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An Open Letter to Chancellor Herman Regarding Charges of anti-Semitism at the Daily Illini |
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by David Green
Email: davegreen48 (nospam) yahoo.com (verified) |
13 Dec 2004
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Charges of anti-Semitism at the Daily Illini are put in the context of Zionist propaganda that is pervasive at the DI, on this campus, and on other campuses. |
December 12, 2004
An open letter to Chancellor Richard Herman,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Dear Chancellor Herman:
On November 11, WILL-AM, our NPR station, broadcast a local news item in which you vowed to promote a more “sensitive” attitude regarding anti-Semitism among the editors of the Daily Illini, the student newspaper. I have also been told that your comments were reported in the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette. This extended letter is in response.
My response is informed by several general points:
First, while sensitivity for the feelings and perceptions of others is to be lauded, it should not be enforced by the threat of censorship or silencing in any venue, be it a newspaper, a classroom, or elsewhere on campus.
Second, the issue of Israel/Palestine is one of the most difficult issues of our times to discuss openly and objectively, primarily because there is a concerted effort among those who call themselves “supporters of Israel” to identify criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Moreover, those who represent “supporters of Israel” on campus are consistently unwilling to discuss these issues in public venues that present all sides of this conflict. Instead, there is an organized effort, directed by national groups like AIPAC and the Jewish Community Relations Council, to have local Jewish leaders and students serve as volunteer lobbyists for the state of Israel. This promotes a culture of propaganda and disinformation on our campus rather than one of scholarship, critical thinking, and appropriate and universal moral judgment. Again, the central tactic of these groups, both nationally and locally, is to identify criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, while demonizing the Palestinian struggle, and consistently characterizing Palestinians as untrustworthy and violent. This tactic, which always implicitly invokes the Nazi holocaust as a means of condemning and silencing others, has over the past few years been used shamelessly at the University of Illinois. I would add that there is no process in place by which the leaders who claim to represent the views of the Jewish community can be exposed to these diverse perspectives in an open, civil, educational, and non-coercive environment.
Third, the editors of the opinion pages of the Daily Illini have over the years appropriately given equal space to views on all sides of this issue, something that is rarely if ever done in the mainstream media (while on the DI news pages, stories taken from the AP wire evidence the same pro-Israel bias that one finds in the general press). Whatever their errors in editorial judgment—and those are at best trivial and to be expected from student journalists—they should be supported in this effort, rather than shamed, censored, and silenced by elders with a political agenda.
I feel that it is quite inappropriate for you—as a result of what is likely behind-closed-doors pressure from some members of the local Jewish community—to use the influence of your office to publicly or privately discipline editors of the Daily Illini, especially in such a selective and one-sided manner. Since you are Jewish, as I am, I would think that at the very least you would want to avoid the charges of bias and conflict of interest that are an obvious response to your choosing to address this particular issue rather than many others, including that of the racist mascot that is so offensive to Native Americans and many others, including myself.
* * *
I will proceed by examining the charges made and the context in which they have been made. The WILL news item of 12/11 referred to a comic, an opinion column, and a letter. I can understand that Matt Vroom’s comic would be offensive to many, although he was arguably mocking and satirizing anti-Semitism rather than supporting it. In any event, I feel that silencing him for a month sets a terrible example to students and others regarding an appropriate response to insensitive or offensive speech. Moreover, whatever Vroom’s intentions, this comic indicates absolutely nothing about a pattern of anti-Semitism on campus or in the larger society, where it is for all practical purposes non-existent—unless one equates anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel.
Vroom’s fault is most likely that given the acceptance, success, and assimilation of Jews in America (which is particularly obvious at UIUC at all levels), he thinks that by now we would have developed either a sense of humor or a thick skin about ridiculous stereotypes. Vroom does not understand that in the hornet’s nest of Jewish/Zionist institutional politics, any opportunity to play the anti-Semitism card—even in a trivial context such as this—is going to be used to build a case that is an implicit defense for and legitimization of the actions of the Jewish state, and their outlandish support by the U.S government. It would also be worthwhile to consider the common and more politically salient depiction of Arabs in political cartoons in the mainstream media, characterized in the manner of classic anti-Semitism as fat plutocrats with beady eyes and big noses.
The opinion column referred to would I assume be that of one Joseph Danavi, a student writing a one-time column who repeated a fabricated quote attributed to Ariel Sharon, as part of an otherwise well-informed response to a regular student columnist, Elie Dvorin, who openly celebrated the death of Yasser Arafat. This quote was also employed last academic year by columnist Mariam Sobh, who had to apologize twice before she was absolved by those who claim to represent the Jewish community. The repetition of this quote is indeed unfortunate; Ariel Sharon’s horrendous record of Arab bloodletting hardly needs embellishment. But I would also remind you that criticism of the Prime Minister of Israel, whether accurate or otherwise, hardly implies anti-Semitism. He is an elected leader of a state whose government has been consistently and egregiously in violation of international law, and criticism of him—unless openly Jew-baiting, which this was not—can in no way be construed to indicate hatred of all Israelis or all Jews.
Finally, I do not know which “recent” letter to the editor was referred to in the WILL report. I do know that a published letter of mine (12/1) in response to these claims of anti-Semitism was in turn criticized by three writers. One complained that the DI publishes too many of my letters, and that I repeat myself. Another complained that I, a Jew, should not refer to letter writers who are Jewish and address Jewish issues as “Jewish writers.” Finally, Raif Melhado complained that I should not refer to Jewish writers as “hysterical,” “ignorant,” or “hypocritical,” and that this was evidence of broad-based anti-Semitism on my part. I obviously reject these charges. My criticism was of several Jewish letter writers, not of all Jews. As a Jew, I have been a consistent critic both of Israel’s policies, U.S. support for these policies, and the tactics of those who play the anti-Semitism card in order to silence such criticism. As I feel that the views of Jewish leaders and “supporters of Israel” frequently do not represent those of Jewish people, I am careful not to generalize about those who hold such views.
* * *
I will continue with the core of this open letter by referring to the political context in which these charges are made: in relation to the Daily Illini, various events on our campus, and events on other campuses that have experienced conflict during this 2004 fall semester.
Last academic year (2003-04) saw the visit of Daniel Pipes, invited by Illinipac, the student extension of AIPAC on our campus, in December. Students and others opposed to Pipes’ record of anti-Muslim hate speech appropriately protested his visit with a counter-rally. Views from all sides were published in the DI. Nobody was denied their freedom of speech, and certainly not Daniel Pipes. Predictably, supporters of Pipes claimed that both his critics and the editors of the DI were motivated by anti-Semitism.
As an aside, I find it disturbing that in the cases both of Pipes’ lecture and that of Dennis Ross in 2002, members of the audience were electronically frisked by Jewish students as they entered the door. I have seen this procedure employed at no other event on our campus, and for good reason: there is absolutely no history of violence. Now members of which ethnic group in the audience do you suppose is suspected of being a threat at such events? And what message is being sent to those in this group, and to others about this group? This “security” procedure serves to create an atmosphere in which “supporters of Israel” can indulge their penchant for security-related dramatics and claim to be under constant threat. The political subtext of this tactic is transparent—the perpetuation of hysteria regarding the threat of Islamic terrorism; and the denial or justification of Israeli violence in the occupied territories.
Later, in its spring 2004 bulletin, the C-U Jewish Federation re-printed an article from C.A.M.E.R.A. (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) titled “Anti-Israel Venom at University of Illinois Paper.” Most of this article was used to vilify Mariam Sobh, a Muslim student journalist and critic of Israeli policies, for a variety of reasons, including her repetition of the fabricated Sharon quote, which she had already retracted. I will quote from the conclusion of this article: “Illini regular Mariam Sobh has had a free hand to regurgitate baseless propaganda with little or no supervision by the DI editors, faculty, or board members of the Illini Media, the entity that owns the newspaper. No doubt the lax attitude toward Sobh’s screeds encouraged other DI staff to vilify Israel and Jews. . . Indeed, isn’t a university paper that indulges the recklessness of a Mariam Sobh—a journalism student no less—literally ‘educating’ students in hatred?”
This article was reproduced in a bulletin that is disseminated solely to the local Jewish community, most of whom do not read the Daily Illini. These charges were not put forth for discussion in any public venue. I find the content of this article and the manner of its publication to be irresponsible and inflammatory, as well as aggressively hostile toward a local student journalist from a family well-regarded in the community, and whose children have attended school with many Jewish children, including my own. Its purpose was not to join a public debate about these issues, but to inspire hysteria, paranoia, and hatred in the Jewish community—all, of course, while implicitly supporting Israel’s behavior and silencing rational debate about it. Again, a horrible lesson about the rights and responsibilities entailed by the freedom of speech has been transmitted by the leaders of the Jewish community.
Also last academic year, in May 2004, Illinipac joined with another right-wing student organization to invite Yaron Brook, head of the Ayn Rand Institute, to speak in the Natural History Building. I was in attendance, and among many other things I heard him recommend a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iran, and describe immigrants in our own country as having “gutter cultures.” There were no repercussions from this visit, which was the second of three that he has made here in recent years. While I do not agree with Canada’s hate speech laws, it is interesting to note that when Brook was in transit to deliver a speech at the University of Toronto in October 2002, Canadian customs officials seized newsletters he was to distribute associated with a lecture titled “The Moral Case for Supporting Israel,” and confiscated them as hate propaganda. Brook delivered a lecture with the same title earlier this fall semester (2004) in the Animal Sciences Building at the U of I. To their credit, I guess, Illinipac was not listed as one of the sponsors of this event, but only a student group calling itself Students for the Defense of America, which had co-sponsored the May lecture.
In September of this year (2004) Professor Omer Bartov of Brown University was invited by the Center for the Study of Jewish Culture and Society to deliver a Millercom lecture at the U of I, and to participate in a discussion of the “new anti-Semitism” at the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities (IPRH). In regard to the latter subject, it is notable that in February 2004 Bartov published an article in The New Republic titled “Hitler is Dead, Hitlerism Lives.” In it, he asserted the following: “Much more publicity has been given to anti-Israeli protests on American campuses, and these have demonstrated a troubling trend. A group calling itself ‘New Jersey Solidarity: Activists for the Destruction of Israel’ called for an ‘anti-Israel hate-fest’ to be held on the campus of Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, in October 2003.”
The truth, of course, is that the group is simply called New Jersey Solidarity, and that their conference was not advertised as a hate-fest, but as a promotion of solidarity for Palestinian rights and for divestment from corporations that do business with Israel. Bartov invented “Activists for the Destruction of Israel” and “anti-Israel hate-fest” out of whole cloth. This charge is not only slanderous, but as anyone knows, totally implausible on any college campus. I will await an explanation, retraction, and apology from the local Jewish luminaries who promoted his visit, if not from the obtuse Bartov himself. I would also note that while I have heard many Jewish and Israeli speakers at IPRH (which is headed by an Israeli), I have never heard a Muslim, Arab, or Palestinian. This suggests a racism institutionalized at the U of I.
* * *
During this 2004 fall semester, the DI has employed at least three columnists to express right-wing and pro-Israel points of view: James Sobotka (a non-Jew), Elie Dvorin, and David Johnson (the latter two Jewish). On September 7th, Sobotka wrote the following: “The media is strongly sympathetic, for one reason or another, to the Palestinians. Now, when you’re writing your hate mail, please answer the following question: If the media so accurately portrayed Yasser Arafat, would he has won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994? After starting the first intifada, all Arafat deserved was a bullet in his temple and a shallow grave.”
Let’s leave aside that the exiled Arafat had nothing to do with the first intifada (1987). Subsequent to this column, Sobotka intercepted an e-mail letter to the editor that I had sent to the DI, and responded to me with a personal e-mail, which he also put on his blog. In it, he referred to me as a “son of a bitch” three times. He also referred to me as “the most notable bigot on campus,” and a “Matt Hale type.” He concluded by saying “Until you are willing to accept Israel’s right to exist, then please fuck off.” When the editors of the DI were apprised of this situation, Sobotka was relieved of his duties. But I would have preferred that the DI simply publish the letter that he had intercepted, relevant excerpts from his response, and a full explanation of the situation. Instead, the whole affair was quietly put to rest. While Sobotka is not Jewish, both Jews and others need to be apprised of the sort of twisted mentality that comes with the territory of extreme right-wing non-Jews who become fanatical supporters of Israel. If you doubt me, I would refer you to Sobotka’s blog, sexual pathology and all.
* * *
On September 9th, Elie Dvorin wrote, “In order for Islam to reclaim any legitimacy, all Muslims need to unequivocally condemn terrorism through their words and deeds. Any Muslim who’s serious about eradicating the tarnished image of Islam must first and foremost admit that a problem within the religion currently exists.” In other words, Muslims are presumed guilty until claiming guilt, a charge which Jews who grew up in Nazi Germany would be familiar. Two weeks later, after negative responses to his column, he wrote of his critics, “People are perfectly happy condoning terrorism if it’s used against the right people (U.S. citizens, Israelis, etc.).” Dvorin did not provide any examples of those among his critics who condone terrorism against anyone. He continued, “This group of terrorist sympathizers doesn’t want to be forced to take a definitive stance against terrorism, which is why . . . they called me racist.” In other words, anyone who objects to his framing of the issue of terrorism is a terrorist sympathizer.
On October 25, David Johnson—a leader of Illinipac, the local student Zionist propaganda disseminator--wrote about the Middle East, “The problem originates from the West, which gave the Arab world fabulous sums for resources that could have been taken at will. This has led to the irrational self-contradictions of people like bin Laden and Hussein, who have vowed to destroy the source of their existence—Western liberalism. The threats we face from much of the Islamic world stem directly from the fact that for almost 50 years, they have lived detached from reality. Because the dilemma was created by Western shortsightedness, it is the West’s responsibility to intervene and fix the problem.” Although Johnson of course speaks only for himself, I would also suggest that Johnson implicitly purports to represent Jewish student opinion, and indeed no Jewish student has challenged his views or those of Dvorin—whether from ignorance, confusion, fear, or apathy. Needless to say, neither have any of the official leaders of local Jewish institutions, who as far as I can tell are not embarrassed by any of this, and may in fact support it.
* * *
What follows is an excerpt of my letter that was published in the DI on October 26th, which explains itself. “The DI recently published columns by David Johnson (10/4) and Elie Dvorin (10/7) repeating Israel’s fabricated and scurrilous claim that a U.N. ambulance was filmed loading a Hamas rocket. This charge was disproved by the U.N. Representative, Peter Hansen: ‘On neither count does the object shown in the film correspond to this description: it is much thinner, longer and obviously much lighter than a rocket . . .it is clearly a folded stretcher, a logical and indispensable accessory in any ambulance.’ This claim was later abandoned by Israel. No retraction has been forthcoming from either columnist, or the DI. This is journalistic negligence.”
Again, I would ask not that these writers or their editors be disciplined, but that they clearly state what is now known to be the truth, and perhaps supplement that with some information on the horrible realities of the occupation in Gaza—perhaps something about Palestinian children murdered on their way to school or in classrooms by Israeli soldiers. Again, there is no reflection of self-criticism on the part of the leaders of the Jewish community, who are so quick to cry anti-Semitism in response to the slightest insensitivity or misinformation of others. For your edification, I would add that much of what Sobotka, Dvorin, and Johnson have had to say comes directly from the extreme right-wing website frontpagemag.com, which serves a primary conduit for the latest in neoconservative and Zionist propaganda.
* * *
After the death of Yasser Arafat, Dvorin (11/15) titled a column “Good riddance.” He luridly wrote, “A man with that much innocent blood on his hands should not have been allowed to die peacefully in a French hospital with friends and family by his side. If justice had prevailed, Arafat’s limbs would have been collected from the bloodstained pavement, like those of his numerous victims.” Dvorin concluded about the funeral, “These events were extremely fitting for a mass terrorist who thrived on death, destruction and fear for more than half a century. The world is a much better place without Arafat, and with any luck, the moral nations of the world will help send his terrorist supporters to visit him permanently.”
The last sentence can be interpreted in two ways. More benignly, Dvorin defines only “terrorist” supporters as deserving death. More genocidally, Dvorin defines all of Arafat’s supporters ipso facto as terrorists, thus deserving death. I am also drawn to the notion of “moral nations.” To me, this implies that there are both moral and immoral nations, and that the lives of those in immoral nations are to be less valued and more casually dispensed with. This is crudely racist.
David Johnson was less crude in his analysis of Arafat’s death: “If someone uses the words ‘Israel’ and ‘genocide’ in the same sentence, the alarm bells in your head should ring. Similarly, if someone tries to explain that Yasser Arafat was anything less than the red-handed father of modern terrorism—responsible for endless suffering on the part of Muslims, Jews and Christians alike—you should raise your most suspicious eyebrow.”
Chancellor Herman, I hope you are well-informed enough about the history of the Zionist movement and the state of Israel, including its terrorist origins, aggressive wars, and brutal occupation, to recognize the bias behind such a statement, and to be duly concerned as Chancellor, as an educator, and as a Jew. The opinions of Dvorin and Johnson are reflections of the quality of intellectual and moral life regarding Middle East politics (and U.S. foreign policy) that has been created in the local and national Jewish institutional environment. The editors of the DI—by and large unprepared to deal with the ruthless tactics involved in this discourse—should be the least of your worries. I would also ask you to speculate for a moment what the reaction might be among leaders of the Jewish community would be if the death of, for example, Yitzhak Rabin or Ariel Sharon, drew forth similar invective from Muslims, Arabs, and Palestinians on the pages of the DI. Yet it is perfectly understandable in historical terms that both of these Israeli leaders are viewed as perpetrators of crimes against the Palestinian people.
* * *
What follows is a response to the execution of an unarmed Iraqi combatant by an American soldier that was captured on camera in Fallujah. This column highlights the relationship between support for Israel and support for the most wanton American imperialism in the Middle East. I would also remind you that among the Jewish community prior to the invasion of Iraq, there were some who accused the antiwar movement of being anti-Semitic, as a means of silencing dissent among Jews and others.
For readers who may think that I may be distorting by taking things out of context, I will submit Elie Dvorin’s entire column of 12/6 without comment:
Despite the fact that U.S and Iraqi forces regained control of the terrorist stronghold of Fallujah in less than one week, the successful military operation has not gone without heavy criticism from human-rights groups and the international community. Video footage filmed during a raid on a mosque shows a U.S. Marine apparently shooting a wounded and unarmed terrorist. As a result of the outcry against this "brutality," the marine has been removed from his unit and now faces a court-martial.
Anyone with half a brain can read between the lines of this unfortunate situation. Instead of defending this man for acting courageously in a vicious war, the U.S. government is willing to appease the international community by offering this man up as a sacrificial lamb. After facing worldwide criticism due to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the administration was unwilling to give any more political ammunition to Europe and the rest of the anti-war community. Consequently, the life of one of ours is at stake.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW), two of the most extreme leftist human-rights watchdog groups, came out with statements calling for a full investigation. This doesn't come as a major surprise, as these groups look for any opportunity to criticize the United States and Israel while giving a free pass to the Islamic world. Amnesty International used this incident to deride the moral character of U.S. troops, while an HRW spokesman claimed that this event was likely a "war crime" and a "grave breach of the Geneva Conventions."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't disemboweling Iraqi women, beheading U.S. civilians on videotape and shooting humanitarian-aid workers be considered war crimes? I guess those aren't nearly as bad as killing a terrorist who might be playing dead with a bomb strapped to his body. Nonetheless, the Geneva Conventions do not apply in this situation. They address the treatment of uniformed soldiers, and the terrorists in Fallujah are neither members of a military or uniformed. By forcing our troops to play by the rules when the enemy does not, we are putting the lives of these brave men and women at unnecessary risk. People justify applying the Geneva Conventions to the war on terrorism by arguing that humane treatment of terrorists will lead to the humane treatment of our soldiers if they're captured. Anyone who believes this is true is too naïve to understand the reality of Islamic terrorism and will hopefully never be in a position to influence public policy.
I might view this incident differently if the Marine had walked into a Fallujah elementary school and started indiscriminately shooting Iraqi children. That being the case, let's not allow political correctness to interfere with the facts. The Marine at the center of this controversy shot and killed a terrorist. Not a civilian, not a child - a terrorist. The day before this event occurred, this same Marine was shot and wounded and immediately returned to combat with his unit. In addition, earlier that day, a member of his unit was killed when he walked up to the dead body of a booby-trapped terrorist. By the way, I'm still waiting for Amnesty and HRW to condemn the practice of strapping bombs to dead bodies. I have a feeling I'll be waiting a long time.
The U.S. government is putting the lives of more brave men and women at risk. By investigating this matter and pulling this Marine from his unit, the government is essentially condemning an action that could save lives. Instead of wasting the time and resources to look into this matter, the Marines should be told to use all necessary force to ensure their safety. If this means killing a potentially unarmed terrorist to guarantee the safety of their unit, then by all means do so. Instead, our current policy has criminalized a hero, and in the process, put the lives of other heroes at risk.
* * *
Finally, what follows is a recent, so-far unpublished response to a column by David Johnson, which conforms to the DI’s 300-word limit:
David Johnson (12-2) innocently writes that “two of the nations who have done the most to combat genocide and fascism over the past half century wind up defending themselves from accusations of these very things.” A few examples scratch the surface:
Going beyond 3-4 million Vietnamese dead, Ed Herman writes that prior to Cambodia’s killing fields (1975-78), the U.S. Air Force dropped over 500,000 tons of bombs on rural Cambodia, killing scores of thousands, creating a huge refugee problem, and radicalizing the countryside.” Following Pol Pot’s ouster by the Vietnamese, his forces “found a safe haven in Thailand, a U.S. client state” for the next 15 years, protected by U.S. authorities.
Stephen Shalom explores Indonesia’s genocide in East Timor, which killed 200,000, a quarter of the population: “When Congressional restrictions prevented Carter from providing jets to Jakarta in 1978, he used Israel as a conduit” to send U.S. warplanes to Suharto.
Israeli Jeff Halper summarized the U.S.-Israel relationship: “Israel is the subcontractor for American arms to the Third World. There is no terrible regime . . . that does not have a major military connection to Israel.” Walter LaFeber summarized the Central American genocide (1979-91): “The minimum is 200,000 (40,000 in Nicaragua, 75,000 in El Salvador, 75,000 in Guatemala, 10,000 in Honduras).” All of these killing machines were supplied by Israel.
Business Week (12/8/80) explored the relationship: “The Latin American market has developed rapidly following the Carter Administration’s decision to prohibit U.S. arms sales to right-wing regimes.” Israel was a leading supplier to Argentina (during the time of the neo-Nazi generals, who killed over a thousand Jews), Chile (Pinochet), Guatemala (during the Mayan genocide), and South Africa (during neo-fascist apartheid).
It is Johnson’s right to sanitize history. It is mine to counter with illustrations of an unflattering reality that persists to this day.
* * *
Now doesn’t all this make charges of anti-Semitism from a privileged group of Americans look trivial and silly? And this is a national and systematic problem. At Duke University in October, the desire of the Palestine Solidarity Movement to have their yearly conference on that campus caused an uproar. According to one student journalist, “Jewish alumni, faculty, and staff have gone out of their way to lobby Duke to reject the PSM conference, mustering 92,000 signatures for their online petition and denouncing professors who have spoken out in support of free speech.” The conference proceeded peacefully and productively, providing the sort of scholarly and morally engaged forum that one will only on the rarest of occasions find promoted by “supporters of Israel.”
In October, Hedy Epstein spoke to students at Stanford University. She is an 80-year-old Jewish woman who came to this country from Germany in the late 1930s on the “kindertransport” that rescued Jewish children from the impending genocide. She is now a critic of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. A witness at her talk wrote the following in the student newspaper: “In addition to a plethora of fliers handed out demonizing Epstein, throughout the talk, she was frequently yelled at and interrupted. At one point a man suddenly jumped up while Epstein was talking and recited what appeared to be a prepared statement informing her of pending legal actions against her. At another point during one of the many tirades of the night, Epstein, overwhelmed, had to physically turn away from the audience.”
At Columbia University, a highly-regarded assistant professor of Middle East history named Joseph Massad is being attacked by a film produced by a group called The David Project, which according to student Monique Dols is “part and parcel of a larger campaign involving a coalition of groups including McCarthyite groups such as Campus Watch (Middle East Forum--Daniel Pipes, Martin Kramer) who aim to marginalize voices questioning the U.S. and Israel’s place in the Middle East.” Dols writes, “The film cannot seriously be called a documentary. It is a collection of uncorroborated claims made by students with a political axe to grind. Not once are the accused professors asked for their views. And the opinions of the many satisfied students are systematically excluded.”
As it turns out, the brains behind The David Project is a Dr. Charles David, who is also one of co-founders of the aforementioned C.A.M.E.R.A. Here is a quote from a piece he wrote in 2003 after NPR aired a series exploring the Mideast conflict: “NPR’s relentless effort to single out Israel in a demonizing fashion is very disturbing. As organized Palestinian violence continues to rage, and as a new anti-Semitism, connected to the Middle East conflict, arises worldwide, the stakes have been raised. There is a growing sense in the Jewish community that NPR’s defamation of Israel contributes to a climate of intellectual and even physical hostility against Jews everywhere. When NPR reporters call a terrorist who shoots children cowering in bed a ‘militant,’ or the head of a terrorist organization a ‘spiritual leader,’ they debase the English language and they cheapen Jewish life by making attacks against Jews seem normal, even legitimate.”
I would ask you, Chancellor Herman: Does any of this ring true to your lifetime experience as a Jew in this country, at any time, at any place, in any circumstance?
Two more paragraphs from Dols’ article elaborate on the nature of the opposition to this documentary and the campaign of persecution that motivated its production:
“This is not a conflict between Jewish students and everyone else on campus. Hundreds of students turned out to the film’s premier. In the discussion period following the film, many Jews braved a largely hostile atmosphere to challenge the validity of the “documentary,” and voiced their opposition to the harassment of MEALAC (Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures). They spoke passionately in defense of Professor Massad, and the harassment leveled at Jews on campus who criticize Israel. Stephanie Schwartz, a student at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), a self-identified anti-Zionist Jew, spoke of the daily haranguing that she faces for wearing a keffiyeh (a Palestinian scarf) in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.
“Schwartz explains that: ‘The dialogue about Israel at JTS is extremely narrow. I can say that I don't agree with all of Ariel Sharon's policies, but it's almost unheard of for someone to say that they don't support Israel's ‘right’ to attack Palestinians. One of my professors, in a discussion about all of the various movements of Judaism in America today, said that the only thing that unites American Jews is support for Israel. It's just assumed that we're all Zionists.’ The tragedy is that Jews cannot study their history and religion without being bombarded by Zionism. The red herring of this debate is that the small number of students who made this film claim to speak for the experience of all Jews. Meanwhile they continue to make life difficult for anti-Zionist Jews and non-Jews alike on campus.”
* * *
Likewise at the University of Illinois, it is simply assumed by Jewish leadership that students are here not to consider the conflict in Israel and Palestine with an open mind and from all perspectives, but to be trained to make what Alan Dershowitz (also a speaker here in 2003) calls “the case for Israel,” as in the title of his remarkably shabby and scurrilous book, which will be critiqued in an upcoming book by Norman Finkelstein.
The Fall 2004 issue of the quarterly glossy Reform Judaism, which is received by all members of Reformed congregations (presumably including you), contains an article titled “Confrontation on Campus” by Josh Hamerman. This article advises Jewish students on “counteracting anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic factions on campus.” Let me first say that I know of the existence of no such “anti-Semitic faction” on any campus in this country—unless, again, if criticism of Israel is defined as anti-Semitism--although I am open to genuine examples. Hamerman relates advice from a Rabbi Marc Israel, who “advises students to try to determine whether they (critics of Israel) are voicing a legitimate complaint about Israeli government policies or whether they are operating from a platform of veiled anti-Semitism.” To pass this test, critics must meet two criteria: first, accept the right of a Jewish state to exist; second, not hold Israel to a “higher standard” than other nations.
It seems to me that in the real world of human relationship and communication, especially the world of college campuses, nobody who expresses a conflicting perspective should be assessed on presumed unstated motives or be forced to have to pass a test to prove the absence of bigotry—least of all critics of a country that has the horrible record of Israel. It seems to me that when a Jewish student meets someone critical of Israel, he or she would do best to exercise a natural curiosity about the source and the validity of the information on which the critic is basing judgment; whether this information is in conflict with what has been previously learned; why it has been heretofore unknown; and how this new information, if valid, might change their overall view of the situation. It seems to me quite unnatural, not to mention pretentious and arrogant, for a Jewish student to hold a critic of Israel to such a contrived test, to deceptively administer and evaluate such a test, and to be willing to label and dismiss a critic (teacher, fellow student, friend, colleague) as an anti-Semite (Jew-hater, potential Nazi) on the basis of such subjective, vague, arbitrary, and propagandistic assumptions.
I cannot imagine that this is a model for intellectual discourse that you would advocate in regard to Israel or anything else. I cannot imagine any Jewish student with a grain of good sense and moral honesty adopting the ridiculous criteria advocated by this rabbi. But this sort of litany has become quite standard in what passes for intellectual discourse in a Jewish context.
* * *
It is distressing to me—as a peace activist, a Jew of conscience, a critical thinker, and as the parent of a Jewish U of I student—that you have allowed transparently politically motivated charges of anti-Semitism to come to the forefront of this debate, rather than substantive issues of peace and social justice pertaining to Israeli and American policies.
Warmest regards of the season,
David Green
University Employee |
This work is in the public domain |
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