Where is the outrage? Pogrom at SFSU

http://www.sfsu.edu/~news/sfsuresp.htm

Zionizm is Racism. Have you wondered why all the most reactionary Fundementalist Christian ministers support the government of Isreal??? It is because they belive in sending the Jews AWAY. They belive in using Jewish people to eraticate Muslims (never mind that the Isreali government also kills Christians) . Isreal is used by the Imperialist powers to keep a tension in the region. This tension gives International oil firms a lot more negotiating power when it comes to cutting a deal with Arab states. It also forces both Isreal and the Arab nations to buy billions and billions of dollars of wepons from US companies. A lot is at stake for these companies, they cannot afford peace.

Zionism is not racism. Zionism is the belief that there should be a Jewish homeland in the historical land of the Jewish people. Zionism does not preclude a Palestinian State. You can a Zionist and be for a Palestinian State living peacefully next to Israel.

Get it straight. Don't believe the hype.
Zionism Is Not Racism.

Just as an aside. The Israeli Jews who are of African descent are often called racist names by the Palestinians. They call them apes, monkeys, and kaffirs.

Is this what the Muslim Student Union advocates? Same propoganda. http://www.consumptionjunction.com/feat/cc/detail.asp?ID=9833 Not for the faint of heart. May the beautiful soul of Daniel Pearl rest happily wherever it is and may the vicious, hateful people who did this suffer for an eternity.

All You Ever Wanted to Know About Zionism, But Your School and Synagogue Didn't Like to Teach!!

RESIST!!!

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ZIONISM, FACT FROM MYTH
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A. Zionism and Colonialism
Zionism was born through the writings of Theodore Herzl, in Germany in the late 1880’s. As outlined by Herzl, Zionism was a secular political project that defined “the Jews” as a people, a nation and a race, rather than a religious group. In the context of the fervent European anti-Jewish discrimination of the time, Herzl argued for the need to create an independent Jewish state for “the Jewish people” who, he argued, could never possibly assimilate in the countries they inhabited (Beit-Hallahmi 1993; Garaudy 1983; Segev 1986). Although multiple locations were suggested, the Zionist movement
proposed Palestine as the site for a Jewish state, in a strategic move that would allow them to use the religious history of Palestine to justify their purely political goal of colonization (Garaudy 1983). The racist nature of the Zionist movement originates in its idea of an exclusive Jewish state for Jewish people only, exclusive of the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. Moreover, at every point of its genesis, the Zionist movement was informed and reinforced by nineteenth century European colonialism and its white supremacist ideology.

In the context of rampant British colonization throughout the “third world” at the time, Britain recognized the potential of the Zionist project in Palestine to further its own economic and political goals. Britain assisted the Zionists in exporting 610,000 Jews from various parts of the world to Palestine to make way for the eventual establishment
of Israel on indigenous Palestinian land. In 1917, the Balfour Declaration of Britain legitimized the establishment of “a national homeland for Jews in Palestine” (Laquer and Rubin 1984). The genocide of World War II created a new impetus for immigration; in 1947, further mass immigration projects ensued. After they were refused entry to countries such as Britain and the United States, Jews from all over the world were sent to settle a land where they had no prior territorial affiliation--Palestine. When the Zionists
ultimately occupied Palestine by force, in 1948, they took over nearly three fourths of Palestine and uprooted over 750,000 native Palestinians from their homes. In 1967, Israel took over the remainder of Palestine, uprooting even more native Palestinians.

While Palestine fits the standards of colonization, it is also a special case because its colonizer, Israel, is a Jewish-only nation-state imposed on Arab Palestinian land.2 Israel was not constructed to colonize the natives per se, but to remove them entirely from their land and to construct Israeli Jews as the authentic people of the land.

Since its inception over a century ago, Zionist ideology and practice has sought to ethnically cleanse and “purify” Palestine and the surrounding Arab states of its indigenous inhabitants. Several historical state documents illustrate the centrality of ethnic cleansing to the Zionist project. In Herzl’s diaries, for example, he writes, “We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country… expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly” (Swirski 1993: 285). Though the contemporary Zionist consensus argues that Israel is not a colonial state, Herzl, in fact, argued to the contrary: “To go further than any colonialist has gone in Africa…where involuntary expropriation of land will temporarily alienate civilized opinion. By the time the reshaping of world opinion in our favor has been completed, we shall be firmly established in our country, no longer fearing the influx of foreigners, and receiving our visitors with aristocratic benevolence (Hertzberg 1997).”

The Zionist project was a by-product of nineteenth century European colonization, and Britain, specifically, furthered its own early twentieth century political goals in the Middle East through colonial Zionism and the establishment of Israel. By the second half of the twentieth century, however, primary financial and military support for the Zionist project was transferred from the hands of Britain to the hands of the U.S. government. Since the 1967 completion of the Zionist takeover of Palestine, no country has received more U.S. foreign aid than Israel.

There is more to the Zionist project than consolidating Israel as a Jewish-only state; it was not the cause of fighting anti-Jewish oppression that inspired the forces of Western imperialism to ally with the Zionist project of Israel (Segev 1993). The U.S., like Britain, has supported Israel as a means to maintain Israel’s position as a Western ally within the Arab region (O’Brien 1986: 154). By exploiting the economic and
political resources of the Arab world, Israel has become a conduit of globalization, militarization and imperialism.3

Britain and the U.S. have provided Israel with the military machinery, strategy and funding necessary to illegally move over four million Jews to Palestine, uprooting Palestinians from their native homeland (Swirski 1993). Since the inception of the Zionist state, thousands of Palestinians have been killed and five million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes (Abu-Sitta 1998; Morris 1987); towards the end of furthering their own political goals of dominance in the region, Britain and the U.S. have collaborated in dispossessing Palestinians.4

Central to the Zionist vision is territorial expansion into neighboring states, such as Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. This vision of expansion has already been illustrated by the thirty-year Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon. Though this occupation has formally ended, its long-term impact continues in ongoing military and economic aggression. U.S. foreign policy is most powerfully used against those countries that refuse to recognize Israel, such as Iraq, Syria, Iran and Sudan. Each of these countries suffer from the collective punishment of U.S.-imposed sanctions while, based on their anti-Zionist position, they are also marked as state sponsors of terrorism. It is the convergence of U.S. national interests with Israel’s position in the center of the Arab region that accounts for the success of the Zionist movement in the U.S.

B. Zionism in the U.S.
Though Israel consistently defies international law and hundreds of United Nations human rights resolutions in its occupation of Palestine, the U.S. government continues to funnel six billion tax dollars per year to the state of Israel. In nearly every sector of U.S. politics, this contradiction remains unchallenged. Contributing to this profound silence are the strategies of the Zionist movement. In the U.S., Zionism is highly influential in the shaping of public opinion (Findley 1985; O’Brien 1986). Many self-identified Zionists, including Jews and non Jews, belong to the organized body referred to as the World Zionist Organization. Other Zionist organizations in the United States include American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the American Jewish Congress, Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Jewish Community Relations Council, Hillel, and the Jewish Student Committee. Whether it is in labor, education, media or politics, the Zionist movement’s strategy is to maintain a unified pro-Israel position, silencing criticism of Israeli policy and demonizing its critics. Since it would be ludicrous to market Israel’s history of displacing indigenous people from their land, the most prevalent myth that Zionists propagate is that criticisms of Israel and/or Zionism are anti-Semitic (O’Brien 1986: 97).

We focus specifically on the ADL as an example of institutionalized Zionism because it is one of the most powerful pressure groups in the United States. As Noam Chomsky puts it, “The ADL’s primary commitment [is] to use any technique however dishonest and disgraceful in order to defame and silence and destroy anybody who dares to criticize the holy state (Israel)” (Marshall 1993).

Prior to the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, particularly during the height of their political uprising in the late eighties and early nineties, Palestinians were increasingly successful in articulating to the U.S. public a persuasive case with respect to their struggle for human rights. To combat the increasing sympathetic portrayal of the Palestinian liberation struggle, major pro-Israeli, anti-Palestinian organizations established espionage rings and published books and kits to help their members discredit Palestinian justice struggles and revive the deteriorating public image of Israel (Rashmawi 1992). The San Francisco spy scandal that broke out in the early 1990’s (Marshall 1993; Isaacs 2000), just as the Oslo agreements were being orchestrated, revealed that the ADL was engaged in spying on the Arab-American community, as well as numerous peace and anti-apartheid activists and organizations. The ADL operation used paid informers, police officers, student recruits, and a full-time staff to meet its goal of discrediting Palestinian and other liberation struggles. Revelation of the spy ring ultimately exposed the ADL as one of many examples where devoutly anti-Palestinian sentiment and covert Israeli intelligence activity are hidden behind a seemingly benign civil rights organization (Rashmawi 1992).5

According to the ADL, any criticism of Israel is racism towards Jews. The ADL further contends that the interests of the United States are so identical to those of Israel that any disagreement with the Israeli government and its policies are a betrayal of the United States. The ADL hits the American public hard and repeatedly with such suppositions, combined with the idea that Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular are vulgar terrorists who are really a menace to society (Rashmawi 1992). The organization lumps together everyone from the Nazis to peace organizations as enemies of both the U.S. and Israel, deserving to be spied upon and mercilessly investigated. The ADL and its affiliate organizations, such as Hillel and AIPAC, have utilized highly unsavory means, including intimidation, scare tactics, the infiltration of organizations, the violation of civil rights and sabotage to achieve their goals (Marshall 1993; Rashmawi 1992).

This systematic attempt to silence and exclude Arabs and Arab Americans from the political process is one example of what Helen Samhan refers to as political racism. According to Samhan, anti-Arab attitudes and behaviors have their roots “not in the traditional motives of structurally excluding a group perceived as inferior, but in politics” (Samhan 1987:11). While Zionism is a politically organized racial project that directly and systematically targets Arabs and Arab Americans,6 the terrain of Zionism is much broader than the practices of particular organizations. In the U.S. context, Zionism has become “common sense”–“a way of comprehending, explaining, and acting in the world”7 that goes completely unquestioned and unchallenged.

Ms Zoloth leaves a lot out. For a more balanced account of the events she mentions, go to http://www.sfgups.cjb.net

You are really brave to speak out as you have. I can understand how hard it is because anyone who speaks out against racism by Jews is persecuted by the lefties on campuses where idiots think the more offensive they are the more like the great Che Guevara they are.

I was at the rally. I was trapped behind the nasty mob threatening to kill me. Dr. Zoloth's letter is accurate. The GUPS are doing exactly what the Palestinians are doing back home - lying.

If they were really interested in helping the poor oppressed Palestinians who don't have enough money to move to the US and go to an American college, they would be fighting for freedom in the Palestinian territories - not from Israel, but from Arafat's despotic regime!

Maybe they're going to school on some of the money skimmed off by Arafat cronies. I wouldn't doubt it. Obviously they are the upper crust of the Palestinian population. It's in their best interests to continue to point the finger at Israel. If the world starts looking into Arafat's bank account, their support will dry up. Did anyone consider this possibility? Are radical lefties being used by these upper class Palestinians to promote their propaganda? I wonder.

If you really are interested in what happened check the yahoo website.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SFSU/

It is indeed a great injustice ,that the Palestinians have had to pay for Hitler's crimes.
F.N.

May 2002

May 14 - At the University of California - Irvine, an anti-Israel demonstration featured the display of mock “body bags” of Palestinians “murdered” by the Israeli army.

May 7 - Jewish students, faculty and campus visitors were verbally assaulted and threatened following a pro-Israel rally organized by Hillel members at San Francisco State University. A group of pro-Palestinian counter-demonstrators allegedly hurled epithets at a few dozen organizers, screaming slogans such as "Go back to Russia" and "Hitler did not finish the job." In response to the incident, the Anti-Defamation League has been in contact with the SFSU President Robert A. Corrigan with recommendations to respond to the incident and address issues of bias and anti-Semitism on campus. President Corrigan has assured ADL and the wider community that a full investigation is underway, and that any students involved in the episode could face disciplinary measures, including expulsion, or prosecution if the actions involve criminal violations. The university has requested that the District Attorney assign a member of the hate crime unit to aid in the investigation.

May 7 - The Muslim Student Association at UC - San Diego distributed fliers on campus titled, "The Jenin Massacre." At the same time, fliers appeared on campus with an anti-Semitic diatribe written by the right-wing extremist and former Klansman David Duke.

May 2 - Following the rejection of a divestment resolution before the UC - Berkeley student government, a group of 500 protesters gathered to object to the University administration's suspension of the Students for Justice in Palestine group.

May 1 - At the University of Maryland - College Park, students representing the Muslim Students Association and Organization of Arab Students set up a mock checkpoint and labeled a courtyard "Occupied Territory." At the checkpoint, signs were hanging from a table indicating one direction for Israelis and another for Palestinians. One student repeatedly read through a list of U.N. resolutions that Israel had allegedly violated over a microphone throughout the day.

April 2002

April 29 - May 3 - "LOCKED IN: A Week of Education About Palestine," a series organized and sponsored by Ohio's Oberlin College Students for a Free Palestine (SFP), will be featuring Palestinian movies, guest lectures and a planned introduction to the divestment from Israel campaign, during the week-long series of events.

April 28 - A rally held on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, featured a highly anti-Semitic Christian Patriot group condemning Israel and U.S. foreign policy. We Hold These Truths, as the group is known, is based in Scottsdale, Arizona and advocates an end to U.S. support for Israel.

April 25 - An anti-Israel demonstration at Southern Connecticut State University was staged to protest an on-campus appearance of former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak. Demonstrators included Palestinian, anti-globalization and Green Party representatives.

April 24 - The Muslim Student Association of University of California at San Diego sponsored a talk by Hatem al-Bazian, a speaker whose anti-Semitic and anti-American views were challenged by Hillel members, who placed fliers around campus that featured al-Bazian’s quotes. Muslim students who witnessed what Hillel members were doing began to scream and taunt the Jewish students; one allegedly made threats of physical harm.

April 20 - An Israeli couple, living near the University of Illinois campus was the target of vandalism. A rock was thrown through the students' front window (where an Israeli flag had been displayed) and their car, parked out front, was also vandalized.

April 20 - Students from the University of Iowa, Georgetown and George Washington University, among others, participated in Washington, D.C. protests orchestrated by pro-Palestinian groups to coincide with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee meeting and the IMF meeting.

April 18 - A rally was held at Princeton University in support of divestment from Israel. In a statement published on the rally organizers Web site, Richard Falk, a recently retired Albert Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice at Princeton, and member of the U.N. Human Rights Commission team that seeks to investigate alleged human rights violations in the "occupied territories," called on University officials to "divest from companies profiting from business with Israel at this time... to express solidarity with victims of massive crimes against humanity and to call upon Israel to respect UN authority and the elemental rules of international law by withdrawing from occupied Palestinian territory."

April 18 - At University of Colorado - Boulder, fliers denouncing Israel and the "Jewish/Zionist Lobby" produced by the viruently anti-Semitic and racist National Alliance were found posted in numerous places on campus.

April 17 - At Columbia University, several graduate teaching assistants used departmental e-mail listserves to promote an on-campus anti-Israel rally. Several faculty members cancelled their classes to allow students to attend. One graduate student was sanctioned for misuse of departmental lists and one of the faculty members has since apologized.

April 15 - Al-Talib, the Muslim newsmagazine at UCLA and and Al Kalima, the Muslim newsmagazine at UC - Irvine, jointly published a highly anti-Israel publication entitled "Zionism: the Forgotten Apartheid." The magazine publicly lauds and promotes both Hamas and Hizbullah as legitimate and noteworthy resistance movements. The magazine has also been distributed at San Diego State University, UC - San Diego and the University of Southern California.

April 15 - A Jewish student at Illinois State University alleges he was threatened by a 30-year-old Palestinian graduate student. For several weeks, the Palestinian student has held pro-Palestinian protests/gatherings on the university’s quad. When asked to sign a petition in support of the Palestinians, the Jewish student questioned whether the petition addressed the issue of suicide bombings. At this point, the Palestinian student walked up to him and said the petition talked about how to blow the Jewish student's head off. The Jewish student reported the incident to campus police.

April 15 - Muslim student groups at University of California - Berkeley and UC - San Diego posted fliers featuring fabricated, distorted and out-of-context quotations from the Talmud and other rabbinical literature. Many of these anti-Semitic "quotations" are easily found on extremist Web sites. Samples include:

-- "A Jew is permitted to rape, cheat and perjure himself, but he must take care that he is not found out, so that Israel may not suffer."

-- "A Gentile girl who is three years old can be violated."

-- "The Jews are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts."

-- "When the Messiah comes, every Jew will have 2800 slaves."

April 15 - The Gaza Strip, a one-sided film that is severely critical of Israel, was screened at New Jersey's Drew University.

April 15 - Julio César Pino, an associate professor of history at Kent State University, was a guest columnist in the campus newspaper The Kent Stater. He used the space to praise a recent suicide bomber/bombing in a poem titled, "Singing out prayer for a youth martyr. The poem praised a female suicide bomber and referred to the president of the U.S. as a "numbskull."

April 14 - The University of Colorado - Boulder Hillel Center's Israeli flag was defaced with the anti-Israel graffiti: "Stop the Illegal Occupation of the West Bank," and "Stop the Killing of Palestinians."

April 12 - The Gaza Strip was screened at Princeton.

April 12 - At UC - Riverside the Muslim Student Union sponsored a rally and protest for Palestine that concluded with a march to Riverside's City Hall.

April 11 - An anti-Israel walkout and sit-in was held at Virginia's George Mason University. To encourage student participation, several inflammatory fliers were posted all over campus depicting a dead baby and calling on all students to protest the violence.

April 11 - Anti-Israel groups protested during a talk by Shimon Shetreet, the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, at Tulane University in New Orleans.

April 10 - Sami al-Arian, a former professor who was fired for his alleged ties to Palestinian terror groups, including Hamas, gave a talk at the University of Florida.

April 9 - A "National Day of Action in Commemoration of Massacre of Village of Deir Yassine April 9 1948" was held at UC - Davis, to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day activities. Speakers discussed divestment and "resistance," among other topics.

April 9 - At the University of Denver, an anti-Israel rally was held. One speaker, Val Phillips, claimed that "right now, Israeli soldiers are rounding up every Palestinian male in Jenin, and dividing them into two groups. One group to be arrested, and the other to be killed." Speakers compared Zionism to Nazism and a member of the Colorado Campaign for Mideast Peace called one of the Jewish students present a "kike."

April 9 - Students at more than 30 schools, including Columbia University, Georgetown, the UC - Berkeley, the University of Massachusetts and the University of Washington held a national "day of action" to start a campaign to persuade universities to divest themselves of stock in corporations that do business with Israel, as they did in isolating South Africa in the 1980's.

April 9 - Campus police at UC - Berkeley arrested 79 pro-Palestinian protesters who had stormed into a classroom building in an attempt to disrupt a Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration. In the aftermath of the incident, the university suspended the student organization, "Students for Justice in Palestinine," pending an investigation.

April 9 - Students at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor posed in front of the student union with gags in their mouths and their hands in an effort to symbolize the "suffering of the Palestinians."

April 9 - An anti-Israel rally, staged as a follow-up to the April 8 demonstration by Arab and Muslim students at San Francisco State University, featured posters bearing a picture of soup cans reading "Made in Israel," on the label and listing the contents as "Palestinian Children Meat," and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as the manufacturer. A photo of a baby, with its stomach sliced open, was also on the can, following the words "according to Jewish Rites under American license."

April 8 - At University of Colorado - Boulder anti-Semitic messages, including the epithet "Zionazis" and the phrase, "Your Tax Dollars are Paying to Kill Palestinian Children," appeared on sidewalks throughout campus on the first day of the planned observance of Holocaust Awareness Week.

April 8 - An anti-Israel protest was staged by several Muslim and Arab student groups under the banner "Genocide in the 21st Century" at San Francisco State University.

April 6 - A construction site for new dormitories at UC - Santa Barbara was defaced with anti-Israel/anti-Semitic graffiti including the phrases: “Anti Zion/Nuke Israel," "God Hates Jews," and "Burn the Torah."

April 5 - In The Daily Targum, the campus newspaper of Rutgers University, a front-page report on the previous day's rally was published. It quoted one protester, a fourth-year pharmacy student, as claiming that the media portray Palestinians as terrorists, "but when the Israeli government went into an all-female hospital and randomly selected 30 women, called them terrorists and executed them, you don't hear about it." She added, "We must educate where the media has failed."

April 5 - A pattern of harassment calls, including three threats, was directed at the University of Colorado - Boulder Hillel.

April 5 - Arab and Muslim students from North Carolina State University (NCSU), Duke University and the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill staged an anti-Israel rally outside a campus mosque at NCSU.

April 4 - A demonstration was organized by the student-led Arabs United at Rutgers University to protest Israeli Army attacks on Palestinian communities.

April 4 - A graphic, multi-media e-mail, showing dead, wounded and mutilated Palestinian children was circulated on the campus of UCLA.

April 1 to 5 - A student vendor at a conference supporting the Palestinian cause at the University of Michigan was selling materials that denied the Holocaust.

April 2002 - Mazin B. Qumsiyeh an associate professor at Yale University circulated an anti-Israel e-mail petition on U.S. campuses, based on one distributed in the UK. The list continues to grow and at present time includes over 300 signatories.

March 2002

March 28 - A Muslim student group at the University of Colorado - Boulder removed a link from its Web pages that led users to a site that contains the charter of the Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that encourages followers to fight Zionism and to kill Jews.

March 27 - The UC - Berkeley Hillel Center was vandalized with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic graffiti and the glass front door was smashed in with a cement block.

February 2002

February 20 - The Gaza Strip, a virulently anti-Israel film, was shown at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business. A heated discussion between Arab and Jewish audience members erupted followed the screening.

February 16-18 - A nationally promoted conference at the UC - Berkeley served as the kickoff for a student-led campaign to encourage universities to divest themselves of stock in corporations that do business with Israel.

February 7 - Pro-Palestinian students staged a protest at the UC - Berkeley calling Israel an "apartheid state" and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a war criminal. Demonstrators also staged a skit, during which cardboard models of "Palestinian homes" were crushed by students holding photos of Prime Minister Sharon in front of their faces.

January 2002

January 31 - Mark Bruzonsky, Publisher of Middle East Realities, gave the keynote address at the University of Chicago Model United Nations. The message was strongly anti-Israel and has been reproduced on a Holocaust denial Web site maintained by a longtime Holocaust denier and extremist, Ingrid Rimland.

January 23 - Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian spokeswoman was a guest lecturer at Calvin College (Grand Rapids, MI).

This anti-Semitic cartoon, which appeared in the Saudi English-language newspaper The Arab News on April 10, 2002, depicts Ariel Sharon, the Prime Minister of Israel, wielding a swastika-shaped bludgeon against Palestinian children.

Cartoon in Al-Ahram, Egyptian government daily, March 21-27, 2002, which depicts Prime Minister Ariel Sharon riding on a bicycle that has swastikas as wheels

Cartoon in Al-Watan, Qatari newspaper, March 14, 2002, which depicts Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a swastika armband.

I don't know why your so offended, you are the chosen of God , aren't you?
F.N.

It will be interesting to see how historians write about the mantle of facism in America being passed to the radical left wing and college activists.

What I want to know is, where the hell are the professors and faculty at SFSU when all this is going down?

What the hell are they doing, or should I say not doing?

I remember in the 80s when YAF used to go around calling anyone who opposed South Africa a fascist. You remember back when Israel was sending arms down there to fight the anti-Semites. After all, who would want to be on the same side as those scary "terrorists" in the ANC.

You have to look no farther than the Israeli press itself to realize that the proIsrael crowd in the US is lost in cloud coo coo land. The Israeli press is a lot more critical on Israeli policy than is the US press.

History will at best look on the proIsraeli crowd in the US as misguided. At worst they will be seen in the same light as Serb nationalists who supported the war in Bosnia.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn0516.html

Right in the wake of House Majority leader Dick Armey's explicit call for two million Palestinians to be booted out of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Gaza as well, came yet one more of those earnest articles accusing a vague entity called "the left" of anti-Semitism.

This one was in Salon, by a man called Dennis Fox, identified as an associate professor of legal studies and psychology at the University of Illinois. Leaving nothing to chance, Salon titled Fox's contribution, "The shame of the pro-Palestinian left: Ignorance and anti-Semitism are undercutting the moral legitimacy of Israel's critics."

Over the past 20 years I've learned there's a quick way of figuring just how badly Israel is behaving. There's a brisk uptick in the number of articles here accusing "the left" of anti-Semitism. These articles adopt varying strategies. Particularly intricate, though I think well-intentioned, was a recent column by Naomi Klein who wrote that "It is precisely because anti-Semitism is used by the likes of Sharon that the fight against it must be reclaimed." Is Klein saying the anti-globalization movement has forgotten how to be anti-anti-
Semitic? I don't think it has. Are all denunciations of the government of Israel to be prefaced by strident assertions of pro-
Semitism?

If this is the case, can we not ask that those concerned about the supposed silence of the left regarding anti-Semitism demonstrate their own good faith by denouncing Israel's behavior towards Palestinians? Klein did, but most don't.

In a recent piece in the New York Times Frank Rich managed to write an entire column puportedly about Jewish overreaction here to news reporting from Israel without even a fleeting reference to the fact that there might be some factual basis for reports presenting Israel and its leaders in a bad light, even though he found time for plenty of abuse for the "inexcusable" Arafat. Isn't Sharon "inexcusable" in Rich's book?

So the left gets the rotten eggs and those tossing the eggs mostly don't feel it necessary to concede that Israel is a racist state whose obvious and provable intent is to continue to steal Palestinian land, oppress Palestinians, herd them into smaller and smaller enclaves and in all likelihood ultimately drive them into the sea or Lebanon or Jordan or Dearborn or the space in Dallas/Fort Worth airport between the third and fourth runways (the bold Armey plan).

Here's how Fox begins his article for Salon: '"Let's move back," my wife insisted when she saw the nearby banner: "Israel Is a Terrorist State!" We were at the April 20 Boston march opposing Israel's incursion into the West Bank. So drop back we did, dragging our friends with us to wait for an empty space we could put between us and the anti-Israel sign.' Inference by Fox: the banner is grotesque, presumptively anti-Semitic. But there are plenty of sound arguments that from the Palestinian point of view Israel is indeed a terrorist state, and anyway, even if it wasn't, the description would not per se be evidence of anti-Semitism. Only if the banner read "All Jews are terrorists", would Fox have a point.

Of course the rhetorical trick is to conflate "Israel" or "the State of Israel" with "Jews" and argue that they are synonymous. Ergo, to criticize Israel is to be anti-Semitic. Leave aside the fact that many of Israel's most articulate critics are Jews, honorably committed to the cause of justice for all in the Middle East. Many Jews just don't like hearing bad things said about Israel, same way they don't like reading articles about the Jewish lobby here. Mention the lobby and someone like Fox will rush into print denouncing those who "toy with the old anti-Semitic canard that the Jews control the press."

These days you can't even say that New York Times is owned by a Jewish family without risking charges that you stand in Goebbels' shoes. I even got accused of anti-Semitism the other day for mentioning that the Jews founded Hollywood, which they most certainly did, as recounted in a funny and informative book published in 1988, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood by Neal Gabler.

So cowed are commentators (which is of course the prime motive of those charges of anti-Semitism) that even after the US Congress recently voted full-throated endorsement of Sharon and Israel, with only two senators and 21 US reps (I exclude the chickenshit 28 who voted "present") voting against, you could scarcely find a mainstream paper prepared to analyze this astounding demonstration of the power of AIPAC and other Jewish organizations, plus the Christian Right and the military industrial complex which profits enormously from military aid to Israel since Congress put through a law concerning US overall aid to Israel, to the effect that 75 per cent of such supplies must be bought from US firms like Raytheon and Lockheed-
Martin, lobbying for Israel.

The encouraging fact is that despite the efforts of the Southern Povery Law Center to drum up funds by hollering that the Nazis are about to march down Main Street, there's remarkably little anti-Semitism in the US, and almost none that I've ever been able to detect on the American left, which is of course amply stocked with non-self-hating Jews. It's comical to find the left's assailants trudging all the way back to Leroi Jones and the 60s to dig up the necessary anti-Semitic jibes. The less encouraging fact is that there's not nearly enough criticism of Israel's ghastly conduct towards Palestinians, which in its present phase is testing the waters for reaction here to a major ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, just as Armey called for.

So why don't people like Fox write about Armey's appalling remarks, (which the White House declared he hadn't made,) instead of trying to change the subject with nonsense about anti-Semitism? It's not anti-Semitic to denounce ethnic cleansing, a strategy which according to recent polls, around half all Israeli Jews now heartily endorse. In this instance the left really has nothing to apologize for, but those who accuse of it of anti-Semitism certainly do. They're apologists for policies put into practice by racists, ethnic cleansers and in Sharon's case, an unquestioned war criminal who should be in the dock for his conduct.

I think some of you need to read Cockburn's article on this subject instead of just scrolling through.

Cockburn is clueless about what is really going on on campuses around the country.

He doesn't the realize how much the far right and Arab extremists have infiltrated the "Left" and contaminated it project.

Thank you for taking these hypocrits to task. I know it is hard- no doubt it gives you a taste of what those who faced Joseph McCarthy felt.

I'm sick of GUPS.

They are constantly in your face with their hateful posters everywhere! There's a stupid Palestinian rally EVERY WEEK!

I'm supposed to feel sorry for these so-called oppressed individuals. Don't they have anything better to do with their time?

They have taken over our student government. If your name even sounds Jewish, they call you a Zionist!
My father is Jewish, my mother is Catholic. I have a Jewish last name. I'm an atheist but according to them I'm Jewish!!! and a Zionist!!!! I don't have anything to do with Hillel but they lump me into the group!

I'm a radical, left-winger myself, but, all of a sudden I'm the enemy, because my last name is Jewish! This is obsurd!

Knock it off GUPS!!!!

We have rights too!!! In 1968, SFSU was taken over by the people to serve the people. We will not have our rights taken away from us!!! The government controled university police are falsly accusing is in order to oppress us!

The Jews ARE the authority! They ARE the enemy!
Remember that!

freepers, you have your own website. please return to it. You're not fooling anyone with your shallow and fake imitations. Right wingers like you compose 99% of the antisemites in this country anyway.

You have the right to refuse to be subject to hate crimes and you have the responsiblity not to commit any. You forgot that last part of that, eh?

Jews are against God !
Genesis 17 : 1 - 10
Deuteronomy 21 : 15 - 17
Galatians 3 : 16 - 23
Galatians 4 : 30 - 31
F.N.

GUPS representative, who says "Jews are the enemy" would you care to identify yourself for attribution and explain how you are not hate-mongering the way you accuse others of against your group when you make such shameful stereotypical generalizations.

And Mr AntiSemite-- I sincerely suggest you review your scripture more carefully since I can assure you that Genesis 1:17 would say nothing like "Jews are against God." Using scripture to hatemonger against others is an abomination of morality.

everything on this page contradicts Cockburn's contention that there is no anti-Semitism on the Left.

Zionism is evil. Zionists, Jews, and Israelis kill innocent children that is fact. Liberate Palestine

"everything on this page contradicts Cockburn's contention that there is no anti-Semitism on the Left."

Gee. Those posts sure sound a hell of alot more like right wing David Duke supporters to me. Or is everyone who posts to IMC automatically a leftist? Then I guess you are too.

"Zionism is evil. Zionists, Jews, and Israelis kill innocent children that is fact."

Yes some do. There are bad apples in every bunch. Including Palestinians. Nice try .. but it is just a fallacy of association. If I see a green haired man stealing a bike, does that mean all green haired men steal bikes? And then should I say "green haired men are evil. green haired men steal bikes that is a fact."???

Logic is the process of drawing a conclusion from one or more premises. A statement of fact, by itself, is neither logical or illogical (although it can be true or false).

As an example of how logic can be abused, consider the following argument which has been widely propagated on the Internet.

Premise 1: Bill Clinton supports gun-control legislation.
Premise 2: All fascist regimes of the twentieth century have passed gun-control legislation.
Conclusion: Bill Clinton is a fascist.

One way of testing the logic of an argument like this is to translate the basic terms and see if the conclusion still makes sense. As you can see, the premises may be correct, but the conclusion does not necessarily follow.

Premise 1: All Catholics believe in God.
Premise 2: All Muslims believe in God.
Conclusion: All Catholics are Muslims.

This is a rather extreme example of how logic can be abused. The following pages describe others.

It should be noted that a message can be illogical without being propagandistic -- we all make logical mistakes. The difference is that propagandists deliberately manipulate logic in order to promote their cause.

As generally understood, propaganda is opinion expressed for the purpose of influencing actions of individuals or groups... Propaganda thus differs fundamentally from scientific analysis. The propagandist tries to "put something across," good or bad. The scientist does not try to put anything across; he devotes his life to the discovery of new facts and principles. The propagandist seldom wants careful scrutiny and criticism; his object is to bring about a specific action. The scientist, on the other hand, is always prepared for and wants the most careful scrutiny and criticism of his facts and ideas. Science flourishes on criticism. Dangerous propaganda crumbles before it.

Cause i'm smelling fish. If thats fish i smell i'll be pissed. You bring fish witcha there Ryan?

Your hate speech and ignorance/misrepresentation of scripture expose you for what you are a lair and bigot.

There's a lot of false information in your article.

It's propaganda. You have an agenda that biases your opinion. You use so-called "facts" to support it.

My previous reply is to a particular response to the original article which I unfortunately did not quote. I have no comment on the original article and I take it for what it is and no more and no less.

Well, it's official, all Arabs are animals.

Put a bullet in their heads next time. Thats ALL that aaarabs understand. THey love murder, they love death, that's what it means to be an arab.