Ground Zero Racism

I can’t improve on this hilarious take-down at Firedog Lake of the racism-enablers at the [LOL] Anti-Defamation League who pretend to criticize the anti-Muslim sentiment pouring forth over the building of a mosque at Ground Zero and then join Sarah Palin by calling for us to give in to it. First, Firedog quotes the ADL statement:

The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain unnecessarily, and that is not right.

Then they take the piss out of them:

Amazing. It’s like the ADL is pro- and anti-defamation at the same time. It denounces the right-wing bigots while using birtheresque we’re-just-saying-there-are-questions-that-need-to-be-answered weasel-words to echo their talking points.

For an encore maybe the ADL can announce that it ‘categorically rejects’ homophobia but is mindful of the ‘legitimate questions’ about whether gays make suitable parents or undermine military unit cohesion and therefore recommends that they stop trying to get married or enlist in the armed forces because it upsets too many people.

Or maybe it can denounce anti-immigrant xenophobia while pointing out the ‘legitimate questions’ about whether Hispanics are dangerous disease-carrying criminals who will steal our jobs and social services and oh-so-gently suggest that maybe they should find another country to emigrate to.

Look, it’s very simple really: You don’t oppose bigotry by tut-tutting it and then siding with the bigots. You oppose bigotry by opposing bigotry.

This would be so contradictory as to be inexplicable if the ADL were really about opposing race- or religion-based bigotry. But it’s not. It’s an arm of the Israeli lobby, and it’s task is to accuse people of anti-Semitism if they get in the way of that foreign government’s interests and designs. So naturally it would be sympathetic to people furious about the mosque at Ground Zero.