(JPost) — The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League weighed in last week on the mushrooming anti-Israel scandal surrounding a group of bloggers working for the US think tank Center for American Progress - CAP (run by the co-chair of Obama’s transition team, John Podesta).
Jason Isaacson, the AJC’s director of government and international affairs, told The Jerusalem Post by e-mail on Friday that “think tanks are entitled to their political viewpoints – but they’re not free to slander with impunity. References to Israeli ‘apartheid’ or ‘Israel-firsters’ are so false and hateful they reveal an ugly bias no serious policy center can countenance.”
He called on CAP to “disavow them and put a stop to them.”
CAP, which has an estimated annual budget of $38 million, formulates policy suggestions about the Middle East for the Democratic party and politicians.
Zaid Jilani wrote on Twitter, where he is identified as a blogger for CAP website ThinkProgress, “So DC ‘liberals’ are going to spend a lot of time defending Obama against the charge that he’s not supportive enough of Israeli apartheid.”
In an earlier Twitter item, Jilani termed US supporters of the Jewish state “Israel- Firsters.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center and NGO Monitor in Jerusalem blasted Jilani and CAP for stoking hatred of Jews