JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

ZOA: Jimmy Carter, unforgiven

By Ami Eden · January 13, 2010

The Zionist Organization of America and its leader, Morton Klein, have rejected President Jimmy Carter's apology to the Jewish community for anyway he may have helped "stigmatize" Israel.

Twice.

In its first statement on the matter, ZOA rejected the apology:

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has rejected former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s recent apology for having made false allegations and harsh criticisms of Israel, as his words did not amount to an apology at all. Indeed, his statement was not a retraction of his past harsh and monstrous criticisms of Israel, but an indirect reiteration and reaffirmation of them. ...

The ZOA notes that President Carter did not repudiate even a single specific past anti-Israel statement he has made in over three decades of maligning Israel with vicious falsehoods and tendentious allegations in innumerable op-eds, interviews, speeches and books. In fact, this statement actually reaffirms that his “criticisms” are accurate and legitimate but were only meant for “improvement” not for “stigmatizing Israel.” In other words, Carter’s calling Israel an apartheid, human-rights abusing, war-mongering state are still in his view true, but he is merely sorry that they “may have” harmed Israel’s image! He did not say these criticisms were untrue or actually harmful and retract them. Additionally, Jimmy Carter may have had an ulterior motive to offer his “apology” -- assisting the electoral prospects of his grandson, Jason, who is running for Congress in a district of Georgia with a Jewish population. His non-apology is therefore an insult to our intelligence.

The ZOA followed up with a second statement pointing to a recent opinion piece by Carter in The Guardian as proof of his insincerity. In additon, the group called on three Jewish organizational leaders -- Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Ira Forman of the National Jewish Democratic Council -- to retract their relatively poisitve responses to Carter's apology:

Mr. Foxman accepted Carter’s “apology” as constituting the “beginning of reconciliation”; Rabbi Hier contended that “we have to look at it seriously” and not dismiss it; and Mr. Forman claimed that ... Jimmy Carter should be “congratulated and encouraged.”

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Report: Ex-FBI agent says he was fired over religion

By Ami Eden · January 13, 2010

Courthouse News Service is reporting on an unnamed former FBI agent who has filed suit claiming that he was fired over suspicions regarding what amounted to lawful contacts with Israel and officials at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Here's the JTA brief:

(JTA) -- An FBI agent said he was fired because he is Jewish, saying he was unfairly under suspicion over lawful contacts with Israel and AIPAC officials.

The agent, suing in federal court as John Doe, said he was wrongfully under suspicion for what amounted to lawful contacts with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee after he was tied to the 2004 case in which two AIPAC employees and a Pentagon analyst were indicted on charges of espionage, the Courthouse News Service reported Wednesday. 

The Pentagon analyst, Lawrence Franklin, pleaded guilty to passing confidential information regarding U.S. foreign policy on Iran. The case against the AIPAC employees was dismissed.

In his complaint, the agent claims that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Justice Department "have allowed their personal, unfounded, and ill-informed biases regarding the country of Israel and the loyalty of Jewish Americans to improperly and illegally color their personnel decisions."

The agent also said he worked for the State Department as an analyst covering issues of Palestinian terrorism and Jewish extremism before moving to the FBI's Counterterrorism Division in 2004.

He said the FBI revoked his security clearance and placed him on administrative leave without pay in 2005 after being told he was being investigated for espionage.

The agent was fired by the FBI in June 2008 and told he could not appeal the decision due to national security.

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