The Man Smearing J Street -- Plus Jerusalem Post Columnist Attacks the Attack Dogs
E-mail I just got on Ben David. It came from a big Washington lobbyist. "I hope your friend, Lenny, is retired because controversial consultants don't get hired. Len is now shown himself to be an anti-Muslim racist. That could make him an untouchable."
I wrote back: "Lenny is retired which frees him to indulge his inner racist."
START with Media Matters Action Network's explosive expose on Lenny Ben David. And here is the Jerusalem Post on Lenny Ben David and the rightwing cabal out to get J Street.
Then everyone should read Spencer Ackerman's powerful piece about his friend, Rebecca Abou-Chedid, a young law student in Washington who is Arab-American.
Why a piece about Rebecca? Because Rebecca was the target of a drive-by hit directed at J Street by an Israeli settler, Lenny Ben David. Lenny is the quarterback of the smear campaign against J Street and attacked Rebecca in passing. She's Arab-American. She worked for an Arab American civil rights group. She supports J Street. Hence, J Street is consorting with the enemy because everyone with Arab blood in their veins is THE ENEMY.
I know Rebecca well and she is about as anti-Israel as Yitzhak Rabin was. I choose the analogy carefully. Ben David (Lenny Davis) is a settler, an enemy of peace and of everything Rabin represented. Naturally he hates J Street. Read his screed. It's a combination of Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover, one lie after another. And racist on top of it. (Lenny has a pathological hatred of Arabs)
So who is Lenny?
I knew him during his AIPAC days (he worked there for 25 years before being handed his gold watch and shown the door). At AIPAC, Lenny was in charge of the AIPAC version of oppo research. Lenny compiled files on everyone who criticized Israeli policies in any way and used the material he gathered to destroy careers. Lenny loved his files. He loved sending college kids out to gather negative information about journalists, politicians, rabbis, whatever. I remember Lenny's file on Washington Post columnist, Richard Cohen. You'd think Cohen was in charge of the Beer Hall putsch.
Lenny loved his files so much that he once complained to me that his successor at AIPAC didn't maintain the files the way Lenny would have. His successor was one Steve Rosen who, I am sure,kept the files beefed up quite nicely. (Steve really knows files).
Lenny now lives in Israel in the Efrat settlement. He's been on the payroll of the governments of Turkey, Georgia, oil companies, whoever will pay. He also was a Netanyahu aide. He remains close to AIPAC and to Netanyahu, although, oddly, Lenny was never really that thrilled about Netanyahu.
I wonder who is paying for his current efforts. Someone is. The boy don't work for nothing although smearing "leftists" (by which Lenny means Jews and others who don't hate Arabs) is something he would do for fun.
Anyway, it's nice to know that it's Lenny, a feckless character if there ever was one, who is running the anti-J Street campaign. If it was Steve Rosen, I'd be worried.
But not as worried as Lenny (and his lobby buddies) are that J Street will help President Obama achieve peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians. Just the thought of that keeps Lenny up nights.
AAAACK! How is it that these weird people have ny voice in policy at all? Not you, MJ! You know what I mean. People keeping files and living in Turkish settlements? Seriously? This is how things happen?
October 20, 2009 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
he lives in a settlement, most likely receiving low-interest loans to live there from the israeli gov. i've read that if you stay in a settlement for 10 years or so, you don't even have to repay the loan.
if j-street is successful in pushing for a just settlement in the i-p conflict it would mean that he would have to vacate the settlement. so when he fights j-street he is fighting to avoid a future eviction notice. so he smears j-street.
the aipac-likud crowd effect on the USA is what in greek mythology is called miasma.
a miasma is a contagious power that has an independent life of its own. Until purged by the sacrificial death of the wrongdoer, society would be chronically infected by catastrophe.
October 20, 2009 9:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
RE: "a miasma is a contagious power that has an independent life of its own..."
COMMENT: Muy bueno. Gracias! The miasma concept has virtually unlimited potential for use, misuse and abuse. 'Twill be my theme for November!
('Twill be my theme in glory. To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love ...)
October 21, 2009 8:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is a serious civil rights issue here. These cats are trying to prevent Arab-Americans from participating in our political life. Full stop.
October 20, 2009 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a serious civil rights issue here! And it sure STINKS!
Gather files on anyone who criticizes Israel - and destroy their careers!
THIS is US style DEMOCRACY?
All legislators controlled by AIPAC staffers!
AIPAC STASI files on everyone!
Thank God I live in Europe. And I do not joke.
October 20, 2009 11:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a serious civil rights issue here! And it sure STINKS!
Gather files on anyone who criticizes people who smear Israel - and destroy their careers!
October 21, 2009 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bad day for you: The IAEA tentatively reached a nuclear deal with Iran today. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8318258.stm
October 21, 2009 12:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/przion1.htm#PREFACE
October 21, 2009 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent. It's factually true to dispute the statement that AIPAC 'controls' legislators. It's safe to say that AIPAC exercises far more influence than its direct demographic base would predict. Or even its budget. But I don't believe that any contributor here imagines that they exercise robot style 'control.' And NOBODY here imagines that they're part of a secret world wide conspiracy, let alone a concocted world wide conspiracy.
Your conflation of hyperbolic exaggeration with adherence to a vicious paranoid delusion is familiar. Dr. Goebbels would recognize it. He used similar techniques. Am I equating you with Goebbels? No. You lack his capacity (whatever else he was, he was capable), his malignant intelligence (a genuine Heidelberg PhD overseen by two Jewish thesis advisers), and most important--his capacity for pure evil. But he'd recognize your technique because he used similar techniques and brought some to 'perfection.'
Anna A = Anna Apparatchik
October 21, 2009 1:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's safe to say that Jews exercise far more influence than their direct demographic base.
October 21, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
And good for them. If Jewish liberals like M.J. can be disproportionately heard in the media (sadly, I don't think he actually is), that is a good thing. Spoken as a total, to the core WASP.
October 21, 2009 6:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is no need to smear J Street and Human Rights Watch.
We should let Human Rights Watch and J street just keep talking.
So what does Human Rights Watch do? It tries to prove its even-handedness. It has announced that, in its opinion, Hamas — the universally reviled terror organization that has never found an anti-civilian tactic too crude to embrace, the jihadist group that made suicide bombing a form of martyrdom, that lobbed thousands of rockets at Israeli civilian centers and brought on the entire 2009 military operation in Gaza — that this Hamas ought to conduct a “credible investigation” into accusations that it, too, committed war crimes. In a letter penned by the organization’s Middle East and North Africa division head, Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW applauds Hamas’s recent acceptance of the Goldstone Report. ”In the past, Hamas tried to justify the unjustifiable by defending unlawful rocket attacks,” Whitson said. “Having now promised to follow the Goldstone Report’s recommendations, Hamas has no excuse for not carrying out serious war crimes investigations.”
Like it did before? Hamas has, of course, promised it will do so right away, and we’re all very glad to hear it. But of greater interest is what such a letter says about HRW. I remember that great scene in The Treasure of Sierra Madre when Walter Huston, the older prospector, yells at his younger and less stalwart fellows, “You’re so dumb, there’s nothing to compare you with!” It’s one of my favorite movie lines because it captures the fact that sometimes something is so outrageous that the mind gropes in vain for an effective metaphor. Asking Hamas, a recognized terrorist group, to conduct an investigation into its war crimes is like, like … what? Is it like asking a Mob family to investigate charges of racketeering in its ranks? Or like asking a congenital liar to go to confession? How about asking a convicted mass murderer to investigate reports about his violent tendencies? Around the free world, people are imprisoned just for membership in Hamas. What could such a letter mean?
Maybe we should let Human Rights Watch just keep opening its mouth.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/hazony/135792
October 21, 2009 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
MJ: Don't you see the danger of allowing Arab-Americans into Jewish organizations? One cannot keep selling the snake oil of the "eternal conflict" between Arab and Jew if Arabs and Jews actually cooperate.
The "eternal conflict" is like Hillary Clinton in Republican fundraising literature. It is the great cottage industry in America. It may be one of our few remaining successful exports. And now you are ruining it.......
:)
October 21, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is that right?
So let's see, if one Arab and one Jew cooperate that means they all do...but if one Arab and one Jew fight that is an aberration.
Terrific logic, snake-oil-man.
October 21, 2009 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is that the best you can do?
You are a very small person.
October 21, 2009 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
The argument is that your example of Jews and Arabs cooperating is not proof that the Arab Israeli conflict has a peaceable solution. Why don't you reply to it instead resorting to an ad-hominim, snot-man? That's your invariable practice isn't it, snot-man?
October 21, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rebecca Abou-Chedid in her own words
http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=20451&lan=en&sid=1&sp=0
Unless her last name is a common one in Lebanon (very doubtfull) she comes from an illustrious and accomplished family.
So Ben David seems to have wronged her. She is not an example of an Arab, or Arab American, supporting J-Street while working for the destruction of Israel. But it must be said that Ben David never meant her to be anything but a side issue, an example of "second tier" relationships. His mistake about her doesn't negate his main points - which may or may not be true.
What is far more fascinating to me is Rosenberg's long relationship with him at AIPAC. I don't take Rosenberg's description as the truth. How could I? Rosenberg first says "he worked there for 25 years before being handed his gold watch and shown the door", implying he was fired and then follows with "He remains close to AIPAC". I wouldn't remain close to am organization which fired me. Would you? So I've written to Ben David asking for his view. I'll post his response if I get one.
October 21, 2009 12:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
He will deny he was fired. But he was and Steve Rosen engineered it. For some reason, those peas didn't enjoy being in the same pod.
In defense of Lenny, Steve Rosen got everyone he didn't like at AIPAC fired, except me. I left on good terms with AIPAC and went to work for Tom Dine, the executive director, who Rosen succeeded in getting fired.
And, yes, Lenny is close to AIPAC. He just HATES Rosen, not that I don't.
October 21, 2009 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ben David came to Rosen's defense when the latter was indicted. Otherwise the two had nothing public about each other that I could find.
The Internet is filled with your vitriolic personal attacks on Rosen. His only response, that I could find was
"You hate me, you really, really hate me"
quoted by Richard Silverstein. Apparently the original resides on his blog but I couldn't access it.
October 21, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could you please lay out in specific terms how an "Independent Palestinian State" will peacefully reconcile its culturally dispirit elements (i.e. &e.g. PLO-Mafia vs Hamas-religious-mafia), stop money laundering, bribery, general corruption, drug trafficking, allow open, free and fair elections, an independent judiciary, freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and any of the basic human rights we, supposedly, take for granted here in the enlightened west?
If you can't, can you please explain, how Israel will have any more of a genuine peace with "Palestine" then it does with Egypt or Jordan?
For extra credit, can you please explain why, if America, or France, for example, can go through long tortured periods of anti-democratic racist apartheid-esque, jim-crow, state directed oppression, but survive, and develop solid democratic values,backed by (more or less) solid democratic institutions (the Patriot Act not with-standing) Israel can not "survive" the occupation of land taken in the course of a war and is seemingly fated to become an anti-democratic, racist neo-fascist pariah?
After all, the last time I checked, Palestinians (and Ethiopians)are generally treated like shit in Israel, Spheardi Isralies still never rise to top positions, and yet...just like contradictory America, I can buy any book I like...in Israel...the Shabak may be listening to my phone calls but...they never actually disappeared me...so, unless someone is going to arrest me for reading Etger Keret or talking about Avi Dan or listening to Ehud Banai, I remain utterly perplexed by just how the vaunted "two state solution" is going to actually work in a world utterly devoid of reason, and common sense...but full of fascists, fanatics, cynics, gangsters, fools and mobs of people running around with blood in their eyes...
Most Sincerely,
Marlow
October 22, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm wont be holding my breath waiting for an answer...must run now but perhaps by tomorrow you can stop getting wet with the cats and explain how Hamas-PLO would avoid a civil war in East Jerusalem if they ever got complete control of it...and how (while also answering the questions in the previous post) it would not occur to people in Hamas to rebel against any of their own who made "peace" by setting off bombs that would, inevitably trigger civil war and create a political vortex into which all of the regional players would be drawn?
Or, perhaps we can just post quotes from Amicahi...you know, something uplifting like, The Diameter of the Bomb...
October 22, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
It turns out I don't have to wait for an e-mail from Ben-David. He's already made known his opinion of Rosenberg.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1143498911716&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Whether or not you agree with him politically, you cannot deny that Ben-David has fought for what he believed in - putting his own life and the lives of his family on the line - and that he known Rosenberg well for many, many years.
What he has to say about him, when you scrap away the niceties and restraint mandated by the forum he chose, is that Rosenberg is a cowardly, hypocritical, two-faced, idiotic shmuck. A major, major shmuck.
October 21, 2009 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Spider, baby, why do you respond to me all the time. I hate making nobodies like you and Mr. Anna into somebodies.
Give a guy a break. Leave and descend into the anonymity from which only my existence allows you to emerge from.
Pathetic. I'm like an emperor being peed on by a couple of feral cat!
October 21, 2009 2:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 21, 2009 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yup!
If I was a nobody, I couldn't drive you absolutely insane.
It's like this. You, Bslev, Spider and the rest only post responses when I post blogs. You are like members of a fan club.
You are my creature.
I decide when you respond.
I may just decide to stop posting and no one will ever hear of any of you again.
Scared?
That's it. Just keep posting. You are very persuasive.
October 21, 2009 2:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
You, Bslev, Spider and the rest only post responses when I post blogs. You are like members of a fan club.
Seriously deluded. Really, man. Seek help.
October 21, 2009 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know, I can't help myself. You are such a fool.
You make me feel smart.
October 21, 2009 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you were smart, you'd learn English.
October 22, 2009 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your audience is nobodies. If you don't want to hear from them why do you publish here? Your response is pathological.
October 21, 2009 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
TPM people aren't nobodies. Trolls are nobodies. They are vampires living off the blood of living people. You three or four are trolls. And one of you can't even speak English. In fact, Anna kas no first language. He writes and speaks even his native tongue with a discernible accent.
Very unusual.
October 21, 2009 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ok. You win. Only those who love you are real people.
October 21, 2009 11:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Goldberg is hinting at the core issue regarding J Street: Is it really pro-Israel? Well, it doesn’t act like it. Its mission was to provide an alternative to and oppose AIPAC at every turn. The latter’s goal is to promote a robust relationship between the U.S. and Israel and to foster American support for the defense of Israel. To declare yourself against that mission pretty much gives up the game.
Moreover, by declaring that it knows better than Israel, J Street seeks to infantilize the state, to assert that Israel is unable to discern its own interests. Unlike any other state, Israel is declared incompetent to control its own destiny. That’s an odd definition of “pro-Israel.”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/135972
October 21, 2009 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anna-
We get it. Anybody who questions Israel must be anti-Israel. It's not true, but hey far be it from me to ask you to live in the real world.
October 21, 2009 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Moreover, by declaring that it knows better than Israel, J Street seeks to infantilize the state, to assert that Israel is unable to discern its own interests. Unlike any other state, Israel is declared incompetent to control its own destiny. That’s an odd definition of “pro-Israel.”
Infantilization cuts to the heart of the American-Jewish divide with Israel...American liberal Jews, are right out of a Roth novel...Isralie Jews sound like they just stepped out of Shabtai...
American liberal Jews are still terrified that the kossasks are are coming...
great line in an ok film...Meryl Streep plays a shrink whose patient, Umma Thurman, is having an affair with Streep's son...the mother is concerned because Thurman's character is not a Jew...says her son: you act as if were in Poland...we're on the Upper East side; we're strong in numbers here...relax...
J-Street is, ultimately, a reactionary movement that is out of touch with the deeper cultural demographic transformation of American Jewish culture...
They are, Rothian, while younger American Jews are Post-Seinfeld, and increasingly, post-rap...it is no accident that American Punk was fueled by American Jews from the burbs of Long Island...The Ramones and Richard Hell may have been nihilistic and obnoxious but they were/are canaries in the cultural mineshaft...
J-Street is fighting a battle that's already over...out of touch while claiming to be all about tomorrow...
As Seinfeld put it: Someone asks me for directions to Israel, I don't have a fit...
In other words, outside of the wobbly-kneed liberal hysteria echo-chamber of J-Street, American Jews know the score...Israel isn't going anywhere...history is complicated and contradictory...and the schism between American and Isralie Jews will continue to be based on an increasingly meaningless rhetoric in which J-Street treats Isralies like children, and is always willing to fight till the last dead member of the IDF...which, like carrying a picture of Chariman Mao, isn't going to let you make it with anyone anyhow...certainly not in Israel...where they look at MJ and...sigh, deeply...
So it goes...
October 22, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ and other posters of comments relevant to the main entry above,
Lenny Davis must have some wide shoulders to carry so many chips on them all at once. That said, I think J Street should stay away from both Arabs and Likud officials.
Re the second instance, consider this analogy: Suppose it were 2002 and you were living in London, having become a UK citizen, and serving on the board of the Committee for a Sensible Anglo-American role in the world. Would you be trying to get Dick Cheney to attend one of your conferences?
As for like-minded Arabs, and even Arab-Americans, absolutely cooperate, mix and coordinate with them as much as you can, but do it on J-Boulevard, J-Place, J-Avenue, etc. Keep J-Street focused as much as possible on Jewish Americans. Most of them are potential supporters. Get them with you, and fired up, not just warming their hands from afar, and Congress will be butter in your hands. When AIPAC loses Congress it will be effectively dead and the civilized world can heave a huge sigh of relief.
October 21, 2009 5:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most of Jews are not potential Hamas supporters
October 21, 2009 7:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even fewer Jews are tools of Hamas (as you would be except that -as MJ pointed out already- you are not a real Jew).
October 22, 2009 4:03 AM | Reply | Permalink