FEATURED JOBS
Comments (1)The Rev. Jeremiah Wright said he meant to say Zionists rather than Jews are keeping him from talking to President Obama.
“I misspoke,” said Wright, Obama’s former pastor, on Mark Thompson’s Sirius satellite radio show. “Let me just say Zionists.”
“I am not talking about all Jews, all people of the Jewish faith,” he continued, according to a transcript of the interview from The Associated Press. “I’m talking about Zionists.”
Wright was responding to questions about an interview he gave earlier in the week to the Daily Press of Hampton Roads, Va., in which he said in reference to Obama, “Them Jews aren’t going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter that he’ll talk to me in five years when he’s a lame duck, or in eight years when he’s out of office.”
Wright said in the newspaper interview that “ethnic cleansing is going on in Gaza” and “ethnic cleansing [by] the Zionists is a sin and a crime against humanity, and they don’t want Barack talking like that because that’s anti-Israel.”
He also said that “the Jewish vote, the A-I-P-A-C vote, that’s controlling him—that would not let him send representation to the Darfur Review Conference, that’s talking this craziness on this trip, ‘cause they’re Zionists—they would not let him talk to someone who calls a spade what it is.”
In the radio interview, he noted two books by Jewish authors criticizing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and said, “I’m talking about fact, historical fact. I’m not talking about emotionally charged words.”
Obama broke with Wright a year ago during his campaign after Wright publicly reiterated his views, which he aired previously in church sermons and other venues, that U.S. policies had caused the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and committed terrorism, and that Louis Farrakhan is a great man.
Jewish Leaders Join Push for Torture Panel
Jewish leaders joined heads of other faith groups in calling for a commission of inquiry to investigate U.S.-sponsored torture since the 9/11 attacks.
Rabbi Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council of Public Affairs, was one of eight religious leaders who led a “public witness” Thursday in front of the White House and participated in a news conference prior to the event sponsored by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.
“Jewish tradition seems clear,” said Gutow. “The rabbis, whose notions of humanity and its dignity reflect the Jewish views of how we must treat each other in the world, state time and again that each human and his or her life is sacred. The idea of using torture to gain an advantage over another seems far from their worldview.”
A group of 33 faith leaders later met with Obama administration officials at the White House, and presented a letter stating that such a commission “is necessary to uncover the whole truth about U.S. torture policies and practices; mobilize a national consensus; and build support for the requisite safeguards to ensure that U.S.-sponsored torture never happens again.”
The group notes that Obama has “publicly announced your opposition to a Commission of Inquiry, stating that our existing institutions are adequate for investigating what went wrong. You have expressed your desire to look forward, not backward. We agree we must look forward—forward to a future where torture will never happen again. But we believe that the only avenue to, and guarantee of, such a future is a Commission of Inquiry.”
Gutow was one of 51 religious leaders who signed the missive. Other Jewish leaders who signed include Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; Rabbi Jack Moline, director of public policy for the Rabbinical Assembly; Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union of Reform Judaism; Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis; Yael Ridberg, president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association; and Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, co-chairwoman of Rabbis for Human Rights-North America.
Pentagon Analyst who Leaked Info has Sentence Reduced
A former Pentagon analyst who pleaded guilty to passing secret information to two former AIPAC staffers had his sentence drastically reduced.
Larry Franklin was sentenced to probation and 10 months of “community confinement,” or a halfway house, along with 100 hours of community service. In 2005 he had received a sentence of 12 1/2 years in prison but was free pending his cooperation with prosecutors in the case against the two formers AIPAC staffers, Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman.
Federal prosecutors dropped the charges last month against Rosen and Weissman for passing classified information, saying that restrictions the judge had placed on the case made the government unlikely to prevail.
In a Thursday afternoon hearing in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., prosecutors asked Judge T.S. Ellis to reduce Franklin’s sentence to eight years, saying he played an important role in the case but was “not what you’d call an ideal cooperator.” Franklin attorney, Plato Cacheris, said Franklin had “paid his penalty and suffered greatly,” and should not have to serve any time in prison.
Ellis said he didn’t have an opinion on the dismissal of the case against Rosen and Weissman, but the fact that the case was dropped was a “significant” factor in the sentencing of Franklin.
The judge also noted in Franklin’s defense that other leakers of government secrets in recent years have not been prosecuted. On the other hand, Ellis noted that “this case is different from Rosen and Weissman because Mr. Franklin is a government official.” For that reason, Ellis said Franklin’s community service should consist of speaking to young people about the importance of public officials obeying the law.
Franklin has said he leaked information to the former AIPAC staffers, as well as an Israeli diplomat, because of “frustration with policy” on Iran at the Pentagon. He believed that they would be able to relay that information on Iran to friends on the U.S. National Security Council.