Be careful who your friends are
Apparently, people will cozy up to anyone who agrees with them on one issue. And some folks are calling them out on it. Norm Geras calls out Jews for Justice for Palestinians:
Your organization claims to be devoted to achieving justice for the Palestinian people. This is an objective which we endorse. For us it will be realized through the creation of a fully independent Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, where this state exists in peace and reconciliation with Israel. While your founding statement appears to favour such an arrangement, your actions belie your commitment to it. You regularly participate in demonstrations and political activities featuring large numbers of radical Islamists and other extremists who seek Israel's destruction and promote a strongly anti-Jewish programme. You engage in running apologetics for these groups and seek to present them as 'pragmatic'. You whitewash their racist platforms as understandable reactions to Israeli aggression.
Betsy Newmark and William Shawcross call out feminists:
[William]: As a supporter of the peace movement in the 1980s, I could never have imagined that many of the same crowd I hung out with then would today be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with militantly anti-feminist Islamic fundamentalist groups, whose views on women make western patriarchy look like a Greenham peace picnic. Nor would I have predicted that today’s feminists would be so indulgent towards Iran, a theocratic nation where it is an act of resistance to show an inch or two of female hair beneath the veil and whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is not joking about his murderous intentions towards Israel and the Jews.[Betsy]:That is a remarkable sight. These feminists are so opposed to Bush and Blair that they are willing to ally with fanatics who would prefer to seem all women clothed in burkas. This is a religion that still has supporters who believe in honor killings for girls who are raped. And these feminists will march by their side and not say a word against their hateful beliefs.
To those of you sitting to my left: you are known by the company you keep.
