Here is a long Tikkunmail article which may or may not have been written by Lerner. I will summarize it for you:
"ANSWER is objectively racist and anti-Semitic in that it raises the issue of Palestine at demonstrations against the Iraq war,
[mbs] this is flat untrue, as anyone who reads the statement can see. It's not 'raising the issue of Palestine', but the manner in which it is raised that is at issue. You can disagree w/Lerner's analysis in this vein, but it is not reducible to simply raising the issue of Palestine.
[LP] . . . although Iraq has nothing to do with Palestine.
[mbs] I missed the part where Lerner says this. Though it is fair to say that Lerner does not say what Iraq does have to do with Palestine.
[LP] I never wanted to speak at F16, and it wouldn't have made any difference if they had offered me a slot. I wanted UFPJ and the other coalitions to issue a statement attacking ANSWER. When they refused, I went ahead with my attack. I was very clever in getting anti-war statements into the Wall Street Journal, don't you think?" lp
[mbs] Lerner's on a mission to domesticate the peace movement, a process in which he sees himself figuring prominently. He's been ruthless in this objective. It's funny, not funny ha-ha, but funny odd, to see a smorgasbord of Leninists, radicals, & other assorted rebels get all Boy Scout about this. Instead they should be figuring out how to learn from Lerner.
I am partly sympathetic to Lerner's objective here -- to make the anti-war movement more effective. I think it could strike a tough line on Palestine and still be effective, but it isn't easy. I don't buy Lerner's accusation of anti-semitism, but there are some tricky issues involved in dealing with Jewish national liberation from a radical, anti-imperialist standpoint. He's got an argument.
Lerner has worked very hard to sustain a critique of Zionism in a hostile environment. He can walk into a synagogue and do his number. ANSWER couldn't. He can function in a political mainstream context. ANSWER can't. If the objective is to stop the war, this is an essential hurdle to get over. Bonking ANSWER helps the anti-war movement in this direction. As the linked article points out, the objective is not to unify the movement. It's to mobilize the public against the war.
I notice repeatedly reports about rallies where the speeches are of no interest. Shouldn't this be seen as a problem? How do we square the anger at Lerner with the disinterest in what the de facto spokespersons for the movement say at the moment when the most attention they receive is directed to them? Does anybody here go to an ANSWER or IAC web site to learn something?
mbs