Talk:Terror-Free Oil Initiative

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I have relocated the following section from the page. In the LAT article referred to Kaufman was wearing his CAIRWatch.org hat and not his Terror-Free Oil hat. So, at best, this is more appropriate for his personal page. But it would be preferable to have citations for the primary sources of Kaufman's statements rather than someone elses citation of them. --Bob Burton 20:50, 14 February 2007 (EST)

Controversy

In response to the January 6, 2007, Los Angeles Times article "Sen. Boxer rescinds award to Islamic activist," Ali Abunimah wrote:In a January 4 [2007] article on the extreme right-wing website Frontpagemag.com, Kaufman claimed that newly elected Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison "carried much radical Islamist baggage," and he refers to American Muslim groups as "America's live-in enemies." In December 2006, Kaufman called California Senator Barbara Boxer a "senator for terror" because she bestowed a public service award on a Muslim American community activist who had previously criticized Israeli human rights abuses. Under pressure from Kaufman's organization, Boxer, a staunch supporter of Israel, withdrew the award. [1]

Changes

I made some changes and added the funding pitch section.

The main deletions/relocations I have made are:

  • describing AAH as "an organization primarily dedicated to supporting the extreme right in Israel."
    • This is not demonstrated and is more appropriate dealt with on the AAH page.
    • I'm always wary of the use (and overuse) of the perjorative use of "extreme" to describe an individual or organisations political position. It usually adds little other than making readers wary of other material on the page, especially where it is used in advance of the supporting evidence.
  • "The racism of the organization is confirmed by the fact that countries outside the Middle East whose "regimes or populations" are putatively just as hostile, such as Venezuela, are not targeted by it."
    • I'm generally not persuaded that TFOI's position can be fairly attributed to a racial motivation. Certainly they use a broad-brush approach of lumping everyone from a diverse region into the one category. But I'm not persuaded that not blacklisting oil from Venezuala is evidence that TFOI are racist. TFOI's primary allegation is that Middle East oil money is used to fund terrorism and on that basis all oil from the region should be boycotted. While the Venezualan government may be hostile to US foreign policy it seems to me TFOI could argue the distinction is based not on race but that the proceeds from oil are not funding terrorism.

Maybe I'm being overly cautious on this and others may have a view. --Bob Burton 22:01, 14 February 2007 (EST)

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