Greg Sargent analyzes Foxman’s response to Zakaria (which I assume you all have heard about):
The “stated” goal, eh? Translation: The best way the builders of the Islamic center can show they’re seeking reconciliation, as they claim to be doing, is to move.
This goes considerably further than ADL’s initial statement, which didn’t question the motives behind the center. In other words, this is no longer just about the feelings of those still wounded by 9/11, as ADL initially claimed.
With this response, ADL has strayed even further from its own stated mission. After all, the group says its “ultimate purpose” is to “put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.” And in his letter to Zakaria, Foxman says ADL will continue to stand up for Muslims who are the targets of “racism and bigotry.”
But look, many of those who are insinuating that the Islamic center isn’t really about promoting reconciliation are targeting Muslims with bigotry. These folks are the ones who are going beyond saying this is just about respecting 9/11 victims. You’ve probably seen people calling this the “victory mosque,” and so on. Those good people are actively trying to associate all Muslims with the 9/11 attackers. Seems to me ADL is coming perilously close to effectively siding with the bigots here.
Foxman is really working hard to become the Jewish William Donohue, isn’t he?
*** Update ***
Good grief. Who needs the damned Onion:
The group behind the recently opened “Museum of Tolerance” museum in Manhattan has come out against a planned Islamic community center, which includes a mosque, near Ground Zero.
“Religious freedom does not mean being insensitive…or an idiot,” Rabbi Meyer May, the Wiesenthal Center’s executive director, told Crain’s New York.
“Religion is supposed to be beautiful,” he said. “Why create pain in the name of religion?”
It’s a topic he knows something about. The Wiesenthal Center caused an uproar in for building one of its Museums of Tolerance on top of an old Muslim burial ground in Jerusalem.
The building of that museum has “resulted in digging up the remains of people who had been buried in a Muslim cemetery for generations,” according to City University professor Marnia Lazreg. Indeed, in 2006, workers dug up bones, and an Arab group sued to stop the project from going forward.
You can’t make this shit up.
BTD
I guess I missed it, but wasn’t this always the Foxman MO? I have always considered him a Donohue-like figure. Maybe I misunderstood him before, but this seems par for the course from him to me.
General Stuck
Foxman isn’t alone.
We are becoming a nation of seemingly unstoppable irony, as everyone chooses up sides and awaits our destiny.
Omnes Omnibus
@General Stuck: Well, you know, there is “tolerance” and then there is tolerance. Completely different animals, I don’t see how anyone could find this confusing.
beltane
@General Stuck: No irony with the “Museum of Tolerance” people. They see tolerance as a thing of the past, something to be entombed in a museum.
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus: I call it multiple choice morality, though I just made that up.
Comrade Darkness
Clearly, there is a lot left unspoken in these organizations’ speech.
Museum of Tolerance [of people just like me, so I can do whatever *I* want]
and
… discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens [who just happen to always be us]
The Dangerman
Truth hurts:
Link
Omnes Omnibus
@General Stuck: More descriptive than calling it Rudolpho.
cat48
Omnes Omnibus
@cat48: Isn’t that the plot of Poltergeist IV: Revenge of the Golem?
wilfred
@cat48:
People usually are when they learn about what happens to Arabs/Muslims in Israel.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Jesus, all these histrionics about “pain” and “sensitivity”. Do the families of 9/11 victims spend their days walking the streets of lower Manhattan checking the ethnicities and religion of residents and business owners? We, as a culture, need to grow the fuck up in about a dozen different ways.
General Stuck
@beltane:
You could be right considering the digging up Muslim graves thingamabob.
Sounds more like “The Museum of Rosemary’s Baby”
shortstop
@Omnes Omnibus: Tasty.
wilfred
I posted this on another thread:
Should be right up the ADL’s alley – she’s not even Muslim, btw.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3931210,00.html
monkeyboy
What the hell is the ADL doing in this Islamic center controversy in the first place. Their goal is to fight antisemitism and bigotry in general.
Are they really claiming that the 9/11 attacks in NYC were antisemitic acts? That the reason to destroy the world towers was that they were full of Jews? That non-Jews that died were just collateral damage?
NobodySpecial
Shorter Foxman et. al.:
It’s ok if we do it to filthy wogs.
beltane
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: We’re not proving ourselves to be very resilient, are we. If the Europeans were more like us, they would all still be dressing in black, and weeping and wailing as they dragged themselves through the rubble of the un-rebuilt cities.
Our culture has been infected with a kind of saccharine sentimentality. It is mandatory that every single reality show feature people going teary-eyed over absolutely nothing. If we continue tempting fate like this, the universe will likely serve us up something real to cry about.
drkrick
About the Jerusalem “Museum of Tolerance” and the cemetery: according the a Wikipedia article on the cemetery [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamilla_Cemetery ], the land the museum wants to use has been a parking lot for about 50 years, although some graves may have been moved by the local Supreme Muslim Council at at the time as part of that project. Since it’s Wikipedia perhaps that’s outrageously spun, but maybe not.
MattF
I’m getting tired of snark and name-calling, even though I’ve discovered that I have a talent for it. There’s a political dynamic here, where ‘conservative’ evolves into ‘crazed, reality-denying bigot.’ How did that happen?
Suffern ACE
I wonder if the museum of tolerance would like to weigh in on those protests over the construction of mosques in other parts of the country. Are Muslims provoking pain where ever they go? Or is the point of tolerance to be timid in the face of anger. The ideal of tolerance, I suppose, were all those Jews in Spain secretly conducting rites in their homes for centuries without even passing down what those rites meant to their children as a sign of respect for the Inquisition.
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: One of the things that I learn is my time as an army officer is that soldiers will complain about the tiniest things under good circumstances, but will, in tough times, uncomplainingly do whatever needs to be done. It was amazing to watch. I think that is something that is true of people in general. I hold on to the belief that, once stirred up, Americans will be able to handle whatever needs to be handled. You may now go ahead and mock my childlike faith in people.
Sly
In related news, the people who run Newt.org posted a statement by Gingrich entailing some nonsense about how the Prop 8 ruling undermines the sanctity of marriage, religion, puppies, and warm Spring days, but neglected to turn the comment function off. Inspiring snark immediately ensued:
BC
Abe Foxman and ADL lost my respect when they pooh-poohed the guy who sniffed out any Jews during the Nixon administration. That was an act of outright anti-Semitism, but ol’ Abe found reasons to justify it. My takeaway – Abe Foxman will be outraged at any liberal criticism of Israel and call that anti-Semitic, but if Republicans are guilty, the he spins around it.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattF:
First they became it, then people called them by the name.
El Cid
Hell — are you librul anti-Semites now counting Muslims as “citizens”?
Pffft. Next thing you know you’ll be pushing for religious freedom for horses, frogs, trees, lichens, and whatnot.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MattF: starting with Nixon and the Southern Strategy, and exacerbated by the people around Reagan– the Dear Old Gentleman himself was all things to all people, and to himself first and foremost– Republicans made a deal with the devil known as the Lowest Common Denominator. Then the LCD started not just determining elections, but winning them as candidates. Now people like Dick Lugar, Olympia Snowe and George Voinavich vote in lockstep with Tom Coburn, Inhofe and Mitch McConnell, while people like Jonathon Alter piously remind us that “there are still reasonable, moderate conservatives in office”.
GregB
Haven’t we heard the political right lambasting the left for years with the following sentiment?
Yeah, it’s time these damn liberals and leftists stop going around and whining about how their feelings are hurt by cultural insensitivity. I mean suck it up.
Wait. What? Whatever.
IM
the land the museum wants to use has been a parking lot for about 50 years, although some graves may have been moved by the local Supreme Muslim Council at at the time as part of that project.
Would they be that cavalier about an old jewish cemetery? After all, the religious rules are somewhat similar: cemeteries are for forever, not to be disturbed.
Now, it is technically after 50 years of nonuse now longer a cemetery in muslim law. So technically they are just on the safe side. But using their own standard – not to create pain – why don’t they move?
Comrade Darkness
I’m sure if the muslim community center would just back down then the ADL and the right wingers would totally respect them and leave them in peace after this.
HA HA HA HA. I slay me.
Omnes Omnibus
@El Cid: We’ll give some land to the horses, frogs, trees, and whatnot, but we don’t want the lichens. Aw, prairie shit … Everybody!
Dave
This reminds me of a sci-fi short story (name and author escape me) written in the 40s/50s. To sum up: an alien race comes to earth to do menial jobs. They become the butt of jokes and racism, supplanting African-Americans, who join in with the racism against the new aliens. It was a commentary on human nature.
It’s almost like the ADL is so relieved that there is a new religious minority to attack that they want to hop on so no one ever wants to attack them again.
Quiddity
@GregB: That is all that conservative radio host Dennis Prager talks about. For him, conservatives think with their heads, while squishy liberals are full of foolish emotions.
wilfred
@IM:
Muslim law? Cite please, recalling that there is only Islamic jurisprudence.
Of course, it was the scholars at al-Ahzar who managed to block the mummy room at the Egyptian Museum and who are steadfastly opposed to digging up Egyptian tombs.
Sounds like hasbera to me.
px:
http://www.maanimages.com/index.php?opr=DoSearch&FindText=museum%20of%20tolerance&FindDist=Jerusalem&FindDate=ANY&FindCat=ANY&TheDate=10/02/2006&min=0
Ed Marshall
@drkrick: @drkrick:
“About fifty years” should be a huge blinking warning sign. They are saying they paved over part of it in the aftermath of the ’48 War when they ran the Palestinians out of that half of the city.
IM
@wilfred:
I said law, not statute. Do you want to dispute that there is a body of islamic laws or rather several ones? I am sure you could get a learned opinion what to do with a ex-cemetery. As far as I understand it can be used again after the remains of the dead are decomposed enough.
And don’t give me that hasbara nonsense. I don’t babble about stealth jihad or whatever either.
Ed Marshall
Wikipedia is completely useless with regards to Israel anyway. At one point and time CAMERA got exposed for employing a long term strategy of grooming a team of people to become administrators (by not touching hot button topics and posing as “neutral”) and getting voted in. They had a separate strategy where another team would go in and make ham-handed provocative changes to an Israeli/Palestinian entry and wait for someone to delete them and then suspend whoever deleted it. They got caught when someone dumped a bunch of emails, but nothing has really changed. I’m sure they are still there and working the same routine.
IM
@Ed Marshall:
I don’t know. As far as I remember it hadn’t been used as a cemetery since the thirties. Then some of the dead were relocated and the site otherwise used or sold by the muslim religious authorities.
I am pretty sure I did read that in Haaretz though, so it is “Hasbara”.
Ed Marshall
Why would it matter one bit what Islam says or doesn’t say? You can’t tear down a 1500 year old cemetery for obvious archeological reasons.
Ed Marshall
@IM:
That wouldn’t matter anyway, but I can’t find anything that says it wasn’t an active cemetary until 1948 when it fell into Israeli hands.
Dr. Squid
I’m partly surprised they didn’t rebury the bones face down and whizzed on the face-down bones, given their opposition to Cordoba House.
shortstop
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re on fire today.
Ed Marshall
Wow, I’m reading the Israeli Supreme Court decision. That’s where the “abandoned” comes from. It was “abandoned” from 1948 to 1967 because it was seized along with every thing else behind the green line and handed to the Department of Absentee Landholders. That’s so cynical it’s hard to fathom.
D-Chance.
Foxman is really working hard to become the Jewish William Donohue, isn’t he?
When have any of them NOT been?
AhabTRuler
@Ed Marshall:
Not so much cynicism as naked opportunism.
benjoya
must be said:
fareed’s a jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny.
Kryptik
Don’t you all see though that the only way to prevent religious intolerance is through equal and opposite religious intolerance of our own! It’s the only way to get those filthy MOOSLEMS to shape up and be upright Judeo-Christian folk like us!
…no, seriously, Fuck the ADL, Fuck Abe Foxman, Fuck the “Museum of Tolerance”. Way to lose sight of your purpose, fuckwads.
themann1086
There’s a certain strain of thought in “tolerance” and “multicultural” circles (of which I consider myself) that values conflict avoidance over any other value, including democracy, secularism, or liberalism (expansive/loose definition). You see it in people who argue, with all sincerity, that Islamic communities within secular democracies should be allowed to enforce Sharia on their members, regardless of secular law which says otherwise. Or people who say atheists should stop writing books because it hurts the religious’ feelings. It’s disgusting.
Svensker
@Dave:
I grew up in a very multi-ethnic area in Seattle. One day in high school Social Studies we were having a discussion about Native Americans (we called them Indians, then) and the problems they were having in modern America. This black kid says, “The problem with them is that they’re lazy and they drink too much.” So I say, “Yeah, kind of like the problem with African Americans, they’re lazy and like to dance all the time.” Well, of course he had a fit. When the teacher pointed out that what he was saying = what I was saying, he said, “No, because what I said was TRUE.” I’m still gobsmacked by it. Humans are amazing in their ability to see The Other as totally unlike themselves.
Ed Marshall
@themann1086:
Why should I care if people opt into some form of religious form of conflict resolution? What business is it of yours?
debbie
Building the Museum of Tolerance on a Muslim site is not so very different from Sharon’s provocation back in the early 1990s of building that tunnel under a Muslim site and which started the Intifada. Apparently, there are people in Israel who enjoy sticking it to the Arabs, time and time again, but are unable to see how it works against them every time.
Israel has no bigger enemy than Israel.
Josh
bc, Foxman’s selective that way. In Never Again, IIRC, he defends Jurg Haider.
flavortext
Wow. I cannot believe the ADL is resorting to the very same logic that Christians used for a thousand years to ghettoize, expel, murder and persecute Jews for the (perceived) injustice of killing Jesus. I am in awe at the stupid and self-defeating blindness of Foxman.
Cacti
Dear ADL and “Museum of Tolerance”,
Thank you so very much for proving me right.
XOXO,
Osama
Anon.
Well, what can I say? The ADL and the Wiesenthal Center are now bigoted organizations doing work the KKK would have been proud of.
Sad. Hopefully they will dwindle into obscurity like the KKK.
themann1086
@Ed Marshall: I’m of the Rawlsian school of thought when it comes to communities of comprehensive doctrines; they can have their own rules, but all members must be fully aware of their rights and responsibilities within society as a whole, and any member is completely free to leave at any time without any rule-based or legal repercussions. And, of course, the communities are still subject to secular laws.
And it is my business when some members of “communities” have no real ability to consent or change the rules. Injustice anywhere, etc.
El Cid
Dear ADL: I am very askeert of Republicans. I would like for you to help us ban them from constructing parties near me.
Mark S.
Yeah, causing pain in the name of religion is such a rare event.
wilfred
@Mark S.:
In the same direction, Tony Judt died today.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/books/08judt.html?hp
drkrick
@IM:
Fair point. But if true, it means the accusation that they’re digging up Muslim graves now to build the museum is
an inventiona lie. I still have my doubts about how sacred anybody really thinks the space is if it was used as a parking lot for 50 years without complaint, but it’s certainly a closer call than the completely bogus controversy about the Cordoba Center.Svensker
@wilfred:
What a shame — only learned recently that he was so ill. He will be missed.
asiangrrlMN
You know, I really don’t have much to say about this because I simply can’t wrap my mind around the bitter irony of the ADL continuing to attack the MUSLIM COMMUNITY CENTER in such a bigoted way. The ADL is, in essence, playing the role of the Republicans here. “In order to compromise, you must do everything we want you to do, no matter how ridiculous.” They are taking a victim stance in a matter which is of no concern to them, anyway. WTF? No, seriously, WTF?
oldswede
Here in Connecticut, we just had a taste of the inflamed hatred for Islam. Take a look at this photo and story. Imagine attacking children leaving a worship service. America is in deep trouble.
Has anybody heard of this guy?
oldswede
Paris
At a wedding this weekend I was informed that they are building a mosque across he street from WTC, and it is being done to honor the high jackers. It will be dedicated on 9/11/11. If you actually believe this, and the people who told me were sincere, you have to think that the rest of the world has gone bat shit crazy.