MuzzleWatch

Below is a new London Independent article recounting one reporter’s own experience, along with the experience of others, (discussed here previously). We need to be ever vigilant.  The forces arrayed against legitimate criticism of US supported Israeli transgressions must be countered for there to be any possibility of a stable peace in the region.  There will always be “push-back” from such forces, CAMERA, the David project, etc, but there is a growing movement of progressive voices, Jewish and otherwise, that is making the claim of monolithic and unquestioning support for Israel more and more difficult.  Even the New York Times with the new bureau chief Ethan Bronner is starting  to report in a slightly more balanced way.

The Loathsome Smearing of Israel’s Critics

In 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, I wrote an article that described how untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs. This isn’t controversial. It has been documented by Friends of the Earth, and I have seen it with my own eyes.

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. (more…)

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports:

Two Republican congressmen introduced legislation that would deny the Carter Center federal dollars.

Two Republican congressmen introduced legislation that would deny the Carter Center federal dollars.

U.S. Reps. Joe Knollenberg (R-Mich.) and Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) introduced the Coordinated American Response to Extreme Radicals Act , or CARTER Act, last week in the wake of former President Jimmy Carter’s recent outreach to Hamas.

“America must speak with one voice against our terrorist enemies,” Knollenberg said in a statement. “It sends a fundamentally troubling message when an American dignitary is engaged in dialogue with terrorists. My legislation will make sure that taxpayer dollars are not being used to support discussions or negotiations with terrorist groups.”

The Zionist Organization of American praised the legislation.

Carter’s Atlanta-based center focuses mostly on international development. The former president met with Hamas officials against the advice of the Bush administration. He defended his meetings as his attempt to help bring an end to the violence on the Israel-Gaza Strip border.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports this interesting story featuring open conflict between Australian Jewish academics and pro-Israel advocates. It’s also interesting to note that the far-right US-based StandWithUs group is literally exporting its strategy and resources to Australia:

Jewish academics are blasting the hiring of a coordinator for Israel advocacy for Australian college campuses.

Joel Burnie, 23, was jointly appointed earlier this month as the inaugural student campus coordinator by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council and the U.S.-based campus advocacy organization StandWithUs.

Mark Baker, the director of the Centre for the Study of Jewish Civilization at Monash University in Melbourne, slammed the appointment in an article in this week’s Australian Jewish News, saying it would “doom Jewish academics and students to isolation and defeat.”

“There’s no need to widen the war and bring in proxy mercenaries to torpedo the battle with watchdogs and overseas provocateurs,” Baker wrote.

Dr. Colin Rubenstein, the executive director of AIJAC, blasted Baker’s comments as “misdirected, misconceived and misleading,” according to the Jewish News.

He also denied rumors that AIJAC, a sister organization of the American Jewish Committee, had been sifting through recordings of university lectures for hints of anti-Israel or anti-Jewish bias.

Burnie, who was the Australian Union of Jewish Students president in 2007, denied he was employed as a campus watchdog, saying his role was to promote Israeli culture and Israeli speakers that come to Australia, as well as to further dialogue about Israel on campus.

Andrea Elliott has written a detailed description of the the shameful campaign against Debbie Almontaser and her dream to open an Arabic culture school in today’s New York Times. Click on photo for NYT video coverage of the story, including an interview with Daniel Pipes, a frequent “guest” in these pages, who too easily plays the villain.

(Go here to see our prior coverage of the campaign against Debbie Almontaser and the Khalil Gibran International Academy.)

To re-state for the umpteenth time, the so-called culture wars in the United States between Islam and Arabs and the West are in many ways a proxy war for what’s happening in Israel and Palestine. Typically right-wing supporters of a “greater” Israel have deliberately conflated the struggle over Palestinian land and self-determination with Bush’s “war on terror.” To the extent that US citizens can be kept afraid of any Arab or Muslim who may be hiding behind a door, they will, it is understood, provide unconditional support for Israeli settlement expansion and militarism.

In other words, the campaign of invisibility thrust upon Palestinians has meant deliberately erasing any legitimate claims they may have to land, freedom, and security, and replacing them with the myth that Palestinians simply hate Jews/Westerners because of who we are. To that end, any whipping up of fears of Muslims and Arabs here in the US serves the interests of groups like Campus Watch and the David Project, and right-wing politicians who want to preserve the status quo.

That many of the civil society groups here in the US who push this agenda of fear-mongering are led by Jews, who have thousands of years of intimate understanding of the consequences of such demonization, is unconscionable. Obviously, Jews have a special responsibility to stand up and say, “Enough!”
And many of them have.

Here’s an important letter from Jewish leaders, organized by our friends at the NY-based Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, about the treatment of Debbie Almontaser, a moderate by any definition who took pains to unite and speak to all corners of a divided community.

Open Letter to the Jewish Community At this time of Passover, when we gather as families at our seder tables, it is an auspicious time to remember that our “family” extends outward to all of God’s creation and therefore to all members of the human family. Every act we undertake to bridge differences and enhance the dignity of other human beings brings all of closer to the liberation and redemption that we celebrate during these eight glorious days. Building friendships across borders of religion and culture is a powerful lesson of the Pesach holiday. Walking through uncharted territory with sometimes threatening waters on both sides of us is in the spirit of our celebration and commemoration. In this spirit we seek your support and respect for a colleague and friend who has suffered and continues to suffer from a disturbing and growing prejudice in our midst. You are certain to have heard of her, but may not be fully aware of her goodness, competence, and openness to all people. We are speaking of Debbie Almontaser, the founding principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, NYC’s first Arabic language public school. Many of us know Debbie personally, others from a distance. But we all respect and admire her and we believe that she has been wronged. In the spirit of Passover we ask your support to right this wrong and your help in achieving her reinstatement at the Academy. As Jews, we have experienced Debbie’s friendship to us. We are certain that her return to her children will only bring greater peace and understanding between people of all faiths in our educational system and in our city as a whole. Dayenu! Rabbi Marcelo R. Bronstein, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun *Rabbi Rachel Cowan*, Institute for Jewish Spirituality** *Rabbi Anne Ebersman*, Abraham Joshua Heschel School *Leonard Fein*, writer *Rabbi Michael Feinberg*, Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition *Peter Geffen*, Founder, Abraham Joshua Heschel School *Susannah Heschel*, Eli Black Professor of Jewish Studies, Dartmouth College *Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz* Visiting Professor, Jewish Studies, Comparative Literature, & History, Queen’s College/.CUNY *Rabbi Irwin Kula*, CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership *Rabbi Ellen Lippmann*, Kolot Chayenu *Rabbi J, Rolando Matalon*, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun *Marilyn Neimark, Co-founder*, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice *Donna Nevel*, Co-founder, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice *Letty Cottin Pogrebin*, writer and activist *Dara Silverman*, Director, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice *Rabbi Felicia Sol*, Congregation B’nai Jeshurun *Alisa Solomon*, writer Rabbi Mychal Springer, Jewish Theological Seminary *Aaron J. Hahn Tapper*, Co-executive Director, Abraham’s Vision *Rabbi Burton L. Vizotsky*, Jewish Theological Seminary *Rabbi Melissa Weintraub*, Encounter *Rabbi Simkha Y. Weintraub*, LCSW, Brooklyn *Rabbi Arthur Waskow*, The Shalom Center *affiliations for identification purposes

(Read our initial story here.) Actually, it was the captions and the title of the photo exhibit. The Stanford administration approved photos of Palestinians taken by photographer Lisa Nessan for an exhibit called �Hope Under Siege.� But when the sponsoring student group, Students Confronting Apartheid by Israel (SCAI) changed the title to �Life Under Israeli Apartheid,� and others on campus complained, the administration pulled down the exhibit after just two days. Students say the captions all include information from human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Nonetheless, Stanford offered to reinstate the entire show without the title or captions. Student organizers wisely said NO, and held a protest instead. Here’s the latest from the Stanford Daily.

Here’s a statement about censorship of the event from Tadamon!, the Canadian group that organized the Middle East popular education project that was held successfully at a variety of other venues.

CALL FOR SUPPORT

Censorship at Montreal-area College: Administration cancels workshop critical of Canadian support for Israel
Montreal, 21 April 2008

ASS�, CALEB and Tadamon! denounce the decision of a Montreal college to cancel a presentation critical of Canadian support for Israel. The workshop, scheduled to have taken place today, was cancelled after the administration of Coll�ge Bois-de-Boulogne came under pressure from supporters of Israel. This attack on basic freedom of expression is all the more disturbing because it occurs on a campus.
The presentation, hosted at Bois-de-Boulogne by the Comit� d�action pour la lutte �tudiante boulonnaise (CALEB), was one of a series of workshops taking place in Montreal-area CEGEPS throughout April under the title, �Middle East Popular Education Project�. The workshop series was organised jointly by the Association pour une solidarit� syndicale �tudiante (ASS�, www.asse-solidarite.qc.ca) and Tadamon! Montreal (). It is designed to develop knowledge and strategic thinking in Quebec�s student sector about the role that Canada is playing in the Middle East.

(more…)

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