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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/34919/full/34919/newsom-some-who-rip-israel-are-just-anti-semitic/ <br /><br /> <b>Newsom: Some who rip Israel are just anti-Semitic</b> <br /> Friday, May 9, 2008 | by <p>herb keinon </p> <br /><br /><p>Some of the anti-Israel, anti-Zionist rhetoric in the Bay Area is simple anti-Semitism, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said this week.<br /><br /> Newsom said he expected to see some people protesting against his trip to Israel when he gives a commencement address next week at San Francisco State University.<br /><br /> Asked in an interview how he answered his constituents who argued that he should not be visiting Israel at a time when it is “oppressing the Palestinians” and “bombing Gaza,” Newsom said, “I think of the old adage, ‘Seek first to understand, then to be understood.’<br /><br /> “To those who make that assertion, I would like to see it backed up in the context of the capacity of understanding. I think there is a lot of bias and bigotry, and frankly a lot of anti-Semitism,” he said. “I hear it a lot; not as much, thank God, as probably some other mayors in other cities, in spite of the reputation of the Bay Area. But it still exists.”<br /><br /> Sitting on a stone ledge at the entrance to Yad Vashem, Newsom said he “absolutely” believed some of the anti-Israel speech emanating from San Francisco and the Bay Area was anti-Semitic, and that Israel faced a “generational challenge” in the United States.<br /><br /> “I see a new generation of younger people who don’t have a connection to this country that they should,” he said, adding that he has seen an increase in the phenomenon on college campuses over the last five to 10 years.<br /><br /> As to how to combat this, Newsom said, “That’s one of the reasons I came here — I think it sends a message.”<br /><br /> By seeing the relative quiet of the Old City and the greenery of Jerusalem, he added, he was gaining a perspective of Israel not available to most Americans.<br /><br /> “I can assure you that these are not the regular images of Israel,” he said. “For most Americans, [what the media provides] is usually violence, stress, frustration, angst, political issues — that is the narrative that we get.<br /><br /> “But this,” he said with a sweep of his hand of the scenery around Yad Vashem, “is a little different.”<br /><br /> While there have been some boycott and divestment motions against Israel in Berkeley, Newsom said this issue had not gained much traction in his own city council.<br /><br /> The divestment issue being discussed now in San Francisco is divestment from Iran, though the mayor said no decision had been made.<br /><br /> <a href="/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/35209/format/html/displaystory.html">Newsom goes to bat for Israel in first visit by an S.F. mayor</a></p> <p> </p>

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