RUTHFULLY YOURS

I’m conservative by most measures, and I’ve long known that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is markedly progressive on most policy issues. But I wasn’t looking for a brawl. I was simply searching for friendship. Relatively new to the Detroit metropolitan area, I was hoping to become more involved in the Jewish community and perhaps as well to partake in interesting discussions about domestic and international topics. That’s why I accepted an invitation from the Glass Leadership Institute, the ADL’s 10-month, nationwide program “designed for a select group of young professionals as an up-close and personal opportunity to expand their knowledge about the nation’s premier human relations organization.”

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/191920/my-adl-problem

The thought of publishing something about the ADL didn’t cross my mind until I attended the ADL’s National Leadership Summit in May, about seven months after beginning the program. And even once the thought had crossed my mind, I hesitated in putting pen to paper. I wanted to give the ADL the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I had been too critical—or just too thin-skinned. I decided, however, that I needed to share.

First, I hope this essay persuades the ADL, which is heavily invested in antibullying (e.g., “No Place For Hate” campaign), to consider that it itself has become a bully to conservatives who remain in its ranks. Shutting out right-leaning individuals through crowd intimidation and derision weakens coalitions, which are vital in advocacy work. This behavior also diminishes the organization’s values, which will turn stale and trite when left unchallenged.

Secondly, I want the ADL to revisit and clarify its mission. “The nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency,” asserts that it “fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry”; not just “all forms of bigotry,” but “anti-Semitism” and then “all forms of bigotry.” Yet as murderous anti-Semitism around the globe has surged in recent years, the ADL has dedicated itself more and more to matters of social justice in America (e.g., immigration, women’s reproductive health, economic “privilege”) that are already being pursued by a plethora of lobbying outlets and activist foundations. This wouldn’t be problematic—or rather, duplicitous—per se. But the ADL loudly and incessantly bemoans the fact that Jews are living in an increasingly dangerous world. “Thirty or forty years ago,” I heard over and over again at the National Leadership Summit, “I couldn’t have imagined that Jews would be getting shot dead in the streets of Europe.”

Well, resources are limited. Is combatting anti-Semitism a “priority” for the ADL? If so, then the organization should put its money where its mouth is. Alas, this outcome seems ever more unlikely as it seeks to enforce group conformity and advance political agendas that have nothing to do with defending the Jewish people.

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Unlike the ADL leadership, or those members of the leadership with whom I’ve had contact, I genuinely believe in diversity of opinion and its ability to generate and nurture progress. Having spent a chunk of the past decade in the Ivory Tower, I have witnessed the stultifying effects of ideological uniformity upon scholarship and society. The most rewarding conversations I had during that period were with individuals on the Far Left. (For instance, I learned a lot about the strengths and weakness of philosophies on both ends of the political spectrum from the Cambridge Marxist Discussion Group.) They forced me to revisit and, occasionally, refine some of my principal notions. As a result, not infrequently, my rivals and I discovered common ground.

Part of my frustration with the ADL stems from its blatant intellectual dishonesty, which may arise from the organization’s fundraising ambitions. It’s difficult to convey just how intellectually insulting, how patronizing it was to be repetitively told by winking staff members that their organization is “nonpartisan.” If the ADL, which possesses 501(c)(3) designation, touts a legislative agenda that mirrors that of the Obama Administration, then what organization is partisan? True, the ADL does not participate in Democratic political campaigns and, therefore, keeps its tax-exempt status. But is it really in the spirit of the law/IRS code for the ADL to laud liberalism and disparage conservatism? And how does this conduct aid Jews in Europe and elsewhere who are literally under fire?

In the Soviet Union, art was just another tool to indoctrinate the masses in class struggle. Everything revolved around class.

In New York City, art is just another tool not just to indoctrinate the masses on class struggle, but also to divide us on race and sexuality. Nowhere is that more evident than in the art installations in the long awaited Second Avenue subway station on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, set to open in early January.

Check out the lady in the photo below. It’s been decades since black people had afros that big.

But in New York, it’s always the 1960s.

See the photo above. Four Hispanics, one black girl (kind of), and a white kid. I’m surprised they have even one white kid. If the other five hadn’t ordered pizza, he wouldn’t even be there. He looks kind of scared. Maybe he doesn’t speak Spanish.

Actually, I’m surprised that black people aren’t up in arms over this one. It has become routine to marginalize white men in art and advertisements, but here we see that Hispanics have a four-to-one ratio on the sort of black lady. Imagine if this installation had four white boys and only one black girl – do you think the black community would be silent then? And what about Asians, the invisible minority? No one ever complains when they are shortchanged. And why no hijabis? The more I look at it, the less and less progressive this piece of art becomes!

Here we have two men, either about to go to work or about to go on a blue-collar honeymoon. You see, it is not enough to have a photo or a painting of a man who is gay; we must have an exhibit of a man who is “caught in the act” of being gay, since people who are gay are defined by their sexual acts, according to liberals who control the art world and mainstream media.

We expect members of law enforcement to protect us from harm, not have involvement with those who look to do us harm. We cannot expect that from Nezar Hamze, because, while he is a Deputy at the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, he is also the head of the Florida chapter of CAIR, a group with extensive ties to terrorism. This past month, Hamze led two banquets where groups in the hallway and people on the stage and in the audience also had well documented associations with terror.

CAIR or the Council on American-Islamic Relations was created in June 1994 as part of an umbrella group led by then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook. CAIR has been named by the US government a co-conspirator for two federal trials dealing with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. In November 2014, CAIR, itself, was designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government. Many CAIR representatives have served prison time and/or have been deported from the US for terrorist-related activity.

CAIR-Florida reflects the same violent extremism of its parent organization. In July 2014, CAIR-Florida co-sponsored a pro-Hamas rally in Downtown Miami, where rally goers shouted, “We are Hamas,” “Let’s go Hamas,” and “Hamas kicked your ass.” Following the rally, the event organizer, Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout, wrote in Arabic, “Thank God, every day we conquer the American Jews like our conquests over the Jews of Israel!”

CAIR-Florida Executive Director Hassan Shibly has referred to Hezbollah as “basically a resistance movement” and “absolutely not a terrorist organization” and, in August 2014, tweeted, “Israel and its supporters are enemies of God…” In December 2010, CAIR-Florida CEO and Statewide Regional Operations Director Nezar Hamze repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas, when given numerous chances to do so, stating “I’m not denouncing anybody. I’m not getting involved in the politics.”

Today, apart from his full-time roles with CAIR, Hamze is a full-time Deputy at the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO). He was referred for the job by Scott Israel, the current Sheriff, who calls Hamze his “friend.” Israel hired Hamze against the advice of all three BSO Majors who had evaluated Hamze during the hiring process. In May 2013, they unanimously signed a form stating, “At this time, I do not recommend Officer Hamze for employment…” Hamze was found to be lying on his polygraph exam about “use of illegal drugs” and about “buying illegal drugs.”

Those facts pale in contrast to the security issues involved. What should have stopped Sheriff Israel from hiring Hamze, before anything, was Hamze’s ongoing involvement in a designated terrorist group. However, Sheriff Israel has demonstrated that he cares little about Hamze’s terror-related background, as he has allowed Hamze the ability to exploit his position in the Sheriff’s Office to provide gun training to various radical mosques. The Sheriff, himself, has used Hamze to personally introduce him at these dangerous venues.

In July 2015, the Hamze/Israel Show made an appearance at the Darul Uloom mosque, located in Pembroke Pines, Florida. Each gave impassioned speeches, as they donned their full BSO uniforms, with guns and badges on display.

Many al-Qaeda terrorists have passed through Darul Uloom. “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla was a student of the mosque’s founder and present imam, Maulana Shafayat Mohamed. Now-dead al-Qaeda Global Operations Chief, Adnan el-Shukrijumah, was a prayer leader at Darul Uloom. And Darul Uloom Arabic teacher Imran Mandhai, along with mosque goers Hakki Aksoy and Shueyb Mossa Jokhan, hatched a plot at the mosque to blow up different South Florida structures, including area power stations, Jewish businesses, and a National Guard armory.

The 538 members of the Electoral College met Monday in 50 state capitals, and nearly all followed the public will in the 29 states carried by Donald J. Trump by voting to make the Republican the 45th U.S. President. There will be no Electoral College coup.

On Election Day Mr. Trump won states (including Maine’s second congressional district) worth 306 electoral votes, comfortably more than the 270 needed for victory. While Monday’s final tally wasn’t known when we went to press, the count was headed toward 304 for Mr. Trump, with two dissenting GOP electors from Texas.

It is nonetheless worth noting the extraordinary lengths that Democrats and the progressive media have gone to attempt to lobby electors to vote for Hillary Clinton or a Republican alternative. “Electors under siege,” said a headline in Politico, reporting that many “have been inundated by harassing phone calls and hate mail,” even “death threats.”

So much for the calm deliberation that progressives claim to want as they lobbied electors under the rubric of Hamilton’s Electors. The spectacle of the last month has been an exercise in political intimidation, precisely the kind of pressure politics that Alexander Hamilton wanted an Electoral College to protect the country from. There’s a case for independent judgment by electors, but only in extraordinary circumstances—such as learning something new and disqualifying about a candidate.

The pressure tactics included a gambit by 10 electors, backed by Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, for a special intelligence briefing on Russian hacking before they voted. The lobbying was also notable for the number of progressive pundits who urged the electors to deny the results on Election Day in favor of defaulting to 538 electors.

Their supposedly killer argument is that Mrs. Clinton won the popular vote by some 2.86 million votes, at last count. But everyone, including the Clinton campaign, knew that the victor would be determined by electoral votes. No one ordered Mrs. Clinton not to campaign in Wisconsin, which she lost by something like 22,000 votes.