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Thursday, 8 May 2008
Commentator: Johann HariIn the US and Britain, there is a campaign to smear anybody who tries to describe the plight of the Palestinian people. It is an attempt to intimidate and silence – and to a large degree, it works. There is nobody these self-appointed spokesmen for Israel will not attack as anti-Jewish: liberal Jews, rabbis, even Holocaust survivors.
My own case isn't especially important, but it illustrates how the wider process of intimidation works. I have worked undercover at both the Finsbury Park mosque and among neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers to expose the Jew-hatred there; when I went on the Islam Channel to challenge the anti-Semitism of Islamists, I received a rash of death threats calling me "a Jew-lover", "a Zionist-homo pig" and more.
Ah, but wait. I have also reported from
Gaza and the West Bank. Last week,
The response?
- There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered.
- Instead, some of the most high profile "pro-Israel" writers and media monitoring groups – including Honest Reporting and Camera – said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh,
- while Melanie Phillips even linked the stabbing of two Jewish people in North London to articles like mine.
- Vast numbers of e-mails came flooding in calling for me to be sacked.
Any attempt to describe accurately the situation for Palestinians is met like this.
- If you recount the pumping of sewage onto Palestinian land, "Honest Reporting" claims you are reviving the anti-Semitic myth of Jews "poisoning the wells."
- If you interview a woman whose baby died in 2002 because she was detained – in labour – by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint within the West Bank, "Honest Reporting" will say you didn't explain "the real cause": the election of Hamas in, um, 2006. And on, and on.
The former editor of Israel's leading newspaper, Ha'aretz, David Landau, calls the behaviour of these groups "nascent McCarthyism". Those responsible hold extreme positions of their own that place them way to the right of most Israelis. Alan Dershowitz and Melanie Phillips are two of the most prominent figures sent in to attack anyone who disagrees with the Israeli right. Dershowitz is a lawyer, Harvard professor and author of The Case For Israel. He sees ethnic cleansing as a trifling matter, writing:
"Political solutions often require the movement of people, and such movement is not always voluntary ... It is a fifth-rate issue analogous in many respects to some massive urban renewal."
If a prominent American figure takes a position on Israel to the left of this, Dershowitz often takes to the airwaves to call them anti-Semites and bigots.
The journalist Melanie Phillips performs a similar role in Britain. Last year a group called Independent Jewish Voices was established with this mission statement: "Palestinians and Israelis alike have the right to peace and security." Jews including Mike Leigh, Stephen Fry and Rabbi David Goldberg joined. Phillips swiftly dubbed them "Jews For Genocide", and said they "encourage" the "killers" of Jews. Where does this come from? She says the Palestinians are an "artificial" people who can be collectively punished because they are "a terrorist population". She believes that while
"individual Palestinians may deserve compassion, their cause amounts to Holocaust denial as a national project".
Honest Reporting quotes
Phillips as a model of reliable reporting.
These individuals spray accusations of anti-Semitism so liberally that by their standards, a majority of Jewish Israelis have anti-Semitic tendencies. Dershowitz said Jimmy Carter's decision to speak to the elected Hamas government "border[ed] on anti-Semitism." A Ha'aretz poll last month found that 64% of Israelis want their government to do just that.
As US President, Jimmy Carter showed his commitment to Israel by giving it more aid than anywhere else and brokering the only peace deal with an Arab regime the country has ever enjoyed. He also wants to see a safe and secure Palestine alongside it – so last year he wrote a book called Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. It is a bland and factual canter through the major human rights reports. There is nothing there you can't read in the mainstream Israeli press every day. Carter's comparison of life on the West Bank (not within Israel) to Apartheid South Africa is not new. The West Bank is ruled in the interests of a small Jewish minority; it is bisected by roads for the Jewish settlers from which Palestinians are banned. The Israeli human rights group B'tselem says this "bears striking similarities to the racist Apartheid regime". Yet for repeating these facts in the US, Carter has widely called "a racist". Several universities have even refused to let the ex-President speak to their students.
These campus battles often succeed. Norman Finkelstein is a political scientist in the US whose parents were both Jewish survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. They lost every blood relative. He made his reputation exposing a hoax called From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters which claimed that Palestine was virtually empty when Zionist settlers arrived, and the people claiming to be Palestinians were mostly impostors who had come from local areas to cash in. Finkelstein showed it to be scarred by falsified figures and gross misreading of sources. From that moment on, he was smeared as an anti-Semite by those who had lauded the book. But it was when Finkelstein revealed two years ago that Alan Dershowitz had, without acknowledgement, drawn wholesale from Peters' hoax for his book The Case For Israel, that the worst began. Dershowitz campaigned to make sure Finkelstein was denied tenure at his university. He even claimed that Finkelstein's mother – who made it through Maidenek and two slave-labour camps – had collaborated with the Nazis. The campaign worked. Finkelstein was let go by De Paul University, simply for speaking the truth.
Are the likes of
Dershowitz and Phillips and
Honest Reporting becoming more shrill because they can sense they are losing the argument?
Liberal Jews – the majority – are now setting up rivals to the hard-right organisations they work with, because they believe this campaign of demonisation is damaging us all.
- It damages the Palestinians, because it prevents honest discussion of their plight.
- It damages the Israelis, because it pushes them further down an aggressive and futile path. And
- it damages diaspora Jews, because it makes real anti-Semitism harder to deal with.
We need to look the witch-hunters in the eye and say, as Joseph Welch said to Joe McCarthy himself:
"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"
j.hari@independent.co.uk1.
Israel is suppressing a secret it must faceIt is the smell of shit. Across the occupied West Bank, raw untreated sewage is pumped every day out of the Jewish settlements, along large metal pipes, straight onto Palestinian land. From there, it can enter the groundwater and the reservoirs, and become a poison.
Meanwhile, in order to punish the population of
Gaza for voting "the wrong way", the
Israeli army are not allowing past the checkpoints any replacements for the pipes and cement needed to keep the sewage system working. The result?
Vast stagnant pools of waste are being held within fragile dykes across the strip, and rotting. Last March, one of them burst, drowning
a nine-month-old baby and his elderly grandmother in a tsunami of human waste. The
Centre on Housing Rights warns that one heavy rainfall could send
1.5m cubic metres of faeces flowing all over
Gaza, causing
"a humanitarian and environmental disaster of epic proportions".
2.
"It is the smell of shit. Raw untreated sewage is pumped every day out of the Jewish settlements"
The local chief medical officer,
Dr Bassam Said Nadi, explained to me:
"Recently there were very heavy rains, and the shit started to flow into the reservoir that provides water for this whole area. I knew that if we didn't act, people would die. We had to alert everyone not to drink the water for over a week, and distribute bottles. We were lucky it was spotted. Next time..."
3. Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) is an international network of environmental organizations in 70 countries. In contrast to many other NGOs operating internationally, it is structured from the bottom up as a as a confederation of groups. Each country has its own separate different organization, which in many cases existed and campaigned in its own right before choosing to affiliate to the global network. The groups conduct their own campaigns and coordinate their activities through the umbrella body Friends of the Earth International. The national groups are often composed of grassroots local groups working in their own areas.
4. CAMERA The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is a Boston-based, non-profit, pro-Israel media watch organization which was founded in 1982. CAMERA has been noted for its pro-Israel media monitoring and advocacy. CAMERA states it releases reports to stop what it sees as "frequently inaccurate and skewed characterizations of Israel and of events in the Middle East" that it believes may fuel anti-Israel and anti-Jewish prejudice.
5.
Honest Reporting is a watchdog organisation that monitors the media for what it deems to be media bias against Israel. It's members contact news agencies to request changes when they identify sources that they consider to be deliberately
biased against Israel.
6.
Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in
Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was one of German dictator
Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers. Goebbels was known for his zealous, energetic oratory and virulent
anti-Semitism. After the Nazis gained power in 1933, he was appointed
propaganda minister.
7. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the sixth and current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He became president on August 6, 2005 after winning the 2005 presidential election by popular vote. Before becoming president, he was the mayor of Tehran. He is the highest directly elected official in the country; however, according to Article 113 of Constitution of Iran, he has less total power than the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Iran and has the final word in all aspects of foreign and domestic policies.
8. Melanie Phillips is a British columnist and author. Her articles appear mainly in the Daily Mail newspaper and focus on political and social issues. She has previously written for The Guardian and other publications.
9. Well-poisoning is the act of malicious manipulation of potable water resources in order to cause illness or death, or to deny an opponent access to fresh water resources. Historically it was one of the gravest of three accusations brought against Jewish people as a whole (the other two being host desecration and blood libel), for example in Europe following the Black Death (1348-1350).
10. Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) is an organization launched on February 5, 2007 by 150 prominent British Jews such as Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, historian Eric Hobsbawm, lawyer Sir Geoffrey Bindman, film director Mike Leigh, and actors Stephen Fry and Zoë Wanamaker. The organization is reportedly
"born out of a frustration with the widespread misconception that the Jews of this country speak with one voice –– and that this voice supports the Israeli government's policies."
11. James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. was the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981 and a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). Carter sought to put a stronger emphasis on human rights; he negotiated a peace between Israel and Egypt in 1979. His return of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama was a major reversal of U.S. claims of influence over parts of Latin America dating to the Monroe doctrine, and Carter came under heavy criticism for it.
After leaving office, Carter founded an institute to promote global health, democracy and human rights. He has travelled extensively to conduct peace negotiations and establish relief efforts; he is also a key figure in the Habitat for Humanity project. As of 2008, he is the earliest-serving living president and the second-oldest. Carter remains a relevant national figure today, and has been especially vocal on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
12. Haaretz founded in 1918, is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It is published in Hebrew in Berliner format. Haaretz English Edition is the translated English edition of the paper. In Israel, it is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune.
13.
Alan Morton "Dersh" Dershowitz is an
American lawyer,
jurist, and
political commentator. He is the
Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at
Harvard Law School, and is known for his extensive published works, career as an attorney in several high-profile law cases, and commentary on
the Arab-Israeli conflict.
14. Ethnic cleansing refers to various military policies or military practices aimed at achieving security during war through displacement of an ethnic group from a particular territory.
15. Hamas "Islamic Resistance Movement" is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist militant organization and political party. In January 2006, Hamas won a surprise victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, taking 76 of the 132 seats in the chamber, while the ruling Fatah party took 43.
16. Talk to Hamas, Israelis tell government as attacks continue
Feb 28 2008Israel is under growing pressure to talk to the Islamist Palestinian group Hamas, which fired a barrage of rockets from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel yesterday, killing a student.
The strike followed the publication of a poll showing 64% of Israelis want their government to negotiate with Hamas to broker a ceasefire and secure the release of a soldier, Gilad Shalit, who was captured in 2006.
17.
B'Tselem is an
Israeli non-governmental organization (
NGO) that describes itself as
"The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories". It was founded by a group of
Israeli public figures, including
lawyers,
academics,
journalists, and members of the
Knesset. B'Tselem's stated goals are
"to document and educate the Israeli public and policymakers about human rights violations in the Occupied Territories, combat the phenomenon of denial prevalent among the Israeli public, and help create a human rights culture in Israel".
18.
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist
and author, specialising in
Jewish-related issues, especially the
Holocaust and the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His writings, noted for their support of the
Palestinian cause have dealt with politically-charged topics such as
Zionism, the demographic history of Palestine and his allegations of the existence of a "
Holocaust Industry" that exploits the memory of the Holocaust to further Israeli and financial interests. Citing linguist and political activis
Noam Chomsky as an example,
Finkelstein notes that it is
"possible to unite exacting scholarly rigor with scathing moral outrage," and supporters and detractors alike have remarked on the polemical style of Finkelstein's work. However, its content has been praised by eminent historians such as
Raul Hilberg and
Avi Shlaim, as well as
Chomsky.
19. From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine is a 1984 book by Joan Peters about the constant presence of Jews in Palestine (Eretz Yisrael). The famous controversial issue in the book is the amount of modern Arab immigration in comparison to parallel Jewish immigration. Responses to the book have been deeply divided and it continues to receive both positive responses as well as harsh criticism.
However, reviewing the book for the January 16, 1986 issue of The New York Review of Books, Yehoshua Porath wrote that Peters made 'highly tendentious use — or neglect — of the available source material'. But more crucially, he wrote, 'is her misunderstanding of basic historical processes and her failure to appreciate the central importance of natural population increase as compared to migratory movements.' Porath concluded:
'Readers of her book should be warned not to accept its factual claims without checking their sources. Judging by the interest that the book aroused and the prestige of some who have endorsed it, I thought it would present some new interpretation of the historical facts. I found none. Everyone familiar with the writing of the extreme nationalists of Zeev Jabotinsky's Revisionist party (the forerunner of the Herut party) would immediately recognize the tired and discredited arguments in Mrs. Peters's book. I had mistakenly thought them long forgotten. It is a pity that they have been given new life.'
20a. The Case for Israel is a New York Times bestseller by Alan Dershowitz, a law professor at Harvard University. The book responds to common criticisms of Israel.
Norman Finkelstein claims the book is a hoax and that some of its citations are plagiarized from From Time Immemorial, another book Finkelstein extensively criticized. These heated claims have led to what has become known to some as the Dershowitz-Finkelstein affair. Former Harvard president Derek Bok exonerated Dershowitz of the plagiarism charges. Finkelstein devotes much of his book Beyond Chutzpah to responding to Dershowitz's arguments.
Michael Neumann, a professor of philosophy at Trent University, wrote a book entitled The Case Against Israel published by CounterPunch in response to The Case for Israel.
20b. "The Case Against Israel" argues that Zionism was responsible for the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and that Israel is responsible for its perpetuation. The argument rests on widely accepted factual claims and impeccable sources. It avoids rhetoric and gratuitous moralizing. There is no attempt to blacken Israel through association with colonialism, imperialism, or racism. Instead, Neumann's argument emphasizes the fateful Zionist quest for Jewish sovereignty in Palestine. This quest - not the massacres or plans for transfer or other blots on Zionist history - made violence inevitable and compromise impossible. The prospect of Zionists gaining the power of life and death over all inhabitants of Palestine "had" to be seen by the Palestinians as a mortal threat. They responded accordingly.
.
Republican presidential nominee John McCain once sought the endorsement of Texas mega-church pastor John Hagee (left, with McCain). But once McCain got it he was forced to reject it. Why? Because Hagee has denounced Catholicism as "The Great Whore," called for the destruction of Islam, demonizes homosexuals, thinks global warming is a hoax and constantly insists the U.S. should attack Iran because it will help usher in the Second Coming. 
But there is one overriding issue that opinion polls show is increasingly bringing together many evangelical Christians and Jews in an uneasy alliance: The state of Israel. Many evangelicals, like influential Texas mega-church pastor John Hagee, now call themselves "Christian Zionists." They're supporting Israel against its Middle Eastern foes mainly because of the way they interpret biblical prophecy about the Apocalypse. 
Obadiah Shoher is the author of