Ad calling Sestak anti-Israel looks like a Pennsylvania ‘swiftboat’
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
Delaware County Congressman Joe Sestak's record on Israel has become the subject of dueling TV ads by Washington-based interest groups seeking to influence the Pennsylvania Senate race.
At issue is an ad from a conservative group calling itself the Emergency Committee for Israel.
“Does Congressman Joe Sestak understand Israel is America's ally?” the ad asks.
While dramatic music plays and pictures of armed men in ski masks fill the screen, an announcer says Sestak raised money for an anti-Israel group the FBI called a front for Hamas.
The claim is something of a stretch.
In April 2007, Sestak spoke at the annual dinner of the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, then seen as a mainstream Muslim group, which worked with the FBI in training agents in cultural sensitivity. Governor Rendell also attended the dinner.
Nearly two years after Sestak's speech, the FBI cut ties with the group, and at a 2008 trial of another organization, an individual FBI agent referred to the Council as a front group.
Sestak has called the ad false but has failed to persuade Comcast to yank the spot from the air.
A response ad has now appeared from a group called J-Street, which says it's pro-Israel, pro-peace.
“The far right is attacking Joe Sestak over Israel,” the ad opens. “They won't tell you that in Congress, Sestak consistently votes for aid to Israel.”
Franklin and Marshall College political analyst Terry Madonna says the debate matters in the election, even though only two to three percent of the state’s voters are Jewish.
“Jews are disproportionately active in politics and government and disproportionately give to political campaigns,” he says.
Madonna says the battle is also for the hearts of those evangelical Christians who feel passionately about the state of Israel.
Sestak faces Republican Pat Toomey in the November General Election.
Sestak knew of CAIR's ties to terrorist groups back in 2006 when CAIR lost it's defamation lawsuit to Anti-CAIR and the news of the FBI wiretaps of CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad plotting to set up Hamas supporting front groups in the US was made public.
Sestak got congressional intel reports – he knew about CAIR and dismissed the facts in order to get voter support. Sad but true.
This reactionary smear provides a chilling effect for any legitimate discussion regarding America's bankrolling and lawyering for Israel nothwithstanding its impact on how the U.S. is viewed worldwide. This phenom is self-perpetuating as the U.S. Senate and Congress becomes increasingly filled w/ apologists for Israels Settlement Program, which is ethnically cleansing large swaths of the West Bank and East Jerusalem of its Arab and Muslim population, thus further increasing hatred against America.
Sestak was right to attend the CAIR dinner because we must talk with those we agree with and with those we don't. For peace and progress we have to talk with everyone. I was at that CAIR dinner with many Muslim friends and two Jewish friends who did not agree with the extreme rhetoric represented by the pickets outside.
"Nearly two years after Sestak's speech, the FBI cut ties with the group, and at a 2008 trial of another organization, an individual FBI agent referred to the Council as a front group."
From 2003 to 2006 CAIR was locked in a lawsuit with Anti-CAIR, a group created to expose CAIR's ties to terror. CAIR ran away from it's own lawsuit during the discovery process, when CAIR exposed it's blatant creation for HAMAS.
Anti-CAIR beat CAIR and the judge dismissed the lawsuit "with prejudice" – meaning Anti-CAIR will continue to identify CAIR through the following statements CAIR originally found objectionable:
Let there be no doubt that the Council on American-Islamic Relations is a terrorist supporting front organization that is partially funded by terrorists, and that CAIR wishes nothing more than the
implementation of Sharia Law in America.
CAIR has proven links to, and was founded by, Islamic Terrorists. CAIR actively supports terrorists and terrorist-supporting
groups and nations.
CAIR is an organization founded by Hamas supporters which seeks to overthrow Constitutional government in the United States and replace it with an Islamist theocracy using our own Constitution as protection.
CAIR was started by Hamas members and is supported by terrorist supporting individuals, groups and countries.
CAIR is not in the United States to promote the civil rights of Muslims. CAIR is here to make radical Islam the dominant religion in the United States and convert our country into an Islamic theocracy.
CAIR receives direct funding from Islamic terrorist supporting countries.
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Sestak knew all about this before he went to speak at a CAIR event…..