"Progressive" anti-Semitism

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Oh—so—liberal Seattle has seen an elected public official has let slip some blatant anti—Semitic rhetoric. When will America's Jews wake up and recognize where the locus of anti—Semitism lies? Sam Ser of the Jerusalem Post reports:

An elected official involved in a multi—billion dollar public transportation project in Seattle, Washington, is in hot water for describing her opponents as moneyed representatives of Jewish interests.

Cindi Laws, the 46—year—old director of a progressive think tank in Seattle, is seeking reelection as head of the board of the Seattle Monorail Project. Her chances in that race seem to have suffered a major hit, however: In a recent appearance before the King County Labor Council, to ask for their support in the upcoming election, Laws suggested that one of her fellow candidates, county budget analyst and monorail opponent Beth Goldberg, would enjoy a natural edge because the Jewish community was overwhelmingly opposed to the monorail and would marshall significant financial support for Goldberg.

According to the Seattle Post—Intelligencer and the Seattle Times, Laws said that 75 percent of the anti—monorail money in last year's monorail recall campaign came from Jewish property owners and that a Jewish candidate could "get that money more easily."

A board panelist said Laws was asked about Goldberg and said she was "worried because she perceived that Jews have contributed a lot of money to the anti—monorail campaigns in the past, that Beth Goldberg is Jewish, and that will make it easy for [Goldberg] to potentially raise a lot of money because of those connections."

The panelist also quoted Laws as saying, "Two things that terrify me: Without making it sound anti—Semitic, overwhelmingly the Second Avenue property owners... are very effective if you get into their group."

Ed Lasky   8 22 05