Editorial: Demagogues, bullies and wimps

Issue of Sept. 26, 2008

Even a week later it remains unclear to us how the addition of Governor Sarah Palin to the list of scheduled speakers at the Ahmadinejad rally at the United Nations Monday somehow tainted the event as partisan.

Senator Hillary Clinton famously used the planned appearance of the Republican vice presidential nominee as an excuse to back out of the event.

Perhaps more famously, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations then withdrew its invitation to Palin — an embarrassing snub to a woman who may very well become vice president, and who is already a genuine political phenomenon — whose popularity, to a certain extent, has crossed party lines.

Invitations to other political figures were withdrawn as well, but it was Palin who Clinton used as her excuse to withdraw.

Arguably, it is further insulting to Governor Palin for anyone to suggest that on the basis of this execrably handled event her future support for Israel's security would somehow be lessened. But, human nature being what it is, the governor is unlikely to forget this embarrassing distraction in the middle of a hard-fought campaign.

Before the rally on Monday the Conference of Presidents sent an e-mail message to shuls urging participation in the rally despite the flap over Palin after a number of well-circulated e-mail messages urged non-participation. The Conference denied that it was to blame for the Palin disinvitation, and it confirmed what The Jewish Star reported in an exclusive story published online last Thursday: that the rally sponsors had been threatened with challenges to their tax-exempt status for supposedly politicizing the rally with Palin's presence.

“Our partner agencies did not feel that they could continue to participate given legal opinions regarding their tax-exempt status and other factors,” the Conference statement read.

How inviting political figures of both parties to share a stage at an event intended to draw attention to an issue of international importance is somehow partisan, or cause for IRS action, remains a mystery, but the organizations involved allowed themselves to be steamrollered nonetheless.

The left-leaning demagogues behind those threats are a discredit to the entire Jewish organizational world. We certainly hope they’ll be unmasked and publicly shown for the bullies they are. We’ll be glad to help, should the opportunity arise.

That said, the wimpy organizers who allowed themselves to be bullied with absurd threats are almost as pathetic. We would urge them to grow some backbone and suggest that a better response, given similar circumstances in the future, would be to publicize the threats and name the people making them.

As any elementary or high school student would gladly explain to them, bullies do their best work when they think no one is watching.