BREAKING NEWS

ADL says MK Oren's criticism of Obama foreign policy not racist

The Anti-Defamation League walked back a statement from last year implying MK Michael Oren (Kulanu) used racist stereotypes to describe US President Barack Obama, ending what Oren called a painful experience Sunday.
Last year, when the former ambassador to the US’ book Ally: My Journey Across the American Israeli Divide was published, the MK wrote a series of op-eds for various publications promoting the book, including one titled “How Obama Opened His Heart to the ‘Muslim World” for Foreign Policy.
Then-National Director of the ADL Abraham Foxman accused Oren of arguing “that American foreign policy in the Middle East is primarily being promoted and dictated by the president’s early upbringing in the Muslim faith and in Muslim traditions…This results in borderline stereotyping and insensitivity.”
In time for the publication of the Hebrew translation of Oren’s book, current ADL CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt clarified last week that “there were some who misinterpreted [the statement] as suggesting that we thought he was using racist language…We as ADL make clear that we never intended to suggest that what he said was racist, nor did we have any intent to suggest the ambassador is racist.”