T. Belman. Abe tells me that the Forward sat on this for two weeks before publishing it. He is a lawyer who knows how to defend someone.
As Steve Bannon oversaw the publication of thousands of articles during his tenure at “unabashedly racist,” “white supremacist,” “anti-Semitic” Breitbart.com, surely there are hundreds of illustrative examples of those “anti-Semitic tropes” the ADL, Forward, Ha’aretz and Conservative and Reform movements could point to. Well, certainly dozens. OK, ten? One, even? Nope. Where does Bannon go to get his reputation back?
Raymond Donovan, President Reagan’s Secretary of Labor, was repeatedly investigated and cleared — including by the FBI and Justice Department — of apparently politically-motivated accusations of bribing union officials, mob connections and fraud by his construction company.
Still, in 1985, a politically ambitious Democratic Bronx District Attorney resurrected those accusations, and secured a highly-publicized 137-count indictment against Donovan and seven others. Facing lengthy trial, Donovan resigned his cabinet post. The prosecution’s case lasted nine months—but amounted to nothing: the jury found unanimously, on its first vote, all defendants innocent of all charges. Donovan reacted to the acquittal with a poignant question: “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”
Good question—one justifiably asked by every victim of public, trumped-up accusations. Now it’s Stephen Bannon’s turn: President-elect Donald Trump’s newly appointed chief strategist should pose that question to the Anti-Defamation League and much Jewish media—this paper most of all—who recklessly, unjustly, tarred Bannon as an anti-Semite and bigot.
Now with some hindsight, the initial uproar over the Bannon appointment warrants revisiting.
The ADL lit the anti-Semitism fire on Nov 13, calling Bannon “a man who presided over the premier website of the Alt Right, a loose-knit group of white nationalists and unabashed anti-Semites and racists.” (Interestingly, the ADL did not identify the website — the overtly Zionist, disproportionately-Jewish Breitbart.com.)
The ADL effectively gave license to Bannon/Trump opponents to fuel the flames; the Forward poured on gasoline. Its cascade of vicious anti-Bannon headlines, news and opinion pieces included journalistic gems such as: “Will Steve Bannon Be the Anti-Semitic Firebrand in Donald Trump’s Inner Circle?”, asserting that Bannon “turned Breitbart News into a haven for white supremacy, the so-called ‘alt-right’ and anti-Semitic tropes” and offered “a platform for racists and anti-Semites;” ascribing to Bannon “ideas of so-called white nationalism and rank racism, and his tolerance of anti-Semitism and proto-fascism;” claiming Bannon’s website “unabashedly embraced the white supremacist movement…”; and warning that “Steve Bannon Signals Coming Storm for Jews in Age of Donald Trump.”
Haaretz, which cross-posts articles with the Forward, flat-out called Bannon “a white supremacist and anti-Semite,” the “standard-bearer for the racist” alt-right, and “Trump’s powerful, anti-Semitic predator, ” characterizing his appointment as “a moment of truth for U.S. Jews.”
The Union for Reform Judaism further fanned the fire, accusing Bannon of advancing “anti-Semitism, misogyny, racism and Islamophobia.” Piling on, the Conservative movement asserted that Bannon “trafficked in white nationalism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and misogyny.”
Wow, this Bannon character must be one of those really “bad hombres!” Good thing his reputation has been thoroughly shredded—even Howard Dean, former Chair of the Democratic National Committee, called Bannon a “Nazi” and “really anti-Semitic.”
Yet, these stinging accusations notably are missing something: specificity. So? No problem: as Bannon oversaw the publication of thousands of articles during his tenure at “unabashedly racist,” “white supremacist,” “anti-Semitic” Breitbart.com, surely there are hundreds of illustrative examples of those “anti-Semitic tropes” to choose from. Well, certainly dozens. OK, ten? One, even?
Nope. The ADL did not bother to identify a single “unabashed anti-Semitic” sentence Bannon ever published. The Forward attempted to cite two, neither of which holds up as anti-Semitic in context. In fact, one identified “anti-Semitic” column, in which David Horowitz (Jewish) called William Kristol a “renegade Jew,” argued that Kristol’s “Never-Trump” stance was facilitating a Hillary Clinton administration, which would be soft on Iran and tough on Israel— thus a betrayal of Kristol’s Judaism, i.e., that Kristol was not being Jewish enough. One may dislike the argument, but that hardly makes it anti-Semitic. The Forward also cited unsubstantiated claims made by Bannon’s ex-wife in 2007 divorce proceedings that he allegedly did not want to send their daughters to one school with too many “whiny brat” Jewish students. Not only did Bannon deny these uncorroborated statements, but that is precisely the school to which he sent his girls.
That’s it. That’s the totality of support offered for Bannon’s supposed anti-Semitism. His accusers could not even cite anyone from Bannon’s many worlds who personally found him anti-Semitic. In fact, quite the opposite; a parade of Jewish co-workers — even Ben Shapiro, who loathes Bannon — attested to no hint of anti-Semitism in Bannon, as well as to his fearless support for Israel.
(Full disclosure: in 2014, Bannon invited me to meet: my name and resume scream “Jewish;” I wore a kippah in our interview; and we discussed life in Israel. Bannon hired me to write Israel-related pieces, working under a brilliant Breitbart editor named Raheem Kassam. Some bigot, that Bannon! I informed a Forward reporter of this on Day 2 of the Bannon brouhaha—apparently, to no avail.)
The ADL is worthless to the Jewish community without credibility and moral authority. Under new CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, however, both are regularly squandered. Coming straight from the Obama White House, Greenblatt has transformed the once-respectable ADL into a vehicle for partisan bullying. How else does one square the ADL’s baseless, slanderous accusations of anti-Semitism against Republican Bannon with its kosher-certification (since qualified) of Democrat Keith Ellison, who played a decade-long active role in the Nation of Islam? Why still trust the ADL? Why does this obviously-partisan organization still enjoy 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status?
As for the press and Reform/Conservative movements: “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.” Is nobody bothered by forever staining someone’s reputation with unwarranted cries of “Anti-Semite!”?
The ADL/Forward/Reform/Conservative movements symbiotically defamed a political opponent—at the cost of their own honor and credibility. Was it worth it?
Abe Katsman is an American attorney and political commentator living in Israel. He serves as Counsel to Republicans Overseas Israel.
XXX
The Dean Swift quotation suits very well here… “Falsehood flies whilst the truth comes limping after it…”
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Yes I read several of Kishon’s books including “Look Back Mrs. Lot” attracted first by it’s intriguing title. In fact I believe I bought it and still have it somewhere…in storage of course. My recollection was that it was a rather slim book.
Since it’s on record that the Forward has libelled Bannon egregiously, an obvious response from Bannon would be to sue Forward to the extent that it would be forced to close, or declare bankrupcy. This would also be in tandem with the avowed determination of the Trump organisation to vigorously defend and respond to wilful, libellous assertions made outside the scope of politics.
This seems not to bea political libel as much as a personal one, and perhaps a jufge might see it the same way, since the proofs of the opposite are so overwhelming.
bernard ross Said:
I would edit the foregoing statement as follows:
“These orgs should cease to … be…”
Trump should go after their not-for-profit status the way Obama went after pro-Israel organizations. What’s good for the goose…
these so called Jewish orgs.. including the reformed jewish org are frauds…. they are political orgs using judaism as a cover to spread their propaganda. They beleive that if they call themselves Jewish it will lend them credibility. The ADL dropped the Bnei Brith because it gave them access to lots of other money sources that were not jewish who then told them to pursue other defamations, like islamophobia. Oddly almost every islamaphobic act is daily shown to be a muslim hoax.
These orgs should cease to collect donations on the basis of their being jewish when they are purely political orgs.
“Must be from Pocs?”
As with the Russian hacking allegations. When I was growing up, in my family, the punch line for the following joke was the standard response to wild allegations with zero evidence, zero examples to back them up. Explanatory note: Pocs (never saw it spelled, cs is ch in Hungarian so pronounced, “Pawksh,” was like the mythical town of Chelm in Jewish literature for Hungary. Maybe it’s the Hungarian Jewish version of Chelm. I googled it and it doesn’t come up.)
So, this guy is riding home to the suburbs on the train from Budapest after work and another guy passes him in the aisle and says hi but he snubs him. The guy sitting next to him says, how come you snubbed that guy, that was very rude. So, the first guy says, “he’s from Pocs; there are no honest men in Pocs.” [it was originally virgins, but this, the little kid’s version, actually works better, and not just because it’s post sexual revolution, as you will see.] So, the second guy says, “hey, I take exception to that. I’ll have you know, I’m from Pocs, and there are lots of honest men in Pocs!” So, the first guy says, “Oh yeah, name 20.” So, the second guy makes excuses, I don’t have my address book, who can remember 20 names off the top of his head? “OK, name 10” “Look, I have a tooth ache, I had a fight with my wife, I didn’t get enough sleep.” “OK, name one.” Thinks a minute. Then brightly: “Must be from Pocs?”
When I read these spurious sounding literary-analysis based bible scholars who say that The Torah is made up or it’s made up from different histories glued together, I thought this could be used (as a parody) to try to prove that Exodus took place in Hungary. You know with Lot? Name 100 righteous men. 20. 10. One? “Must be from Pocs?
By the way, Ephraim Kishon, Israel’s Robert Benchley, [and, who, by a complete coincidence happened to be a Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivor and refugee from Communist Hungary who made aliya to Israel like my Father who, however, came to America] wrote a book of funny short stories called, “Look Back Mrs Lot.” which I enjoyed as a little kid. I enjoyed it a lot.
Too many American Jews believe the Big Lie about Bannon: ‘A pillow full of feathers’: …“Yes,” said the rabbi and nodded gravely, “that is how it is: once a rumor, a gossipy story, a ‘secret,’ leaves your mouth, you do not know where it ends up. It flies on the wings of the wind, and you can never get it back!”
He ordered the man to deeply apologize to the person about whom he had spread the rumor; that is difficult and painful, but it was the least he could do. He ordered him to apologize to the people to whom he had told the story, making them accomplices in the nasty lashon hara game, and he ordered him to diligently study the laws concerning lashon hara every day for a year, and then come back to him.
That is what the man did. And not only did he study about lashon hara, he talked about the importance of guarding your tongue to all his friends and colleagues. And in the end he became a nice man who overcame a nasty problem.”
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/812861/jewish/A-Pillow-Full-of-Feathers.htm
[This story about gossip was used in primetime, on CBS’ “Bull”, so a few million Americans, including me, now know it. There is also Christian version, with a Minister instead of a Rabbi]