OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN WEBSITE FEATURES ATTACK ON "ISRAEL LOBBY"

Slow Lerners (WSJ-BOTW)
Oh, isn't this lovely: Barack Obama's campaign Web site is featuring an article called "The Israel Lobby--Bad for the U.S., Bad for Israel, Bad for the Jews" by the far-left Michael Lerner. In fairness, this appears on a "community blog," which we assume is an unmoderated forum for Obama fans.

CARTER TRIES TO DISUADE CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS FROM SUPPORTING ISRAEL

Some Evangelical Christians are BIG supporters of Israel. There are some Jews who are uncomfortable accepting such support, fearing it comes with a hidden agenda. Jimmy Carter is working the other side. He doesn't think Evangelical Christians should support Israel.

Carter Challenging Baptists On Conversions, Says Rabbi (JewishWeek)
Wading into the delicate fray over the alliance between Jews and pro-Israel Evangelicals, former President Jimmy Carter last week reportedly said it was a mistake for Jews to accept such ties, and that he was working to convince Southern Baptists to change the way they look at Judaism and the Middle East.

Christian Zionists can be better friends of Israel by challenging its government’s policies, while accepting Judaism as a legitimate path to God, Carter told a group organized by Rabbi Michael Lerner in California last week, according to the rabbi....

“Carter described his efforts to counter the extreme right-wing Christian Zionists, and his efforts to help the Baptists understand that the real way to be allies to the Jews is not by giving unconditional support to the current government of the State of Israel,” Rabbi Lerner announced in an e-mail to supporters after the meeting. He said the comments were on the record, taped and would appear, in part, in Tikkun this summer.

In a phone interview from California, the rabbi said Carter, a devout Southern Baptist, “has been involved and continues to be involved in theological debate within the American Baptists on the issue of how best to serve Jewish interests …

“He pointed out the strong connections between Christian Zionism and the desire to push the Jews eventually toward converting to Christianity or burning in hell. He pointed out that the Christian Zionist view is part of that general theology that essentially views the Jews as an obstacle, not as friends, but temporarily views the Jews as friends in the process of bringing back Jesus and at that point having all of us convert .”

Carter, said Rabbi Lerner, “says that Judaism is an equally legitimate path to God and does not believe that a second coming of Jesus requires destruction of the Jewish path to God … He argues that the book of Revelations from which this perspective has been derived is deeply misinterpreted by the fundamentalists.”

Rabbi James Rudin, the expert on Christian-Jewish affairs for the American Jewish Committee, took exception to the notion that Jewish leaders were acting against their interests.

“The Jewish community is much more sophisticated than maybe the president thinks,” said Rabbi Rudin. “We certainly understand that there are people such as he is describing, but that’s not the majority of Christian Zionists. There are many different views.”

ISRAEL-BASHING "RABBI" BELIEVES IN 9/11 MAY BE WORK OF U.S. GOVT.

A 9/11 Conspiracy? ‘I Would Not Be Surprised,’ Says Tikkun Editor (Forward)
Rabbi Michael Lerner, the longtime activist and editor of Tikkun magazine, has published an essay saying he is open to the possibility that the American government may have been behind the September 11 terrorist attacks.

“I would not be surprised to learn that some branch of our government conspired either actively to promote or passively to allow the attack on 9/11,” Lerner wrote in an essay published in the new book, “9/11 and American Empire: Christians, Jews, and Muslims Speak Out.” Lerner added that he would also not be surprised if it turned out that the attacks were not the result of a government conspiracy.

“I am agnostic on the question of what happened on 9/11,” he wrote in his essay for the book, which includes articles by other contributors arguing that a government conspiracy was behind the September 11 attacks. “As other authors in this collection have shown, there are huge holes in the official story and contradictions that suggest that we do not know the whole story.”

HERE'S MORE ON MICHAEL LERNER:

Lerner's anti-Israel diatribes are well documented. Recently, he circulated an article calling for the assassination of Alan Dershowitz.

Sometimes, Lerner bumps up against the anti-Semitism of his friends on the far left. A few years ago, the anti-war (and anti-American and anti-Israel) group International ANSWER barred Lerner from speaking at their rallies against the Iraq War, not because he supported the war (he didn't) but because he is a JEW.

According to Wikipedia, Lerner published an article entitled "There Is No New Anti-Semitism" in February 2007, criticizing much of the American Jewish establishment for labeling critics of Israel as antisemites. He is especially critical of groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which he blames for promoting an "Israel-can-do-no-wrong" mentality in American political life. Lerner argues that organizations such as AIPAC and the ADL have had a detrimental effect on American Jewish culture, and have alienated many young Jewish Americans who oppose Israel's policies toward the Palestinian people.