Kasztner - Debating with Zionist Collaborator Mad Mikey Ezra

Well it was an excellent meeting held by Green Left at SOAS on the subject ‘Jewish Perspectives on anti-Zionism’. (see below) A couple of Zionists, including one ‘Mad’ Mikey Ezra [MME] and a couple of friends turned up, but although one of his friends had the courage to tackle me strangely MME, was totally silent, fiddling with his mobile (or something anyway!).

Although quite brave on the internet, MME is quite a coward at public meetings clearly being afraid to be shown up. He did the same at a Lenni Brenner meeting 18 months ago and when he tried to speak to Lenni afterwards was told to get lost because he'd badmouthed Lenni for not having gone to a university (whilst at the same time asking for help!). Elitism doesn't die it just takes on the jaded colours of 'left' Zionism. However Mikey is on the periphery of the ‘Trotskyist’ Zionist group, Alliance for Workers Liberty in Britain which probably says something about that group.

In a recent debate on Socialist Unity about the meeting, MME sought to indulge his favourite pastime - defending the record of the leader of the Zionist movement in Hungary (actually a minority of the movement!) Rudolph Kasztner, who in return for his silence over Auschwitz was allowed to organise a train of the Prominents carrying 1,684 people out of Germany to Switzerland, via Belsen-Bergen. After the war Kasztner hurried along to Nuremburg in order to testify in support of the Nazis he'd worked with. Not as an individual, but as the representative in Hungary of the Jewish Agency, the Palestine wing of the World Zionist Organisation.

I post my reply below and beneath that the original post from MME:

Reply to a Collaborator with Atzmon and defender of Kasztner

I am accused of distorting the truth, well I shall leave it to others to judge!

1. MME accuses me of 'lying' i.e. deliberately telling an untruth, because .5 million rather than .45 million Hungarian Jews died. But historians of the Holocaust cannot be exact because numbers were never recorded, either of those murdered or of those who escaped. Hilberg believes 5.1 millions died, the figure quoted as if it were sacred by the Zionists is 6 million. The truth is noone can know exactly how many died. Indeed Mikey gives a good demonstration of why this only plays into the hands of the Holocaust deniers who are quite able to notice the different totals given by different historians and then use those discrepancies to ‘prove’ how the Holocaust never happened, because they can’t even get the numbers of those murdered right. In fact it is a totally irrelevant point, what matters is that anyone died in the gas chambers or on the steppes of Russia. But if MME wants to say that the Zionists betrayed half a million rather than 450,000 I'm inclined to accept his word.

2. Yes I claimed that about 200,000 Hungarian Jews survived. Some 50,000 from the Labour Brigades and also those who fled, despite Zionist advice, over the Romanian border and about 150,000 in Budapest itself (where the Nyilas fascists killed about 50,000). Mikey being his usual dishonest self, gives us a link to to 'prove' that 255,000 survived. Well again this is, and has to be a matter of conjecture. But having gone to the link, guess what? Clearly MME can’t read or he doesn't understand the very article he refers us to or he is just lying again! Sure it mentions that 255,000 survived but the article also says that 'About 190,000 of these were residents of Hungary in its 1920 borders.' That is ten thousand less than I said survived of Hungary’s Jewish inhabitants! It would help if Mikey could read what he quotes! And the difference? Until 1944 Hungary had been a sanctuary for Jews who managed to escape from all over Europe – Austria, Bohemia and Moravia and Slovakia in particular. It is widely accepted that the pre-war Jewish population of Hungary was about 700,000 so if .5 million died then 200,000 survived.

Of course this is all irrelevant because what matters is the fact that anyone was annihilated in the gas chambers. But when your whole political project depends on exploiting the holocaust to provide you with reparations, which you then deny to the intended recipients - the Jews who survived the Holocaust - then numbers are important. See:

Just 10 of 66,000 Holocaust survivors' heirs get assets back relating to the assets of holocaust victims held in Israel. Or try or how about Yediot Aharanot on-line, entitled 'Struggling Survivors - Holocaust survivors accuse State of stealing their welfare funds'. This is the real scandal that sycophants like MME try to defend.

3. Yes the trial of Kasztner reached the Israeli Supreme Court and 2 of the 5 judges found the arguments of Kasztner's opponents quite persuasive, but the other 3 Judges found for the State. The argument of Kastner's lawyer, Attorney General Chaim Cohen was to the effect that 'if you find Kastner guilty of collaboration then you find the founders of the State likewise guilty'. In fact on one charge the Supreme Court did find the accusation of collaboration proven - Kastner had gone to the Nuremburg trial to exonerate his old friend, Waffen SS Col. Becher, which he did. In fact it later turned out that not only had he given testimony in favour of Becher, but he had also given testimony in favour of Dieter Wisliceny, the butcher of Slovakian Jewry, who was hanged in Bratislava after the war and his deputy Krumey - another SS henchmen and Waffen SS General Hans Juttner. If Mikey doesn't think this is collaboration, regardless of what the placemen of the Israeli Supreme Court say, then it just goes to show that his loyalty to the institutions of the Zionist State are higher than his alleged concerns for the victims of the Holocaust.

In fact we all, i.e. all socialists, know that courts are not neutral and in times danger to the state will act accordingly. But nonetheless the Israeli Supreme Court upheld all the findings of the Jerusalem District Court, which in turn, under Judge Benjamin Halevi, had held that all but one of the accusations of collaboration against Kastner by Malchiel Greenwald were proved. As Judge Goiten stated:
'It is enough that he (Kastner's accuser - Greenwald) has managed to convince the lower court, who fulfilled the task of jury and judge alike... However the facts which were revealed substantiate the findings of the lower court and prevent us as a court of appeal from intervening. I should add also that the evidence that was brought and which is not argued against by anybody on the Kastner-Becher relations after the war and the collaboration of Kastner by rescuing Becher from the gallows do not coincide with viewing Kastner as a National Jewish Zionist personality; and coincide with the findings of the lower court - that the acts committed during the war were acts of collaboration with the Nazis.'
Judge Moshe Silberg was even more forthright:
'We can sum up with these 3 facts:
A. That the Nazis didn't want to have a great revolt - 'Second Warsaw'.... [which Eichmann later confirmed in an interview]
B. That the most efficient means to paralyse the resistance wheel or the escape of a victim is to conceal from him the plot of the coming murder....
C. That he, Kastner, in order to carry out the rescue plan for the few prominents, fulfilled knowingly and without good faith the said desire of the Nazis, thus expediting the work of exterminating the masses.'

In fact Judge Goiten, although he believed and stated that Kastner was a collaborator, nonetheless voted for his acquittal on technical grounds essentially that since the Defendant, Malchiel Greenwald had not proved the truth of all his allegations, that Kastner had dressed up in SS uniform to visit Auschwitz and had financially benefited from his collaboration, it would be artificial to split up the charges of libel. This was also the opinion of Justice Olshan, President of the Court.

More importantly than Israeli judges, who have distinguished themselves by their support for the actions of the Israeli military in the occupation of the last 40 years or who endorsed the position of their fellow Judge Landau in accepting the use of ‘moderate physical’ pressure, i.e. torture by the Israeli military, who have accepted every human rights abuse against the Palestinians, systematic discrimination against Israeli Palestinians etc. was the fact that numerous witnesses who testified in the trial were themselves Hungarian holocaust survivors. They had no doubt about Kastner’s guilt. People like Levi Blum, from Kastner’s own birthplace of Cluj (Kolosvar). So when it comes to a choice between a collaborator and the Jewish survivors of the Hungarian holocaust Mikey chooses the former.

4&5. Mikey denies he is good friends with Gilad Atzmon and a minor collaborator. But he is caught on his own petard, to wit, when asked to dig up information on a fellow anti-Zionist comrade, Roland Rance, what does Mikey say to Atzmon? Piss off? Get lost? Do your own dirty work? This is what he actually wrote:

‘I have been very busy digging up stuff on Tony Greenstein - Roland Rance will have to wait for another day.
Mikey 03.12.07 - 8:53 pm #
‘Mikey, I hope you do not mind me saying that, but your contribution for the pls solidarity movement is priceless. It is crucial that we all know about the racist record of this Greenpiss, a man who was banned time after time for being a racist and an anti Semite!…
However, Good luck with Greenie and thanks for all the info you gave us about this low being.’
Gilad Atzmon 03.04.07 - 10:46 am #

However much Mikey wriggles he’s caught on the hook of his own words.
And we learn from David Taube that ‘Last week, Mikey invited me for a drink with Gilad Atzmon. Mikey's thoughts on Gilad and his worldview follow, below….’ I’ll spare people the gory details.

6. Yehuda Bauer is not reliable on when the Auschwitz Protocols, definitively revealing the existence of Auschwitz, were handed to Kastner, representative of the Zionists and the Jewish Agency in Hungary. According to Zionist and Yad Vashem historian, Yisrael Guttman,

Kasztner was given a copy of the report on 29 April 1944… but at that time he had already made a decision, together with other Jewish leaders, choosing not to disseminate the report in order not to harm the negotiations with the Nazis.

Shoah Vezikaron, cited in Ruth Linn’s ‘Escaping Auschwitz – A Culture of Forgetting’ p.72.

Incidentally even Bauer, dedicated Zionist historian though he is, makes the same estimation in his ‘Jews for Sale?’ pp. 156-7. The reality is that, as even Guttman acknowledges, news of Auschwitz was suppressed in order that the Zionist and Jewish elite could escape whilst half a million were burnt and gassed. And Mikey considers this is not collaboration? Perhaps he would enlighten us as to what he does consider collaboration?

7. Rudolph Vrba, a member of the Auschwitz Underground, who together with Alfred Wetzler, was the 2nd Jewish escapee from Auschwitz, someone who received the highest medal for bravery when fighting in the Slovakian Uprising against the Nazis, is apparently ‘unreliable’ – unlike Mikey. That is why all mention of Vrba was suppressed in Israel from high school holocaust texts, why Vrba and Wetzler were referred to as the 2 Jewish Slovak escapees rather than by name, why the Hungarian translation of the Protocols was hidden away at Yad Vashem and not catalogued separately, why Vrba was deliberately not invited (along with the last surviving commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance, Marek Edelman) to testify at the Eichmann trial. And why were they unreliable? Because these Jewish heroes were not Zionists, were not collaborators, unlike Kasztner and in his own, trivial and pathetic way, Mikey.

The Hungarian Zionist Rescue & Relief Committee worked hand in hand with the Nazi appointed Judenrat. To most Hungarians it would have been indistinguishable. The Judenrat helped with the round up of Jews to the concentration areas, brickyards mainly, prior to deportation. The Rescue & Relief Committee likewise worked with them, ensuring that Jews were kept ignorant of their fate, and threatening the leaderships of those communities if they didn’t accept the central control of the Judenrat. It is a technical ‘mistake’ of no consequence. Vrba’s Report is credited with the saving of 200,000 Jews. Kasztner ‘saved’ 1,684 at the expense of half a million, yet Mikey considers his collaborator hero ‘reliable’.

8. The term ‘Prominents’ to describe the passengers of the Zionist train out of Hungary is that of Kasztner himself in his Report to his employers, the Jewish Agency. Some of the Zionists, being a petit-bourgeois movement were undoubtedly cooks, bakers, butchers and candlestick makers. We are talking about the political elite of Hungarian Jewry. That didn’t debar them from leadership since the big capitalists like the Manfred Weisses negotiated their own rescue via the aforesaid Kurt Becher. http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2008/06/zionist-collaboration-in-hungary-mike.html

9. Mikey claims that it is a blatant lie that ‘Kasztner does not mention the Auschwitz Protocols." Yes he paraphrases from the Report, but doesn’t mention the Report itself, viz. in its references to ‘Hungarian salami’ which was or should have been in the Auschwitz Protocols but which the Slovakian Zionist leaders omitted to insert. But let us see what the acknowledged historian of the Hungarian holocaust, Randolph Braham in the Politics of Genocide has to say:
‘Shortly after liberation, Kasztner brought out a detailed though self-serving report on the wartime activities of the Budapest Rescue Committee. In it, he provides both direct and indirect evidence that he and his colleagues on the Committee were fully aware of the draconic measures that had been adopted against the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. He is basically silent about their failure to inform Hungarian Jewry.’ (my emphasis) p. 706.

And Braham, who is himself a critical Zionist, asks a little further on:

‘Why were the Protocols not forwarded to these leaders of the world soon after they were completed on April 26? Why were the Hungarian Jewish masses not alerted about their content? What would have been the consequence had they been alerted before the deportations?… It is safe to assume that Krasznyansky’s recollection about Kasztner’s visit to Bratislava late in April 1944 and about his receiving a copy of the original German text there is correct…. Given the evidence that at the time of the German occupation of Hungary both Kasztner and the official leaders of Hungarian Jewry were aware of the Nazis’ extermination program, how can one explain their silence?’ pp. 718-9.

And this, of course, not Mikey’s pathological nitpicking, is the real question. Why were the Zionist leaders in Hungary, representatives of the Jewish Agency, silent? What did they hope to gain? The answer is all too obvious.

And let us also be clear. Whilst Kasztner was the big shot, the representative of the Jewish Agency, the Palestinian wing of the World Zionist Organisation, there were dissident Zionists, e.g. Moshe Krausz and Joel Brand, who desperately wanted to save their fellow Jews. Not because they were Zionists, if anything despite it. The reality is that Raoul Wallenberg and the other diplomats, including the Papal Nuncio, saved far more than the Zionists and they didn’t in the process help the Nazis in the destruction process.

10. Mikey tells us that ‘Whilst it is true that Kasztner gave testimonies or evidence in support of certain Nazi criminals, he also gave evidence against others.’ Well that makes it ok then!! He alleges that Kasztner made other statements leading to the conviction of other Nazi War Criminals. Not so. Mikey argues that ‘Kasztner stated in his report that Eichmann was determined that not a single Jew should survive.’ And so? Eichmann was not on trial at Nuremburg so this was a safe statement to make!! In fact it is not true because Eichmann was quite happy to help Kasztner ‘save’ a few Jews at the expense of the thousands. Kasztner was able to travel around Hungary, didn’t have to wear a yellow star and ended up sojourning in Berlin in a hotel. There is incidentally evidence that more than the 4 war criminals above, murderers of hundreds of thousands of Jews, were given supportive testimony by Kasztner e.g. Kettlitz, the purchasing agent for Becher. As Dr Robert Kempner, an American prosecutor at Nuremburg explained vs Kasztner:

‘Yes, I invited Kastner from Tel-Aviv to Nuremburg as a witness for the prosecution. Immediately after his arrival I regretted this invitation. Apart from the fact that he turned out to be a very expensive witness… a curious situation developed. We were, after all, the authorities of the prosecution. I consider it my duty to state explicitly that Kastner roamed the Nazi prison camp for Nazi Officers searching for those he could help by testimony or intervention on their behalf. In the end we were very glad when he left Nurenberg.’

Hansi and Joel Brand, Satan and the Soul, Tel Aviv 1960 p.107. cited by Akiva Orr ‘The Kastner Case, Jerusalem 1955’ pp. 97-8, Perdition – A Play in 2 Acts by Jim Allen.

11. MME infers that I distinguish between Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews who were exterminated. Nonsense of course, I merely point out that the Jews of Ukraine and Poland were in their overwhelming majority opponents of Zionism. That was certainly one reason why the Zionists leaders in the West felt little compunction in playing down, or on occasion denying that the Jews of Eastern Europe were being exterminated (see S Beit Zvi, Post Ugandan Zionist in the Crucible of the Holocaust). MME thinks there’s something wrong in saying I’d be happy if those who are responsibility for the murder organisation called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee were vaporised. Why? Their whole mission is supporting, aiding and abetting war crimes. I wouldn’t lose any sleep if the White House and its occupants were also wiped out or if the Christian Zionist movements were likewise obliterated. It has nothing to do with who is Jewish or non-Jewish. You see Mikey, I’m not a racist. It isn’t only Jewish blood that is important. There is nothing morally wrong in wiping out organisations dedicated to murder – the only objection is that there will be other cretins to take their place.

12. MME quotes Zionist propagandist S. Levenberg to the effect that "Zionists are anxious to find any place under the sun which will afford Jewish refugees the prospect of escape." Well of course they would say that! Mikey cites Ben Gurion’s public speech but such words are easy. But in his private letter, as President to the Zionist Executive, (17. 12. 38) he make his real attitude to Jewish refugees quite explicit:
‘If the Jews are faced with a choice between the refugee problem and rescuing Jews from concentration camps on the one hand, and aid for the national museum on the other, the Jewish sense of pity will prevail.... We are risking Zionism's very existence if we allow the refugee problem to be separated from the Palestine problem.’ Y Elam, 'Introduction to Zionist History' Tel Aviv 1972 ppl25/6 cited in Machover/Offenburg Khamsin 6 see also 'Ot, organ of the Youth cadre of the Israeli Labour Party, no 2 Winter 1967.
There are too many other quotations and incidents I could cite but the fact is that Ben Gurion, made one or 2 speeches during the war about the Holocaust and that was it. All Zionist activity had one aim – statehood. All else was secondary.

13. MME wonders whether I think that Zionists in the Holocaust ‘were against advocating resistance in the ghettos.’ and cites Mordechai Anielewicz, of Hashomer Hatzair and commander of ZOB, the Warsaw Ghetto Fighting Organisation. MME misunderstands. Zionism is a political movement which opposed fighting anti-Semitism. In Warsaw some of the worst collaborators and Gestapo agents were Zionists such as the Abraham Gancawajch, also of Hashomer Hatzair. But it isn’t a question of individuals but of politics. Many Zionists did resist, not because they were Zionists but despite that fact. But there is no recorded example, for example in Reuben Ainsztein’s ‘Jewish Resistance in Nazi Occupied Eastern Europe’ of outside help from the Zionist movement, the best organised political current in world Jewry, to the ghetto resistance. Anielewicz himself expressed his regret over the "wasted time" undergoing Zionist educational work. [Gutmann p.143] He went on to say that

"had the fate of the Jews in 1942 lain in the hands only of the political parties (Zionist - TG), the revolt would never have taken place." Y. Guttman, ‘The Jews of Warsaw - 1939-1943, Ghetto Underground Revolt’, Harvester Press, 1982 p. 441 fn. 23.

Likewise Emanuel Ringleblum, the historian of the Warsaw Ghetto, wrote of Anielewicz of Hashomer, the commander of the JFO:
The Mordechai who had matured so rapidly and risen so quickly to the most responsible post as commander of the Fighters Organisation now greatly regretted that his fellows and he had wasted three war years on cultural and educational work. We had not understood that new side of Hitler that is emerging, Mordechai lamented. We should have trained the youth in the use of live and cold ammunition. We should have raised them in the spirit of revenge against the greatest enemy of the Jews, of all mankind, and of all times. [Emmanuel Ringelblum, Comrade Mordechai in Yuri Suhl (ed.), They Fought Back, p.102], cited in Lenni Brenner, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, Ch. 21.]

14. Mikey complains that I spoke on a Jewish perspective on anti-Zionist on a Friday night! The tradition of Jewish socialism and Marxism was always to reject the babble and mysticism of the rabbis. However I note that the silent Mikey was not prevented from attending!

15. Mikey claims that ‘Far from the BNP being Zionist… a senior BNP spokesman said that paper was the mouthpiece of a "clique of Zionist parasites and crooks." Err yes. That’s exactly my point. The BNP manage to combine both anti-Semitism and Zionism. But come to think of it, so does Mad Mikey Ezra.

Tony Greenstein

>>It becomes tiresome correcting Greenstein’s errors that he regularly makes on numerous matters concerning Zionism and especially about the Holocaust. It is quite clear that he is trying to make a political point and by doing so has no objecting to distorting the truth in a heinous way.
1. Joe90 initially claimed that 200,000 Hungarian Jews were killed in WWII. The person aptly named as "Correction" corrects this outrageous statement to a figure of 500,000. Now Greenstein lies and tells us "As a matter of fact about 450,000 Jews were exterminated in Hungary." He should have listened to "Correction" who was basically accurate. In fact, as the Holocaust Encyclopedia tells us, "Under German occupation, just over 500,000 [Hungarian Jews] died from maltreatment or were murdered."
2. Tony Greenstein claims that "about 200,000" Hungarian Jews survived the Holocaust. The actual figure was closer to 255,000.
3. Tony Greenstein claims that "there’s no doubt" that Kasztner was "a collaborator of the worst sort." This is a deliberate lie. Greenstein is well aware that the accusation that Kasztner was a collaborator reached the Supreme Court in Israel who ruled, "one cannot find moral defects in [Kastzner’s] behaviour, one cannot find any causation between it and the expediting of the deportation and the extermination and one cannot see it amounting to the degree of collaboration with the Nazis." (Ben Hecht, Perfidy Jerusalem: Milah press, 1999 p. 275)
4. Tony Greenstein claims that I imitate Kasztner in my own way. This is nonsense, he has simply made it up.
5. Tony Greenstein claims that I am a friend of Gilad Atzmon. This is again a pathetic lie. Far from being a friend, I have attacked and ridiculed Atzmon on numerous occasions on the internet and it is there for anyone to verify.
6. Tony Greenstein claims that Kastzner was given the Auschwitz Protocols on April 29. This is not known for certain. For more information of the uncertainties surrounding this, see Yehuda Bauer, "The ‘Protocol of Auschwitz,’" Yalkut Moroshet, No. 3, Winter 2005.
7. To suggest what Kastzner did with the Auschwitz Protocols, Greenstein relies upon Vrba, but Vrba was not in Hungary and as such would not have known. In any event, Vrba is notoriously unreliable. For example, even in the very short passage by Vrba that Greenstein quotes, Vrba makes a big error by suggesting that Kasztner was a member of the Hungarian Judenrat. Not only is this wrong, Greenstein knows it is wrong as he admits that Kasztner was not on the Judenrat later in his own post! One may well wonder why Greenstein relies upon the work of someone he knows to be unreliable?
8. Vrba also makes the error that Greenstein repeats that the train full of Jews that Kasztner managed to save from the Nazis were all "prominent." This is nonsense, as an analysis of the passengers shows. An analysis of the occupations of passengers carried out Ann Pasternak Slater from the passenger list shows for example there to have been 40 workmen or labourers, 27 teachers, 25 tailors, 18 nurses, 12 gardeners, 3 shoe makers, 2 bakers, 2 cooks and the list goes on with 10 secretaries, 7 locksmiths, 7 mechanics, 7 hairdressers etc etc. (Ann Pasternak Slater, "Kasztner’s Ark" Areté 15 Autumn 2004, pp. 5-40
9. Greenstein claims that he has read kastzner’s report and goes on to say using capitals for greater emphasis: "NOT ONCE IN THE REPORT DOES HE [Kastzner] MENTION THE AUSCHWITZ PROTOCOLS." This is a blatant lie. I direct Greenstein to section II:18 of the report where Kasztner clearly states:
"According to these reports, the SS was ready to repair and renovate the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz… one of the guards was overheard saying, ‘Soon we’ll eat good Hungarian salami,’ referring to the provisions the Jews took with them.."
10. Whilst it is true that Kasztner gave testimonies or evidence in support of certain Nazi criminals, he also gave evidence against others. Kasztner made other statements leading to the conviction of other Nazi War Criminals. For example Kasztner stated in his report that Eichmann was determined that not a single Jew should survive. For more information on these testimonies see Shoshana Barri (Ishoni), "The Question of Kasztner’s Testimonies on behalf of Nazi War Criminals," The Journal of Israeli History, Vol 18, nos. 2 and 3 1997 pp. 139-165.
11. Greenstein makes the following disgusting statement: "Hitler wiped out the reserves of anti-Zionist Jewry in Poland and the Ukraine." What Greenstein does not mention is that Hitler also wiped out Zionist Jews in Poland and Ukraine. It was not as if they got to the gates of Auschwitz and the Nazis said All Zionists to the left for safety and all anti-Zionists to the right for gas chambers. Maybe Greenstein simply does not care that Hitler killed Zionist Jews, after all Greenstein has admitted elsewhere he would not lose any sleep if thousands of Jews who work for AIPAC were vaporised.
12. Greenstein says that it is "well documented" that "Zionists were more concerned about statehood than saving the remnant." The official view of the Zionist Jewish Agency in so far as Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany was defined the following month, in the January 19, 1939 edition of London’s Zionist Review, "Zionists are anxious to find any place under the sun which will afford Jewish refugees the prospect of escape." (Quoted by S. Levenberg, Guardian "Letters," January 29, 1987) To complete refute Greenstein’s argument, This is what Ben-Gurion stated very clearly in September 1943:
"We must do whatever is humanly possible, whatever a human being of flesh and blood is capable of doing, in order to render material assistance to those on the forefront of rescue, in order to save those who can still be saved, to delay the disaster to the extent that it can be delayed. We must do it now, to the best of our will and ability." ( quoted by Tuvia Frieling, "Ben-Gurion and the Holocaust of European Jewry 1939-1945: A Stereotype Reexamined," Yad Vashem Studies XVIII 1987 pp. 199-232)
13. I have no idea if Greenstein thinks that I, or the Zionists in the Holocaust were against advocating resistance in the ghettos. Unlike Greenstein, I remember the activities of Mordecai Anielewicz, an activist within the Zionist youth movement, Hashomer Hatzair and other Zionist youth including those active within the socialist Zionist Dror and religious Zionist Akiva youth movements who were part of the ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organisation) in the Warsaw Ghetto. Given Greenstein has admitted elsewhere that he used to be a member of Bnei Akiva he should know this.
14. The use of the David Irving and Nick Griffin analogy was to show that that they do not represent mainstream British Jews. In a similar way Greenstein does not represent mainstream Jewish views. The views he holds would be agreed with by a tiny tiny minority of Jews in the country. The talk at SOAS is billed as, "Anti-Zionism. A Jewish Perspective." Not a single spokesperson from mainstream Jewish body is billed. I am in favour of freedom of speech and I am not against Greenstein exercising his right to it. The title of the talk is misleading. Tony Greenstein is a self declared Marxist and I am sure readers of this blog do not need me to remind them that Marx viewed religion to be an opiate of the masses. Marxists reject religion. The title of the speech might be better as "Anti-Zionism: An anti-Zionist perspective." I can make a further observation and that is that this speech by Greenstein is being held on a Friday night and as such, no religious Jew would be able to attend. Does it show even the slightest sensitivity the concerns of the Jewish community in Britain when a talk is held offering a Jewish perspective on a Friday night by someone who has rejected the religion he claims to speaking from the perspective of! It is a farrago of nonsense.
Finally, on this point, given Greenstein makes so many errors about Zionism and Jewish history as can be seen in this response to his nonsense, if anyone takes him seriously and considers him some form of authority, they are seriously deluded.
15. Far from the BNP being Zionist as Greenstein alleges, as the Jewish Chronicle reported a few months ago, a senior BNP spokesman said that paper was the mouthpiece of a "clique of Zionist parasites and crooks." In fact, the view of the organised Jewish community was elaborated by Mark Gardner of the Community Security Trust in a letter to the Guardian on April 14, 2008 where he said that the message from the Jewish community was "whoever you vote for, use your vote to stop the BNP."
Comment by Mikey — 1 September, 2008 @ 1:49 pm
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2767

Green Party conference fringe: Anti-Zionism, a Jewish perspective

Green Left and SOAS Palestinian Society

Anti-Zionism. A Jewish Perspective.

Friday 5th September @ 7pm (Khalili Lecture Theatre SOAS)

With

Simon Lynn (Editor of Jewish Socialist Magazine)

Tony Greenstein (Palestine Solidarity Campaign)

Chair: Dr Joseph Healy (Co-Convenor Green Left)

Green Party conference runs from next friday to monday. We agreed a couple of months ago that there would be a GL fringe with the Jewish Socialist Group, I am also very pleased to say we have Tony Greenstein. Tony is a member of the Alliance for Green Socialism and it is fair to say the AGS and GL do not always see eye to eye. I think it is important to do common work on the left where as with 90% of things there is clear agreement. Green Left have been strong supporters of an academic boycott of Isreal and have been strong critics of racists and anti-semites.

Witch-hunt of Jenna Delich - Pro-Boycott Academic – Zionist Hypocrisy over anti-Semitism

The facts behind the latest witch-hunt, of Jenna Delich, a Business Studies tutor at The Sheffield College are quite clear.

Ms Delich, quite inadvertently, posted a short message on the activist list of the University & College Union [UCU] which referred to an article written in 2006 by Joe Quinn The article ‘Racism, not Defence, at the heart of Israeli politics was, as are many things that people on the Left write, purloined by ex-Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist, David Duke. It is an unfortunate fact that the far-right, having few ideas of their own, often steal articles of their opponents to bolster their own academic credentials.

Ms Delich is a refugee from Jugoslavia. Her explanation is quite simple, she hadn’t heard of David Duke, and quoted from the article without looking at the site. This is quite easy to do and many of us have gone to far right sites without at first realising their credentials. Indeed a number of such sites go out of their to hide their political allegiances. As Ms Delich explained:

"I didn’t realise who David Duke was nor did I hear of him. I just looked at the article not the website where it appeared. Apologies for picking up that website as I personallly am strongly against any racists, anti-semitists and the likes of them. I just found the article quite powerful, and none are saying that Joe Quinn (the author of the article) is a racist or anti-semitist, and the article is quite interesting. So, perhaps we should focus on the article itself and not where it appeared (if we look at it in a broader sense, the website itself appeard on Google and so did the article)? Anyone can put anything on their website… Sincere apologies once again though for picking the wrong website, but it’s the article that I found interesting as it gives some amazing facts and it was not written by David Duke (who, I most certainly agree, has no place in UCU but is the author of the website and not the article)."

As Ms Delich wrote in an e-mail to me:

‘I had no idea who David Duke was (being an Eastern European I didn't study US history or culture, mention their far-right let alone the likes of David Duke).
Joe Quinn, in his new article also published my apology (in a blue box, bottom of the article) which is clearly my statement on acknowledging the error, explaining and apologising. It was my first apology but I also made several individual ones that were addressed to the Zionist members of the Forum who tried to attack me on the list (not for the first time though) but with the copies received by all the participating members of the Forum.’

But of course the Zionists went to town on this. Engage, an organisation dedicated to villifying supporters of the academic boycott as anti-semites could barely restrain itself.

The pro-war, racist blog Harry’s Place printed a number of disgusting attacks on Jenna Delich. One David T[aube] who used to be an anti-Zionist (!) wrote that ‘It is therefore reasonable to infer that Jenna Delich reads and takes her information on world events from neo Nazis.’ In other words that Ms Delich is herself a neo-Nazi. Not surprisingly Ms Delich threatened HP’s ISP with a libel writ until it took action. This resulted in HP being taken down, Amidst the furore, even socialist sites like Socialist Unity managed to miss the plot entirely, by seeing it as an issue of ‘free speech’ rather than the witch-hunt of an anti-racist lecturer.

But, as everyone knows, the Zionists who are attacking Delich have no interest whatsoever in opposing anti-Semitism. On the contrary, without anti-Semitism there would be no Zionism, which is why the founder of Political Zionism, Theodore Herzl, could write that

‘the anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies. We want to emigrate as respected people.’ Diaries of Theodore Herzl, pp. 83/4.

This has always been the way. In World War 2, despite their ‘concern’ about anti-Semitism today, the role of the Zionist movement was to prioritise building their State over and above saving Jews which was at best, of secondary importance.
Rudolph Vrba and Alfred Wexler were the first Jewish escapees from Auschwitz. In a letter in the Observer on 22.9.63., in a reply to Zionist professor, Jacob Talmon who had attacked Hanna Arendt for mentioning Zionist collaboration during the Nazi period, he stated:

‘In April 1944 we handed to a high representrative of the Zionist movement, Dr Oskar Neumann, a 60 page detailed report on the fact that extermination of 1,760,000 Jews had taken place in Auschwitz…. Did the Judenrat (or the Judenverrat) in Hungary tell their Jews what was awaiting them>? No, they remained silent and for this silence some of their leaders – for example Dr. R. Kasztner – bartered their own lives and the lives of 1684 other ‘prominent’ Jews directly from Eichmann…’.

The same Kasztner gave evidence in SUPPORT of at least 4 Nazi war criminals at Nuremburg – Waffen SS Col Becher, Kurt Wisliceny, responsible for the deportation of Slovakian Jewry who was hanged in Czechoslovakia after the war, Krumey, Eichmann's henchman and SS Lt. General Hans Juttner.

Lest anyone think this is an aberration, lost in history, then let us note what Rabbi Yehudah Amital, Rosh Yeshiva of Har Etzion described in the Jewish Chronicle of 15. 4. 1983:

‘…some elements, especially the Religious Zionists, expressed satisfaction at the clear and open display of anti-Semitism which took shape during and after ‘Operation Peace for Galilee’ [the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 – TG]...It is felt that the more overt anti-Semitism becomes, the more beneficial it will prove for the Jews, because through anti-Semitism, the Jews of the Diaspora will come to the realisation that they must move to Eretz Yisrael. The Red Lights are Flashing’,

And on April 10th 2008 the Guardian carried a news story which, for some of us at least, was no revelation. ‘BNP seeks to bury antisemitism and gain Jewish votes in Islamophobic campaign’.· We were told by one Ruth Smeed of the Board of Deputies of British Jews that ‘The BNP website is now one of the most Zionist on the web - it goes further than any of the mainstream parties in its support of Israel’.

But there is an even more interesting example, not least because it involves Engage, the organisation which has spearheaded attacks on supporters of the Boycott of Israel as ‘anti-Semitic’: One of its guest posters, one Michael Ezra, is good friends with Gilad Atzmon. On Harry’s Place, before being taken down, we had this delightful post from solicitor David Taube, who is happy to front the attack on Jenna Delich:

‘Gilad Atzmon and Jewishness
Last week, Mikey invited me for a drink with Gilad Atzmon.
Mikey's thoughts on Gilad and his worldview follow, below.
Gilad was, I have to say, utterly charming and a delightful drinking companion. He arrived with a copy of his album "Exile" and his new work, Artie Fishel and the Promised Band. On the way home in the taxi, we played the first of the two albums. My taxi driver thought it excellent, and so did I.’ March 19 2007.

Such good friends have Mikey and Atzmon become, (Atzmon is an ex-Israeli and a Zionist who is also a holocaust denier and a believer in the bona fides of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion) that he has become Atzmon’s errand boy undertaking ‘research’ into anti-Zionist Jews like Roland Rance & myself. ’

Repeatedly I have asked David Hirsh, who runs the Engage site, to stop using Mikey as a guest poster given his record of consorting with anti-Semites. To date there has been no response, so again – David Hirsh – are you going to stop working with Mikey rather than going with him to meetings like the Independent Jewish Voices one on the Boycott earlier this year?

But maybe this is why even Hirsh has now admitted that ‘Not knowing who Duke was is a fair enough excuse.’

The attack on Jenna Delich is nothing but pure hypocrisy. It is motivated by nothing other than the success that the Boycott and Disinvestment campaign is having. Jenna made a mistake, for which she is being pilloried. However it was quite an easy mistake to make. David Duke is hardly a household name and it is quite easy to be wise in hindsight.

What we do know is that if Jenna Delich were not a supporter of the Palestinians and Boycott then she could have become David Irving’s wife and she would have received no attention from the hypocrites of Harry’s Place.
Tony Greenstein

Gaza Boats Triumph as Israeli Military Undecided What to Do

The sea blockade was broken yesterday when 2 ships with Palestine solidarity activists and goods aboard docked in Gaza. The reactions of the Israeli state were that however much they huffed and they puffed they didn't want another public relations disaster. Maybe Georgia was too recently on their mind!! Or maybe they didn't want to remind people that despite their so-called 'evacuation' they control all exits to Gaza.

Enjoy these excellent photographs.

Tony Greenstein

A Racist Professor Speaks Out - Meet Carl Salzman

Meeting the natives like any good Orientalist

A little light entertainment. A worthy sounding organisation, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, led by a certain Dr Ed Beck, recently launched a petition in support of a Salah Shoaib Choudhury, a Bangladeshi who supports the Israeli state and who has been arrested and charged with capital crimes by the Bangladeshi state. Despite this, my good friend Sue Blackwell signed the petition, because like many of us she is opposed to capital punishment, including in the case of Zionists.

However Sue added a few comments to her petition supporting the Palestinians and drawing attention to the plight of the inhabitants of Gaza, something you might think would aid the efforts to free Choudhury, since it would show that not just Zionists and racists support him.

However Beck and the even more lamentable Salzman are only interested in supporting Choudhury like, to quote Lenin, a rope supports a hanging man. Their interest is in his support of Zionism not in his plight, because of course if they were they would turn their attention to Israel's 11,000 Palestinian prisoners, most of whom are in administrative detention.

Sue's name was therefore removed from the petition and when I wrote in response to this I received the following, barely literate response, from a Carl Salzman, whom a quick google reveals is indeed a Zionist activist. Enjoy!

On Tue, 8/19/08, pcsalzman@aol.com <pcsalzman@aol.com> wrote:
Subject: another racist organisation run by racists
To: tonygreenstein@yahoo.comTuesday, August 19, 2008
Obviously facts are of no interest to you, but your reference to the Israeli abandonment of Gaza as "expanding borders" suggests an unusual level of delerium. Similarly, that no Jews may live in Arab countries seems in your mind to weigh nothing against the legal rights of Arabs in Israel. Just too bad that Hitler didn't finish the job, eh?
Philip Carl Salzman
Professor of Anthropology
McGill University
Montreal

From: tony greenstein
To: pcsalzman@aol.com
Tue, 19 Aug 2008
Subject: A racist professor speaks out
One of the things that has often puzzled me is how distinguished professors have aided the most barbarous regimes with their academic sophistry. People like Professor August Hirt, head of the Anatomical Institute at Strasbourg University who was integrally involved in Himmler's medical experiments or Werner Heisenberg or Heidegger. So you can rest assured that you follow in a long, if not particularly distinguished tradition dear professor.
If you believe that Israel 'abandoned' Gaza then it merely proof that there is no bigger fool or charlatan than an academic. Israel specifically retained control, as we have seen, over Gaza's airspace, borders, shoreline etc. Removing guards from inside to outside a prison doesn't constitute freedom in most peoples' understanding of the term.
Likewise the statement that 'no Jews may live in Arab countries.' Let us leave aside the fact that before Zionism lots of Jews lived in Arab countries, one-third of Baghdad up till 1950 was Jewish. Or the fact that Arab countries were places of refuge for people like Maimonedes and refugees from the Inquisition. Indeed having met Jews in both Syria and Lebanon and having an Jewish Moroccan sister-in-law I can only assume that the discipline of Anthropology has, at least at McGill University, dispensed with the requirement for simple verifiable and objective facts.
If you are referring to the United State's protectorate of Saudi Arabia, created by Aramco and fed by Bush, then I wonder if there are any living examples of Jews who wanted to live there and who've been denied that chance?
As to your final flourish regretting the fact that Hitler 'didn't finish the job'. Well apart from the usual hackneyed sub-text, i.e. to oppose Zionism is anti-Semitic, wasn't it the Zionist movement in Hungary which agreed to keep quiet about Auschwitz and allow the deportees to go to what they thought was 'resettlement' in exchange for the train of the Prominents? After all Zionism and anti-Semitism have always agreed about Jews not belonging in the countries of their birth.
It would seem that what you lack in argumentation you make up for in large type.
Tony Greenstein

--- On Wed, 8/20/08, pcsalzman@aol.com wrote:
From: pcsalzman@aol.com
Subject: Re: A racist professor speaks out: so you do.
To: tonygreenstein@yahoo.com
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
You clearly know nothing about Middle Eastern history, the suffering of the dhimma, and the atrocities that were normal against non-Muslims. Nor have you seemed to notice that all Arab states outside of Arabia were conquest states imposed on Christian and Jewish populations, and that Arabia ethnic cleansed itself. Instead, you exaggerate the flaws of the only successful, multi-religious, multi-racial, democratic country in the region, and neglect to mention all of the other counties of the region, without exception falled, despotic, and brutal, a fact well recognised by the Arabs themselves. The best test is where folks want to be: you don't see Israeli Arabs rushing to live in other Arab countries, but plenty beg Israeli status (as the daughter of the current P.A. negotiator), just as all the claims of East Germany were negated by the flow of human traffic away (when they survived). But then I imagine that you were a great fan of East Germany and its ilk.
As well, you clearly have no idea what "race" means or "racism," other than a bad word that you yell at the good guys.
Philip Carl Salzman
Professor of Anthropology
McGill University
Montreal

Thursday August 21st 2008
There is a saying in English. When you're in a hole stop digging.
I notice that you're still writing in large type and so I can only conclude that either you're the academic equivalent of the green ink brigade or, it occured to me, you suffer from the same problem as Hitler. He had to use a magnifying glass to read documents and many of his briefings were therefore specially typed in large print. So which is it - Hitlerian eyesight or green ink?
I am very well aware of Middle East history, which is why your specious nonsense remains exactly that. Nonsense.
I'm well aware of the Dhimmi, the People of the Book, both Christians and Jews. Certainly they suffered from civil disabilities but remember we are talking about a feudal, pre-capitalist society. Notions of equality made about as much sense as nationalism. The whole basis of feudal society was the existence of castes and the separation of social classes (in so far as they existed). But the atrocities you talk about were the exception, not the rule. I'm not aware of an Arab holocaust or Chmielniki or York.
Anyone who did know anything about Arab Jewry would know that some of the most prosperous Jewish communities lived there in harmony with their neighbours. After all there were no separate Arab states until recently. They were part of the Ottoman Empire. There was nothing to prevent Jews in Arab countries, had they so desired, leaving to go to Palestine. Yet until the formation of the modern settler colonial movement known as Zionism this simply didn't happen. Yet if conditions were as you say they were one would have expected thousands of Oriental Jews to either go to Palestine or Europe. Yet the reverse occurred. It was Jewish refugees from Europe who came to Arab lands and so, no matter how many lies and tales that you tell, it is the actions of Jews at the time that speak loudest.
The best example of this was in Vichy Morroco, where there was a large Jewish community of around 200,000. Despite intense Nazi pressure Morroccan Arabs refused to allow the round-up of Jews. No Jews were deported to my knowledge to the concentration camps and the Sultan declared that 'The Jews remain under my protection and I refuse to allow any distinction to be made among my subjects.' The only comparable instance of this in Europe was in Denmark where there were a few thousand Jews.
It is one of the 'triumphs' of Zionism that it made the position of Arab Jews untenable and the case of Iraq, when the Jews proved stubborn, the Zionist emissaries planted bombs outside cafes Jews frequented and the Masuda Shemtov synagogue in order to 'encourage' emigration.
So what you are doing is attempting to rewrite the history of Arab-Jewish relations in much the same way as the ideologues of the Third Reich did in relation to Teutonic mythology. It really doesn't surprise me dear Prof. that your discipline is Anthropology because this false science of human origins was the main vehicle for the spread of scientific racism in Britain through the Royal Anthoropological Society and the Anthropological Society of London. People like James Hunt and Robert Knox who, just like you, used science and false history in order to 'prove' that the reason for colonial occupations was the biological and cultural inferiority of Black people.
And like all good racists you resort to one of the oldest justifications. Israeli Palestinians want to stay in Israel rather than going to another Arab country. But they were born there, why should they move? Should Germans leave and come to the UK because we are all European? This is a nonsense. It is also the old justification for Apartheid - Blacks want to come to South Africa rather than go to one of the many Black African states. Which was true of course, because it was a question of work and standards of living. Some Jews left Palestine before 1939 and returned to Germany but what is one to conclude from that? that Hitler's Germany wasn't so bad after all?
You say that I 'exaggerate the flaws of the only successful, multi-religious, multi-racial, democratic country in the region'. But I have said nothing about Lebanon, despite obvious problems with its confessional structure (inherited from France).
And no. Because I am no lover of Zionism doesn't mean that I was a lover of stalinism or East Germany either. But at least then there was someone to stand up to the United States.
Tony Greenstein

Norman Finkelstein - How the Zionist Lobby Denies Academic Freedom

Below is an excellent article by David Klein on the efforts of one academic to gain Norman Finkelstein an academic position at his own university, California State University. And we also see, in the bastion of 'freedom' how the Zionist lobby and their friends set about preventing Finkelstein obtaining a post. We also learn about the cowardice of administrators of US authorities and how they talk on the one hand about academic freedom, but deny it to anyone who steps outside the artificial boundaries of Democrat v Republican.

Although most of the actors involved are Jewish, what is clear is that those who make the decisions are not. Israel is seen as an extension of the USA in the Middle East and hence any criticism of Israel or the Zionist movement is therefore anti-American, and according to the new definition 'anti-Semitic'. Indeed it is a strange redefinition of 'anti-Semitism' which includes some of the most vicious anti-Semites of the Christian Zionist lobby such as Southern Baptist President, John Hagee for whom Hitler was carrying out god's will. according to the new definition whereby opposition to Israel and Zionism, even by someone who is the child of concentration camp survivors, is automatically 'anti-Semitic'.

Why is Norman Finkelstein Not Allowed to Teach David Klein

Background

When I learned in June 2007 that respected author and political science professor Norman Finkelstein had just been denied tenure at DePaul University, I sent a letter of protest, in concert with hundreds of other academics around the world, to the president of DePaul. I had never met or spoken with Finkelstein, but I knew that he was a leading scholar of the Israel-Palestine conflict. With a Ph.D. from Princeton, he was the author of five books (with a sixth now in progress) published in 46 foreign editions. At DePaul he was a popular instructor, with a loyal student following and teaching evaluations among the highest in the university. He was, and continues to be, a regularly invited speaker to leading universities worldwide.

Recognizing his accomplishments in scholarship and teaching, Finkelstein's colleagues in the Political Science Department had voted overwhelmingly in the Spring of 2007 to award him tenure and promotion. This was followed by a unanimous vote in his favor by the college personnel committee. The subsequent reversal by the DePaul administration was made in the face of enormous outside pressure from the Israel lobby, most especially from Alan Dershowitz of the Harvard Law School (Grossman 2, Menetrez, Holtschneider).

Finkelstein was not denied tenure because of any shortcomings in scholarship or teaching. Noam Chomsky had earlier described Finkelstein's book Beyond Chutzpuh as "a very careful scholarly book" and "the best compendium that now exists of human rights violations in Israel" (Goodman, "Chomsky Accuses"). The late Raul Hilberg, widely recognized as the founder of Holocaust studies, said of Finkelstein, "his place in the whole history of writing history is assured," and praised his "acuity of vision and analytical power." (Goodman, "It Takes").

There can be little doubt that Finkelstein was fired because of his criticisms of Israel's human rights violations against the Palestinian people, and for his fact-based criticisms of the Israel lobby. Raul Hilberg warned at the time, "I have a sinking feeling about the damage this will do to academic freedom" (Grossman). Even the DePaul administration tacitly conceded that his firing was politically motivated when it acknowledged Finkelstein as a "prolific scholar and outstanding teacher'' in a later legal settlement (Finkelstein, "Joint Statement").

An unstated axiom for U.S. universities is that criticism of Israel by untenured faculty members is not allowed. Academic freedom protects critics of the national policies of the U.S., France, England, and every other country in the world, save one: Israel. Norman Finkelstein violated this axiom. Had he not been Jewish he would have been vilified successfully as anti-Semitic, and that slur alone would have isolated him from supporters. As it is, his detractors also smear him as a "Holocaust denier," knowing full well that Finkelstein is the son of two Holocaust survivors, and that the remainder of his family died in the Nazi death camps. His first book includes a dedication "to my beloved parents," ending with, "May I never forget what was done to them" (Finkelstein, The Rise i, "Biography").

Building Support

Following an exchange of emails, I asked Finkelstein on July 1, 2007 if he had any job prospects. His reply was, "No job prospects. None." So, that same day, I sent an email letter to the president and the provost of my university, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), where I am a math professor. I wrote, not as a mathematician, but as a faculty member of the university in order to make the case for a unique opportunity. I urged them to consider hiring Finkelstein for a university wide faculty position, explaining that his presence would catapult CSUN to the front ranks of universities worldwide, in his areas of research. Such university wide faculty appointments at CSUN had previously been offered, and resulted in extended visits by outside scholars.

The provost, Harry Hellenbrand, wrote back indicating that he was interested and was willing to look into it. Through the summer months of 2007, we held informal meetings and colleagues from several departments sent letters to the provost urging him to bring Finkelstein to CSUN.

Hellenbrand agreed to invite Finkelstein for a series of lectures across a five-day visit. Such a visit, we reasoned, might kindle greater interest among faculty and lead to an appointment. The natural location for Finkelstein was the Political Science Department, and Mehran Kamrava, a Middle East expert, a professor, and a former chair of that department, had already written to the provost and to his own department in support of bringing Finkelstein. Faculty members in other departments related to Finkelstein's areas of expertise also expressed support.

The Visit

Finkelstein visited CSUN the week of February 11, 2008. In the weeks preceding his arrival, the provost and president were lobbied heavily by Jewish groups, Rabbis, and various individuals to disinvite Finkelstein. He was denounced in the most degrading terms. Shelly Rubin of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) posted a memo to a JDL Blog entitled, "Stinky Finky Coming to LA". In it Finkelstein's email address was provided, and he was described as "a sick, disgusting example of self-hatred" (Rubin). Readers were urged to contact CSUN's president, Jolene Koester, to register their indignation. The Pro-Israel advocacy group, Stand With Us, similarly lobbied the administration against allowing Finkelstein to come, as did the Jewish campus organization, Hillel, and faculty members and students in the Jewish Studies Program at CSUN. A few letters called for the removal of the provost, and some of the letter writers threatened never to make financial donations to CSUN again. Hellenbrand received a small number of death threats from out of state, which he ignored. The chancellor of the 23 campus California State University system also received some letters which he forwarded to the campus.

The provost estimated that he received some 200 letters from members of Los Angeles Jewish organizations demanding that Finkelstein's invitation to give talks on campus be withdrawn. Finkelstein was accused of denying the Holocaust and working for the destruction of Israel. Many of these letters argued that a presentation by Finkelstein was like shouting "fire" in a movie theater, thereby endangering the youth in attendance.

CSUN's campus newspaper, the Daily Sundial, featured an article about Finkelstein in its Tuesday edition, the day of his first talk (Aguilar). The article quoted Beth Cohen, Interim director of the Jewish Studies program at CSUN, with, "Finkelstein's work on the Holocaust is not regarded highly by other scholars in the field," which of course is directly contradicted by the world's leading experts in the field. Similarly, Jody Myers, Professor of Religious Studies and Coordinator of the Jewish Studies Program at CSUN, chided, "We believe our administration should be following its own stated mission and only invite speakers who meet our high level of scholarship and who exercise academic responsibility," adding, "he isn't a responsible scholar."

The provost responded to anti-Finkelstein lobbyists by offering to invite speakers of their choosing. Hoping to diffuse the situation, he did indeed invite many. However, these offers did little to mollify the naysayers because they were not complaining about a lack of opportunity to present their pro-Israel views. They already had many avenues available for that purpose. Rather, their goal was to prevent students and faculty from hearing Finkelstein, since he might be persuasive. And indeed he was. Several faculty members, including colleagues from the natural sciences, told me that they were positively impressed by Finkelstein's soft-spoken, "scientific style," his meticulous attention to facts, and his encouragement to express disagreement during question and answer sessions.

The provost's introduction to Finkelstein's first of three talks, "Civility and Academic Freedom," excerpted here, directly confronted the arguments for censorship:

"America’s leading anti-Semite, grand wizard of the KKK, leader of Hitler Youth, David Duke. In the minds of many, Norman Finkelstein has become Hitchcock’s Norman Bates. Hysteria and outright manipulation distort his record and thereby divert discussion from his ideas to the bogey that people imagine. People have written me that inviting a speaker like Norman Finkelstein is like throwing a bomb in a darkened theater; it is like exposing the vulnerable young to inexorable evil. I do not think so. A university should be a well lit place where intelligent people interrogate each other sharply but civilly. Such conduct is its own protection, our only protection, really, against evil. Have we reached the point where we fear ideas? ... As for yelling 'fire' suddenly, surely, we all knew in advance that the speaker was coming. As for trapping people in a theater, who has been forced to stay? As for the dark, well, dialogue is enlightenment. So, I turn the question back to you, sitting here. Are you the flash in the night?... If our inability to manage lectures and discussions about controversial issues forces us to leave them to the battling hacks on talk radio and the networks, then the university indeed will become a dark theater, occupied by know-nothings who receive their conclusions, pre-thought and pre-packaged, from elsewhere. We will then concentrate on the ice-capades of the intellect, the unthreatening but elegant analysis of what we already agree to as objective, and the airing of voices that sound like us and say what we would say. We will be the poorer for that, though I am sure much more self-righteously content. Here is a chance to show that we are better than that." (Hellenbrand, Notes)

Members of the JDL attended this talk, contributing much counterpoint to both the speaker and the title of his talk. Three of them sat together in the front row, just a few feet from the speaker. They interrupted the provost's introduction, one of them shouting, "Good one, Harry. The Nazi loves you." They hissed and jeered throughout. They aimed cameras at the audience, panning from left to right focusing their camera lenses on individuals throughout the meeting, so as to document those in attendance as a form of intimidation. They issued a steady stream of vitriol at Finkelstein, including: "You're a sick puppy," "Don't call yourself a Jew," and "Holocaust denier!" Finkelstein responded only to the last of these. During the question and answer period, he shot back, "You have to understand, it's a deeply offensive statement to say that I deny the suffering that my parents endured." The JDL did not spare audience members either. One young woman in attendance, a CSUN student wearing a Palestinian scarf, was ordered, "Go hang yourself with your scarf!"

The provost adeptly diffused the situation by speaking to JDL members individually in the hallway outside the presentation room. In one exchange, a JDL member repeatedly accused Finkelstein of being a "Holocaust denier," and Hellenbrand calmly responded each time, "No, he isn't" until the detractor finally asked, "He's not?"

The talk itself had nothing to do with the Middle East (until the question and answer period), and was well received by most in attendance. Finkelstein discussed the limits to which academic freedom ought to apply in general, taking as a point of reference, the 1940 decision by the New York State Supreme Court to bar the eminent philosopher Bertrand Russell from teaching at the City University of New York, because of his criticisms of religion and advocacy of sexual freedom.

The subsequent talks, "The Coming Breakup of American Zionism" and "A Critique of the Walt-Mearsheimer Thesis" included spirited exchanges, but they were for the most part polite and not disrupted. During the question and answer period for the final lecture, Finkelstein was accused of promoting the destruction of Israel by members of the audience, thereby echoing accusations received by the administration in advance of his arrival. He responded by saying that the opposite was true. He would consider it an enormous tragedy for Israel or any nation to be destroyed. He pointed out, by way of contrast, that opinion polls indicate that a large percentage of young American Jews would not feel a sense of loss over the destruction of Israel, a tendency that Finkelstein found appalling.

Letters of Support

After the February lectures, I again asked the provost to bring Finkelstein for a longer stay. Hellenbrand's response was that this might be a possibility, but to make it happen, he "would have to be asked." So we continued to ask in writing.

Finkelstein's visit generated an outpouring of support, including from students. Scores of CSUN faculty members wrote, including the chairs of the departments of Physics, Chemistry, Journalism, Communication Studies, and Pan African Studies. The entire department of Women's Studies signed a joint letter of support. Individual faculty members from a diversity of departments, ranging from art to engineering, also wrote urging the administration to offer Finkelstein a visiting position.

Several eminent scholars and experts in the field from outside the university were contacted and asked to send letters of recommendation to the president and provost. Brief but illuminating excerpts from some (but not all) of these letters follow. Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor at MIT, wrote:
"I understand that Norman Finkelstein is being considered for a position as a university-wide visiting scholar at CSUN, and am writing in that connection. In brief, I think it would be an outstanding appointment at any university. . . As one indication of my own evaluation, I published a very favorable review of his Image and Reality in the Israel-Palestine Conflict and recommended it as one of the three best books of the year on political and international affairs, in a year-end survey of opinion by the London Guardian. . . In general, his work is recognized to be outstanding in the range of disciplines in which he has published. There is no doubt in my mind that Finkelstein is a person of great intelligence and insight, as well as unusual integrity, and that his work is of remarkably high quality. . . In addition to his books, Finkelstein has produced a series of fine critical and analytic essays on developments in the Middle East, on political theory, and more recently on international law, including reviews of studies by scholars and of court decisions, and important contributions of his own on the politics of the Middle East and international affairs more generally. His work is invariably conducted with scrupulous documentation, careful research, and thoughtful and judicious evaluation and analysis. . . That he will have outstanding success in teaching and direction of research I have no doubt. He is unusually well qualified for the position of visiting scholar. It would be a very strong appointment, in my judgment."

Khaled Abou El Fadl, Professor of Law at UCLA wrote:
"I have read every book that Professor Finkelstein published, and I attended the lectures he delivered at CSUN, and also the lectures he delivered this past year at UCLA. To describe Professor Finkelstein as a towering intellectual figure—masterful, brilliant, meticulously methodical, precise, eloquent, and exceedingly gracious and polite—does not begin to describe him as a writer and lecturer. . .Professor Finkelstein’s entire categorical paradigm is that he honors the memory of the Holocaust to such an extent that he rejects any effort to politicize, or to opportunistically capitalize on its painful memory. Indeed he is explicitly critical of any effort to deny human suffering, or to in any way render human suffering subservient or secondary to any functional political considerations. It is no surprise that Professor Finkelstein’s list of admirers constitutes a virtual hall of scholarly fame; he is very highly regarded not just by the most accomplished intellectuals in the United States but around the world. I cannot possibly emphasize the extent to which the fact that Professor Finkelstein is not occupying a post in an academic institution in the United States is a national embarrassment, and is a fundamental and quintessential breakdown of our scholastic ideals. . . Professor Finkelstein’s presence will not just accrue to the substantial benefit of CSUN, but will also deeply enrich the intellectual environment of Southern California and all its schools."

Professor Irene Gendzier of Boston University wrote:
"I write in support of this remarkable scholar and intellectual who is a committed believer in what the university represents and, to judge by his teaching record, is an exceptional teacher... His vilification in recent months for spurious reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of his work, has served to expose the grave limits of academic freedom in the United States, particularly where the study of the Middle East is concerned. . . Prof. Finkelstein is an internationally recognized scholar who has won exceptional acclaim for studies he has published on crucial aspects of modern European as well as Middle Eastern history. I refer to his studies of the Holocaust and Israeli policy in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict. His work in these areas has been marked by a critical level of erudition, a scrupulous documentation, and a persistent moral integrity. In exposing the exploitation of the Holocaust, and in documenting the origins of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians before, during and after the creation of the state, he has addressed questions of history, memory and responsibility, and above all, of justice. The results form an essential body of knowledge for those seeking to understand the origins and persistence of the Israel-Palestine conflict, a subject of overwhelming importance in the United States and, indeed, in the world today."

Sara Roy, Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, wrote:
"I, like Norman, am a child of Holocaust survivors engaged in research on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Because of our shared background I feel that I can speak about him from a position others cannot. . . Norman’s scholarship is exceptional both for its brilliance and rigor. In the fields of Middle Eastern studies and political science his work is considered seminal and there is no doubt that both disciplines would be intellectually weaker without it. Norman’s power and value, however, do not emanate only from his scholarship but from his character. His life’s work, shaped largely but not entirely by his experience as a child of survivors has been and continues to be informed by a profound concern with human dignity and the danger of dehumanization. Unlike many in the academy, including some of his most vociferous detractors, Norman has always remained faithful to his principles even when such consistency demanded great personal and professional sacrifice."

Avi Shlaim, Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford wrote:
"Dr Finkelstein’s work straddles political theory, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and American policy towards the Middle East. His work in this field is immensely thorough, original, and penetrating. There are many scholars in the United States working on this area, but Dr Finkelstein stands out as one of the most able, most erudite, and most critical. His articles all display a number of admirable qualities: intellectual vigour, intellectual integrity, a capacity to get to the heart of the matter, and a tendency to subject the conventional wisdom to searching scrutiny... I recommend him very strongly and without any reservations for a tenured position in any American university."

John Trumpbour, Research Director of Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School, wrote:
"Norman Finkelstein has undoubtedly been one of the most provocative thinkers on these sensitive subjects, and he challenges all of us to raise the quality of our work. Even when I have had a different point of view, he has pushed me to be a better intellectual by his relentless pursuit of logic, reason, and evidence. . . As Research Director of a major program at Harvard Law School, I am well aware that Norman Finkelstein has generated hostility from one of HLS’s most famous faculty members, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Alan Dershowitz. And yet, I can testify that Norman Finkelstein conducted himself with great dignity the various times he has spoken at Harvard. He always allows his opponents plenty of opportunity to criticize him. . . Finkelstein’s works have been translated into many languages around the world. I have received my share of communications from overseas scholars who have expressed disappointment with U.S. universities for timidity when it comes to welcoming such a major voice of intellectual engagement and dissent."

Presidential Veto

During the last week of February 2008, a retired faculty member, inspired by Finkelstein's lectures, offered $30,000 toward an endowed chair at CSUN for Finkelstein. He indicated that he might be willing to offer an even larger figure. The provost declined the email offer on the grounds that university regulations prevented the creation of an endowed chair for any specific individual. Curiously, the administration showed no interest in meeting with this erstwhile donor to discuss alternate ways in which he might contribute toward bringing Finkelstein to CSUN, or even toward more general university projects.

Despite compelling letters of recommendation, and substantial faculty lobbying, we faced a formidable barrier in March. We were told by the administration that because of faculty union regulations, the university could no longer hire any university wide visiting scholars. Instead, all hires would have to originate from academic departments. This broadly anti-intellectual restriction put a freeze on potential future visitors with interdisciplinary interests, and it appeared to undo our effort to bring Finkelstein to CSUN. (The Political Science Department seemed to want to have nothing to do with him. Mehran Kamrava had accepted an academic position in December at another university, and none of the remaining CSUN political science faculty members even attended Finkelstein's talks.)

However, our effort was resuscitated during the final week of April, when the Chair of Journalism asked the provost to bring Finkelstein as a visiting professor to his department. This was a good fit. Finkelstein would make an excellent resource for faculty members interested in the important area of Middle East affairs. He was also more than capable of directing research projects for students, and contributing seminars, lectures, and class visits for a range of courses. To proceed the Journalism Chair was instructed by the provost to make a formal request to his college dean, which he did. He submitted the necessary paperwork, but from May to mid-June, almost nothing happened. Many of us had worked for much of the preceding year to bring Finkelstein to CSUN, and we were anxiously waiting for the formal offer to go out.

The coup de grace came from the campus president, but it came discreetly. The provost informed me on 26 June 2008 that the president had made a policy decision not to award visiting positions, even when they originate within a department. That policy decision put an end to our project. It was a sharp departure from past practice, and an extraordinary bow to the Israel Lobby, as the university had hosted departmental visiting professors in recent years. Anticipating a possible presidential veto, I had sent an email letter previously, on June 19, to President Koester that included this paragraph:
The stifling of academic discussion and criticism of Israel has reached such absurd proportions that the phalanx of orthodoxy is beginning to crack. CSUN has a chance to play a positive role in this regard, and at the same time to catapult itself up to the first rank among universities worldwide in Dr. Finkelstein's areas of expertise. As you know, the CSUN Journalism Department has requested that Dr. Finkelstein be invited to come to CSUN as a visiting professor starting spring semester. Please allow that invitation to move forward. Thank you for reading this.

The following reply on behalf of the president came June 23, also before I learned the final decision:
Dear Dr. Klein:

Thank you for your email below. The President asked me to respond on her behalf.As you know, the President is not directly involved in the hiring of faculty. Such appointments fall under the purview of Academic Affairs. We noticed you have copied both the Provost and the College Dean; I'm sure they appreciate your comments.

Randy Reynaldo

Executive Assistant to the President

After learning the president's policy decision not to hire visiting professors, effectively vetoing Finkelstein's appointment, I sent another message on June 27 to the president:
Dear President Koester,

I understand from Provost Hellenbrand that you have just made a policy decision not to hire visiting faculty at CSUN, even if a request to do so originates at the department level. This decision was made just as the administrative process to bring Dr. Finkelstein to CSUN as a visiting scholar was nearing completion. I would like to ask you if I understand correctly that CSUN will, from this point on, not permit the hiring of any visiting faculty to any department. I would also appreciate it if you would confirm that this decision was not a form of censorship on your part to prevent criticisms of Israel's human rights record from our campus. If I misunderstood your policy decision, I apologize. Thank you for clarifying.

Sincerely,

David Klein

Professor of Mathematics

Her reply, dated July 1, 2008 put an end to the exchange.
Dear David:

I understand the Provost has explained to you the university's practices regarding the appointment of visiting professors.

If you have further questions or wish additional clarification, I encourage you to direct your concerns about these practices to the Provost.

Jolene

President Koester's note above may be compared to the penultimate sentence in the June 8, 2007 letter of denial of tenure and promotion to Norman Finkelstein from Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, President of DePaul University. President Holtschneider wrote (Holtschneider),
"If you wish to discuss this decision, you are free to speak with the Provost, Helumt P. Epp."

Academic Freedom and the Israel Lobby

Academic freedom, as an abstract principle, is universally applauded by university administrators. Any American university president, with occasion to talk about it, will exalt Galileo and decry Pope Urban VIII for sentencing the astronomer to house arrest. Yet, presidents and their subordinates slide easily to the other side of the fence when confronted with the closely analogous cases involving Norman Finkelstein, and other scholars critical of U.S. Middle East policy.

Finkelstein is only one of many targets of academic censorship, and the presidents of DePaul University and CSUN are far from alone in heeding the ideological directives of the Israel lobby. A high mark in subservience was achieved by Fr. Dennis Dease, President of the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota, when he withdrew an invitation to Archbishop Desmond Tutu to speak at his university. The episode was reported in a series of articles starting in October 2007 (Snyders, Jaschik, Shellman, Furst).

In April 2007, members of the Justice and Peace Studies program at St. Thomas succeeded in booking the Nobel laureate for a campus speaking engagement for the following spring. But the Zionist Organization of America opposed the invitation, and Julie Swiler, a spokeswoman for the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, informed the university that, "In a 2002 speech in Boston, [Tutu] made some comments that were especially hurtful" (Snyders).

In that speech Tutu criticized Israel for human rights violations against Palestinians. After consultation with members of the Jewish community, President Dease announced that Tutu would not be allowed to speak on campus. Following the president's decision, the chair of the Justice and Peace Studies program, Cris Toffolo, sent Tutu a letter informing him of the administration's decision and expressing disagreement with it. When they also received a copy, St. Thomas administrators removed her as chair of the program.

Dease was denounced by faculty and students within the university, and became the focus of international criticism. A National Book Award-winning poet, Lucille Clifton, canceled her visit to St. Thomas in protest. Even more alarming, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, sent a letter to Dease in which he wrote,
"While Archbishop Tutu is not a friend of Israel, we do not believe he is an anti-Semite. As you rightly point out in your letter, his words have often stung the Jewish community. However, while he may at times have crossed the line, we believe that he should have been permitted to speak on your campus."

Contradictory directives from leading Jewish organizations put President Dease in an awkward position. He reversed his decision and re-invited Tutu to St. Thomas. However, Tutu made acceptance of the offer conditional on Toffolo's reinstatement as chair of the Justice and Peace Studies program. But while the world-renowned peace activist, Desmond Tutu, may have been too prominent a target, Toffolo was not. The administration did not reinstate her as chair, and true to his word, Tutu declined the second invitation.

Although Toffolo was already tenured and was not stripped of her rank of associate professor, her treatment by St. Thomas, to some degree, parallels DePaul University's treatment of Mehrene Larudee. Larudee was 19 days shy of becoming the director of DePaul's program in international studies when she learned she had been denied tenure, despite unanimous decisions in her favor by faculty committees and her dean. Her firing in 2007 was widely perceived as retribution for her public support of Norman Finkelstein.

Harvard University has also disinvited speakers for their criticisms of Israel. J. Lorand Matory, a professor of anthropology and of African and African-American studies at Harvard describes three such incidents. In 2002,

"Harvard’s Department of English invited Tom Paulin – Oxford professor and one of the finest living British poets – to speak, but promptly disinvited him after then-University President Lawrence H. Summers expressed disapproval of Paulin’s criticisms of Israel. Though the Department later voted to reverse the disinvitation, Paulin has never come to campus."

Also disinvited was Norman Finkelstein in 2005, who was previously invited to speak at the campus bookstore. Then in 2007, Rutgers biologist Robert L. Trivers was invited to speak in honor of his receipt of the prestigious Crafoord Prize in biosciences from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. But just hours before his scheduled speech, the invitation was abruptly rescinded. His erstwhile campus host said that he was ordered to do so by someone he would not name. Also according to Trivers, Jeffrey Epstein later admitted ordering the cancellation and said that he had done so under pressure from Dershowitz. Epstein, a legal client of Dershowitz, had donated the funds used to establish [the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics] which, according to other sources, depends for its future effectiveness on further funding from him" (Matory). Thus, at Harvard (and elsewhere) free speech by critics of Israel is for sale, and campus administrators protect it up to the level of its cash value.

Even faculty members who meticulously avoid publicity are not immune from attack if their scholarship deviates from a Zionist-approved agenda. A case in point is the ordeal of Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist at Barnard College. Hundreds of alumni funneled their potential for monetary donations into the service of censorship, demanding in 2007 that the assistant professor not receive tenure. Nearly 2000 people signed a petition to the campus president demanding her expulsion. Dr. Abu El-Haj was guilty of writing a book entitled, "Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society," that "looked at the role of archeology in what was essentially a political project: the Biblical validation for Jewish claims in what is now Israel" (Kramer 50). She was eventually awarded tenure, but not before receiving hate mail in bulk, being the target of denunciations, and enduring mischaracterizations of her statements and beliefs. As with Finkelstein, the principal (but baseless) argument was that tenure should be denied on account of low quality of scholarship. The actual ideological motivations would have been less effective on account of the need of university administrators to at least pantomime support for the academic freedom for their professors. In this rare instance, the presidents of Barnard and Columbia deserve mild praise for not caving in to the mob.

Noam Chomsky informed me by email of this example of intimidation:
"In the 1980s I was invited to a major US university for a week of lectures on philosophy, and of course added many other talks and meetings, in those days mostly on Central America. A tenured professor (who taught part time at Tel Aviv) invited me to give a talk on the Middle East. The next day I got a call from campus police asking if I would agree to have uniformed police with me the entire time I was on campus. I refused, but was accompanied by undercover armed police the whole time – walking from the faculty club to a phil seminar, for example. After I left there was a huge campaign of vilification, and an effort to remove tenure from the prof who invited me."

Tenure protected that professor, but it did not protect Sami Al-Arian, an associate professor of computer science at the University of South Florida. He was suspended by the campus president after Fox TV's Bill O'Reilly accused him of having terrorist connections, two weeks after the 9/11 attack, and eventually fired. In a December 19, 2001 statement by University of South Florida President Judy Genshaft, posted on the university web site, the president followed rhetorical norms when she wrote (Genshaft),
"Academic freedom is revered at USF . . . we respect the right of faculty to express their personal views on controversial subjects, with the understanding that it must be clear they are speaking for themselves and not for the University. In this case, I have recognized my great responsibility to fully consider both the welfare of the University Community and Dr. Al-Arian's rights of expression."

Moving past the fanfare, the point of the memorandum was this: "I have instructed our Office of Academic Affairs to notify Dr. Al-Arian of the University's intent to terminate his employment." No proof of guilt of anything, real or imagined, was offered, and academic freedom was tossed out the window.

Two years later in 2003, the Bush administration filed 17 trumped up charges against Al-Arian. Then after years of imprisonment, and in spite of the government's best legal efforts, he was fully acquitted of eight of the charges, and the jury deadlocked on the rest, voting for acquittal by 10 to 2. The verdict was a major defeat for the Bush administration, but Al-Arian's brutal treatment by his university and especially the government can only be regarded as a successful assault on First Amendment rights for Middle East activists and scholars.

By way of contrast, university administrations see no problem in retaining professors like John Yoo, Henry Kissinger, and many others who in a more just world might be tried for war crimes, or even crimes against humanity. In such cases the principle of academic freedom is steadfastly upheld by campus presidents.

The Future

What accounts for the lack of courage and principle by those who preside over the academy, when it comes to the Middle East? Clearly, it is the influence of the Israel Lobby, a small but powerful rightwing group that purports to speak for all Jews, and yet persecutes those Jews who dare to criticize the policies of Israel.

The crackdown on dissent, obediently carried out by American university presidents exposes "the grave limits of academic freedom in the United States," as Professor Gendzier put it. And it is not merely individual professors like Norman Finkelstein who pay the price for censorship. The quality and stature of U.S. universities, as a whole, is compromised by the political Lysenkoism that muzzles critics of Israel. Perhaps lowering the stature of American universities through censorship, and the consequent upending of the lives of heretical scholars, is a price that university presidents are willing to pay in order to appease the Lobby, but there may be other unintended consequences to the stifling of debate about Israel.

The Lobby succeeds in stifling criticisms of Israel by labeling critics as anti-Semites. In the case of Jewish critics, the labels include "self-hating Jew," "Holocaust denier," and worse. According to this propaganda, Jews who raise serious criticisms of Israel for the mistreatment of Palestinians, Jews such as Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Sara Roy, and many others, are, in short, "Bad Jews." It is left to the "Good Jews" to neutralize such criticisms of Israel by tarring critics with these labels, thereby ending their employment, blocking speaking engagements, or generally attempting to destroy their credibility with the public – and with university presidents. In this taxonomy, it is the "Good Jews" who claim to speak for Jews collectively.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is fundamentally about land. Throughout its history, the land area of Israel has expanded, while the land area for Palestinians has contracted. If Israeli expansionism in pursuit of a Greater Israel is ultimately to succeed, it will be necessary to impose negative growth on the Palestinian population over an extended period of time, either through exodus or gradual genocide. Consistent with this purpose, Israel has inflicted misery through humiliation, the wholesale use of torture, demolition of homes, deprivation of water, power, and food, and through direct assassinations and indiscriminate attacks.

It is no longer possible to hide the darker side of Israeli policy, and mainstream voices have expressed concerns. John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, and Stephan Walt of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government raised doubts about the value of the U.S.-Israel alliance in their book, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy." Former President and Nobel laureate, Jimmy Carter, pressed forward moral questions about Israel's behavior in his book, "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid." Predictably, all three authors were denounced by the Israel Lobby, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to marginalize all of Israel's critics.

As the realities of the Israel-Palestine conflict enter public discourse with increasing weight, what will be the perception toward Jews by the rest of the population? If the Israel Lobby's "Good Jews" continue to represent all Jews, and "Good Jews" defend Israel's every action, all the while working to suspend academic freedom in universities, what ultimately will be the consequences?

A far more enlightened path would be for universities to permit open discourse about the Middle East. Excluding Norman Finkelstein, and others like him, from America's universities is misguided in the extreme.

Acknowledgments. I thank Khaled Abou El Fadl, Noam Chomsky, Irene Gendzier, Harry Hellenbrand, Sara Roy, Avi Shlaim, and John Trumpbour for permission to use the quoted material attributed to them. I am also indebted to Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Irene Gendzier, Sara Roy, and John Trumpbour for helpful comments and suggestions; to Laila Al-Arian for information about her father; and to Edie Pistolesi and others unnamed for critical readings and corrections. Finally, I would like to thank Edward Carvalho for his help in finding and organizing approrpriate citations.

Works Cited

Abou, El Fadl, Khaled. Letter to President Jolene Koester, 26 Feb. 2008.

Abu El-Haj, Nadia. Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2001.

Aguilar, Mercedes. "Visiting lecturer causes stir in Jewish studies program" Daily Sundial California State University, Northridge. 12 Feb. 2007: 1

Carter, Jimmy. Palestine: Peace not Apartheid. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

Chomsky, Noam. Letter to President Jolene Koester and Provost Harry Hellenbrand, 21 Feb. 2008. _____. "permission to quote" E-mail to David Klein. 22 July 2008.

Finkelstein, Norman G. Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History. Berkeley: U of California P, 2005

"Biography." Official Web site of Norman G. Finkelstein. 2008. 01 Aug. 2008

"Civility and Academic Freedom." California State University, Northridge, CA. 12 Feb. 2008.

"The Coming Breakup of American Zionism." California State University, Northridge, CA. 13 Feb. 2008

"A Critique of the Walt-Mearsheimer Thesis." California State University, Northridge, CA. 14 Feb. 2008

Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict. London and New York: Verso, 1995

"Joint statement of Norman Finkelstein and DePaul University on their tenure controversy and its resolution" Official Web Site of Norman G. Finkelstein. 5 Sept.

The Rise and Fall of Palestine: A Personal Account of the Intifada Years. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P: 1996.

Foxman, Abraham H. “ADL Troubled By Implications Of Cancellation Of Tutu Speech” adl.org. 10 Oct. 2007. <http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Education_01/5146_01.htm>.

Furst, Randy. “Tutu-St. Thomas dustup isn’t over.” StarTribune.com. 22 Oct. 2007. 01 Aug. 2008 <http://www.startribune.com/local/ 11606896.html>.

Gendzier, Irene. Letter to President Jolene Koester and Provost Harry Hellenbrand, 23 Feb. 2008.

Genshaft, Judy. "Statement of University of South Florida President Judy Genshaft." Office of Media Relations’ USF News & Online Guide

Goodman, Amy. "'It Takes an Enormous Amount of Courage to Speak the Truth When No One Else is Out There'—World-Renowned Holocaust, Israel Scholars Defend DePaul Professor Norman Finkelstein as He Fights for Tenure." DemocracyNow.org. 9 May 2007

"Noam Chomsky Accuses Alan Dershowitz of Launching a 'Jihad' to Block Norman Finkelstein From Getting Tenure at DePaul University." Democracy Now.org. 17 Apr. 2007

Grossman, Ron. "Controversial professor denied tenure at DePaul" Chicago Tribune10 June 2007. Metro Section 2.

Hellenbrand, Harry. "Introductory Remarks for Norman G. Finkelstein's 'Civility and Academic Freedom'." California State University , Northridge, CA. 12 Feb. 2008.

Holtschneider, Dennis. Letter denying tenure and promotion to Norman Finkelstein, 8 June 2007. Copy posted on Official Website of Norman G. Finkelstein at:

Jaschik, Scott. “Desmond Tutu, Persona Non Grata.” Inside Higher Ed.com. 4 Oct. 2007 <http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/10/04/tutu>.

Klein, David. "Re: Letter to Holtschneider on denial of tenure to Finkelstein:" E-mail to Norman G. Finkelstein. 1 July 2007.

_____. "suggestion: institute professor" E-mail to Jolene Koester. 1 July 2007.

_____. "Norman Finkelstein" E-mail to Jolene Koester. 19 June 2008.

_____. "visiting professor positions and Norman Finkelstein" E-mail to Jolene Koester. 27 June 2008. Koester, Jolene. "Re: visiting professor positions and Norman Finkelstein:" E-mail to David Klein. 1 July 2008.

Kramer, Jane. "The Petition: Israel, Palestine, and a tenure battle at Barnard" The New Yorker 14 Apr. 2008: 50–59.

Matory, Lorand J. "What Do Critics of Israel Have to Fear?" 5 June 2008 The Harvard Crimson

Mearsheimer, John J. and Stephen M. Walt. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007.

Menetrez, Frank. "Dershowitz v. Finkelstein: Who’s Right and Who’s Wrong?" Counterpunch.org. 30 Apr. 2007

Reynaldo, Randy. "Re: Norman Finkelstein"E-mail to David Klein. 23 June 2008.

Roy, Sara. Letter to President Jolene Koester and Provost Harry Hellenbrand, 28 Feb. 2008.

Rubin, Shelley. "Stinky Finky Coming to LA" Geeklog: The Official Jewish Defense League Blog. 7 Feb. 2007.

Shellman, Jeff. "Oct. 10: About-face: Tutu gets St. Thomas invite" StarTribune.com [Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN] 22 Oct. 2007 <>; "Desmond Tutu rejects St. Thomas' invitation" StarTribune.com [Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN] 27 Mar. 2007

Shlaim, Avi. Letter to President Jolene Koester and Provost Harry Hellenbrand, 25 Feb. 2008. Snyders, Matt. "Banning Desmond Tutu." Citypages.com. 3 Oct. 2007 01 Aug. 2008

Trumpbour, John. Letter to President Jolene Koester and Provost Harry Hellenbrand, 28 Feb. 2008.