Sunday, January 08, 2012

Vice President at Center for American Progress (CAP): Antisemitic Language Was Used

It is being reported in the Jerusalem Post that Faiz Shakir, Vice President of the Center for American Progress (CAP), has admitted that Antisemitic language was used:
A senior employee of the US think tank Center for American Progress (CAP) appears to have admitted in an e-mail sent from his CAP account that a blogger for the policy organization used anti-Semitic language to attack supporters of the Jewish state.


CAP advises the Democratic Party on Middle East policy and is an important source of ideas for the Obama administration.

The Jerusalem Post last week obtained the first CAP acknowledgment of Jewhatred stemming from a group of Mideast bloggers affiliated with CAP’s ThinkProgress website.

In the e-mail that the Post obtained exclusively from the CAP account of Faiz Shakir, who serves as editor-in-chief of the ThinkProgress.org website and is a vice president at CAP, he wrote, “Yes, I agree ‘Israel Firster’ is terrible, anti-Semitic language. And that’s why that language no longer exists on Zaid’s personal twitter feed, because he also knows and understands the implications.”

Zaid Jilani wrote on his Twitter account, where he identifies himself as a “Reporter-Blogger for ThinkProgress,” that “...Obama is still beloved by Israel-firsters and getting lots of their $$."
The admission is in sharp contrast to Ken Gude, managing director of CAP’s National Security and International Policy Program, who was quoted on Friday in a post on Daily Beast that those allegations were "wildly unfair" and "flatly untrue"

In any case, don't expect Media Matter's MJ Rosenberg to stop using the term "Israel Firster" now that it guaranteed to continue to gain him attention.

By the way, did you note the use of the word "Jewhatred" by the Jerusalem Post?
What do you think?
Has the word "Antisemitism" become too worn out and antiseptic?

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Honestly I use the terms interchangeably myself. I do think antisemitism doesn't really bespeak of the level of evil and hatred that abounds today. You can be can be an antisemite by just thinking bigoted and stereotypical things about Jews but never doing or acting upon that ignorance.However total Jew-hatred is planning for and calling for another holocaust, Jewish genocide or partying when a three-month old Jewess has her throat slit.

Daled Amos said...

I see your point.

My concern is drawing distinctions too finely--and that using the term "Jew Hatred" is more likely to get a person's attention.

According to Wikipedia, the term Antisemitism "was coined in the late 19th century in Germany as a more scientific-sounding term for Judenhass ("Jew-hatred")."

I suppose it was thought to be a less "vulgar" and offensive term.

All the more reason to be using the term "Jew Hatred" today.

Daled Amos said...

Here is the link to the Wikipedia article