Editorial: The Barrony in Brooklyn

Sometimes ignoring the problem will not make it go away. It would simply continue to fester, gradually gaining in momentum, peeling away support from the mainstream, speaking a message of irreverence and rebellion in a time of widespread disaffection.

On Nov. 26, Brooklyn City Councilman Charles Barron announced his candidacy for Congress, challenging Democratic incumbent Ed Towns, and local State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, who is also likely to run for the seat. In his decade on the City Council, Barron attracted plenty of attention with his invitation of Zimbabwe autocrat Robert Mugabe to City Hall, his proposal to slap the nearest white person “just for my mental health,” and most recently, eulogizing Moammar Khadafy as an “African hero.”

Eager to retain his bully pulpit, the one-time opponent of repealing term limits ran for a third term once they were repealed. Now, he is running for a national audience. To educate Barron on Israel would be futile. His opposition towards Israel goes beyond the standard leftist boilerplate. In 2009, he crossed the Egypt-Gaza border on a self-described “relief convoy,” describing the situation in Gaza as a “death camp” with Israel as the “terrorist” state.

The Anti-Defamation League certainly has no difficulty in compiling a dossier on Barron, who also argued that the true Semites are black and that Israel is an enemy to Africa. The black-Jewish relationship is among the most storied and complicated in American history, ebbing and flowing between the support of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the hostility of Malcolm X. As part of its pro-Israel outreach, Christians United For Israel has Pastor Michael Stevens, touring around Brooklyn churches with a message of blessing for those who support Israel.

But to truly rebuild this complicated relationship, the Jewish leadership should recognize Barron’s hatred for what it is- envy that a fellow minority group that arrived in America much later than his own, has been able to largely prosper on these shores. How can this envy be eliminated? By demonstrating mutual support for each other’s concerns, and working together to address them. To defeat Barron on the topic of Israel alone would be seen as self-serving, but to demonstrate that Barron is as harmful to his own community as to our own would be the most ideal method in defeating his candidacy.

This is not difficult at all. With his divisive attitude, Barron found himself stripped of Committee assignments on the City Council, a political pariah whose ability in Congress to deliver results to his district would be severely limited.