BanksyPalestineBarrier

We Are All For Diversity – But Not That Kind – Not Yet Anyway

There are faculty at Hobart and William Smith Colleges who are anti-Zionists, that is, they oppose the chauvinistic, Jewish-supremacist colonization of historical Palestine and the 44-year dehumanization of Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories. Yet like faculty at most American Colleges and Universities they mostly remain “in the closet” out of fear of being smeared with canards of anti-Semitism or worse

A notable exception was our former colleague, Virginia Tilley, who recently wrote:

…Israel as a Jewish state must be abolished, just as white South Africa had to be “abolished”, and for the same reason—because ethnic states simply can’t exist without discrimination and oppression. But does this mean abolishing Israel as a modern territorial state? Of course not, just as South Africa was not “abolished” in this sense. So language about “eliminating Israel” is just pointless sophistry—scare-mongering, rhetorical sabotage …

Thanks to persistent efforts by people in the LGBT community, promoting diversity among sexual orientations and personal life styles has become much easier at HWS. Such diversity, along with racial and ethnic diversity, is not only accepted on our campus; it is extolled and rightly so. The same cannot be said for conservative political philosophy, including the Republican agenda, and certainly not for those of us who are anti-Zionist and proud of it.

Anti-Zionist discourse at Hobart and William Smith Colleges is first shunned. Then it is demeaned as “abhorrent” or “cunning” or “beyond the pale.” Proponents may be ritually defamed, usually in a cowardly manner, even by “colleagues” who are not polemical Zionists themselves. A smear letter may be circulated to hundreds in the community but withheld from the accused on grounds of confidentiality; it is almost a joke. There is little recourse; the Grievance Committee is not charged with hearing, let alone settling, such disputes.

And like the smearing that used to be so prevalent against those in (or alleged to be in) the LGBT community, most of the attacks against anti-Zionists go initially undetected by those against whom they are directed. A notable exception occurred in January. A HWS professor wrote a two-page email to the Syracuse Peace Council demeaning Gilad Atzmon, an Israeli jazz musician who is performing at a Deir Yassin Remembered Scholarship fundraiser on March 13th, calling his ideas and utterances nothing more than anti-Zionist rants and rabid negations of his Jewish identity.

This HWS professor went on to tell all 160 members of the Syracuse Peace Council that at HWS Dan McGowan is labeled as an anti-Semite, a canard that dissuaded the group from co-sponsoring the fundraiser. Two days later the same professor wrote me saying, “I have always tried, to the best of my ability, to defend you from such canards, because I do understand very well how things work here in this country, particularly in educational institutions.” Since a canard is defined as “a false or unfounded report or story, especially a fabricated report,” I ask myself, with “colleagues” as duplicitous and libelous as this, who needs enemies?

But it gets better. People within the Syracuse Peace Council claimed that the HWS Professor said she was afraid of losing her job if HWS found out she was part of a group that endorsed Gilad Atzmon and hence Dan McGowan. If true, and I have no reason to doubt that it is, this is either a very paranoid professor or a very sad commentary on the intolerance and lack of diversity at HWS. But how shall we know? I asked the President, Provost, and Dean of Women for guidance on how to settle this defamation; it has been over six weeks – no response.

Daniel McGowan
Faculty Emeritus

Obama, AIPAC And The Rest of US

AIPAC

Yesterday at AIPAC annual conference, the American president had to go out of his way to appease his Jewish crowd. He used every trick in the book, he even peppered his talk with some Yiddish sporadic words and he did it all just to justify his decision not to launch a World War as yet.

One should ask, how come a lobby of a small state that practices the most appalling racist expansionist politics and practices has managed to gain so much political power in the USA.

As it happens, more and more academics and political commentators indeed ask themselves the exact question – they wonder what is it in American culture and political system that allowed it to happen? I am also interested in a very similar quest. I actually try to identify the different elements within Jewish culture and identity politics that have led to the rise of AIAPC into the dominant force within American politics and foreign policy.

In my latest book, The Wandering Who, a book that both Zionist and  Jewish Anti Zionist Zionists (JAZZ) are desperate to stop, I explore those themes. I for instance, elaborate on the significant role of the Book of Esther’, in shaping Jewish Lobbying in the West and beyond. The Book of Esther is an Old Testament text that preaches lobby culture and  tribal infiltration into foreign administrations.

I also explore the Exilic nature of Judaism. I maintain that Judaism, as we know it, was founded in Babylon in conditions that, from Jewish perspectives, were very similar to 19th century Europe and the birth moment of Zionism. In both cases it was the fear of assimilation that led towards the invention of an isolationist and separatist cult.

Seemingly the exilic nature of Judaism transcended itself into Jewish secular and nationalist politics- rather than being concerned with the ‘here and now’, the Diaspora Zionist Jew explores his or her aspiration towards a different place and different time i.e. Zion.  Unlike other migrant lobbies in the West, that are engaged in issues to do with the interests of their respective migrant communities (in terms of social rights, religious freedom, education and so on), the Jewish Lobby is actually solely concerned with the interest of a remote state and a remote community. This fact alone, explains the uniqueness of AIPAC. It also means that it is unlikely that any other political lobby would ever compete successfully with AIPAC except another Jewish Lobby.

Yet one may wonder whether AIPAC’s hegemony over American foreign policy is ‘good for the Jews’. In fact, more than a few commentators including myself are convinced that that it is actually a total disaster. It doesn’t take a genius to notice that the domination of Jewish elite in the USA is similar to the condition of German Jewish elite in late 1920’s Weimar Republic. In fact Jewish history is saturated with similar occurrances in which Jewish elite’s overwhelming influence led to the birth of rapid growth of anti – Jewish sentiment.

Israeli historian Shlomo Sand points out that in between the 1st and early 19th century Jews didn’t engage in writing history. Not a single Jewish historical text saw daylight in that period. According to Sand, the Rabbinical Jew didn’t need history text. The Bible provided a sufficient explanation.  The meaning of it is clear, there is an element of Jewish cultural denial to historical thinking. Such an interpretation  may help us to grasp the surprising fact that Jewish communities in the West are not at all alarmed by the growing influence of the Jewish lobbies in West and AIPAC or CFI in particular.

In fact, the complete opposite is correct. Jewish communities are often in the press boasting of their Lobbying victories. Jewish communities also invest a lot of energy silencing any attempt to point at the growing danger entangled with the emergence of Jewish power. This is far from being new.  Jewish history is saturated with attempts to shoot the messengers and whistle blowers: Jesus found himself nailed to the wood, Spinoza was excommunicated, Bernard Lazare was largely ignored, Otto Weininger was dismissed, Mordechai Vanunu is locked behind bars again and as my followers know, I am also chased by the like of Alan Dershowitz, and the Jewish Anti Zionist Zionists (JAZZ).

Like many other commentators on Middle East current affairs, I also don’t have any doubt that we are facing a volatile situation. Considering its influence and its open advocacy to attack on Iran, AIPAC is a grave threat to world peace. In the open it pushes for another war that can easily escalate into a nuclear global conflict. AIPAC clearly endangers American interests and American people but it is also very dangerous for Jewish communities all over the world.

If America loves itself and cares for its future, it must immediately find within itself the means to dismantle the power of this lobby. America owes it to its people, to world peace but also to its Jews who largely have nothing to do with this appalling warmongering genocidal campaign.