[Update, 9-26-2008] From The Jewish Angle blog this morning we hear:

Democrats give Ahmadinejad reason to smile

Some friendly advice to our Obama-supporting friends: When your interests are aligned with those of Iran's President and Hitler-wannabe Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it's time for some re-assessment of priorities.

Democrat activists this week gave Ahmadinejad a huge gift by sabotaging a major bipartisan anti-Iran rally. More important to them than Iran, apparently, was the opportunity to marginalize popular Republican vice-presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin.

Looks like they agree with my assessment. They went on to say [Emphasis is mine]:

The organizers secured a number of high-profile speakers, including Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, recent Democrat presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton and Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin. It is not yet clear whether Clinton was coordinating with Democrat strategists, but when she found out Palin was also invited, she bailed out. Too bad-having America's two highest profile female politicians together on the same stage condemning the misogynistic (among its many attributes) Iranian regime would have been a powerful image. 

The rally was also attended by Iranian dissidents, human rights activists, gays, Christians, Jews and Iraqis, all of whom suffer at the hands of the mullahs' regime. Their under-reported causes could have used the publicity boost. Deflating the event by removing its star power did all these groups a huge disservice. We're sure Ahmadinejad cannot believe his good fortune. Thank you, Democrats!

Don't the Democrats vainly claim to be the party of the powerless and the voice of the voiceless? Fighters for human rights and protectors of liberty? They shouldn't flatter themselves. How did they help those causes this week? By strong-arm tactics, stifling dissent and sacrificing their "principles" for some perceived marginal political gain? Aren't those the sorts of things they're supposed to be protesting against? Perhaps they should tell us which principles they won't trample in order to gain fleeting political advantage.

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"The rally was not a partisan political rally. It was an anti-Ahmadinejad rally. It did not become 'partisan' when Democratic Senators Clinton, Biden and Congressman Wexler were invited. And it did not become 'partisan' when Republican Governor Palin was also invited. Quite the contrary, it became bipartisan, as it should have been. No, it became a 'partisan' event when  Governor Palin was disinvited." —-Morton A. Klein, president of ZOA 

[To add insult to injury], This was on Fox News this morning:

[Representative Alcee Hastings (Democrat-Florida] yesterday had this to say about Governor Sarah Palin to the National Jewish Deounsel outside the UN:

"Anybody toting guns and stripping Moose don't care too much about what they do with Jews and Blacks. So, you just think this through." For those of you who supported Hillary, she lost, get over it." [I'm trying to think this through, so far no success]

Anti-Palin Jews Shunned Anti-Iran Rally
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized the National Jewish Democratic Convention and the left-wing Street lobby for pressuring anti-Iran organizers to disinvite Republican vice presidential candidate Governor Sarah Palin while not calling on Democrats to attend. The Democratic party claimed that it did not want Gov. Palin to attend because the rally should not be politically oriented. However, Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton previously announced she would not attend because she did not want to share the stage with Gov. Palin.

Morton A. Klein, president of ZOA, said, "The rally was not a partisan political rally. It was an anti-Ahmadinejad rally. It did not become 'partisan' when Democratic Senators Clinton, Biden and Congressman Wexler were invited. And it did not become 'partisan' when Republican Governor Palin was also invited. Quite the contrary, it became bipartisan, as it should have been. No, it became a 'partisan' event when  Governor Palin was disinvited."

Klein added that the Jewish Democratic committee and J Street "were clearly less than thrilled about Gov. Palin attending because their concern for Israel was clearly subordinate to their domestic American political interests. Rather than welcome a call from Gov. Palin for tough measures to induce Iran to stop its nuclear program, these groups were terrified that her address might win over part of the Jewish vote in November."

He continued, "It should be noted that organizations like J Street are not representative of the majority views of American Jewry or the Israeli electorate regarding Israel and the Arab war on Israel. J Street supports major territorial concessions, including dividing Jerusalem, to Mahmoud Abbas' unreconstructed Palestinian Authority, the creation of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel's existence and negotiations with Hamas,

The ZOA, the National Council of Young Israel, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs complained that they were not consulted by the Conference of Major Jewish Organizations, which disinvited Gov. Palin.

"There was no emergency call set up to discuss the decision to disinvite Palin," said Klein. Malcolm Hoenlein, president of the Conference, has not commented on the complaints, and he has been attacked in the past for decisions that critics said did not represent the common Jewish voice.

The Conference sent its members an "urgent notice" about a conference call disinviting the Republican vice presidential candidate.

CAMERA executive director Andrea Levine told the New York-based Jewish Forward that Hoenlein told her the governor was disinvited under the threat of other organizers that they would pull out of the anti-Iran rally. 

The newspaper quoted "insiders" in reporting that the liberal "JCPA and the New York-based organizers had clashed with Hoenlein over his decision to reach out to the McCain campaign without telling Clinton, who had been invited weeks ago, or the Obama campaign. Hoenlein countered that he did so only after Republicans rebuffed his efforts to have a senator attend."

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