by Bill Levinson

To the Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman, The Nation’s Eric Alterman, Ira Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, and Mik Moore at the Jewish Funds for Justice: You and your organizations have not only swallowed whole but supported publicly MoveOn.org’s press release of September 2, but CROW will be your principal meal for the next couple of weeks as shown below.

To recap, here is what Eli Pariser said in his press release of September 2.

MoveOn’s ActionForum is an open forum where members of the public and MoveOn members can post their thoughts regarding important political issues. Once in a while—as in any public forum—inappropriate material is posted. Recently, a few ofthe thousands of comments that are posted every week contained anti-Semitic language.The comments that were posted were abhorrent. We were dismayed to see them, and removed them as soon as they came to our attention 17 days ago.

Two outright lies in one sentence is quite an accomplishment. Right, Mr. Pariser. You said they came to your attention 17 days ago (in mid-August). Let’s take a look at the FAQ for your Action Forum, which is still online and which has been downloaded and stored elsewhere in case it vanishes suddenly next week.

How does MoveOn use ActionForum? MoveOn monitors the forum for input several times a day and uses the information to help set their agenda. Comments that are of immediate relevance are forwarded to the appropriate team member usually within hours. Comments of a more long term nature are compiled weekly in two summaries and passed to the team. Occasionally topic specific summaries are compiled covering a period of a month or more.

How can I make sure someone at MoveOn reads my post ? All comments are read at least twice. While there is no single criteria, comments that suggest a possible MoveOn action and are not duplicative are likely to be immediately passed on, or included in a summary to the whole MoveOn team. Ratings, while important, are not definitive and some comments with few or low ratings are included in the summaries. Important issues are sometimes followed up with a survey to a sampling of the membership.

It looks like MoveOn.org has seriously violated the Eleventh Commandment (”Thou Shalt Not Get Caught”) by forgetting to take down its Action Forum FAQ. As you see, MoveOn.org’s moderators not only saw every single piece of hate speech on the Action Forum, they saw it twice. This proves beyond a reasonable doubt that MoveOn.org’s press release of September 2 was a total and outright lie. The Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Funds for Justice, and National Jewish Democratic Council swallowed it hook, line, and sucker– excuse us, sinker.

The Anti-Defamation League complains stridently (and quite rightly) that ” Arab Media Cartoons Depict “Jewish Control” of U.N. and U.S.” It seems, however, that ADL’s indignation over “the Jews control everything” propaganda ends where the Howard Dean/ MoveOn.org branch of the Democratic Party begins, noting that MoveOn.org’s Action Forum contained pretty much the same thing. When militant “Muslims” do it, it’s anti-Semitism (and indeed it is) but, when left-wing Democrats do the same thing, they get a pass and a clean bill of health.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) welcomed the responsiveness of MoveOn.org Political Action in removing anti-Semitic messages that had been posted on the Action Forum on their Web site.

In response to a letter of concern, Eli Pariser, Executive Director of MoveOn Political Action, has been in direct contact with ADL. He indicated that MoveOn.org found the comments abhorrent and had them removed.

ADL is pleased with Mr. Pariser’s responsiveness to our concerns and believes the matter has been resolved satisfactorily.

This despite being provided with ample evidence that MoveOn.org was exercising editorial control over the Action Forum by deleting commentary that was critical of MoveOn.org or supportive of Israel, while allowing the hate speech to stand. It was also proven to ADL that only a fraction of the hate speech was actually deleted. The MoveOn FAQ page link was sent to the Anti-Defamation League this weekend and, if ADL continues to stand behind MoveOn.org in the face of this evidence, it may in fact be reasonable to conclude that ADL’s opposition to hate speech ends where MoveOn.org, Ned Lamont, and their kind begin.

ADL, you are in no position to complain about your victuals because Jan Poller and ourselves sent you reams of evidence that MoveOn.org had lied to you and made a fool of you, but you chose to continue your whitewash of this reprehensible organization anyway. It is therefore expected that you will eat your CROW without complaint, and change your now-indefensible position promptly.

The National Jewish Democratic Council has meanwhile accused MoveOn’s critics of “Swiftboating” MoveOn.org as shown here.

Counter to [Matt Brooks’] editorial’s assertion, the postings were taken down immediately by MoveOn officials and refuted immediately by members of the organization. In fact, the Anti-Defamation League letter of which Brooks speaks was written 17 days AFTER MoveOn had already removed the anonymous postings.

Meanwhile, the Jewish Funds for Justice has started a petition against our efforts to expose MoveOn.org for what it really is.

Today, jspot is launching its first action campaign - a petition drive developed in response to a recent campaign to smear MoveOn.org with false accusations of antisemitism.

…In August of this year, anonymous individuals posted antisemitic comments on a heavily trafficked open forum run by the progressive online movement, MoveOn.org. When these comments were brought to the attention of the staff at MoveOn, the comments were immediately removed. We applaud their response and echo the reaction of Anti-Defamation League President Abraham Foxman, who characterized the incident as having been “resolved satisfactorily.”

Yet despite this satisfactory resolution, a vicious campaign to unfairly portray MoveOn and its members as antisemitic has continued unabated. We strongly condemn this cynical politically motivated effort.

It is important to note how MoveOn.org and its allies are using ADL’s whitewash as a defense against MoveOn.org’s proven tolerance of hate speech. In terms of “cynical politically motivated efforts,” it could be argued far more forcefully that Jewish Funds for Justice and National Jewish Democratic Council are using the “Jewish” in their names to deceive Jewish voters into thinking that MoveOn.org has not done anything wrong. If these organizations continue down that path despite the overwhelming evidence that they can verify independently just by looking at the Action Forum FAQ, that argument will indeed have to be made in the very near future.

---

---

Related: Anti-Semitism, Elections

---