You've Got Hate Mail
Extremist Web site targets Jews for criticizing
Israel
by lan Urbina
In These Times magazine, July 2001
Hate mail and death threats can be par for the course for
public figures with dissenting opinions, especially on Israel
and the occupied territories. But Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor
of liberal Zionist Tikkun magazine, was shocked when the intimidation
took a new turn. In May, an extremist pro-lsrael Web site called
"Masada 2000" listed Lerner as one of "the five
most dangerous Jewish enemies of the Jewish people," and
posted detailed driving directions to his home address. Draped
in guillotines, nooses and racist language, the site repeatedly
stated: "If you're ever in the San Francisco area, drop in
on him at his home."
Predictably, the death threats and hate e-mails started pouring
in-more than 60 to date. Late-night calls also drastically increased.
"Both my wife and I were extremely scared," Lerner says.
So Lerner notified the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a watchdog
of hate crimes. "They did exactly zero," Lerner says,
"except tell us that this wasn't a hate crime."
The ADL defines hate crimes as those directed against people
for their religion, race or ethnicity, and in their view, this
was a purely political attack. Yet the Web page is titled "With
Jews like these" and targets individuals not just for their
criticism of Israel, but specifically for being Jews with that
stance. Others targeted on the site are: Dedi Zucker, formerly
of Peace Now; liberal Knesset member Ran Cohen; Israel Shahak,
Holocaust survivor and current chairman of the Israeli League
of Human Civil Rights; and Noam Chomsky. Woody Allen also is lambasted
for having asked, "What gives the Jews the right to beat
up Palestinians who want only the same rights that Jews have in
the country that used to be theirs.""
Such Internet-based intimidation was originally and effectively
used by anti-abortion extremists. In March, the U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals in San Francisco ruled in favor of a similar Web site
called "The Nuremberg Files" on free speech grounds.
The anti-choice site includes "wanted" posters naming
abortion providers who are crossed off as they are murdered.
In late May, Masada 2000 added a note advising viewers not
to threaten Lerner's life, stating that "God will deal with
the likes of him soon enough."
Tikkun was founded in 1986. After just a few issues were published,
board member Elie Wiesel left in protest. In 1988, when the first
Intifada broke out, other board members-including Alex Schindler,
former president of the Reform Judaism movement-also walked. "Schindler
was a strong advocate for peace negotiations," Lerner notes,
"but Tikkun's call for an end to the occupation was too radical
for him. It's always been a politically expensive position to
take, but the right one."
After Lerner's call about the threats, the ADL did notify
the FBI, which eventually visited Lerner and told him that there
was little they could do. But it's the ADL's unwillingness to
take on the case that most bothers Lerner. "It's ridiculous,"
he says. "The ADL carries a lot of clout in the Jewish community.
The ADL simply needed to follow their standard procedure and put
out a public statement saying that such threats were inappropriate.
You can bet that if the exact same Web site had led to death threats
on the Conference of Presidents [of Major American Jewish Organizations],
the ADL would have had something to say about it."
Both the ADL and the FBI declined to comment for this story,
but Abraham Foxman, national director of the ADL, did send out
a mass e-mail calling Lerner's criticisms "baloney"
and claiming that the ADL does not turn to the press for such
matters.
This is not the first scuffle between Lerner and the ADL,
nor is the ADL shy about voicing their opinions in the press.
The most recent tussle occurred in February when Lerner published
an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times calling for an end to the Israeli
occupation. The ADL followed with an angry letter to the editor,
calling Lerner's piece "a thinly veiled attack on Israel
and its governments (past and present)."
Clearly, it's not just hate crimes that move the ADL to action.
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