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Political tidbits: Palin greets Meridor, checking out the face of Obama’s Fla. campaign (UPDATED)

By Eric Fingerhut · October 27, 2008

• Sarah Palin meets with Israel Ambassador to the U.S. Sallai Meridor and tells him she looks “forward to ... working with your Jewish agency,” according to the Associated Press. (Is that some kind of reference to his old position as head of JAFI?) UPDATE: Here’s Palin’s full quote, and she was talking about Meridor’s time at the Jewish Agency for Israel: “I look forward to hearing about your work with the Jewish Agency and all the plans that we have. We’ll be working together.”
• Menachem Rosensaft charges the McCain-Palin campaign has resurrected McCarthyism, in the Huffington Post.
• A Jewish Republican state legislator in Ohio is attacked by his opponent for his military service in Iraq. Bob Belovich is charging that Josh Mandel “abandoned voters,” according to Joel Mowbray at Townhall.com.
• A phone banker for Obama tells the Huffington Post that she first tells Jewish voters that she understands their concerns about “voting for someone who is black” – and then finds Sarah Palin “is a great help in persuading” them to back Obama.
  
• The Sarasota Herald-Tribune profiles “Florida’s face for the Obama campaign,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz –and quotes her former professor predicting she’ll be the first Jewish president.
• Friends of Israel should vote for Barack Obama, writes Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) in the Jerusalem Post.
  
• The Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick writes that the prospect of an Obama-Tzipi Livni partnership is “enough to keep men and women of good faith up at night.”
• Delray Beach deli Poppie’s is the setting for today’s interviews of South Florida Jewish voters – who, just as the polls indicate, seem to be swinging towards Obama, according to the Toronto Star.
• Remember Cynthia McKinney, the congresswoman from Georgia whose father blames the “J-E-W-S” for her defeat in 2002? She’s running for president on the Green Party ticket, and is still talking about conspiracies, according to the Washington Post. She also got the endorsement of Roseanne Barr.
• Bradley Burston, in Haaretz, wants Sarah Palin to speak to liberals like they were “real Americans” too.
  
• The Springfield (Mo.) News-Leader talks to some Palin supporters from Oklahoma who think the vice presidential nominee is the “Deborah and Esther of our day” chosen “to defeat the modern enemy – Obama.”
• Jim Besser in The Jewish Week explores the reasons for the rise in Obama’s Jewish numbers.
  
• Rep. Robert Wexler tells the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne that McCain’s choice of Palin was an “unqualified negative” for the Republican in South Florida.
  
• There’s always a lot of criticism about the substance of American political campaigns, but YNet’s Yair Lapid is jealous while watching McCain and Obama – because Israeli political campaign are much less serious.
  
• Former Ehud Barak adviser Daniel Levy discusses what the 25th anniversary of the Hezbollah bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut can tell us about the presidential candidates.
• The Washington Post looks at who is behind the distribution of 28 million copies of the anti-radical Islam film “Obsession.”



John McCain is favored by a 12-point margin over Obama by Israelis, according to YNet.

• The New York Times endorses the “blind rabbi,” Dennis Shulman.

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Political tidbits: Gallup poll reactions, Palin wig big in Brooklyn

By Eric Fingerhut · October 24, 2008

• A McCain supporter changes his mind in the voting booth and casts his ballot for Obama after talking to a group of Jewish women who convince him how historic Obama’s election would be. He also loans them his Dale Earnhardt jacket so they can cover up their Obama shirts and vote, according to Politico.
• Looking at yesterday’s Gallup poll, Shmuel Rosner, in Commentary, analyzes why Obama has gained ground in the Jewish community. Meanwhile, Salon’s Glenn Greenwald claims that Obama’s Jewish problem was a “baseless myth.”
• Should the Great Schlep have gone to Hillels? Jacques Berlinerblau wonders after noting that the Gallup poll found older Jews support Obama in slightly bigger numbers than younger Jews.
• Did Republicans, as Colin Powell charged on “Meet the Press,” spread the “Obama is a Muslim” rumor? Steven Waldman looks into that question in the Wall Street Journal, and finds that while John McCain is innocent, others aren’t.
  
• Hilary Leila Krieger looks at Obama’s Jewish political connections in the Jerusalem Post.
• Dennis Ross talks to Haaretz about being a surrogate for Obama in Florida.
• Just like in their television ad, the Republican Jewish Coalition’s new newspaper ad uses Hillary Clinton to attack Barack Obama, comparing Clinton and John McCain’s positions to the Democratic nominee’s stances on three issues and finding Obama the odd man out.
• The NJDC’s Aaron Keyak notes on the Huffington Post that Sarah Palin was campaigning with the senator who blocked a bill tightening sanctions on Iran.
• Jerry Stiller, Rhea Pearlman, Carl Reiner, Danny DeVito: They’re all old sitcom stars, and they’ve all cut pro-Obama ads for the Jewish Alliance for Change.
  
• Surrogates for the candidates debate at Jewish forums in Philadelphia and Palm Beach County.
  
• A London writer spends some time with some New Jersey Obama supporters who are worried the news is too good for their candidate.
• The Sarah Palin wig is a big hit in Brooklyn among Orthodox women, according to the New York Daily News.

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Breaking the 70 percent barrier

By Eric Fingerhut · October 23, 2008

First a poll of Floridians and now a national poll shows Barack Obama is making significant gains among Jews.

A Gallup October tracking poll found Obama leading John McCain among registered Jewish voters by a margin of 74-22 percent. Obama’s share of the vote in the monthly Gallup survey has risen five points since September and 13 points since July. The October poll was based on 564 interviews conducted Oct. 1-21 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percent.

In addition, a Qunnipiac University poll of Florida voters found Obama winning 77 percent of the Jewish vote, compared to just 20 percent for McCain. That poll, taken Oct. 16-21, surveyed 87 Jewish voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 10.5 points.

The polls suggest that after months of hovering around 60 percent, Obama appears to be in striking distance of the 75-80 percent of the Jewish vote won by the three previous Democratic nominees.

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Political tidbits: Obama up big among Fla. Jews, Shulman gaining on Garrett? (UPDATED)

By Eric Fingerhut · October 23, 2008

• Did the Great Schlep work? A new Quinnipiac poll has Florida Jews going 77-20 for Obama. That number would put Obama in line with Jewish support of the Democratic candidate in the last few presidential elections – and that’s in a state where a lot of resistance to Obama among Jewish voters had been reported a couple months ago. UPDATE: According to the Quinnipiac Polling Institute, the Jewish sample in the poll was 87 people, or 6 percent, which gives it a sizable margin of error of plus or minus 10.5 percent.
• “Blind Rabbi” Dennis Shulman and incumbent Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) have their first debate, and it’s not friendly. The candidates clashed over Israel and health care, reports the New Jersey Jewish News.
• Meanwhile, Politico speculates that the GOP is worried about losing Garrett’s seat, although a party spokeswoman denies it. For his part, Garrett just started running a television ad calling Shulman “too extreme for New Jersey” and sent out a mailer accusing Shulman of supporting “talking to terrorists.”
  Shulman’s campaign responded by calling Garrett “desperate” and comparing him to Karl Rove and Michelle Bachmann
  
• The head of Vote From Israel claims the deciding votes in a close presidential election could come from the 42,000 U.S. voters living in the Jewish state, reports the Jerusalem Post.
• Some Jewish Democrats complain to the Forward that the Conference of Presidents circulated invitations to John McCain’s “tele-town hall” meeting on Sunday.
  
• Howard Fineman blogs at Newsweek that Jewish donors frightened by Sarah Palin were one reason Barack Obama raised so much money in September.
• If John McCain won’t bring up Rev. Jeremiah Wright as a campaign issue, then Jonathan Mark of The Jewish Week doesn’t trust McCain to speak out against anti-Semitism as president.
  
• The economic crisis is dampening enthusiasm for McCain among the Russian Jewish community, reports The Jewish Week.
• And some in the Jewish community see the economic crisis forcing increased engagement with Iran under a new president, writes Jim Besser in The Jewish Week.
• The Forward reports on the Obama campaign’s courting of the Brooklyn Orthodox community at a sukkah in Williamsburg.
  
• Whitefish salad, nova, bagels, latkes and a couple black and white cookies were on the menu when Obama visited a South Florida deli with Reps. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) on Tuesday afternoon, reports Jake Tapper at ABC News.
• How does an editor decide whether to publish a letter that contains false information about the presidential candidates? The Jewish Week’s Gary Rosenblatt explores that issue.
  
• Larry Yudelson, in the Jerusalem Post, finds problems in McCain’s repetition of the phrase “Judeo-Christian values.”
• Eitan Haber, in YNet, is not excited, to say the least, about a Barack Obama presidency and it implications for Israel.
  
• Obama adviser Dan Kurtzer is optimistic about Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in an Obama presidency, according to the New Jersey Jewish News.
  
• Alan Dershowitz’s research assistant objects to the Harvard law professor’s endorsement of Obama, in the Jerusalem Post.
• Washington Jewish Week talks to some young Jews who made The Great Schlep.
• Could Wyoming have a Jewish member of Congress? Some polls say it’s possible, according to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

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Political tidbits: Franken up by nine, Mason flip-flopped on McCain

By Eric Fingerhut · October 6, 2008

• Al Franken (D) leads Sen. Norm Coleman (R) by nine points in a new poll of voters in Minnesota, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The paper also has a report on the first debate of the campaign, held Sunday night.
• On “Meet the Press"… Democratic strategist Paul Begala warns that the GOP’s guilt-by-association reasoning could be turned on its head to make John McCain look like someone who has associated with anti-Semites.
  
• Jackie Mason flip-flopped on McCain? The Miami New Times posts a video of the comedian calling John McCain a “disgusting lowlife” and a “fraud” during the Republican primaries, quite a contrast with his pro-McCain, anti-Sarah Silverman video released Friday.
• Andrew Silow-Carroll, in the New Jersey Jewish News, decodes the presidential candidates’ High Holiday messages – and finds that they encapsulate their strategies for winning the Jewish vote.
• By the end of this campaign, every South Florida Jewish voter will have been interviewed at least once about the campaign. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel contributes with this article.
• And Salon does its part, but with a fresher spin – it finds a lot of Florida Jews who really don’t like Sarah Palin.
• Palin said during the vice-presidential debate that she backed a Sudan divestment bill in Alaska, but the bill’s Democratic sponsor says she was against it before she was for it, according to ABCNews.com.
• And Joe Biden’s statement that the U.S. and France “kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon” wasn’t accurate either.
• The Levin brothers, Carl and Sander, stump for Obama at a Bucks County, Pa. synagogue, reports the Bucks County Courier Times.
• Menachem Rosensaft urges Jews to listen to Ed Koch and vote for Obama.
  Willy Stern, in the Weekly Standard, quotes a Palestinian pollster who says Palestinians aren’t that optimistic about an Obama presidency.
• Fox host Sean Hannity uses a source with a history of anti-Semitism to attack Obama, according to Todd Gitlin at TPMCafe.
• The Jewish Council for Education and Research has released a video of seven former IDF generals and Mossad chiefs endorsing Barack Obama, but two of them say they had no idea their interviews were going to end up in a pro-Obama video, according to Haaretz.

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Political tidbits: Hastings apologizes, more Jewish pro-Obama videos

By Eric Fingerhut · October 2, 2008

• Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.) now says he regrets his comments last week about Sarah Palin, but maintains a McCain-Palin administration would be “anathema” to most African Americans and Jews.
• Georgetown University professor Jacques Berlinerblau, in the Washington Post’s On Faith blog, likes Sarah Silverman’s “The Great Schlep” video, but doubts it will have much impact on which way Florida votes.
  
• Jewish friends and supporters of Barack Obama, including Penny Pritzker and Abner Mikva, talk in this campaign video about why they support him .
  
• Benjamin Hartman in Ha’aretz says a debate in Israel last week between proxies for the American presidential candidates was a lot more exciting than the real candidates going at it the next evening. A question about Palin caused the greatest stir at that debate, according to CNS News.
  
• Jim Besser in The Jewish Week notes that the AJC survey found Obama surprisingly less popular among younger Jews than older Jews – although that number may be skewed by the strong support McCain enjoys in the Orthodox community.
• Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) says her opponent criticized her for coming home to celebrate Rosh Hashanah; Republican Tim Bee’s campaign said it was an innocent mixup and that they meant no harm.
• Obama adviser Dennis Ross tells the New Jersey Jewish News that his candidate would “change the dynamic” in the Middle East.
• Ed Koch recounts his trip to South Florida over the weekend to campaign for Obama.
  
• Doug Bloomfield, in the Washington Jewish Week, says John McCain’s no-earmark policy would be bad for Israel and the Jews.
  
• David Benkof in the Jerusalem Post argues that Jews shouldn’t use the Supreme Court as an excuse not to vote for McCain.
• Gawker tallies up how Jewish members of Congress voted on the bailout.
• Has Congress always taken the High Holidays off? No, it’s a fairly recent custom, reports the Associated Press.
  
• Sarah Palin has used Queen Esther as a role model, but is she really more like David battling Goliath? Mark Joseph on FoxNews.com thinks so.
• The Boston Globe wonders whether Joe Biden’s propensity to speak from “the kishkas” will get him in trouble tonight.
  
• Jon Stewart and “The Daily Show” worked on Rosh Hashanah, and he thinks Congress should have worked, too.
  
• Andy Borowitz has some fun with Bill Clinton’s announcement that he wouldn’t be campaigning until after the Jewish High Holy Days.

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Looking at why Orthodox Jews have gone GOP

By Eric Fingerhut · September 26, 2008

John McCain’s overwhelming 78-13 percent lead over Barack Obama among Orthodox Jews in this week’s American Jewish Committee poll was just the latest example of how Orthodox Jews – at least at the presidential level – have become strong backers of the GOP.

The reason? For Orthodox Jews, Israel is far and away the most important issue – and they have supported President George W. Bush’s handling of it, according to four Orthodox Jewish Democrats on a panel this week at the National Jewish Democratic Council’s Washington Conference. The panel also agreed, however, that Democrats could win some of them back.

“The Orthodox community is dramatically more concerned about Israel” than the rest of the Jewish community,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “They’re almost united in having Israel as a preeminent concern,” compared to other Jewish voters for whom Israel is one of a number of issues.

Kean University political science professor Gil Kahn added that for the modern Orthodox community, Israel takes on greater importance because many of them have childen and other family members who have made aliyah.

That emphasis on Israel has combined with other factors to create the Republican surge. Kahn noted that a high percentage of Orthodox Jews have decided to back McCain because they’re listiening to Israeli Orthodox Jews, many of whom have said they are more comfortable with a president they’ve known for many years than a relative newcomer like Obama.

There’s also been a change in the last decade in Republican language on Israel. After Newt Gingrich was elected Speaker of the House , Republicans “began speaking about Israel in eschatological terms,” said Rabbi Menachem Genack, CEO and rabbinic administrator of OU Kosher.

Mellman noted that Orthodox Jews also fit into the general shift in political party alignment in recent years – from being dictated by a voter’s economic situation (richer generally meant Republican) to based on cultural issues such as attendance at religious services (more religious means more Republican).

The panelists downplayed abortion specifically as a major factor in the Orthodox shift to the right, but said the differences in tone the two parties strike on values – a “sense of moral absolutism versus a sense of moral relativism” – was important. Democratic rhetoric such as “no one should tell you what to do with your body” is not language to which Orthodox Jews can relate, said Mellman.

No one thought the Orthodox community was a lost cause for Democrats, though. First of all, Kahn noted that Orthodox Jews still support plenty of Democratic candidates below the presidential level.

Another panelist offered some tips to the party. Democrats “need to have a big enough tent,” said Rabbi Yeruchim Silber, vice president of community affairs for the Metropolitan Jewish Health System, to make those who don’t agree with them on social issues more comfortable. He praised the party for allowing the anti-abortion Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) to speak at this year’s Democratic convention.

He also suggested the Democrats look at their stance on school choice. “It’s a crushing burden” paying for Jewish day school for multiple children, and whether it is vouchers, tuition tax credits or some other solution, the issue is a crucial one in the Orthodox community, Silber said. He added that emphasizing areas in which Democrats are in tune with the Orthodox community – such as backing for more affordable housing and increased funding for higher education – would also be effective.

He pointed out that Orthodox voters can change – recalling that Hillary Clinton didn’t receive much Orthodox support in her first Senate race in 2000, but had completely reversed that six years later.

Mellman agreed. “No one should give up on the Orthodox community” among Democrats, he said. “If we have a Democratic president like Barack Obama who is a strong supporter of Israel,” then “Democrats four years from now, eight years from now, will be in a much better position with the Orthodox community than we are today.”

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Political tidbits: Ad wars, Sarah Silverman and more

By Eric Fingerhut · September 26, 2008

• JTA’s Ami Eden critiques a Republican Jewish Coalition ad linking Barack Obama and Pat Buchanan, and reports on another one quoting Democrats who have praised John McCain.
• The New York Times reports that Obama is now running dubious ads about McCain, including one that hits below the belt in an effort to scare Latino voters.
  
• And the RJC cries foul over a Florida Democratic congressman saying, “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.”
• The National Jewish Democratic Council goes positive with a Rosh Hashanh-themed Obama ad.
• Sarah Silverman wants you to get your Jewish grandparents to vote for Obama.
• Remember ”Rabbis for Obama”? Well, the man who brought you the McCippah and the Obamaica introduces: ”Rabies for Obama.”
  
• Brett Lieberman at The Forward looks into the big funding disparity between the Republican Jewish Coalition and the National Jewish Democratic Council – which explains why NJDC chair Marc Stanley kept joking about finding a billionaire this week at the NJDC’s Washington Conference.
• How big a factor is race in the Jewish vote? The Jerusalem Post’s Hilary Leila Krieger looks into it.
  
• Anchorage’s Chabad rabbi talks to the Jewish Advocate about Sarah Palin.
• Two leaders of Republicans Abroad Israel, in the Jerusalem Post, continue the GOP criticism of Democrats for “sabotaging” this week’s anti-Iran rally.
• A Wisconisn political scientist says Sarah Palin may drive Jews away from John McCain, in the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.
• Daniel Halper, at Commentary’s blog, points out that John McCain seems to be garnering a great deal of support from independents in the AJC survey released yesterday.
• Juan Cole, in Salon, argues that Barack Obama and Sarah Palin overreacted to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s United Nations speech.
• Menachem Rosensaft, in the The Jewish Week, writes that the Republican Party stance on abortion “is in direct conflict with Jewish law.”
• In a piece headline “Sarah, Heavenly Sarah,” Laurence Kulak, in the 5 Towns Jewish Times, asks a question we’re hearing for the very first time: “Why does Sarah Palin seem to be so Jewish?”
• Yiddish singer Eleanor Reissa and actress Elaine Stritch will headline a party next month to raise money for the pro-Obama Jewish Alliance for Change.

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Obama still lagging among Jewish voters

By Eric Fingerhut · September 25, 2008

Barack Obama leads John McCain by 27 points among Jewish voters, but he significantly trails the Jewish vote for recent Democratic candidates, according to a new survey.

Obama leads 57 percent to 30 percent among those polled in the American Jewish Committee’s 2008 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion, with 13 percent undecided.

By contrast, John Kerry received 76 percent of the Jewish vote four years ago against George W. Bush, and in the three prior presidential elections, Democrats won 78 to 80 percent of Jewish votes. Obama backers have argued in recent weeks that Jewish numbers for Kerry were similar at this stage in the race, but the 2004 AJC survey doesn’t back them up. Taken three weeks earlier in that campaign than this year, it found Kerry leading Bush 69 percent to 24 percent.

The poll by survey research organization Synovate of 914 self-identifying Jewish respondents, selected from Synovate’s consumer mail panel, was conducted by telephone Sept. 8-21. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

McCain enjoyed a 78 percent to 13 percent lead among Orthodox Jews, but Obama won easily among all other Jewish groups: Conservatives, 59 percent to 26 percent; Reform, 62 percent to 27 percent; and those calling themselves “just Jewish,” 61percent to 26 percent.

McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate was unpopular in the Jewish community, according to the survey. Just 37 percent approved, with 54 percent disapproving of the selection. By contrast, Obama’s choice of Joe Biden garnered 73 percent approval and 15 percent disapproval.

The economy was seen as the most important issue. Fifty-four percent of respondents said that was the one issue they would “most like the candidates to discuss,” with 11 percent answering health care, 6 percent the war in Iraq and just 3 percent answering Israel.

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RJC defends poll, Dems cry foul

By Eric Fingerhut · September 17, 2008

The leader of the Republican Jewish Coalition says he did nothing wrong by sponsoring a poll that tested negative messages about Barack Obama, but said he won’t provide his poll questions to the media unless Democrats do the same.

“I’ll be happy to release the questions when the Obama people release their polls,” said Brooks. “I don’t want a double standard.” The RJC leader said that his organization had “nothing to apologize for” and was simply testing messages like “every single campaign” does. Many of the messages that Brooks confirmed were tested in the poll are statements that have been appearing in RJC advertisements and other literature for months.

He added that characterizations of the survey as a “negative Obama poll” were unfair. There were 82 questions asked, and “less than 10 percent” tested “messages” dealing with Obama. There were other questions, he said, dealing with the economy, energy independence and a “wide range of issues.” The poll queried 750 voters in Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Democrats concede that Brooks was not conducting a “push poll” but say that the messages he was testing were filled with distortions and untruths.

Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who was John Kerry’s pollster during the 2004 presidential campaign, said the lengthy list of questions appears to indicate that the survey was designed to test messages and “did not meet the definition of a push poll” – which is usually a much briefer call that isn’t a poll at all but a call made with the sole purpose of spreading negative information about a candidate.

But Mellman said he felt the RJC was testing messages that wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny and that he wouldn’t test as a pollster. “There’s a line between basically accurate and basically deceptive and they crossed that line,” Mellman said.

“I test messages, he’s testing lies,” said National Jewish Democratic Council executive director Ira Forman, who said that many of the reported questions start with a “grain of truth” but leave out important context or twist the meaning of certain facts. Forman said he would not detail the types of messages he tests.

Mik Moore, who as founder of the pro-Obama organization Jewsvote.org first publicized reports of the RJC poll, said that by the definition of experts the RJC survey was probably not a “push poll.” But he said the “effect of it was a push poll” because it ended up upsetting people and spreading negative information about Obama within the community.

But Republican pollster Neil Newhouse said he found the RJC questions “pretty standard in message testing surveys” because pollsters “tend not to give both sides of the story” in such cases. He said both parties do similar types of polls, and that as long as a statement can be defended as true if it shows up on the front page of the newspaper, it will be tested.

He added that the size of the RJC’s poll – 750 Jewish voters in Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey – was clear evidence that the RJC was not conducting a “push poll,” which usually goes to tens of thousands of voters.

Brooks denied “absolutely” and “categorically” that the poll asked any questions that accused Obama of being a Muslim or brought up the Islamic background of his family, or that there were any questions claiming that Obama was endorsed by the president of Iran or donated to the PLO, as some who were polled have claimed in media reports.

He also said that, contrary to reports of some of those surveyed, respondents were not told that Obama supported a “divided Jerusalem.” He said the actual question was: “Barack Obama once supported a united, undivided Jerusalem, but now says it’s ‘up to the parties’ which could mean a divided Jerusalem.”

Brooks confirmed that the survey included questions about Hamas leader Ahmed Yousef’s stated support of Obama, that “Jimmy Carter’s anti-Israel national security adviser” is a foreign policy adviser to Obama, and that the Democratic candidate was the member of the board of an organization which donated to a pro-Palestinian organization. He defended all those statements as accurate.

“The questions were designed to understand why the Jewish community continues to have a problem” with Barack Obama,” Brooks said.

Forman noted that the questions leave out important information, such as Hamas’ renouncement of the endorsement after Obama’s speech at the AIPAC policy conference, and that the “pro-Palestinian organization” is primarily devoted to social service work in Chicago.  Forman also said he didn’t believe Brooks’ denials about the content of the questions after speaking to people who were surveyed and claimed they heard such statements.

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