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David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
Current rating: 0 |
by David Green
Email: davegreen84 (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified!)
Phone: 217-840-3979 |
19 Feb 2006
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Following are eight letters sent to the DI since last October. The first seven were not published. The last one was sent before the publication of the cartoons, and was at first not published. It was published after being re-sent subsequent to the publication of the cartoons. |
Following are eight letters sent to the DI since last October. The first seven were not published. The last one was sent before the publication of the cartoons, and was at first not published. It was published after being re-sent subsequent to the publication of the cartoons.
All of these letters addressed items in the DI, events on campus, or both. During that period, the editors chose to publish numerous editorials from other campus newspapers.
I support the right of the editors to publish the cartoons, however specious their motives. But it is clear that in exercising their editorial judgment, they have not during this period been willing to allow much-needed criticism on important issues to be heard.
This is what needs to be addressed.
____________________________________
October 28, 2005
Editor, Daily Illini:
The Program for Jewish Culture and Society is sponsoring Israeli Yossi Klein Halevi’s two-week visit as “journalist in residence.”
American-born Halevi began his career in the 1960s with the Jewish Defense League. In a 1986 study of domestic terrorism, the Department of Energy concluded: “For more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League has been one of the most active terrorist groups in the United States. Since 1968, JDL operations have killed 7 persons and wounded at least
22.”
Halevi has documented his efforts to “reconcile” with Christians and Muslims. Unfortunately, this effort ended with the 2nd intifada, when Halevi realized that Palestinians of either persuasion fully deserve his abiding hatred for them.
Halevi writes novels, but his political commentary is also fictional. No effort is made to examine the realities of the Israel-Palestine conflict, specifically the nature of the occupation. Israel is innocent, Palestinians are terrorists, and well-documented contradictory realities are ignored. He believes that Israeli Jews are morally superior to Palestinians, who cannot be trusted.
In Israel, Halevi is sponsored by the Shalem Center, a think tank founded by American-Israeli Yoram Hazony, the Pat Robertson of Israel. It promotes religious settlements in the territories and religion in school textbooks. It also supports neoliberal economic policies that make Israel the most economically unequal country in the developed world. Not only does Halevi hate Palestinians, he doesn’t much care about Jews living in poverty.
It would be appropriate for the PJCS to consider the peculiarly Jewish psychopathology that has sent the likes of Halevi and other zealots to find the meaning of their lives in Israel at the expense of the Arab natives. But if the PJCS is determined not to look critically at Jewish culture, it should at least have the decency not to embarrass it.
David Green
__________________________________________
November 3, 2005
Editor, Daily Illini:
As reported in the DI (11/3), Israeli journalist Yossi Klein Halevi spoke Wednesday regarding media coverage of Israel-Palestine. Halevi is correctly quoted as saying: "The problem is that what has happened to many journalists ... is a shift that has been made from a journalistic quest for truth as the ethical basis of the profession to a shift toward a quest for justice."
As a matter of Jewish ethics, I was taught that the quest for truth is consistent with the quest for justice. This is exemplified in the work of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. It is no truer than in the case of Israel-Palestine. Those of us, Jewish or otherwise, who have explored the reality of the situation have been motivated to seek justice as a response to the gross injustices done to the Palestinian people—not only by Israel, but by our own government’s support.
Halevi accused mainstream journalists in this country of being blinded by justice in their favoritism toward the Palestinians. He offered no evidence to support this, because there is none. Indeed, it is well documented that mainstream reporting is systematically biased in favor of Israel, a U.S. surrogate. Moreover, Halevi openly admitted that he does not hold himself, as a “supporter of Israel,” to the same standards of objectivity that he holds others. During his visit here, he repeatedly made baseless, easily disproved assertions regarding the nature of the Oslo period, the origins of the intifada, and Israel’s “generous offers” to the Palestinians.
Yesterday’s talk was sponsored by the School of Journalism and the Program for Jewish Culture and Society. Presumably, it is only in collegial service to the latter that the former consented to hosting a journalist who openly mocks ethics, truth, and justice. So much for “Jewish culture and society.”
David Green
__________________________________________
November 10, 2005
Editor, Daily Illini
The Daily Illini (11/10) reports on the observance of Kristallnacht, quoting a student who “cited Sudan and Rwanda as modern examples of how today's world is not free of oppression.” He continued: "There are many events that remind us of the Holocaust. We live in a world where this stuff can happen, and we have to be aware of it."
Unfortunately, these examples are selected in order to avoid parallels that implicate the United States and Israel, such as East Timor and Guatemala, where arms and advisement were provided for ongoing government-sponsored genocides. Also studiously avoided is the ethnic cleansing of 700,000 Palestinians by Israel in 1948, or its 1982 invasion of Lebanon which killed 20,000 Palestinian refugees, ending with Ariel Sharon’s complicity in massacres at Sabra and Shatila. A guiding moral principle is that we hold ourselves to the same standards that we hold others.
The DI’s naive coverage is consistent with that of recent events promoted by our campus’s neoconservative “Program for Jewish Culture and Society.” Yossi Klein Halevi (11/3), an Israeli journalist, appeared in the guise of “reconciliation” in order to advocate collective punishment of Palestinians, while claiming that journalists who promote social justice are blinded to the truth.
Judea Pearl (11/9), promoting “tolerance”, declared that “no topic is taboo” while ignoring Israel’s occupation of Palestine, the American occupation of Iraq, and the CIA’s 1980s support for the Islamic radicals who eventually murdered his son. Pearl labels opposition to Zionism as racist, indeed: “I submit that anti-Zionism is a form of racism more dangerous than classical anti-Semitism. Framing anti-Zionism as racism is precisely the weapon that our (Jewish) students need for survival on campus.” So much for dialogue, and for the pretense that local Jewish bureaucrats value the truth more than their neoconservative political agenda.
David Green
__________________________________________
November 28, 2005
Editor, Daily Illini
Elie Dvorin (11/28) finds the “blame Israel first” crowd—including “self-hating Jewish intellectuals”--guilty of anti-semitism for promoting Palestinian citizenship in Israel, and opposing the barrier built in occupied territory. Predictably, no evidence or logic is apparent. For over three decades a two-state solution has been supported by Palestinians, Arab leaders, the international community, and many on the left, including Jewish activists such as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein. These proposals have been summarily rejected by Israel and the United States, while Israel has continued to annex occupied territory, creating “facts on the ground” that prevent a viable, contiguous Palestinian state.
Given Israeli rejectionism, some activists now propose that the only just solution is a democratic state for all residents of historic Palestine. This is the “one state solution.” The technical term that has been given to this democratic, egalitarian solution by Zionists is “the destruction of Israel,” with the manipulative charge of anti-semitism that goes with it. Yossi Klein Halevi, the Israeli propagandist who was recently hosted by the Program for Jewish Culture and Society, baldly equated those who advocate democracy with those who murder Jews. Meanwhile, a Jewish state that denies its Palestinian citizens equal rights in all sectors of society on the basis of religion is described as “democratic.”
Dvorin also vilifies opponents of the illegal barrier in occupied Palestine as anti-semites. So you’re a Jew-hater if you support democracy in Israel and Palestine, and you’re Jew-hater if you oppose an illegal apartheid wall that prevents a viable Palestinian state. But if you think that Israel’s “right to exist” means systematically denying Palestinian human rights on all fronts, then you’re a Jew-lover. This would be merely stupid and absurd if it weren’t hateful and violent—as well as consistent with the views of the local Jewish establishment.
David Green
__________________________________________
December 7, 2005
Editor, Daily Illini
The DI reports (12/7, AP) on the acquittal of Sami Al-Arian, formerly a professor at the University of South Florida, on all major charges against him of aiding terrorists.
It is encouraging that a citizen jury in Florida considered the evidence carefully and, in spite of the overwhelming advantage of the prosecution and a racist cultural climate, chose to acquit a man who has done nothing but exercise his 1st Amendment rights in supporting his people. It is also positive that John Ashcroft’s first major case based on the PATRIOT Act has been found baseless.
But Al-Arian has been fired from his job, jailed since February of 2002, and remains jailed while the prosecution decides whether to retry him on deadlocked charges. His experience evokes Kafka and Joseph McCarthy, not only due to government persecution, but malicious persecution from “anti-terror” advocates like Steven Emerson and Zionist organizations like the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League.
After Al-Arian’s arrest on February 20, 2003, an ADL press release found Al-Arian guilty without trial:
“‘We are gratified that the federal authorities have taken this decisive step in countering alleged fundraising and material support activities for terrorist organizations including Hamas and Islamic Jihad,’ said Arthur Teitelbaum, ADL Southern Area Director. ‘Al-Arian's arrest is particularly significant, as this is an individual who has long been suspected of having close ties with leaders of terrorist groups. Al-Arian claims his arrest is 'all about politics,' Mr. Teitelbaum said. ‘Well, it is about politics. It's his support for the politics of violence and terror.’”
Thus a Zionist organization has fostered a gross violation of human rights—as it does consistently in its support for Israeli policies. Campus Jewish leaders affiliated with the ADL (Hillel, Jewish Federation) should make clear public statements rejecting their parent organization’s reckless and destructive tactics.
David Green
__________________________________________
January 23, 2006
Editor, Daily Illini
A cartoon promoting an attack on Iran (1/23), and Tom Amenta’s support for such an attack, merits response.
As in many cases, enemies of Israel are depicted in the classic manner that Jews were depicted by anti-Semites—big-nosed and beady-eyed. While the threat of anti-semitism has been transferred to the Middle East, the tactics of anti-Semites are employed by America and Israel: “pre-emptive” violence is being done by and will be done in the name of “Judeo-Christian civilization” against evil Arabs and Persians. This is consistent with our murderous sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, killing one million, leading to the invasion and devastating occupation. It is also consistent with Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
While it remains to be seen whether Iran will develop a nuclear weapon, it is clear why it wants one: to deter invasion from the U.S., which chose to invade Iraq (but not North Korea) for this reason. This attack will be for hegemony and oil, part of the disastrous but ongoing plan of American and Israeli neoconservatives to “redraw the map of the Middle East” by imposing “democracy” at the end of a gun. Israel knows it is not threatened, because it illegally maintains a nuclear arsenal of its own. This double standard is not lost on the rest of the world, and promotes hatred of America.
It was not reported in the DI that last Friday former Pentagon official Larry Franklin was sentenced to 12 years for passing classified documents through AIPAC (the Israel Lobby) to Israel to foment an attack on Iran. This is the same AIPAC that sponsors “Israel Advocacy” through Hillel on college campuses. The DI should report on such nefarious connections in relation to local Jewish institutions, and whether their agenda represents a majority of the local Jewish community.
David Green
__________________________________________
January 30, 2006
Editor, Daily Illini
One would think that Edward Brener of Illinipac, would have something better to do than vilify Palestinians who democratically act to replace a corrupt regime, installing one that does not passively accept continued Israeli confiscation of occupied lands and wanton Jewish settler attacks on Palestinian people. But his purpose is to change the subject from AIPAC’s treasonous activities in passing secrets to Israel to foment an attack on Iran, Jack Abramoff’s use of money meant for inner city children for a Jewish settler “sniper school” on the West Bank, Abramoff’s ties with apartheid/fascist South Africa, and increasingly dramatic economic inequality within Israeli society, whose leaders need distractions from their own corruption.
So Bremer excoriates the Palestinians, always an acceptable form of racism on college campuses, regularly spewed by guests of Hillel and the Program for Jewish Culture and Society. It would behoove the DI to report on connections between AIPAC’s contemptible program of “Israel Advocacy” and Hillel, as boldly proclaimed on the AIPAC website.
A serious consideration of Hamas’ success would include: Israel’s support for Hamas in the 70’s and 80’s as a counter to the PLO, which for three decades promoted a two-state solution in the face of Israeli rejectionism; and that no state has a “right to exist” apart from respecting the rights of its citizens, which Israel violates in regard to its Palestinian citizen minority--even apart from its brutal occupation. Israel’s long-term goal has always been the unilateral destruction of any hope for a viable Palestinian state. Hamas’ success is a predictable vote for resistance to Israel’s brutality, not a reflection of “Islamic extremism.” It is precious that Bremer expresses concern for the rights of Palestinian women, while promoting policies that violate the human rights of all Palestinians. Racism has always incorporated paternalism.
David Green
__________________________________________
February 6, 2006
Editor, Daily Illini
The European cartoons defaming Muslims have interest in the local context. It was barely over a year ago that a DI cartoonist was grounded for sarcastically referring to an anti-Semitic stereotype: Jews as bankers with big noses. Hysterical local Jewish leaders called in an official from Chicago, who spoke to Chancellor Herman, who spoke against the cartoonist, who was banished for a month. The response was swift and self-righteous, and oblivious to issues of expression, satire, and irony. Freedom of speech
succumbed to the double standard.
In many countries in Europe, anti-Semitic speech is outlawed, but not the kind that defames Muslim Semites. Such speech is claimed to test Muslims’ willingness to adapt to secular society. But these cartoons are no less a blatant provocation than the worst Nazi stereotypes of Jews. If they are to be supported as free expression, then a double standard has been clearly established. But I would propose no limits on any kind of speech, which would allow us to call hate speech for what it is, and distinguish it from civil discourse.
That leaves us with the problem of contextualizing hate speech while conducting civil discourse. In Europe, not Jews but Muslims are oppressed and dispossessed; verbal attacks on them reflect their status as scapegoats—similar to Jews in an earlier era. This hate has real consequences. In the Muslim world, anti-Semitic speech is used as a form of propaganda to distract the masses from their powerlessness and their leaders’ failures. But such hate speech also feeds off the very real nature of American and Israeli power, including our affinity to threaten, bomb, invade, and occupy. Instead of denigrating alleged Muslim intolerance, we have the constructive option of taking responsibility for the root causes of both of these forms of hate speech.
David Green |
This work is in the public domain |
Comments
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by Andy Assad
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
20 Feb 2006
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With no due respect, Acquaintance, your ad hominem attack against David amounts to little more than verbal flatulence. Besides your oh-so-very-clever polysyllabic invective, can you actually counter, with a well-reasoned argument, a single thing David writes about in the above unpublished letters? Don't worry, I won't hold my breath waiting for an answer... |
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by David Green
davegreen84 (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
20 Feb 2006
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Thanks Andy. I just wish I had had a chance to read the comment to which you refer, but it's no longer on the page. |
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looks like a bad case of instant karma to me |
by David Gehrig
zemblan (nospam) earthlink.net (verified) |
Current rating: 0
20 Feb 2006
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Green: "This is what needs to be addressed."
What, that the DI considers you a raging, quote-mangling crank whose letters always seem produced by Cuisinart? There's a very simple way to fix that -- stop being a raging, quote-mangling crank, and switch your word processor to some other setting than "chop logic."
@%< |
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Reading Comprehension 101 |
by Andy Assad
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
20 Feb 2006
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No offense intended, Mr. Gehrig, but if you seriously have trouble understanding anything David has written in the above letters, I would suggest that you might well benefit from a remedial course in basic reading comprehension. I understand Parkland offers several such courses.
And, as you seem to be concerned with logic, if you disagree with the content of David's writing, try debating it logically rather than resorting to trite commentary on his writing style. Of course, that would require you to actually have a logically defensible position. |
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by David Gehrig
zemblan (nospam) earthlink.net (verified) |
Current rating: 0
20 Feb 2006
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AA: "I understand Parkland offers several such courses."
Good thinking. I can put the textbook next to the diploma for my MA in English. (Thanks for your concern about my literacy level.) That degree was, of course, exactly the sort of textual training that allows me to detect the difference between a logical argument and a lame and disjointed rant -- and dismiss Green's many examples of the latter as they deserve.
@%< |
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Reading Comprehension 101 |
by Andy Assad
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
20 Feb 2006
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No offense intended, Mr. Gehrig, but if you seriously have trouble understanding anything David has written in the above letters, I would suggest that you might well benefit from a remedial course in basic reading comprehension. I understand Parkland offers several such courses.
And, as you seem to be concerned with logic, if you disagree with the content of David's writing, try debating it logically rather than resorting to trite commentary on his writing style. Of course, that would require you to actually have a logically defensible position. |
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by Andy Assad
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
20 Feb 2006
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Forgive me, David Gehrig, for being unaware of the lofty academic heights you have scaled. I suppose I should defer to your prestigious credentials and simply accept your bald assertion that David Green's writing consists of "lame and disjointed rants" rather than logical arguments. And yet, somehow, I remain unconvinced.
Perhaps you could enlighten us all by lending your, presumably, considerable expertise and textual training to the task of analyzing one of David Green's above letters and specifically pointing out the logical fallacies within it. |
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
20 Feb 2006
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AA: "And yet, somehow, I remain unconvinced."
That's okay. Some day you too will grow wise, and not have to put your foot in your mouth quite so frequently (and then try to cover your faux pas with sophomoric sarcasm).
@%< |
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by Andy Assad
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
20 Feb 2006
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All right, one last try. But first, as an aside, let me note that, in fact, I didn't put my foot in my mouth previously when I suggested that you might benefit from a reading comprehension course because I was being -- imagine this -- sarcastic (as I assumed you would have astutely detected).
Now back to the main issue at hand: you've made a claim that David Green's writing is lame and disjointed as opposed to solid logical argument. You don't back up this contention with any logical reasoning, whatsoever. Instead, you ask us to simply believe your assertion that you are capable of making such distinctions between logical argument and lame and disjointed rant in David's writing by virtue of the fact that you have an MA in English. Well, to be blunt, that just doesn't cut it.
So, I know it's almost assuredly futile to ask, but I will invite you one last time to prove your point by citing specific examples of flawed logical reasoning in any of David's letters.
And now, I'll leave you to your predictable evasion of the main issue and to your equally predictable and pathetic attempt at a witty retort.
Cheers! |
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by La Ley
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2006
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Hi Andy,
I'm not David Gehrig, but I thought I'd look over David Green's letters and pick out an example of a statement that might be considered brash. Let's take this example from the January 23, 2006 letter:
"While it remains to be seen whether Iran will develop a nuclear weapon, it is clear why it wants one: to deter invasion from the U.S., which chose to invade Iraq (but not North Korea) for this reason."
Is David saying that he doesn't agree with Iran's assertion that they only want to develop peaceful nuclear energy? And if not, is he saying that Iran thinks that development of a nuclear weapon would deter a US attack? Are any Iranian officials speaking to this issue, or is this just someone's opinion? David says, "It is clear..." What is the basis for this statement? |
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by David Green
davegreen84 (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2006
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It may indeed not be clear that Iran wants one, given today's article below from zmag.org. If it is not clear, does that justify continued U.S. and Israeli threats? Or does it make those threats even more cynical? If they do indeed want one, it remains clear why--deterrence against the U.S. and Israel. Iran, by the way, has no history of invading other countries. It has been invaded by Iraq, the latter with U.S. support. It has also had a government overthrown by the U.S., in 1953.
Have we forgotten that the Shah and his torture regime were supplied and trained by the U.S. and Israel? Iranians most likely have not.
________________
U.S. instigated Iran's nuclear policy in the '70s
by William O. Beeman; The Providence Journal; February 20, 2006
(SH) -- The White House staff members who are trying to prevent Iran from developing its own nuclear-energy capacity, and who refuse to take military action against Iran "off the table," have conveniently forgotten that the United States was the midwife to the Iranian nuclear program 30 years ago.
Every aspect of Iran's current nuclear development was approved and encouraged by Washington in the 1970s. President Gerald Ford offered Iran a full nuclear cycle in 1976. Moreover, the only Iranian reactor currently about to become operative -- the reactor in Bushire (also known as Bushehr) -- was started before the Iranian revolution with U.S. approval, and cannot produce weapons-grade plutonium.
The Bushire reactor, a "light-water" reactor, produces Pu240, Pu241, and Pu242.
Although these isotopes could theoretically be weaponized, the process is extremely long and complicated, and untried. To date, no nuclear weapon has ever been produced with plutonium produced with the kind of reactor at Bushire.
Moreover, the plant must be completely shut down in order for the fuel rods to be extracted -- making the process immediately open to inspection and detection.
Other possible reactors in Iran are far in the future.
The American push for Iran's nuclear development was carried out with great enthusiasm. Prof. Ahmad Sadri, chairman of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lake Forest College in Illinois was a young man in Iran when the United States was touting nuclear-power facilities to the government of the Shah in the 1970s. He remembers seeing the American display at the Tehran International Exhibition, which was "dedicated to the single theme of extolling the virtues of atomic energy and the feasibility of its transfer to Iran."
Sadri also remembers an encounter with Octave J. Du Temple, executive director emeritus of the American Nuclear Society, who fondly reminisced about half a dozen trips to Tehran in the early '70s to participate in meetings on "transfer of nuclear technology."
Donald Weadon, an international lawyer active in Iran during that period, points out that after 1972 and the oil crisis, the United States was rabidly pursuing investment opportunities in Iran, including selling nuclear-power plants. He writes that "the Iranians were wooed hard with the prospect of nuclear power from trusted U.S.-backed suppliers, with the prospect of the reservation of significant revenues from oil exports for foreign and domestic investment."
American dissimulation on this point reveals some interesting motives on Washington's part. Iran under the Shah was as much of a threat to its neighbors -- including Iraq -- as it might be said to be today; its nuclear ambitions then could have been inflated and denigrated in exactly the same way that they are being inflated and denigrated today. But the United States was blissfully unconcerned. The big difference today is that Iran is now perceived to be a threat to Israel, and this fuels much of the threat of military action.
Even those who admit that the United States helped start Iran's nuclear development can produce only two factors that make a difference in how Iran should be treated today, as opposed to the '70s. The most recent factor is President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's widely denounced remarks attacking Israel. The second, older factor is Iran's alleged concealment of nuclear-energy development in the past.
President Ahmadinejad's remarks have little or no connection with any probable action on Iran's part regarding Israel. His pronouncements were designed primarily to shore up support from extremist elements among his revolutionary supporters. Moreover, he has no control over Iran's foreign policy or its nuclear-energy program, and his views are not embraced by Iran's clerical leaders.
However, the second accusation -- that Iran has "regularly hidden information about its nuclear program" -- is equally specious. When the reports of the United Nations inspection team are examined, one realizes that much of what the United States has called "concealment" was never concealed at all.
Many of the charges about removing topsoil and bulldozing material at some of the research sites describe actions that never took place. Moreover, even if one concedes that Iran did conceal some processes, this activity started 18 to 20 years ago, when the revolution was still young and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was still alive, under completely different political actors from those in power today.
Indeed, whatever Iran did or didn't do in the past, today it is in compliance with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. There would in fact be no way to accuse Iran of anything if it were not so compliant.
Furthermore, the treaty grants all signatories the right to pursue nuclear research for peaceful purposes of precisely the kind in which Iran is currently engaged.
The mantra "Iran must not get nuclear weapons" has been repeated so often now that most people have come to believe that Iran has them, or is getting them.
This implication is completely unproven. The tragedy would be that in the end the United States may goad Iran into a real nuclear-weapons program. The Iranians may reason that since they are being punished for the crime, they may as well commit it.
William O. Beeman, a Brown University professor of anthropology and Middle East Studies, is author of "The 'Great Satan' vs. the 'Mad Mullahs': How the United States and Iran Demonize Each Other." This article appeared in The Providence Journal,
February 17, 2006. |
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to spell it out |
by David Gehrig
zemblan (nospam) earthlink.net (verified) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2006
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The problem is, the narrative he claims to be selling -- "justice for Palestinians" -- is in his case spotwelded to a far more insidious narrative, that of the BBJO: the Big Bad Jewish Organization. And the compulsive fervor with which he pushes that second narrative undoes, completely undoes, any good he may or may not have been able to do on the first.
Unlike most ethnic bigotries, there are two strains to the antisemitic stereotype. Some deal with the individual Jew. Some deal with the Jew in partnership. To be free of only the first kind of stereotype is not to be free of antisemitism. The classic antisemitic text, _Protocols of the Elders_, is the archetypal expostulation on the Big Bad Jewish Organization. But there are unfortunately many others.
Let's take an example of how the BBJO narrative shows up. In March of last year, the British Association of University Teachers narrowly decided, in their annual meeting, to do a limited academic boycott of two Israeli universities. There was no full debate; only the pro-boycott people were allowed to present their case, but opponents were told there wasn't time to give a response. It was a classic example of a handful of activists pushing a pet position over the apathy of the rank and file.
What happened next, of course, is that the rank and file woke up and revolted. Many of them were ardently anti-occupation but felt that academic boycotts were by their very essence anathema to the very principles of academia. Others were appalled by the one-sided nature of the discussion, and the one-sided text of the resolution. Still others demonstrated that some of the "facts" in the resolution were simply demonstrably wrong and libelous, leaving the union open to an easily attained and potentially ruinous libel judgement. And others believe -- as I do -- that what's needed between the Israelis and the Palestinians is more engagement, not less engagement.
The next month, the AUT held an emergency "special council" specifically on that issue, and overturned that resolution by quite a large margin. Every local union who took a vote voted against it; in some cases, pro-boycott activists "representing" them voted for the boycott anyway. Not one local union council supported it. I'll say that again: "every," "not one."
But when asked why the resolution was defeated, the pro-boycott folks -- in particular, the leader Sue Blackwell -- denied that the rank and file which had spoken so clearly had anything to do with it, and instead reached for the BBJO excuse. Big Bad Jewish Organizations had forced the union to go against its own wishes, she said. Those evil BBJOs had brought the AUT whimpering to its knees.
Don't get your way? Blame the BBJOs. Just like it says in "Protocols," once it's been suitably euphemized. Jews are okay, but as soon as two of them agree on something, even something quite obvious -- academic boycotts are directly contradictory to the free exchange of ideas upon which the very idea of the university is based -- then look out! It's those BBJOs throwing their weight around, trying to run the world! One Jew -- no problem. Two Jews -- the problem begins. They cannot be allowed any form of collective voice, because that voice comes in the form of BBJOs. So instead we must disallow the very idea that Jews should have a collective voice, by dismissing every attempt at collective as merely another BBJO. The worst BBJO of all being, of course, Israel.
And if you're affiliated in any way with a BBJO, then you're one of, you know, Those Jews.
In some cases you can actually put a figure on it, how many Jews are actually Those Jews. When nessie -- the Mussolini figure "running" the pulverized remains of the now essentially vacant SF-IMC -- says that 99.5% of American Jews should be vilified as racists, because July 2003 poll data says that's the percentage who think the state Israel has the right to exist, then he's demonstrated that the pragmatic difference between himself and a guy like David Irving amounts to literally only half a percent, since Irving would prefer you hated 100%.
David Green's stance is unfortunately unsupportably similar. He doesn't put a figure on it, but the same basic implication is there. Jewish organizations are bad, and their by analytic continuation their stain stains anyone involved with them. If you're affiliated with one, you're one of Those Jews.
Look at his letters here and you'll see it spelled out unmistakeably -- every major Jewish organization in town is condemned. Hillel is bad. The Jewish Foundation is bad. B'nai Brith is bad. The university's Program for Jewish Culture and History on campus is bad. And the people who run the program are especially bad. And the people in the program are bad. Bad! Bad bad bad! Bad bad Big Bad Jewish Organizations, even the little ones. If that's the vast, vast majority of the CU Jewish community, almost in its entirety, well then, says Green, the vast majority of the CU Jewish community is stained with evil. If you meet a CU Jew, in Green's world you're best to presume "stained with evil until proven innocent."
It's not just a recurring theme in Green's screeds (which I've been reading for more than a decade), it's an obsession.
Why? Why is it so important for Green to do this ritual genuflection so compulsively, "Please! I'm Not Like Those Jews"? That's one for psychologists.
So let's see how it plays out in one of Green's crank letters. I'll pick one that the DI actually published, the one on the Muhammad caricatures. Here's his take on what happened with the DI and the Matt Vroom comic last year: "Hysterical local Jewish leaders called in an official from Chicago, who spoke to Chancellor Herman, who spoke against the cartoonist, who was banished for a month."
Any problems with this narrative? Definitely. It's carefully crafted to convey a false version of history. In particular, the BBJO narrative.
What pull does Chancellor Herman have at the DI? Exactly none. The Daily Illini is not owned by the university nor is it run by the university. Herman explicitly made that point in his recent letter to the DI in which he deplored the printing of the Muhammad caricatures. But both these facts -- that Hermann criticized the DI's recent action, and that Hermann is in no position to do anything about it except complain -- are excised from Green's BBJO narrative.
How does he characterize the local BBJOs? "Hysterical." Worse: working in collusion with a Chicago BBJO. Now you're talking BTBBJO, Big Time Big Bad Jewish Organization. And the collusion is of course itself part of the BBJO narrative -- after all, they're really only one BBJO under different names, right? When you're talking Hillel, you're really talking ADL, wink wink. When you're talking CU Jewish Federation, you're really talking International Zionist Conspiracy, wink wink.
What else does Green leave out of his ahistorical narrative? This: in January 2003, the DI published an overtly antisemitic letter from some guy in Seattle claiming to be "Ariel Sinovsky." It was scabrous. There was in immense outcry -- including from the BBJOs locally, statewide, nationally. And what was the DI response? Bupkes. No editor suspended, no apology to the CU Jewish community, nothing, nada, nitchevo, zilch. Was there a strong community outcry? There sure as hell was. But no heads rolled (a phrase, incidentally, radical Islamists want to apply literally to the Danish cartoonist: there is a fatwa calling for him to be beheaded).
Green knows this. He just "forgot" it. Why? Because it got in the way of his BBJO "double standard" narrative, so down the memory hole it went. Maybe consciously, maybe subconsciously. Why? Because the BBJO narrative says that BBJOs are all-powerful, Protocols-powerful, especially when it comes to the press. (Don't believe me? Ask David Green and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.)
Green then plays the "double standard" card again, this time in context of hate speech laws in Europe. He doesn't say _who_ enacted those "double standards," but if you've been reading him at all you have no doubt that the BBJOs must be behind it. (Let's ignore the fact that these nations are all democracies. And let's especially ignore the fact that many of the countries learned about life in the Reich first hand, and are therefore understandably historically quite sensitive about those who would repeat or whitewash Nazi crimes. No, no, clearly we know who's behind such laws, because otherwise Green would have no reason to bring them up in context of BBJOs.)
Then Green calls for recognizing the distinction between civil discourse and hate speech. By which he doesn't mean _his_ hate speech, of course, none of that stuff about the BBJOs, that's not hate speech, how could it possibly be hate speech, no, universally condemning every major Jewish organization in the city, why would that be hate speech? (The discovery of wonderful bits of ironic self-delusion like that are the only reason I bother to read Green at all anymore; the rest is just too monotonous for words. After all, how many times and in how many different ways can you say, "I woke up this morning in ecstatic hope that I had overnight been mystically transformed into Noam Chomsky or Stürmin' Nürman Finkelstein, but then in the mirror I sadly saw I'm still only David Green"?)
He goes on: "In Europe, not Jews but Muslims are oppressed and dispossessed" -- without mentioning the fact that it's simply not possible to oppress the majority of the Jews of Europe, since they were turned to smoke and ash in one of the 20th century's greatest gestures of oppression and dispossession. Why does he not mention this? In Jewish terms it's recent history -- far fewer days passed between Kristallnacht and the day of Green's birth than have passed from his birth day to today. And in Jewish terms it's also, like it or not, a definitive event -- something which not only touched a third of the world's Jews, but touched them fatally.
But Green is a follower of Stürmin' Nürmin, and to Finkelstein clones the Holocaust appears in Jewish discourse for only one reason -- you guessed it, because it's part of the mission of the BBJOs. If it weren't for the pesky BBJOs, why, the Jews of the world would hardly even _think_ about the fact that a third of their number were murdered in the space of a dozen years. I mean, if that happened to the people of CU, you'd hardly hear of it at all, right? Just let bygones be bygones and all of that. Why are those Jews so hung up on yesterday's news? It must be the BBJOs!
But Green _can_ of course do exactly what he routinely accuses BBJOs of doing -- twisting the history of the Holocaust for political purposes, comparing "scapegoating" anti-Muslim discourse to that of "Jews in an earlier *wink wink* era." Why doesn't he specify the era? Because he knows that would demonstrate the vacuity of his analogy. He knows that _you_ know there are a lot of Jews out there who would be thrilled if entire branches of ther family had only been the targets of mere scapegoating rhetoric.
Green then gives one of his "yes but" condemnations of Islamist intolerance, knowing that he cannot ignore the antisemitica that Arab media routinely traffics in, yet unwilling to let the topic go without at least some attempt to steer the blame onto the BBJOs. After all, isn't the fact that BBJOs are so awful the _reason_ that Islamists like the whacks at Hamas hate The Jew? Isn't it, in some sense, at least partially the fault of The Jew, if only in the way BBJOs affect American policy? (Of course, if you accept that argument ,then keep going -- why did the Nazis hate The Jew? Wasn't that at least partially the fault of BBJOs too?)
When David Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt for libel for calling him a Holocaust denier, the judge ruled that she was perfectly right to do so. His redacted history wasn't just full of errors, it was full of errors that pulled in the same direction: toward the exoneration of the Nazis and the condemnation of Jews, both individually and in BBJOs.
David Green's letters are similarly full of, not just errors, but systematic errors that pull in one direction: the vilification of Jewish organizations and anyone associated with them -- that is, the vilification of the majority of CU Jews.
What do you call someone who vilifies the majority of Jews? There's a word for it.
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and meanwhile |
by David Gehrig
zemblan (nospam) earthlink.net (verified) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2006
|
 |
.... in the streets of David Irving's London ... can you spot the anti-free-speech Jews in this picture?
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by PLUJ
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2006
|
(Poor Little Unaffiliated Jew)
My thanks to Mr. Gehrig for taking this on. One effect of Green's rhetoric is that it creates a hostile climate (irony intended) for someone like me -- a PLUJ who works within the Jewish community to advocate justice for Palestinians.
By Green's logic, that is a non-sequitur. One can't be a member of any Jewish organization and believe in human rights, or political justice, or respect for other religions. Gehrig hits a dead-on bulls-eye! |
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by PLUJ
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2006
|
Another ugly aspect of Green’s twisted logic is exemplified in his complaint about the person interviewed by the DI who dared to comment on Kristallnacht without simultaneously referring to Palestinians or other oppressed people. In other words, in it now improper to EVER talk about the Nazi persecution of Jews without pointing out the shortcomings of some Jews in the world today.
This is precisely equivalent to saying it’s improper to point out the racism and discrimination suffered by Moslems in some parts of the world without at the same noting that other Muslims (e.g. the government of Saudi Arabia) behave very badly toward their own citizens. That, I submit, would be considered an unnecessary, inappropriate, and irrelevant non-sequitur.
But since, in Green’s world, some Jews use the Nazi holocaust as fodder for their nefarious political agendas, then no Jews should EVER mention it. We should just take our lumps, shut up, and get our minds right. And this is the position evinced by someone who complains that there is insufficient dialogue about the Middle East! How can anyone reasonably expect to dialogue with someone like Green? To disagree with him is to be demonized, excoriated, accused.
What, for instance, does Green mean by “peculiarly Jewish psychopathology?” Are people reading his letters really willing to let him get away with attributing a unique mental disorder to a specific ethnic group? Where – where! – is the supporter of human rights, anti-racism, and justice who will stand up and challenge such nefarious bullshit?
Right here. |
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by David Green
davegreen84 (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2006
|
Israel, unfortunately but predictably given the ideology upon which it was founded, has become identified with an illegal occupation, gross violations of international law, invasion of Arab countries, an apartheid system within Israel itself, and U.S. foreign policies related to catastrophes in Central America, Argentina, Chile, East Timor, South Africa/Angola/Mozambique, etc. It is now identified with a potential American attack on Iran.
Israel is favored by the general establisment for its service in the Middle East and elsewhere. It provides a manipulative moral justification for U.S. interests with the opportunity to invoke the Holocaust when convenient--in Kosovo and elsewhere.
But of course its mainly about dirty work. Powerful people have always loved Jews who were willing to do their dirty work, and no Jews have been more willing than Israelis, along with their neocon allies in this country. In this country, unlike Europe, there is very little danger of an anti-Semitic backlash coming out of this, because you can't strictly separate Jews from the powerful people. We're all mixed up in this together, the Wolfowitz's and Perles with the sheep and swine.
Most Jews aren't affiliated with Jewish institutions of any kind. Among those who are, leaders of these institutions take their cues from mainstream policies of the U.S. and Israel--following orders, as it were, if you want to coin a phrase. That's because they want to keep their jobs, for which they are paid.
They don't offer a serious debate on the issues to their members, and don't ask for their views in a serious way. Their job is to support the morale of the troops, and keep them in line when necessary. They do like to find out whether Jewish kids are interested in marrying other Jews, so they can aggravate about the "holocaust" of intermarriage. Oy vey.
Leaders of local Jewish institutions, whatever the extent of their influence or potential influence locally or more broadly, deserve serious criticism for their unwillingness to challenge the reactionary/neocon party line that has governed this country in recent years, or for that matter the reflexive pro-Israel line that has dominated since the 1960s.
The visit of Halevi, for two weeks, out of all the Israeli journalists that could have done some good, was truly appalling, but not accidental.
And yes, they do try to throw their weight around behind the scenes, I can assure you from personal experience.
They may not have the power to challenge powerful political interests, but they are responsible for actively supporting the worst aspects of U.S. hegemony. The fact that they do it with academic pretenses makes them all the worse. Given what is now well understood about Israel, it is pure cowardice for them to ask that Jews not only be given an exemption from basic moral principles of social justice, but be lauded for violating them.
Local Jewish leaders are an embarrassment to Jewish "culture and society," such as it is, none more than Rabbi Norman Klein, who quoted ancient Jewish texts to advocate for the invasion of Iraq. Incidentally, they do very little to educate anyone about the history of the Holocaust. They are more interested in invoking it than explaining or understanding it. There has never been an informative lecture or discussion of central historical issues of the Holocaust in the 7+ years that I have been in this community. That's not by omission.
I predict that I will continue to be quite critical of the words and actions of local Jewish leadership for some time. In doing so, I will not be joining forces with anti-Semites, whoever and wherever they are, but will continue to work with those who advocate social justice in a variety of ways. Once you dispense with the straw man of anti-Semitism, we have urgent issues to address, on which the future of the race may depend.
This is no time for hyperbole, grandstanding, intellectual laziness, dishonesty, distraction, or self-serving paranoia. Jews are a privileged group in this country, and as such we must carry our share of the burden in seeing that moral principles are applied equally to oursevlves as well as to others. We consent to U.S. global militarism, unless we actively challenge it.
I will do my part as human being who happens to be a Jew, who has taken inspiration from the best values that the history of our people has had to offer--a respect for the relationship between truth and justice, however painful the former or elusive the latter.
I would ask those reading this to take these matters with the utmost seriousness that they deserve, which has little to do with the rhetoric of Zionist apologists or self-impressed ignoramuses. |
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by David Gehrig
zemblan (nospam) earthlink.net (verified) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2006
|
PLUJ: "... who dared to comment on Kristallnacht without simultaneously referring to Palestinians or other oppressed people..."
This is a good point. This is why, for example, major Muslim organizations in England boycotted Holocaust Memorial Day last month.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4582736.stm
What's saddening is that this is old hat. When in the late 1950's Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote his famous poem "Babi Yar" about the Nazi slaughter of 100,000 Ukrainian Jews, and the Soviet government's refusal to put up even a single plaque to commemorate the tragedy, he was attacked by the Soviet government for daring to suggest that there was anything significant or unifying about the victims other than their being Soviet citizens.
What a pity that ideas born of Soviet governmental antisemitism -- that it's fine to attack Jews as long as you claim you are attacking "Zionists" and can point to at least one self-proclaimed non-Zionist Jew to make the excuse seem more plausible than it is -- are now given a free pass by parts (well, okay, fringes) of the left.
And David Green drank that kool-aid with relish (to mix food metaphors, but without a Cuisinart this time).
PLOJ: "We should just take our lumps, shut up, and get our minds right. "
Right -- "Well, I've read Norman Finkelstein, and he says that the Holocaust is being politically exploited, therefore I am going to assume that every time any Jew brings up the Holocaust, it's only a cynically calculated BBJO media-blitz-inspired tactic, rather than a genuine expression of sorrow or loss. And I will jeer at you each time it comes up. And if you decide that I'm an asshole for openly mocking Jewish trauma, well, that's just Zionist crocodile tears."
It's not for nothing that there's a large cache of Stürmin' Nürmin' Finkelstein's materials on David Irving's website -- it provides an excellent excuse to be rudely dismissive to anyone who considers the Holocaust in any way relevant to Jewish life. You know the type: the ones who roll their eyes and say, "There they go playing the Holocaust card again." The ones who are _proud_ that they are now _too politically sophisticated_ to do anything but jeer at a reference to the Holocaust.
Then David Green said something, but judging from the first sentence -- in which he was apparently trying to bait the "Zionism is just like Nazism" hook that's another favorite meme of Green, Finkelstein, and the naziboys -- I didn't read any further.
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by PLUJ
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2006
|
I've been trying not to bite on Green's bait regarding "the central historical facts surrounding the Holocaust," but I guess I'm too morally flawed to resist.
Let me guess -- that many, many other people besides Jews died in the Holocaust?
That's correct, Mr. Green. I was taught that in Hebrew school when I was seven years old. I don't know a single Jew who wasn't. And, I guess what separates me from David Irving is that I've never tried to deny it.
So again, how does such a "central historical fact" make it unseemly for a Jew to feel personal pain about other Jews killed in the Holocaust? Is it because, unlike any and every other ethnic group, Jews are not "allowed" to have a sense of group identity?
Gehrig has it right. He has you just right. |
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2006
|
Well, that's the old dance again.
It's true that people of many ethnicities died as part of the Holocaust. But it's also true that they were caught up in a death machine that was intentionally created by the Nazis for the Jews. Non-Jews died at the Aktion Reinhart camps, but without the program to exterminate the Jews, there would have been no Aktion Reinhart camps to die in. Auschwitz-Birkenau had already served several functions before it became a death camp, and parts remained a POW camp throughout the war, but it wasn't until they started moving Jewish prisoners there en masse that the gas chambers were built. To pretend that the program of extermination of the Jews wasn't central to the Holocaust is simply to deny history. To acknowledge the central role of Jewish extermination in the Holocaust, on the other hand, is _not_ to belittle or ignore the suffering of other groups; it is simply to affirm a historical truth.
I guess I could add that, although I've been correctly accused of having an ego, I am not yet at the self-important point where I archive my _unpublished letters_ to the _D Frickin' I_ so that they may thereby be preserved for the admiration and edification of generations to come.
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by PLUJ
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2006
|
You've got that right, Gehrig. Imagine being so wound up in your brain that it just kills you that the DI doesn't publish your letters!
I've been trying to convince my dog of certain viewpoints for years, but all I ever get is a blank stare. Maybe I should start recording my commentary to her, save it up, and then broadcast over a low-power station. |
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Re: David Green's Unpublished Letters to the Daily Illini |
by gehrig
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
21 Feb 2006
|
Just make sure you do it in a way that allows you to still condemn, as Green does (I'll admit I peeked at his last sentence) "self-impressed ignoramuses."
Because posting for the enilghtenment of the CU progressive community unpublishable letters fired off to a student paper is definitively _not_ a sign of self-impressed-ness. Not in any way. No sir. Not even a little.
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