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Jewish World Review Oct. 30, 2009 / 12 Mar-Cheshvan 5770 Silencing dissent in America By Caroline B. Glick
Goldstone, who chaired the UN Human Rights Council's commission charged with
accusing Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead,
has become a darling of the anti-Israel Left in the weeks since his report
accusing Israel of committing both war crimes and crimes against humanity
was published last month. And anti-Israeli leftists don't like the idea of
someone challenging his libelous attacks against Israel in a public debate
at a university.
In an email to a campus list-serve, Brandeis student and anti-Israel
activist Jonathan Sussman called on his fellow anti-Zionists to disrupt the
event that will pit the "neutral" Goldstone against Gold with his "wildly
pro-Zionist message." Sussman invited his list-serve members to join him at
a meeting to "discuss a possible response."
As the young community organizer sees it, "Possibilities include inviting
Palestinian speakers to come participate, seeding the audience with people
who can disrupt the Zionist narrative, protest and direct action." He closed
his missive with a plaintive call to arms: "Fk the occupation."
Apparently the aspiring political organizer never considered another
possibility: listening to what Gold has to say.
It seems rather unfair to pick on a small fry like Sussman. A brief web
search indicates that Gold's would-be silencer divides his time fairly
equally between publishing rambling, Communist verses to paramours and
calling for the overthrow of the US government.
The problem is that Sussman's planned "direct action" against Gold is not an
isolated incident. On college campuses throughout the US, Israelis and
supporters of Israel are regularly denied the right to speak by leftist
activists claiming to act on behalf of Israel's "victims," or in the cause
of "peace." In the name of the Palestinians or peace these radicals seek to
coerce their fellow students into following their lead by demonizing and
brutally silencing all voices of dissent.
This, by the way is true regardless of where the speaker fits on the
pro-Israel spectrum. Earlier this month former prime minister Ehud Olmert -
who during his tenure in office offered the Palestinians more than any of
his predecessors — could barely get a word in edgewise above the clamor of
students at the University of Chicago cursing him as a war criminal.
While many commentators claim that the situation on college campuses is
unique, the fact is that the attempts of leftist activists on campuses to
silence non-leftist dissenters regarding Israel and a host of other issues
is simply an extreme version of what is increasingly becoming standard
operating procedure for leftist activists throughout the US. Rather than
participating in a battle of ideas with their ideological opponents on the
Right, increasingly, leftist activists, groups and policymakers seek to
silence their opponents through slander, intimidation and misrepresentation
of their own agenda.
Case in point is J Street. The eighteen month old, multi-million dollar
American Jewish political action committee held its inaugural convention
this week in Washington. J Street seeks to present itself as the
representative of a silent majority of American Jews. However, its signature
positions -- while in line with the Obama administration's policies — are
deeply discordant with mainstream American Jewish views.
J Street asserts that Israel must freeze all Jewish construction beyond the
1949 armistice lines; that Israel should withdraw to the 1949 armistice
lines, including in Jerusalem and expel all Jews now living beyond the 1949
armistice lines; that the absence of peace is due to the absence of a
Palestinian state; that Israel used excessive force in Operation Cast Lead
and the Goldstone report is legitimate. J Street also opposes both sanctions
on Iran and military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Just how profoundly out of synch these positions are with the American
Jewish community was made clear with last month's publication of the
American Jewish Committee's 2009 Annual Survey of American Jewish Opinion.
According to the survey, a majority of American Jews oppose the Obama
administration's call for the prohibition of Jewish construction in Judea,
Samaria and Jerusalem. Similarly, the vast majority of American Jews rejects
the call for Israel to surrender parts of Jerusalem to the Palestinians;
believes the cause of the Palestinian conflict with Israel is the Arabs'
desire to destroy Israel rather than the absence of a Palestinian state; and
supports Israel's right to defend itself against Palestinian terror. A
whopping 94 percent of American Jews believe the Palestinians should be
required to accept Israel's right to exist as a precursor to any viable
peace. Finally, a solid majority of American Jews supports either a US or an
Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear installations.
But no matter. Facts are no obstacle for J Street. Just as Sussman smears
his opponents in order to discredit dissenting views, so J Street has not
only misrepresented its own place on the American Jewish ideological
spectrum. It has misrepresented the position of mainstream American Jewish
groups on the ideological spectrum. Owing no doubt to the fact that most
American Jews self-identify as liberals, J Street condemns organizations
like AIPAC and the ADL as right-wing or conservative or hawkish to try to
make American Jews feel uncomfortable supporting them.
At its conference this week J Street's radicalism was on full display.
According to the JTA account, one panel discussion featured members of
Congress debating the proposition that American Jewish money controls US
foreign policy. Congressman Bob Filner was reportedly the darling of the
crowd for arguing that indeed, Jewish money exerts inordinate and
destructive influence over US foreign policy.
Filner related how in 1994 he was one of the few members of Congress who
refused to sign onto a resolution condemning an anti -Semitic speech given
by Nation of Islam lieutenant Khalid Abdul Muhammad. Filner claimed that by
refusing to condemn a public figure's calumny against the Jewish people he
lost some $250,000 in electoral contributions in each subsequent election
cycle.
"That kind of money is an intimidating factor. I raised a lot less in
succeeding years, but my conscious was cleared," he bragged.
Filner went on to condemn pro-Israel lobbyists in general. Indeed he
insinuated that the act of lobbying on behalf of Israel is inherently
treacherous. Filner argued that unlike labor lobbyists who provide some
public benefit, pro-Israel lobbyists are dangerous because they convince
legislators to take "positions that can lead to war."
Then there was the self-professed "pro-Israel, pro-peace" group's panel
discussion on Iran's nuclear program. As James Kirchick reported in The New
Republic, the panel included two of Iran's most outspoken apologists in
Washington. Both former National Security Council staffer Hillary Mann
Leverett and National Iranian-American Council head Trita Parsi asserted a
moral and security equivalence between Iran, Israel and the US.
Leverett accused opponents of Iran's nuclear program of racism. In her
words, those calling for Iran to be denied nuclear weapons are "reinforcing
stereotypes of Iranian duplicitousness," and their warnings are
"fundamentally racist."
Here we see how just as Sussman seeks to demonize dissenting views, so J
Street gives an open forum to radicals who castigate their opponents as
illegitimate, racist and treacherous.
Perhaps the most outstanding feature of the far-left's behavior is its
trenchant refusal to acknowledge that it is the far-left. Just as J Street
fatuously claims to represent the American Jewish majority, so it claims to
be the American Jewish equivalent of the Kadima party. J Street's Executive
Director Jeremy Ben-Ami told the Jerusalem Post, "The party and the
viewpoint that we're closest to in Israeli politics is actually Kadima."
This of course is pure nonsense. Kadima — like every other Zionist political
party in Israel — supports strong sanctions on Iran. Indeed, Kadima supports
taking whatever steps are necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear
weapons.
Beyond that, Kadima waged two wars while it was in office. Both Operation
Cast Lead and the Second Lebanon War were opposed by the far left. J Street
was outspoken in its criticism of Cast Lead. Moreover, Kadima's leaders have
emphatically opposed the Goldstone report.
So other than its support for the rapid establishment of a Palestinian
state, Kadima shares none of J Street's positions.
The fact that J Street represents neither mainstream Israeli thinking nor
mainstream American Jewish thinking is of little concern to its leadership.
J Street represents the Obama administration. In his keynote address before
the conference, National Security Advisor James Jones told his cheering
audience that J Street has a friend in the Obama White House. As he put it,
"You can be sure that this administration will be represented at all other
future J Street conferences."
In recent weeks we have discovered that like its agent J Street, and indeed
like Sussman at Brandeis, the Obama White House is also dedicated to
silencing opposing voices by marginalizing and demonizing dissent. In fact,
the White House's modus operandi is startlingly similar to theirs.
There are six national television networks in the US. Five of them support
President Barack Obama. One — Fox News — does not. Rather than rejoice in
what is an overwhelmingly favorable state of affairs for it, in recent
weeks, the Obama White House has gone to war against Fox News. Obama's
senior advisors have castigated the network as "the research arm of the
Republican Party," and claim daily that it is "not a news organization."
Obama as well as top administration officials boycott Fox programs and are
seeking to intimidate friendly news organizations into joining them in
isolating Fox. In a spate of recent statements on the subject, Obama's top
advisors have warned the other networks not to follow Fox's lead on any of
the stories it reports, lest they discover they have allowed themselves to
become the tool of the Republicans.
A straight line connects Sussman's rants, J Street's lies and the Obama
administration's attempt to destroy a news organization. In each case,
actions aimed at silencing debate are falsely characterized as the brave
moves of an underdog seeking to confront the evil powers that be. Sussman
writes of the need to overthrow the "oligarchs." J Street claims to be
breaking the "right-wing stranglehold" on US Israel policy. And Obama's
advisor Valerie Jarrett claims that by attacking Fox News, the White House
is "speaking truth to power."
Luckily, the falseness of all of these claims has not been lost on the
American public. Despite the actions of the likes of Sussman, "wildly
pro-Zionist" voices still resonate on college campuses just as they do
throughout the US. J Street has been unable to convince American Jews that
its anti-Israel positions are the true expression of American Jewish
Zionism. And Obama's approval ratings now stand at a mere 51 percent.
But the fact that these views have not become dominant in America is no
reason to be sanguine about the future. That opponents of free speech today
occupy the top echelons of power in Washington and are represented at all
levels of American society constitutes a critical challenge to the continued
vibrancy of American democracy.
Interested in a private Judaic studies instructor — for free? Let us know by clicking here.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
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