Apologize to Rush Limbaugh, Mr. Foxman

Friday, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League did what he’s most fond of doing: he focused his ire on a friend of Israel rather than an enemy in order to protect his allies in the Democratic Party. This time, he’s attacked staunch philo-Semite and pro-Israel bulwark Rush Limbaugh. Here’s Rush’s statement:

To some people, banker is a code word for Jewish; and guess who Obama is assaulting? He’s assaulting bankers. He’s assaulting money people. And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there’s – if there’s starting to be some buyer’s remorse there.

Here’s the relevant portion of the ADL press release:

Rush Limbaugh reached a new low with his borderline anti-Semitic comments about Jews as bankers, their supposed influence on Wall Street, and how they vote … While the age-old stereotype about Jews and money has a long and sordid history, it also remains one of the main pillars of anti-Semitism and is widely accepted by many Americans. His notion that Jews vote based on their religion, rather than on their interests as Americans, plays into the hands of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.

I am an Orthodox Jew, so I feel quite free to speak out on this. Abe Foxman’s statements are ridiculous, insulting, and wrongheaded. He should apologize to Rush immediately.

Here’s why: Rush was clearly pillorying Obama for using anti-Semitic code words. There is no question that over the centuries, anti-Semites have used “banker” as a code word for “Jew.” And there is also no question that Jews understand that the code word is a covert anti-Semitic ploy, as this Nazi-era cartoon from Der Stuermer clearly shows:

When Bernie Madoff was repeatedly and rightfully being destroyed, many Jewish commentators worried that the media was turning a financial scandal into a Jewish scandal – first and foremost among them, the ADL. Here’s the ADL on the anti-Semitism associated with the Madoff coverage:

The financial scandal surrounding allegations that Bernard Madoff ran a $50 billion dollar Ponzi scheme has given anti-Semites fodder for their bigoted views.

When the economy plummeted, many Jews feared that the media would turn to Jew-bashing – first and foremost among them, Abe Foxman. Here’s Foxman on the economic downturn:

When the financial crisis erupted in the fall of 2008, concerns arose about possible anti-Semitic reactions. Our antennae were up because the most prominent elements of anti-Semitism are the charges that Jews have too much power and they are primarily concerned about money.

Why, then, has Foxman avoided commenting on President Obama’s recent spurt of demagogic language regarding Wall Street bankers? Because he’s a liberal. And he cares more about staying in good graces with the left than standing up for his people.

As the first American columnist to openly accuse Barack Obama of anti-Semitism, it is clear to me that Foxman does not care about Obama’s openly anti-Semitic political positions and associations (see, for example, his relationships with Jew-hating conspiracy theorists Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Samantha Power, Zbigniew Brzezinski, General Merrill McPeak, Robert Malley, and Rashid Khalidi – or better yet, watch this:

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And this:

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Foxman originally acknowledged that Obama’s associations were troubling during the campaign:

When someone close to a political figure shows sympathy and support for an individual who makes his name espousing bigotry, that political figure needs to distance himself from that decision.

Obama never disassociated himself from many of these troubling figures. But apparently, Obama deserves Foxman’s defense when he uses borderline anti-Semitic code words.

It is obvious that Obama’s hatred of “bankers” can clearly be construed by anti-Semites as coded language indicting Jews. It’s no more ridiculous to suggest that Obama’s emphasis on “bankers” is code that will embolden anti-Semites than to suggest that Nixon’s emphasis on “states’ rights” was code designed to embolden racists, as so many leftists do. And many Jews, indeed, have adopted some of Obama’s terminology. It is hardly anti-Semitic to say, as Rush does, that Jews have picked up on Obama’s borderline lingo. In fact, Rush’s statements are precisely the opposite of anti-Semitic, as Foxman and the ADL should recognize – Rush is indicting those who would seize on Obama’s “bankers” language to hurt Jews. And he is indicting Obama for using such incendiary language.

But Foxman is not interested in what Rush actually said. He is interested in making new acquaintances at Washington, D.C. dinner parties for Obama allies. So he perverts Rush’s plain meaning in order to attack him.

It’s sick, and it’s cynical, and it is myopic in the extreme. While Foxman ignores Islamic anti-Semitism and radical Jew-hatred on the left, he immediately attacks anyone and everyone on the right who even mentions Jews. While he’s busy defending anti-Israel puppet George Mitchell as “fair” and “meticulously even-handed,” he’s ripping Israel defender, philo-Semite and open Christian Ann Coulter as an anti-Semite (I’m personally close friends with Ann, as are Michael Medved and Dennis Prager, to name a few prominent Jews).

The Jews don’t have many friends outside the conservative movement in the United States. When Foxman attacks those friends, he endangers Jews far more than he protects them. And that is a betrayal of his mission and the trust that so much of the Jewish community has placed in him.