Salon: Intolerance on the left: Michael Lerner, liberal rabbi and harsh critic of Ariel Sharon, finds himself blacklisted by ANSWER, the group co-sponsoring Sunday's big antiwar rally in San Francisco.

Even as other members of the democratic left have denounced the hardcore Maoists and Stalinists behind much recent antiwar organizing, Michael Lerner, the dovish San Francisco rabbi and editor of the liberal Jewish magazine Tikkun, has defended the role of sectarians in the movement. When members of his congregation complained about the stridently anti-Israel rhetoric at demonstrations sponsored by ANSWER, a front group for the Workers World party, he urged them to turn out anyway, and Tikkun sent busloads of people to both Washington and San Francisco.[...]

So Lerner was understandably outraged to learn that he'd been banned from speaking at the San Francisco rally ANSWER is co-sponsoring on Sunday.

Some say that's because Lerner, while urging people to work with ANSWER on peace movement issues, also has denounced the group's rabidly anti-Israel, pro-Saddam politics. But Lerner says that the agreement giving ANSWER veto power over its critics was merely a pretext used by the group as an excuse to keep him off stage. The real reason for his exclusion, Lerner believes, is that, while he is unrelenting in his opposition to Ariel Sharon's government and his call for Palestinian statehood, he supports Israel's right to exist and condemns Palestinian terrorism. An ANSWER spokesman seemed to confirm Lerner's theory when he told WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer that the group wouldn't allow a "pro-Israel" speaker at its demonstrations.