By now, we all know that incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman lost the primary race for Senator.  While I am not a Democrat and strongly opposed the Gore-Lieberman ticket in 2000, I am forced to ask the question, what does Joe Lieberman’s defeat mean for the American Jewish community? While officially the Democrat party leader Howard Dean was neutral in the primary, it was no accident his brother James H. Dean was an active and enthusiastic supporter of throwing Joe Lieberman out of office.   Dean’s support made it clear to the Democratic rank and file that Ned Lamont wasn’t an outsider running against an incumbent; but rather that Lamont was the party leadership’s choice to be the Democratic nominee for Senate.  It’s an understatement to say that that political party leadership never goes after its elected officials.  Whether it is the Republican or Democratic Party, political parties always support their incumbents.

         After the election many in the Democratic Party’s leadership are crowing about how wonderful Joe Lieberman’s defeat was for the Democrats.   According to the New York Times, Howard Dean attacked Joe Lieberman after the primary  stating voters “…now believe that going to Iraq was the wrong thing to do. I think this shows how far out of touch the Republicans are. What you are seeing is the beginning of the end of the Republicans, because a lot of this was a referendum on George Bush’s policies. George Bush is going to take a big hit and a lot of people are going down with him, including Ken Mehlman….” 

It’s hard to quell the suspicion that the vote against Lieberman had more to do with him being openly observantly Jewish than the Iraq war or being too close to President Bush. Hillary Clinton, another major supporter of the war in Iraq, has no serious opposition within the party to her re-election effort.  

While some have claimed that Joe Lieberman is a closet Republican, the American for Democratic Action gives him a rating of 80 - the same as liberal Democratic Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, who is up for re-election with no opposition.  Far from being a Bush supporter, Joe Lieberman actually ran against George Bush in 2000 and hoped to win the Democratic nomination for President to run against President Bush in 2004.   Joe Lieberman is no Ed Koch crossing party lines to support George W. Bush because of his support for the War on Terror.

Additionally, Lamont supporters have set up a website to parody Joe Lieberman, which has a link of his supposed “enemies list” http://www.joseph2004.org/enemylist.html with anti-Semitic ideas such as the Divest from Israel Campaign, and while its link is broken, the general idea of the pro-divestment movement is the open call for Israel’s destruction.  While the site is not officially part of the Lamont campaign, he has not disassociated himself from the site or condemned its contents.

More frightening to me as a Jew was the picture of Ned Lamont side by side with the leaders of the anti-Semitic religious left, Rev. Jessie “Hymietown” Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton, whose blood libel attack on "diamond merchants" i.e. Jews, for shedding "the blood of innocent babies" after the accidental death of Gavin Cato in a car accident with the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s entourage lead to the death of Yankel Rosenbaum in a 3 day pogrom. The scariest part of the Lieberman Lamont race was that Joe Lieberman never even raised the issue of Lamont’s supporters clear anti Semitism throughout the race.  Anti-Semitism is so normal among the hard left that controls the Democratic Party today that the Lieberman camp saw no electoral advantage in exposing Lamont’s supporter bigotry.

Compare this to the Republican Party where George W. Bush drummed anti-Semites like Pat Buchanan from the party.  While the Democrats’ embrace of bigotry is good for my party and the extensive outreach efforts to bring American Jews into it, the rise of anti-Semitism in one of the two major parties can only be viewed as a disaster, not just for the American Jewish community but for American democracy.  I can only hope that Joe Lieberman, running as an independent, decides to finally and belatedly raise this issue in the general election.  Certainly it is the responsibility of the Republican Party to hold the Democrats to account for their hate.

              

 

A little over a week ago I decided to be fair and e-maild both the ADC and CAIR to ask them to respond to Joe Badran's support of terrorism and suicide bombings.

Neither organization would respond to me or condemn his call for terrorism.

The reason for their silence is obvious. They support terrorism. They support suicide bombings. They know it would be political suicide to openly side with terrorists, which is why they typically make do acting as apologists for terrorist groups like Hizbollah blaming the Jews, excuse me, blaming Israel for "provoking" the death and destruction caused by terrorism.

But their silence makes the truth obvious. It would have been so easy to send me a response condemning suicide bombing and throwing him out of the ADC. But he only spoke what they say behind closed doors every day. They are part of the global Jihad against freedom.

Joe Badran Terrorist speaks

Found another Sun Sentinel article quoting terrorist Joe Badran "...“People are afraid of the same kind of scrutiny that befell Sami Al-Arian,” said Joe Badran, co-chairman of the Jewish Arab Dialogue Association..."

I certainly hope that terrorist like Joe Badran, who support suicide bombings are afraid of being arrested and jailed like Sami Al-Arian. He got off lucky being deported instead of executed as a terrorist traitor. Hope Joe Badran won't be so lucky.

Be interesting to be at the next Jewish Arab Dialogue meeting. Will anyone there be moral enough to suggest that there is no point in having dialogue with a terrorist like Joe. The scary part is the Jews are as likely as the Arabs in the group to justify his vile support of terrorism.

The Florida Sun Sentinel today had an article about an "anti Israel" demonstration, excuse me a "peace" demonstration run by the radical left this past Saturday.

"... Joe Badran, a Deerfield Beach resident and vice president of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in South Florida, said those matters are too intertwined to separate..... Badran was one of the more passionate at the rally. Speaking personally and not on behalf of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, he condemned the killing of civilians by Israelis, but not Palestinian and Lebanese groups considered terrorists by the U.S. government....Hamas and Hezbollah are committing acts of defense against the acts of the Israelis," Badran said. "The only weapons that we have are to strap bombs on our bodies and do whatever damage and destruction we can."

Reading this article I have some questions   Interesting, first this leader of the Arab American Anti Defamation League admits to being a member of two organizations that are on the are the US governments list of terrorist organizations.  Hezbollah has killed hundreds of Americans in terrorist attacks. 

Question 1 Why is this self admitted terrorist member free to speak at any demonstration.  Shouldn't he be in jail for admitting membership in a terrorist organization?

Question 2 Why does the reporter refer to him as a passionate speech and not has hate speech?  Would the Sun Sentinel refer a white supremacist endorsing the lynching of Jews as a "passionate" speech and not hate speech.

Question 3 The article makes a big deal that he wasn't speaking on behalf of the Arab American Anti Defamation Committee.  Yet the reporter doesn't mention them condemning it.  Why do reporters allow anti semitic hate groups like the ADC and CAIR (The Council of American Islamic Relations) the ability to opt out of being seen as supporters of this type of violent terrorism?  Shouldn't a real reporter go to every national and local Arab and Muslim organization and demand a formal public response to this type of statement.  Or perhaps the reporter knows it wouldn't fit his politically correct agenda to ask them their opinion of this terrorists statement.

Sometimes it's hard to be proud of being a Jew. I was just reading an article in the Jewish Press about a "Rabbi" in Atlanta who is suing the US government claiming his right to clergy client confidentiality is being breached by the US government monitoring calls overseas with terrorists.

Shame on you Rabbi Lebow.  And shame on your congregants at Temple Kol Emeth
for not firing him.   This is a matter of national security.  The Rabbi know no one is listening on his phone calls.  At least they aren't if he isn't on the phone calling Iraq to to talk to known terrorists.  Something tells me that Osam Bin Ladn isn't asking Reform for religious advice. 

One of the rules of American Law is that in order to sue the plaintiff has to have standing, which typically means you have to be directly affected by the law you are suing to overturn.  This means as the NSA is not listening to the good Rabbi's domestic calls with his congregants he has no right to file a lawsuit.

The courts should throw this bogus lawsuit out and fine the Rabbi and his congregatior for court costs, the legal costs of the NSA defending this bogus suit and fine him for wasting the time of the court and the NSA.  I don't know if we have this type of loser pays rules in Federal Court, but if we don't Congress should change the law to make people pay for these bogus political lawsuits.

This Rabbi is an embarrassment to the Jewish people.  If he wants to be a far left anti American radical, that is his right under the first amendment.  It's also the right of the Jewish people to condemn him and remove him from our midst.  Temple Kol Emeth should do the right thing and remove him as their "Rabbi" and make it clear America's Jewish community stands with America in its fight against terror.

The official arguement against Joe Lieberman is that the radical left wing of the Democratic party opposes his support for the US war against terrorism in Iraq. Yet a friend of mine, who is a local democratic party official here in Palm Beach County pointed out too me, other democrats such as Hillary Clinton, who support the war in Iraq are not being targeted by these same radical leftists.

Indeed my friend noted John Kerry's proposal to have US troops leave Iraq couldn't even get the majority of the Democratic Senators. Yet not one of these Senators have been targeted by the left for defeat in the upcoming election.

Lieberman's difference that enrages the radical left isn't his policies or his political beliefs. Rather it is his being an Observant Jew. It is his Jewishness that has raised the ire of the left and demands his removal from the political scene. The left doesn't have a problem with Jews in last name only like Schumer but a committed religious Sabbath observant Jew like Joe Lieberman has no place in the new Democratic party of the radical left.