Mounting evidence indicates that the Boston Marathon bombers were involved in the unsolved murder of three men, two of them Jewish, in a suburb of Boston on September 11, 2011.

Police officials have said that some crime scene forensic evidence was a match to Tamerlane Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the two brothers who are alleged to have set off two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon last month, ABC News reported over the weekend. The officials also said records of cell phones used by the brothers put them in the area of the murders on that date.

Three men — Brendan Mess, Rafael Teken and Erik Weissman — were found dead in September 2011 in an apartment several miles from the campus of Brandeis University in the Boston suburb of Waltham.

Jewish Press correspondent Lori Lowenthal Marcus reported two weeks ago, “Despite efforts of officials and the mainstream media to avoid any linkage between the bombings…and a violence emanating from a particular form of radicalized Islam, everyone has now been forced to acknowledge that connection.”

Tamerlane Tsarnaev knew Mess well but did not attend his funeral despite once referring to him as his “best friend,” and participating in boxing and martial arts training together.

The bodies of the three men were discovered with their throats slit and about seven pounds of marijuana dumped on the bodies, as well as $5,000 in cash left behind.

Weissman and Teken were Jewish.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police several days after the Boston bombing. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested after a shoot-out n which he was seriously wounded, and he was charged with using a “weapon of mass destruction, a charge that could bring the death penalty.

The brothers were identified as suspects after authorities reviewed photos and video taken on the afternoon of the marathon on April 15, when two bombs killed three people and wounded more than 170.

America’s favorite serious Jewish actor for much of the 1960′s and ’70′s, Dustin Hoffman, is about to present an award to a filmmaker at an event put on by the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

The recipient of the award is a professional Israel hater, and MPAC is led by someone who publicly suggested Israel was to blame for 9/11 and who advocates for the removal of Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad from the American terrorism list.  With Jews like Dustin Hoffman, who needs enemies?

This Saturday, April 27, Dustin Hoffman will appear at MPAC’s Media Award Gala in Los Angeles to present MPAC’s Media Award to the anti-Israel film “5 Broken Cameras.”  According to MPAC, Hoffman is a “supporter of the documentary.”

The objective of  “5 Broken Cameras,” like that of so many Pallywood videos, is to portray Arabs as the innocent victims of the rapacious Israel.  This movie began as video clips of the protests that were submitted as “evidence” to Israeli courts and handed over to be used by mainstream media to show the sad plight of the Arabs.  The videos which then became this movie were taken and put together by someone participating on one side of a propaganda war, and not by an objective film maker seeking to document reality – as is the role of documentaries – that fact should have sounded alarm bells for a professional actor of Hoffman’s stature.

In his very first film, “The Graduate,” (1967), Hoffman played a recent college graduate whose parents expect him to do great things, but who was stuck in an emotional and motivational dead zone.  His character, Benjamin Braddock, is turned off by the plastic values of his parents’ generation, but has no passion or interests to replace them.  And so he is portrayed floating in his parents’ swimming pool, suspended below the water, cocooned in indifference, pondering the bizarre lecture given to him by a family friend about “plastics.”

Over the course of his career, Hoffman’s extraordinary roles included the disabled homeless vet Ratzo Rizzo, in “Midnight Cowboy” (1969), the highly talented yet self-destructive break-through comedian Lenny Bruce in “Lenny” (1974).  Hoffman won an Oscar for portraying a newly divorced father painfully attempting to know his young son in “Kramer v. Kramer” (1979), and was nominated for an Oscar for playing the opportunistically gender-bending actor/actress title role in “Tootsie!” (1982).

Hoffman’s stature as a great actor continued into the late 1980′s – he was riveting as an autistic man, Raymond Babbit, in “Rain Main,” for which he won his second Oscar (1988).  Hoffman’s movie roles have become more sporadic and less artistically and financially successful in recent years.

Perhaps that explains why he was willing to be used as the latest in a long series of Jewish “fig leaves,” for anti-Israel projects.  There seems to be no other reason why the Muslim Public Affairs Council would call upon Hoffman to present an award for a documentary film which portrays Israel in the worst possible light, with no balance or nuance.

Hoffman has never been involved in Middle East issues or interests – other than co-starring in a disastrous film set in Morocco. “Ishtar” (1987) was described in London’s Time Out as “so bad it could almost have been deliberate.”

There had been a rumor – which caught fire and remains rampant on the Internet – that Hoffman snubbed Israel and pulled out of appearing at a Jerusalem Film Festival in 2010 in the wake of the Gaza flotilla incident. However, Yigal Molad Hayo, the associate director of the Cinematheque at which the festival takes place, was quoted in an article in the Jewish Chronicle that the account had not been accurate, and the discussions with Hoffman had not progressed even before the Mavi Marmara incident.

It isn’t hard to imagine why the Muslim Public Affairs Council would want a famous Jewish actor to give them the kosher certification of acceptability (“Dustin Hoffman, the famous Jewish actor, hangs out with us, we must be fine” is the not-so-subtle message). But why would Hoffman agree to participate?

Hoffman is someone whose Jewishness seems to have played very little role in his life other than as a trigger to anti-Semitic bullies, and the fact that his height, his nose, his nasal voice and his plucky, outsider roles are all stereotypically Jewish.  Hoffman recently spoke about the complete absence of anything Jewish in his life growing up.  He did not become a bar mitzvah and he never learned any Hebrew.

There was much sturm und drang about “free speech rights” and “academic freedom” in the buildup to a February 7, one-sided anti-Israel event at Brooklyn College, co-sponsored by BC’s political science department, along with the student group, Students for Justice in Palestine.  The event, to promote the form of economic and political warfare against Israel known as BDS (Boycott of, Divestment from and Sanctions against Israel) went forward.

Suggestions that the constitutional rights of four Jewish pro-Israel Brooklyn College students were violated when they were ejected – at the hands of Brooklyn College public safety officers and at the sole direction of a 20-something non-objective outsider whom BC had vested with its authority – from the event were initially rejected and ridiculed.

That is because initial reports, including those made by BC officials, blamed the behavior of the students as the justification for their expulsion.

However, the existence of an audiotape surreptitiously made at the event, which flatly contradicted the public position of BC and some media outlets, was revealed on Feb. 12.  The next day the Chancellor of the City University of New York announced  that there would be an investigation into the Feb. 7 event, headed by Brooklyn College’s own Chancellor for Legal Affairs Frederick P. Schaffer, and two partners from the law firm Bryan Cave LLP.

A 36-page, double-spaced Report of the Investigation was released on Friday, April 12 and was posted online sometime over that weekend.

The four problem areas addressed in the Investigation are: I. The Reservation and Admissions Process (addressed in the Report in pages 3 – 15); II. The Handling of the Press (Report, pp. 16 – 20); III. The Removal of the Students (Report, pp. 20 – 35); and IV. The Q & A Session (Report, pp. 34-35).

Rejecting the claims of constitutional violations, the Investigators instead found that the event was plagued by extreme disorganization, unwarranted reliance on students as decision makers, and flawed – though extensive, and presumably expensive – preparations.

In other words, the Investigators concluded that the problems were caused by benign negligence rather than malignant intent.

But the evidence adduced, the information available, and the justification for action described in initial reports that were later revealed as not just flawed but false and obviously so, puts that conclusion in question.

Even more troubling is that despite the sophistication of the legal experts responsible for the Investigation, they seem to have issued a flawed legal conclusion on the most important issue at stake.

The standard for judging whether constitutional rights can be abrogated is not, as the Investigators claimed in their Report, based on sincerity.

The standard for judging the permissibility of restrictions on constitutional rights is whether or not, at the very least, there is a reasonable belief that, in this case, the Four were about to disrupt the BC BDS event. The Investigators stated clearly that there was no such reasonable belief at the time the Four were ejected.  Therefore, based on the evidence provided in the CUNY Report, it would appear that the constitutional rights of the four Jewish pro-Israel students were violated.

What follows are the details of the Investigation, focusing primarily on the ejection of four students during the event.

*************

The Investigators concluded no discrimination had taken place with respect to issues I. II and IV.

However, in addressing the third issue, that of removing the students, the Investigators concluded that while there “was no support for an inference of discrimination based on religion” (R.p. 33), they were not as confident that another form of discrimination had not taken place.

“A more plausible inference can be drawn that the removal of the four students was motivated by their political viewpoint,” the Investigators wrote. (R.p. 33) Making clear their understanding that political viewpoint discrimination was a relevant consideration, the Investigators noted that “Guzman [the decision maker] knew Goldberg [one of the Four] from a prior SJP event at which she had asked questions that challenged Palestinian positions.” (R.p. 33)

The constitutional prohibition on viewpoint discrimination means that the government (or government funded entities, such as Brooklyn College) cannot selectively silence viewpoints.  Brooklyn College, which is a state actor for purposes of this analysis, must make and enforce rules that are “viewpoint neutral.”

In years to come, when peace reigns, maybe sky drawing with rockets will become its own art genre. For now, these appear to be the trails of Arab rockets shot at Israel and the Iron Dome rockets that rise to meet them. And together they form a Star of David.

We could try for a crescent moon, I suppose, but it would take many more rockets on either side…

Incidentally, I got this photo from our correspondent Lori Lowenthal Marcus, who tells me she saw it on an IDF re-tweet, so we both hope it’s real. Otherwise it’s just a cheap shot.

Should break some Arab terrorist’s heart, though…

Lynne Lechter is on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s National Women’s Committee.  She is at the Republican National Convention as a guest of the RJC.  She is one of our good friend Lori Lowenthal Marcus’s sources on what Jewish Republicans have been up to in muggy Tampa. She’s been telling Lori this and that, until, last night, it all came to a giant crescendo with the appearance of the Man. Clint Eastwood.

Lynne wrote:

“It was unexpected. He was hard to hear from where we were, but he did get a lot of applause and chants – make my day. He got a lot of laughs from the empty chair routine and saying Mutt cant do that to himself as if Obama said it, got huge laughter. I think his early comment was about what I am doing here aren’t all Hollywood types liberal. And then saying there are a lot of conservatives in Hollywood. Being conservative they are more quiet about it.”

The note “Sent from my iPhone” explains some of the condensed nature of the text, but we get the gist of it. And we added the video, so you’ll see what she’s talking about. Clint is the man. Which is why they should have made the theme of “For a Fistful of Dollars” the campaign song.

I would totally vote Republican if Clint was running. Are you kidding me? But he’d have to drop the cigar stub. Federal buildings are a no-smoking zone.

Oh, yes, totally forgot – Some guy named Mitt Romney did the acceptance speech thing last night, too. Apparently he’s running for this or that federal post. I think Clint even recommended him…

My friend and colleague Lori Lowenthal Marcus writes today in Arutz 7 about her entanglements with the Jewish Federations of North America, and how, instead of confirming or denying a simple question she posed to them, they chose instead to start a campaign of personal attacks against her. (By the way, for a version of the article with all the links intact, go here.)

It began with “one former high-ranking leader of global Jewish philanthropy has claimed that the largest Jewish charity in the world succumbed to the polling/fundraising dilemma by rejecting the use of the term Zionism because that term is ‘too controversial’ – at a recent high level meeting. When this reporter tried to investigate the truth, she unwittingly became, like the title of a popular book, the Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest..”

She continues:

In writing the story, I did what reporters are supposed to do. First I researched and then interviewed the person making the claim. I then reached out to JFNA people who were at that meeting, and/or who are major players within the JFNA world. I reached out to them for hours, across several states, time zones and levels of leadership, in attempts to include in my story the JFNA response. I was explicit about who I was and what I was making contact about.

I contacted New York City UJA-Federation Chair John Ruskay, his press contact person Jane E. Rubinstein; president of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland Steve Hoffman; JFNA’s senior vice president for Global Planning, Joanne Moore; JFNA Vice President for Public Policy and Director of the Washington, D.C. JFNA office, William Daroff; and JFNA spokesman Joe Berkofsky. I was stonewalled at every turn: I got literally nothing of substance back.

Needless to say, she got bupkes. They were either out on vacation or they stonewalled her. So she—and I, her editor—went ahead with the story. “And then it really hit the fan,” Lori reports.

“What should have been a minor story about a credible critic’s claim that JFNA leadership had rejected the term Zionism as ‘too controversial,’ followed by a JFNA response denying that that’s what happened, and making clear Federation’s Zionist credentials, disappeared in a barrage of personal and unfounded attacks on me.”

“The hornets were angry; she writes, “I kept getting stung.”

“I and my article were labeled “scurrilous,” “vituperative,” “false,” “evil,” misleading,” and “lashon hara.” And in their latest statement, JFNA leadership used the most somber day in the Jewish calendar to reprimand me and to accuse me publicly of “sinat chinam”– the baseless hatred of one Jew for another that, according to Jewish tradition, caused nothing less than the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of Jewish sovereignty in Israel for 2000 years. In Federation’s narrative, I was presented as the one who needed to repent.”

My editor joked that he wouldn’t be surprised to see me being used in JFNA fundraisers the way Rachel Maddow is used by Republican fundraisers and Sarah Palin by Democrats. He wrote: “I can see it now, a local Federation brochure: ‘Lori Lowenthal Marcus wants you to hate Jewish Federations, but we won’t let her. Send your checks to the address below.’”

So now you know. As usual in these cases, the cover-up is worse than the crime. It’s possible to imagine a Jewish federation opting to dial it down on the Z word when fundraising within its constituency, seeing as some of said constituents might be busy BDS’ing Israel. But the way they went about destroying the reputation of a writer who is beyond reproach makes you wonder just what kind of hornets live in that nest…

A top Obama campaign spokesperson said that President Obama would visit Israel in his second term in a conference call with reporters on Monday.

“We can expect him to visit Israel in a second term, should he be reelected,” Colin Kahl, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East and current campaign spokesman on the region.

The statement comes in advance of Republican Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s trip to Israel on July 28. Romney is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, U.S. Ambassador Daniel Shapiro, and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Before visiting Israel, Romney will fly to London to meet with British Prime Minister David Cameron and take in a few events at the 2012 Olympic Games. He will end his trip in Poland, where he is expected to deliver a major speech. The trip will be Romney’s fourth visit to Israel.

Kahl said that Romney has so far provided little in the way of substantive foreign policy positions, and that the trip is his opportunity to offer more than just criticism of Obama.

When pressed by reporters on Obama’s perceived disfavor towards Israel – which appeared to manifest most notably in his failure to visit Israel in his first term despite coming to the region to visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt – Kahl said that “[b]eing a friend of Israel shouldn’t be judged by a travel itinerary…I don’t think this is a serious policy difference; it’s basically a distraction.” He also noted that Obama visited Israel as a Presidential candidate in 2008 and asserted that a number of other presidents did not visit Israel in their first terms.

“Why didn’t he visit in his first term?” demanded Herb London, senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute and president emeritus of the Hudson Institute. “It is obviously transparent that [Obama] needs the political and financial support of the Jewish community for his current campaign effort.” London, a registered Republican, continued, “by throwing this bone to Jews he thinks it will convince them he cares about the Jewish State.”

Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, a conservative Republican who worked for New York Republican Governor George Pataki and in the Democratic administration of New York City Mayor Ed Koch, responded more sanguinely to the news: ”The Jewish community, as well as the government of Israel, is doubtless pleased when all private citizens, including former presidents, visit Israel.”

In reality, there is little reason for Obama to fear blow-back over his failure to visit Israel, because a candidate’s stance on Israel is no longer the barometer for support in the Jewish community that it once was. A recent AJC poll that asked American Jews what the most important issues in deciding their vote were found that 80 percent cited the economy, 57 percent said health care, 26 percent national security and 22 percent cited U.S.-Israel relations.

Furthermore, despite recent polls suggesting a 10-15 point drop from the 78 percent of the Jewish vote Obama received in the 2008 Presidential election, he still retains the overwhelming support of less observant and more liberal American Jews; the same AJC poll found that 67 percent of those who never attend religious services would vote for Obama. Since religiously observant, conservative Jews account for only 10 percent of American Jewry, Obama is a virtual lock to receive a strong majority of the Jewish vote again.

It is therefore understandable that on the same day that Obama was communicating the purported schedule of his second term, his chief of staff Jacob Lew met with leaders of the Reform and Reconstructionist movements – Obama’s most liberal and loyal voting base among Jews.

A statement issued by the Reform movement leaders in attendance said in part: “Much of the discussion addressed the Movement’s concerns about protecting the civil rights of women and minorities and economic plight of the poor and vulnerable.” Also discussed in the meeting were health care, immigration law, and gay rights.

Lori Lowenthal Marcus and JTA contributed to this report.