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University professor faces campaign of censorship and intimidation by pro-Israel groups
...the class that this propaganda machine is targeting, my "Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies" course, is one of a number of courses offered at Columbia that cover the Palestinian/Israel conflict. All the others have an Israel-friendly perspective, including Naomi Weinberger's "Conflict Resolution in the Middle East", Michael Stanislawski's "History of the State of Israel, 1948-Present" and a course offered in my own department by my colleague Dan Miron, "Zionism: A Cultural Perspective". My course, which is critical of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism, is in fact an elective course which no student is forced to take. ...A senior departmental colleague of mine, Dan Miron, who votes on my promotion and tenure, has recently expressed open support for this campaign of intimidation based on hearsay. Indeed with this campaign against me going into its fourth year, I chose under the duress of coercion and intimidation not to teach my course this year. ...The Columbia courses that remain are all taught from an Israel-friendly angle.
Intimidating Columbia University
Joseph Massad, assistant professor at Columbia University and Al-Ahram Weekly contributing writer, is the latest target in an ongoing witch-hunt launched by pro-Israel groups within American academia.Below is a statement he issued in response
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The recent controversy elicited by the propaganda film Columbia Unbecoming, a film funded and produced by a Boston-based pro- Israel organisation, is the latest salvo in a campaign of intimidation of Jewish and non-Jewish professors who criticise Israel. This witch-hunt aims to stifle pluralism, academic freedom, and the freedom of expression on university campuses in order to ensure that only one opinion is permitted, that of uncritical support for the State of Israel.
Columbia University, the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, and I personally, have been the target of this intensified campaign for over three years. Pro-Israel groups are pressuring the university to abandon proper academic procedure in evaluating scholarship, and want to force the university to silence all critical opinions. Such silencing, the university has refused to do so far, despite mounting intimidation tactics by these anti- democratic and anti-academic forces.
The major strategy that these pro-Israel groups use is one that equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. But the claim that criticism of Israel is an expression of anti-Semitism presupposes that Israeli actions are "Jewish" actions and that all Jews, whether Israelis or non-Israelis (and the majority of world Jews are not Israelis), are responsible for all Israeli actions and that they all have the same opinion of Israel.
But this is utter anti-Semitic nonsense. Jews, whether in America, Europe, Israel, Russia, or Argentina, are, like all other groups, not uniform in their political or social opinions. There are many Israeli Jews who are critical of Israel just as there are American Jews who criticise Israeli policy. I have always made a distinction between Jews, Israelis, and Zionists in my writings and my lectures. It is those who want to claim that Jews, Israelis, and Zionists are one group (and that they think exactly alike) who are the anti- Semites. Israel in fact has no legal, moral, or political basis to represent world Jews (ten million strong) who never elected it to that position and who refuse to move to that country.
Unlike the pro-Israel groups, I do not think that Israeli actions are "Jewish" actions or that they reflect the will of the Jewish people worldwide! All those pro-Israeli propagandists who want to reduce the Jewish people to the State of Israel are the anti-Semites who want to eliminate the existing pluralism among Jews. The majority of Israel's supporters in the United States are, in fact, not Jews but Christian fundamentalist anti-Semites who seek to convert Jews. They constitute a quarter of the American electorate and are the most powerful anti-Semitic group worldwide. The reason why the pro-Israel groups do not fight them is because these anti-Semites are pro-Israel. Therefore, it is not anti-Semitism that offends pro- Israel groups; what offends them is anti-Israel criticism. In fact, Israel and the US groups supporting it have long received financial and political support from numerous anti-Semites.
This is not to say that some anti-Zionists may not also be anti- Semitic. Some are, and I have denounced them in my writings and lectures. But the test of their anti-Semitism is not whether they like or hate Israel. The test of anti-Semitism is anti-Jewish hatred, not anti-Israel criticism. In my forthcoming book, The Persistence of the Palestinian Question, I link the Jewish Question to the Palestinian Question and conclude that both questions persist because anti-Semitism persists. To resolve the Palestinian and the Jewish questions, our task is to fight anti-Semitism in any guise, whether in its pro-Israel or anti-Israel guise, and not to defend the reprehensible policies of the racist Israeli government.
I am now being targeted because of my public writings and statements through the charge that I am allegedly intolerant in the classroom, a charge based on statements made by people who were never my students, except in one case which I will address momentarily. Let me first state that I have intimidated no one. In fact, Tomy Schoenfeld, the Israeli soldier who appears in the film and is cited by the New York Sun, has never been my student and has never taken a class with me, as he himself informed The Jewish Week. I have never met him.
As for Noah Liben, who appears in the film according to newspaper accounts (I have not seen the film), he was indeed a student in my Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies course in the spring of 2001. Noah seems to have forgotten the incident he cites. During a lecture about Israeli state racism against Asian and African Jews, Noah defended these practices on the basis that Asian and African Jews were underdeveloped and lacked Jewish culture, which the Ashkenazi State operatives were teaching them. When I explained to him that, as the assigned readings clarified, these were racist policies, he insisted that these Jews needed to be modernised and the Ashkenazim were helping them by civilising them.
Many students gasped. He asked me if I understood his point. I informed him that I did not. Noah seems not to have done his reading during the week on gender and Zionism. One of the assigned readings by Israeli scholar and feminist Simona Sharoni spoke of how in Hebrew the word "zayin" means both penis and weapon in a discussion of Israeli militarised masculinity. Noah, seemingly not having read the assigned material, mistook the pronunciation of "zayin" as "Zion", pronounced in Hebrew "tziyon". As for his spurious claim that I said that "Jews in Nazi Germany were not physically abused or harassed until Kristallnacht in November 1938", Noah must not have been listening carefully.
During the discussion of Nazi Germany, we addressed the racist ideology of Nazism, the Nuremberg Laws enacted in 1934, and the institutionalised racism and violence against all facets of Jewish life, all of which preceded the extermination of European Jews. This information was also available to Noah in his readings, had he chosen to consult them. Moreover, the lie that the film propagates claiming that I would equate Israel with Nazi Germany is abhorrent. I have never made such a reprehensible equation.
I remember having a friendly rapport with Noah (as I do with all my students). He would drop off newspaper articles in my mailbox, come to my office hours, and greet me on the street often. He never informed me or acted in a way that showed intimidation. Indeed, he would write me e-mails, even after he stopped being my student, to argue with me about Israel. I have kept our correspondence.
On 10 March, 2002, a year after he took a class with me, Noah wrote me an e-mail chastising me for having invited an Israeli speaker to class the year before when he was in attendance. It turned out that Noah's memory failed him again, as he mistook the speaker I had invited for another Israeli scholar. After a long diatribe, Noah excoriated me: "How can you bring such a phony to speak to your class??"
I am not sure if his misplaced reproach was indicative of an intimidated student or one who felt comfortable enough to rebuke his professor!
I am dedicated to all my students, many of whom are Jewish. Neither Columbia University nor I have ever received a complaint from any student claiming intimidation or any such nonsense. Students at Columbia have many venues of lodging complaints, whether with the student deans and assistant deans, school deans and assistant deans, department chairmen, departmental directors of undergraduate studies, the ombudsman's office, the provost, the president, and the professors themselves. No such complaint was ever filed.
Many of my Jewish and non-Jewish students (including my Arab students) differ with me in all sorts of ways, whether on politics or on philosophy or theory. This is exactly what teaching and learning are about, how to articulate differences and understand other perspectives while acquiring knowledge, how to analyse one's own perspective and those of others, how to interrogate the basis of an opinion.
Columbia University is home to the most prestigious centre for Israel and Jewish studies in the country. Columbia has six endowed chairs in Jewish studies (ranging from religion to Yiddish to Hebrew literature, among others). In addition, a seventh chair in Israel studies is now being established after pro-Israel groups launched a vicious campaign against the only chair in modern Arab studies that Columbia established two years ago, demanding "balance"!
Columbia does not have a centre for Arab studies, let alone a centre for Palestine studies. The Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) encompasses the study of over one billion South Asians, over 300 million Arabs, tens of millions of Turks, of Iranians, of Kurds, of Armenians, and of six million Israelis, five million of whom are Jewish.
To study these varied populations and cultures, MEALAC has three full time professors who cover Israel and Hebrew, four full time professors to cover the Arab World, and two full-time professors who cover South Asia. One need not do complicated mathematics to see who is overrepresented and who is not, if the question is indeed a demographic one.
Moreover, the class that this propaganda machine is targeting, my "Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies" course, is one of a number of courses offered at Columbia that cover the Palestinian/Israel conflict. All the others have an Israel-friendly perspective, including Naomi Weinberger's "Conflict Resolution in the Middle East", Michael Stanislawski's "History of the State of Israel, 1948-Present" and a course offered in my own department by my colleague Dan Miron, "Zionism: A Cultural Perspective".
My course, which is critical of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism, is in fact an elective course which no student is forced to take.
Let us briefly review these claims of intimidation. Not only have the students (all but Noah have not even taken my courses) not used a single university venue to articulate their alleged grievances, they are now sponsored by a private political organisation with huge funds that produced and funded a film about them, screened it to the major US media and to the top brass of the Columbia administration.
Last Wednesday, the film was screened in Israel to a government minister and to participants at a conference on anti- Semitism. The film has still not been released to the public here and is used as a sort of secret evidence in a military trial.
The film has also been used to trump up a national campaign with the aid of a New York congressman to get me fired. All this power of intimidation is being exercised not by a professor against students, but by political organisations who use students against a junior non-tenured faculty member. A senior departmental colleague of mine, Dan Miron, who votes on my promotion and tenure, has recently expressed open support for this campaign of intimidation based on hearsay.
Indeed with this campaign against me going into its fourth year, I chose under the duress of coercion and intimidation not to teach my course this year. It is my academic freedom that has been circumscribed. But not only mine. The Columbia courses that remain are all taught from an Israel-friendly angle.
The aim of the David Project propaganda film is to undermine our academic freedom, our freedom of speech, and Columbia's tradition of openness and pluralism.
It is in reaction to this witch-hunt that 718 international scholars and students signed a letter defending me against intimidation and sent it to President Bollinger, with hundreds more sending separate letters, while over 1,300 people from all walks of life are signing an online petition supporting me and academic freedom. Academics and students from around the world recognise that the message of this propaganda film is to suppress pluralism at Columbia and at all American universities so that one and only one opinion be allowed on campuses, the opinion of defending Israel uncritically.
I need not remind anyone that this is a slippery slope, for the same pressures could be applied to faculty who have been critical of US foreign policy, in Iraq for example, on the grounds that such critiques are unpatriotic.
Surely we all agree that while the university can hardly defend any one political position on any current question, it must defend the need for debate and critical consideration of all such questions, whether in public fora or in the classroom. Anything less would be the beginning of the death of academic freedom.
Joseph Massad, assistant professor at Columbia University and Al-Ahram Weekly contributing writer, is the latest target in an ongoing witch-hunt launched by pro-Israel groups within American academia.Below is a statement he issued in response
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The recent controversy elicited by the propaganda film Columbia Unbecoming, a film funded and produced by a Boston-based pro- Israel organisation, is the latest salvo in a campaign of intimidation of Jewish and non-Jewish professors who criticise Israel. This witch-hunt aims to stifle pluralism, academic freedom, and the freedom of expression on university campuses in order to ensure that only one opinion is permitted, that of uncritical support for the State of Israel.
Columbia University, the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, and I personally, have been the target of this intensified campaign for over three years. Pro-Israel groups are pressuring the university to abandon proper academic procedure in evaluating scholarship, and want to force the university to silence all critical opinions. Such silencing, the university has refused to do so far, despite mounting intimidation tactics by these anti- democratic and anti-academic forces.
The major strategy that these pro-Israel groups use is one that equates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. But the claim that criticism of Israel is an expression of anti-Semitism presupposes that Israeli actions are "Jewish" actions and that all Jews, whether Israelis or non-Israelis (and the majority of world Jews are not Israelis), are responsible for all Israeli actions and that they all have the same opinion of Israel.
But this is utter anti-Semitic nonsense. Jews, whether in America, Europe, Israel, Russia, or Argentina, are, like all other groups, not uniform in their political or social opinions. There are many Israeli Jews who are critical of Israel just as there are American Jews who criticise Israeli policy. I have always made a distinction between Jews, Israelis, and Zionists in my writings and my lectures. It is those who want to claim that Jews, Israelis, and Zionists are one group (and that they think exactly alike) who are the anti- Semites. Israel in fact has no legal, moral, or political basis to represent world Jews (ten million strong) who never elected it to that position and who refuse to move to that country.
Unlike the pro-Israel groups, I do not think that Israeli actions are "Jewish" actions or that they reflect the will of the Jewish people worldwide! All those pro-Israeli propagandists who want to reduce the Jewish people to the State of Israel are the anti-Semites who want to eliminate the existing pluralism among Jews. The majority of Israel's supporters in the United States are, in fact, not Jews but Christian fundamentalist anti-Semites who seek to convert Jews. They constitute a quarter of the American electorate and are the most powerful anti-Semitic group worldwide. The reason why the pro-Israel groups do not fight them is because these anti-Semites are pro-Israel. Therefore, it is not anti-Semitism that offends pro- Israel groups; what offends them is anti-Israel criticism. In fact, Israel and the US groups supporting it have long received financial and political support from numerous anti-Semites.
This is not to say that some anti-Zionists may not also be anti- Semitic. Some are, and I have denounced them in my writings and lectures. But the test of their anti-Semitism is not whether they like or hate Israel. The test of anti-Semitism is anti-Jewish hatred, not anti-Israel criticism. In my forthcoming book, The Persistence of the Palestinian Question, I link the Jewish Question to the Palestinian Question and conclude that both questions persist because anti-Semitism persists. To resolve the Palestinian and the Jewish questions, our task is to fight anti-Semitism in any guise, whether in its pro-Israel or anti-Israel guise, and not to defend the reprehensible policies of the racist Israeli government.
I am now being targeted because of my public writings and statements through the charge that I am allegedly intolerant in the classroom, a charge based on statements made by people who were never my students, except in one case which I will address momentarily. Let me first state that I have intimidated no one. In fact, Tomy Schoenfeld, the Israeli soldier who appears in the film and is cited by the New York Sun, has never been my student and has never taken a class with me, as he himself informed The Jewish Week. I have never met him.
As for Noah Liben, who appears in the film according to newspaper accounts (I have not seen the film), he was indeed a student in my Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies course in the spring of 2001. Noah seems to have forgotten the incident he cites. During a lecture about Israeli state racism against Asian and African Jews, Noah defended these practices on the basis that Asian and African Jews were underdeveloped and lacked Jewish culture, which the Ashkenazi State operatives were teaching them. When I explained to him that, as the assigned readings clarified, these were racist policies, he insisted that these Jews needed to be modernised and the Ashkenazim were helping them by civilising them.
Many students gasped. He asked me if I understood his point. I informed him that I did not. Noah seems not to have done his reading during the week on gender and Zionism. One of the assigned readings by Israeli scholar and feminist Simona Sharoni spoke of how in Hebrew the word "zayin" means both penis and weapon in a discussion of Israeli militarised masculinity. Noah, seemingly not having read the assigned material, mistook the pronunciation of "zayin" as "Zion", pronounced in Hebrew "tziyon". As for his spurious claim that I said that "Jews in Nazi Germany were not physically abused or harassed until Kristallnacht in November 1938", Noah must not have been listening carefully.
During the discussion of Nazi Germany, we addressed the racist ideology of Nazism, the Nuremberg Laws enacted in 1934, and the institutionalised racism and violence against all facets of Jewish life, all of which preceded the extermination of European Jews. This information was also available to Noah in his readings, had he chosen to consult them. Moreover, the lie that the film propagates claiming that I would equate Israel with Nazi Germany is abhorrent. I have never made such a reprehensible equation.
I remember having a friendly rapport with Noah (as I do with all my students). He would drop off newspaper articles in my mailbox, come to my office hours, and greet me on the street often. He never informed me or acted in a way that showed intimidation. Indeed, he would write me e-mails, even after he stopped being my student, to argue with me about Israel. I have kept our correspondence.
On 10 March, 2002, a year after he took a class with me, Noah wrote me an e-mail chastising me for having invited an Israeli speaker to class the year before when he was in attendance. It turned out that Noah's memory failed him again, as he mistook the speaker I had invited for another Israeli scholar. After a long diatribe, Noah excoriated me: "How can you bring such a phony to speak to your class??"
I am not sure if his misplaced reproach was indicative of an intimidated student or one who felt comfortable enough to rebuke his professor!
I am dedicated to all my students, many of whom are Jewish. Neither Columbia University nor I have ever received a complaint from any student claiming intimidation or any such nonsense. Students at Columbia have many venues of lodging complaints, whether with the student deans and assistant deans, school deans and assistant deans, department chairmen, departmental directors of undergraduate studies, the ombudsman's office, the provost, the president, and the professors themselves. No such complaint was ever filed.
Many of my Jewish and non-Jewish students (including my Arab students) differ with me in all sorts of ways, whether on politics or on philosophy or theory. This is exactly what teaching and learning are about, how to articulate differences and understand other perspectives while acquiring knowledge, how to analyse one's own perspective and those of others, how to interrogate the basis of an opinion.
Columbia University is home to the most prestigious centre for Israel and Jewish studies in the country. Columbia has six endowed chairs in Jewish studies (ranging from religion to Yiddish to Hebrew literature, among others). In addition, a seventh chair in Israel studies is now being established after pro-Israel groups launched a vicious campaign against the only chair in modern Arab studies that Columbia established two years ago, demanding "balance"!
Columbia does not have a centre for Arab studies, let alone a centre for Palestine studies. The Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) encompasses the study of over one billion South Asians, over 300 million Arabs, tens of millions of Turks, of Iranians, of Kurds, of Armenians, and of six million Israelis, five million of whom are Jewish.
To study these varied populations and cultures, MEALAC has three full time professors who cover Israel and Hebrew, four full time professors to cover the Arab World, and two full-time professors who cover South Asia. One need not do complicated mathematics to see who is overrepresented and who is not, if the question is indeed a demographic one.
Moreover, the class that this propaganda machine is targeting, my "Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Societies" course, is one of a number of courses offered at Columbia that cover the Palestinian/Israel conflict. All the others have an Israel-friendly perspective, including Naomi Weinberger's "Conflict Resolution in the Middle East", Michael Stanislawski's "History of the State of Israel, 1948-Present" and a course offered in my own department by my colleague Dan Miron, "Zionism: A Cultural Perspective".
My course, which is critical of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism, is in fact an elective course which no student is forced to take.
Let us briefly review these claims of intimidation. Not only have the students (all but Noah have not even taken my courses) not used a single university venue to articulate their alleged grievances, they are now sponsored by a private political organisation with huge funds that produced and funded a film about them, screened it to the major US media and to the top brass of the Columbia administration.
Last Wednesday, the film was screened in Israel to a government minister and to participants at a conference on anti- Semitism. The film has still not been released to the public here and is used as a sort of secret evidence in a military trial.
The film has also been used to trump up a national campaign with the aid of a New York congressman to get me fired. All this power of intimidation is being exercised not by a professor against students, but by political organisations who use students against a junior non-tenured faculty member. A senior departmental colleague of mine, Dan Miron, who votes on my promotion and tenure, has recently expressed open support for this campaign of intimidation based on hearsay.
Indeed with this campaign against me going into its fourth year, I chose under the duress of coercion and intimidation not to teach my course this year. It is my academic freedom that has been circumscribed. But not only mine. The Columbia courses that remain are all taught from an Israel-friendly angle.
The aim of the David Project propaganda film is to undermine our academic freedom, our freedom of speech, and Columbia's tradition of openness and pluralism.
It is in reaction to this witch-hunt that 718 international scholars and students signed a letter defending me against intimidation and sent it to President Bollinger, with hundreds more sending separate letters, while over 1,300 people from all walks of life are signing an online petition supporting me and academic freedom. Academics and students from around the world recognise that the message of this propaganda film is to suppress pluralism at Columbia and at all American universities so that one and only one opinion be allowed on campuses, the opinion of defending Israel uncritically.
I need not remind anyone that this is a slippery slope, for the same pressures could be applied to faculty who have been critical of US foreign policy, in Iraq for example, on the grounds that such critiques are unpatriotic.
Surely we all agree that while the university can hardly defend any one political position on any current question, it must defend the need for debate and critical consideration of all such questions, whether in public fora or in the classroom. Anything less would be the beginning of the death of academic freedom.
For more information:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/715/op33.htm
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These are the same sorts of intimidation tactics used against the media -- proclaiming "balance" when Palestinian suffering is shown even though Palestinians are killed in disproportionate numbers.
So, for example, "balance" according to the San Francisco Chronicle consists of highlighting 4 Israeli children killed by Palestinians with SIX stories while writing only five stories about the 93 Palestinian children killed by Israelis in the same period of time.
source:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/chron/report.html
Similar "balanced" coverage was shown in the San Jose Mercury News.
"...coverage that may have appeared balanced to readers, in reality covered Israeli deaths at a rate three times greater than that of Palestinian deaths."
source:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/merc2/report.html
Mike
You, of course perhaps already know this. But I am going to point it out because this is a reprint article and so SHOULD have included some realities of which the typical AlAram readers would not have automatically known.
While most of the "Ivies" try to have a geographically diverse student body, two of them, Harvard and Columbia draw their students heavily from their immediate locality. For Columbia, that means the NYC area and as a result Columbia is heavily "Zionist" compared to the rest of the "Ivies". Been that way for a long time, which means that the corps of alumni who makes donations is also heavily "Zionist".
I take it "Balance" that you did not realize this?
This isn't to defend what's described in the main article. rather, it is to ask: if we want balance, why don't we discuss the state of academic freedom worldwide?
The thing is, academics everywhere face this-- in China, in the Mideast, and yes, in America and Europe.
So why single out Jews for criticism on the issue? Aside from the apparent anti-Semitism this is probably a fig leaf over... do you have even a plausibe explanation?
Ignoring the actual subject of this post, asking activists in the US to refrain from criticizing something in this country because just as bad if not worse things happen in Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran is a pretty flawed argument. Should we not complain about stolen elections here because they dont even have flawed elections for the positions with real power in those countries? (ok Iran sortof does but the religious leaders are elected indirectly and for very long terms) Should we ignore torture in US jails becasue Syria more openly tortures people? Or to take the argument closer to home, if your neighbor were making loud noise all night and keeping you awake would you accept as an excuse that you shouldnt complain because other poeple a few blocks away are worse? Obviously one complains first about things that effects one personally, then about things that are happening in one's immediate community, and perhaps next about things that one is supporting indirectly through one's taxes etc.. While Darfur is worse than Iraq the US is actively creating the stution there so one complains about Iraq. While China opresses many minority groups in places like Tibet, Israel's opression of Palestinians is carried out with US tax dollars and therefore complaints in the US can have more of an effect.
When academics complain about the stifiling of expression about Israel it is a personal issue (if the academics work with issues that are effected) . You can disagee with what the poeple are saying, but dont ask why the issue is being focused on.
my suspicion, however, is of the people who only really *care* when it's the Jewish ox that gets gored as a result of actions taken against what is in fact a *universal* problem.
In other words, f it's such a bad problem, why do we only hear of it when it's Jews are the villains?
A queston that hasn't been touched in your otherwise-rigorous reply.
If you teach anti-jew or anti-israel stuff across the planet, it's ok, and if you bring it up, israel-haters just accuse you of "changing the subject".
If palestinians-loving, israel-hating professors who spew jaded, dishonest crap are criticized for it, neo-nazis, kkk members, antisemites, and "peace-loving leftists" get angry.
He knows that's not true.
But, he says it anyway.
Sorry, just because you are careful to only criticize Israel, and not "jews," doesn't mean you then have the right to spew dishonest, exaggerated, anti-israel bullshit without reproach.
Some of those who oppose Israel are anti-Semitic, most are not.
Some of those who support Israel accuse anyone who criticizes Israel of being antiSemitic, most do not.
Some of those who accuse supporters of Israel of accusing all those who criticize Israel of being antiSemitic are themselves antiSemitic, but most are not.
But, I would argue that most of those who accuse those who accuse supporters of Israel of being antiSemitic of themselves being antiSemitic are the same people who accuse all those who criticize Israel of being antiSemitic.
Where is the uproar? Where is the outcry?
Where is anything like the movement you've built against the Jewish state? What little advocates for the Native American, is largely a triumph of that people, despite its utter reduction by the ancestors of many if not most Americans, who stole their land and built a country on it with the labor of other people they stole from Africa.
Now I ask you, let's talk about historical injustices in America, and leave the Jews out of it for once, shall we? Or is the real agenda to bash Jews?
should read something more like
"A fraction of a percent of the original Native American population"
Until the last year, antiSemitism was treated like a joke in the US because of the volume of false accusations. One hears Artie Ziff on the Simpsons jokingly blame antiSemitism for the reason people dont like him and one hears numerous similar references in most US popular media through the 80s and 90s. But antiSemitism did exist during this time period. A synagoge near where I grew up was torched by neoNazis and much of the venom of the Christian Coalition was directed at Judaism (although indirectly via the use of code words and stereotypes) The recent claims of increased antiSemitism if proven false and politically directed mainly at opponents of Sharon and Likkud could make things worse. Even the valid attacks on the Middle Eastern media are done in a fashion that is likey to backfire as did attacks on the Nation Of Islam (with an increase in antiJewish conspiracy theories resulting from the valid accusations because of the specific choice of antiSemitic group targeted)
Most anti-Israel activists around these days attack the nation-state because they don't like its government, and most pro-Israel people support the nation-state as something good for the people. This might explain a lot of talking past each other.
American radicals have long confused the government with the nation-state, and in fact it's an easy mistake to make in America. In most other countries, the distinction is much clearer.
Nor have you addressed what on Earth gives Americans the right to criticize the Israeli state for behavior that is a pale imitation of American genocide against so called "First Nations" peoples.
Blaming people for stolen land from the late 1940s does make a little more sense than trying to organize a takeback of land stolen 100 years ago (and if you go back just about all land was stolen from someone at some point). Native Americans do deserve more and many AIM activists also are activists for Palestinians causes. But the struggle is only similar if one ignores the West Bank and Gaza and focuses exclusively on the issues of land disputes in Israel itself (the right of return) rather than looking at the West Bank or Gaza. If one were to treat "the right of return" as only applying to those still alive who were forced out, then even that similarity goes away sicne there are fewer Native American land disputes surrounding people wanting former houses and farms they grew up on returned to them. But I would have to admit there are similarities between the more extreme supporters of Palestinians (who I have never meet) who demand all European Jews out of Israel and those more extereme members of AIM who want all white people out of North American. I would probably sympathize more with those in AIM if this were an actual demand of any sizable number of people (even the more extereme Palestinian groups talk of a single state with everyone as citizens and there are few Palestinians who really call for Jewish Israelis to leave the land they grew up on unless one is talking about settlements).
Because more American tax money is going to bankroll Israel's oppression of Palestinians than is going to oppress Native Americans. When was the last time American made tanks were sent into an American Indian reservation? When was the last time a Native American house was bulldozed by American made bulldozers because of the actions of relatives. US treatment today of Native Americans is bad, but more of my tax money goes into bullets that end up (intentionally of accidently) in the skulls of Palestinian children than goes into bullets that end up in the skulls of Native American children.
it is hard to argue against consistency when the heart of your argument is a moral persuasion about fairness. i think anti-Israel activists for the most part either haven't thought out their moral argument, and are thus open to the kind of criticisms i'm making here (of being, in a word, hypocrites, or at least extremely naive), or they really are anti-Jew and they attack the state as a way to attack the people (i.e. the Wendy Cambell types this site inexplicably tolerates).
work out how you're not attacking the right of Jews to exist as a people, and how what their state is doing is worse than what the american one does to its own indigenous peoples, and get back to us with some answers, okay? thanks!
"Because more American tax money is going to bankroll Israel's oppression of Palestinians than is going to oppress Native Americans."
two things:
1. what america did cost less in the early 1800s than what israel is doing costs in 2004.
2. should the US not spend tax dollars on reproductive health care (or for that matter stem cell research) because some taxpayers dont believe in abortion? should schools have to teach creationism because some taxpayers dont believe in science?
"When was the last time American made tanks were sent into an American Indian reservations"
early 1970s was the last time they had to, if memory serves. things did get kinda dicey on the ny-canada border in the 80s, that may have seen some military action. i'm not entirely sure. maybe you could write leonard peltier a letter and ask, i'll bet he can a) give you a precise answer off the top of his head, and b) has plenty of time to educate you on his situiation.
"When was the last time a Native American house was bulldozed by American made bulldozers because of the actions of relatives."
oh you optimist! that assumes a native american has a house. some do, if you count cinderblock outhouse-style bunkers...
have you ever been to a reservation? i do suggest you go to one of these american "west banklets," if you will, and see just what u.s. taxpayer monies are funding. makes gaza look like beverly hills, i promise you...
"US treatment today of Native Americans is bad, but more of my tax money goes into bullets that end up (intentionally of accidently) in the skulls of Palestinian children than goes into bullets that end up in the skulls of Native American children."
oh, well, that's certainly a good justification for correcting other people's behavior while ignoring the far worse behavior of your own government that's so well hidden, hyou don't even know about it and, when told of it, you have the temerity to brush off as somehow less important.
you're either a hypocrite or a Jew-hater. probably not both, please decide which, and get back to us on that, okay? (remember to renounce the benefits of stem cell research while you're at it, so as not to violate the rights of fundamentalist christian taxpayers.)
Most Palestinians are demanding a two state solution and only a minority are demanding a single secular state, but thats mainly a matter of pragmatism rather than want. I woudl bet that if you gave Palestinians a real choice (not in terms of tactical goals but in terms of actual outcome) between being equal citizens within a modern state like Israel and being citizens in a Palestinian state that exists only within the West Bank and Gaza, most would choose being Israelis.
Of course hatred is high, but Ive never heard the case of a Palestinian familly who left Israel in the 40s being offered the chance of returning to their homes. I would bet that almost all would agree even if it mean recognizing the Israeli state and even claiming loyalty to it.
The issue of Palestinian voting goes beyond pretty wishes (since Israel will never let Palestinians back in and will never give those in Gaza and the West Bank a vote in the Israeli election). Its a matter of justice for thoe in the West Bank and Gaza. I am opposed to wars and opposed to the annexation of lands during wars, but the Palestinians in the Wet Bank and Gaza would be a lot better off today if for the past 20 years they were eevn second class citizens within an actual state rather than citizens of no country. Sure Palestinians can vote for Palestinians but giving prisoners a vote over head prisoner while still keeping them in jail isnt freedom. The West Bank and Gaza are now armed camps strongly opposed to Israel and the idea of a single state is not realistic, but what about the years between 1967 and the first intifada (1987) when there was no real resistance within the West Bank and Gaza but also no offer of Democracy? Palestinians had 20 years without rights and without offering much resistance to give up on that option (there was fighting at the time in Jordan and then in Lebanon and there were even some attacks within Israel itself but almost all were carried out by people living outsdie the West Bank and Gaza) There are 37 year olds today who were born in Israel occupied territory and have never had the option of being the citizen of any recognized country (and many grew up without seeing any real resistance for the first 20 years of their lives). I can think of other cases of annexation that have lasted longer but can you name another case of occupation where there are millions of people stuck without the option of being the citizen of any country? And now with 17 years of fighting Palestinians are also faced with tanks, bulldozing of houses, assassinations, constant overflights of unmanned spy planes, curfews, checkpoints .... But now this suffering is being blamed on the Palestinians themselves for having fought back. One wonders what the excuse was in 1987 when the only fighting going on was by Palestinians outside of the occupied territories. Was the lack of democracy and even citizenship blamed on the PLO fighting in Jordan and then the West Bank?
nevermind the history by which the arabs took over much of the middle east, and never mind the complicated role europe (and by extension, america) has played in nation-formation in the region. however you slice it, these simplistic, morality-based critiques in which the Jews are the only losers just won't do.
that is true if only because americans owe a much greater debt of justice, much closer to home.
Secondly, I am confused by your use of the current lack of Native American activism as an excuse for calling those supporting Palestinians antiSemitic. I have had friends who worked with AIM and most had rather extreme positions on Palestine (antiIsrael that is) that I didnt agree with. If there were protests for better conditions on reservations I would support them. Conditions are bad on many reservations but what do you want me to do? I cant demand that reservations become independent states if those living on the reservations are not demanding that.
There isnt much I can do to help Palestinians either, but the demands are pretty straightforward; democracy, freedom and justice. Is that the most likely outcome if there is a two state solution? No. The new state will very likely be corrupt, antiDemocratic and oppressive. A Palestinian state will be one small step forward. It may also help end an excuse used by many states in the region to remain undemocratic. While many in the US seem to think that the local countries love the Palestinians and hate Israel, most just use it as an excuse. Jordan killed large numbers of Palestinians kicking the PLO out. Egypt killed huge numbers of those who opposed to the peace deal with Israel after the assasination of Sadat. Syria massacred thousands of Islamic fundamentalists in Hama. Most Middle Eastern goevrnment are oppressive and use Israel as an excuse and skapegoat while at the same time cracking down on groups that support the Palestinians. Take away the excuse and there could be change. With the US engaged in mass killing in Iraq due to Bush's larger "war against terrorism" it seems strange for someone to ask someone "why focus on the Palestinians?" All conflicts in the Middle East are tied to the Palestinian conflict and until Palestinians have freedom it will be in the spotlight partly for its own sake and partly because of wars like Iraq where hatreds between Islam and the West that were partly born of the Israel conflict spread death and destruction across the globe (of course Saddam had no ties to 9/11 but if the hatreds that lead to 9/11 hadnt existed 9/11 wouldnt have happened and Bush would not have been able to invade Iraq).
the answers are far from easy, it turns out.
Right now those living in Israel face two problems. One is attack by Palestinians for the actions of their government and the other is forced service in an army occupying the West Bank and Gaza.
Those living in the West Bank and Gaza have much worse problems.
Most Israelis are not responsible for Deir Yassin but Sharon is partly responsible for the bombing of civlian portions of Lebanon and for helping cause what happened in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Perhaps those who voted for Sharon share some guilt in the conditions today as do those in the US who voted for Bush, but blame doesnt help resolve things. An end to occupation is what all sides claim to want but will the withdraw from Gaza just be of settlements of will Israeli attacks in Gaza end? (and will Gaza be allowed to act as a soverign territory?) Is there anything being proposed for the West Bank? Will it be a divided up territory with walls and Israelis troops guarding access roads to issolated settlers? Ther may be hope for the future but with Sharon's history its easy to see why few Palestinians trust anything he says (afterall his political carrer was considered dead after Sabra and Shatila since at the time most Israelis blamed him for the massacres even though Begin was probably more to blame)
Have Germany and Japan changed more or less than Middle Eastern States. Japan kept the symbolic emporer but changed to a Democracy and claimed to be antiwar for years until the US pulled it into Iraq. Germany is obviously different but culturally its changed a lot less than Japan or the Middle East. The Middle East and Japan went though a huge amount of changes as they got integrated into the world economy, but Germany was already Westernized.
Blaming a Palestinian for the Nazi support of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is like blaming Indians today for the view of rebels during British occupation. Some Indians also supported the Nazis because they were fighting the British. While one cant see that as a good thing one can understand it as being unrelated to anything except opposition to the British colonial oppression of India. Was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem even representative of the views of most Palestinians at the time? And why should that have anything to do with Palestinians today? The Middle East has gone though many more changes than Germany since the end of WWII and the birth rate is higher so percentagewise there are a lot fewer people left in the Middle East to blame for thing that happened back than compared to Germany. The tendency for collective blame on sites like ( http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/antiholo/arabnazi.html ) to focus on people of color white ignoring the actual people who comitted genocide is shameless. Perhaps "The Grand Mufti el-Husseini is venerated as a hero by the PLO" but thats manipulating the facts to demonize a present day population. One could find much stronger Nazi links to the Phalange which Israel used as an army in Lebanon to massacre Palestinians. But even there the guilt should be placed upon the Phalange for Sabra and Shatila Massacre and the fact that they were inspred by the Nazis should only be held against members if they saw themselves as being inspired by Nazis. Henry Ford was one of the worst antiSemites in history and helped spread propaganda demonizing jews around the world (helping created the conditions for the Holocaust) yet should one regard as Nazis any school kid in the US who claims to look up to Henry Ford because most school books only report about his business?
I think it's possible to state this without inherently endorsing the things that the Israeli government does. But if you cede the point, that all governments behave like this, how can you turn around and advocate one government over another? Also, how is it conscionable to criticize someone else's government, when one's own has such monstrous crimes to its name as the US govt. does?
I do maintain that anyone truly appalled by Israeli government behavior would be able to address such questions directly, having given such issues some thought. On the other hand, I am very suspeicious of people who ignore such questions in favor of reiterating their symptomatic critique, because it's got the distinct aftertaste of insincerity.
Also, I for one would like to see Jewish interests not bear the brunt of Euro-American moralizing, just for once.
OTOH, Israel is generally believed to actually have hundreds of operational nuclear weapons! Has anyone heard a single threat from the U.S. to punish Israel in any way if it doesn't dismantle its nuclear program? Even to punish Israel by taking away any of the special favors (not limited to billions of dollars yearly!) that it gets from the U.S.?
When Israel is treated by the U.S. rulers like any other country, most of us who are anti-Zionist activists will treat it like any other (racist) country.
That's why the "anti-zionist" left and neo-nazis have almost come together with nearly identical anti-israel arguments.
maybe he should go back to yelling at people he wants to vote for him. oh wait, that didn't work either. well, no need for lack of efficacy to stop a committed leftist..... off ya go....
I'm guessing you meant the many Jewish peopel who worked on the atomic bomb. How many were that pro-Israel?
If you mean Einstein for his work showing why a bomb is possible, he did qualify his support for Israel after the Deir Yassin massacre.
Robert Oppenheimer was Jewish (but also sortof Hindu) but he never really said anything about Israel I can find and he definitely wasnt an Israeli. His brother was a Communist and he gave money to many left-wing groups in the Bay Area before getting sucked into leading the bomb project.
Edward Teller was Jewish but likewise wasnt an Israeli (although his right wing views could have lead him to support the Israeli right although I cant find anything he wrote saying such)
And Ulam, Fermi, Feynman, Von Neumann and most other major scientists who worked on the US A-bombs and H-bombs were not Israelis either.
Confusing Judaism and being an Israeli really is borderline antiSemitism sicne its confusing someones ethnicity and religion with citizenship in a specific state. There are quite a few nonJewish Israelis and many (if not most) nonIsraeli Jews who are at least apathetic about Israel.
Israel is treated by the US like any other democracy. You seem to forget that all of Israel's neighbors are NOT democracies. If and when they become democracies, they will be treated in a similar matter.
(also in that a large percentage of those within it's self-proclaimed boundaries cannot vote)
Which segment/s of population do you claim make/s up that ostensibly large percentage that is prevented from voting within Israel proper?
just as the US has effective control over, say, Puerto Rico or American Samoa (although those subjugated peoples represent a far smaller percentage of total population on US properties)
none of the occupied have full rights as a state and none can vote for who ultimately makes decisions effecting their geopolitical situations
I'm not picking on Israel, per se, any more than any other country that claims to be democratic but doesn't truely live up to those claims
there's full-fledged voting citizens and then there's this class of, um, less-than-full-fleged, with no true democratic rights to vote for the President or Prime Minister who shall rule over them
people throw around "Israel is a democracy" a bit too freely when, what, like 1/3 or more of the people on land under their control have no say whatsover on the big issues that effect them
Sure is...the Nation of lebanon has been OCCUPIED for nearly thrity years by the Brutal Syrian Military...
The West bank and gaza however are not nations, they're contested territories, won by israel as a result of aggressive wars from Egypt and Jordan (the miraculous Six Day War!!!)...Egypt and Jordan Brutally OCCUPIED the Gaza and West bank for 20 years...back then, there weren't any "palestinians" they were egyptians and jordanians...
still doesn't make it right
you can argue the history ad naseum, but today they're not considered Israelis and they can't vote
Israel is a psuedo-democracy until they let those in territories they "won" either vote as Israelis or self-determine on another path
holding 1/3 of your population effectively as non-citizens is only a democracy in the ancient Greek sense (or the America under slavery-sense)
That's because they ARE NOT Israelis...most still hold Jordanian passports...Newsflash!! They can't vote in Jordan either!!
make 'em Israeli citizens and give 'em the vote?
let them self-determine?
or just the leave status quo in place, because it's all their fault, right?
One also has to think about the "occupation" of Lebanon before the Syrian invasion by the minority Christian population. The Presidency is reserved for a Maronite Christian and "Until 1990, seats in parliament were divided on a 6-to-5 ratio of Christians to Muslims, when the ratio changed to half and half. ". ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Lebanon )
Lebanon only gained independence in 1943, and French troops didnt completely withdrew until 1946 and when Israel expelled hundred of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 many of them ended up in Lebanon changing the demography so majority Muslim. So, while the Constitution before 1990 pretty much have a minority power in all government branches over the majority.
The current population breakdown in Lebanon is:
Arabs : 95% (Maronites (16%) 640,000; Shiites (40%) 1,200,000; Sunnites (20%) 780,000; Druzes (6.25%) 250,000; Alawittes 0.5%; other christians 11%; other muslims 1%)
So even under the current constitution about 15% of the population is guaranteed the Presidency.
While this doesnt mean that Syrian occupation is good it does bring up the issues those pretending righteus anger at the Syrians ignore; what would happen if Syria pulled out? Would the civil war restart? Would a constitution that encourages ethnic conflicts slowly build up resentments and lead to pograms and ethnic violence? Lebanon should have the right to govern itself but just having Syria pull out wouldnt necessarilly achieve this. What would it mean in terms of Hezbollah? Would a Syrian pullout encourage an Israelis assualt to take them out? A lot of the anger neocons have for Syria is due to their backing for militant groups in the Occupied Territories so one wonders if the desire to get Syria to pullout by neocons isnt part of a desire to make it easier to go after militant groups in Lebanon. One doesnt have to like Hezbollah to be scared by what an attempt to destroy it could mean; since it is a group strongly tied to the Shiites of Lebanon (who are the largest ethnic group), an attack on Hezbollah could rekindle the civil war (and the number of deaths could be just as high as when Israel went in claiming to be defending the Maronites from the Palestinians)
At least for most of the time Israel stayed it was there to defend its own citizens from attacks perpetrated from Lebanese soil, whereas Syria's occupation has had no defensive purpose. Let's also not forget that Israel never controlled the entire Lebanese territory even at the highest point of its occupation, as the remainder was under the Syrian boot. And about the massacres -- under Syrian control equally bad if not worse massacres have occurred and still worse is that Syrian forces were directly involved in committing some of them (unlike Israel). For example, the Syrian-formed Saheka Guerrillas and the Syrian-led Yarmouk Palestinian Guerrillas attacked the Christian town of Damour on Jan 21 1976. 582 civilians were massacred, while the rest of the residents were uprooted from their town. For more, see http://www.2la.org/lebanon/ee/terrorlb.htm .
>>>"One also has to think about the "occupation" of Lebanon before the Syrian invasion by the minority Christian population. The Presidency is reserved for a Maronite Christian and "Until 1990, seats in parliament were divided on a 6-to-5 ratio of Christians to Muslims, when the ratio changed to half and half. ". ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Lebanon ) "<<<
Notwithstanding the unfair advantages Maronites had had in various aspects of Lebanese life, they at least are indigenous to Lebanon and natives in that land.
>>>"While this doesnt mean that Syrian occupation is good it does bring up the issues those pretending righteus anger at the Syrians ignore; what would happen if Syria pulled out? Would the civil war restart? Would a constitution that encourages ethnic conflicts slowly build up resentments and lead to pograms and ethnic violence? Lebanon should have the right to govern itself but just having Syria pull out wouldnt necessarilly achieve this."<<<
When I tried to stir up a discussion precisely about how to rebuild Lebanese independence on fair foundations so that the Syrian occupation's self perceived role in maintaining order would be redundant, my misgivings were quickly brushed aside.
>>>" What would it mean in terms of Hezbollah? Would a Syrian pullout encourage an Israelis assualt to take them out? A lot of the anger neocons have for Syria is due to their backing for militant groups in the Occupied Territories so one wonders if the desire to get Syria to pullout by neocons isnt part of a desire to make it easier to go after militant groups in Lebanon."<<<
But you're not mentioning that if it weren't for Syria's support and approval, and if Syria were to forbid it to attack Israeli targets, Hizballah wouldn't have attacked Israeli targets. When Hizballah refrains from attacking Israeli targets, Israel has no reason to make assaults on it and won't attack it. The problem is that Syria uses Hizballah as a proxy to periodically attack Israel with.
That said, I don't know whether the neocons are actually planning to attack Hizballah if the Bush administration ever manages to get Syria out. My educated guess is that a US attack on Hizballah isn't likely to occur over the next few years at least.
There were similar "ethnic revenge attacks" by all groups in the country but what sets Sabra and Shatila apart was the fact that the attack occured "out of the blue" right after Israel had forced almost all Palestinian militants out of the country, it occured in a major city surrounded by thousands of Israeli troops who were not engaged in combat at the time and the aftermath was covered up in many ways (during the massacre bulldozers were used to quickly bury bodies, even after the massacre no identification or count of thebodies took place and those who carried out the masscre were never prosecuated and those who directly ordered the massacre remained in positions of power in Lebanon for years afterwards)
Probably the worst Israel attrocity carried out by Israeli troops directly was the bombing of West Beirut (see
http://www.littleredbutton.com/lebanon/page24.html
for news reports of the results of the attacks; although I guess some may dismiss the reports since they were written by, among others, the notorious antiSemite Thomas Friedman). As with most massacres of civilians through such bombings, its pretty easy to hide behind the claim that the targets were all mititants (and thats likely the primary reasons for each bomb that was dropped) and the massive civilians death were merely unfortunate, but there is no way one can drop that many bombs on a major city without killing thousands of civilians. How many apartment complexes were flattened with everyone inside? Does it matter if a few militants may have even been in or near an apartment complex when it was hit if over a hundred civilians were killed in many single bombs attacks? And can there be any real justfication for the use of cluster bombs and white phosporus?
Dur to the use of better weapons than the Syrians and the total numbers of bombed dropped the total number of people killed in Lebanon by Israel probably surpassed all of those killed in attacks by the Syrians.
In terms of other attacks that seemed almost to be direct Israeli targetting of civilian ares one can look at the Israeli shelling at Qana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qana_Massacre
----
While Israel claimed the attack on Lebanon was self defense, the number of deaths before the invasion from cross border rocket attacks and "terrorist" style attacks within Israel were very limited. One also has to wonder how the excuse used could justify sending troops all the way to Beirut. Even if Begin really thought the war was somehow to prevent attacks (with a logic that one Israeli death was worth 100+ deaths in Lebanon) the result of the Israeli invasion was a disaster for even Israel. The Shiites of Southern Lebanon were not particularly antiIsrael before the invasion (and many were openly hostile to the Palestinian militias who they saw as foreign). As the Israeli occupation of Lebanon continued hatred against Israel grew to unprecidented levels with Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad forming primarilly out of Israel's actions in S Lebanon rather than because of foreign support. The number of Israelis killed on military duty in Lebanon each year easilly exceeded the number killed in the sporadic attacks before the war and after the war ended hatred in the Middle East against Israel grew to a new unprecidented level (Bin Laden now eeven claims the images of apartment complexes being levelled by IDF planes gave him the idea for 9/11; thats probably not true but its something he mentioned in his latest tape because of its strong resonance among people in the Middle East)
What does any of this have to do with Syria's occupation of Lebanon today? Not that much if you see it as an issue between Lebanon and Syria, but a lot when you look at the role of the US and Israel in pushing for the Syrian troops to leave. Moral self righteousness by people perceived to have comitted worse crimes than those being condemned usually backfires. If Israel and its supporters wants Syria out of Lebanon because they assume that all cross border attacks are carried out with Syrian support (which seems like a strange accuastion with much of the more believable accuastions involve Iran http://www.lebanonwire.com/0411/04110901HZ.asp ), then say so. When Israel and the US call on Syria to leave, pretending that its because Israel and the US care so much about the poor people of Lebanon, its a little sickening. Those who support Israel often ask why Israel is "singled out" over other countries that commit just as bad crimes. One reason is self-righteous statements about "purity of arms", caring about the people being attacked and the like. Israel and necons (and specifically people like GW Bush) are hated more than others who pretend to be carrying out attrocities claiming they are being done for the highest of moral reasons because there is a suspicion that unlike Assad, leaders of China or Putin, Israel (and necons) actually believe their own propaganda.