Trained Arab Parrots Antisemitism Accusation

To Directors of The American Task for Palestine (ATFP):

 

The ATFP has the following item on its front page:

ATFP Taking a Stand Against Anti-Semitism
April 20, 2009

ATFP Senior Fellow sends letter to Khaleej Times and speaks out against California Muslim student invitation to Abdel Malik Ali.

 

 

Hussein Ibish wrote the following about a Khaleej Times op-ed entitled Chop Shop Economics and Stealth Zionism, which was clearly identified with the byline of my wife Karin Friedemann both in the physical paper and in the web version.

ATFP Taking a Stand Against Anti-Semitism

Hussein Ibish
Khaleej Times (Opinion)
April 20, 2009 - 12:00am

In recent days, ATFP Senior Fellow Hussein Ibish has reiterated ATFP's long-standing commitment against anti-Semitic rhetoric among Arabs and Muslims in a letter to the Gulf newspaper the Khaleej Times and in a news article about extremist speakers at student events in California.
The letter and the article follow below.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayLetters.asp

Chop Shop Economics

17 April 2009

The Opinion article 'Chop Shop Economics and Stealth Zionism,' (KT, April 14), casts the economic recovery programme in the United States being led by the Obama administration as a 'premeditated attempt to loot and destroy the US financial system,' and lays the blame for this conspiracy squarely at the feet of what the author calls a 'corrupt network' of Jewish Americans.

This seeks to exploit the current financial crisis facing the American and global economies, and links it to traditional themes of anti-Semitism in a transparent effort to promote fear and hatred of Jews.

Arab readers deserve serious and thoughtful analysis about American society, politics and economics, and not hate speech that can only inflame prejudices and promote the most distorted perceptions.

Responsible media in all societies have an obligation not only to avoid promoting hatred, especially that which exacerbates the most dangerous divisions, but also to maintain basic and universally applicable standards of accuracy and decency. Commentaries such as these not only encourage bigoted viewpoints among the readership, but they also play into the parallel and extremely damaging stereotype of the Arab press as anti-Semitic.

Hussein Ibish, Senior Fellow, American Task Force on Palestine

Responsible journalists have an obligation to report the facts objectively even when those facts pertain to Jews. For decades the US news industry has been failing in this duty. There is no reason for Arabs, Arab Americans, or Arab news organizations to take part in this misbehavior.

 

Not only does Ibish smear my wife with a false accusation of anti-Semitism in a letter littered with dangling modifiers and hackneyed phrases, but he even dishonestly fails to attribute the article to her apparently in order to create the impression that he is attacking Arab "anti-Semitism."

 

Maybe Ibish is trying to score brownie points by pandering liberal Jewish Zionists, but he does neither Palestinians nor Americans any favors by denying the facts and flinging accusations of anti-Semitism like some crude Zionist.

 

In reality, Karin's opinion piece simply describes the interesting business or social relationships of the main developers of the Geithner Plan. In addition she quotes the opinions of important Jewish Americans about the Plan, which is widely perceived as inadequate and potentially dangerous.

 

Few people have expert backgrounds both in Jewish studies and also in economics. I know both fields in depth while Hussein Ibish with his PhD in comparative literature has no relevant background whatsoever.

 

I discuss the Geithner Plan further on my blog for Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel in my commentary on Chop Shop Economics and Stealth Zionism.

 

I address the Jabotinskian (Revisionist  Zionist) concept of ethnonational financial warfare in Jewish Financial Aggression and Worldwide Economic Nakba.

 

The Jewish working class has a tradition both of talking frankly about avaricious Jewish proprietors and also of standing up to Jewish plutocrats.

 

Ibish would do well to learn something about Central and Eastern European Jewish political economic history before criticizing my wife for stating some easily verifiable facts and for drawing some perfectly reasonable conclusions.

 

If the Israel Lobby is able practically to dictate US ME policy and if some Zionist groups have the ability to distort US media coverage of Palestine, why couldn't other Zionist groups engage in large scale financial manipulation?

 

In any case, as far as I can tell, the ATFP has neither mission to identify or to attack anti-Semitism in the sense of Judeophobia, nor does the organization have anyone on its staff qualified to discuss anti-Semitism qua Judeophobia rationally.

 

Please suggest to the ATFP management that the organization take corrective action immediately, for Ibish' accusation constitutes both libel and also interference with business relations.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Joachim Martillo

President

Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel

 

 

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