Smearing Israel’s Critics

Smearing Israel’s Critics
In the U.S., scholars who contest the conventional wisdom about Israel all too often lose their reputations — and their jobs

By Salim Muwakkil
Norman Finkelstein Interview

DePaul University canceled courses taught by Norman Finkelstein, the controversial political science professor known for his forthright criticism of Israel, just a week before classes resumed in June. Finkelstein, who taught at DePaul for six years, was denied tenure at the Chicago school but permitted to teach for the one year remaining on his contract.

In late August, however, the university decided to axe him and pulled his required books from the school’s bookstore. This was a break from the academic tradition that grants a faculty member who is denied tenure one last year (the “terminal year”) in the classroom. Finkelstein initially vowed to protest his suspension, but later reached an agreement (including a monetary settlement) with DePaul to end his fight. However, even as he announced the agreement, Finkelstein charged his tenure denial was due “to external pressure resulting in a national hysteria.”

Finkelstein’s rough treatment followed a vigorous national campaign initiated by right-wing supporters of Israel to taint his name. They attacked Finkelstein for his scholarship, which has consistently excoriated the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the deceitful arguments of the Jewish state’s uncritical supporters. And Finkelstein is just one of many public figures currently under attack for contesting the conventional wisdom about Israel.

Harvard law professor and avid Zionist Alan Dershowitz mounted a relentless public campaign to have Finkelstein dismissed. Surely it is no coincidence that Finkelstein’s recent book, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, is a sustained, well-researched attack on Dershowitz and his ilk for their lurid distortions of history on behalf of Israel.

DePaul’s political science department and a college-wide faculty committee overwhelmingly backed Finkelstein’s tenure bid. Yet that was not enough to shield him from the national campaign to punish him for his acerbic criticism of Israel. An influential dean persuaded the tenure panel to reject him for the style and tone of his scholarship rather than its content.

Finkelstein’s boosters argue that right-wing supporters of Israel are persecuting him for his strident opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and for his criticism that they are unscrupulously exploiting the horror of the Holocaust to justify Israeli excesses. Finkelstein’s previous book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, makes the case that many Holocaust scholars use the tragedy to justify Israel’s existence and continue to utilize it to extort guilt money from various sources.

Finkelstein also provokes ire from Jewish groups because he is the son of two Holocaust survivors, which gives his critiques more credence. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has repeatedly accused Finkelstein of being a Holocaust denier, a baseless charge.

The former DePaul professor’s supporters claim his tenure denial is completely unjustified and that his suspension violates academic ethics. The Chicago Tribune reported that the American Association of University Professors would soon launch a protest of Finkelstein’s treatment as a violation of normal academic procedure.

Finkelstein thus joins former president Jimmy Carter, NYU historian Tony Judt, Harvard University professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer (the latter two are co-authors of a new book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy) whose forthright criticism of Israel have earned them accusations of anti-Semitism.

Jimmy Carter is facing a firestorm of criticism from right-wing American Jewish organizations for his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which mildly condemned the Jewish state’s occupation policies in the Palestinian territories.

Judt, a descendant of Holocaust victims who argues that power in Israel has tragically shifted to religious fundamentalists and territorial zealots, is another victim of this pressure. The history professor, who also speaks out against American Jewish groups’ attempts to stifle honest discussion on Israel’s policies, has been forced to cancel many speaking engagements because of pressure from Jewish organizations.

Similar reactions have greeted Professors Walt and Mearsheimer, who have co-authored a book arguing that the American-Israel lobby has pushed policies that are not in the United States’ best interests and encourage Israel to engage in self-destructive behavior. The two respected scholars have been denounced as anti-Semites by ADL Director Abraham Foxman, among others.

These scholars are victims of a national campaign to punish scholarship that challenges media-made myths about Israel. This grave threat to academic freedom should concern American progressives, who often remain eerily silent.
September 11th, 2007

Article Source: AlterNet.org

 

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http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/21/giuliani_israel/print.html


Giuliani's proposal for endless Middle East wars on behalf of Israel

In a rational world, Giuliani's call for Israel to join NATO would provoke major controversy rather than deafening silence.
Glenn Greenwald

Sep. 21, 2007 | In London this week, Rudy Giuliani proposed what is probably the single most extremist policy of any major presidential candidate, certainly this year and perhaps in many years:

Rudy Giuliani talked tough on Iran yesterday, proposing to expand NATO to include Israel and warning that if Iran's leaders go ahead with their goal to be a nuclear power "we will prevent it, or we will set them back five or 10 years." . . . .

While Giuliani did not explicitly address the implications for Iran of adding Israel to NATO in his speech, his aides later highlighted a 2006 Heritage Foundation paper by Nile Gardiner, a former Thatcher aide who was announced as a new Giuliani adviser yesterday.

That step would "leave the mullahs with no illusions about the West's determination to respond to Iran's strategic threat to the region," Gardiner wrote. "Any nuclear or conventional attack on Israel, be it direct or through proxies such as Hezbollah or other terrorist groups, would be met by a cataclysmic response from the West."

Adding Israel to NATO has been opposed by France and some other European nations in the past, largely because it would entangle the alliance in the Middle East.

Like most countries, Israel deems all of its wars to be defensive wars in response to threats. So Rudy Giuliani, as President, would in essence deem any war in which Israel is involved to be, by definition, a war on the U.S., and would use American resources and lives to become involved in any such war and fight on behalf of Israel. Shouldn't the fact that the leading GOP candidate for President believes such a thing be the source of a bit more discussion? Other than John Edwards' views regarding haircuts, is there any major presidential candidate who has espoused a view anywhere near this radical or controversial?

Israel has been involved, and will continue to be involved, in an endless series of wars with its neighbors over matters having nothing to do with U.S. interests. As Matt Yglesias noted, Guiliani's policy would, among many other things, "commit[] the United States to the armed defense of the borders of a country that lacks internationally recognized borders." A Giuliani presidency would mean that we would be almost immediately deemed to be at war with Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. It is hard to imagine a more certain and rapid guarantee of endless American wars in the Middle East than this.

In a rational world, Giuliani's proposal would be a major controversy, and the other presidential candidates -- Republican and Democrat alike -- would be loudly pointing to this extremist view to harm the Giuliani campaign. After all, if Americans are asked: "Do you think the U.S. should fight in any wars that Israel fights?" or "do you believe the U.S. should consider any attack on Israel to be an attack on the U.S.?", is there really any doubt what the views of most Americans would be? Giuliani's desire to commit the U.S. military to fighting in any Israeli wars is obviously a fringe position -- the type that normally harms presidential candidates greatly.

During the Israel-Hezbollah war last summer -- even with virtually no significant political figures criticizing the Bush administration for involving itself so blatantly in supporting Israel's war effort -- the vast majority of Americans wanted the U.S. to stay out of that war. A Washington Post poll found that a plurality (46%) blamed "both sides equally" (Israel and Hezbollah) for the war; a plurality (48%) believed that Israel's claimed "bombing [of] rocket launchers and other Hezbollah targets located in civilian areas" was "not justified"; and a solid majority (54-38%) said Israel "should do more to try to avoid civilian casualties in Lebanon."

More importantly, while large majorities favored the deployment of U.N. peacekeeping forces to Lebanon, a large majority (59-38%) opposed having U.S. troops involved in that force. More significantly still was this finding from an August, 2006 CBS News/New York Times poll:

"Do you think the U.S. has a responsibility to try to resolve the conflict between Israel and other countries in the Middle East, or is that not the U.S.' business?"

Has responsibility - 39%

Not the U.S.' business - 56%

Not sure - 5%

That large majority is opposed merely to America's efforts to broker a resolution, let alone to an American commitment, as Giuliani proposes, to fight in every war that Israel fights with its neighbors. A USA Today/Gallup Poll taken at the same time found:
In the current conflict, do you think the United States should take Israel's side, take the side of Hezbollah, or not take either side?

Israel's - 31%

Hezbollah's - 0%

Neither - 65%

As always, it is worth underscoring how lopsided American public opinion is on these questions even though there is virtually no significant American politician who was or is willing to criticize Israel's actions in Lebanon, and equally few who were willing to argue that U.S. support for Israel is excessive. With Americans now even more overwhelmingly against ongoing U.S. occupation in Iraq than they were back then, these numbers are almost certainly even more imbalanced against increased U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

 

Plainly, the last thing most Americans want is for the U.S. to expand its involvement in Middle East wars, particularly when doing so is on behalf of the interests not of the U.S., but of another country. Yet here is Giuliani advocating that we do exactly that -- embrace an obviously radical strategy opposed by the overwhelming majority of Americans, likely vehemently opposed -- and the silence is deafening.

Of course, none of Giuliani's extremism on this issue should be surprising, given that his senior foreign policy advisor is Norman Podhoretz, whose life has been devoted to trying to induce the U.S. to wage war against any country hostile to Israel. Podhoretz was one of the signatories on the 2002 PNAC letter to President Bush which declared that "No one should doubt that the United States and Israel share a common enemy" and -- listing Iraq, Iran and Syria, among others -- argued that "Israel is fighting the same war." Podhoretz currently "prays" that the U.S. bomb Iran.

This idea of Israel joining NATO is even a fringe idea in Israel, where it has been pushed primarily by Israeli super-hawk, Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman, consistent with his own self-described mission: "Our first task is to convince Western countries to adopt a tough approach to the Iranian problem." And by "tough approach," he does not mean diplomacy: "The dialogue with Iran will be a 100-percent failure, just like it was with North Korea."

In some sense, one can welcome Giuliani's explicit advocacy that we view all of Israel's enemies as, by definition, enemies of the U.S. Virtually all of the swirling war dances towards Iran are rooted in this belief, but advocates of war with Iran are too dishonest to acknowledge it openly. In his Washington Post column this morning, for instance, Charles Krauthammer -- long an advocate of war with Iran -- listed the four specific crimes that allegedly demonstrate that Iran is our Enemy ("our" meaning the United States):

(1) Hamas launching rockets into Israeli towns and villages across the border from the Gaza Strip. Its intention is to invite an Israeli reaction, preferably a bloody and telegenic ground assault.

(2) Hezbollah heavily rearmed with Iranian rockets transshipped through Syria and preparing for the next round of fighting with Israel. The third Lebanon war, now inevitable, awaits only Tehran's order.

(3) Syria, Iran's only Arab client state, building up forces across the Golan Heights frontier with Israel. And on Wednesday, yet another anti-Syrian member of Lebanon's parliament was killed in a massive car bombing.

(4) The al-Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard training and equipping Shiite extremist militias in the use of the deadliest IEDs and rocketry against American and Iraqi troops. Iran is similarly helping the Taliban attack NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Of the four crimes in the Bill of Particulars against Iran, only one has anything even ostensibly to do with the U.S., and that is composed of highly dubious claims (arming the Taliban) and ones which hardly demonstrate its Evil (they are interfering in a neighboring country of theirs which we invaded and are occupying with 160,000 soldiers). As Krauthammer's column illuminates, for those salivating for an American war with Iran, the case is grounded overwhelmingly in the Giuliani View -- that the U.S. should use its resources and lives to wage war against any country hostile to Israel.

Why do Giuliani and Krauthammer and friends feel so free to advocate a plainly fringe position of Endless War on behalf of Israel? Usually, political advocates, and particularly presidential candidates, avoid such positions like the plague. Here, it is because no political figure can possibly oppose this view, at least not explicitly. Is it even possible to imagine a presidential candidate objecting to the view that the U.S. should consider Israel's enemies to be enemies of the U.S., even though vast majorities of Americans share that objection?

As is true for Iraq, it is so striking how little public opinion matters when it comes to formulating American policy. What accounts for the complete unwillingess of any presidential candidate to seize on Giuliani's extremist and fringe position? The neoconservative New York Sun -- not Mearsheimer and Walt in their important, richly documented and now NYT-Best-Selling new book, but The New York Sun -- provided an answer recently:

It [an AIPAC dinner] is also an important illustration of just how much stock all of the presidential candidates, Democrats and Republicans alike, will put in the pro-Israel community, particularly for campaign dollars. . . . .

A Democratic political consultant who worked on President Clinton's re-election campaign, Hank Sheinkopf, noted that the Aipac dinner always draws a parade of politicians.

"New York is the ATM for American politicians. Large amounts of money come from the Jewish community," he said. "If you're running for president and you want dollars from that group, you need to show that you're interested in the issue that matters most to them."

And, of course, mentioning any of this subjects one to a cascade of predictable and transparently exploitive though still nasty accusations of anti-semitism, and what presidential candidate would possibly want that? And thus Rudy Giuliani can propose a policy that is incomparably dangerous and intensely unpopular, yet know that his doing so will result in no political price being paid.

Now that we are occupying two Middle Eastern countries, with a broken military, and are threatening imminent war with at least another one, isn't it long past time to have the discussion about the extent to which the U.S. is willing to wage war on behalf of Israel's interests? Do Americans really think that Iranian hostility towards Israel or its support for "terrorists groups" that are hostile to Israel are grounds for declaring Iran to be our Enemy or waging war against them? If so, then let proponents of war with Iran make that case expressly. And for the rest of the presidential campaign, shouldn't Giuliani's desire to involve the U.S. military in every war Israel fights be a rather central feature in discussions of his potential presidency?


-- Glenn Greenwald

 

NATO does not have to be involved in every conflict its individual members are involved in. NATO was not involved in the Falkland war, it's not involved in Iraq, only some members on a voluntary basis are involved in Afghanistan and it's not involved in France's military activities in African countries. If Israel was a NATO member NATO would not have to be involved in every minor conflict involving Israel either.

On the other side if Israel joined NATO it would immediately and completely eliminate the existential threat Israel has been facing since 1948 and will likely be facing for generations to come. It would allow the peace process to move forward much faster as Israel's neighbors would realize that wiping Israel off the map is no longer an option. And this is exactly why Israel haters like you are terrified of Giuliani's proposal. God forbid Israel is safe, in peace with its neighbors and not threatened with annihilation. Your lives would be empty, you'd have to resort to old-fashioned and unpopular anti-semitism when now you can hide your disgusting and hateful views behind the "noble" idea of anti-Zionism.

Not to worry though, the European members of NATO, especially France and the UK will never agree to this proposal so anti-Israel scum like you will be in business for years to come.

 

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TT;
A brief comment, not only does the current commander in chief & a multitude think Israel 's enemies are our emenies;
good shooting, Israeli Defence Forces , on Syria.

Interesting Hal Lindsey /military intelligence figured Syria has better air defences than Iran.

murray TT