Hundreds of rabbis are taking News Corporation Chairman Rupert Murdoch to task in an open letter to be published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal and the Forward, demanding that he sanction Fox News Host Glenn Beck for his repeated perversion of the memory of the Holocaust. The letter also demands an apology from Fox News Chief Roger Ailes for his characterization of Jewish critics as nothing more than "left-wing rabbis."

The letter signed by rabbis from across the United States -- including the heads of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements as well as prominent Orthodox rabbis - accuses Mr. Beck and Mr. Ailes of diminishing the memory and meaning of the Holocaust.

The letter states, "In the charged political climate in the current civic debate, much is tolerated, and much is ignored or dismissed. But you diminish the memory and meaning of the Holocaust when you use it to discredit any individual or organization you disagree with. That is what Fox News has done in recent weeks, and it is not only 'left-wing rabbis' who think so."

We get it, Sarah Palin. You're not morally culpable for the tragic shooting in Tucson, Ariz. All of us around the "Morning Joe" table agree, even if we were stunned that you would whine about yourself on Facebook as a shattered family prepared to bury their 9-year-old girl.

The same goes for you, Glenn Beck. You've attacked your political opponents with words designed to inspire hatred and mind-bending conspiracy theories from fans. Calling the president a racist, Marxist and fascist may be reprehensible, but it did not lead a mentally disturbed man to take a Glock to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's "Congress on Your Corner" event.

Good on you, buddy. You weren't personally responsible for the slaughter at the Safeway. Maybe you can put it on a poster at the next "Talkers" convention.

But before you and the pack of right-wing polemicists who make big bucks spewing rage on a daily basis congratulate yourselves for not being responsible for Jared Lee Loughner's rampage, I recommend taking a deep breath.

Just because the dots between violent rhetoric and violent actions don't connect in this case doesn't mean you can afford to ignore the possibility -- or, as many fear, the inevitability -- that someone else will soon draw the line between them.

Actually, someone already has. When you get a minute, Google "Byron Williams" and "Tides Foundation" to see just how thin a layer of ice Beck skates on every day.

More than 10,000 people have signed an American Jewish organisation's petition calling on Rupert Murdoch to fire controversial pundit Glenn Beck because of his "grotesque falsehoods" about Jews.

Jewish Funds for Justice (JFSJ) launched the petition following the showing of Mr Beck's recent three-part series "Puppet Master" on Fox News. The channel is part of Mr Murdoch's media empire.

On the programme Mr Beck attacked Jewish businessman George Soros' Holocaust record and accused him of helping "to send the Jews to the death camps".

He also suggested Mr Soros was a "puppet master...at the centre" of the economic crisis and made the comment in front of a picture of a star or David.

JFSJ said Mr Beck seemed "to draw his material straight from the antisemitic forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion".

The group also criticised a programme earlier this month in which Mr Beck examined the nine public figures of the last century who created "the era of the big lie". The list included Jewish psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and Jewish writer Walter Lippman.

The JFSJ president, Simon Greer, said: "We find it hard to believe that it was only coincidence that eight of the nine individuals on his list alleging a shadowy alliance to control the Americans through propaganda were Jewish."

Last week Mr Greer accused Fox News of having "a Jewish problem", in the wake of the furore over Mr Beck's fellow Fox presenter Sarah Palin's claim the media had created a blood libel against her.

He said: "In the past two months, Ms Palin and Mr Beck, the most well-known media personalities on Fox News, have abused two of the most tragic episodes in the history of the Jewish people: the Holocaust and the blood libel.

"These denigrate the very real pain so many Jews have suffered."

Mr Greer and his supporters attempted to hand the petition to Mr Murdoch's staff at the News International headquarters in New York yesterday, but were stopped by security. They have pledged to post it instead.

MATTHEWS: I think we used to say, maybe back in the Churchillian age, your voice was your power, your ability to speak up. That's certainly Norman Rockwell's notion, the man, you know -- the standing up at a meeting, at a public meeting and saying, "Here's what I believe." But, now, it's standing up with your arms, standing up with your ammo, your gun sites, your bull's eye.

Why do you have -- this is a problem I have with the tea party. Why so many guns at these events? Why constantly referring to guns? What is it? Is it a throwback to the revolutionary age? They think they're in an armed revolution?

BROCK: Right. What does the tea party moniker stand for? Armed rebellion, right? This has been a theme of the Republican candidates and of Sarah Palin all year.

MATTHEWS: Excuse me. History lesson: The Boston tea party was a nonviolent economic statement against the Stamp Act, I believe. They threw the tea in the water. No guns.

BROCK: That's right.

MATTHEWS: They dressed up like Indians. It was a demonstration. It was street theater, OK? No guns.

BROCK: But this is not street theater, as you know. I mean, Glenn Beck himself has been responsible for three thwarted assassination attempts this year, and Sarah Palin hasn't condemned that.

MATTHEWS: How is he responsible for them?

BROCK: Well, you want to know what they are?

MATTHEWS: You said it.

BROCK: Yeah, sure. So, he burned Nancy Pelosi in effigy on his set. He tried to poison her with a chalice, OK? Some weeks later, somebody tried to firebomb Nancy Pelosi's house. That guy's mother went on television and said he gets all of his ideas from Fox News. Do you know about Senator Patty Murray and the death threat that she got?

MATTHEWS: No, go ahead.

BROCK: OK. It's recorded -- the guy says after the health care vote. He says you have a target on your back and I can accomplish what I want to accomplish with one bullet. Now he's tried, convicted, and in the sentencing phase, his cousin writes in for leniency, and she describes in a very chilling memo -- it's on our website -- that he was slowly drawn into Glenn Beck's world. And she portrays the guy, the attempted assassin, Charlie Wilson, as a victim of Beck.

And number three, which you probably do know about, this liberal Tides foundation in San Francisco was targeted by a gunman, Byron Williams, in June. The shooter gave jailhouse interviews, and we published them, and he says Glenn Beck is this schoolteacher on television and points to specific episodes of the Glenn Beck show that inspired him do it.

SCARBOROUGH: So Pat, is this not a time for people, like Sarah Palin, who have used violent imagery - she just has. I know some of my conservative friends and family members won't like that reality. Or, Michele Bachmann, who said she wants Minnesotans armed and dangerous.

Isn't this an opportune time for them to apologize -– not saying that it led to anything — but just saying that they've been irresponsible in their rhetoric and they're going to be more careful moving forward? I am just saying though, I mean, God, you've worked for two presidents. Would you not be in there if you were working for Sarah Palin right now, saying, go out and say it had nothing to do with this shooting, but you understand that it was irresponsible, and you’re going to be more careful moving forward. Wouldn't you give her that advice if you were her aide?

PAT: Well, I certainly would. I would give everybody the advice to tone down the rhetoric and get away from military and the armed metaphors and things that a lot of us have used in campaigns, especially at a time like this. You know, I sure would Joe.

KINGSTON: There's a high possibility of trimming this whole package back, Kingston said yesterday in a telephone interview.

While it's a great re-election tool to terrify people into thinking that the food they're eating is unsafe and unsanitary, and if not for the wonderful nanny-state politicians we'd be getting sick after every meal, the system we have is doing a darn good job.

WOR (710 AM), one of the city's two biggest talk radio stations, said Tuesday morning it is dropping Beck's syndicated show as of Jan. 17 and replacing him with a familiar New York name: Mike Gallagher.

"The reason is ratings," said WOR program director Scott Lakefield. "Somewhat to our surprise, the show wasn't getting what we wanted."

Despite a lineup featuring Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, conservative-based "Rush Radio" has yet to gain any traction with listeners in Boston.

The latest Arbitron PPM rankings have Clear Channel's WXKS-AM mired toward the bottom of the Beantown ratings heap, with an overall 0.7 in the November PPM and a cume of 81,000.

The Boston Herald reported that WXKS has a 0.2 rating and 45th place in the 25-54 demographic. That's lower than when the station played Spanish music.