This is an amazing piece by Harvard Anthropology Prof Lorand Matory. Published in the Crimson because no one else will publish it, it says everything I say: the Jewish presence in the establishment has had the effect of stifling debate over Israel and denying status to those who speak of Palestinian suffering. Consider this eloquent first sentence:
At what point do imbalances in access to money, media, and society’s
administrative apparatuses constitute the censorship of dissent?
Matory then goes on to name several instances of censorship at Harvard.
on no other issue at Harvard have I ever heard of the disinvitation of
even one invited speaker, much less three.
In 2002, Harvard’s
Department of English invited Tom Paulin—Oxford professor and one of
the finest living British poets—to speak, but promptly disinvited him
after then-University President Lawrence H. Summers expressed
disapproval of Paulin’s criticisms of Israel. Though the Department
later voted to reverse the disinvitation, Paulin has never come to
campus. In 2005, DePaul historian Norman G. Finkelstein, who has both
sharply criticized Israeli military conduct and accused Harvard Law
School Professor Alan M. Dershowitz of plagiarism, had been invited to
speak at Harvard Book Store but was abruptly disinvited without
explanation. While Finkelstein cannot prove that Dershowitz was
responsible for the disinvitation, the Dershowitz modus operandi is
evident in the hundreds of pages of threatening legal correspondence
which document Dershowitz’s campaign to stop publication of
Finkelstein’s book at University of California Press (UCP) …
Some have opined that, with the passing of the Summers
administration in 2006, these threats to free speech about Israel have
ended. However, in 2007, long after Summers’ departure, Martin A.
Nowak—Professor of Mathematics and Biology and Director of Harvard’s
Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED) —invited Rutgers biologist
Robert L. Trivers to speak on the occasion of his receipt of the
prestigious Crafoord Prize in biosciences from the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences. Hours before the scheduled speech and party,
according to Trivers, Nowak abruptly rescinded the invitation and said
that he was doing so under the orders of someone he would not identify.
Also according to Trivers, Jeffrey Epstein later admitted ordering the
cancellation and said that he had done so under pressure from
Dershowitz. Epstein, a legal client of Dershowitz, had donated the
funds used to establish PED, which, according to other sources, depends
for its future effectiveness on further funding from him.
Dershowitz, who is also a Faculty Affiliate of PED, had
complained of a letter to the Wall Street Journal in which Trivers
described Israel’s attacks on Lebanese civilians during the 2006
invasion as “butchery.”
I like Harvard professors. Precise, specific. Then this ominous paragraph:
Finally, my colleagues and I hold the strong suspicion that a recent
tenure case was terminated because of the candidate’s non-academic
writings about the Israel-Palestine issue. Faculty rules forbid me to
disclose any further details. Despite the brevity with which this case
must be treated, the potential for political bias in tenure decisions
is the most serious and frightening of threats to free speech and to
Harvard’s reputation for excellence. Every one of the dozen junior
faculty members who have privately expressed support for my motion have
also expressed fear of doing so publicly.
Will someone tell me who Matory is talking about? And as for Matory’s anger that he has been marginalized and his status threatened by his exclusion from mainstream publications–dude, I hear you. But think about it this way. We are the modern refusees, those artists in France who derived such self-awareness and shadow-status from being rejected. We are learning the issues, we are getting tough, not bitter. We are not going away, we are getting smarter, we are growing a community. That community spans realists, leftist progressives, universalists, alotta Jews, State Department guys, ordinary Americans. Note Victor Kovner’s appeal to the Jewish establishment to open its eyes and First Amendment to us. Note Carla Cohen’s collapse on censorship at a “beloved” DC bookstore. We have cut the barbed wire. Before you know it, we will come into the mainstream.
"And as for Matory's anger that he has been marginalized and his status threatened by his exclusion from mainstream publications–dude, I hear you. But think about it this way. We are the modern refusees…"
Is it fair to conclude that the non-refusees benefit from a kind of tribal nepotism if they toe the line? This is very much my impression observing the way the MSM, academia, finance, law and some corners of govt. seem to work in the US but of course it is not falsifiable and it is indelicate in the extreme to mention it in polite company so I haven't felt able to previously.
But I will now in this invaluable forum under the cover of anonymity.
.
Matory's resume indicates that he has dug deep into the roots of African culture, even to the extent of learning the West African language, Yoruba.
http://aaas.fas.harvard.edu/faculty/j_lorand_matory/index.html
Jews and Africans both faced assimilation pressure in North America. But in a condition of servitude, Africans were more thoroughly assimilated, often losing touch with their geographic origins, religion and culture. Matory has gone digging for those lost roots in Haiti, Cuba, Brazil, and West Africa.
Let's cheer him on, y'all! Photo link (cheerleaders):
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/99/259854320_8ab86d0d23.jpg?v=0
Dershowitz probably has the power to influence hundreds of millions of donation dollars to Harvard's endowment. I worked there for 12 years and been in other universities since and have seen the influence of outside money on University policies. Academic freedom is not something that attracts money, and is frequently sacrificed for the money. Usually its influence is more subtle but there is nothing subtle about Allan. His justifications of torture in the war on terrorism and his attacks on academic freedom may make him a hero to Israelis and their rightwing followers here, but if there is any justice in this world he will become known as one of the true evil ones.
Yes maybe soon we can even ask about the army of Mossad spies (some apparently represented by Dershowitz)watching the hijackers in the year before 9/11. This could be great, an America for Americans. But that is probabaly going to take some time, right Phil?
W: He's Not Just A Sniveling Coward…He's A Traitor Too!
http://homo-sapien-underground.blogspot.com/2008/06/w-hes-not-just-sniveling-cowardhes.html
Thread backward through link to eaazi.blogspot.com
to read about the latest of Dershowitz' outrageous claims.
At some point he has to become more embarrassing to Harvard that he is worth in terms of fundraising.
And there is a group of alumni-investors that think he ripped them off on a kosher-deli-restaurant in Harvard Square.
is this a real jew phil? can you say finally a real jew?
listen to this man rail against zionism and aipac..and why shouldnt he? wouldn't the jews of europe have appreciated a man speaking up for them back when they were going through the hell that was nazi europe?
well here a man and his organization speaks up loudly against the ethnic cleansing that is ongoing against the palestinians.
Baruch ha-Shem.
link to youtube.com
Does it really take a Harvard professor to convince anyone that Jews have a huge influence in the media? Is it really talent that places Jewish women in sports broadcasting, and Ted Koppel, Wolf Blitzer, Andrea Koppel, Larry King, and the countless other Jews behind the scenes, and in major positions in the media, where they are?
Te Jewish influence is very obvious in pretty much every type of news outlet, and that's not even mentioning entertainment. If Americans feel stifled by a foreign culture coming at them, is it any wonder?
"That community spans realists, leftist progressives, universalists, alotta Jews, State Department guys, ordinary Americans."
Ordinary Americans come last. I just had to throw that in!
'Yes maybe soon we can even ask about the army of Mossad spies (some apparently represented by Dershowitz)watching the hijackers in the year before 9/11.'
This is for me the most explosive 'sleeper' of a story… it's been told, most notably by Christopher Ketcham, but it hasn't taken root anywhere important. I wonder why.
“In dictatorships,” says Natan Sharansky, “you need courage to fight evil; in the free world, you need courage to see the evil.”
http://youtube.com/watch?v=JWpWc_suPWo
say it aint so shane…
Having stewarded the Kurdish Library in Brooklyn, NY since 1986, I determined in 2000 to relocate the collections to an "honest" university. I read what happened to Professors Walt and Mearscheimer when they published "The Israel Lobby." I read of the attacks on New York University's Tony Judt when he defended them.
I considered City University Grad School–until I learned that they refused a session on the book on the pretext that the topic was "too controversial."
I read what President Lee Bollinger did to Iran's Ahmadinejad after inviting him to Columbia. Some role model for academic debate, he railed as a Jew, not a scholar. More depressing, I earned my doctorate at Columbia and I'm a Jew.
Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq, when I happened upon Israel's Kurdish agenda, I began including finer details in a chronicle I edit. It wasn't long before I got a good taste of Jewish ire from a top academic at the Hebrew University, no less.
In 2002, he sent me a letter that began: "I thought that our long acquaintanceship was based on certain shared prnciples and goals. But this is not so. You filled me with dismay and contempt in reading your article "Israel: Climate Control," in the summer 2002 issue, no. 43, of Kurdish Life. Your Israel-bashing outburst, reeking with anti-Semitic manipulative Jewish power allusions, turned your otherwise important and informative journal into a rag full of lies, myopia, and hatret. Shame on you."
I have included a section on Israel in virtually every issue since then, despairing, every dispairing that my quest for a repository would be in vain. Desperate, I turned to a pragmatic Harvard professor for advice, only to hear from him that I ought to begin looking on Mars!