Is Abe Foxman the new sheriff in town?

At times, the ADL seems to be working for the Democratic Party.

Ron Jager, INN

Rabbi Abraham Foxman, the 24-year director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a major Jewish human rights organization, is an important man who has done much. However, he seems to have forgotten that Israel and the Jewish people need to make friends, not insult the ones they have.

The ADL’s purpose is combating antisemitism, and at times it still does, but in recent years, the ADL has begun to resemble a Jewish wing of the Democratic Party. It seems that whoever leads the Democratic Party is good enough for the head of the ADL.

The ADL of today has seems to have designated fighting antisemitism as secondary to a White House induced agenda of fighting “hate”. However, a Jewish organization chartered to fight antisemitism should do just that. There is work to be done in the broader context of racism, religious, and ethnic bigotry, but the main focus should be as stated in the ADL charter; fighting antisemitism.

Only this past week, as if he were the new Sheriff in town, Foxman has decided that it is his job to publicly attack a Republican candidate, claiming that ‘religious appeals to voters are simply unacceptable and un-American’. I don’t remember Abe Foxman ever publicly attacking Obama for expressing his respect and admiration for Muslim religious practices and for the Islamic religion. When Obama, the President of the United States, bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, Foxman did not choose to voice his opinion.

This past year Abe Foxman was involved in a number of unexplainable episodes; one of them being an unfortunate attempt to shut down debate about Israel in the 2012 Presidential election. The “Unity Pledge” put forward by the ADL combined some unexceptionable language about Jewish unity and support for the Jewish state with a highly questionable demand that Israel be taken off the table as an issue.

Coming as it did on the eve of President Obama’s re-election effort, the only possible purpose for such a pledge was to stifle the growing dissent among American Jews about Obama’s Middle East policies and his natural inclination to blame Israel and her leader Prime Minister Netanyahu. The controversy that erupted as a result of the “Unity Pledge” exposed to all that this was a thinly veiled partisan ploy to help the Democratic Party and its leader, President Obama.

In another recent episode, Abe Foxman publicly criticized a Republican Congressman who is a true friend of Israel. This Congressman from Florida, Allen West also happens to be an Afro-American, a Colonel and decorated Iraqi War veteran. Abe Foxman falsely accused Congressman West of using the Holocaust as a backdrop in criticizing the Democratic Party.

What Congressman West said was that when comparing the media and the manner in which the mainstream media reports on Israel and the Jews, Goebbels would be proud, because the mainstream media promulgates the “Big Lie” when it comes to Israel and Jews.

Congressman Allen West’s statements pose a serious political threat for Obama. This past year West was quoted saying “America has a president who lacks moral courage and integrity when it comes to America’s long-standing relationship with Israel… However, when one examines the state of affairs in the Middle East… I cannot attribute this incompetency to naiveté, but rather to conscious, nefarious, and malicious intent”.

Congressman West was inferring that President Obama’s natural inclination is to harbor repugnance to Israel, and that his is the most anti-Israel administration to ever have occupied the White House. Evidently, defamation of a true friend of Israel is not a problem for Foxman when it is done as a gesture to President Obama. The Jewish vote is critical to Obama’s chances of being reelected and driving a wedge between American Jews and the Republican party is a major Democratic goal this year.

Leaving Israel aside, and dealing with an exclusively American domestic issue, Foxman has been on the wrong side of the track. In his op-ed piece, called “Opinion: The Threat of Sharia Law: It’s All a Matter of Myth Making,” Foxman assures the American public that “the threat of the infiltration of Sharia, or Islamic law, into the American court system is one of the more pernicious conspiracy theories to gain traction in our country in recent years.”

Essentially, Foxman is accusing Americans wary of the ongoing infiltration of Sharia into the American legal system of bigotry. These kinds of defamatory charges against all those that are legitimately concerned with the clandestine and ongoing efforts of mainstream American Islamic institutions and organizations whose goal is to corrupt the American Judicial system by introducing Sharia Law into it, points to the adoption of an agenda-driven goal for the ADL, one that aids the Democratic Party and its leader.

President Obama’s record on Israel has been the subject of non-stop debate since he took office. As I have written in previous columns, given President Obama’s failed and naive doctrine when it comes to Israel, one cannot avoid serious concern about Obama’s intentions towards Israel should he be reelected..

Rabbi Foxman must refrain from silencing discussion concerning Israel for fear of offending President Obama. If Obama intends to crack down on Israel if elected to a second term in deference to the Islamic masses that have taken over the Middle East, now is the time to reveal this, before it’s too late.

The writer, a 25-year veteran of the I.D.F., served as a field mental health officer and Commander of the Central Psychiatric Military Clinic for Reserve Soldiers at Tel-Hashomer. Since retiring from active duty, he provides consultancy services to NGO’s implementing Psycho trauma and Psychoeducation programs to communities in the North and South of Israel and is a strategic advisor to the Director of the Shomron Liaison Office.