National Jewish Democratic Council Asked to Take Position on Sharpton

IsraPundit ^ | 4/23/07 | Bill Levinson

[Winged Hussar]

To: Ira Forman, Steve Rabin, and posted to the Internet
From: William Levinson
Subject: Democratic appearance at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network

Dear Mr. Forman and Mr. Rabin.

Noting that the National Jewish Democratic Council has:

(1) Condemned John McCain’s use of the phrase “tar baby” as racist (http://njdc.typepad.com/njdcs_blog/2007/03/mccain_uses_rac.html, posted by Steve Rabin)

(2) Criticized Mitt Romney for making a speech at the Henry Ford Museum (http://njdc.typepad.com/njdcs_blog/2007/03/njdc_executive_.html, by Ira Forman) because of its connection to a long-dead EX-antisemite, noting that Ford retracted and repudiated “The International Jew.”

(3) Posted an article (http://njdc.typepad.com/njdcs_blog/2007/04/mil_journalsent.html) that called for Tommy Thompson to drop out of the Presidential race for saying, “”I’m in the private sector, and for the first time in my life I’m earning money. You know, that’s sort of part of the Jewish tradition, and I do not find anything wrong with that.” While the intention was obviously to compare “Jewish tradition” to the “Protestant work ethic,” it is understandable how a statement about Jews and money might rub people the wrong way.

It is therefore reasonable to ask the National Jewish Democratic Council to state its position on the appearance of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, and Joe Biden at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. It seems reasonable, in fact, that if Tommy Thompson’s statement about Jews earning money is sufficient to require his withdrawal, then Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, and Joe Biden have disqualified themselves by knowingly and willfully consorting with a prominent racist and anti-Semite whose hate speech has, at least indirectly, promoted two incidents of fatal violence (Crown Heights and Freddy’s Fashion Mart.)

[Winged Hussar]

Second, let us establish that Al Sharpton differs from Tom Metzger only in terms of skin color. Metzger’s hate organization was ruined by a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center after a jury agreed that Metzger’s hate speech was sufficiently responsible for the racist murder of an Ethiopian immigrant to make him and his group civilly liable.

http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/Metzger.asp “[Metzger] attracted nationwide publicity in 1990, when an Oregon jury rendered a $12.5 million judgment against him and his son, John, for inciting the murder of an Ethiopian immigrant by skinheads.”

Sharpton’s incendiary (literally, in the case of Freddy’s Fashion Mart) was indirectly responsible for not one killing but eight: Yankel Rosenbaum in Crown Heights, and seven workers in Freddy’s Fashion Mart. (The eighth death at Freddy’s, as reported below, was that of the perpetrator.) Fred Siegel’s “Democrats Embrace ‘Impresario of Hatred’” (Wall Street Journal) reports,

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004192

"It would have taken no great effort for the reporters covering the Apollo debate to have walked across 125th Street from the theater to visit Freddy’s Fashion Mart, where in 1995 eight people died in a murderous rampage inspired by Mr. Sharpton. Mr. Sharpton is best-known for the Tawana Brawley hoax, in which he insisted that a 15-year-old black girl had been abducted and raped by a band of white men practicing Irish Republican Army rituals. In fact she had made up the story to protect herself from her violent stepfather. But at Freddy’s, Mr. Sharpton was even more malevolent. He turned a landlord-tenant dispute between the Jewish owner of Freddy’s and a black subtenant into a theater of hatred. Picketers from Mr. Sharpton’s National Action Network, sometimes joined by “the Rev.” himself, marched daily outside the store, screaming about “bloodsucking Jews” and “Jew bastards” and threatening to burn the building down. After weeks of increasingly violent rhetoric, one of the protesters, Roland Smith, took Mr. Sharpton’s words about ousting the “white interloper” to heart. He ran into the store shouting, “It’s on!” He shot and wounded three whites and a Pakistani, whom he apparently mistook for a Jew. Then he set the fire, which killed five Hispanics, one Guyanese and one African-American–a security guard whom protesters had taunted as a “cracker lover.” Smith then fatally shot himself."

======================

We see no difference between this conduct and that of sheeted night riders who, after burning a cross outside a Black-owned business or Black church, set the building on fire.

http://www.nationalreview.com/20Mar00/nordlinger032000.html adds how Sharpton and his people harassed a white rape victim while calling her the same thing for which Don Imus was just fired:

"There was more, of course-always more. In the spring of 1989, the Central Park “wilding” occurred. That was the monstrous rape and beating of a young white woman, known to most of the world as “the jogger.” The hatred heaped on her by Sharpton and his claque is almost impossible to fathom, and wrenching to review. …Outside the courthouse, they [Sharpton and his entourage] chanted, “The boyfriend did it! The boyfriend did it!” They denounced the victim as “Whore!” They screamed her name, over and over (because most publications refused to print it, though several black-owned ones did). …But the torching, so to speak, continued. In 1995-four years into the putative New Sharpton-there was another, fatal case in which Sharpton had a guilty hand: Freddy’s Fashion Mart. In Harlem, a white store owner — no, worse: a Jewish one — was accused of driving a black store owner out of business. At one of the many rallies meant to scare the Jewish owner away [can anyone say, “burning crosses meant to scare the Negro owner away?”], Sharpton charged that “there is a systemic and methodical strategy to eliminate our people from doing business off 125th Street. I want to make it clear . . . that we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business.” Sharpton’s colleague, Morris Powell, said of the Jewish owner — Sharpton’s “white interloper” — “We’re going to see that this cracker suffers. Reverend Sharpton is on it.”"

Again, “rallies meant to scare the Jewish owner away” are no different than cross-burnings meant to scare a Black family or Black business owner away.