Ex-ADL Leader Blasts ADL/Foxman

By Rev. Ted Pike

Joel Sprayregen is a former ACLU staff attorney and National Vice-Chair of the Anti-Defamation League. He was appalled at ADL's recent 27-page online attack on the Christian/conservative right, "Rage Grows in America: Anti-Government Conspiracies."
(http://www.adl.org/special_reports/rage-grows-in-America/default.asp)

Writing in American Thinker Online, November 29, he says, "You can...understand the consternation, and not just mine, which greeted the ADL's hyped "Report" declaring that 'rage' expressed against President Obama is un-American." He says, "ADL's perfervidly purple prose belies an abysmal ignorance of American political traditions." Sprayregen documents this tradition on the authority of Jefferson, Holmes, etc., who not only tolerated but actually encouraged fervent, even heated dissent.

"ADL's naked partisanship," he says, is revealed by the fact that "In the time of anti-Bush rage, the ADL held its tongue." But, he says, "You can't fool all the people all the timeThe failure of mainline media to scrutinize Obama and his mentors - which truly is unprecedentedincentivizes many who love this country to sound off...The ADL could not have chosen a more infelicitous moment to try to shield Obama from anger generated by his policies."

Sprayregen says he was National Vice-Chair of "the then-respected Anti-Defamation League." But in past years "ADL stumbled so egregiously. As observed by many, including myself, who have left the organization, the ADL has declined into an autocracy where no opinion counts other than that of its long-time National Director, Abraham Foxman, whom the New York Times described as "a one-man Sanhedrin for life." When Foxman hatches a crackpot idea like the "Rage Report," no one can restrain him."

He says, "Foxman is driven to justify his half-million-dollar-plus salary (matched in virtually no other Jewish organization) To generate publicity for himself, he launches (and then summarily drops) foolish initiatives, such as his attack on Christian Evangelicals, Israel's most consistent supporters I found only one press column praising the ADL statement: that of Los Angeles Times writer Timothy Rutten... When I googled Rutten, I found that last year, he received an ADL First Amendment award."

Sprayregen's article adds to rapidly mounting testimony by yet another Jew (and ADL insider) informing the world that ADL is a loose cannon on the deck of liberalism. It could threaten Zionist interests also because ADL is the PR bulldog of Israel to the world. Jewish liberals view it, as Jewish Week confirmed last week, as "an active part of the right-of-center pro-Israel establishment." Yet Foxman, Sprayregen contends, counterproductively attacks the century-long arch supporters of Israel: evangelical Christians. This includes WorldNetDaily owner Joseph Farah who, not unlike ADL, provides a pipeline for Israeli policy directives to millions of evangelicals.

Where Is ADL Taking Us?

What does Sprayregen's exposure of Foxman's instability and persecutive inclinations mean to Christians/conservatives -- indeed to all Americans?

It means many things because ADL has so profoundly altered American social attitudes, especially in regard to tolerance of homosexuality and support of pro-homosexual legislative initiatives. These, whether on the local, federal, or international level, will unfailingly be found to have been generated primarily by ADL and its parent organization, B'nai B'rith International.

ADL hate crimes laws have taken free speech from the citizens of Canada, England, Australia, etc.; and now America is shackled with a national hate law fully capable of doing the same. Recently signed by Pres. Obama, it was very largely conceived and brought into existence by the same Abe Foxman who wrote the recent "Rage Report" which portrays millions of Americans as "conspirators."

Since 1984, with publication of my book Israel: Our Duty, Our Dilemma, I have been sounding the alarm against the ADL -- warning of ADL's anti-Christian, anti-freedom malevolence -- just as Sprayregen and other Jewish ADL critics are now alleging. Yet virtual silence of any criticism of ADL has prevailed among frightened Christian and Jewish leaders until now. At last, Joseph Farah, Orthodox rabbi Nachum Shifren, Commentary magazine editor Jonathan Tobin, and Joel Sprayregen are finally breaking the national silence in terse and even biting rebuke. This is a historic moment. Never since its founding in 1913 have one evangelical and three Jewish leaders stood up in public criticism of ADL. Let's make sure that ADL's irresponsibility in issuing its "Rage Report" will result in a new era of responsibility for vigilance, scrutiny and criticism of ADL by all in positions of religious and political authority.

Danger from ADL Will Continue

What will happen to ADL if criticism and controversy over the "Rage Report" continues? Foxman could resign. ADL, under new leadership, could ostensibly learn some of the "tolerance" it has presumed to teach others for most of the past century.

Yet, ADL will remain an enormous threat to freedom. The statement by California Senator Jack Tenney in the 1971 Congressional Recordremains apropos: "The CIA and FBI are tinker toys compared to the ADL."

ADL remains frighteningly powerful, eliciting recent effusive praise from guest speakers at ADL functions: Janet Napolitano, head of the Department of Homeland Security; Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations; and Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General. In fact, legislative events of the past year have demonstrated beyond doubt that, at least concerning passage of ADL's hate crimes laws, most Democrats in Congress as well as Attorney General Holder are securely in the palm of ADL's hand.

ADL will continue to surveil Christian/conservative Americans along with fringe groups, providing under-the-table intelligence to the U.S. government unavailable through lawful means. Sometimes it will get caught, as Sprayregen says, "for illegally gathering evidence against unsuspecting Americansstored in its massive files (twice in recent years the ADL has paid damages for illegal surveillance)." (For a complete education on ADL's massive spy operation on 10,000 Americans, watch my gripping 82-minute video at www.truthtellers.org "Hate Laws: Making Criminals of Christians.")

Evil tends to be immoderate. This time ADL has gone too far. In 2005, ADL's National Executive Board member Philadelphia district attorney Lynne Abraham also went too far. Erupting in rage two days after Christian conservatives defeated ADL's hate bill in Congress, she took revenge on the religious right by arresting 11 Christians. She charged them with seven crimes, threatening 47 years in prison and $90,000 in fines each. Included was the "hate crime" of witnessing to homosexuals at a gay pride rally. But ADL paid a big price then, as I hope they will pay in the days and weeks ahead. As a result of Abraham's rash persecution, ADL provided a red hot issue which propelled me onto national talk radio. Since then, thanks to ADL, I have given roughly 700 interviews, with 125 hosts, almost entirely in warning against ADL and its hate laws.

Once, in an interview by author and radio talk show host Michael Collins Piper, he related how on a street corner in Washington, D.C. he saw someone who looked very familiar. Yes, it was Abe Foxman. Piper, who has exhaustively researched and written about ADL, started walking toward him, saying, "Hey, I know you -- you're Abe Foxman!" Foxman, doubtless recognizing Piper, turned and started walking briskly away and then fled.

This is the man who brings Christians/conservatives to silence and submission by threatening to label them anti-Semitic. He did this to Dr. Richard Land, President of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, several weeks ago. Land had transgressed ADL's ban on using any Nazi terminology to describe the pro-abortion provisions of the healthcare reform bill. Confronted by Foxman, Land was utterly intimidated, vowing, according to ADL, that from then on ADL can always count him "on board" their "tolerance" social agenda. Dr. Land should know this includes promotion of homosexuality, abortion, pornography, and hate laws. (See ADL Welcomes Christian Leader's Apology For Insensitive Remarks On Healthcare Debate)

Yet, as Piper's encounter reveals, Foxman showed himself a coward, one who can't face an eminent critic on the street corner or, as Sprayregen alleges, even criticism from his own staff. That is part of the reason he and ADL tirelessly promote hate laws which ban criticism of homosexuals, Muslims, and Jews. Above everything else, ADL abhors criticism of itself.

Foxman and the ADL need to be identified, exposed, and shamed in order to deflate their persona from the gargantuan proportions and reputation they have falsely attained over the past century. Foxman is like a phobia: If you run from it, it only attains credibility, becoming a giant in hot pursuit. But if you relax, turn around and mockingly defy it, it will dissipate. In the same way Foxman, the terror of the religious right, will shrink to nothing more than a mouse squeaking in the corner.

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Let the Anti-Defamation League teach you how they have saddled 45 states with hate laws capable of persecuting Christians, and spearhead attempts to pass the federal hate crimes bill: http://www.adl.org/99hatecrime/intro.asp.

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