The Washington Monthly Newsletter: January 4, 2023

Al Sharpton Stands Up for Israel

In an exclusive report for the Washington Monthly, Al Sharpton biographer Dr. Jamal Watson explores the civil rights leader’s support of Israel in the days following the October 7 attack on the Jewish state.

I have excerpts from this remarkable profile below, but first, here’s more of what’s leading the Washington Monthly website:

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• Biden vs. Trump Is the Race Voters Want. Really.: My analysis of the internal dynamics of our two major parties, and the lack of appetite for a third, which are on the verge of producing a rare presidential campaign rematch. Click here for the full story.

• Keep Your Wits About You in 2024: Editor-in-Chief Paul Glastris offers some advice for avoiding unnecessary media-induced panic. (Hint: It involves reading the Monthly.) Click here for the full story.

• VA’s Private Health Plan Faces Huge Cost Overruns: Policy analyst Russell Lemle and author Suzanne Gordon dissect the problems with the Veterans Community Care Program. Click here for the full story.

• Israel and the Politics of Paroxysm: From our 2015 archives, author Jim Sleeper worried about the prospects for peace after that year’s Knesset elections kept Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party in power. Click here for the full story.

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Watson describes how Sharpton reacted in the aftermath of the attack:

At the Saturday-morning rally that he leads each week in Harlem, Sharpton immediately took to the podium to describe the atrocities that had been leveled against innocent men, women, and children that morning.

“He didn’t wait to check with his pollsters,” Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO and national director of the Anti-Defamation League, told me. “He didn’t wait to put his finger to the wind to see what people were saying. He didn’t call around to allies to understand the political call. He just said what he said because it was the right thing to do.”

Watson also writes:

For those who best remember the 69-year-old reverend from the 20th century—when he was associated with high-profile protests in New York City—and haven’t kept abreast of his emergence as a powerful national political figure or a staple on MSNBC, his full-throated empathy for Israelis and Palestinians might come as a surprise.

He adds in his article, which appears in the upcoming print issue of the Monthly:

I can say his actions on October 7 and his interest in Israel reflect both his enduring values and the moral growth that makes him arguably the nation’s most important civil rights leader.

Click here to read Al Sharpton Stands Up for Israel.

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Best,

Bill

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