The Left-Wing Gatekeepers of the American Anti-Israeli Occupation Movement

[reprehensor]

The Left-Wing Gatekeepers of the American Anti-Israeli Occupation Movement

by Seth Farber
October 7, 2005

After the invasion of Jenin, while the Left in America debated whether the Israeli Army had committed a "massacre" or just an ordinary war crime, I decided that I wanted to protest against the crimes committed by the "Jewish state." Thus I prepared to begin work on a book of interviews with anti-Zionists and non-Zionist Jews. The book is titled Radicals, Rabbis and Peacemakers: Conversations with Jewish Critics of Israel (Common Courage Press, 2005). I was keenly aware that the most well known American Jewish critic of the 1967 Israeli occupation is Michael Lerner, editor of the left-wing magazine Tikkun. I was not impressed by Lerner's effort to separate the decades long occupation, dispossession and persecution of the Palestinian people from the mythic and ostensibly innocent era of Israel's origins and youth, thus legitimating the Zionist project. I decided to put together a book that would serve as an introduction to the anti-Zionist faction of the Jewish anti-occupation movement, much as Lerner's book Healing Israel/Palestine made the argument for the Zionist wing of the anti-Occupation movement.

In 2002, I also joined Jews Against the Occupation (JATO), a NY group that supported the Palestinian right of return as guaranteed by UN Resolution 194 -- that is, the right of all Palestinian refugees to return to the land they fled or were expelled from in 1947/8. My first two interviews were with the prominent leftist scholar Norman Finkelstein, whose most recent book, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, is a searing deconstruction of Alan Dershowitz's book The Case for Israel (and thus of his case), and Ora Wise, a young spokeswoman for JATO whose father was a conservative rabbi. After I found a publisher I resumed work on the book. One phone call I made in 2004 lingers in my mind because of my exchange with the Jewish scholar to whom I spoke symbolizes for me the problem with the Jewish Left in the US today. He is a member of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and a non-Zionist scholar. I told him of my plan for the book and asked if he would agree to an interview. He raised his voice and stated: "You are dividing Jews. What is your political rationale for doing this book?" His tone put me on the defensive. I mentioned that he sounded angry. He did not modulate his voice but repeated, "I am merely asking you what is your political rationale for dividing Jews. Why are you writing this? Tell me what do you hope to accomplish politically! Otherwise how could I agree to an interview." There were a number of thoughts that were clamoring in the forefront of my mind but I decided not to express them because the tone of his voice was forbidding, not genuinely inquisitive.

I could not predict the political effects of my book -- how can one ever do that with any degree of certainty? I wanted to make the anti-Zionist argument (against current Israeli policies) known to a larger public because it is the strongest, most cogent, and the most moral argument for opposing the Israeli occupation -- and thus for becoming active in the pro-Palestinian movement. Whether it would succeed in mobilizing opposition to Israel -- of that I had no way of knowing. But it was an argument that deserved to be heard. How could there be any adverse effects from telling the truth? The Zionist argument that Israel's cause was noble and was corrupted in 1967 was a falsehood. Why should my book accommodate those whose advocacy was based on illusions? Why should I not tell the unvarnished truth, as ugly as it was?

Had I made such a statement on the phone I suppose the JVP scholar would have repeated: "You are not taking responsibility for the effects of presenting only one side of the argument against the occupation and you are placing a divide in the middle of the Jewish Left." But I had a response to that also: "I do not care. It is irrelevant to me that many left-wing Zionists will feel attacked. I believe that one of the virtues of the anti-Zionist argument is that it will appeal to many Palestinians and many Arabs and Moslems who believe quite rightly that the Zionist argument is disingenuous. It is Palestinians and Moslems who are the victims here, and I care more about making an alliance with them on the basis of an acknowledgment of the wrong-doing committed in our name, the name of Jews, than I do about presenting a united front of Jewish leftists to the world." This went through my mind in the few minutes I was on the phone, and I could imagine his voice crescendoing to a vociferous rage. Thus I beat a polite retreat and managed to terminate the conversation.

more@link

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Scholar Norman Finkelstein Calls Professor Alan Dershowitz's New Book On Israel a "Hoax"

Alfred M. Lilienthal, longtime critic of Zionism

Jews Not Zionists

NETUREI KARTA, Jews United Against Zionism

True Torah Jews Against Zionism

[Jim Sagle]

1. Antisemitic self-hating filth, one and all. Thanks for turning over the

rocks and exposing these scum. :thumbsup:

[HawkerHurricane]

2. They don't agree with you, so they must be scum.

Got it.

[papau]

3. Interesting fellow - a Ph.D psychologist who believes mental illness is a

myth.

Hr edits his facts with as much or more slant than Tikkun's Michael Lerner.

I look forward to a 2 state solution with right of return dealt with by payment of compensation for loss.

peace - I hope.

:-)

[bemildred]

4. Mr Szasz is an interesting fellow too.

That perked my interest more than anything this fellow
had to say. Szasz is a fairly rarified taste, like
that British fellow, R. D. Laing.

I do find that their argument about the medicalizing of
"abnormal" personal choices and personality has some
merit, but I've never been able to resolve satisfactorily
to myself where one draws the line; and I do think some
people really are nuts, it's not just a personal choice.

[Coastie for Truth]

6. Farber is well to the Left of Lerner

---and I sometimes daven at Beyt Tikkun in Berkeley.

[Coastie for Truth]

5. Interesting book

I read the book at our local Temple library (surprised that they bought it? - This is metro SF), and also Abraham Weizfeld's favorable review. I found the Weizfeld review interesting - because he has previously attacked such decidely left groups as the "Workingmen's Circle" and even the "Birobidzhan Movement" (If you're interested, Google them).

I also note that at one passage in the book Farber approvingly quotes Norman Finkelstein's attacks on (no, not Dershowitz) but on Michael Lerner.

Farber presents a point of view, albeit a minority point of view.

As my Grandfather, "Red Rabbi Zvi" - from the "Workingmen's Circle" and the "Birobidzhan Movement" - would say "A nice boy but a Bissel Mishogah." I guess that sums it up -- Workingmen's Circle, and Birobidzhan and Lerner don't measure up to Farber's standards.

And, if my Grandfather knew that Farber was also a PhD psychologist, that would clinch it - a "Gunsa Mishogah."

Unless you are well rooted in the religious left of Lithuania and Russia - transplanted to the US -- don't try to understand Farber - or his supporters - or his religious left critics. These are people who say that Karl Marx was really a misunderstood spiritual Talmudist.

[Jim Sagle]

7. Lilienthal has been closely linked with the World War II revisionist

right wing - the folks who think Nazi Germany was the innocent victim of Anglo-American aggression.

[reprehensor]

8. Jim, I would be interested in seeing some documentation on that.

Got any links?

[Jim Sagle]

9. Google "lilienthal regnery" and you'll get all the links you'll ever need.

[reprehensor]

14. Ok.

The top return is an article by Justin Raimondo:

Regnery, says Frum-Dzerzhinsky, "showed a curious partiality, throughout his long career, for anti-interventionist, anti-British, and anti-Israeli books." He darkly hints that Regnery was a closet Nazi by informing us that the premier conservative publisher "was a student in Nazi Germany in the 1930s." What were these "anti-Israeli books" Frum is so peeved about? The "Protocols of the Elders of Zion"? Hardly. Instead, the offending volume is probably Alfred Lilienthal's What Price Israel?, which Regnery published in 1953: the author, of the Jewish faith, argued against Zionism from a religious perspective, and complained that "the word 'Jew' is now being used simultaneously to denote a universal faith and a particular nationality; and the corresponding allegiances to religion and to state have become confused."

It is precisely this confusion that, today, allows Frum and his fellow neocons to smear anyone and everyone who dares to so much as look at Ariel Sharon cross-eyed as an "anti-Semite." For the sin of having published a book by a Jewish author that questioned the wisdom of conflating state and religion, the man who also brought out William F. Buckley, Jr.'s God and Man at Yale and Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind, among other classics, is not to be forgiven.

Regnery probably owned the publishing rights to 'What Price Israel?' as it is listed as the publisher for further reissues in the 1980s. The 50th anniversary of the book was published last year, by Infinity pblishing, a Regnery imprint? I don't know. Google it.

How does this show that Lilienthal was 'closely linked' to Nazi apologists whose intent is to shift blame from German war criminals for WWII?

I googled 'Lilienthal revisionism' and came up with ONE article published by IHR, (which is obviously a front for anti-semitism), they've been name-dropping him ever since. Just as they publish the early truly revisonist works by Barnes, and conflate that with contemporary holocaust revisionism to blur their true intent. (Late in his career, Barnes wrote more about Holocaust revisionism, I haven't read it, and have no desire to.)

But to say that he is 'closely aligned' with WWII revisionism is akin to saying Chomsky is Faurisson's best friend.

Michael Collins Piper= 'closely aligned'

Lilenthal= 'not so much'

[Coastie for Truth]

10. You need some (albeit minimal) historic understanding

of the ever-present fissures in any Jewish and Zionist group - like the old saw "Two Jews - three opinions").

But, within that context- try these links from Lilienthal's own web site:

1.

2.

3. You would also have to Google "American Council for Judaism" to get some of the context.

It's in there - don't take my word -- do the research.

[reprehensor]

13. I've already read those top two articles, thanks.

If you want to point me to some specific articles, do it. I asked Jim to point me to some links, and what I got was a google recommendation, which does nothing to back up his accusation that Lilienthal is 'closely linked' to Nazi apologists.

[Coastie for Truth]

15. But have you Googled "American Council for Judaism"?

and followed the links to the Koch Foundation, and James Ennes and Paul Findley?

[reprehensor]

16. No!

But I will!

[bemildred]

11. Oooooooooog. Man don't do that.

That gave me mental whiplash.

First there was a Justin Raimondo rant about Frum, and then
lots of painfully serious stuff about Lilienthal's anti-zionist
opinions and so on, and Zionist-Nazi collaboration to drive Jews
to the Middle East by killing lots of Jews, and so on, and what
you might call "Holocaust mitigation" stuff. But nothing
about how the Nazis were really swell, just misunderstood. I
don't think I've seen much of that except in certain recondite
American political circles and from some atavistic Germans,
but it is true it's not a subject I find interesting. When
getting your entire country pounded flat and occupied for 60 years
doesn't cause a reassessment of your political leadership, there
is likely to be little of interest to be said otherwise.

[Lithos]

12. Can you expand on that

The biggest problem I recall with Lilienthal had to do with a few writings including his stance on the "Khazar" fiction, not any active ties with anti-Semites or conservatives.

The keywords you suggested below basically are citations of Lilienthal's books which does not imply an active connection between the two. Or do you know of a more active connection?