Jack Ross says that Jeff Blankfort is being too hard on the get-together by the Shalom Center in NY tomorrow:
I don't follow these things, but I don't believe what he says about Rabbi Arthur Waskow - the guy has been heroically breaking bread with CAIR, which the usual suspects have all declared mach traif. And BFD if Amy Goodman hasn't had Walt and Mearsheimer on. The lady who knew Obama through Bill Ayers
whose election night party I went to insisted on having her on part of
the night with all the blather from her and her guests about a
"movement", luckily her better judgement eventually prevailed.
I'm with Jack on CAIR. Not on BFD.
Arthur Waskow would suck Arafats dick if he had a chance. Wait. Arafar went for the young boys didn't he.
Once and for all, let's be clear about CAIR and ISNA. What are the charges against them — organizations that have condemned terrorist acts against India, the US, Israel, and anywhere else attacked by Muslims claiming to obey the will of God? Organizations that celebrate both Islam and democracy and work for peace?
It is accurate to report that both CAIR and ISNA have named by the Dept of Justice as "unindicted co-conspirators" in the Holy Land Trust case. What does this mean? It means that they were named by the US Dept of Justice without evidence of being guilty of anything at all that could be presented even to a notoriously supine grand jury. Thus "unindicted."
The disgusting cleverness of this "naming" is that there is no way to overturn it. By definition, CAIR and ISNA are not on trial and cannot be acquitted.
Thus the so-called Dept of Justice gets to smear anyone it dislikes, with hardly any comeback possible.
This of course is the Ashcroft/ Gonzales/ Mukasy Dept of Justice. It explained how torture was illegal; why would it stop at slander?
Free people who love a free country would be treating with contempt this kind of official behavior. I do. No patriot could do less.
Shalom, salaam, peace — Rabbi Arthur Waskow
Director, The Shalom Center link to