MuzzleWatch

In his thought-provoking essay, Answer to Rosenfeld: Jewish History, Anti-Semitism, and the Challenge, Dr. Mark Braverman takes on the man who famously attacked progressive Jews who are critical of Israel. Alvin Rosenfeld’s essay, “Progressive Jewish Thought”, was written at the behest of the American Jewish Committee, and caused a large firestorm.

Rosenfeld’s report’s sloppy methodology and overt ideological approach have been duly noted by numerous critics. Braverman adds something new to the conversation by addressing something even more insidious. Rosenfeld’s work betrays a disturbing sense of superiority (that is partly a response to Jewish oppression) which profoundly belittles Palestinian suffering and by extension, the fundamental humanity of all Palestinians.

In Rosenfeld’s strident call for a circling of the wagons, we see the tragedy of modern Jewry in its confrontation with the uncomfortable realities of Israel: the refusal to deal with anyone’s suffering but our own. To be sure, and as discussed above, there are historical reasons for this attitude, and we are doubtless not the only group to have been guilty of this willful blindness, this inexcusable sense of entitlement and specialness. But this tendency among many Jews today is so powerful and pervasive that it reaches the level of outright denial. Nowhere – nowhere in Rosenfeld’s piece is to be found even a gratuitous nod to the suffering of the Palestinians – not even the minimizing, grudging, disingenuous acknowledgment of the “unfortunate abuses” suffered by the occupied Palestinians that one sometimes hears from the “pro-Israel” camp. But even more important, and ultimately more disturbing and potentially tragic, is the absence of any consideration of the issue of justice. To be sure, Israel may be threatened – the future is uncertain, geopolitics are fickle. In the global arena, what gives you birth and supports you one day can turn against you the next – and to be sure, anti-Semitism is alive, and where not active it is very likely dormant – but where is Justice, what is the state of your conscience?

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The recent death of Jerry Falwell can serve as an opportunity to reflect on the growing Christian Zionist (CZ) movement and how such a movement is related to other establishment pro-Israel groups such as The David Project, ADL and AIPAC. To be clear, there is a Faustian bargain being forged, for short term political and financial gain, Israel and the American Jewish establishment are willing to engage with people such as John Hagee of the Christians United for Israel (CUFI) “who is contemptuous of Muslims, dismissive of gays, possesses a triumphalist theology and opposes a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

This bargain also entails muzzling - American Jewish leaders who have been critical of CUFI sponsored local “Nights to Honor Israel” say they have been pressured into silence.

“The pressure has been enormous,” said a prominent Jewish leader who said he was contacted by local community officials after he raised questions about a local Christians United For Israel (CUFI) event. “I can’t even talk about it now; I feel a real sense of intimidation because people in our own community are saying I’m opposing something that’s good for Israel, that I’m hurting Israel.”

In terms of Falwell specifically, although their relationship has not been seamless, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has called Falwell a “towering figure of the religious right” and a “dear friend of Israel”

The fly in the ointment, beyond the occasional “oopsy” anti-Semitic utterances, eg, “the antichrist is probably a Jewish man alive today,” (condemned by Foxman of the ADL), is that the relationship between the Christian Zionists (like Falwell, Pat Robertson and Hagee) and Jews is roughly that of Germany to the Soviet Union before Germany invaded its ally. Christian Zionists believe that as one large piece of the Apocalypse endgame, a unified Jewish state must exist over all of what is now Israel and Palestine and that a new temple must be built on temple mount. The important take home point is that within the framework of Christian Zionist belief is the notion that at the time of Christ’s second coming, Jews will be offered a choice to convert to Christianity or immediately be condemned to hell or some reasonable facsimile.

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By Mitchell Plitnick
Cross-posted at The Third Way, JVP’s policy analysis blog.

In one of the most bizarre and appalling developments here in the US, a number of Jewish groups are pressing Congress not to recognize the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century. They are opposing bills in both the House and Senate that would formally recognize it.

It’s hard to imagine the cynicism and hypocrisy that this act embodies. Of all people, we Jews have, rightly, pushed the world to acknowledge horrific acts of genocide, to mark them, try to prevent them and to raise our voices loudly in the cry of “Never Again.”

The four Jewish groups that presented the case to Congress, on behalf of the Turkish Jewish community, were the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), B’Nai Brith, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC).

That JINSA would engage in this is not surprising. A Jewish group in name only, JINSA is a right-wing propaganda machine that has pushed the worst excesses of both the Bush Administration and the Israeli right for years, with no regard for human rights or the welfare of innocents, in Israel or elsewhere. Of the other three groups, it is fair to expect much better than this.

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[Editor’s note: Apologies for the noticeable absence of new posts over the past few days. We’ve been at our sold-out conference, meeting and strategizing with fellow travelers from across the country. But we’re back now.]

The April edition of Zeek magazine has an interesting back and forth between Shaul Maggid and Paul Bagnador about the American Jewish Committee’s infamous Alvin Rosenfeld report, “Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism.” As we’ve written before, the booklet generated significant backlash by Jews who understood it more as a form of blacklisting, than a substantive piece of scholarship.

Professor Shaul Magid, who is, interestingly, a colleague of Rosenfeld’s at Indiana University, poses the question: Why Must Jews Support a Jewish State? He surveys some of the more egregious examples of polarized ultra-Orthodox theological thinking on the topic: those who think Jews caused the Holocaust because we didn’t move to Eretz Israel fast enough, and those who think we caused it because only “God has the covenantal right to reestablish Israel as part of the Messianic era.”

But I found more compelling his quote-by-quote deconstruction of Rosenfeld’s essay, a shoddy piece of scholarship. Magid takes the time to go back to the original source to provide not only context, but attribution.

Rosenfeld’s first “progressive” Jew under investigation is Jaqueline Rose, author of The Question of Zion (Princeton University Press, 2005). Rosenfeld quotes Rose as saying “In sum, Israel on its present course ‘is bad for the Jews’ …” If we turn to page 154 (Rosenfeld’s citation) we indeed find those words “bad for the Jews” in reference to Israel, but these words are not Rose’s. Rose is quoting Avner Azulay, retired IDF army general and Director of the Rich Foundation in Tel Aviv. In fact, on page 134, Rose quotes Azulay more extensively. Azulay writes, “What is happening in Israel is bad for the Jewish people in the long term. It seems to be coming true that what is happening in Israel is damaging to Jews.”

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As we reported yesterday, a spirited debate in the UK ended in the passage of a controversial definition of anti-Semitism by the National Union of Students. Arthur Neslen, in the UK Guardian’s Comment is Free, says that the definition, which declares that many forms of criticism of Israel are anti-Semitic, was in large part written by the American Jewish Committee’s Kenneth Stern. AJC caused an uproar in the Jewish community for their infamous pamphlet charging some of America’s best known progressive Jewish artists, like Adrienne Rich and Tony Kushner, with fomenting anti-Semitism.

Neslen writes:

What do Einstein, Mahatma Ghandi, Ehud Olmert and myself all have in common? We could each be censured for racism according to the European Union Monitoring Centre’s “working definition of anti-semitism” which was last week adopted by the National Union of Students as official policy.

This definition has lately been sweeping all before it, taking endorsements everywhere from the all-party parliamentary Report on anti-semitism to the US state department’s special envoy for combating anti-semitism. The British government has pledged to re-examine its own definition of anti-semitism if the EUMC’s successor body, the Fundamental Rights Agency, ratifies the new lingua franca.

So it’s actually a bit shocking to discover that the new definition was largely drafted by a pro-Israel advocate who gives talks on how to elide the distinction between anti-Zionism and hatred of Jews. Kenneth Stern is the American Jewish Committee’s expert on anti-semitism and in Defining Anti-Semitism, a paper published by Tel Aviv University’s Stephen Roth Institute, he explained how he developed the working definition “along with other experts” in the second half of 2004.

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A censorship scandal erupted in 2002 when the Israel Association of United Architects (IAUA) commissioned “A Civilian Occupation: The Politics of Israeli Architecture,” and ended up cancelling the exhibition and banning the catalog when they didn’t like the results.

It was an all too honest depiction by Israeli architects and designers about the ways in which they played an essential role in the machinery of Israel’s occupation, helping in myriad ways to deny the Palestinians their human rights. In fact, the controversy inside the Green Line is no less intense over the role of mapmakers and urban planners in the deliberate erasure of Palestinian villages and history.

All this was brought to mind when I read Ken Auletta’s “The Fixer” in the February 12 edition of the New Yorker. Though the article is not online, one of our commenters thankfully posted a copy of the relevant portion.

Last year Lord Rogers, who was slated for the 1.7 billion dollar taxpayer-funded re-design of the Javits Center in NY, became engulfed in controversy when he allowed his UK office to be used for the inaugural meeting of a group called Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine. This group dared to discuss the possibility of sanctions against those profiting from occupation and “the exposure of those construction industry professionals who accept commissions from schemes that appropriate Palestinian land and resources.”

It’s not hard to guess what happened to Rogers as soon as this was made known. David Harris of the American Jewish Committee wrote then:

Clearly, the agenda of this group reflects very deep seated anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views.

Rogers was made to publicly cut ties with the Architects’ group, which committed the apparently unpardonable crime of considering nonviolent initiatives long-employed by human rights and faith-based groups.

“The Fixer” is about PR macher Howard Rubenstein’s role in Rogers public “redemption.” It offers a sad, cautionary tale about muzzling.

George Arzt, who was a political reporter for the New York Post and press secretary to Mayor Edward I. Koch and now runs his own P.R. firm, recently watched Rubenstein come to the rescue of someone’s good name — in this case, that of Lord Richard Rogers, the British architect who had contracts for a number of New York projects, including the redesign of the Javits Center and the expansion of Silvercup Studios, in Queens. Last February, Rogers lent his London office to a group called Architects and Planners tor Justice in Palestine, who discussed the possibility of boycotting architects and construction firms building Israel’s separation barrier and West Bank settlements, saying in a statement that they were “complicit in social, political, and economic oppression.” The British press reported these statements, and when New York officials like Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Representative Anthony Weiner learned about them they demanded that Rogers’s New York government contracts be cancelled; other Jewish leaders chimed in, and editorials followed.

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Rob Eshman, editor in chief of the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, writes in Shutting Jewish Mouths that the American Jewish Committee report sends the message that “there’s only one way to show you care for the Jewish state — our way.”

Twenty years ago at a park in Beverly Hills, actor Richard Dreyfuss, feminist Betty Friedan and Yael Dayan, the daughter of the late Israeli leader Moshe Dayan, stood before a crowd of some 300 people and called for a two-state solution to the Palestinian Israeli conflict.

Many in the crowd booed and hissed the speakers. Eventually they shouted Dreyfuss down. He had to be escorted offstage, past Jews who spat at him and called him names.

I know, because, as the local head of Americans for Peace Now back then, I organized the rally. I helped form a human ring around Dreyfuss as he raced for the safety of his car.

And I was there when a screaming protestor broke through our linked arms, called Dreyfuss a traitor, then said, “Hey, Richard, you think I could get your autograph?”

To follow the controversy over members of the Jewish mainstream accusing Jewish liberals of fomenting anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatred by criticizing the Jewish state is to relive that afternoon in Roxbury Park, and all its attendant stupidity.

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Rebecca Spence at the Forward wrote about the blog. She also cites our friend and dauntless researcher Richard Silverstein at Tikun Olam, who published our story about Adam Horowitz getting an “anonymous” harassing email at home from a high level American Jewish Congress staffer. As Richard pointed out, why was she monitoring Adam’s private emails in the first place? (Richard has done more original reporting on the story.)
I should point out, however, that our biggest beef isn’t the many hate mails we get. Really, who can count them? The biggest beef is getting disinvited to speaking engagements, seeing media stories get killed (yes, it happens), getting barred from major Jewish institutions, pulling down art shows, seeing supposedly reputable Jewish organizations pressure third parties not to speak to groups like JVP or Tikkun. The list goes on and on. Not to mention the general practice of tarring and feathering of non-Jews who dare begin to speak the truth we all know about our miserable foreign policy and Israel’s shameful history of violating the human rights of Palestinians.

In fact, this whole issue became such a problem for us at JVP, getting in the way of our ability to do our actual work, which is about ending the conflict, that last year our board approved a proposal to launch a campaign to help publicize and put an end to these kinds of attacks.

But I should emphasize that this is happening because these folks are afraid. They are afraid of the growing number of Jews, all over the world, including many of the sacred symbols of the Jewish community like rabbis, Holocaust survivors or IDF soldiers, all willing to speak the truth in public settings. The 40th anniversary of Israel’s occupation is coming up. The last 6 or 7 years has been a remarkable period of devastation for both Palestinians and Israelis. On these issues, our so-called leaders have let us all down.

Left-wing Critics of Israel Launch Blog To Combat Alleged Intimidation
Rebecca Spence | Fri. Feb 09, 2007

In the wake of an increasing flurry of attacks leveled against left-wing Jewish groups by their right-wing counterparts, one dovish group is fighting back.

Jewish Voice for Peace, a San Francisco-based organization, recently launched a blog to track what it describes as a growing epidemic of intimidation and harassment from fellow Jews seeking to stifle open debate over America’s policy on Israel. The inception of the daily blog, MuzzleWatch.com, comes as one influential centrist organization, the American Jewish Committee, is facing fierce criticism for publishing an essay charging that Jews on the left, with their vocal criticisms of Israel, are helping to breed a virulent new form of antisemitism.

“As we’ve become more effective and more visible, there’s definitely been an increase in the backlash,” said Cecilie Surasky, communications director of Jewish Voice for Peace, which in the last year has grown from a local Bay Area group into a national organization with five chapters in major cities, including Boston and Washington. “Groups aren’t fighting fair,” she said.

While internecine squabbles within the Jewish community are nothing new, the tenor of hostilities between groups on opposite ends of the political spectrum seem to be reaching a fever pitch not felt in years. As left-wing activists contend that they face increasingly hostile attacks from hawkish groups, right-wing critics charge that their Jewish foes present a growing danger to Israel, already under siege from the international community and facing the prospect of a nuclear threat from Iran. Even a branch of the Israeli government has weighed in, with the consul general of Los Angeles, Ehud Danoch, asserting in a report he issued to the Israeli Foreign Ministry that Jewish groups, presumably left wing, are harming Israel’s image by sponsoring tours of ex-Israeli soldiers who speak out against alleged Israeli human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories.

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As you well know, we’ve been monitoring the reaction to the AJC report that tars and feathers progressive Jews for being anti-Semites or aiding and abetting anti-Semitism, and while there have been a lot of op-eds and responses, it seems to have been one big pile-on. Is anyone actually defending what they did? It would be nice to link to it, you know, for a little variety. Let’s have some debate here.

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Stanley Kutler weighs in on the AJC imbroglio in the Boston Globe:

Historically, to be sure, the AJC has been an effective advocate for religious tolerance and Jewish cultural identity. But its present political leadership, along with AIPAC, the Israeli lobby, now have bankrolled vigorous support for the Bush administration’s Middle Eastern policies.

They do not have the only microphone to speak for American Jewry. Opinion and voting polls show them at odds with the majority of American Jews who remain “progressive” on an array of social issues, including Israeli policies — and, more to the point, of US behavior in the Middle East. Meanwhile to hold Israel’s Jewish critics accountable for growing anti-Semitism is irresponsible, if not ridiculous.

As Kutler points out, let’s keep our eyes on the prize here. Surely, many in the AJC and the ADL, for example, think they are protecting Jews. But others understand full well that by keeping critics of Israeli and US policy on their toes with charges of anti-Semitism, the issue of the actual US economic and diplomatic support that makes the occupation possible never gets on the table. For many of us, certainly in the US, this is the most pernicious impact of such dynamics.

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