In a shocking violation of their spiritual obligations as clerics, in an op-ed posted on The Jewish Week website (“Hate Speech Has No Place in a Synagogue”), Rabbis Michael White and Jerome Davidson defame my work and me, while falsely claiming that I am “defaming fellow Americans of a different Abrahamic religion.” They have obviously never read my work — my columns or my books. They falsely accuse me of hate speech and have the chutzpah to invoke Jewish teachings.
When have these rabbis ever showed the same indignation they are showing about my talk when leaders of groups linked to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, and even the convicted murderers of Jewish children, have spoken on college campuses and at mosques in the United States?
Where were White and Davidson when Muslim Students Association members have menaced and even physically attacked Jewish students on college campuses, and shouted down and physically intimidated Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren at the University of California-Irvine, preventing him from speaking? Where were they when Islamic jihadists targeted synagogues in the New York City area for terror attacks?
White and Davidson say, “we cherish our relationships and friendships within the local Muslim community” — yet what kind of dialogue and friendship does not involve honest discussion and confrontation when needed, which is what my work is all about? They attack a fellow Jew for expressing legitimate concerns, and boast about their close relationship with the Islamic Center of Long Island. Did they ever discuss the vile anti-Jewish rantings of one of the former officials of that mosque, the late Ghazi Khankan, who preached there regularly and blamed Israel, “the enemy of Muslims and Arabs,” for 9/11? The American Jewish Committee’s Ellen Israelson said that Khankan “has always been vocally anti-Israel.”
That apparently didn’t bother White and Davidson. But Davidson did feel threatened when Chabad erected a menorah on the Village Green; he and fought it tooth-and-nail in the Village Hall. He proclaimed it an unconstitutional religious symbol, unlike the Christmas tree, which was a “seasonal” symbol. He was upset because someone might have added a crèche scene next to what was not a “seasonal” tree, but a Christmas tree, and opposed a menorah in a public place because of that.
But when it came to virulently anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, Davidson was silent.
White and Davidson invoke the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League against me. Yet why are these groups qualified to determine what is a “hate group” and what isn’t? Both the SPLC and the ADL attempt to manipulate the political discourse in this country by smearing with this label anyone whose political views they dislike. Yet the SPLC has never investigated the real hate that comes from Islamic supremacist groups in the U.S., and the ADL has only rarely done so. Their “hate group” label is just a propaganda tool to demonize and marginalize defenders of freedom.
White and Davidson consider the daily news stories that I post at my website AtlasShrugs.com concerning the Islamic persecution and slaughter of Christians and other non-Muslims across the world to be “hate speech.” Yet they say nothing about what is happening in these news stories. They are struck dumb by the vicious Islamic anti-Semitism in the Koran and Hadith. But they are loquacious in condemning me. Where is their outrage over the most brutal and radical ideology on the face of the earth?
You’d think that Michael White and Jerome Davidson would be upset about the genocidal rhetoric that is coming regularly from Hamas and Iran, and in general about the real threat to the Jews from Islamic jihadis — the threat about which I am trying to raise awareness. Instead, they smear me for fighting against Islamic Jew-hatred.
Rabbis White and Davidson sound as if they studied their funky brand of Judaism at Hamas University. First and foremost, Rabbis, no loshon hora. And do not libel fellow Jews. You are supposed to be the examples, the teachers. The reason that this is getting so much New York media interest is because it’s Jew attacking Jew. This is like sharks to chum for the mainstream media.
And these rabbis do this.
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Davidson is so enjoying the sudden terrible limelight that his libel has given him that he is organizing an anti-Geller rally at the Great Neck Synagogue on Sunday. I hope that defenders of the freedom of speech and equality of rights for all will come out against these clueless and compromised tools with American flags held high.
Ultimately, these rabbis will answer to a higher authority.
Pamela Geller is the president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of AtlasShrugs.com and author of the new book “Freedom or Submission: On the Dangers of Islamic Extremism & American Complacency,” as well as “The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America” and “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.”
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