; they were grievously
mistaken to do so... It is true, moreover, that German Zionists did
not fully understand the meaning of Hitler when he came to power in
1933. Some of their comments and declarations make embarrassing
reading 50 years later." [29]
Laqueur wrote his plaidoyer for his movement's treachery
before Schwalb-Dror's suit had been flung through the courtroom
door. In the wake of that debacle for Zionism, his comments sound
more than a bit odd:
"The story of one Nathan Schwalb... is absolutely crucial for
the play.... Still, something went very wrong with this star
witness for the prosecution... Schwalb is alive... Thus, to their
dismay, Allen and Brenner found themselves suddenly confronted with
a libel action. Instead of refusing to change a single word in
their manuscript, they have excised ten pages from Perdition. They
must know that they could not possibly make their case in a court
of law -- or indeed, in the court of public opinion." [30]
In fact Laqueur was deliberately deceptive in this matter. On
page 144 of his 1980 book, The Terrible Secret, the great historian
himself had reported that Schwalb-Dror refused access to his files
to scholars.
Robert Wistrich is a professor of modern Jewish History at
Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He devoted not a few words to
denouncing me in his book, Between Redemption and Perdition. He
"(W)ould claim that the falsifiers of the anti-Israeli Left
who now rewrite the history of the Holocaust as a story of
Nazi-Zionist 'collaboration' are no less dangerous than the
neo-Nazi 'revisionists' and possibly more effective... (W)orks by
Lenni Brenner, such as Zionism in the Age of the Dictators... are
increasingly symptomatic of the times we live in." [31]
Nevertheless he, like Laqueur, has to make a few admissions
that some of my charges are quite true:
"In my view the entire Jewish leadership of that generation --
including the Zionists -- failed the test of the times and no
useful purpose is served by covering this up. Nor can it be denied,
given that the major priority of the Zionist movement at the time
was indeed building Palestine, that the tragedy of Diaspora Jewry
was inevitably given less attention than it deserved. Equally, one
can make a reasonable case that Zionists did not fight antisemitism
before 1939 with the appropriate vigour, that some Zionists
favoured the principle of racial separateness, and that others
wanted to develop a 'special relationship' with the Nazis for
opportunistic or other reasons." [32]
Readers must realize that not one responsible historian grants
a flyspeck of credence to even a syllable of any Holocaust
revisionist's scribblings. But even though Foxman and Caplan insist
that my writings are "another aspect of Holocaust 'revisionist'
thinking," two star Zionist historians confessed that a raft of my
accusations are --alas! -- all too true. So much for the
Anti-Defamation League's crude attempt to defame me. III - The
squalid history of the ADL
Even now, after I've adduced overwhelming evidence that the
Zionist movement failed European Jewry in its fatal hour, and that
therefore the ADL has libeled me, readers may ask a bewildered
question: Why is the ADL doing this? That is because the public is
so appalled at what the Nazis did to the Jews that it usually
doesn't think to ask what the ADL did for the Jews. Additionally,
most people identify the ADL with its contemporary reports on
anti-Semitism. It appears to be a bone fide civil rights watchdog.
But it did nothing for the Jews in the Nazi era and it has always
been an ultra-rightist nest.
The ADL is an autonomous branch of the B'nai B'rith (The Sons
of the Covenant), an international fraternal order, established on
October 13, 1843, with the declared "mission of uniting Israelites
in the work of promoting their highest interests and those of
humanity." [33] The first challenge confronting the group was the
slavery question, which it evaded in the interest of maintaining
unity between northern and southern Jews. The ADL itself was set up
in 1913, the year that a Jew, Leo Frank, was lynched in Georgia.
Its role in fighting anti-Semitism in the years before Hitler came
to power was pathetic. Deborah Moore's B'nai B'rith and the
Challenge of Ethnic Leadership says that
"(T)he ADL's internal-education section (was) devoted to
changing the behavior of Jews perceived to be unethical in the eyes
of Americans... In 1928, commenting on a lynching in Illinois, the
(B'nai B'rith) Magazine had admitted that 'when another kind of a
man gets hanged, we feel those revulsions that are natural at the
sight of a fellow-being going to his doom in the flush of life. But
when we read of a Jew being hanged, we discover ourselves feeling
resentful, not towards the hanging but towards the erring Jew.'"
The Magazine had concluded that "the sinning of the Jew is
counted by men not alone against himself but against his people
likewise." [34]
A booklet, This is B'nai B'rith, published in 1943 by the
organization, listed very few activities for those years, with the
main ADL accomplishment being to effect
"a profound change in the treatment of Jews in vaudeville.
Jewish comedians were loath in some instances to correct their
caricature of their fellow Jews, but earnest efforts on the part of
the League in presenting the social aspects of the problem resulted
in pronounced modification of the objectionable "humor." [35]
This is B'nai B'rith talking vaguely about the ADL's anti-Nazi
career in the years between Hitler's taking power and the war:
"In the years of persecution and propaganda that followed in
the wake of 1933, the A.D.L., through its program of research,
widespread fact dissemination, neutralization of libels and a
systematic campaign of education for democracy to counteract the
effects of un-American movements, was able to make a major
contribution to the common struggle against anti-Semitism." [36]
The booklet couldn't say more because the ADL and B'nai B'rith
role was disgraceful. The spontaneous reaction of American Jews to
the Nazis' ascendency to power was to boycott German goods. But
there were those who opposed a boycott. These worthies confined
themselves to charity efforts for German Jewry and its refugees.
Not least of these do-nothings was the B'nai B'rith. The B'nai
B'rith Magazine ran an editorial in its May, 1933 issue. Be sure
you are sitting down when you read this:
"Criticism is heard: B'nai B'rith did not join the public
protests against the German-Jewish tragedy!... The members of this
organization have cause to be proud of their affiliation with a
Jewish body that obscured its own prestige in order to serve its
German brethren the better... With the Hitler government
threatening reprisals against Jews, should B'nai B'rith have rushed
forward with loud protests?... Even those who were at first hot for
public protest have come to see that discretion is the better part
of valor in an hour when lives are in the balance... As for B'nai
B'rith, it feels that its action in this crisis will make a worthy
chapter in its history. [37]
Samuel Untermeyer, leader of the boycott movement, explained
the stance of elements like B'nai B'rith and the American Jewish
Committee (the parent of today's Commentary magazine, which the
B'nai B'rith always bracketed itself with, and which also opposed
boycotting Hitler). Boycott, he said, in 1933,
"conjures up to them images of force and illegality, such as
have on o ccasions in the past characterized struggles between
labor unions and their employers. As these timid souls are
capitalists and employers, the word and all that it implies is
hateful to their ears." [38]
The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust article on the B'nai B'rith
reports that even after the Nazis closed down the organization in
Germany, in 1937, the president of the order "remained opposed to
public protest and boycott, and still believed that 'quiet
diplomacy' could help the Jews of Germany." The Encyclopedia goes
on:
"B'nai B'rith, fearful of arousing antisemitism in the United
States -- like most American Jews at the time -- did not challenge
the quota system of the 1924 Immigration Act and did not try to
arouse public opinion against the administration's policy of not
fully utilizing even the quotas provided by that act." [39]
Nor did the ADL do anything of any significance in the fight
against the German-American Bund and its home-grown allies, the
followers of the Catholic clerical-fascist, Father Coughlan, or the
KKK. Nathan Belth's A Promise to Keep, published in 1979 by the
ADL, mentions a pamphlet on Coughlin, published in 1939 by a
coalition of Jewish groups, including the ADL. It then relates that
"The League and the (American Jewish) Committee... had as a matter
of policy and tactics been inclined to maintain low profiles in
public." [40] When the Bund staged a rally in New York's Madison
Square Garden on February 20, 1939, the Trotskyist Socialist
Workers Party called a counter-demonstration. Fifty-thousand Jews
and others fought a five hour street battle with the cops, who
protected the Jew-haters. But the night belonged to the
demonstrators. The 20,000 Nazis and Coughlanites would have been
mauled if the police weren't present. The ADL did absolutely
nothing to fight the Nazis that night. Indeed it was never prepared
to fight the enemies of the Jews. IV - The ADL and McCarthyism
Given the ADL's bankruptcy during the Hitler era, it is hardly
surprising that it continued on as an integral part of the
witchhunting apparatus that emerged in America at the onset of the
cold war. Arnold Forster, the ADL's counsel, wrote about this
morbid episode in his book, Square One.
In 1956 the Fund for the Republic issued a report on
blacklisting in Hollywood and TV. It described how the victims of
the right-wing "security clearance system" were either
'rehabilitated' or driven out of the industry.. An unnamed "public
relations expert" is quoted on the process. Forster acknowledged
that he was the expert and reprinted the relevant passages in his
book:
"If a man... finds his way to me... (and) I am convinced that
he is not a Communist, or if he has been a Communist, has had a
change of heart, I ask him whether he has talked to the FBI. If he
hasn't, I tell him the first thing he must do is go to them and
tell them everything he knows..."
The public relations expert concluded: "A guy who is in
trouble, even if he has a good case for himself, will stay dead
unless he finds someone like me who can lead him through the jungle
of people who have to be satisfied. He has to persuade those people
one by one. Usually he finds his way to a lawyer and that comes a
cropper, or he finds a public relations man or press agent who
doesn't have the confidence of the 'clearance men,' and he's only
wasting his time." [41]
Forster would take the hapless actor to right-wing journalists
like Victor Reisel or Fred Woltman for "affidavits" and then go to
CBS and try to get his "boy" a job. Square One was written after
McCarthyism had been thoroughly discredited and Forster made it
look like he was an unwilling collaborator with the witchhunters.
But the truth breaks out through the eyes of a cat, as they say. A
Communist magazine, Jewish Life, uncovered an internal ADL memo,
dated July 3, 1953, and ran it in their September, 1953 issue. It
dealt with a conference that took place in the office of the House
Un-American Activities Committee, on July 2, 1953. Herman
Edelsberg, the memo's author, was there, as were Washington
representatives of the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish War
Veterans. The question before them was how HUAC should deal with
hostile Jewish Communist witnesses. Edelsberg's report says that
they made the following proposals to Harold Velde, HUAC's chair:
"The files of the ADL and AJC should be consulted for
information about such witnesses. Where responsible Jewish
organizations had repudiated the witness or the line he peddles,
that fact should be put in the record before the witness sounds
off. In such cases, it would be most unlikely that the newspapers
would play up the witness' charges against the Committee... The
Committee staff handling such witnesses should be familiar with our
analyses of the Communists' studied tactics of exploiting charges
of persecution and discrimination. The witnesses should be
confronted with material from ADL's report, The Troublemakers, and
our two pamphlets on Communism... Velde and counsel agreed then and
there that in the future, Committee investigators would be sent to
the ADL and AJC for material on prospective witnesses. (That would
be a good opportunity to make specific suggestions on
procedure.)... We left on the most friendly basis. My colleagues
and I were heartened by the understandings achieved." [42]
Witchhunting began to decline after Senator Joe McCarthy of
Wisconsin was censured by the Senate in 1954, for trying to
red-bait the US army. Forster claimed that
"(T)he senator had built himself enough of a record to
convince me he was bad medicine. Not that the League itself,
although recognizing the evil in the man, had yet become
sufficiently resolute to attack McCarthy frontally. We were
suffering from the same fear of him and his destructive, national
movement, that affected so many others. ADL had been treading
cautiously about him while demonstrating its opposition to his
frenetic crusade. It was not until 1956, when Ben Epstein and I
released our book, Cross-Currents, that we openly attacked McCarthy
himself." [43]V - ADL witchhunting after McCarthy
McCarthyism may have declined but the ADL's hatred of the left
most certainly didn't. On February 22, 1967, the New York Times
reported that the Institute for International Labor Research, led
by Norman Thomas, the most prominent figure in the Socialist Party,
had received $1,048,940 between 1961 and 1963 from the CIA. Later,
in the July 1982 Commentary, Sidney Hook revealed that Thomas had
"telephoned Allen Dulles of the CIA and requested a contribution"
for their American Committee for Cultural Freedom in the mid-1950s.
[44] From 1957 through 1962 Irwin Suall was the National Secretary
of the SP. Today he is the "chief fact-finder," i.e., the head spy,
for the ADL.
I met Suall in 1957. I was a member of another socialist group
which was merging with the SP. Of course we had no idea about
Thomas's ties with the CIA. I left the SP in 1959 and was in
California when the Times broke the Thomas story, and I didn't see
it. Therefore I suspected nothing when I encountered Suall in the
Lion's Head Tavern in Greenwich Village in the early ?70s. (I
believe the year was 1971.) He spotted me at the bar, called out my
name, and triumphantly announced that I was "with the National
Association for Irish Justice," the support group for the Northern
Ireland Civil Rights Association. He told me that he was the ADL's
chief fact-finder and explained that he knew all about the NAIJ
because he had files on the American tours of Ian Paisley, a
right-wing Protestant fanatic, who was the most vehement foe of
civil rights for Catholics. Whenever he came here he associated
with our own right-wing Protestant screwballs, some of them
anti-Semites. We two old friends drank the night into morning when
I suggested that he let me see his Paisley file. NAIJ could use it
to show the Irish Catholic community here where Paisley fit into
right-wing politics in this country. "I can't do that. You have
enemies of Israel in your organization." At that time I had little
interest in Israel. I knew that we had various leftists in the
NAIJ, who were anti-Zionist, but the topic of Israel never came up
in our pro-Irish movement. I explained to him that people would
think it rather odd if we asked prospective members how they stood
on Israel. That didn't matter.. Enemies of Israel are enemies of
Israel and that was that. Suall then began to rattle off intimate
details about NAIJ, including the name of a Communist who had just
started working for us. I realized he had a spy in my organization.
We knew the British, Irish and American governments automatically
put agents into our ranks. Therefore we were discreet when we did
anything illegal under US law. But we had a policy of not starting
a witchhunt for such spies because that only tends to make everyone
into paranoids, and that can kill a movement. I figured out who
Suall's mole was.. However, as I couldn't prove my suspect was
Suall's operative, and the certain presence of more important spies
wasn't affecting us, I prudently didn't mention this singular
conversation to anyone.
In fact the ADL even boasts that it spies on leftists. In
their 1974 book, The New Anti-Semitism, Forster and Benjamin
Epstein brazenly announced that ADL agents attended conventions
closed to the general public:
"The ADL has traditionally viewed close monitoring of
extremist activities as part of its obligation to the Jewish and
American communities. Therefore, its representatives often attend
open meetings, conventions, and conferences of extremist groups
(left wing and right wing) to keep abreast of what the groups are
doing." [45]
The two authors rationalized ADL infiltration of the Socialist
Workers Party:
"The SWP... take(s) umbrage when its anti-Israel, anti-Zionist
extremism is called anti-Semitism. Its domestic political course
has been clearly anti-Jewish... Although its spokesmen have been
careful to avoid the use of crude anti-Semitic phraseology, the
SWP's program and activities... have been totally hostile...
whenever Jews have been under attack from anti-Semites who happen
to be black, the SWP has consistently joined the fray against the
Jews." [46]
As we know from the Bund episode, the SWP believes in busting
up Nazi rallies. It is careful not to utilize anti-Semitic phrases.
It welcomes Jews into its leadership. Therefore, isn't it plain
that "its domestic course has been clearly anti-Jewish." That
charge from an organization which did next door to nothing vs.
Hitler, wins the all-time chutzpah prize.
The magnitude of ADL spying on progressive movements became
public knowledge in 1993 when the San Francisco papers revealed
that Tom Gerard, a local cop (and ex-CIA man) illegally gave police
information to Roy Bullock, Suall's man in SF. Further police
sleuthing revealed that they spied on a mass of groups, from Nazis
clear thru Armenian nationalists, the American Friends Service
Committee, the Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice, the Bay
Area's broad-spectrum peace marchers, and the ANC and the
anti-apartheid movement. The two also spied directly on these last
for BOSS, South Africa's s ecret police.
As things stand, Gerard has pled no contest to a charge of
illegal access to police computers. He got three years probation,
a $2,500 fine and 45 days on the sheriff's work crew. The ADL made
a 'we didn't do it, but we won't do it again' deal with the DA. It
agreed to an injunction not to use illegal methods in its
'monitoring' of the entire political universe. Foxman said that,
rather than go to trial, where they would certainly be found
innocent, of course, ADL settled because "continuing with an
investigation over your head for months and years leads some to
believe there is something wrong." [47] The arrangement prevents
prosecution of Bullock.
In spite of the DA's slap-on-the-wrist deal, the documentation
of Bullock's activities provided by the police when they sought a
warrant to search the ADL offices in SF and Los Angeles, was
extensive. The ADL claims that Bullock was a free-lance informer
and that his activities for the apartheid regime were unknown to
them. But an FBI report on a January 26, 1993 interview with
Bullock takes up a letter found in his computer files, "prepared
for transmission to the South Africans." It read "during an
extended conversation with two FBI agents" in March 1990, they
asked "why do you think South African agents are coming to the West
Coast?"
"'Did I know any agents,' they finally asked?... I replied
that a meeting had been arranged, in confidence, by the ADL which
wanted information on radical right activities in SA and their
American connections. To that end I met an agent at Rockefeller
Center cafeteria."
The FBI report says that "Bullock commented that the TRIP.DBX
letter was a very 'damning' piece of evidence.' He said he had
forgotten it was in his computer." Of course he hastened to tell
the FBI that "his statements to the FBI that the ADL had set up his
relationship with the South Africans were untrue." [48]
It is far more likely that Bullock was telling the truth in
March 1990 and lying in January 1993. Apparently the FBI came to
him on another matter in 1990 and surprised him with their
questions about the South Africans. In 1993, Bullock met the feds
in his lawyers' office. It is reasonable to presume that they had
told him what to say, and what not to say. Certainly he knew that
if he wanted ADL assistance in his troubles with the FBI concerning
the South Africans, he would have to claim that they had nothing to
do with his South African ties.
We must also look at this situation from the ADL's
perspective. In 1993 it had the same access to these FBI reports as
anyone else. It then knew that he had implicated them with
Pretoria. Why didn't they repudiate him then for daring to lie
about them in such a grave affair? And, for that matter, why didn't
they repudiate him for trafficking with the apartheid regime, which
they claimed to oppose? Could it be that they didn't dare do so? If
they dumped him, he would have an incentive to tell the FBI
everything he knew about their illegal activities, regarding the
South Africans, and/or any ADL involvement in Israeli spying and
other criminal activities there.
Robert Friedman, known for his factual reliability when
writing on Jewish matters, reported that "Suall later told the FBI
that 'he didn't think dealing with South African intelligence was
different than dealing with any other police agency,' according to
a law enforcement source." [49] At any rate, the November 17, 1993
Daily News Bulletin, an organ of the Zionist movement's Jewish
Telegraphic Agency, reported that, after the settlement with the
SFDA, "the ADL continues to work with Bullock, according to Abraham
Foxman." [50]
Israel was South Africa's intimate military ally, selling
weaponry to the masters of apartheid in the face of a UN arms
embargo. And the ADL's own public stance was so opposed to the
African National Congress that it stretches credulity to the
breaking point for anyone to think that they didn't know that
Bullock was working with the South Africans. When he told the FBI
that the ADL put him in contact with the South Africans, he
expected them to believe him, because the world knew that Israel,
the ADL's political holy land, was Pretoria's ally.
The ADL Bulletin for May 1986 ran an article by Nathan
Perlmutter and David Evanier, "The African National Congress: A
Closer Look," which revealed the organization's intense hatred of
the movement leading the struggle in South Africa. The piece
started off with a pious "self-evident stipulation that apartheid
is racist and dehumanizing." But, it then went on,
"(T)his is not to suggest closing our eyes to what may emerge
once apartheid is gone.... We must distinguish between those who
will work for a humane, democratic, pro-western South Africa and
those who are totalitarian, anti-humane, anti-democratic,
anti-Israeli and anti-American."
The article went on to document what everyone already knew.
The Soviet Union supported the ANC. The ANC backed the PLO as
fellow colonized people. Then came the moral to the story:
"The fall of South Africa to such a Soviet oriented and
Communist influenced force would be a severe setback to the United
States, whose defense industry relies heavily on South Africa's
wealth of strategic minerals.... The survival of freedom in South
Africa will be possible only if the forces of violence on the far
left and of racial violence on the far right are defeated by the
democratic forces of moderation."
Those forces of moderation were -- didn't you know? -- the
apartheid regime itself: "The US State Department," i.e., Reagan,
said that "more positive changes have taken place in South Africa
in the last five years than in the previous 300." [51]
For propagandistic reasons, Israel had to make it look like it
was against apartheid and supported responsible opposition to it.
So it openly patronized Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, head of the
Inkatha Freedom Party and its death squads. When he toured here in
1992, Israel got the Conference of Presidents of Major American
Jewish Organizations to host him at their New York office.. They
knew that, according to the June 12, 1992 DNB, "many
observers....say the violence among blacks reflects collusion
between the South African security forces and Inkatha aimed at
disabling the ANC." Yet, according to Kenneth Jacobson, the ADL's
director of international affairs, there was "nothing for us to
feel guilty about. He's a man with a point of view, and that should
be heard." The Mr. Nice Guy of South African politics declared
himself a free-market freedom-fightin' kind of fella and "not a
friend of Gadhafi or Yasir Arafat. All these are friends of the
ANC." [52]
The ADL thought so highly of their 1986 anti-ANC tirade that
they sent it to every member of the US Congress! And even after
Bullock was exposed as specifically reporting to the South Africans
on an LA meeting for Chris Hani of the ANC, Foxman fanatically
defended their venomous hatred of South Africa's liberators. The
Northern California Jewish Bulletin for May 7, 1993 described how
"Foxman, seeming like a general dressing down his troops,
marched into the Jewish Bulletin office...where he lambasted
critics of the ADL, speaking angrily of a conspiracy and at times
fuming as he turned several shades of red... 'People are very upset
about the (files on the) ANC,' he agrees. 'At the time we exposed
the ANC, they were Communist. They were violent, they were
anti-Semitic, they were pro-PLO and they were anti-Israel. You're
going to tell me I don't have the legitimacy to find out who they
were consorting with.'" [53]
Time hasn't been kind to Foxman. The ANC runs its country and
is a model of ethnic and religious tolerance. It never was
anti-Semitic and today there are seven Jewish ANCers in the
Pretoria parliament. Foxman was -- and is -- exactly what the
Jewish Bulletin's journalist described: a
steam-coming-out-of-his-ears right-wing ranter. VI - The ADL and
the affirmative action question
As many readers well know, whole Canadian forests have been
chopped down in recent years to provide newsprint for articles on
Black anti-Semitism. Such pieces frequently begin with a nostalgic
look back at the good ol' 'Black-Jewish alliance' of the early '60s
when the ADL was part of the great -- dare I say it? --
multicultural coalitions that marched behind Martin Luther King.
Such articles usually then turn into tales of Black
ingratitude. In life the Jewish establishment was only part of such
an alliance until the Black movement began to call for affirmative
action quotas, and the left-wing of the movement began to support
the Palestinians as fellow oppressed. From then on the ADL has been
a fanatic opponent of Black liberation. Jonathan Kaufman's Broken
Alliance tells of how Jack Greenberg, long-time head of the NAACP
Legal Defense Fund, came to see the ADL:
"As legal cases involving affirmative action began to appear
in the courts in the early 1970s, the Legal Defense Fund began
filing lawsuits... One of the first cases involved a challenge to
the New York prison system, which had never promoted a black
correction officer above the entry level... The Legal Defense Fund
sued successfully... When the case was appealed, Greenberg was
stunned to discover that the Anti-Defamation League had filed a
brief opposing the affirmative action plan... He did not know
officials at the ADL well. But he...called several of them up...
(Eventually) Greenberg felt some officials of the ADL, the most
vociferous opponents of affirmative action, had become "haters."
[54]
In its most notorious anti-affirmative action campaign, the
ADL was one of a gaggle of rightwing Jewish groups, plus several
gentile "unmeltable ethnic" outfits, the Fraternal Order of Police,
the Chamber of Commerce and other free-market freedom-fightin'
guys, who submitted amici curiae briefs on Allen Bakke's behalf
when he sued the University of California at Davis for setting
aside 16 seats in its medical school for minorities. In 1978 the
Supreme Court ruled that the school's plan discriminated against
whites.
In the August 1985 issue of Commentary, Harvard sociology
professor Nathan Glazer gave us the "pragmatic considerations"
behind the Jewish establishment's undying hatred of quotas:
"Jews were already 'over-represented' in the institutions that
were becoming battlefields... If it were to be generally conceded
that each ethnic/racial group should be represented
proportionately... what would happen to the over-represented? [55]
There is no doubt that Glazer, who is intimate with the Jewish
establishment, was referring to the ADL, amongst the others, when
he wrote the above. And in fact the ADL does give a distinctly
'Jewish' spin to its opposition to quotas. The December, 1978 ADL
Bulletin quotes Nathan Perlmutter, Foxman's predecessor as National
Director, on quotas:
"The message of the 1960s civil rights movement, he explains,
was to be color blind, to judge a person on his individual merits.
'Now, guided and abetted by government agencies, there is massive
backsliding to quotas, to evaluating a person on such extraneous
factors as race. The simple incontrovertible fact is that quotas in
favor of one group, by definition, means quotas against another
group. That's the very essence of the Nuremberg Laws.'" [56]
According to the November, 1979 ADL Bulletin, the ADL
"submitted a 'friend of the court' brief" in a case, Fullilove v.
Kreps,
"concerned with the constitutionality of the Federal Public
Works Employment Act of 1977, which provides that no grant for
public works shall be made unless the applicant assures... that at
least 10 percent of each grant sum be expended for 'minority'
business enterprises... (The) ADL... opposes this quota and
questions the legality of laws which establish
governmentally-designated and protected groups. 'Stamping the
imprimatur of the Federal government upon a particular racial or
ethnic definition, and granting and withholding benefits to
individuals accordingly,' our brief points out, 'calls to mind
notorious examples of attempts by other governments to define
racial and ethnic groups, such as the Nuremberg laws in the Third
Reich defining a 'Jew'." [57]
People get sent to mental institutions for a lot less than
this. The notion that a law, doubtlessly supported by a majority of
congressional Democrats, designed to bring a small measure of
economic justice to Blacks, Spanish-speakers, Orientals, Indians,
Eskimos and Aleuts, was really no better than Nazi anti-Jewish
legislation, takes my breath away. The idea that affirmative action
quotas in favor of minorities, might be used, some day in the
future, as a pretext to discriminate against Jews, is a notion that
hasn't occurred to anyone outside the Jewish establishment. There
were Jews among the congressional majorities that voted in every
affirmative action law. Surely no such scheme was thought to be
sanctioned by them. Were the gentiles in those congresses, black or
white, even remotely contemplating discrimination against Jews? Of
course not! The Nazi laws were measures taken against a minority
hated by the German government. American affirmative action laws
are policies projected by a government with a white majority in
favor of minorities. Jews are affected only insofar as they are
overwhelmingly white. And, of course, affirmative action has
actually benefited Jews. Glazer points out that
"(F)emales were one of the groups designated as beneficiaries
of affirmative action. Thus... one could argue that Jewish women
were as much helped by affirmative action as Jewish men were hurt,
or helped even more than Jewish men were hurt." [58]
Arguments utilizing previous discrimination against Jews to
oppose present proposals to redress past discrimination against
America's ethnic minorities, and women, are ideological
self-deceptions, at best, and sophistries at worst. They are
designed to put a pseudo-progressive gloss on efforts to preserve
the economic status quo. And, as affirmative action in favor of
women stands or falls with similar policies towards Blacks and
other minorities, such specious reasoning is a razor against the
interest of the majority of Jews, who, as with all other groups,
are majority female.
VII - Yo! Abe! Make me rich and famous, not just famous
Since one of the most important things we learn from the past
is that most people don't learn from the past, I must automatically
presume that at least some of my readers will still say, even after
this obviously factual recounting of the ADL's record, that,
whatever its past sins, it performs a valuable service in exposing
some anti-Semites. But its reactionary politics constantly leads it
to libel and lunacy, so much so that I must confess that I
celebrated when I discovered Foxman's attack on me. It meant that
I certified as part of the intellectual elite.
Surely the most hilarious of the ADL's cockeyed accusations
were uttered by Forster and Epstein in their book:
"Film cartoons - like the the X-rated Fritz the Cat which...
had a tasteless synagogue sequence... contributed to the atmosphere
of anti-Jewish denigration, along with anti-Jewish stereotyping
found in such full-length 1972 feature films as Woody Allen's
Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About Sex, Such Good
Friends, and Made for Each Other in addition, of course, to
Portnoy.... Capping and capitalizing on the vogue for sick "ethnic"
humor and dehumanization was... The National Lampoon... October
1972. A major item was a mock comic book entitled "The Ventures of
Zimmerman," a put-down on folksinger Bob Dylan, drawn with Jewish
features, blue Yarmulke, and portrayed as a scheming, avaricious,
money-hungry "superman" type who poses as a simple idealistic
folksinger.... The mock cover... bore a 'seal' reading 'Approved by
the Elders of Zion'.... Are the editors of Lampoon anti-Semitic?
Probably not. But they have made a signal contribution to the
perpetuation of those destructive stereotypes - like the Stuermer
cartoons so intimately associated with the annihilation of European
Jewry." [59]
For my immediate purpose of defending myself, a Jew, against
a libelous accusation of being a Holocaust denier, I call your
attention to the fact that at least two of the people accused of
contributing to the atmosphere of anti-Jewish denigration were
Jews, Woody Allen and Philip Roth, two of the greatest comic
talents of our age. But frankly I must say that comparing a Lampoon
spoof to the Hitler regime's most virulent Jew-hating rag is easily
the maddest thing I've ever seen in any ADL production.
You didn't know that Spike Lee is an anti-Semite? Well then,
you just are not as smart as one Abraham Foxman. Here is the
Forward for August 10, 1990:
"Filmmaker Spike Lee's portrayal of two Jewish jazz club
owners in the new film 'Mo' Better Blues' is being called
anti-Semitic by... the Anti-Defamation League.... The
two-dimensional depiction of the two brothers, named Moe and Josh
Flatbush, who appear in brief scenes throughout the movie, was
sharply criticized by Abraham Foxman.... "Spike Lee's
characterization of Moe and Josh Flatbush as greedy an unscrupulous
club owners dredges up an age-old and dangerous form of
anti-Semitic stereotyping." [60]
Spike Lee isn't the kind of person to take that kind of crap
from anyone, and he replied to the charge in a New York Times
op-ed:
"I'm not a racist; I'm not a bigot; I am not an anti-Semite.
What I try to do with all my characters is offer what I feel are
honest portraits of individuals with both faults and endearing
characteristics.... I challenge anyone to tell me why I can't
portray two club owners who happen to be Jewish and who exploit the
Black jazz musicians who work for them. All Jewish club owners are
not like this, that's true, but these two are....I'm an artist and
I stand behind all my work, including my characters, Moe and Josh
Flatbush. As of now, this matter is closed for me." [61]
I have presented more than enough evidence for any serious
reader to grasp the base character of both the ADL and the Zionist
movement. Therefore it is time for me to close as well. I will do
so with a quote, from a Zionist writer's article in The New
Republic, a pro-Zionist publication:
"(W)hile ever growing numbers of Jews believe anti-Semitism in
America is rising to crisis proportions, by nearly every available
measure it is actually on the decline.... In private, some Jewish
agency staffers insist the alarmist tone set by a few national
Jewish agencies, mainly for fund-raising purposes, is a key cause
of Jewish anxiety. Fingers point most often at the ADL and the Los
Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, both of which specialize in
mass mailings warning of impending doom and urging donations.
'People don't give if you tell them everything's o.k.,' says a
cynical staffer at one of the smaller agencies. People give
generously to the Wiesenthal Center and the ADL." [62]
J.J. Goldberg concludes by saying that "maybe it's time for
the leadership to start leading, and tell their public the truth."
But of course they won't. Therefore I ask my readers to help me
expose these incurable frauds. Now that you have read this critique
of the ADL, pass it along to the general public, Jew and gentile
alike. And let me thank you, in advance, for your time and trouble
in this regard.
NOTES
1. Abraham Foxman, "Holocaust Denial: The Growing Danger,"
Dimensions, vol. 8, 1994, p. 14.
2. Marc Caplan, "Hitler's Apologists: The Anti-Semitic Propaganda
of Holocaust Revisionism," p. 51.
3. Eric Breindel, "The Price of Rescue," New Republic, February
18, 1985, pp. 39-41.
4. Fall/Winter 1984 Books and Tapes of Revisionist History.
5. Letter from Institute for Historical Review, March 8,1985.
6. Letter to Institute for Historical Review, April 11, 1985.
7. Alex Cockburn, "Cockburn Replies," Nation, August 31, 1985, p.
130.
8. David Cesarani, "Back To Perdition," Jewish Chronicle
(London), July 3,1987, p. 26.
9. Stuart Hood, "Questions of Guilt and Taboo, Guardian (London),
July 10, 1987.
10. Julian Kossoff, "Full Version of 'Perdition' to be
published," Jewish Chronicle (London), November 27, 1992, p. 8.
11. Lucy Dawidowicz (ed.), A Holocaust Reader, pp. 150-155.
12. David Yisraeli, The Palestine Problem in German Politics
1889-1945 (Hebrew) Bar-Ilan University, Appendix (German): "Geheime
Kommandosache Bericht," pp.. 301-302.
13 Heinz Hohne, The Order of the Death's Head, p. 337.
14 Klaus Polkehn, "The Secret Contacts: Zionism and Nazi Germany
1933-41," Journal of Palestine Studies, Spring 1976, p. 75.
15. "Dr. von Weisl Believes in Fascism," World Jewry (London),
June 12, 1936, p. 12.
16. "Supplemento al no. 8 di L'Idea Sionista," March 1936, p. 2.
17. "Grundzuege des Vorschlages der Nationalen Militaerischen
Organisation in Palastina (Irgun Zwei Leumi) betreffend der Loesung
der j uedischen Frage Europas und der aktiven Teilnahme der NMO am
Kriege an der Seite Deutschlands," Yisraeli, pp., 315-317.
18. Christopher Walker, "Shamir Defends Terrorist Past," The
Times (London), October 21, 1983, p. 24.
19. Gerald Frank, The Deed, pp. 91-93, 124, 139.
20. Yitzhak Shamir, Summing Up, p. 31.
21. Ibid., p. 34.
22. Ben Hecht, Perfidy, p. 180
23. Ibid., pp. 194-195, 268.
24. Ibid., pp. 270-271.
25. Michael Dov-Ber Weissmandel, Min HaMaitzer, p. 92.
26. Ibid., p. 93.
27. Ibid., p. 93.
28. Walter Laqueur, "The Anti-Zionism of Fools," New Republic,
November 2, 1987, p. 34.
29. Ibid., p. 34.
30. Ibid., p. 37.
31. Robert Wistrich, Between Redemption and Perdition, p.. 22.
32. Ibid., p. 244.
33. Bernard Postal (ed.), This is B'nai B'rith, p. 7.
34. Deborah Moore, B'nai B'rith and the Challenge of Ethnic
Leadership, p. 181.
35. This is B'nai B'rith, p. 61.
36. Ibid., p. 20.
37. "B'nai B'rith and the German-Jewish Tragedy," B'nai B'rith
Magazine, May, 1938, p. 227.
38. Edwin Black, The Transfer Agreement, p. 277.
39. "B'nai B'rith," Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, vol. 1, p.
223.
40. Nathan Belth, A Promise to Keep, p. 141.
41. Arnold Forster, Square One, pp. 164-166.
42. "Memorandum of the ADL," Jewish Life, September 1953, p. 8.
43. Forster, p. 160
44. Sidney Hook, "My Running Debate with Einstein," Commentary,
July 1982, p. 47.
45. Benjamin Epstein and Arnold Forster, The New Anti-Semitism,
p. 336.
46. Ibid., pp. 137-138.
47. Debra Cohen, "ADL Settles California Case Over Collecting
Information," Jewish Telegraphic Agency Daily News Bulletin,
November 17, 1993.
48. Joel Moss and Kathleen Puckett, (FBI) FD-302 of Roy Edward
Bullock, pp. 19-21.
49. Robert Friedman, Village Voice, July 27, 1993.
50. Cohen
51. Nathan Perlmutter and David Evanier, "The African National
Congress: A Closer Look," ADL Bulletin, May 1986.
52. Larry Yudelson, "South African Black Leader Seeks Closer Ties
with Jewish Community," JTADNB, June 12, 1992, p. 3.
53. Garth Wolkoff, "ADL Chief Lashes Out at Critics, Press,
D.A.," Northern California Jewish Bulletin, May 7, 1992, pp. 1, 26.
54. Jonathan Kaufman, Broken Alliance, pp. 111-112.
55. Nathan Glazer, "On Jewish Forebodings," Commentary, August
1985, pp. 32-34.
56. "National Director: Nathan Perlmutter," ADL Bulletin,
December 1978, pp. 7-8.
57. Jeffrey Sinensky, "The Supreme Court and Racial Quotas," ADL
Bulletin, November 1979, p. 8.
58. Glazer
59. Epstein and Forster, pp. 113-114
60. "Spike Lee Stumbles on Stereotypes," Forward, August 10,
1990, p. 8.
61. Spike Lee, "I am Not an Anti-Semite," New York Times, August
22, 1990.
62. J.J. Goldberg, "Scaring The Jews," New Republic, May 17,
1993, pp. 22-23.
*My special thanks to Adam Chandler for his editorial and printing
service, without which this pamphlet could not have been produced.[/justify]
figures during the Holocaust because he was the first to demand
that the Allies bomb Auschwitz.. His post-war book, Min HaMaitzer
(From the Depths) written in Talmudic Hebrew, also tells of his
further efforts to pay off the Nazis to save Jewish lives.
Wisliceny took the matter up with Berlin and told the rabbi, in
1943, that he could have all the Jews in western Europe and the
Balkans for $2 million in American money, then a substantial sum.
Weissmandel sent a courier to Switzerland to try to get the money
from Jewish organizations. The courier brought back a letter from
Nathan Schwalb, the representative of the Hechalutz, a youth
section of the Labor Party. Dror is Schwalb's Zionist, i.e.,
Hebrew, name. Weissmandel described the document:
"There was another letter in the envelope, written in a
strange foreign language and at first I could not decipher at all
which language it was until I realized that this was Hebrew written
in Roman letters, and written to Schwalb's friends in Pressburg
(Bratislava)... It is still before my eyes, as if I had reviewed it
a hundred and one times. This was the content of the letter: 'Since
we have the opportunity of this courier, we are writing to the
group that they must constantly have before them that in the end
the Allies will win. After their victory they will divide the world
again between the nations, as they did at the end of the first
world war. Then they unveiled the plan for the first step and now,
at the war's end, we must do everything so that Eretz Yisroel will
become the state of Israel, and important steps have already been
taken in this direction. About the cries coming from your country,
we should know that all the Allied nations are spilling much of
their blood, and if we do not sacrifice any blood, by what right
shall we merit coming before the bargaining table when they divide
nations and lands at the war's end? Therefore it is silly, even
impudent, on our part to ask these nations who are spilling their
blood to permit their money into enemy countries in order to
protect our blood -- for only with blood shall we get the land. But
in respect to you, my friends, atem taylu, and for this purpose I
am sending you money illegally with this messenger.'" [25]
The letter startled rabbi Weissmandel, to say the least. He
pondered over it many times:
"After I had accustomed myself to this strange writing, I
trembled, understanding the meaning of the first words which were
'only with blood shall we attain land.' But days and weeks went by,
and I did not know the meaning of the last two words. Until I saw
from something that happened that the words 'atem taylu' were from
'tiyul' (to walk which was their special term for 'rescue.') In
other words: you my fellow members, my 19 or 20 close friends, get
out of Slovakia and save your lives and with the blood of the
remainder --the blood of all the men, women, old and young and the
sucklings -- the land will belong to us. Therefore, in order to
save their lives it is a crime to allow money into enemy territory
--but to save you beloved friends, here is money obtained
illegally." [26]
He went on: ³It is understood that I do not have these letters
--for they remained there and were destroyed with everything else
that was lost. [27]
Weissmandel assured us that the dedicated Zionist rescue
workers in Slovakia were appalled by Schwalb-Dror's letter. But it
expressed the morbid thoughts of the rancid elements running the
WZO: Instead of Zionism being the hope of the Jews, their blood was
to be the salvation of Zionism.
Reasonable readers have seen for themselves that the ADL
libeled me. But they may say that 'every movement has its lunatic
fringe. Libelers are not reviewers. What do responsible Zionist
historians have to say about Brenner and his charges?'
Walter Laqueur, the chairman of the International Research
Council of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at
Georgetown University, devoted six pages to attacking me in the
November 2, 1987 New Republic. (Again, I sent in a reply, but
Martin Peretz has no honor and his magazine did not run it.)
Laqueur insists that
"Even if all his facts were correct, Brenner's book would not
be a serious study of Zionism, any more than a collection of
profiles in scurrility from Benedict Arnold to Al Capone would be
a serious history of the United States." [28]
Surely Capone wasn't the last American rogue! At any rate,
after showing me to be the monster that I surely am, this Zionist
defense attorney makes a few concessions concerning my charges:
"It is quite true that some Zionists should not have looked
for Mussolini's support, even in the 1920s; they were grievously
mistaken to do so... It is true, moreover, that German Zionists did
not fully understand the meaning of Hitler when he came to power in
1933. Some of their comments and declarations make embarrassing
reading 50 years later." [29]
Laqueur wrote his plaidoyer for his movement's treachery
before Schwalb-Dror's suit had been flung through the courtroom
door. In the wake of that debacle for Zionism, his comments sound
more than a bit odd:
"The story of one Nathan Schwalb... is absolutely crucial for
the play.... Still, something went very wrong with this star
witness for the prosecution... Schwalb is alive... Thus, to their
dismay, Allen and Brenner found themselves suddenly confronted with
a libel action. Instead of refusing to change a single word in
their manuscript, they have excised ten pages from Perdition. They
must know that they could not possibly make their case in a court
of law -- or indeed, in the court of public opinion." [30]
In fact Laqueur was deliberately deceptive in this matter. On
page 144 of his 1980 book, The Terrible Secret, the great historian
himself had reported that Schwalb-Dror refused access to his files
to scholars.
Robert Wistrich is a professor of modern Jewish History at
Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He devoted not a few words to
denouncing me in his book, Between Redemption and Perdition. He
"(W)ould claim that the falsifiers of the anti-Israeli Left
who now rewrite the history of the Holocaust as a story of
Nazi-Zionist 'collaboration' are no less dangerous than the
neo-Nazi 'revisionists' and possibly more effective... (W)orks by
Lenni Brenner, such as Zionism in the Age of the Dictators... are
increasingly symptomatic of the times we live in." [31]
Nevertheless he, like Laqueur, has to make a few admissions
that some of my charges are quite true:
"In my view the entire Jewish leadership of that generation --
including the Zionists -- failed the test of the times and no
useful purpose is served by covering this up. Nor can it be denied,
given that the major priority of the Zionist movement at the time
was indeed building Palestine, that the tragedy of Diaspora Jewry
was inevitably given less attention than it deserved. Equally, one
can make a reasonable case that Zionists did not fight antisemitism
before 1939 with the appropriate vigour, that some Zionists
favoured the principle of racial separateness, and that others
wanted to develop a 'special relationship' with the Nazis for
opportunistic or other reasons." [32]
Readers must realize that not one responsible historian grants
a flyspeck of credence to even a syllable of any Holocaust
revisionist's scribblings. But even though Foxman and Caplan insist
that my writings are "another aspect of Holocaust 'revisionist'
thinking," two star Zionist historians confessed that a raft of my
accusations are --alas! -- all too true. So much for the
Anti-Defamation League's crude attempt to defame me. III - The
squalid history of the ADL
Even now, after I've adduced overwhelming evidence that the
Zionist movement failed European Jewry in its fatal hour, and that
therefore the ADL has libeled me, readers may ask a bewildered
question: Why is the ADL doing this? That is because the public is
so appalled at what the Nazis did to the Jews that it usually
doesn't think to ask what the ADL did for the Jews. Additionally,
most people identify the ADL with its contemporary reports on
anti-Semitism. It appears to be a bone fide civil rights watchdog.
But it did nothing for the Jews in the Nazi era and it has always
been an ultra-rightist nest.
The ADL is an autonomous branch of the B'nai B'rith (The Sons
of the Covenant), an international fraternal order, established on
October 13, 1843, with the declared "mission of uniting Israelites
in the work of promoting their highest interests and those of
humanity." [33] The first challenge confronting the group was the
slavery question, which it evaded in the interest of maintaining
unity between northern and southern Jews. The ADL itself was set up
in 1913, the year that a Jew, Leo Frank, was lynched in Georgia.
Its role in fighting anti-Semitism in the years before Hitler came
to power was pathetic. Deborah Moore's B'nai B'rith and the
Challenge of Ethnic Leadership says that
"(T)he ADL's internal-education section (was) devoted to
changing the behavior of Jews perceived to be unethical in the eyes
of Americans... In 1928, commenting on a lynching in Illinois, the
(B'nai B'rith) Magazine had admitted that 'when another kind of a
man gets hanged, we feel those revulsions that are natural at the
sight of a fellow-being going to his doom in the flush of life. But
when we read of a Jew being hanged, we discover ourselves feeling
resentful, not towards the hanging but towards the erring Jew.'"
The Magazine had concluded that "the sinning of the Jew is
counted by men not alone against himself but against his people
likewise." [34]
A booklet, This is B'nai B'rith, published in 1943 by the
organization, listed very few activities for those years, with the
main ADL accomplishment being to effect
"a profound change in the treatment of Jews in vaudeville.
Jewish comedians were loath in some instances to correct their
caricature of their fellow Jews, but earnest efforts on the part of
the League in presenting the social aspects of the problem resulted
in pronounced modification of the objectionable "humor." [35]
This is B'nai B'rith talking vaguely about the ADL's anti-Nazi
career in the years between Hitler's taking power and the war:
"In the years of persecution and propaganda that followed in
the wake of 1933, the A.D.L., through its program of research,
widespread fact dissemination, neutralization of libels and a
systematic campaign of education for democracy to counteract the
effects of un-American movements, was able to make a major
contribution to the common struggle against anti-Semitism." [36]
The booklet couldn't say more because the ADL and B'nai B'rith
role was disgraceful. The spontaneous reaction of American Jews to
the Nazis' ascendency to power was to boycott German goods. But
there were those who opposed a boycott. These worthies confined
themselves to charity efforts for German Jewry and its refugees.
Not least of these do-nothings was the B'nai B'rith. The B'nai
B'rith Magazine ran an editorial in its May, 1933 issue. Be sure
you are sitting down when you read this:
"Criticism is heard: B'nai B'rith did not join the public
protests against the German-Jewish tragedy!... The members of this
organization have cause to be proud of their affiliation with a
Jewish body that obscured its own prestige in order to serve its
German brethren the better... With the Hitler government
threatening reprisals against Jews, should B'nai B'rith have rushed
forward with loud protests?... Even those who were at first hot for
public protest have come to see that discretion is the better part
of valor in an hour when lives are in the balance... As for B'nai
B'rith, it feels that its action in this crisis will make a worthy
chapter in its history. [37]
Samuel Untermeyer, leader of the boycott movement, explained
the stance of elements like B'nai B'rith and the American Jewish
Committee (the parent of today's Commentary magazine, which the
B'nai B'rith always bracketed itself with, and which also opposed
boycotting Hitler). Boycott, he said, in 1933,
"conjures up to them images of force and illegality, such as
have on o ccasions in the past characterized struggles between
labor unions and their employers. As these timid souls are
capitalists and employers, the word and all that it implies is
hateful to their ears." [38]
The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust article on the B'nai B'rith
reports that even after the Nazis closed down the organization in
Germany, in 1937, the president of the order "remained opposed to
public protest and boycott, and still believed that 'quiet
diplomacy' could help the Jews of Germany." The Encyclopedia goes
on:
"B'nai B'rith, fearful of arousing antisemitism in the United
States -- like most American Jews at the time -- did not challenge
the quota system of the 1924 Immigration Act and did not try to
arouse public opinion against the administration's policy of not
fully utilizing even the quotas provided by that act." [39]
Nor did the ADL do anything of any significance in the fight
against the German-American Bund and its home-grown allies, the
followers of the Catholic clerical-fascist, Father Coughlan, or the
KKK. Nathan Belth's A Promise to Keep, published in 1979 by the
ADL, mentions a pamphlet on Coughlin, published in 1939 by a
coalition of Jewish groups, including the ADL. It then relates that
"The League and the (American Jewish) Committee... had as a matter
of policy and tactics been inclined to maintain low profiles in
public." [40] When the Bund staged a rally in New York's Madison
Square Garden on February 20, 1939, the Trotskyist Socialist
Workers Party called a counter-demonstration. Fifty-thousand Jews
and others fought a five hour street battle with the cops, who
protected the Jew-haters. But the night belonged to the
demonstrators. The 20,000 Nazis and Coughlanites would have been
mauled if the police weren't present. The ADL did absolutely
nothing to fight the Nazis that night. Indeed it was never prepared
to fight the enemies of the Jews. IV - The ADL and McCarthyism
Given the ADL's bankruptcy during the Hitler era, it is hardly
surprising that it continued on as an integral part of the
witchhunting apparatus that emerged in America at the onset of the
cold war. Arnold Forster, the ADL's counsel, wrote about this
morbid episode in his book, Square One.
In 1956 the Fund for the Republic issued a report on
blacklisting in Hollywood and TV. It described how the victims of
the right-wing "security clearance system" were either
'rehabilitated' or driven out of the industry.. An unnamed "public
relations expert" is quoted on the process. Forster acknowledged
that he was the expert and reprinted the relevant passages in his
book:
"If a man... finds his way to me... (and) I am convinced that
he is not a Communist, or if he has been a Communist, has had a
change of heart, I ask him whether he has talked to the FBI. If he
hasn't, I tell him the first thing he must do is go to them and
tell them everything he knows..."
The public relations expert concluded: "A guy who is in
trouble, even if he has a good case for himself, will stay dead
unless he finds someone like me who can lead him through the jungle
of people who have to be satisfied. He has to persuade those people
one by one. Usually he finds his way to a lawyer and that comes a
cropper, or he finds a public relations man or press agent who
doesn't have the confidence of the 'clearance men,' and he's only
wasting his time." [41]
Forster would take the hapless actor to right-wing journalists
like Victor Reisel or Fred Woltman for "affidavits" and then go to
CBS and try to get his "boy" a job. Square One was written after
McCarthyism had been thoroughly discredited and Forster made it
look like he was an unwilling collaborator with the witchhunters.
But the truth breaks out through the eyes of a cat, as they say. A
Communist magazine, Jewish Life, uncovered an internal ADL memo,
dated July 3, 1953, and ran it in their September, 1953 issue. It
dealt with a conference that took place in the office of the House
Un-American Activities Committee, on July 2, 1953. Herman
Edelsberg, the memo's author, was there, as were Washington
representatives of the American Jewish Committee and the Jewish War
Veterans. The question before them was how HUAC should deal with
hostile Jewish Communist witnesses. Edelsberg's report says that
they made the following proposals to Harold Velde, HUAC's chair:
"The files of the ADL and AJC should be consulted for
information about such witnesses. Where responsible Jewish
organizations had repudiated the witness or the line he peddles,
that fact should be put in the record before the witness sounds
off. In such cases, it would be most unlikely that the newspapers
would play up the witness' charges against the Committee... The
Committee staff handling such witnesses should be familiar with our
analyses of the Communists' studied tactics of exploiting charges
of persecution and discrimination. The witnesses should be
confronted with material from ADL's report, The Troublemakers, and
our two pamphlets on Communism... Velde and counsel agreed then and
there that in the future, Committee investigators would be sent to
the ADL and AJC for material on prospective witnesses. (That would
be a good opportunity to make specific suggestions on
procedure.)... We left on the most friendly basis. My colleagues
and I were heartened by the understandings achieved." [42]
Witchhunting began to decline after Senator Joe McCarthy of
Wisconsin was censured by the Senate in 1954, for trying to
red-bait the US army. Forster claimed that
"(T)he senator had built himself enough of a record to
convince me he was bad medicine. Not that the League itself,
although recognizing the evil in the man, had yet become
sufficiently resolute to attack McCarthy frontally. We were
suffering from the same fear of him and his destructive, national
movement, that affected so many others. ADL had been treading
cautiously about him while demonstrating its opposition to his
frenetic crusade. It was not until 1956, when Ben Epstein and I
released our book, Cross-Currents, that we openly attacked McCarthy
himself." [43]V - ADL witchhunting after McCarthy
McCarthyism may have declined but the ADL's hatred of the left
most certainly didn't. On February 22, 1967, the New York Times
reported that the Institute for International Labor Research, led
by Norman Thomas, the most prominent figure in the Socialist Party,
had received $1,048,940 between 1961 and 1963 from the CIA. Later,
in the July 1982 Commentary, Sidney Hook revealed that Thomas had
"telephoned Allen Dulles of the CIA and requested a contribution"
for their American Committee for Cultural Freedom in the mid-1950s.
[44] From 1957 through 1962 Irwin Suall was the National Secretary
of the SP. Today he is the "chief fact-finder," i.e., the head spy,
for the ADL.
I met Suall in 1957. I was a member of another socialist group
which was merging with the SP. Of course we had no idea about
Thomas's ties with the CIA. I left the SP in 1959 and was in
California when the Times broke the Thomas story, and I didn't see
it. Therefore I suspected nothing when I encountered Suall in the
Lion's Head Tavern in Greenwich Village in the early ?70s. (I
believe the year was 1971.) He spotted me at the bar, called out my
name, and triumphantly announced that I was "with the National
Association for Irish Justice," the support group for the Northern
Ireland Civil Rights Association. He told me that he was the ADL's
chief fact-finder and explained that he knew all about the NAIJ
because he had files on the American tours of Ian Paisley, a
right-wing Protestant fanatic, who was the most vehement foe of
civil rights for Catholics. Whenever he came here he associated
with our own right-wing Protestant screwballs, some of them
anti-Semites. We two old friends drank the night into morning when
I suggested that he let me see his Paisley file. NAIJ could use it
to show the Irish Catholic community here where Paisley fit into
right-wing politics in this country. "I can't do that. You have
enemies of Israel in your organization." At that time I had little
interest in Israel. I knew that we had various leftists in the
NAIJ, who were anti-Zionist, but the topic of Israel never came up
in our pro-Irish movement. I explained to him that people would
think it rather odd if we asked prospective members how they stood
on Israel. That didn't matter.. Enemies of Israel are enemies of
Israel and that was that. Suall then began to rattle off intimate
details about NAIJ, including the name of a Communist who had just
started working for us. I realized he had a spy in my organization.
We knew the British, Irish and American governments automatically
put agents into our ranks. Therefore we were discreet when we did
anything illegal under US law. But we had a policy of not starting
a witchhunt for such spies because that only tends to make everyone
into paranoids, and that can kill a movement. I figured out who
Suall's mole was.. However, as I couldn't prove my suspect was
Suall's operative, and the certain presence of more important spies
wasn't affecting us, I prudently didn't mention this singular
conversation to anyone.
In fact the ADL even boasts that it spies on leftists. In
their 1974 book, The New Anti-Semitism, Forster and Benjamin
Epstein brazenly announced that ADL agents attended conventions
closed to the general public:
"The ADL has traditionally viewed close monitoring of
extremist activities as part of its obligation to the Jewish and
American communities. Therefore, its representatives often attend
open meetings, conventions, and conferences of extremist groups
(left wing and right wing) to keep abreast of what the groups are
doing." [45]
The two authors rationalized ADL infiltration of the Socialist
Workers Party:
"The SWP... take(s) umbrage when its anti-Israel, anti-Zionist
extremism is called anti-Semitism. Its domestic political course
has been clearly anti-Jewish... Although its spokesmen have been
careful to avoid the use of crude anti-Semitic phraseology, the
SWP's program and activities... have been totally hostile...
whenever Jews have been under attack from anti-Semites who happen
to be black, the SWP has consistently joined the fray against the
Jews." [46]
As we know from the Bund episode, the SWP believes in busting
up Nazi rallies. It is careful not to utilize anti-Semitic phrases.
It welcomes Jews into its leadership. Therefore, isn't it plain
that "its domestic course has been clearly anti-Jewish." That
charge from an organization which did next door to nothing vs.
Hitler, wins the all-time chutzpah prize.
The magnitude of ADL spying on progressive movements became
public knowledge in 1993 when the San Francisco papers revealed
that Tom Gerard, a local cop (and ex-CIA man) illegally gave police
information to Roy Bullock, Suall's man in SF. Further police
sleuthing revealed that they spied on a mass of groups, from Nazis
clear thru Armenian nationalists, the American Friends Service
Committee, the Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice, the Bay
Area's broad-spectrum peace marchers, and the ANC and the
anti-apartheid movement. The two also spied directly on these last
for BOSS, South Africa's s ecret police.
As things stand, Gerard has pled no contest to a charge of
illegal access to police computers. He got three years probation,
a $2,500 fine and 45 days on the sheriff's work crew. The ADL made
a 'we didn't do it, but we won't do it again' deal with the DA. It
agreed to an injunction not to use illegal methods in its
'monitoring' of the entire political universe. Foxman said that,
rather than go to trial, where they would certainly be found
innocent, of course, ADL settled because "continuing with an
investigation over your head for months and years leads some to
believe there is something wrong." [47] The arrangement prevents
prosecution of Bullock.
In spite of the DA's slap-on-the-wrist deal, the documentation
of Bullock's activities provided by the police when they sought a
warrant to search the ADL offices in SF and Los Angeles, was
extensive. The ADL claims that Bullock was a free-lance informer
and that his activities for the apartheid regime were unknown to
them. But an FBI report on a January 26, 1993 interview with
Bullock takes up a letter found in his computer files, "prepared
for transmission to the South Africans." It read "during an
extended conversation with two FBI agents" in March 1990, they
asked "why do you think South African agents are coming to the West
Coast?"
"'Did I know any agents,' they finally asked?... I replied
that a meeting had been arranged, in confidence, by the ADL which
wanted information on radical right activities in SA and their
American connections. To that end I met an agent at Rockefeller
Center cafeteria."
The FBI report says that "Bullock commented that the TRIP.DBX
letter was a very 'damning' piece of evidence.' He said he had
forgotten it was in his computer." Of course he hastened to tell
the FBI that "his statements to the FBI that the ADL had set up his
relationship with the South Africans were untrue." [48]
It is far more likely that Bullock was telling the truth in
March 1990 and lying in January 1993. Apparently the FBI came to
him on another matter in 1990 and surprised him with their
questions about the South Africans. In 1993, Bullock met the feds
in his lawyers' office. It is reasonable to presume that they had
told him what to say, and what not to say. Certainly he knew that
if he wanted ADL assistance in his troubles with the FBI concerning
the South Africans, he would have to claim that they had nothing to
do with his South African ties.
We must also look at this situation from the ADL's
perspective. In 1993 it had the same access to these FBI reports as
anyone else. It then knew that he had implicated them with
Pretoria. Why didn't they repudiate him then for daring to lie
about them in such a grave affair? And, for that matter, why didn't
they repudiate him for trafficking with the apartheid regime, which
they claimed to oppose? Could it be that they didn't dare do so? If
they dumped him, he would have an incentive to tell the FBI
everything he knew about their illegal activities, regarding the
South Africans, and/or any ADL involvement in Israeli spying and
other criminal activities there.
Robert Friedman, known for his factual reliability when
writing on Jewish matters, reported that "Suall later told the FBI
that 'he didn't think dealing with South African intelligence was
different than dealing with any other police agency,' according to
a law enforcement source." [49] At any rate, the November 17, 1993
Daily News Bulletin, an organ of the Zionist movement's Jewish
Telegraphic Agency, reported that, after the settlement with the
SFDA, "the ADL continues to work with Bullock, according to Abraham
Foxman." [50]
Israel was South Africa's intimate military ally, selling
weaponry to the masters of apartheid in the face of a UN arms
embargo. And the ADL's own public stance was so opposed to the
African National Congress that it stretches credulity to the
breaking point for anyone to think that they didn't know that
Bullock was working with the South Africans. When he told the FBI
that the ADL put him in contact with the South Africans, he
expected them to believe him, because the world knew that Israel,
the ADL's political holy land, was Pretoria's ally.
The ADL Bulletin for May 1986 ran an article by Nathan
Perlmutter and David Evanier, "The African National Congress: A
Closer Look," which revealed the organization's intense hatred of
the movement leading the struggle in South Africa. The piece
started off with a pious "self-evident stipulation that apartheid
is racist and dehumanizing." But, it then went on,
"(T)his is not to suggest closing our eyes to what may emerge
once apartheid is gone.... We must distinguish between those who
will work for a humane, democratic, pro-western South Africa and
those who are totalitarian, anti-humane, anti-democratic,
anti-Israeli and anti-American."
The article went on to document what everyone already knew.
The Soviet Union supported the ANC. The ANC backed the PLO as
fellow colonized people. Then came the moral to the story:
"The fall of South Africa to such a Soviet oriented and
Communist influenced force would be a severe setback to the United
States, whose defense industry relies heavily on South Africa's
wealth of strategic minerals.... The survival of freedom in South
Africa will be possible only if the forces of violence on the far
left and of racial violence on the far right are defeated by the
democratic forces of moderation."
Those forces of moderation were -- didn't you know? -- the
apartheid regime itself: "The US State Department," i.e., Reagan,
said that "more positive changes have taken place in South Africa
in the last five years than in the previous 300." [51]
For propagandistic reasons, Israel had to make it look like it
was against apartheid and supported responsible opposition to it.
So it openly patronized Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi, head of the
Inkatha Freedom Party and its death squads. When he toured here in
1992, Israel got the Conference of Presidents of Major American
Jewish Organizations to host him at their New York office.. They
knew that, according to the June 12, 1992 DNB, "many
observers....say the violence among blacks reflects collusion
between the South African security forces and Inkatha aimed at
disabling the ANC." Yet, according to Kenneth Jacobson, the ADL's
director of international affairs, there was "nothing for us to
feel guilty about. He's a man with a point of view, and that should
be heard." The Mr. Nice Guy of South African politics declared
himself a free-market freedom-fightin' kind of fella and "not a
friend of Gadhafi or Yasir Arafat. All these are friends of the
ANC." [52]
The ADL thought so highly of their 1986 anti-ANC tirade that
they sent it to every member of the US Congress! And even after
Bullock was exposed as specifically reporting to the South Africans
on an LA meeting for Chris Hani of the ANC, Foxman fanatically
defended their venomous hatred of South Africa's liberators. The
Northern California Jewish Bulletin for May 7, 1993 described how
"Foxman, seeming like a general dressing down his troops,
marched into the Jewish Bulletin office...where he lambasted
critics of the ADL, speaking angrily of a conspiracy and at times
fuming as he turned several shades of red... 'People are very upset
about the (files on the) ANC,' he agrees. 'At the time we exposed
the ANC, they were Communist. They were violent, they were
anti-Semitic, they were pro-PLO and they were anti-Israel. You're
going to tell me I don't have the legitimacy to find out who they
were consorting with.'" [53]
Time hasn't been kind to Foxman. The ANC runs its country and
is a model of ethnic and religious tolerance. It never was
anti-Semitic and today there are seven Jewish ANCers in the
Pretoria parliament. Foxman was -- and is -- exactly what the
Jewish Bulletin's journalist described: a
steam-coming-out-of-his-ears right-wing ranter. VI - The ADL and
the affirmative action question
As many readers well know, whole Canadian forests have been
chopped down in recent years to provide newsprint for articles on
Black anti-Semitism. Such pieces frequently begin with a nostalgic
look back at the good ol' 'Black-Jewish alliance' of the early '60s
when the ADL was part of the great -- dare I say it? --
multicultural coalitions that marched behind Martin Luther King.
Such articles usually then turn into tales of Black
ingratitude. In life the Jewish establishment was only part of such
an alliance until the Black movement began to call for affirmative
action quotas, and the left-wing of the movement began to support
the Palestinians as fellow oppressed. From then on the ADL has been
a fanatic opponent of Black liberation. Jonathan Kaufman's Broken
Alliance tells of how Jack Greenberg, long-time head of the NAACP
Legal Defense Fund, came to see the ADL:
"As legal cases involving affirmative action began to appear
in the courts in the early 1970s, the Legal Defense Fund began
filing lawsuits... One of the first cases involved a challenge to
the New York prison system, which had never promoted a black
correction officer above the entry level... The Legal Defense Fund
sued successfully... When the case was appealed, Greenberg was
stunned to discover that the Anti-Defamation League had filed a
brief opposing the affirmative action plan... He did not know
officials at the ADL well. But he...called several of them up...
(Eventually) Greenberg felt some officials of the ADL, the most
vociferous opponents of affirmative action, had become "haters."
[54]
In its most notorious anti-affirmative action campaign, the
ADL was one of a gaggle of rightwing Jewish groups, plus several
gentile "unmeltable ethnic" outfits, the Fraternal Order of Police,
the Chamber of Commerce and other free-market freedom-fightin'
guys, who submitted amici curiae briefs on Allen Bakke's behalf
when he sued the University of California at Davis for setting
aside 16 seats in its medical school for minorities. In 1978 the
Supreme Court ruled that the school's plan discriminated against
whites.
In the August 1985 issue of Commentary, Harvard sociology
professor Nathan Glazer gave us the "pragmatic considerations"
behind the Jewish establishment's undying hatred of quotas:
"Jews were already 'over-represented' in the institutions that
were becoming battlefields... If it were to be generally conceded
that each ethnic/racial group should be represented
proportionately... what would happen to the over-represented? [55]
There is no doubt that Glazer, who is intimate with the Jewish
establishment, was referring to the ADL, amongst the others, when
he wrote the above. And in fact the ADL does give a distinctly
'Jewish' spin to its opposition to quotas. The December, 1978 ADL
Bulletin quotes Nathan Perlmutter, Foxman's predecessor as National
Director, on quotas:
"The message of the 1960s civil rights movement, he explains,
was to be color blind, to judge a person on his individual merits.
'Now, guided and abetted by government agencies, there is massive
backsliding to quotas, to evaluating a person on such extraneous
factors as race. The simple incontrovertible fact is that quotas in
favor of one group, by definition, means quotas against another
group. That's the very essence of the Nuremberg Laws.'" [56]
According to the November, 1979 ADL Bulletin, the ADL
"submitted a 'friend of the court' brief" in a case, Fullilove v.
Kreps,
"concerned with the constitutionality of the Federal Public
Works Employment Act of 1977, which provides that no grant for
public works shall be made unless the applicant assures... that at
least 10 percent of each grant sum be expended for 'minority'
business enterprises... (The) ADL... opposes this quota and
questions the legality of laws which establish
governmentally-designated and protected groups. 'Stamping the
imprimatur of the Federal government upon a particular racial or
ethnic definition, and granting and withholding benefits to
individuals accordingly,' our brief points out, 'calls to mind
notorious examples of attempts by other governments to define
racial and ethnic groups, such as the Nuremberg laws in the Third
Reich defining a 'Jew'." [57]
People get sent to mental institutions for a lot less than
this. The notion that a law, doubtlessly supported by a majority of
congressional Democrats, designed to bring a small measure of
economic justice to Blacks, Spanish-speakers, Orientals, Indians,
Eskimos and Aleuts, was really no better than Nazi anti-Jewish
legislation, takes my breath away. The idea that affirmative action
quotas in favor of minorities, might be used, some day in the
future, as a pretext to discriminate against Jews, is a notion that
hasn't occurred to anyone outside the Jewish establishment. There
were Jews among the congressional majorities that voted in every
affirmative action law. Surely no such scheme was thought to be
sanctioned by them. Were the gentiles in those congresses, black or
white, even remotely contemplating discrimination against Jews? Of
course not! The Nazi laws were measures taken against a minority
hated by the German government. American affirmative action laws
are policies projected by a government with a white majority in
favor of minorities. Jews are affected only insofar as they are
overwhelmingly white. And, of course, affirmative action has
actually benefited Jews. Glazer points out that
"(F)emales were one of the groups designated as beneficiaries
of affirmative action. Thus... one could argue that Jewish women
were as much helped by affirmative action as Jewish men were hurt,
or helped even more than Jewish men were hurt." [58]
Arguments utilizing previous discrimination against Jews to
oppose present proposals to redress past discrimination against
America's ethnic minorities, and women, are ideological
self-deceptions, at best, and sophistries at worst. They are
designed to put a pseudo-progressive gloss on efforts to preserve
the economic status quo. And, as affirmative action in favor of
women stands or falls with similar policies towards Blacks and
other minorities, such specious reasoning is a razor against the
interest of the majority of Jews, who, as with all other groups,
are majority female.
VII - Yo! Abe! Make me rich and famous, not just famous
Since one of the most important things we learn from the past
is that most people don't learn from the past, I must automatically
presume that at least some of my readers will still say, even after
this obviously factual recounting of the ADL's record, that,
whatever its past sins, it performs a valuable service in exposing
some anti-Semites. But its reactionary politics constantly leads it
to libel and lunacy, so much so that I must confess that I
celebrated when I discovered Foxman's attack on me. It meant that
I certified as part of the intellectual elite.
Surely the most hilarious of the ADL's cockeyed accusations
were uttered by Forster and Epstein in their book:
"Film cartoons - like the the X-rated Fritz the Cat which...
had a tasteless synagogue sequence... contributed to the atmosphere
of anti-Jewish denigration, along with anti-Jewish stereotyping
found in such full-length 1972 feature films as Woody Allen's
Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About Sex, Such Good
Friends, and Made for Each Other in addition, of course, to
Portnoy.... Capping and capitalizing on the vogue for sick "ethnic"
humor and dehumanization was... The National Lampoon... October
1972. A major item was a mock comic book entitled "The Ventures of
Zimmerman," a put-down on folksinger Bob Dylan, drawn with Jewish
features, blue Yarmulke, and portrayed as a scheming, avaricious,
money-hungry "superman" type who poses as a simple idealistic
folksinger.... The mock cover... bore a 'seal' reading 'Approved by
the Elders of Zion'.... Are the editors of Lampoon anti-Semitic?
Probably not. But they have made a signal contribution to the
perpetuation of those destructive stereotypes - like the Stuermer
cartoons so intimately associated with the annihilation of European
Jewry." [59]
For my immediate purpose of defending myself, a Jew, against
a libelous accusation of being a Holocaust denier, I call your
attention to the fact that at least two of the people accused of
contributing to the atmosphere of anti-Jewish denigration were
Jews, Woody Allen and Philip Roth, two of the greatest comic
talents of our age. But frankly I must say that comparing a Lampoon
spoof to the Hitler regime's most virulent Jew-hating rag is easily
the maddest thing I've ever seen in any ADL production.
You didn't know that Spike Lee is an anti-Semite? Well then,
you just are not as smart as one Abraham Foxman. Here is the
Forward for August 10, 1990:
"Filmmaker Spike Lee's portrayal of two Jewish jazz club
owners in the new film 'Mo' Better Blues' is being called
anti-Semitic by... the Anti-Defamation League.... The
two-dimensional depiction of the two brothers, named Moe and Josh
Flatbush, who appear in brief scenes throughout the movie, was
sharply criticized by Abraham Foxman.... "Spike Lee's
characterization of Moe and Josh Flatbush as greedy an unscrupulous
club owners dredges up an age-old and dangerous form of
anti-Semitic stereotyping." [60]
Spike Lee isn't the kind of person to take that kind of crap
from anyone, and he replied to the charge in a New York Times
op-ed:
"I'm not a racist; I'm not a bigot; I am not an anti-Semite.
What I try to do with all my characters is offer what I feel are
honest portraits of individuals with both faults and endearing
characteristics.... I challenge anyone to tell me why I can't
portray two club owners who happen to be Jewish and who exploit the
Black jazz musicians who work for them. All Jewish club owners are
not like this, that's true, but these two are....I'm an artist and
I stand behind all my work, including my characters, Moe and Josh
Flatbush. As of now, this matter is closed for me." [61]
I have presented more than enough evidence for any serious
reader to grasp the base character of both the ADL and the Zionist
movement. Therefore it is time for me to close as well. I will do
so with a quote, from a Zionist writer's article in The New
Republic, a pro-Zionist publication:
"(W)hile ever growing numbers of Jews believe anti-Semitism in
America is rising to crisis proportions, by nearly every available
measure it is actually on the decline.... In private, some Jewish
agency staffers insist the alarmist tone set by a few national
Jewish agencies, mainly for fund-raising purposes, is a key cause
of Jewish anxiety. Fingers point most often at the ADL and the Los
Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, both of which specialize in
mass mailings warning of impending doom and urging donations.
'People don't give if you tell them everything's o.k.,' says a
cynical staffer at one of the smaller agencies. People give
generously to the Wiesenthal Center and the ADL." [62]
J.J. Goldberg concludes by saying that "maybe it's time for
the leadership to start leading, and tell their public the truth."
But of course they won't. Therefore I ask my readers to help me
expose these incurable frauds. Now that you have read this critique
of the ADL, pass it along to the general public, Jew and gentile
alike. And let me thank you, in advance, for your time and trouble
in this regard.
NOTES
1. Abraham Foxman, "Holocaust Denial: The Growing Danger,"
Dimensions, vol. 8, 1994, p. 14.
2. Marc Caplan, "Hitler's Apologists: The Anti-Semitic Propaganda
of Holocaust Revisionism," p. 51.
3. Eric Breindel, "The Price of Rescue," New Republic, February
18, 1985, pp. 39-41.
4. Fall/Winter 1984 Books and Tapes of Revisionist History.
5. Letter from Institute for Historical Review, March 8,1985.
6. Letter to Institute for Historical Review, April 11, 1985.
7. Alex Cockburn, "Cockburn Replies," Nation, August 31, 1985, p.
130.
8. David Cesarani, "Back To Perdition," Jewish Chronicle
(London), July 3,1987, p. 26.
9. Stuart Hood, "Questions of Guilt and Taboo, Guardian (London),
July 10, 1987.
10. Julian Kossoff, "Full Version of 'Perdition' to be
published," Jewish Chronicle (London), November 27, 1992, p. 8.
11. Lucy Dawidowicz (ed.), A Holocaust Reader, pp. 150-155.
12. David Yisraeli, The Palestine Problem in German Politics
1889-1945 (Hebrew) Bar-Ilan University, Appendix (German): "Geheime
Kommandosache Bericht," pp.. 301-302.
13 Heinz Hohne, The Order of the Death's Head, p. 337.
14 Klaus Polkehn, "The Secret Contacts: Zionism and Nazi Germany
1933-41," Journal of Palestine Studies, Spring 1976, p. 75.
15. "Dr. von Weisl Believes in Fascism," World Jewry (London),
June 12, 1936, p. 12.
16. "Supplemento al no. 8 di L'Idea Sionista," March 1936, p. 2.
17. "Grundzuege des Vorschlages der Nationalen Militaerischen
Organisation in Palastina (Irgun Zwei Leumi) betreffend der Loesung
der j uedischen Frage Europas und der aktiven Teilnahme der NMO am
Kriege an der Seite Deutschlands," Yisraeli, pp., 315-317.
18. Christopher Walker, "Shamir Defends Terrorist Past," The
Times (London), October 21, 1983, p. 24.
19. Gerald Frank, The Deed, pp. 91-93, 124, 139.
20. Yitzhak Shamir, Summing Up, p. 31.
21. Ibid., p. 34.
22. Ben Hecht, Perfidy, p. 180
23. Ibid., pp. 194-195, 268.
24. Ibid., pp. 270-271.
25. Michael Dov-Ber Weissmandel, Min HaMaitzer, p. 92.
26. Ibid., p. 93.
27. Ibid., p. 93.
28. Walter Laqueur, "The Anti-Zionism of Fools," New Republic,
November 2, 1987, p. 34.
29. Ibid., p. 34.
30. Ibid., p. 37.
31. Robert Wistrich, Between Redemption and Perdition, p.. 22.
32. Ibid., p. 244.
33. Bernard Postal (ed.), This is B'nai B'rith, p. 7.
34. Deborah Moore, B'nai B'rith and the Challenge of Ethnic
Leadership, p. 181.
35. This is B'nai B'rith, p. 61.
36. Ibid., p. 20.
37. "B'nai B'rith and the German-Jewish Tragedy," B'nai B'rith
Magazine, May, 1938, p. 227.
38. Edwin Black, The Transfer Agreement, p. 277.
39. "B'nai B'rith," Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, vol. 1, p.
223.
40. Nathan Belth, A Promise to Keep, p. 141.
41. Arnold Forster, Square One, pp. 164-166.
42. "Memorandum of the ADL," Jewish Life, September 1953, p. 8.
43. Forster, p. 160
44. Sidney Hook, "My Running Debate with Einstein," Commentary,
July 1982, p. 47.
45. Benjamin Epstein and Arnold Forster, The New Anti-Semitism,
p. 336.
46. Ibid., pp. 137-138.
47. Debra Cohen, "ADL Settles California Case Over Collecting
Information," Jewish Telegraphic Agency Daily News Bulletin,
November 17, 1993.
48. Joel Moss and Kathleen Puckett, (FBI) FD-302 of Roy Edward
Bullock, pp. 19-21.
49. Robert Friedman, Village Voice, July 27, 1993.
50. Cohen
51. Nathan Perlmutter and David Evanier, "The African National
Congress: A Closer Look," ADL Bulletin, May 1986.
52. Larry Yudelson, "South African Black Leader Seeks Closer Ties
with Jewish Community," JTADNB, June 12, 1992, p. 3.
53. Garth Wolkoff, "ADL Chief Lashes Out at Critics, Press,
D.A.," Northern California Jewish Bulletin, May 7, 1992, pp. 1, 26.
54. Jonathan Kaufman, Broken Alliance, pp. 111-112.
55. Nathan Glazer, "On Jewish Forebodings," Commentary, August
1985, pp. 32-34.
56. "National Director: Nathan Perlmutter," ADL Bulletin,
December 1978, pp. 7-8.
57. Jeffrey Sinensky, "The Supreme Court and Racial Quotas," ADL
Bulletin, November 1979, p. 8.
58. Glazer
59. Epstein and Forster, pp. 113-114
60. "Spike Lee Stumbles on Stereotypes," Forward, August 10,
1990, p. 8.
61. Spike Lee, "I am Not an Anti-Semite," New York Times, August
22, 1990.
62. J.J. Goldberg, "Scaring The Jews," New Republic, May 17,
1993, pp. 22-23.
*My special thanks to Adam Chandler for his editorial and printing
service, without which this pamphlet could not have been produced.[/justify]
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Dejuificator II
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[justify][large]A Revisionist Response to the ADL[/large]
A Revisionist Response to the Anti-Defamation League:
Bradley Smith, His Publications, and the Charge of Extremism
By Paul Grubach
Recently, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a high profile, online study of alleged political extremism. Titled ?Extremism in America,? it is ?the fourth national survey and analysis of far-right extremism in America that ADL has published over the past two decades.?1
First, let?s see how they define and identify ?political extremism.?
ADL claims that American society has been characterized by an ever expanding ?democratic consensus and inclusiveness,? and thus, has gradually grown to be a more tolerant, multicultural, integrated and inclusive society. In their own words, America is based upon the ideal that ?anyone, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or other immutable characteristics, can participate in the search for a better social order.?2
Standing in opposition to this march toward an integrated, multicultural society are (according to the ADL) the extremists, those who oppose the ?principles of inclusion and social acceptance.? These are ?hate groups,? the alleged forces of intolerance: ?nativists, haters and ideological extremists.? These groups ?have posed threats to both public safety and civic unity because of their willingness to engage in violence and intimidation.? Extremists use ?familiar tactics: violence, threats, and intimidation; conspiracy theories, usually involving Jews and big government; Holocaust denial and other falsifications of history; and the derision and scapegoating of minorities.?3
The ADL guide then goes on to list individuals and groups they consider to be the contemporary extremists. Only one such individual and group will concern us here?Bradley Smith and his enterprises, Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH) and The Revisionist.4
Smith and his publications should have never been included on the ADL?s list. Smith has never, in his long career, ?posed a threat to both public safety and civic unity because of his willingness to engage in violence and intimidation.? He has never used ?violence, threats and intimidation against his opponents.? Bradley Smith is now, and has always been, a free speech advocate and libertarian who uses only peaceful means to attain his ends.
Smith has never been a member of any group that advocates violence against or the forcible deportation of minority groups. He has never campaigned on issues involving race or ethnicity, as the race issue has never been his beat. Just for the record, his present wife is of twenty-five years is Mexican and his ex was Jewish?hardly the ?right stuff? for a neo-Nazi ?extremist.?
So why was Smith classified as an ?extremist?? The answer is quite simple. Smith and his publications advocate open and free debate on the Holocaust controversy, and this is both a sociopolitical and psychological threat to those Zionists who comprise the vast majority of the ADL.
How is he a sociopolitical threat? As the Jewish political scientist Norman Finkelstein has shown, the Holocaust has become an ?ideology? in the Marxist sense of the term. It is a distorted?and to a significant extent fictitious?body of ideas which reflect and serve the sociopolitical interests of a power elite, organized Zionism. To be sure, Finkelstein does believe in the traditional view of the tragedy of the Jews during WWII, but he maintains its is distorted and misrepresented for sociopolitical purposes. Regarding the Holocaust ideology, he has written: ?Its central dogmas sustain significant political and class interests. The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world?s most formidable military powers [Israel], with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a ?victim? state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States [the Jews] has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable dividends accrue from this specious victimhood?in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified.?5
Smith and company are a sociopolitical threat because they are forcing society to question an ideology which ?justifies,? bolsters and ?legitimates? Jewish-Zionist cultural and political influence in America and throughout the Western world today.
How is Smith a psychological threat? As the writer Natasha Walter observed in The Independent (Great Britain), ??the Holocaust seems to loom ever larger. For many non-observant Jews like myself?it has become the touchstone of our identity.?6 Presumably, this observation would apply to many of the activists who comprise the ADL. The Holocaust ideology is a central part to their identity as Jews, and thus, any questioning of it poses a serious psychological threat to that identity.
Smith?s ultimate ?sin? in the eyes of the ADL is that he is questioning an ideological belief system that serves Jewish-Zionist sociopolitical and psychological needs. Consequently, he and his publications must be neutralized or done away with. Because of their intolerant dogmatism, ADL refuses to debate him; an open and fair debate would expose to the public how weak and questionable the ADL?s Holocaust ideology really is. (This was demonstrated when revisionist historian Mark Weber publicly debated anti-revisionist historian Michael Shermer. Weber made Holocaust revisionism look too good and the ADL?s version of the Holocaust severely deficient.7)
The only option left open to the ADL with regard to the ?Smith threat? is to use it?s immense financial and political resources to marginalize and discredit him by labeling this free-speech activist an ?extremist.? So many will now say: ?Smith is an anti-Jewish political extremist. Whatever his publications say about the Holocaust must be false and should be rejected.?
It must be emphasized again and again what the policy of Smith?s publications is: open and straightforward debate on the Holocaust and other sociopolitical issues which are connected with it, such as Jewish-Gentile relations, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Zionist political influence. It is only by engaging in open and free dialogue?refusing to obey the taboos of our day?that we can begin to come to grips with the problems which surround the Holocaust issue, and then formulate peaceful and humane solutions.
In a word, Smith and his publications stand for freedom of dialogue and the peaceful resolution of problems. They adhere to the motto of a founder of revisionism, the late Professor Harry Elmer Barnes: ?Revisionism?a key to peace.?
To be sure, some of those individuals and groups that are labeled by ADL as ?extremist? do in fact advocate violence against their opponents, and they do act with a crass intolerance. But Smith and Company are not to be classified with them. He simply desires open and free debate on the Holocaust controversy, and the peaceful resolution of crises directly or indirectly associated with the Holocaust question.
Which brings us to my next point. Is the ADL claim of being ?the world?s leading organization to fight anti-Semitism, prejudice, hatred and bigotry? really sincere?8 Or are they really just an organization of extremists who use talk of love, brotherhood, tolerance, anti-racism and anti-bigotry as an ideological cloak, under which they further Jewish-Zionist interests? The case of Bradley Smith and his publications are most instructive in this regard.
In 1991, Smith?then the media representative of the Institute for Historical Review and director of CODOH?placed advertisements in student newspapers calling for open debate on the Holocaust issue. At about the same time, Rabbi Avhram Toledano, head of the Jewish-supremacist ?Kach? movement founded by the late Meir Kahane, conducted a lecture tour of the US and Canada. Toledano advocates the forcible mass expulsion of Arabs from ?greater Israel.?9 He told a Cleveland, Ohio Jewish institution meeting on November 14, 1991, that Arabs would be forced out of Israel. In response to the question, ?What would the nations of the world say to Israel?s expulsion of Arabs?,? Toledano said: ?I don?t know and I don?t care. We are proud to be Jews and have a Jewish State.?10
In spite of his intolerant views, Toledano was given a respectful public forum in prominent Jewish synagogues throughout North America. In Cleveland, for example, his lecture was announced beforehand in the city?s main Jewish community paper.11 This was nothing new. While he was still alive, this same paper also routinely announced the lecture appearances of the Jewish extremist, Rabbi Meir Kahane.
ADL, which is so alert to every public expression of real and imagined racism, intolerance and bigotry, never (to this writer?s knowledge) publicly protested against the advertisements in Cleveland Jewish News announcing the appearances of Toledano and Kahane. Nor did the Zionist group publicly label Rabbi Toledano an ?extremist? and attempt to deny him a public forum.
At the same time though, the ADL was ?urging college newspapers to reject ads by individuals or groups denying the reality of the Holocaust.?12 To show that it meant business, an ADL official was sent to the University of Texas to make sure that the student paper there did not publish Smith?s ad.13
While the ADL insists the Holocaust issue is ?not debatable,?14 and works to deny Holocaust revisionists a public forum, this same organization seemingly has no problem with advertisements in Jewish community papers by militant Zionists who demand the brutal forcible expulsion of Arabs from what only a few years ago was their homeland.
On July 2, 2001, the Associated Press reported that Israel?s minister of tourism, Rehavam Zeevi, made these statements about certain Palestinians living in Israel: ?They arrived here and are trying to become citizens because they want social security and welfare payments? We should get rid of the ones who are not Israeli citizens the same way you get rid of lice. We have to stop this cancer from spreading within us.?15
Zeevi heads the far-right National Union party that advocates the expulsion of Arabs living under Israeli rule.16 According to the ADL?s moral criteria, this is clearly an example of racist hate. I sent two email messages to the ADL suggesting they publicly condemn his comments and demand that he resign.17 After all, they advertise themselves as ?the world leading organization fighting hate, prejudice and bigotry.?
Here is the message I received in return to both e-mails. ?We received your e-mail message and want to thank you for sharing your thoughts. Even though the volume of e-mail to us is high, every message is reviewed and forwarded to the appropriate ADL professional when a response is required. We try our best to be responsive quickly, but sometimes that isn?t always possible, so we ask for your patience and understanding. Please check our web site, [small]www.adl.org[/small], for current ADL concerns, reports, news releases, educational materials and a wide variety of other useful informational items. You can also search our online library. Thanks again for your comments. We welcome your interest.?18
They never did issue any public condemnation of this Zionist extremist, Rehavam Zeevi, who expressed intolerance and hate toward Arabs. Yet, they label Bradley Smith?a man who never referred to any ethnic group as ?lice? and a ?cancer? and has never advocated the forcible expulsion of any ethnic groups from anywhere?an ?extremist.?
That ADL ?moral judgments? vis-à-vis political extremism are riddled with a hypocritical double standard should be readily apparent. They believe that it is ?evil and immoral? to contest the Holocaust ideology. Apparently, however, it is somehow ?morally excusable? for Jewish-Zionists to spew forth intolerance and hate about non-Jews. <
Two experts on political extremism, John George and Laird Wilcox, have noted that one characteristic of an extremist is that he/she promotes double standards and feels no guilt for so doing.19 As we have shown here, the ADL applies a hypocritical double standard in regard to Jews and non-Jews when they employ the label of extremist. They appear to have no guilt for so doing. Thus, the charge of ?extremism? hurls right back at them.
In a spirit of fair play, the ADL was given the opportunity to review this essay prior to publication. They were informed that any errors or false statements that they point out would be corrected.20 They did not respond.
NOTES
1. See ?Extremism in America: Introduction,? online: [small]www.adl.org/learn/Ext_US/default.asp[/small]
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Norman G. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (Verso, 2000), p.3.
6. See Richard J. Evans, Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial(Basic Books, 2001), p.262.
7. ?The Holocaust Story in the Crossfire: The Weber-Shermer Holocaust Debate,? quality VHS color video, $21.95 postpaid (CA sales tax $1.55), add $1.00 for foreign shipping, available from INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW, P.O. Box 2739, Newport Beach, CA 92659.
8. This motto in on the ADL homepage. Online: [small]http://www.adl.org[/small]
9. See Cleveland Jewish News, November 22, 1991.
10. Ibid.
11. Cleveland Jewish News, November 8, 1991, p.12.
12. Religious News Service dispatch of November 27, 1991, published in Christian News, December 9, 1991, p.16.
13. Houston Chronicle, December 19, 1991.
14. Christian News, December 9, 1991, p.16.
15. ?Israel Minister Makes Palestinian Slur,? Associated Press report, July 2, 2001. Online: [small]http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/2001070 ... lur_l.html[/small]
16. Ibid.
17. Two e-mails were sent to the ADL at webmaster@adl.org. Printouts in possession Paul Grubach.
18. E-mail from ADL. Printout in possession of Paul Grubach.
19. See Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (University of California Press, 2000), p.88.
20. E-mail from Paul Grubach to webmaster@adl.org. Printout in possession of Paul Grubach.
© Copyright 2001, Paul Grubach[/justify]
A Revisionist Response to the Anti-Defamation League:
Bradley Smith, His Publications, and the Charge of Extremism
By Paul Grubach
Recently, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a high profile, online study of alleged political extremism. Titled ?Extremism in America,? it is ?the fourth national survey and analysis of far-right extremism in America that ADL has published over the past two decades.?1
First, let?s see how they define and identify ?political extremism.?
ADL claims that American society has been characterized by an ever expanding ?democratic consensus and inclusiveness,? and thus, has gradually grown to be a more tolerant, multicultural, integrated and inclusive society. In their own words, America is based upon the ideal that ?anyone, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or other immutable characteristics, can participate in the search for a better social order.?2
Standing in opposition to this march toward an integrated, multicultural society are (according to the ADL) the extremists, those who oppose the ?principles of inclusion and social acceptance.? These are ?hate groups,? the alleged forces of intolerance: ?nativists, haters and ideological extremists.? These groups ?have posed threats to both public safety and civic unity because of their willingness to engage in violence and intimidation.? Extremists use ?familiar tactics: violence, threats, and intimidation; conspiracy theories, usually involving Jews and big government; Holocaust denial and other falsifications of history; and the derision and scapegoating of minorities.?3
The ADL guide then goes on to list individuals and groups they consider to be the contemporary extremists. Only one such individual and group will concern us here?Bradley Smith and his enterprises, Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust (CODOH) and The Revisionist.4
Smith and his publications should have never been included on the ADL?s list. Smith has never, in his long career, ?posed a threat to both public safety and civic unity because of his willingness to engage in violence and intimidation.? He has never used ?violence, threats and intimidation against his opponents.? Bradley Smith is now, and has always been, a free speech advocate and libertarian who uses only peaceful means to attain his ends.
Smith has never been a member of any group that advocates violence against or the forcible deportation of minority groups. He has never campaigned on issues involving race or ethnicity, as the race issue has never been his beat. Just for the record, his present wife is of twenty-five years is Mexican and his ex was Jewish?hardly the ?right stuff? for a neo-Nazi ?extremist.?
So why was Smith classified as an ?extremist?? The answer is quite simple. Smith and his publications advocate open and free debate on the Holocaust controversy, and this is both a sociopolitical and psychological threat to those Zionists who comprise the vast majority of the ADL.
How is he a sociopolitical threat? As the Jewish political scientist Norman Finkelstein has shown, the Holocaust has become an ?ideology? in the Marxist sense of the term. It is a distorted?and to a significant extent fictitious?body of ideas which reflect and serve the sociopolitical interests of a power elite, organized Zionism. To be sure, Finkelstein does believe in the traditional view of the tragedy of the Jews during WWII, but he maintains its is distorted and misrepresented for sociopolitical purposes. Regarding the Holocaust ideology, he has written: ?Its central dogmas sustain significant political and class interests. The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world?s most formidable military powers [Israel], with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a ?victim? state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States [the Jews] has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable dividends accrue from this specious victimhood?in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified.?5
Smith and company are a sociopolitical threat because they are forcing society to question an ideology which ?justifies,? bolsters and ?legitimates? Jewish-Zionist cultural and political influence in America and throughout the Western world today.
How is Smith a psychological threat? As the writer Natasha Walter observed in The Independent (Great Britain), ??the Holocaust seems to loom ever larger. For many non-observant Jews like myself?it has become the touchstone of our identity.?6 Presumably, this observation would apply to many of the activists who comprise the ADL. The Holocaust ideology is a central part to their identity as Jews, and thus, any questioning of it poses a serious psychological threat to that identity.
Smith?s ultimate ?sin? in the eyes of the ADL is that he is questioning an ideological belief system that serves Jewish-Zionist sociopolitical and psychological needs. Consequently, he and his publications must be neutralized or done away with. Because of their intolerant dogmatism, ADL refuses to debate him; an open and fair debate would expose to the public how weak and questionable the ADL?s Holocaust ideology really is. (This was demonstrated when revisionist historian Mark Weber publicly debated anti-revisionist historian Michael Shermer. Weber made Holocaust revisionism look too good and the ADL?s version of the Holocaust severely deficient.7)
The only option left open to the ADL with regard to the ?Smith threat? is to use it?s immense financial and political resources to marginalize and discredit him by labeling this free-speech activist an ?extremist.? So many will now say: ?Smith is an anti-Jewish political extremist. Whatever his publications say about the Holocaust must be false and should be rejected.?
It must be emphasized again and again what the policy of Smith?s publications is: open and straightforward debate on the Holocaust and other sociopolitical issues which are connected with it, such as Jewish-Gentile relations, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Zionist political influence. It is only by engaging in open and free dialogue?refusing to obey the taboos of our day?that we can begin to come to grips with the problems which surround the Holocaust issue, and then formulate peaceful and humane solutions.
In a word, Smith and his publications stand for freedom of dialogue and the peaceful resolution of problems. They adhere to the motto of a founder of revisionism, the late Professor Harry Elmer Barnes: ?Revisionism?a key to peace.?
To be sure, some of those individuals and groups that are labeled by ADL as ?extremist? do in fact advocate violence against their opponents, and they do act with a crass intolerance. But Smith and Company are not to be classified with them. He simply desires open and free debate on the Holocaust controversy, and the peaceful resolution of crises directly or indirectly associated with the Holocaust question.
Which brings us to my next point. Is the ADL claim of being ?the world?s leading organization to fight anti-Semitism, prejudice, hatred and bigotry? really sincere?8 Or are they really just an organization of extremists who use talk of love, brotherhood, tolerance, anti-racism and anti-bigotry as an ideological cloak, under which they further Jewish-Zionist interests? The case of Bradley Smith and his publications are most instructive in this regard.
In 1991, Smith?then the media representative of the Institute for Historical Review and director of CODOH?placed advertisements in student newspapers calling for open debate on the Holocaust issue. At about the same time, Rabbi Avhram Toledano, head of the Jewish-supremacist ?Kach? movement founded by the late Meir Kahane, conducted a lecture tour of the US and Canada. Toledano advocates the forcible mass expulsion of Arabs from ?greater Israel.?9 He told a Cleveland, Ohio Jewish institution meeting on November 14, 1991, that Arabs would be forced out of Israel. In response to the question, ?What would the nations of the world say to Israel?s expulsion of Arabs?,? Toledano said: ?I don?t know and I don?t care. We are proud to be Jews and have a Jewish State.?10
In spite of his intolerant views, Toledano was given a respectful public forum in prominent Jewish synagogues throughout North America. In Cleveland, for example, his lecture was announced beforehand in the city?s main Jewish community paper.11 This was nothing new. While he was still alive, this same paper also routinely announced the lecture appearances of the Jewish extremist, Rabbi Meir Kahane.
ADL, which is so alert to every public expression of real and imagined racism, intolerance and bigotry, never (to this writer?s knowledge) publicly protested against the advertisements in Cleveland Jewish News announcing the appearances of Toledano and Kahane. Nor did the Zionist group publicly label Rabbi Toledano an ?extremist? and attempt to deny him a public forum.
At the same time though, the ADL was ?urging college newspapers to reject ads by individuals or groups denying the reality of the Holocaust.?12 To show that it meant business, an ADL official was sent to the University of Texas to make sure that the student paper there did not publish Smith?s ad.13
While the ADL insists the Holocaust issue is ?not debatable,?14 and works to deny Holocaust revisionists a public forum, this same organization seemingly has no problem with advertisements in Jewish community papers by militant Zionists who demand the brutal forcible expulsion of Arabs from what only a few years ago was their homeland.
On July 2, 2001, the Associated Press reported that Israel?s minister of tourism, Rehavam Zeevi, made these statements about certain Palestinians living in Israel: ?They arrived here and are trying to become citizens because they want social security and welfare payments? We should get rid of the ones who are not Israeli citizens the same way you get rid of lice. We have to stop this cancer from spreading within us.?15
Zeevi heads the far-right National Union party that advocates the expulsion of Arabs living under Israeli rule.16 According to the ADL?s moral criteria, this is clearly an example of racist hate. I sent two email messages to the ADL suggesting they publicly condemn his comments and demand that he resign.17 After all, they advertise themselves as ?the world leading organization fighting hate, prejudice and bigotry.?
Here is the message I received in return to both e-mails. ?We received your e-mail message and want to thank you for sharing your thoughts. Even though the volume of e-mail to us is high, every message is reviewed and forwarded to the appropriate ADL professional when a response is required. We try our best to be responsive quickly, but sometimes that isn?t always possible, so we ask for your patience and understanding. Please check our web site, [small]www.adl.org[/small], for current ADL concerns, reports, news releases, educational materials and a wide variety of other useful informational items. You can also search our online library. Thanks again for your comments. We welcome your interest.?18
They never did issue any public condemnation of this Zionist extremist, Rehavam Zeevi, who expressed intolerance and hate toward Arabs. Yet, they label Bradley Smith?a man who never referred to any ethnic group as ?lice? and a ?cancer? and has never advocated the forcible expulsion of any ethnic groups from anywhere?an ?extremist.?
That ADL ?moral judgments? vis-à-vis political extremism are riddled with a hypocritical double standard should be readily apparent. They believe that it is ?evil and immoral? to contest the Holocaust ideology. Apparently, however, it is somehow ?morally excusable? for Jewish-Zionists to spew forth intolerance and hate about non-Jews. <
Two experts on political extremism, John George and Laird Wilcox, have noted that one characteristic of an extremist is that he/she promotes double standards and feels no guilt for so doing.19 As we have shown here, the ADL applies a hypocritical double standard in regard to Jews and non-Jews when they employ the label of extremist. They appear to have no guilt for so doing. Thus, the charge of ?extremism? hurls right back at them.
In a spirit of fair play, the ADL was given the opportunity to review this essay prior to publication. They were informed that any errors or false statements that they point out would be corrected.20 They did not respond.
NOTES
1. See ?Extremism in America: Introduction,? online: [small]www.adl.org/learn/Ext_US/default.asp[/small]
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Norman G. Finkelstein, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (Verso, 2000), p.3.
6. See Richard J. Evans, Lying about Hitler: History, Holocaust, and the David Irving Trial(Basic Books, 2001), p.262.
7. ?The Holocaust Story in the Crossfire: The Weber-Shermer Holocaust Debate,? quality VHS color video, $21.95 postpaid (CA sales tax $1.55), add $1.00 for foreign shipping, available from INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL REVIEW, P.O. Box 2739, Newport Beach, CA 92659.
8. This motto in on the ADL homepage. Online: [small]http://www.adl.org[/small]
9. See Cleveland Jewish News, November 22, 1991.
10. Ibid.
11. Cleveland Jewish News, November 8, 1991, p.12.
12. Religious News Service dispatch of November 27, 1991, published in Christian News, December 9, 1991, p.16.
13. Houston Chronicle, December 19, 1991.
14. Christian News, December 9, 1991, p.16.
15. ?Israel Minister Makes Palestinian Slur,? Associated Press report, July 2, 2001. Online: [small]http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/2001070 ... lur_l.html[/small]
16. Ibid.
17. Two e-mails were sent to the ADL at webmaster@adl.org. Printouts in possession Paul Grubach.
18. E-mail from ADL. Printout in possession of Paul Grubach.
19. See Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (University of California Press, 2000), p.88.
20. E-mail from Paul Grubach to webmaster@adl.org. Printout in possession of Paul Grubach.
© Copyright 2001, Paul Grubach[/justify]
Last edited by Dejuificator II on Mon Oct 14, 2013 8:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Nous serons toujours là.
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Dejuificator II
- Erudit
- Posts: 552
- Joined: Thu Mar 03, 2011 9:47 pm
[justify][large]A Victory Against Hate[/large]
Source: The New American | Vol. 16, No. 13 | June 19, 2000
A Victory Against Hate
by David Eisenberg[/justify]
[justify]The ADL?s Foxman
The Jewish Anti-Defamation League?s power and prosperity depend upon an increase in anti-Jewish feelings among Americans, thus it has no scruples about both committing and provoking acts of religious bigotry.
Mr. Eisenberg, a retired aeronautical engineer, is a member of the National Council of The John Birch Society.
Shortly after Pope John Paul II conducted a ?Liturgy of Forgiveness? last March, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), attacked the Catholic Church by accusing the pope of ignoring ?specific Catholic wrongs against the Jewish people, especially the Holocaust.? Foxman?s statement was an astonishing denigration of the Catholic Church, which was recognized as an enemy by the pagan National Socialist (Nazi) regime and which saved hundreds of thousands of Jews during World War II.
While it may strike uninformed Americans as peculiar that an organization supposedly committed to fighting defamation would conspicuously disparage the Catholic Church, this incident makes perfect sense once it is understood that the ADL?s power and prosperity depend upon an increase in anti-Jewish feelings among Americans ? and the organization?s public vilification of the Catholic Church is sure to provoke just that sort of hostility.
ADL?s Bluff Is Called
The ADL has played this game for decades, but a court decision in Colorado indicates that the price of playing that game just went up. On April 28th, a jury found that the ADL had publicly defamed William and Dorothy Quigley and awarded the plaintiffs $10.5 million in damages. The ADL had accused the Quigleys of mounting an anti-Semitic campaign against Mitchell and Candace Aronson, their neighbors in Evergreen, Colorado. In a December 1994 press conference, ADL spokesman Saul Rosenthal denounced the Quigleys for threatening to burn a cross on the Aronsons? property and to douse their child with a flammable liquid. The jury in the Quigleys? suit found that Rosenthal?s statements were false and therefore defamatory.
But the suffering caused the Quigleys by the ADL was not limited to defamation. The day after the ADL?s press conference, the Quigleys, who had already been hit with an ADL-instigated civil lawsuit, were arrested and charged with ethnic harassment ? a felony. The basis for the felony charges was a tape recording of cell phone conversations in which the Quigleys expressed their hostility toward the Aronsons in ways that, according to the ADL, evinced anti-Semitism. The local print and electronic media took up the story, ruining the Quigleys? reputation and provoking death threats against them.
Upon examining the ADL?s ?evidence,? however, Jefferson County District Attorney Jay Thomas concluded that the Quigleys? ?intent was not racially and ethnically motivated.? Describing the incident as ?a neighborhood dispute,? Thomas concluded, ?we have an obligation, ethically, to drop the charges.? In addition, the Aronsons admitted that they had illegally taped the phone conversations, using a police scanner ? with the encouragement of an ADL attorney. Eventually, the Aronsons filed suit against their ADL-connected attorney, accusing him of pursuing the organization?s interests rather than those of his clients.
Patterns of Attack
The original dispute between the Quigleys and the Aronsons involved petty issues that, in all likelihood, could have been worked out between the feuding neighbors. It was the intrusion of the ADL that prevented civility from breaking out in that Colorado neighborhood. The $10.5 million judgment against the ADL ? reportedly an amount equivalent to nearly one quarter of the group?s worldwide operating budget ? indicates that the organization, at long last, is being held accountable. ?I will say this: thank God for the jury system,? exulted the Quigleys? attorney, Jay Horowitz.
The most remarkable aspect of this case is that it illustrates, in miniature, how the ADL has operated for decades. Wherever possible, acting under the guise of battling ?hatred? and ?intolerance,? the group has vilified honorable people as ?bigots? by defining ?bigotry? in the most expansive and dishonest terms (essentially, for the ADL ?bigot? and ?conservative? are synonyms). Although, thankfully, anti-Semitism has not been a significant social problem for decades in the United States, the ADL has cynically preyed upon the fears of American Jews, many of whom have family histories written in the innocent blood of those who perished from persecution. And, as Foxman?s unprovoked attack on the Catholic Church illustrates, the ADL has no scruples about committing, and provoking, acts of religious bigotry.
In 1994 ? shortly before the Quigleys? ordeal began ? the ADL published a 193-page smear entitled The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America. Cast in the same mold as earlier ADL screeds such as Danger on the Right (1964) and The Radical Right: Report on the John Birch Society and Its Allies (1967), the 1994 ADL report was designed as a resource for left-wing columnists, editors, academics, and policy makers ? anyone looking for a handy sound-bite that links principled American conservatives with Nazis, Klansmen, and other genuine practitioners of bigotry.
Not content to besmirch conservative American Christians, the ADL banished its former southwest regional director, Gary Polland, after Polland condemned the Religious Right report. Polland was among the 75 notable Jewish Americans who signed a full-page paid advertisement in the August 2, 1994 New York Times criticizing the ADL for ?engaging in defamation of its own? against the ?religious right.? The ad pointed out that since Jews have too often been on the receiving end of religious bigotry, ?we have a special obligation to guard against it, and all the more so when in the case of the ADL attack on our Christian fellow citizens, it emanates from our own community.?
Mark this well: The ADL cast Gary Polland from its ranks because he took a principled stand against religious prejudice. ?After much agonizing I signed the ad because the message needed to be sent,? Polland explained in a letter to ADL members. ?The ad informs the Christian community that there are prominent Jewish Americans who reject the [ADL] report ? and regret the publication of such an inaccurate and poorly-researched report.? Polland learned, much to his dismay, that there was no room in the ADL?s leadership for someone who opposes religious bigotry in principle, rather than employing the charge of bigotry as a weapon against honorable conservatives.
Following the ADL?s attack on the John Birch Society in 1967, I and many other Jewish members of the John Birch Society participated in the Conference of Jewish Conservatives in Chicago. From that meeting came an organization called The Jewish Right, through which we sought to help Jewish Americans understand the truth about the JBS and the conspiratorial forces the Society was created to expose. We also sought to help patriotic Christians understand that they had millions of potential allies among patriotic Jews who seek to save our Bible-based civilization from the conspiratorial threat to everything we hold dear.
The late Rabbi Chaim Etner (of blessed memory), who was the advisor to The Jewish Right, lamented that for the ADL and its allied left-wing Jewish groups, ?Dishonesty is accepted as a kind of political license. This cannot have any place in Jewish politics, as Jewish politics must be based on principles of Jewish law. The weapons used can only be [those] which are in harmony with Jewish ethics and Jewish standards according to Jewish tradition of many millennia.? The ADL and similar left-wing groups, while posing as protectors of Jewish tradition, are ?in many instances ? anti-Jewish and dangerous to the Jewish cause,? argued Rabbi Etner, not only because of the dishonesty involved but also because of the way in which such left-wing groups engender hostility against the Jewish community they presume to represent.
Divisive Influence
As collectivists, the ADL and similar groups want to delude people into defining their enemies in collectivist terms ? that is, to regard ?the Jews,? or ?the Christians,? or some other group, as the enemy. The John Birch Society has always understood that enemies of freedom are defined by their actions, not their racial or religious identity. In a 1969 address entitled ?If You Want It Straight,? Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society, referred to the ?use of hatred as a tool of the [Communist] revolution,? particularly the ?building up and exploitation of the ? potential bitterness and distrust between Christians and Jews.?
?For more than a hundred years, the Communists have done everything possible to revive and increase this source of hatred which was actually dying out during the 19th century,? continued Mr. Welch. Has this been the case with the Anti-Defamation League? It seems to have created its own ?hate groups? where none were available. Consider the career of ?Jim Anderson,? the alleged leader of a paramilitary group called the ?Christian Patriot?s Defense League.? Anderson was featured in a 1981 television documentary called ?Armies of the Right.? As researcher Laird Wilcox reports in his recent study The Watchdogs, ??Jim Anderson? was no less than James Mitchel Rosenberg, an agent for the ADL?.? Along with another ADL plant, Rosenberg was arrested in New York City in October 1981 for carrying an unregistered rifle in public view. The two ADL agents, Wilcox observes, had been ?posing as paramilitary extremists for a photographic fabrication exaggerating the threat from the far right.?
We should also remember the case of Roy Bullock, an ADL operative in San Francisco who had illegally compiled an extensive ADL ?enemies list? with the help of a police intelligence officer named Tom Gerard. An investigation into Bullock?s spy activities revealed, in the words of the San Francisco Examiner, that the ADL has a network of ?undercover operatives throughout the nation?.? Foxman responded to these revelations in characteristic fashion, denouncing critics of the organization as ?anti-Semitic, undemocratic, and anti-American b*****ds.? Abusive arrogance of this type, of course, will help feed antagonism between Jewish and non-Jewish Americans ? which, in turn, means more business for the ADL. Tragically, it also helps keep Americans divided and thereby advances the long-term designs of the enemies of liberty.
Urging that the $10.5 million defamation judgment against the ADL be set aside, Barry Curtiss-Lusher, the group?s Mountain States chairman, sanctimoniously insisted: ?It?s quite important that the Anti-Defamation League continue to pursue its mission and fight racism, bigotry, hatred, including anti-Semitism.? Curtiss-Lusher?s description of the ADL?s ?mission? is selective: The ADL ?fights? bigotry in the same sense that a fireman who moonlights as an arsonist ?fights? fires.[/justify]
Source: The New American | Vol. 16, No. 13 | June 19, 2000
A Victory Against Hate
by David Eisenberg[/justify]
[justify]The ADL?s FoxmanThe Jewish Anti-Defamation League?s power and prosperity depend upon an increase in anti-Jewish feelings among Americans, thus it has no scruples about both committing and provoking acts of religious bigotry.
Mr. Eisenberg, a retired aeronautical engineer, is a member of the National Council of The John Birch Society.
Shortly after Pope John Paul II conducted a ?Liturgy of Forgiveness? last March, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), attacked the Catholic Church by accusing the pope of ignoring ?specific Catholic wrongs against the Jewish people, especially the Holocaust.? Foxman?s statement was an astonishing denigration of the Catholic Church, which was recognized as an enemy by the pagan National Socialist (Nazi) regime and which saved hundreds of thousands of Jews during World War II.
While it may strike uninformed Americans as peculiar that an organization supposedly committed to fighting defamation would conspicuously disparage the Catholic Church, this incident makes perfect sense once it is understood that the ADL?s power and prosperity depend upon an increase in anti-Jewish feelings among Americans ? and the organization?s public vilification of the Catholic Church is sure to provoke just that sort of hostility.
ADL?s Bluff Is Called
The ADL has played this game for decades, but a court decision in Colorado indicates that the price of playing that game just went up. On April 28th, a jury found that the ADL had publicly defamed William and Dorothy Quigley and awarded the plaintiffs $10.5 million in damages. The ADL had accused the Quigleys of mounting an anti-Semitic campaign against Mitchell and Candace Aronson, their neighbors in Evergreen, Colorado. In a December 1994 press conference, ADL spokesman Saul Rosenthal denounced the Quigleys for threatening to burn a cross on the Aronsons? property and to douse their child with a flammable liquid. The jury in the Quigleys? suit found that Rosenthal?s statements were false and therefore defamatory.
But the suffering caused the Quigleys by the ADL was not limited to defamation. The day after the ADL?s press conference, the Quigleys, who had already been hit with an ADL-instigated civil lawsuit, were arrested and charged with ethnic harassment ? a felony. The basis for the felony charges was a tape recording of cell phone conversations in which the Quigleys expressed their hostility toward the Aronsons in ways that, according to the ADL, evinced anti-Semitism. The local print and electronic media took up the story, ruining the Quigleys? reputation and provoking death threats against them.
Upon examining the ADL?s ?evidence,? however, Jefferson County District Attorney Jay Thomas concluded that the Quigleys? ?intent was not racially and ethnically motivated.? Describing the incident as ?a neighborhood dispute,? Thomas concluded, ?we have an obligation, ethically, to drop the charges.? In addition, the Aronsons admitted that they had illegally taped the phone conversations, using a police scanner ? with the encouragement of an ADL attorney. Eventually, the Aronsons filed suit against their ADL-connected attorney, accusing him of pursuing the organization?s interests rather than those of his clients.
Patterns of Attack
The original dispute between the Quigleys and the Aronsons involved petty issues that, in all likelihood, could have been worked out between the feuding neighbors. It was the intrusion of the ADL that prevented civility from breaking out in that Colorado neighborhood. The $10.5 million judgment against the ADL ? reportedly an amount equivalent to nearly one quarter of the group?s worldwide operating budget ? indicates that the organization, at long last, is being held accountable. ?I will say this: thank God for the jury system,? exulted the Quigleys? attorney, Jay Horowitz.
The most remarkable aspect of this case is that it illustrates, in miniature, how the ADL has operated for decades. Wherever possible, acting under the guise of battling ?hatred? and ?intolerance,? the group has vilified honorable people as ?bigots? by defining ?bigotry? in the most expansive and dishonest terms (essentially, for the ADL ?bigot? and ?conservative? are synonyms). Although, thankfully, anti-Semitism has not been a significant social problem for decades in the United States, the ADL has cynically preyed upon the fears of American Jews, many of whom have family histories written in the innocent blood of those who perished from persecution. And, as Foxman?s unprovoked attack on the Catholic Church illustrates, the ADL has no scruples about committing, and provoking, acts of religious bigotry.
In 1994 ? shortly before the Quigleys? ordeal began ? the ADL published a 193-page smear entitled The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America. Cast in the same mold as earlier ADL screeds such as Danger on the Right (1964) and The Radical Right: Report on the John Birch Society and Its Allies (1967), the 1994 ADL report was designed as a resource for left-wing columnists, editors, academics, and policy makers ? anyone looking for a handy sound-bite that links principled American conservatives with Nazis, Klansmen, and other genuine practitioners of bigotry.
Not content to besmirch conservative American Christians, the ADL banished its former southwest regional director, Gary Polland, after Polland condemned the Religious Right report. Polland was among the 75 notable Jewish Americans who signed a full-page paid advertisement in the August 2, 1994 New York Times criticizing the ADL for ?engaging in defamation of its own? against the ?religious right.? The ad pointed out that since Jews have too often been on the receiving end of religious bigotry, ?we have a special obligation to guard against it, and all the more so when in the case of the ADL attack on our Christian fellow citizens, it emanates from our own community.?
Mark this well: The ADL cast Gary Polland from its ranks because he took a principled stand against religious prejudice. ?After much agonizing I signed the ad because the message needed to be sent,? Polland explained in a letter to ADL members. ?The ad informs the Christian community that there are prominent Jewish Americans who reject the [ADL] report ? and regret the publication of such an inaccurate and poorly-researched report.? Polland learned, much to his dismay, that there was no room in the ADL?s leadership for someone who opposes religious bigotry in principle, rather than employing the charge of bigotry as a weapon against honorable conservatives.
Following the ADL?s attack on the John Birch Society in 1967, I and many other Jewish members of the John Birch Society participated in the Conference of Jewish Conservatives in Chicago. From that meeting came an organization called The Jewish Right, through which we sought to help Jewish Americans understand the truth about the JBS and the conspiratorial forces the Society was created to expose. We also sought to help patriotic Christians understand that they had millions of potential allies among patriotic Jews who seek to save our Bible-based civilization from the conspiratorial threat to everything we hold dear.
The late Rabbi Chaim Etner (of blessed memory), who was the advisor to The Jewish Right, lamented that for the ADL and its allied left-wing Jewish groups, ?Dishonesty is accepted as a kind of political license. This cannot have any place in Jewish politics, as Jewish politics must be based on principles of Jewish law. The weapons used can only be [those] which are in harmony with Jewish ethics and Jewish standards according to Jewish tradition of many millennia.? The ADL and similar left-wing groups, while posing as protectors of Jewish tradition, are ?in many instances ? anti-Jewish and dangerous to the Jewish cause,? argued Rabbi Etner, not only because of the dishonesty involved but also because of the way in which such left-wing groups engender hostility against the Jewish community they presume to represent.
Divisive Influence
As collectivists, the ADL and similar groups want to delude people into defining their enemies in collectivist terms ? that is, to regard ?the Jews,? or ?the Christians,? or some other group, as the enemy. The John Birch Society has always understood that enemies of freedom are defined by their actions, not their racial or religious identity. In a 1969 address entitled ?If You Want It Straight,? Robert Welch, the founder of the John Birch Society, referred to the ?use of hatred as a tool of the [Communist] revolution,? particularly the ?building up and exploitation of the ? potential bitterness and distrust between Christians and Jews.?
?For more than a hundred years, the Communists have done everything possible to revive and increase this source of hatred which was actually dying out during the 19th century,? continued Mr. Welch. Has this been the case with the Anti-Defamation League? It seems to have created its own ?hate groups? where none were available. Consider the career of ?Jim Anderson,? the alleged leader of a paramilitary group called the ?Christian Patriot?s Defense League.? Anderson was featured in a 1981 television documentary called ?Armies of the Right.? As researcher Laird Wilcox reports in his recent study The Watchdogs, ??Jim Anderson? was no less than James Mitchel Rosenberg, an agent for the ADL?.? Along with another ADL plant, Rosenberg was arrested in New York City in October 1981 for carrying an unregistered rifle in public view. The two ADL agents, Wilcox observes, had been ?posing as paramilitary extremists for a photographic fabrication exaggerating the threat from the far right.?
We should also remember the case of Roy Bullock, an ADL operative in San Francisco who had illegally compiled an extensive ADL ?enemies list? with the help of a police intelligence officer named Tom Gerard. An investigation into Bullock?s spy activities revealed, in the words of the San Francisco Examiner, that the ADL has a network of ?undercover operatives throughout the nation?.? Foxman responded to these revelations in characteristic fashion, denouncing critics of the organization as ?anti-Semitic, undemocratic, and anti-American b*****ds.? Abusive arrogance of this type, of course, will help feed antagonism between Jewish and non-Jewish Americans ? which, in turn, means more business for the ADL. Tragically, it also helps keep Americans divided and thereby advances the long-term designs of the enemies of liberty.
Urging that the $10.5 million defamation judgment against the ADL be set aside, Barry Curtiss-Lusher, the group?s Mountain States chairman, sanctimoniously insisted: ?It?s quite important that the Anti-Defamation League continue to pursue its mission and fight racism, bigotry, hatred, including anti-Semitism.? Curtiss-Lusher?s description of the ADL?s ?mission? is selective: The ADL ?fights? bigotry in the same sense that a fireman who moonlights as an arsonist ?fights? fires.[/justify]
Nous serons toujours là.