I'm grateful to see Bill Moyers take on Abraham Foxman of the Anti Defamation League - over his latest lies, about Gaza and about Moyers' reporting.
Foxman lost his last tiny shred of morality back when he decided the human bones, ashes and stinking remains in the Abu Ghraib ovens should not be investigated, discussed or even mentioned - not even by Jews like him, who make a living encouraging others to remember the holocaust.
Multiple US soldiers reported these remains on page 1 of the article Exposure by Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris in the March 24th, 2008 New Yorker Magazine.
Do we have any doubt that Foxman would have spoken out by now, demanding an investigation, if he believed these were the ashes of Jews?
Foxman similarly demanded (and got) an apology from Senator Durbin - after Durbin pointed out that prisoners held without charges, chained naked to the floor in extreme cold, urinating and defecating on themselves at Guantanamo Bay - could remind some people of the Nazi camps.
I am a Jew. Foxman is the Rudy Giuliani of the holocaust - despicably, cynically exploiting it. His statements embody the worst of mainstream US Israel policy. Most US Jews are liberal civil rights advocates -- not bloodthirsty, dishonest right wingers. When he claims to speak for Jews, Foxman is ironically the most prominent defamer of Jews - yes, the leading defamer of Jews is director of the Anti-Defamation League.
Like US policy, the ADL systematically erases the lessons of the holocaust. It's no longer about Remembering to protect the outsiders, the vulnerable. It's about excusing violence, arguing dishonestly, taking the moral low-ground, and playing the anti-Semitism and holocaust cards as lead tactics.
This makes the world a less safe place and, as Moyers hints, the ADL and the US have been terrible friends to Israel in its time of need.
A detail from the FBI reports on Gitmo which Senator Durbin declined to mention in his speech: the only covering these freezing detainees were offered was an Israeli Flag.
Foxman was outraged - that those prisoners' treatment had been compared to the treatment of the Jews - and received a tearful apology on the US Senate floor.
Way to advocate peace and justice, and make the world safe for Jews, Abe!