The Return of the Smear Bund

Phony charges of "anti-Semitism" are nothing new

by Justin Raimondo, January 20, 2012

" The tale of the DC Five – the five Beltway bloggers at two prominent Democratic Washington thinktanks who have been smacked down (and one fired) for being insufficiently pro-Israel – is hardly a shock to those who know their history. But before we get into that, a few details on what is only the latest chapter in the story of how the War Party operates in this country.
The DC Five are Matt Duss, Ali Gharib, Eli Clifton and Zaid Jilani, bloggers at the Center for American Progress group blog, ThinkProgress, and former AIPAC employee MJ Rosenberg who currently writes for Media Matters. The Washington Post details the charges against them:
“The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank closely aligned with the White House, is embroiled in a dispute with several major Jewish organizations over statements on Israel and charges that some center staffers have used anti-Semitic language to attack pro-Israel Americans. ....

Israel’s lobby in the US is reflexively defensive, and covertly authoritarian: they can’t afford to have an open discussion of our “special relationship” with Israel — and Israel’s sick relationship with its Arab helots – and so must resort to silencing their opponents. The case of the DC Five is meant to sow fear among the policy analysts and thinktankers who inhabit the Washington Beltway: “do not cross the line,” they are telling them – and the closer we get to war with Iran, the faster the boundaries of the impermissible are growing. There is a method to this madness: it is a preemptive strike aimed at opponents of US intervention, and on the left as well as the right it is turning out to be quite effective."