Widespread Consensus: Right-Wing Jerks Promote Falsehoods, Racism, Hatred of Blacks — Part 1

Bill Levinson, the right-wing pro-Israel blogger who has made a name for himself by slandering MoveOn.org at every available opportunity, published yesterday on IsraPundit an outrageous smear against Senator Barack Obama, seeking to portray the Democratic front-runner as a coddler of antisemites due to his associations with Rev. Al Sharpton, Pastor Jeremiah Wright, and of course MoveOn.org. My next several posts will thoroughly challenge each of the fallacies perpetuated by Levinson, and will hopefully serve as a valuable source for confronting these lies as they make their way through the Jewish community.

In my first post, I will challenge Levinson’s contention that “Obama endorsed Al Sharpton and his National Action Network, both of which have a long track record of promoting hatred of white people and especially Jews.”

I do not contest the fact that Al Sharpton is a troubling figure. His inflammatory antics over the years can be described as irresponsible at best, and I think, in all fairness, they ought to be deemed far worse. Yet whatever one’s dismay at Sharpton’s incendiary past, the fact remains that Sharpton is an incredibly influential political figure in the United States and that everyone is vying for his blessing. Even President Bush.

I empathize with Jewish voters who are disturbed by Sharpton’s behavior and annoyed that politicians persist to legitimize and pander to him in spite of his record. But, in the grand scheme of things, Sharpton is hardly a credible threat to Jewish interests. As Anti-Defamation League director Abe Foxman told The Jewish Week, in response to similar smears against Al Gore, whom the GOP was desperately trying to link to Sharpton in 2000, “Al Sharpton has been a lot of things: a rabble-rouser who plays on the fringes of anti-Semitism and has engaged in racism. But he is not an enemy of the Jewish people.”

The Village Voice, exploring “Al Sharpton’s Jewish Problem,” in their November 13, 2001 issue, remarked that, of the 36 Jewish leaders, activists and commentators who expressed to The Voice their opinion of Sharpton (which included NY State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, an avowed Kahanist and former JDL activist), “There was a consensus about one thing: that he is not an anti-Semite.”

Even if one disagrees with this assessment and believes Sharpton to be a bonafide Jew-hater, Barack Obama’s attempts to attract Sharpton’s constituency hardly illustrate a substantial alliance between the current and former Presidential candidates. For starters, Al Sharpton has not endorsed Barack Obama. In fact, Sharpton has repeatedly criticized the Senator, seeking to pull the wind out of his campaign sails. As a result of Sharpton’s naysaying, Obama was not at all received with open arms at the National Action Network conference — which, by the way, was also attended by Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and every other Democratic candidate trying to woo the Black vote. Rather, Obama had to work double-time that day, trying to win over a crowd that Sharpton had already turned against him.

Sharpton’s attacks against Obama may originate with any of several motives: He could be jealous of Obama’s success as a Black candidate; he may be covertly working for Hillary; he may, like Ralph Nader, be a GOP operative being used to split the vote; or he may genuinely have issues with Obama’s candidacy. Whatever the case, it is quite clear that the two are hardly in each other’s pockets.

Personally, what I find more disconcerting than Obama’s outreach to Sharpton, is that Sharpton’s soft-support for Hillary and in turn, Hillary’s coddling of Sharpton (let alone any other candidate’s), have not received comparable attention from the Right. Take, for example, the blog Barack Obama and his running mate Al Sharpton. The site, which is operated by a right-wing pro-Israel blogger calling himself Winged Hussar (whom I suspect is actually Bill Levinson due to the authors’ similar obsessions), is subtitled, “Barack Obama accepted an invitation from the prominent racist and anti-Semite, Al Sharpton, to appear at his National Action Network: a hate organization that has been involved in anti-Semitic and racist violence.” Yet, as I noted before, so did Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and every other Democratic candidate at the time. Why has Winged Hussar not created individual blogs also condemning them?

You may also notice that no such smears are in circulation against Senator John McCain, whom six years after castigating Rev. Jerry Falwell as “an agent of intolerance” backpedaled on the issue, delivering a commencement address at Falwell’s Liberty University. Falwell has repeatedly made remarks just as dangerous and incendiary as anything Sharpton has ever said. So why is no one going after McCain for pandering to an antisemite?

The reason, I fear, is as plain as Black and White. This smear aims to prey upon the divisions between the Black and Jewish communities in order to steer the Jewish vote away from Obama, who is the only candidate capable of defeating McCain on election day. It is a tactic used by Republican operatives time and time again and I am sad to say that, unfortunately, the reason why such tactics persist is because they often work. The only way we can put a stop to such underhandedness is if we don’t allow ourselves to be manipulated. We need to heal the rift between Blacks and Jews in this country, not intensify it.

Recommended further reading: “Blacks and Jews in America: History, Myths, and Realities,” published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

The Crown Heights events had more to do with longstanding “tribal rivalries” involving real estate, power, and culture than with a deep-seated anti-Semitism, which indeed may not be present in a black population there that is hardly monolithic. The conditions that caused Crown Heights were unique to Crown Heights, and had little to do with anti-Semitism.

Next: Pastor Jeremiah Wright.