None other than the J’Post’s own ‘raging-bull’, Benjamin Weinthal, leads the charge in exposing Center for American Progress (CAP) members for vitriolic anti-Semitic email exchanges, and please do take note, this is the liberal think tank (an oxymoron if there ever was one) that advises the Obama administration on Middle East affairs. Take it away Benny. KGS
Senior employee at CAP, Faiz Shakir, comes clean.
Faiz Shakir:“Yes, I agree ‘Israel Firster’ is terrible, anti-Semitic language. And that’s why that language no longer exists on Zaid’s personal twitter feed, because he also knows and understands the implications.”
E-mail reveals anti-Semitism at US think tank
By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL
01/07/2012 19:59
Group considered close to Obama administration concedes bias against Israel in e-mail.
CAP advises the Democratic Party on Middle East policy and is an important source of ideas for the Obama administration. The Jerusalem Post last week obtained the first CAP acknowledgment of Jew-hatred stemming from a group of Mideast bloggers affiliated with CAP’s ThinkProgress website.
In the e-mail that the Post obtained exclusively from the CAP account of Faiz Shakir, who serves as editor-in-chief of the ThinkProgress.org website and is a vice president at CAP, he wrote, “Yes, I agree ‘Israel Firster’ is terrible, anti-Semitic language. And that’s why that language no longer exists on Zaid’s personal twitter feed, because he also knows and understands the implications.”
Zaid Jilani wrote on his Twitter account, where he identifies himself as a “Reporter-Blogger for ThinkProgress,” that “… Obama is still beloved by Israel-firsters and getting lots of their $$.”
The e-mail recognizing the anti-Semitism of a CAP blogger was sent from FShakir@americanprogress.org in December. US-Jewish and Israeli NGOs accused a faction of ThinkProgress bloggers that month of stoking modern anti-Semitism. The anti-Israel scandal saw two CAP writers, Jilani and Ali Gharib, issue apologies for asserting that American Jews and a non-Jewish Republican senator serve the interests of the Israeli government over the security of the United States.
Speaking with the Post from Washington on Thursday, Shakir declined to comment on the e-mail from his account. He did not respond to a follow-up Post e-mail sent on Friday.
Interesting he did not “agree” the posting was anti-Semitic until confronted.