Jeffrey Wiesenfeld: CUNY's pro-Israel 'enforcer'

New York City’s incendiary Jewish politics just heated up to the boiling point again.  Those who’ve read this blog for a while, will recall a nasty bunch called Stop the Madrassa which disseminated vile smears of Debbie Almontaser and the Khalil Gibran Academy, which was to be the first Arab-language public school in New York.  This is my own progressive version of David Horowitz’s Discover the Networks: the two main leaders of the anti-Arab group were Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a right-wing Republican operative with the Pataki political machine and David Yerushalmi, the guy whose views are so right-wing that Mother Jones, the Forward, and I have all called him various versions of a Jewish white supremacist.

Well, Wiesenfeld has just struck again.  He’s a CUNY trustee, no doubt appointed to the job during George Pataki’s governorship (gee, aren’t ya glad he’s not there to kick around any more?).  If you look at his picture, he looks more like Tony Soprano in a suit than a college trustee.

When the political hatchet man discovered that John Jay College planned to bestow an honorary doctorate on one of America’s greatest living playwrights, he broke out the poison and single-handedly torpedoed the degree ceremony.  After the lies and vitriol he spilled about Kushner, only 7 of the 9 needed trustees would support the motion and Kushner’s degree was killed.

As a result, CUNY now looks like a political battlefield and stifler of free speech, instead of one of the biggest and best urban university systems in the nation.  Students and faculty are rightfully enraged.  Never before in CUNY’s history has an individual campus’ honorary degree candidate been axed.

Here are some of the things Wieselfeld dredged up.  Note, he was too lazy even to read a book like Wrestling With Zion, which Kushner co-edited.  Instead, he used the sleazy research tactic of ferreting out information from a second-hand source.  Imagine, this is a trustee of New York City’s higher education authority and he can’t even portray someone’s ideas accurately:

Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, objected to John Jay College’s submission of Mr. Kushner for an honorary degree. Mr. Wiesenfeld described viewpoints and comments, which he ascribed to Mr. Kushner, that he had found on the Web site of Norman Finkelstein, a political scientist and critic of Israel.

Mr. Wiesenfeld, an investment adviser and onetime aide to former Gov. George E. Pataki and former Senator Alfonse M. D’Amato, said that Mr. Kushner had tied the founding of Israel to a policy of ethnic cleansing, criticized the Israel Defense Forces and supported a boycott of Israel.

“I think it’s up to all of us to look at fairness and consider these things,” Mr. Wiesenfeld said. “Especially when the State of Israel, which is our sole democratic ally in the area, sits in the neighborhood which is almost universally dominated by administrations which are almost universally misogynist, antigay, anti-Christian.”

Kushner, in his defense, notes that even many Israeli historians call the Nakba a clear case of “ethnic cleansing.”  And last I checked there was nothing unpatriotic about criticizing the IDF and I can’t believe that CUNY has regulations prohibiting the awarding of honorary degrees to playwrights who criticize Israel’s army.  Oh, and among Kushner’s other sins is that he’s on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace.  Imagine that: making common cause with Israel’s delegitimzers!  I’ve got news for Wiesenfeld–the only person delegitimzing Israel is him.  Who can think of Israel as entirely legitimate when it has hatchet men like the Big Guy doing its bidding?

Here is an excerpt from Kushner’s message to the CUNY board in which he explains his views on the subject:

I won’t enter into arguments about Israeli policy towards the Palestinian people since 1948, about the security fence or the conduct of the IDF, except to say that my feelings and opinions – my outrage, my grief, my terror, my moments of despair – regarding the ongoing horror in the middle east, the brunt of which has been born by the Palestinian people, but which has also cost Israelis dearly and which endangers their existence, are shared by many Jews, in Israel, in the US and around the world. My despair is kept in check by my ongoing belief in, and commitment to a negotiated conclusion to the Palestinian-Israeli crisis…

Kushner also says that he does not support a boycott of Israel.  So there you have it.  You have a CUNY trustee who’s a flagrant liar, Islamophobe, and left-baiter.

Here is a partial list of the esteemed playwright’s honors:

“Recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, an Emmy Award, two Tony Awards, three Obie Awards, an Oscar nomination, an Arts Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the PEN/Laura Pels Award for a Mid-Career Playwright, a Spirit of Justice Award from the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, and a Cultural Achievement Award from The National Foundation for Jewish Culture…

How many such honors does Wiesenfeld have?  The NY Daily News gave him the Knucklehead of the Year Award.  But I gather that’s not the kind the Big Guy would prefer us to be linked to.

Andrew Cuomo, you’ve got a problem.  If Wiesenfeld was Pataki’s appointee I’d say you have some sway over him since you’re now the governor.  Better get that dog to heel before he rips somebody else’s guts out.

Read Kushner’s letter to the CUNY board.  I find it both shocking and disgusting that Dr. Benno Schmidt, a former president of Yale, is the chair of CUNY’s board of trustees and thus bears at least partial responsibility for this fiasco.  Is this the way you did things when you were in New Haven, Prof. Schmidt?

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Anti-Muslim crusaders Frank Gaffney, Nonie Darwish and David Yerushalmi were shut out of Rep. Peter King’s recent Congressional hearings on alleged Islamic extremism.  But like a Jack in the Box, no sooner are they squashed than they rear their ugly heads once again.

N.Y. state senator Gregory Ball, a Republican representing that den of Muslim terror, rural Putnam County, took a page out of King’s book by alerting the unsuspecting citizens of the Empire State of the fifth column within.

Gaffney and the gang have once again insinuated themselves into the political mainstream by offering Sen. Ball their “expertise” on the subject.  And he’s swallowed it hook, line and sinker.  If he’s not careful it could bite him, as King’s initial embrace of Gaffney did.  The former ended up renouncing Gaffney in a spat that heard around the world…or at least the anti-jihadi blogosphere.

In the ultimate irony, before the hearing Ball counterattacked claiming that criticism of his witnesses was:

“Just an attempt by some to drum up national publicity.”

At today’s hearing he pandered on a similar issue:

…“There are some who are more concerned about the front-page press than today,” Mr. Ball said. “I understand politics. But we cannot allow our homeland security to become a political football.”

Obscure rural politicians never attempt to drum up state-wide or national publicity by holding hearings on non-existent problems, do they?  And they’re certainly not concerned about front page press.  And kicking Muslims in the gut is certainly not political, not at all.

One of the stars of the proceedings was the notorious Mr. King himself who made this typically two-faced statement both exonerating and blaming Muslims for terror in practically the same breath:

Mr. King prefaced his comments by noting that “99 percent” of Muslims in the United States are “outstanding Americans” and not terrorists.

“But the fact is: The enemy, or those being recruited by Al Qaeda, live within the Muslim community, and that’s the reality we have to face,” Mr. King said. “This is not to put a broad brush over a community, but you go where the threat is coming from, and that’s the reality today.”

I’ve already reported here that Gaffney’s ‘Roy Cohn,’ David Yerushalmi, who is general counsel of the former’s Center for National Security, received a failing report card from the ADL, which labelled him an extremist and compared his views to that of the white supremacist New World Order.

But I just learned the even more startling news that during the Stop the Madrassa campaign led in part by Yerushalmi, he sued Debbie Almontaser for defamation.  She told me that she had accused Yerushalmi and his shrill collaborators of stalking her.  The crack lawyer not only lost his suit, but he lost the appeal and Almontaser emerged vindicated and victorious.

Again, this an example of the concept of lawfare, a term used by  pro-Israel advocates to smear legitimate attempts to hold Israeli leaders accountable for violations of international law.  Except here Yerushalmi turns the concept on its head to harass his opponents.  I recently received a dose of this with a threat of a lawsuit from him, which he subsequently withdrew.

NOTE: I’ve been a bit distracted from the blog this week because I was defending a libel lawsuit in Los Angeles.   More news after the judge renders her decision.

Debbie Almontaser pictured in 2007, before her removal as Khalil Gribran Academy principal (Liz O. Baylen/NYT)

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the New York City Department of Education (DOC) discriminated against Debbie Almontaser, founding principal of the Khalil Gibran Academy, the City’s first Arab-language public school, when they removed her from her position. Readers of this blog may recall a ferocious campaign waged by Jewish neocons and Islamophobes like Daniel Pipes, David Yerushalmi, the N.Y. Post, and Stop the Madrasa against the school and Almontaser personally.

Matters came to a head when Almontaser was smeared over a T-shirt displaying the word “Intifada.”  Her opponents made her out to be a supporter of Islamism and armed resistance because she explained the Arabic meaning of the word to a reporter, while not denouncing it sufficiently.  When Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein dropped her like a hot potato, her days were numbered.  After her forced resignation, she sued and lost.  Then she filed a claim with EEOC for discrimination.  The N.Y. Times reports on the finding:

A federal commission has determined that New York City’s Department of Education discriminated against the founding principal of an Arabic-language public school by forcing her to resign in 2007 following a storm of controversy driven by opponents of the school.

Acting on a complaint filed last year by the principal, Debbie Almontaser, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that the department “succumbed to the very bias that creation of the school was intended to dispel and a small segment of the public succeeded in imposing its prejudices on D.O.E. as an employer,” according to a letter issued by the commission on Tuesday.

The commission said that the department had discriminated against Ms. Almontaser, a Muslim of Yemeni descent, “on account of her race, religion and national origin.”

This is a great deal for civil rights in New York and in America. It is a day that Arab-Americans can be proud. It is a day when all Americans should be proud. Debbie Almontaser turned to the federal government for redress and it did what it could to make her whole.

This is a day when Muslim-haters like Norman Podhoretz and his friends I mentioned above should hide their heads in shame (though they will shake their fists in defiance instead). Their bullying has been shown for what it is: un-American, unfair, unjust. We are better than the haters in Stop the Madrasa. The democratic system worked.

My chief regret is that the political leadership of New York and the Jewish communal leadership were cowards and turned tail at the first sign of trouble. Instead of standing up to the ranters, Bloomberg folded at the earliest opportunity. The New York Jewish federation, after allowing Rabbi Michael Paley to represent it in the fight on behalf of the Academy, forced him to shut up. I was never able to determine who specifically made this decision–whether it was an executive decision by CEO Jon Ruskay or a lay decision influenced by a wealthy neocon board member like James Tisch. Whoever made the decision betrayed the courage necessary for true leadership. Instead of speaking out and doing the right thing, they let Daniel Pipes present the Jewish community’s position by default.

The EEOC called on New York City to do the right thing:

The commission asked the Department of Education to reach a “just resolution” with Ms. Almontaser and to consider her demands, which include reinstatement to her old job, back pay, damages of $300,000 and legal fees. Should the two sides fail to reach an agreement, the dispute will end up in court, her lawyer said.

Instead of hearing the message, the City’s attorney said his client would fight Ms. Almontaser every step of the way.  They still haven’t gotten the message.  I only hope that cooler heads will prevail.  The former principal was wronged and deserves her job back and the chance to lead this school.  That’s what’s fair.  That’s what’s American.

I do take issue with one statement in this report:

Despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a moderate Muslim, her critics succeeded in recasting her as a “9/11 denier” and a “jihadist.”

This is very sloppy writing and editing.  Her critics did NOT succeed in recasting her as any of those things.  But the mud flung by the Islamophobes resonated in certain quarters (like the pages of the Post) and her employer hung her out to dry.  There was never ANY truth to any of the claims against Almontaser.  They were all lies.  So in that sense her critics could not have succeeded in any objective sense in labeling her.  But they waged a vitriolic racist campaign which the DOE and city refused to counteract.  Rather than fight, they folded.

In its criticism of the City’s actions, the Commission found that Almontaser had said nor done anything related to the T-shirt incident that warranted her removal:

It was The Post’s article, the commission wrote in its letter this week, that prompted the Department of Education to force Ms. Almontaser to resign. (City officials have said that she resigned voluntarily.)

“Significantly, it was not her actual remarks, but their elaboration by the reporter — creating waves of explicit anti-Muslim bias from several extremist sources — that caused D.O.E. to act,” the commission’s letter said.

I’m delighted that the EEOC pointedly noted the nasty role playing by Pipes and STM and labelled them “extremist.”

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Matt Duss notes a Washington Independent report that Arlen Specter will deliver the opening address to a right-wing anti-Muslim conference hosted by Daniel Pipes Middle East Forum:

A coalition of conservative legal groups will host a “Libel Lawfare: Silencing Criticism of Radical Islam,” a conference on how “Islamist lawfare” is imperiling free speech in America. Confirmed speakers include neoconservative foreign policy guru Frank Gaffney, lawyer Andrew C. McCarthy (who turned down an invitation to a White House counterterrorism conference to protest administration policy), Islam critic David Pipes, and… Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), who will give the opening speech.

Not to mention Big Al Dershowitz, king of Islamophobes, who’ll be there in all his glory.  What in God’s name is Specter, a newly minted Democrat, doing in such wingnutty company?  In case you doubt that adjective, here is the conference agenda:

Islamists have launched a two-pronged effort to suppress free discourse on such subjects as Islam, radical Islam, terrorism, and terrorist funding:

* By filing predatory lawsuits.
* By passing “hate speech” and defamation laws.

Victims of these “lawfare” attacks have included the famous and the obscure, politicians, journalists, analysts and plain citizens.

This inhibition has great consequences, for when discussion of Islam and terrorism are limited, radical Islam is empowered and Western civilization is imperiled.

Issues to be discussed…include: A close analysis of Islamist methods; the possible need for legislation to protect free speech on these topics; a comparison of the situation in Europe and the United States; and ways to prevent the United Nations from curtailing discussion of Islam.

There are many remarkable notions in this bill of attainder. First, the notion of a vast Muslim-wing conspiracy to destroy the Jewish neocon right. Second, a massive operation to impose Islamic will on the west. Third, a campaign to destroy constitutional rights.  Among Pipes’ stranger, more paranoiac notions is the existence of a shadowy campaign to impose Sharia law on U.S. society.

What I find ironic in all this is the hypocritical approach to the notion of what they call “lawfare.” First, the fact that Pipesians themselves use intimidation, lawsuits, and smear campaigns against their Jewish and Muslim opponents in precisely the same way they claim Muslims do against them.

Just as an example, two members of the Stop the Madrasa campaign which led to the firing of the New York City public school principal because she was an outspoken Muslim, filed suit against her for allegedly defaming them. Rachel Neuwirth, another Pipesian, has also filed suit against me for libel for calling her a “Kahanist swine” here in this blog. I could go on and on with other examples, but you get the message. Apparently, free speech and other constitutional rights only extend to people who agree with the Islamophobes.  Others need not apply.

Below, you’ll find a perfect distillation of the Pipes’ and the Islamophobic right’s bogus methods of political analysis:

[Gaffney's] Center for Security Policy [published], The Rise of the Iran Lobby, which claimed that “a complex network of individuals and organizations with ties to the clerical regime in Tehran is pressing forward in seeming synchrony to influence the new U.S. administration’s policy towards the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Among those listed as part of the “network” were Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice, Ambassador Dennis Ross, Council on Foreign Relations Committee president Richard Haas, and the Center for a New American Security, simply by virtue of the fact that “the foreign policy positions of [CNAS's] affiliates correspond strongly to the preferred policy positions of Tehran’s mullahs.”

Ellison, Ross and others are “tied” to the Iran lobby and the regime not because of any actual evidence, but because their views allegedly “correspond strongly” to the alleged views of the mullahs. No proof provided. All smear, all the time.

In addition, this tactic of turning your opponents legitimate claims back against them is tried and true psy ops strategy. For those of us who embrace the notion that the Israel lobby exerts a noxious influence on U.S. policy, Gaffney has just attempted to turn the tables. Unlike our analysis of the Israel lobby, he has absolutely no evidence that there is any such thing as an “Iran lobby.” No organizations, no personnel, no secret meetings of the cabal. This is a “wing and a prayer” tactic meant to throw the other side on the defensive.

I would also note that I’ve reported that the Israeli embassy has been closely monitoring the schedule, views and activities of Rep. Ellison and others, as potential opponents of Israel’s interests. So what better way for the Pipesians to deflect this unsavory news than claim that Ellison is a card-carrying member of the Iran lobby?

I hope that Pennsylvanians and Pennsylvania bloggers will pick up on Specter’s involvement with this execrable anti-Muslim project and warn him away from making such a political blunder.  Arlen, you’ve made common cause with a bunch of Jewish loonies.  Someone should stop you before you hurt yourself.  I know you’re a tired old geezer  who’s lost his way politically and otherwise, but that’s no excuse.  And man, do the Democrats have some soul-searching to do about embracing this exemplar of self-righteousness, self-interest, and self-absorption.

One name I half expected to see on the speaker list (and am disappointed not to see) is Jewish fascist David Yerushalmi, who also played a leading role in Stop the Madrasa and has championed the idea of establishing concentration camps on U.S. soil for American-Muslim undesirables (among other things).  And where’s Joe Lieberman?  He and Specter are practically Islamophobic blood brothers.

One of the constant themes repeated ad nauseum by right-wing Islamophobes like Daniel Pipes, Alan Dershowitz and their supporters is that Muslims are uniformly extremists filled with hate. There are no “Muslim moderates.” No imams denounce terror. They all support Al Qaeda, etc. etc.

Walter Ruby in Jewish Week brings yet further evidence of the utter falsity of such claims. He writes about the new interim imam of New York City’s largest and most influential mosque, the Islamic Cultural Center, the Indonesian-born Mohammed Shamsi Ali. The interview with him is wide-ranging, candid and impressive:

[He] declared in a dialogue with Rabbi Schneier at the New York Synagogue earlier this month that it “cannot be accepted to deny the existence of Israel” or to deny the Holocaust. Appearing last week at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Imam Ali delivered a special sermon during Mincha services in which he urged Jews and Muslims to revisit “problematic” passages in the Koran and Torah. Those passages buttress bellicose stances against other religions by understanding them as having been written in earlier times, and not necessarily relevant to today’s world.

Imam Ali also urged his listeners to “look beyond what is presented in the media” about Jewish-Muslim relations in order to create “real connections” based on trust and affection. “Once you get to know Muslims,” he said, “you will ask them, ‘Are you really the people I see portrayed [negatively] on Fox News?’”

Key Muslim leaders in New York praise the Indonesian-born Ali as a charismatic and compassionate leader whose embrace of interfaith dialogue represents “mainstream” opinion within the Muslim community.

It is sad, but somehow reassuring that those in both the Muslim and Jewish communities who reach out to the other side are rebuffed by their respective extremist right fringes:

A shadowy Queens-based militant group known as the Islamic Thinkers Society has attacked Imam Ali on its Web site as an “FBI mouthpiece” and “moderate Uncle Sam Muslim” who has corrupted young people at his mosque in Jamaica by allowing them to have “access to guitars and drums.”

Imam Ali…makes no apology for his cooperation with the FBI and New York City police. “We understand the job of law enforcement [in the post-9/11 situation),” he said. “I myself have said publicly that if anyone [in the Muslim community] sees something suspicious, he has an obligation to report it to the police. At the same time, law enforcement must be careful not to overreact and create a situation where there is an interruption of basic American values when it applies to Muslims.”

This reminded me of one of my own personal experiences on that score. I was the western director of New Jewish Agenda in the 1980s during a time when Alex Odeh, then director of the Arab American Anti Discrimination Committee, was assassinated by a letter bomb probably orchestrated by members of the Jewish Defense League. I received a voice mail message from the JDL’s Earl Krugel threatening our group and reported this to the FBI and agreed to meet investigators in my office. I was excoriated by some Agenda members for doing so. My view is that when my life is threatened I’m going to have to trust somebody. While I don’t see the FBI as necessarily my friend, they sure know a lot more about the JDL and the threat they pose than I do. It was trust them or trust no one. And when I’m in danger I have to trust someone. That’s why I allowed them into my office.

The Muslim religious leader’s views put him squarely in the mainstream of American religious life. This is a man who Jews should be able to “do business with” to quote Maggie Thatcher’s infamous phrase about Gorbachev:

Imam Ali believes that American Jews and Muslims should build a relationship “that is more influenced by religious commonalities than by political differences. We cannot deny the emotional impact of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, yet we need to ensure that our relationship is not determined only by that.” He added, “We also should remember that there have been bright times in our relationship as well, such as the cooperation between Muslims and Jews in Andalusia during the Middle Ages.”

I’m pleased that Jewish academic institutions like the Jewish Theological Seminary and HUC-JIR have hosted talks with him and are reaching out to him.

Unfortunately, as I’ve documented here the N.Y. Jewish federation has not taken as forward-thinking a role. In fact, it has backslid into fear and mistrust of the local Muslim community. Federation rabbis have been directed to withdraw from interfaith dialogue projects. Rabbi Michael Paley was once a member of Debbie Almontaser’s support committee and listed as a keynote speaker at one of Rabbi Schneier’s conferences. He backed out of both projects mysteriously.

Also, after enthusiastically endorsing the Other Israel Film Festival devoted to Israeli Arab cinema, the Federation executive Jon Ruskay, abruptly told the festival organizers that they must remove the Federation’s logo from publicity brochures. Festival founder Carole Zabar was taken aback by Ruskay’s change of tack. An ill wind apparently blows through the Federation when it comes to Muslim-Jewish relations in New York.

Unfortunately, the Jewish communal group is missing out on an important opportunity to engage local Muslims in dialogue and debate about issues that divide and link us. Events in the Middle East are too bloody and too catastrophic to miss such possibilities when they arise. To the Ruskays of the Jewish world I say (paraphrasing Hillel): if you will not be for peace, who will be for it? If you are only for yourself, what are you? If not now, when?

The ongoing saga of Debbie Almontaser’s ritual immolation on the altar of Jewish wingnuttery continues as she filed a lawsuit in federal court today seeking reinstatement as principal of the Khalil Gibran Academy, the nation’s first public school dedicated to teaching Arab culture.

You’ll recall that the New York Post, New York Sun, Stop the Madrassa and Campus Watch crowd were all baying for Almontaser’s blood and succeeded in railroading her into resigning from her job as founding principal. Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein were willing participants in this charade though they perhaps had to be coaxed into axing Debbie.

A journalist friend of mine who attended the rally for her in front of the courthouse wrote:

Jews, Muslims, blacks, unionists came out for her. The Jews included Rabbi Rollie Matalon of B’nai Jeshurun, Michael Feinberg of something called Interfaith-Labor Alliance.

The NY Times quotes Rabbi Matalon’s affadavit filed in Almontaser’s support:

It was … particularly gratifying that a group of my colleagues signed a letter to the mayor and to the chancellor expressing our view that those who had attacked Ms. Almontaser did not represent the views of the mainstream Jewish community. … There are regrettable antecedents to the litmus test to which the press and the DOE subjected Ms. Almontaser, most notably in the regularity with which African-Americans are asked to denounce outspoken members of their community. The idea that there is only one acceptable view on issues of public concern is not only at odds with our constitutional guarantees, but is a perversion of the Jewish tradition of vigorous debate and discussion on all questions of importance to our people. … I hope that this court will remedy the great wrong that has been done to [Ms. Almontaser].

It’s important to note what was lacking. In the past, I’ve derided the organized Jewish community for permitting whackjobs like Stop the Madrassa to fill the vacuum and represent the Jewish community’s voice on this issue. New York’s Jewish leadership (Abe Foxman, David Harris, John Ruskay, etc.) has been strangely silent. There WAS one such figure though who until now had spoken out on Almontaser’s behalf, Rabbi Michael Paley, rabbi in residence for the New York UJA-Federation. Paley was quoted in Jewish Week and other publications speaking on her behalf and signed a petition for her published online as recently as September 30th. My journalist friend notes that Rabbi Paley was strangely absent today. I wonder why. Did someone tell him not to come?

And does one begin to notice a pattern here with the recent withdrawal, purportedly under donor pressure, of UJA-Federation sponsorship of the Other Israel Film Festival, which was dedicated to Israeli Arab cinema? Why haven’t the Forward, Jewish Week or JTA covered that story? Is there the acrid smell of Islamophobia wafting over UJA-Federation? If so, where is its source? Staff? Donors? Which specific individuals? Best to air out this foul odor in a public setting and let in some fresh air. Then maybe the Islamophobes will retreat back to their fear-filled lairs where they belong.

The NY Times’ Samuel Freedman weighs in on the smear campaign against Debbie Almontaser and the Khalil Gibran Academy by the Jewish neocon world. It’s a fine article which I wish could’ve been written a little earlier in the campaign so that it could’ve made more of a difference in defending Almontaser and her reputation. But no matter, it’s important that Freedman has documented for the world to see the overt racism of the school’s and Almontaser’s accusers. After quoting some especially pungent anti-Arab vitriol from right-wing blogs, Freedman notes:

Thus commenced the smear campaign against the Khalil Gibran International Academy and, specifically, Debbie Almontaser. For the next six months, from blogs to talk shows to cable networks to the right-wing press, the hysteria and hatred never ceased. Regrettably, it worked.

Ms. Almontaser resigned as principal earlier this month. Nominally, she quit to quell the controversy about her remarks to The New York Post insufficiently denouncing the term “intifada” on a T-shirt made by a local Arab-American organization. That episode, however, merely provided the pretext for her ouster, for the triumph of a concerted exercise in character assassination.

The Times columnist has come forward to draw a line in the sand and say: “This should not be acceptable discourse in our city.” I only wish more prominent figures like Joel Klein, Michael Bloomberg, Randi Weingarten (who sealed Almontaser’s fate by her betrayal), and even Abe Foxman would’ve done what Freedman did. Where are the leaders when you need them? Covering their asses and ducking down in their foxholes.

Who ever cared about Debbie Almontaser and what she went through in this ordeal?? Listen to a friend speak about it:

“She feels that she’s been violated, personally and professionally,” said Louis Cristillo, a research professor at Teachers College at Columbia University who has studied the experiences of Muslim children in the New York public schools. “To be painted as somebody who’s un-American, questioning her patriotism, is extremely hurtful for her. She’s really shocked at how devastatingly effective the defamation was.”

And here Freedman names names of those responsible for blackening Almontaser’s reputation:

In syndicated columns by Daniel Pipes, in articles and editorials in The New York Post and The New York Sun, on such Web sites as PipeLineNews and Militant Islam Monitor, both concerned with radical Islam, the Gibran school was repeatedly characterized as a “madrassa,” an Arabic term plainly meant to evoke images of indoctrination into terrorism and holy war.

Bella Rabinowitz, writing on March 9 in PipeLineNews, called Gibran “an Islamist public school whose curriculum shares the same ideology as the Sept. 11 terrorists.” Alicia Colon wrote in The Sun on May 1, “How delighted Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda must have been to hear the news” that New York “is bowing down in homage to accommodate and perhaps groom future radicals.”

Also important to me are the inclusion of two statements of support from local rabbis with whom the ex-Gibran principal worked in laying the groundwork for the school:

“There’s zero correspondence between the caricature and the actual person,” said Rabbi Andy Bachman of Beth Elohim, a Reform Jewish congregation in Park Slope, who was on the Gibran school’s advisory board. “The words that were used to describe her, the fears that were evoked, are absolutely unrelated to her and her life’s work. Not in any way, shape or form.”

Another rabbi who has worked with Ms. Almontaser on interfaith efforts, Michael Feinberg of the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, said: “It’s all about insinuation and innuendo and this formula of Arab equals Muslim equals terrorist. The viciousness and the vileness of this case surpass anything I’ve seen before.”

This entire episode brings to mind a quotation from Pirkey Avot:

“Whoever destroys one life is as if he has destroyed an entire world.”

Similarly, whoever destroys one reputation is as if he has destroyed the good name of us all.

Does Jack Kemp know what strange company he keeps?? (David Yerushalmi on left)

I don’t use that term lightly because it’s thrown around all too easily by those with extreme ideological agendas. In order to understand why I’ve used it hear you must read Larry Cohler Esses’ second in a series on the efforts to open the Khalil Gibran Academy, a New York public school dedicated to teaching Arab language and culture. Larry’s first piece focussed on the involvement of Campus Watch in the successful campaign to unseat Debbie Almontaser as school principal; and its overall efforts to destroy the school.

In his second article he focuses on the Brooklyn group, Stop the Madrassa, behind the local campaign to derail the school. The erstwhile leader of the group is not a Brooklyn local and not even a New Yorker. In fact, he was originally a Ukrainian Jew who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1980s. [UPDATE: David Yerushalmi was NOT born in the Ukraine. His ancestors were. He was born in the U.S. and did not emigrate here. My error was due to a misunderstanding of something my informant wrote to me about Yerushalmi's background.] He ended up in Los Angeles where he worked as a junior associate for my friend, Dean Hansell. Dean, who is an extremely mild and decent man not known to speak ill of many, knew Yerushalmi then as David Beychok and called him “very conservative.” If anything, this was an understatement as Larry makes clear:

A key leader of the group opposing a new, Arab-focused public school in Brooklyn is a virulent opponent of a democratic Jewish state who denounces “Zionist Israel” and calls on it to “cast off the yoke of liberal democracy.”

Stop the Madrassa leader David Yerushalmi also condemns democracy in the United States and, in comments that evoke classical anti-Semitic stereotypes, says he finds truth in the view that Jews “destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite.”

Stop the Madrassa and other critics seeking to derail the opening of the Khalil Gibran school, set for next month, have charged that the school’s advisory board includes radical Islamists.

Now, Yerushalmi’s comments have raised concerns about Stop the Madrassa’s own leadership by some of its own advisory members.

Yerushalmi, a national advisory board member, counsel and de facto treasurer for Stop the Madrassa, wrote regarding conservative criticism of Israel, Zionism and Jews: “Much of what drives it is true and accurate.” Conservatives’ primary “critique,” he said, “is that the Jews of the modern age are the most radical, aggressive and effective of the liberal Elite.”

“One must admit readily that the radical liberal Jew is a fact of the West and a destructive one,” he wrote. “Indeed, Jews in the main have turned their backs on the belief in G-d and His commandments as a book of laws for a particular and chosen people.”

In Israel, he said, other than the ultra-Orthodox, “Most Israelis are raging Leftists, and this includes the so-called nationalists who found a home in the ‘right-wing’ Likud political bloc or one of the other smaller and more marginal right wing parties.”

In a message to a pro-Israel rally last June he asked: “What interest does America have in a strong Israel? If your answer is democracy in a liberal or western sense, know you have sided with the Palestinians of Hamas.”

You tell me…is this guy a fascist or what? This may be one of the rare times when using that term is actually totally accurate and apt.

So how does Daniel Pipes feel about getting into bed with reptiles like Yerushalmi. Oh, he’s terribly concerned with how it might look:

Asked if, in light of Yerushalmi’s background, Stop the Madrassa might be harboring extremists among its own leadership, Daniel Pipes, another member of its national advisory board, said “These are troubling statements and raise questions about my serving on the same board as Mr. Yerushalmi. I shall be looking into the matter.”

We await with bated breath Pipes’ decision on whether he will continue being associated with someone who is actually even more extreme, racist and hateful than he himself is (and that’s tough to do).

Another Stop the Madrassa board member wasn’t put off by Yerushalmi’s overt racism:

Jeff Wiesenfeld, a former aide to ex-Gov. Pataki, who also serves on the group’s advisory board…also drew a distinction between Yerushalmi’s views and the outlook of some of the school’s supporters. Yerushalmi, he said, had expressed “a Jewish supremacist type of thought” — one he rejects — “but nowhere in those quotes did I hear him advocating violence or harm to anyone,” as words like intifada and jihad do.

I see. Yerushalmi renounces democracy, embraces Jewish supremacism (that’s a nice way of saying Kahanism or Jewish racism) but he’s still OK unless he puts an axe in some Arab’s head. But Debbie Almontaser, who has been a devout student of the ADL’s multicultural programming and worked tirelessly at reaching out to New York’s Jewish community in building support for the school–she’s the one who espouses violence because she explained the meaning of a word on a T-shirt. Is this feeble-minded rhetoric of what.

I originally heard about Yerushalmi from a law partner of Dean’s in Washington, D.C. who was involved in interfaith work with Arabs, Jews and Christians. A Falls Church imam discovered that Yerushalmi had sent people to “infiltrate” his mosque in order to prove that it supported radical jihad. Dean’s colleague asked me what I knew about him and sent me to Yerushalmi’s website, SANE. I thought I’d heard of many of the Jewish right-wing extremists out there. But I hadn’t heard of this one. At his site, I learned some wonderful things: That Bill O’Reilly is a “secular progressive” and Sean Hannity “”participates in the destruction of America’s national existence.” That worship of Islam in the U.S. should be illegal.

Crackpot? Sure. Harmless? No. Daniel Pipes and David Yerushalmi have hijacked Jewish-Arab relations in New York City and made a huge splash in the media. They are not ineffectual extremists with no following. They are a force to be reckoned with and the fact that the organized Jewish community does not recognize this and combat it speaks volumes about its own lack of leadership in this area.