Counterpunch editor, Alexander Cockburn, specializes in distortions of reality and half-truths. A recent incident illustrates his mendacious modus operandi. In an article posted on Counterpunch, former Senator James Abourezk praised Helen Thomas, who was fired from her job for making bizarrely anti-Semitic statements about Jews going back to Europe. In that post, Abourezk also claimed that I "wrote a column in the Jerusalem Post calling [him] an anti-Semite." Anyone who reads the Jerusalem Post article can easily determine that Abourezk was lying. My article quotes extensively from an interview Abourezk gave on Hezbollah television in which he accused "the Zionists" of causing 9/11, worldwide anti-Muslim attitudes and picking on the Soviet Union. It is a bizarre and bigoted screed. But in the Jerusalem Post article, I did not accuse Abourezk of being an anti-Semite. He simply lied about that as he has done about so many other things related to Jews, Israel and me.
Rushing to Abourezk's defense, Alexander Cockburn points out that in another article, in a different publication, I added the following paragraph: "It is true that not all anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic, but just because it is anti-Zionist does not mean that it is not also anti-Semitic. If the shoe fits…" Cockburn then engages in a contorted conspiracy theory as to why that sentence was not included in the Jerusalem Post article falsely cited by Abourezk. I tried to clear up the confusion by writing a letter to be published on the Counterpunch website. That website published at least 67 comments mostly critical of me and supporting Abourezk and Cockburn, but Cockburn refused to publish the full text of my letter unedited, instead wrenching some words out of context in order to distort what I wrote and then adding a confusing bracket of his own to the text of my letter which he eventually buried in an obscure part of his website. He simply would not allow me to get my unedited say on his biased website. Typical of Counterpunch. I attach the entire correspondence so that your readers can decide for themselves whether they can believe anything they read on Counterpunch.
