A letter writer to Madison’s Capital Times finds herself “troubled by the hostility and even hysteria of those opposed to the Madison Rafah sister city proposal.”
“Hysterical” is certainly a good word to describe Madison Jewish Community Council board member Lester Pines’ charge that the proposal is “linked to larger efforts to label Israel as racist and destroy it.” Wittlingly or not, Pines is employing an old Stalinist trick–when you’re caught with your hand in someone else’s pocket, yell “Thief! Thief!” That is, it is Israel which is carrying out “what is clearly a systematic campaign to destroy the Palestinian people.”
Meanwhile, the Toronto Star reports that “Bush is Sowing Fear for Votes: Critics.” Not mentioned, but certainly among the critics, is The (ultra liberal) Capital Times.
To its credit, The Capital Times has rebuked the MJCC. In the process, however, it equivocated on the proposal itself and has never noted that the MJCC is sowing fear for city council votes in much the same deplorable way as the Bush Administration sows fear for presidential votes. And it continues to equivocate and equivocate.
The associate editor of The Capital Times is John Nichols, well-known to readers of The Nation and Commondreams.org as a relentless critic of Bush’s policies and tactics. He has yet to weigh in on Madison/Rafah in his twice a week Capital Times column.
Another relentless Bush critic is Matthew Rothschild, editor of The (Madison-based) Progressive. Apparently, Rothschild also has yet to voice an opinion on Madison/Rafah. With the city council to vote on the proposal in four days, it will be interesting to see if any comments by Madison’s “progressive” media elites show up on the Sister City Project’s debate page. And remember, think globally, act locally.
Well, someone from the Sister City Project just let me know that I’m being unfair to Rothschild, he was one of about a hundred who signed a petition saying “I’m Jewish and support the project.”