'Seattle Seven' Vietnam Protester Michael Lerner's New War - in
Israel and at Home
http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/05/seattle_seven_vietnam_proteste.php
By Rick Anderson
May. 4 2010
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover once described Michael Lerner, then a
leader of the anti-war Seattle Seven, as "one of the most dangerous
criminals in America." That was in the Seventies, when Lerner and
other Seattle Liberation Front members were charged with inciting
violent riots as part of the Vietnam War protests here. The U.S.
charges were ultimately found to be unconstitutional and Hoover's
undercover FBI agents, it turned out, had helped instigate the violence.
Now he's Rabbi Michael Lerner and it's his property that
demonstrators are attacking. His Berkeley home, in the S.F. Bay Area,
was hit yesterday by what he suspects are radical Zionists,
plastering his house with signs saying the liberal rabbi supports
terrorism - "any enemy of Israel is a friend of mine," says one over
a caricature of Lerner. The postering follows a verbal attack on
Lerner by attorney Alan Dershowitz who called Lerner one of the
"rabbis for Hamas" because of their support for the Goldstone Report,
which accuses the Hamas but also Israel of war crimes.
In an e-mail statement, Lerner's organization - he also publishes
Tikkun, a bi-monthly Jewish magazine celebrating its 25th anniversary - says:
The attackers used a powerful form of glue to attach posters to his
door and around the property of his home attacking Lerner personally,
and attacking liberals and progressives as being supporters of
terrorism and "Islamo-fascism." They posted a printed bumper sticker
saying "fight terror--support Israel" next to a caricature of Judge
Goldstone whose UN report on Israel's human rights violations in its
attack on Gaza last year has been denounced as anti-Semitic and
pro-terror by right wingers in Israel and the U.S...
Lerner says he and his organization "have received many death threats
and vicious hate mail, including phone calls to our office announcing
that 'Rabbi Lerner is dead' and others saying 'We will kill all of
you.'" But this time opponents made it clear they know where Lerner
lives, he says, and they're also characterizing him as a terrorist,
providing, he says, a "right-wing justification" to use violence
against Lerner, who, since his Seattle Seven days, has been an
advocate of non-violence.
In a Web post, Lerner's organization says, "The phones have been
ringing off the hook here as word spreads of the threatening
intrusion upon our editor's home. It's heartening to hear some
empathetic voices after weathering the days of hate mail..." Berkeley
Police say they're investigating.
.
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