My friend Viola Larson has written to Carol Hylkema, the moderator of the PCUSA’s Israel Palestine Mission Network, to raise questions regarding the links IPMN has given to Veterans Today and James Wall. Her answer amounts to “ain’t nobody here but us pure-as-the-driven-snow activists”:
Thank you for your letter expressing your concern regarding our network’s endorsement of James Wall and his writings. From where we stand, James Wall is a beacon of light in a place where debate has produced more heat than light.
Mr. Wall’s reference to other writers are his choice, not ours to make. As far as your concern on articles not referenced by James Wall that appear on a website that he has referenced, we feel uncomfortable practicing guilt by association. The Israel Palestine Mission Network never condones anti-Semitism and does not believe that James Wall is anti-Semitic. His record of speaking out against racism and human rights violations in the world speaks for itself and we support his work in this regard.
Hylkema, like Wall himself, tries to play the “guilt by association” card, thinking that that ends the discussion. The problem is that she doesn’t understand what the term means. The issue with Wall isn’t that two odious web sites happen to take blog posts of his and use them for their own purposes. The problem is that he is tightly connected to the sites in question. He’s a contributing writer for My Catbird Seat, and has publicly embraced Veterans Today in his last post, despite the fact that VT’s articles on the Middle East are full of Jewish conspiracy theories, anti-Israel propaganda, and outright anti-Semitism.
If the IPMN actually refused to condone anti-Semitism, it wouldn’t be linking to Veterans Today articles or to the articles by those who embrace it. But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for anyone from IPMN to recognize that.
December 3, 2010 at 1:43 am
David, I put this on my comment section and then thought I should put it here:
I have a question relating to what you quoted from on your comment section. It was the extra by the awful anti-Semite:
This:
“I have proposed the basic framework of the solution, which is the elimination of the rabbinical class and its entire support system, both Jewish and Gentile. Almost anything is possible but first it has to be proposed.”
Couldn’t one make the case that this is a death threat to a whole group of people and therefore VT should not be allowed on the internet?
December 3, 2010 at 8:11 am
The reason Hylkema hides behind banal euphemisms to defend the indefensible is because she sympathizes with the unforgivable. These people are anti-Semites. It’s not complicated.
December 3, 2010 at 8:51 am
Viola: That’s an interesting question. It would revolve around the meaning of the word “elimination,” which is just ambiguous enough so that the author could say he was speaking of putting an end to their influence, not physical death. But I do think it’s something that someone (Homeland Security, perhaps?) might find worth looking into. It might not shut down the site, but it might make life a bit more difficult for Campbell, who is clearly a neo-Nazi.