Powerline alerts its readers to a string of anti-Israel comments on the blog The Politico. The general drift is that the U.S. spends too much money supporting Israel, something with which I disagree; but it 
is not an unreasonable position. But a lot of the comments display an open Antisemitism. One post that caught my eye contained a long quote from our very own former Senator, Jim Abourezk. It focused on supposed dirty dealings by the Israel lobby. There is no reason, of course, to suppose that Senator Abourezk knew of or hand anything to do with this blog post. But the post included the image to the right. I assumed at first that the image must have been inserted by "Busheviks" (Tim Brinton?), the author of the post.
There was no source provided for the quotation, but it was easy to track down. I was a bit shocked to discover that it accompanies the original essay by Abourezk in the Christian Science Monitor. The essay is, if a bit jaundiced, within the compass of respectable commentary. There is nothing wrong with complaining about lobbyists, or American policy toward Israel, or Israeli policy. But the image is blatantly Antisemitic, playing on some of the oldest and most virulent prejudices against the Jews. Its inclusion along with Abourezk's essay ought to be a deep embarrassment to the Monitor, and Abourezk's allowance of it next to his writing is an embarrassment to him and to South Dakota. It is also an embarrassment to The Politico. Powerline says:
I'm sure the people who run Politico would be horrified by this thread, and will take it down when they find out about it. (Funny that hasn't happened yet.) But that won't make the problem go away.
To give you an idea of the rest of the thread, one poster, "Octavian," defends Israel as a reliable U.S. ally. Another poster, ASU86, asks: "OCT are you JEWISH?" Both the left and the right in American politics have their black sheep. It is interesting to note the emergence of Antisemitism on the left.
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