by Bill Levinson

Al Sharpton made the mistake of bringing himself to our attention through this quote in our newspaper: “This is not only the race question, but a leadership, character question,” Sharpton said. “Much of America knows Rudy Giuliani from 9/11. They need to know him from 9/10 . . . how he polarized the biggest city in the world and how he ran it like a fiefdom.” That is a very interesting statement from the individual who was primarily responsible for getting Giuliani elected in the first place.

In 1991, New York City had a Black Democratic Mayor, David Dinkins (a “cheap Negro whore turning tricks in City Hall,” to use Sharpton’s words, and “Negro” was not exactly the word he used either). That was the year in which Al Sharpton helped provoke a reenactment of the Night of the Broken Glass in Crown Heights, a primarily Jewish neighborhood. Sharpton personally called the Jews “diamond merchants” while his mob rampaged through the streets yelling “Kill the Jews.” As it was during Kristallnacht, the Jews’ calls to law enforcement agencies were ignored. While it cannot be proven that Dinkins told the New York Police Department to look the other way while Sharpton’s Blackshirts mob rampaged, looted, smashed windows, and murdered a Jew, this is the conclusion that many reasonable people would make. Even New York City’s liberal Jewish Democrats could not bring themselves to vote for Dinkins in the next election, which is how the city got Rudy Giuliani.

Two and a half months ago, we asked the National Jewish Democratic Council to denounce Al Sharpton’s racism and antisemitism, and also the Democratic candidates who appeared at his hate group, the National Action Network. We felt this was a very reasonable request given the positions NJDC has taken toward Mitt Romeny and John McCain, as described below. There is, however, no evidence that NJDC has taken any action to denounce Sharpton or the people who associate with him. To recap, this was sent to Ira Forman and Steve Rabin on April 23, 2007. Note the headers of the E-mail (with @ deleted to prevent address harvesting by spammers) that proves we really sent it to them. They can’t argue that we just posted this request at IsraPundit and elsewhere, hoped they wouldn’t see it, and then accused them of failing to respond. We do not consider it necessary to say behind someone’s back what we will not say to his face.

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To: Ira Forman, Steve Rabin, and posted to the Internet
From: William Levinson
Subject: Democratic appearance at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network

Dear Mr. Forman and Mr. Rabin.

Noting that the National Jewish Democratic Council has:
(1) Condemned John McCain’s use of the phrase “tar baby” as racist (http://njdc.typepad.com/njdcs_blog/2007/03/mccain_uses_rac.html, posted by Steve Rabin)
(2) Criticized Mitt Romney for making a speech at the Henry Ford Museum (http://njdc.typepad.com/njdcs_blog/2007/03/njdc_executive_.html, by Ira Forman) because of its connection to a long-dead EX-antisemite, noting that Ford retracted and repudiated “The International Jew.”
(3) Posted an article (http://njdc.typepad.com/njdcs_blog/2007/04/mil_journalsent.html) that called for Tommy Thompson to drop out of the Presidential race for saying, “”I’m in the private sector, and for the first time in my life I’m earning money. You know, that’s sort of part of the Jewish tradition, and I do not find anything wrong with that.” While the intention was obviously to compare “Jewish tradition” to the “Protestant work ethic,” it is understandable how a statement about Jews and money might rub people the wrong way.

It is therefore reasonable to ask the National Jewish Democratic Council to state its position on the appearance of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, and Joe Biden at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. It seems reasonable, in fact, that if Tommy Thompson’s statement about Jews earning money is sufficient to require his withdrawal, then Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, and Joe Biden have disqualified themselves by knowingly and willfully consorting with a prominent racist and anti-Semite whose hate speech has, at least indirectly, promoted two incidents of fatal violence (Crown Heights and Freddy’s Fashion Mart.)

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004192

It would have taken no great effort for the reporters covering the Apollo debate to have walked across 125th Street from the theater to visit Freddy’s Fashion Mart, where in 1995 eight people died in a murderous rampage inspired by Mr. Sharpton. Mr. Sharpton is best-known for the Tawana Brawley hoax, in which he insisted that a 15-year-old black girl had been abducted and raped by a band of white men practicing Irish Republican Army rituals. In fact she had made up the story to protect herself from her violent stepfather. But at Freddy’s, Mr. Sharpton was even more malevolent. He turned a landlord-tenant dispute between the Jewish owner of Freddy’s and a black subtenant into a theater of hatred. Picketers from Mr. Sharpton’s National Action Network, sometimes joined by “the Rev.” himself, marched daily outside the store, screaming about “bloodsucking Jews” and “Jew bastards” and threatening to burn the building down. After weeks of increasingly violent rhetoric, one of the protesters, Roland Smith, took Mr. Sharpton’s words about ousting the “white interloper” to heart. He ran into the store shouting, “It’s on!” He shot and wounded three whites and a Pakistani, whom he apparently mistook for a Jew. Then he set the fire, which killed five Hispanics, one Guyanese and one African-American–a security guard whom protesters had taunted as a “cracker lover.” Smith then fatally shot himself.

…http://www.nationalreview.com/20Mar00/nordlinger032000.html adds how Sharpton and his people harassed a white rape victim while calling her the same thing for which Don Imus was just fired:

There was more, of course-always more. In the spring of 1989, the Central Park “wilding” occurred. That was the monstrous rape and beating of a young white woman, known to most of the world as “the jogger.” The hatred heaped on her by Sharpton and his claque is almost impossible to fathom, and wrenching to review. …Outside the courthouse, they [Sharpton and his entourage] chanted, “The boyfriend did it! The boyfriend did it!” They denounced the victim as “Whore!” They screamed her name, over and over (because most publications refused to print it, though several black-owned ones did). …But the torching, so to speak, continued. In 1995-four years into the putative New Sharpton-there was another, fatal case in which Sharpton had a guilty hand: Freddy’s Fashion Mart. In Harlem, a white store owner — no, worse: a Jewish one — was accused of driving a black store owner out of business. At one of the many rallies meant to scare the Jewish owner away [can anyone say, “burning crosses meant to scare the Negro owner away?”], Sharpton charged that “there is a systemic and methodical strategy to eliminate our people from doing business off 125th Street. I want to make it clear . . . that we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business.” Sharpton’s colleague, Morris Powell, said of the Jewish owner — Sharpton’s “white interloper” — “We’re going to see that this cracker suffers. Reverend Sharpton is on it.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Sharpton#Crown_Heights_Riot
A visiting rabbinical student from Australia by the name of Yankel Rosenbaum, 29, was killed during the rioting by a mob shouting “Kill the Jew.” Sharpton has been seen by some commentators as inflaming tensions with remarks such as “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house” and referring to Jews as “diamond merchants.”

…Noting the positions that the National Jewish Democratic Council has already taken toward far more innocent statements by John McCain, Tommy Thompson, and Mitt Romeny, it is reasonable to expect for the National Jewish Democratic Council to call for the immediate withdrawal of the following candidates from the Presidential contest, and to encourage Democrats who have not soiled their hands through contact with the anti-Semitic and racist hatemonger Al Sharpton to seek the party’s nomination.

Joe Biden
Hillary Clinton
Chris Dodd
John Edwards
Barack Obama
Bill Richardson
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Well, Ira Forman and Steve Rabin? We are still waiting to hear where you stand on an individual who is associated with remarks like “white interloper,” “Kill the Jew,” “cheap Negro whore,” “Don’t give the Jew a dime,” and “cracker lover,” and candidates who consort openly with this individual. We assure you that we will continue to remind our readers of Al Sharpton’s history should Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or John Edwards gain the nomination, and especially if Sharpton follows through on his threat to campaign against Giuliani.

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Related: Israel, Elections, Pure Politics, Racism

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