Monday, October 26, 2009

Let the smearfest begin...

With J Street (regardless of what I think of them) now seriously gaining traction as an alternative to American Ziocon thinking, American Zionism's oldest reflex has kicked into action: smear your opponents into the ground.

J Street's conference has hardly started and here's Tikun Olam on rightwing Zionist reactions:

We’re used to seeing smears of J Street by right-wing pro-Israel Jews in the press and blogosphere. One of the more outrageous is Isi Liebler’s outrage in the Jerusalem Post calling for an international meeting of the Jewish people that would label peace activists like those of J Street or Jewish Voice for Peace as “non-Jewish Jews” and “Jewish renegades.” One of the memes of the smearmongers has been the claim that the progressive peace lobby group has accepted donations from Arabs. Imagine the chutzpah of Arab-Americans believing they had the right to donate to such a cause! Imagine the chutzpah of J Street thinking it had the right to accept “dirty money!”

What we haven’t seen yet is such smears emanating from the Israeli government. Yes, Ambassador Oren unwisely rejected the group’s invitation to keynote its conference. Yes, the foreign ministry wagged its finger at the group and lectured it about what was and was not properly pro-Israel and where J Street was deficient. But now a source informs me that one of Israel’s consul generals told an American Jew that J Street is accepting donations from not just Arabs, but “Arab and Palestinian extremists.”

Let no one ever try and convince me again that Zionism isn't a racist ideology: those Zios in question are so obsessed with the flunked concept of 'race' that they're willing to expel dissenting members of said 'race'!

But perhaps Tikun Olam commenter 'tzvee' (@ 12.30 PM) is right: perhaps it's bullying rather than smearing...

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