Sunday, February 26, 2017

Keith Ellison Is A Well known Anti-Semite


If you go back to his positions, his statements, his speeches, the way’s he voted, he’s clearly an anti-Semite and anti-Israel individual.
 Keith Ellison had defended Nation of Islam bigots from Khalid Abdul Muhammed (“that old no-good Jew, that old imposter Jew, that old hooked-nose, bagel-eating, lox-eating… just crawled out of the caves and hills of Europe, so-called damn Jew”) to Joanne Jackson ("Jews are among the most racist white people I know") through a large section of his early adult life.
Keith Ellison spent a likely eleven years of his life affiliated with a racist and anti-Semitic hate group. Since then he has lied about it and distorted his past. That alone should be disqualifying.
The radical extremists supporting Keith Ellison's candidacy have no response to this. So they have simply resorted to repeating the same lies. With the aid of a compliant media that makes it very clear that it has taken Ellison's sideThe first Muslim elected to Congress has over several decades praised the Nation of Islam and its leader, Louis Farrakhan, who in the words of the Anti-Defamation League “has embarked on a wide-ranging campaign specifically targeting the Jewish community.” Ellison has recently expressed regret over his defense of Farrakhan in the 1990s, but Ellison’s own writings reveal that he has, at least at one point in the past, entertained a similar worldview.

“Whether one supports or opposes the establishment of Israel in Palestine and Israel’s present policies, Zionism, the ideological undergirding of Israel, is a debatable political philosophy,” Ellison wrote in 1990, protesting the University of Minnesota’s criticism of a campus visit by Stokely Carmichael, who famously claimed that Zionists collaborated with Nazis during World War II.
“The university’s position appears to be this,” Ellison continued: “Political Zionism is off-limits no matter what dubious circumstances Israel was founded under; no matter what the Zionists do to the Palestinians; and no matter what wicked regimes Israel allies itself with — like South Africa. This position is untenable.”
His writings and statements later in life suggest a consistency in this political belief well beyond the ‘90s.
“The United States’ foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of 7 million people,” he said at a 2010 fundraiser for his reelection hosted by a man named Esam Omeish, who had three years prior faced controversy for telling Palestinians that “jihad way is the way to liberate your land.”
“A region of 350 million all turns on a country of 7 million. Does that make sense? Is that logic?” Ellison continued. “When the Americans who trace their roots back to those 350 million get involved, everything changes. Can I say that again?”
During the same event, Ellison suggested the US foster closer ties with Saudi Arabia and Libya, which at the time remained under the dictatorial leadership of Muammar Gaddafi.
And in 2014, Ellison was only one of seven House members to vote against supplementary funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system– a vote he cast during an emergency ballot, when the country was enduring over 4,000 rocket strikes by Hamas.
There is a pattern in Ellison’s statements and behavior, Jewish American groups are now asking Democratic members of Congress to block his appointment as DNC chair. 
“If you go back to his positions, his statements, his speeches, the way’s he voted, he’s clearly an anti-Semite and anti-Israel individual,” Haim Saban, a billionaire and Democratic megadonor who generously gave to Clinton this election cycle, said before a baffled crowd of top Democratic lawmakers in December, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. “Keith Ellison would be a disaster 
The Anti-Defamation League has characterized Ellison’s past comments as “disqualifying.” 

Saturday, February 25, 2017

If Ellison Is elected DNC Chairman I will leave the Party


Tomorrow the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will have to choose the direction of the Democratic Party, as well as its likely composition. It will be among the most important choices the DNC has ever had to make. There has been a powerful push from the hard-left of the Democratic Party, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), to elect Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) chairman. If he is elected, I will quit the party after 60 years of loyal association and voting. I will become an independent, continuing to vote for the best candidates, most of whom, I assume, will still be Democrats. But I will not contribute to the DNC or support it as an institution. My loyalty to my country and my principles and my heritage exceeds any loyalty to my party. I will urge other like-minded people — centrist liberals — to follow my lead and quit the Democratic Party if Ellison is elected chairman. We will not be leaving the Democratic Party we have long supported. The Democratic Party will be leaving us! Let me explain the reasons for this difficult decision. Ellison has a long history of sordid association with anti-Semitism. He worked with and repeatedly defended one of a handful of the most notorious and public anti-Semites in our country: The Reverend Louis Farrakhan. And worked with Farrakhan at the very time this anti-Semite was publicly describing Judaism as a “gutter religion” and insisting that the Jews were a primary force in the African slave trade. Moreover, Ellison himself has made anti-Semitic statements. A prominent lawyer, with significant credibility, told me that while he was a law student, Ellison approached her and said he could not respect her, because she was a Jew and because she was a woman who should not be at a law school. This woman immediately disclosed that anti-Semitic and anti-feminists statement to her husband and friends, and I believe she is telling the truth. Ellison’s anti-Semitism is confirmed by his support for another anti-Semite, Stokely Carmichael. When there were protests about Carmichael’s speaking at the University of Minnesota, Ellison responded that: “The University's position appears to be this: Political Zionism is off-limits no matter what dubious circumstances Israel was founded under; no matter what the Zionists do to the Palestinians; and no matter what wicked regimes Israel allies itself with — like South Africa. This position is untenable." But the connections are more recent as well. In 2009, Ellison headlined a fundraiser for Esam Omeish, a former candidate for Virginia state delegate who had told Palestinians that “the jihad way is the way to liberate your land.”If With regard to Israel, Ellison was one of only a small number of Congress people who recently voted against funding the Iron Dome, a missile system used by Israel to protect its civilians against rocket attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah. His voting record with regard to the Nation State of the Jewish people is among the very worst in Congress. Ellison is now on an apology tour as he runs for DNC chairman, but his apologies and renunciations of his past association with anti-Semitism have been tactical and timed to his political aspirations. He first claimed to realize that Farrakhan was an anti-Semite when he ran for office in 2006 seeking Jewish support. His claim to be a supporter of Israel was timed to coincide with his run for the chairmanship of DNC. I do not trust him. I do not believe him. And neither should centrist liberal supporters of Israel and opponents of anti-Semitism. The DNC has a momentous choice this weekend. It can move the party in the direction of Jeremy Corbyn’s labor party in England, in the hope of attracting Jill Stein Green Party voters and millennials who stayed home. In doing so they would be giving up on any attempt to recapture the working class and rust-belt voters in the mid-western states that turned the Electoral College over to Donald Trump. Jeremy Corbyn today could not get elected dog catcher in Great Britain. I do not want to see the Democratic Party relegated to permanent minority status as a hard-left fringe. Remember what happened when the Democrats moved left by nominating George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis — all good men. The total combined electoral votes for these candidates would not have won a single election. There is no reason to think the country has moved so far to the left since those days that the Democrats can win by pushing even further in the direction of the hard left. The self-destructive election of Keith Ellison will be hard to undo for many years. So, tomorrow, the Democrats must choose between electing Ellison or keeping centrist liberals, who support Israel, like me and many others in their party. I hope they choose wisely. But if they do not, I have made my choice. Alan M. Dershowitz

Thursday, February 23, 2017

Irv Rubin and Earl Krugel