LERNER VERSUS ANSWER

In a sign of how extremist some of the elements behind the upcoming “anti-war” demonstrations in New York and San Francisco are, Rabbi Michael Lerner has been banned from speaking. Now Lerner is a really, really liberal Jew. He group-hugged with Hillary Clinton on the “politics of meaning.” On the Arab-Israeli dispute, Lerner is a peacenik’s peacenik. He’s been vociferously in favor of leaving Saddam in power rather than using military force for months now. But because he publicly complained about some of the extremist elements behind the “anti-war” movement, he’s been blackballed. David Corn has all the details. But one deeper reason for Lerner’s banishment from “progressive” company may be that the liberal rabbi, although a hyper-dove, actually favors the existence of the state of Israel. Imagine! ANSWER, one of three groups organizing the demos, does not. As David Corn notes, the media director for ANSWER said on a January 28 radio show in New York that “I know that the ANSWER coalition would not have a pro-Israel speaker on its platform.” As Corn also shows, ANSWER has given speaking slots in the past to some of the most militant anti-Semites around, including some who believe that Israel was behind 9/11. There’s now a petition to support Lerner’s ability to speak, signed by some of the saner lefties in then “anti-war” brigade. Worth signing. But not if it means papering over the intolerant, extremist and reactionary forces behind an unhealthy amount of the anti-war movement. Corn and other principled leftists are right to worry about this taint – on moral as well as simply tactical grounds. Here’s my medium-term prediction: the Afghanistan campaign dealt a terrible blow to the American far-left and far-right. A successful Iraq war could marginalize them for decades. Here’s hoping.