Israel Matzav

More details on CAP

Here's a bit of a who's who of the staffers who have been causing all the trouble at the Center for American Progress.

CAP is a Washington-based policy organization that serves as a source of Middle East ideas for President Barack Obama and the party.

Zaid Jilani had blogged for the Center for American Progress’s ThinkProgress website; he used Twitter to call US supporters of the Jewish state “Israel Firsters” and compared Israel to the former apartheid regime in South Africa.

A CAP employee who said her name was Amanda told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that Jilani was no longer employed by ThinkProgress.

Jilani’s biography and photo no longer appear on the ThinkProgress website “About” section. His Twitter feed no longer identifies him as a reporter for ThinkProgress. His last CAP blog posting was on January 12.

E-mail queries and telephone calls to senior CAP representatives, including Faiz Shakir, editor-in-chief of ThinkProgress, were not returned.

The Jerusalem Post exclusively obtained an e-mail in January in which Shakir described Jilani’s words charging supporters of Israel with dual-loyalty as “terrible anti-Semitic language.”

As a result of the alleged Judeophobia at CAP, the Jerusalem Post has learned from a Democratic Party source that CAP has introduced a new social media policy to monitor and prevent prejudicial writings. CAP declined to confirm the existence of the new policy.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee have all termed the anti-Israeli rhetoric of Jilani and fellow CAP writers Eli Clifton, Ali Gharib, Matt Duss and Ben Armbruster to be infected with Jew-hatred and discriminatory policy positions toward Israel.

Duss, CAP’s Middle East Progress director, wrote on ThinkProgress that “the entire Israeli occupation” of the Gaza Strip is “a moral abomination” comparable to the former Jim Crow South in the US.

Armbruster, who has attacked Jewish critics for pointing out alleged anti-Israel and anti-Semitic tirades from CAP writers, wrote “no comment” in an e-mail response to a query last week.

The think tank has been engulfed in the affair since December, electrifying the blogosphere and print and online publications in the US and Israel.

...

Writing in a New York Post opinion article on Wednesday titled “The White House’s Israel Bashing Pals,” Alana Goodman noted that “CAP hasn’t distanced itself from these comments or even acknowledged that they’re anti-Israel. If it deems them acceptable public comment, one wonders what the internal dialogue is like at the think tank — and among the alumni who have gone on to the Obama administration.”

Goodman, who is an online editor of Commentary magazine, added, “At a minimum, the controversy highlights how progressive groups are working to undermine traditional Democratic support for Israel.”

According to her article, shortly after a Jewish NGO slammed CAP for trafficking in hatred of Israel on its website in December, “Six days later, President Obama met for coffee with the man who oversaw the offending content — Faiz Shakir, the site’s editor-in-chief.”

I hope the Republican candidates for President are listening.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Center for American Progress

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:24 AM