Matthew Duss, a writer at the left-leaning Center For American Progress (CAP), is again under fire for tweeting messages offensive to Jewish people.
Duss recently extolled an article that accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of "religious incitement" for giving to President Obama a Jewish religious text that tells the story of Purim, a festive holiday that honors the Jews’ escape from persecution.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, condemned Duss’ repeat offense in an interview with the Jerusalem Post’s Benjamin Weinthal.
"The bottom line is that the young generation of bloggers and tweeters must be accountable for their words ... and in this case the parroting of someone else's words depicting the gift of Megilat Esther as 'religious incitement' is a slur against a religion and the leader of Israel," Cooper told Weinthal.
Duss attempted to explain himself in several follow-up tweets yesterday.
"Israel clearly has legit concerns about Iran, which regularly states as a goal the destruction of Israel," Duss wrote, adding that, "I meant that biblical analogies may be unhelpful to current moment [sic], especially if they don't distinguish Iran regime from all Iranians."
Cooper also told Weinthal that he "will be meeting with a CAP official to discuss the hostility from some of their writers toward Israel and Jews."
CAP has been under fire for weeks for its writers’ use of borderline anti-Semitic slurs. The organization recently retained the services of a public relations firm known for doing damage control in the Jewish community.