As we revealed yesterday, MJ Rosenberg wasn’t the only anti-Israel extremist working at Media Matters for America. Senior Fellow Eric Boehlert once downplayed genocidal anti-Semitism, routinely suggests that media coverage is too pro-Israel thanks to intimidation by nefarious forces (hint hint), and defended terrorist professor Sami Al-Arian.
Today, we examine Oliver Willis, a research fellow at Media Matters. Just like MJ and Eric, Willis is an anti-Israel extremist with a soft spot for anti-Semitism.
Willis once referred to Paul Wolfowitz as “filthy” and Joe Lieberman as “fascistic.” He accused Israel of “Playing Games With American Lives” for building settlements, and wrote that he “can’t wait for the day when we can tell both sides [of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict] to go to hell.”
He has stated that “The Democratic Party will be at its best” only once pro-Israel AIPAC-associated liberals like Josh Block are “marginalized.” He has defended via re-tweet MJ Rosenberg’s use of the white supremacist term “Israel firsters.” He accuses conservatives of attacking “everyone who doesn’t march in lockstep with Israel.”
And while anti-Israel fanatic Glenn Greenwald accuses me of watering down the term anti-Semitism by pointing out Media Matters’ relentless pattern of providing cover to anti-Semites, he has nothing to say about Willis, who likened one mosque being burned in Tennessee to full-blown Nazi treatment of Jews.
Willis isn’t literate on the Israel-Palestinian issue (as with most other issues); his anti-Israel feeling seems to come from group think more than from the informed anti-Israel radicalism of MJ Rosenberg or Boehlert. And yet Willis is one of Media Matters’ key in-house policers of right-wing anti-Semitism. Ah, the irony.
More to come.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.