Jewish Contributors to Deligitimation of Israel

Jewish Contributors to Deligitimation




The speech that Canada’s Foreign Minister, John Baird, made at the United Nations was clearly that of a friend and supporter of Israel Yet included in that excellent defense of Israel was the following statement; “we uphold Israel’s right to exist”. What does it mean when Israel’s best friend—and Canada is so publicly declared by a number of Israeli leaders—finds it necessary to assert Israel’s right to exist? Is that a signal that the deligitimation of Israel has filtered through the thought processes of all, including friends of Israel?



Of course that’s what we’re here to consider. For my part in this discussion I’m specifically interested in Jewish contributors to that process of deligitimation. In order to do that I first focus on the reason, the seeming need, for Jews who demonstrate against Israel to openly and publicly start with a declaration of their Jewish origin.



I’m reminded of a very early instance of such a declaration. A colleague at York University, who had never previously shown any inclination towards Jewish identity or practice, suddenly announced his Jewishness in conjunction with a statement to the press that was distinctly hostile to Israel. I wanted then to contact him to ask why he needed to suddenly expose his birth record, which as far as I could see was the extent of his Jewish connection up to that point? I didn’t do that at the time, I’ll tell you why not later. But the question remains. Why do Jewish groups and individuals who want to express opposition to, or even hatred of Israel, first make sure that in doing so everyone knows that their odious opinions (to me at least) comes from Jews?



Since we see this practice not once but again and again there has to be a motivation, even if that motivation is hidden. It has to be perceived as an advantage to their objectives. And I believe it is this; that their advantage stems from the fact that by first letting the world know that they are Jews they are announcing that first and foremost they are friends of Israel. Their arguments are supposedly strengthened because as friends they must have the best interest of Israel at heart. As Jews they have the advantage of being able to claim that they’ve looked at both sides and therefore have a better and worthier understanding of the conflict.



But there is an additional motivation, specifically expressed by the alliance of Jewish anti-Zionists under the banner of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN).

This organization is indeed a network on an international scale. This year, 2011, IJAN has Jewish affiliates from all over the Western world, (Argentina, Canada, Germany, Austria, France, United States, South Africa, Australia, and United Kingdom). This network of Jews against Israel are in agreement that Israel should indeed be destroyed, by a widespread, preferably universal attack that leads to its isolation and economic destruction They have an active campaign in support of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against what they call the Apartheid and colonialist state of Israel. Also the network endorses academic and cultural boycotts. They also demand the right of return of all so-called Palestinian refugees to Israel, which of course is a prescription for the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, decidedly in this network’s positive agenda. And stated in one of their publications is their motive for Jewish activism against Israel, and I quote; “these anti-Zionist Jewish activists and organizations put the blame for ‘crimes against humanity’ on Israel …in order to prevent blaming all Jews for the actions of Israel.” What we have here is a familiar defense, historically, where Jews damn other Jews and thereby pose as the “good Jews” for the gentile world.



Those groups and individuals who have signed up with the IJAN have to be recognized as part and parcel of the harshest Jewish opponents of Israel. However, there are Jewish organizations that seemingly have the best interests of Israel at heart, yet may well be contributing to the deligitimation of Israel. I’m thinking of J Street, which calls itself the political home for pro-Israel and pro-peace Americans. It operates as a federal political action committee that primarily helps members elect candidates who reflect their values, through a variety of activities aimed at influencing the outcome of elections. Their values currently, is expressed in a petition to press Congress not to cut funding for the Palestinians regardless of their actions at the United Nations. Also their values include their condemnation of the proposed construction of Givat Hamatos in Jerusalem as “not only bad faith, but bad policy.” Alan Dershowitz argues that J Street calling itself pro-Israel is dishonest. “ It is a fraud in advertising to call J Street pro-Israel.” he said. “An organization that calls for the US to censure Israel at the UN is not pro-Israel…. An organization that calls for taking any military measure against Iran off the table is not pro-Israel.” A Jewish organization that poses as pro-Israel yet regularly condemns Israel has an unfortunate negative influence against Israel.



There’s much that can be said about specific Jewish organizations and individuals who are active in anti-Israel measures. They each have their separate profile and activity. (For example, Dr. Hajo Meyer, 86, who survived 10 months in a Nazi death camp, took up a 10-day tour to the UK and Ireland, accusing Israel of abusing the Holocaust to justify crimes against the Palestinians.) However, such detail, telling as it may be, is beyond the scope of this paper.

Instead I stick with my topic and address those claims of balance by Jewish anti-Israel propaganda voices. The real problem is that there’s every reason to believe that that claim is false. Why? Because to an utmost extent these Jewish groups and individuals are subject to a leftist ideology that dominates and leaves no or little room for objective thinking. And it’s easy to demonstrate that Jewish leftist ideology carries with it essential bias not only now against Israel but historically against Jews. Says Dennis Prager of the left’s capacity for objective reasoning, “After a lifetime of studying the left, I have concluded that leftism is a form of moral poison. It causes otherwise decent and kind people who take it into their systems to say and/or do cruel and sometimes evil things.”



The god of all modern leftist thought, Karl Marx, was a virulent anti-Semite. His hateful diatribe against Jews is found in his essay “On the Jewish Question”. Marxist apologists try to defend him by the spurious argument that it is not Jews as such that he hates, but rather the bourgeois values that are exemplified in some Jewish practices. Not true! Listen to the real Marx, and I quote from his essay; “What is the profane basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly cult of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly god? Money. Very well: then in emancipating itself from huckstering and money, and thus from real and practical Judaism, our age would emancipate itself…..the emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism. (italics Marx’s).” Let the world be rid of the Jews and all will be well. How far is that from Mein Kampf? Not far at all.



I said I would get back to my Jewish anti-Israel colleague and why I didn’t pursue his sudden self-identification as a Jew. It was because another colleague and a friend, who knew him, informed me that this political scientist did have a Jewish identity, it was that from a family of committed UJPO members, the United Jewish People’s Order, or the Jewish branch of the Communist Party.. There was no place for Jews in the general Communist Party which was as anti-semitic as any other part of Canadian society of the time or maybe more so. Jewish communists found an alternative in their own Jewish sub-grouping. Therefore, it was doubly important that those “good and desirable” communists know that the UJPO communists are not to be confused with those Jewish sorts who were still devoted to Judaism and Zionism.



There was one time when the left, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, had glowing things to say about Israel. That occurred when Stalin was in favour of the establishment of Israel, believing as he did that those early socialist leanings of the kibbutzim founders would create a vassal state for the Soviet Union in the Middle East. He had reason to hope because the left in Israel at that time were indeed devoted to Stalin, when some even hung his picture in their kibbutzim dining rooms. The revealing work of Amnon Lord (1988) leaves little room for doubt that in pre-State Palestine and in Israel’s early years, the far-left wing of the Zionist movement (Mapam-Hashomer Hatzair) was singularly concentrated on its loyalty to the Soviet Union and to communism, and viewed the Jewish State as a potential tool for the cultivation and spread of communist doctrine. But Israel did not follow the Stalin plan, and so that was the end of pro-Israel sentiment by leftists. As Stalin went so went his followers, and thus the move was on for their reversal to their traditional anti-Israel, anti-Jewish facade.



That was then, what about the left as it relates to Jewish anti-Israel activists now? For that we should look to the campuses where it is quite evident that those with leftist leanings are in the forefront of the opposition. I want to concentrate on Israeli campuses for this issue because it is a very substantial aspect of the Jewish anti-Zionist picture. Israeli academics don’t have to even identify themselves as Jews to have the advantage of “believability”. After all, they are Israelis. Who would know the situation better than Israeli professors? Right? Wrong!



Martin Sherman of the Jerusalem Post writes the following about this element of Israel’s academe; “One of the gravest challenges facing Israel today is the international assault on its legitimacy. Much of the assault is being precipitated—certainly facilitated and exacerbated—by prominent figures within the Israeli academe.” The source of the malaise, as he calls it, is mainly the faculties of social sciences and humanities, including law, although there are six mathematicians and a couple from chemistry and physics in the roster. According to Shlomo Sharan, writing under the auspices of the Ariel Policy for Scholarly Research, of approximately 8000 faculty in all the Israeli universities, about 500 are activists against Zionism and the Israeli state. That is about 6%, but if take the proportion of the concentration of such opinion and activity in the more relevant faculties, the proportion is about 25%. Not all Israeli universities, and hardly any colleges are inundated with these anti-Israel pro-Palestinian professors; included are Hebrew , Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion and Haifa universities. Ofira Seliktar has examined and documented the intellectual debt of Israel’s anti-Zionists to a long tradition in the social sciences of neo-Marxist, post modernist “critical” thought. That’s a scholarly way of saying the simple truth, that they are leftists.



From the point of view of our interest today on deligitimation of Israel, scholars from the social sciences and humanities are precisely the ones who are adept at publicizing their views through media and English publications. As Sharan noted, “many of the anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic academics to whom we refer here published books and articles presenting their views on Jews, Zionism and Israel that have received wide circulation in the English speaking world and among readers of English in other countries.” The spread of their hostile views is enhanced by the large number who travel abroad and lecture in many countries to academic and non-academic audiences. Sharan again, “the lectures of Israel’s anti-Zionists infect listeners with the anti-Semitic poison that appears in their books and articles.” Lastly, but certainly not least, these academics have special access to the minds of young Israelis, who are their students and who are likely to go on to leadership roles in Israeli society, perhaps even political policy makers.



Let me summarize as briefly as possible some of the concepts that are consistently argued and promoted by these anti-Zionist, anti-Israel academics.

1. Israel has not shed its connection to Judaism. It therefore has not become a liberal, secular, open society instead of a Jewish state. Israel should not be a Jewish state.

2. .Israel provokes the Arab-Muslim nations not the other way around. To stop this provocation Israel should give up the West Bank and the Golan Heights, ie. dismantle all settlements and leave..

3 Israel causes more damage to the Palestinians than they have caused Israel.

4 The courts in Israel cover up the claims of violence toward Arabs and of damage caused to their property.

5 The media in Israel are denounced for not objecting to Israel’s retaliation against the shooting of rockets on Sderot and nearby parts of the Negev.

6 Israeli Jews will not accept the responsibility for the naqba , the catastrophe, as the Palestinians see it, caused by the establishment of Israel in 1948. The naqba for the Arabs is similar to the Holocaust. for Jews.

7 Hence, Arab refugees must be allowed to return to Israel. For those who maintain this would end Israel as a Jewish state, so be it. There can be no two state solution only a one state solution.

8 Israel discriminates against Arabs. Israel practices apartheid in a manner worse that South Africa did before black liberation.

9 The world should impose a boycott of Israel in every possible sphere, in military and financial support, and in academic and professional areas. (except for themselves).

10 Israel is an evil racist, oppressive colonialist movement.



There’s more, but I have had enough, so I expect you have too. What comes out of this is an orthodoxy with regard to the validity of the Palestinian narrative and also to an unshakeable commitment to Palestinian statehood, but not the two state solution that the US and the Quartet have in mind. Any challenge to these orthodoxies is denigrated as inadmissibly flawed.



How about Jewish anti-Israel academics in Canada? There is much to be said about anti-Israel activities on Canadian university campuses, as we all know who have been living through these years especially from the beginning of this century (2000). Israel supporters continue to find themselves on the defensive across campuses in North America (and Europe) against powerful anti-Israel agitation. But for me, in consideration of the role of Jewish academics as either instigators or participants in this hostile agitation, I’ve concluded from all my research that although there are certainly Jewish academics involved, first, it’s clear that they are defined by their leftist ideology. In every case I’ve researched I find that those Jewish academics are of the Marxist, Trotskyite, or Anarchist (like Chomsky) variety. Secondly, while they uphold and support BDS programs against Israel and Israel Apartheid Week, or pro-Palestinian groups in various ugly anti-Israel demonstrations, on the whole (with perhaps a rare exception) these movements were not mobilized through the efforts specifically of Jewish professors. Israel Apartheid week which began its obnoxious life at the University of Toronto, resulted from the efforts of supposed unhappy, frustrated students, who were acting against abuses within the state in Israel that were being ignored Faculty was in fact kept at a distance at first. This was a sophisticated Palestinian project that originated in and was advanced from the Durban program. In the main, BDS is an outgrowth of the strategy from the UN’s Durban Conference of 2001. From that foundation where false claims against Israel of war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid, were expanded the following year by pro-Palestinian groups to promote economic and cultural boycott of Israel.

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In my view the DBS movement is not essentially a Jewish project. There’s no doubt that many Jewish groups and individuals support it. The IJAN has put out a list of Jewish groups and individuals who support DBS, which includes from Canada the usual professional leftists such as Naomi Klein and Judy Rebbick, as well as a Canadian organization called Not in My Name, Jews Opposing Zionism. But there’s no doubt that it was Palestinian groups that launched the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel in July 2005. The work of the DBS and Israel Apartheid movement, which are essentially one movement, originates in Canada through the efforts of Palestinian refugees, whose objective was and is to make the Palestine narrative the accepted vision for non-Palestinians. But of course the BDS/Apartheid operation has an international dimension, limited to Western countries not only for dissemination of its objectives but also for enormous source of funds—hundreds of millions of dollars—as documented by NGO Monitor (July 14, 2011). In the words of the Palestinian organizations that are the forces behind the movement, “Israel must be boycotted until it ends its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantles the Wall, recognizes the fundamental rights of its Arab-Palestinian citizens to full equality, and respects, protects, and promotes the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194”



Before I look at the effects of the work of Jewish activists on Israel’s image I must bring into the picture the existence of Jewish anti-Zionist religious groups. We’re all familiar with the Naturei Karta and its alliance with the PLO, that’s an old story. Perhaps too you know about the Satmar Chasidim anti-Zionism. But if you go on the internet you will find, to your surprise, at least it was to mine, that “a partial list of well known Jewish Orthodox anti-Zionist groups” counts19 such groups. There is a common theme among these orthodox anti-Zionists, that the unadulterated Torah reveals that any form of Zionism is heresy and that the existence of the state of Israel is illegitimate and contrary to Jewish law. Now, we are learning from Daniel Gordis that among the reform and reconstruction rabbinical students there is an anti-Israel component, not theologically as in the case of the Orthodox, but rather out of American liberal pro-Palestinian positions. Moreover, there are reform and reconstruction rabbis, already leading congregations, who take strong critical positions against Israel, which Barbara Kay has written about, noting that some 27 Rabbis are allied with Jewish Voices for Peace, among the most vociferous demonizers of Israel. Additionally, Elliot Jager writes about Conservative rabbinical students who are not even sure about that Israel should be a Jewish state. (Oct. 30/11)

Now I’ve reached the point in my talk where I want to figure out with you what this all means. As you would expect, I concentrate on the effect of Jewish participants in the movement to deligitimate Israel.



First, having said that Jews are active in the boycott programs, even if not the primary force, I looked at the question as to what extent the boycotts have hurt the economy of Israel? I see no evidence that the BDS movement has impacted Israel economically in a negative way. Israel is way ahead of its neighbours and some European countries in its S and P credit ratings, recently awarded a plus to its A standing, and described as stable by the rating system, which puts it in very good company on the world scene. GDP in 2010 was 4.6%, much higher than Canada, the United States, and Europe (as a whole). So, the economic goals of the DBS do not seem to have had a negative impact. Thus far, that is. When boycotters target stores or products here and in the US, through vigilant efforts on the part of Jewish communities in North America, this method has backfired. Will the vigilance continue? That’s a germane question.



As for BDS programs on North American campuses, the results are unclear. There’s a recent study by the Forward that indicates that since 2005, there have been 17 serious instances of BDS activity on 14 college campuses, in which boycott or divestment effort was significant and well-organized enough to draw an official response from a student government or campus administration. On the other hand, the Forward counters that in no instance has BDS action led to a university in the US or Canada divesting from any company or permanently ceasing the sale of any product. (Unlike North America, however, since the 2005 call, BDS activists have had some success in convincing European universities to adopt boycott measures.)



An encouraging sign recently was the misdemeanour convictions of 10 California college students for disrupting a speech by Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the US. There has been no similar outcome in Canada where protests against speakers have a dramatic and unfortunate record, starting at Concordia University in 2002 with the riot that ensued following the invitation to Benjamin Natanyahu. We can say too that at the time at Concordia at least two Jewish professors did in fact, not only support those who were shutting down the university by their intended silencing of Natanyahu, but seemingly played a leading role. But we have had no legal punishment either at Concordia or York Unversity for those who have inhibited free speech for invited guests who are noted for their concern for Israel, without real consequences for those responsible.



But this uncertain economic result does not take any account of the indirect influence of pro-Palestinian organized measures either on the campuses or in the communities at large. The real significance of this campaign is not so much to be found in the economic pressures but in the opportunity it provides to educate the unschooled public on the idea of “Israel apartheid” and “oppression of Palestinians”. Israel apartheid is meant to be an addition to the deceptive narrative that the Jews have stolen the Palestinian lands and now they oppress the rightful owners, similarly as the whites had oppressed the blacks in South Africa. This Arab (not exclusively Palestinian) narrative spread throughout the Western world is the foundation for the deligitimation of Israel.



It’s my belief that Jewish anti-Israel tactics has a double whammy effect because the public hears the hostile message from a voice they have difficulty denying as to its authenticity. Those who know that these Jews are almost exclusively following a leftist agenda can be more discerning. But it takes exposure of their real belief system and objective and that’s a task all in itself, a subtle intellectual argument that is not always readily accepted. Steven Plaut, writing about the leftist Jewish professors in Israel calls this phenomenon “a domestic academic fifth column”, a description with which I agree. The problem of a fifth column in any conflict is discernible when it is not identified and attacked. In Israel it is only recently that those academics who seemingly work to undermine the existence of Israel have come under attack. A group of students who call themselves ‘Im Tirtzu”, if you will it, from the Herzl statement ‘that if you will it , it is no dream’, founded in 2006 in Tel Aviv, launched a campaign to purge top universities of their anti-Zionist bias. Of course, their objects of condemnation, those leftist professors, cry foul, that the students’ program is nothing but McCarthyism.



Alan Dershowitz defends the right of free speech for the professors up to a point, but also the same right for the students. What point, according to Steven Plaut: Dershowitz confronted the all-too-common refrain sounded by these scholars that they are only engaging in legitimate criticism of Israel. To the contrary, Dershowitz contended, these people were actually often engaged in delegitimizing Israel itself, calling for world boycotts against the Jewish state, and at times calling for its annihilation. They go so far, he stated, as to organize boycott campaigns by recruiting and leading teams of anti-Israel radicals.



Let me conclude by getting very personal. When Palestinians and their Arab allies distort the Israeli case, deny the Jews’ historical rights to the land of Israel, and mount false campaigns connecting Israel to the apartheid regime of South Africa, I’m angry, and I know I have my work cut out for me (and for all of us) to correct the falsehoods and to tell the true narrative about Israel. But when Jews do exactly the same as their Arab soul mates, I’m not just angry, I’m white with rage. To explain, let me tell you an analogous story. During WWII, for those who weren’t around or haven’t read about it, there was a British man we called Lord Haw Haw, who broadcast from Germany telling lies, enticing British citizens to undermine or even betray their leaders, all in order to weaken the resolve of the British people in the Battle of Britain and after. Millions of people would gladly have strung him up because he was a traitor. As well, when I said I agreed with Steven Plaut as to the fifth column character of those anti-Israel professors, it is because they are traitors and in war we fear them for the harm traitors may do, because their goal is to assist the enemy. Let me make it clear, Israel is at war, and if Israel is at war then the Jewish people is at war. The deligitimation of Israel is war, designed to destroy Israel. I don’t know how else you can characterize it. So, for me, the Jews in their anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic (often) words and deeds represent the fifth column of the Jewish people. Hence, my white rage. And, like any fifth column in war we must seek them out and expose them. We certainly have no power to stop them, and in our free speech society we actually don’t want that power. But, I can only speak now for me, I have a duty to counter them and tell the true narrative of Israel, but also I must expose who they are and what are .their true intentions. I hope that my presentation can persuade others that “we” have this common duty and work cut out for ourselves.