A Judas goat is a trained and often well-fed animal that plays on its identity as, for example, a goat, sheep, or steer to get similar animals to follow it up the ramp to the meat packing factory. The National Jewish Democratic Council is similarly using its “Jewish” identity to knowingly and willfully whitewash MoveOn.org’s tolerance of hate speech at its Action Forum.

The following pictures underscore the Judas goat concept. Queers Undermining Israeli Terror (QUIT) and Boycott World Pride seek to boycott the controversial gay pride event which is to be held in Jerusalem. QUIT and Boycott World Pride trade on their nominally-gay identity to convince other gay people that Israel is a bad country and its militant “Islamic” neighbors are fine and dandy.

Now suppose, for example, that Nazis managed to get a few members of the Jewish community to usher other Jews into cattle cars while reassuring them that they were going to a nice recreational relocation facility even though they had seen the gas chambers and crematoria. The National Jewish Democratic Council has proven itself a Jewish Judas goat as illustrated here for certain other “Jewish” organizations, with exactly the same ethics as a Jew who would tell other Jews to get in the cattle car.

On October 27 NJDC leader Ira Forman wrote, NJDC Reacts to the Swift Boating of MoveOn By the RJC. Forman wrote the following while accusing the Republican Jewish Coalition and, by implication ourselves (since we supplied the RJC with information about MoveOn.org) of lying.

Jewish voters should take comfort in knowing that MoveOn.org is not a haven for anti-Semitism and the organization will renounce and remove any postings of the sort.
Leave it to Republicans to not allow the truth to get in the way of campaigning.

Sincerely,
Ira Forman
Executive Director

National Jewish Democratic Council

As shown on the page, Jan Poller and ourselves provided the NJDC with proof that MoveOn.org knew of the anti-Semitic and other hate speech that permeated its Action Forum, and chose to let the hate speech stand while deleting pro-Israel commentary as well as criticism of MoveOn.org. We also sent an E-mail with this information to the Jewish Funds for Justice and National Jewish Democratic Council on October 28 (To: njdc”at”njdc.org, nynjdc “at” njdc.org, info”at” jewishjustice.org).

In summary, NJDC has MoveOn.org’s lip service to the effect that it didn’t see the hate speech until mid-August when it was promptly removed, and anyway the rest of the MoveOn.org community condemned it. (”We weren’t there and, besides, we were only following orders.” Right.) Our side has the following, all of which were made available to NJDC and Jewish Funds for Justice:

(1) Jan Poller’s letter of April 1 2004, which told MoveOn.org about the hate speech. This alone proves that MoveOn.org didn’t “just find out about it” in mid-August.
(2) Reams of hate speech that were harvested from the Action Forum two or more weeks after the MoveOn press release, thus proving that MoveOn.org lied about deleting all but a few items.
(3) The MoveOn.org Action Forum FAQ page that says in more than one place that MoveOn monitors the forum and even reads each comment (including the hate speech) twice. This again shows that MoveOn.org didn’t “just find out” about the hate speech.
(4) Votes of overwhelming approval, as opposed to condemnation, of the hate speech by other Action Forum participants.

As of today, however, neither the Jewish Funds for Justice nor the National Jewish Democratic Council has changed its position. When a followup E-mail was sent to NJDC this morning, it received the reply, “You guys have been asked politiely before, and will be once again; please cease spamming us.”

When we last heard, “spam” was unsolicited bulk commercial E-mail as opposed to correspondence regarding NJDC’s public implication that we ourselves are lying. Nonetheless, since NJDC does not want us to communicate with it by E-mail, we will communicate with it and its Jewish constituents through this medium instead.

Last week, it could have been argued that NJDC was an innocent victim of the same misinformation that MoveOn.org fed to the public and the ADL. Repetition of lies that one swallows in good faith is not lying, but continuing to repeat the lies after one has seen independently-verifiable proof of their falsehood is. NJDC’s continued support of MoveOn.org makes NJDC an accessory after the fact (in the court of public opinion) to MoveOn.org’s reprehensible conduct and over-up.

Mr. Forman, your organization was given every opportunity to correct its mistaken assertion that we are liars. At this point, NJDC’s conduct is no longer a mistake. The National Jewish Democratic Council is clearly a Judas goat that is using the “Jewish” in its name to help whitewash anti-Semitic hate speech every bit as vicious as that that led to the Holocaust, and anti-Catholic and racist hate speech as well. If you still wonder why George Bush won the 2004 election, a long look in the mirror might provide a good part of the answer.

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Related: Anti-Semitism, Elections

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