I've failed to post anything about the University of Michigan Press's decision to stop distributing books by Pluto Press, a leftwing British publisher whose big offense was publishing Overcoming Zionism, by Joel Kovel. What is there to say other than that it's tragic? Kovel is for a one-state solution. His book exposed U of M to the usual letterwriting campaign and god knows what other forms of blackmail. It is something like Politics and Prose shutting down the book talk by Saree Makdisi, who is also for a one-state solution (a decision since reversed).
Roger van Zwanenberg, chairman of Pluto, said that there was no doubt
in his mind but that for political opposition to a book critical of
Israel, his press and Michigan’s press would still be doing business.
“What this tells you is that there are dark forces in America who would
like to control the flow of ideas, and they are powerfully organized
and they are very dangerous,” he said.
Dangerous is a good word. We're stymieing discussion. I hereby reissue my weekly call to reform Jewish culture (and every month I get around to calling for the reformation of Islam; I know, shameful media bias). Histories will some day record this period with shame, that is if we don't ban em.
There is a strong stench of totalitarianism to the AIPAC/Thinktank/Jewish Media axis of manipulation. These people want to control.
Control the flow of ideas, control the agenda, and hold public shows where McCain, Obama, and Hillary all swear fealty to The Realm.
Just imagine: a venal mentality that can justify starving whole populations behind barbed wire while killing off the leaders and torturing thousands more. Israel declaring a truce is like a rapist declaring a truce.
And if you think it can't happen elsewhere, just imagine the collective punishment these communists would like to wreak on everyone who believes Walt, Mearsheimer, and Carter (to name but a few).
The hasbara forces face a fundamental contradiction. You can't push good news about what is manifestly evil. Lies and censorship have become integral to the lobby's activities.
It happens globally, and it works on a decentralised basis. Every main media outlet is under constant surveillance and pressure, every other possibility of the victims' narrative bubbling to the surface is under perennial attack, perennially successful.
That the university system should join the game, however, is much more significant. Certainly the UofM's decision is a cut more significant than a DC poseur closing off her bookstore to undesirable opinions. But the denial of tenure to Finkelstein has already started the rot. The creation of the obscene Campus Watch of course reflects the significant of the terrain that is the university.
And here is the claim of responsibility from a pro-Israel, anti-Islam blog.
"This is a welcome outcome to efforts, led by the Michigan chapter of the pro-Israel group StandWithUs, to get the UM Press to re-think its contract to be exclusive American distributor of Pluto Press.
Last year, StandWithUs challenged UM Press’s decision to distribute John Kovel’s Overcoming Zionism. Kovel is a professor of social studies at Bard College, and, in Overcoming Zionism, he “advocates abolishing the State of Israel and replacing it with a single secular state with no ties to the Jewish people.” (“University of Michigan Distributes Anti-Zionist Book”).
http://dearbornunderground.blogspot.com/2008/06/university-of-michigan-dumps-pluto.html
THE FASCISTS ARE ON THE TRACK….
Zionism is a divide.
There is NO peaceful a-Zionism position, or anti-Zionism position.
It is by definition a statement of the irrelevance of the notion that the Jewish people are a people, and constitute a nation.
While you may not like, or likely know, the actual reasons or motives or means that Kovel's and Pluto's contracts got severed, to gamble in the attribution that it is censorship, is itself at best a gamble, at worst a fraud.
The left engages in Rovian rumor-mongering as well as the right. Its ugly, and forces a conflict between one's "profession" and one's humanity.
.
Mr. Witty,
Neither is there a peaceful Zionist position as the past 60 years have demonstrated.
You write anti-Zionism "is by definition a statement of the irrelevance of the notion that the Jewish people are a people, and constitute a nation." But not all Jews view themselves as a people, and not all view themselves as part of a nation. Apart from it smacking of the medieval nation-state idea that Italy is for the Catholics and England is for the Anglicans, Zionism is only a 200 yr old concept that came to fruition in the Viennese cafes.
What angers Americans, who are a people and who constitute a nation, is the violation of THEIR constitutional right to comment on and question a political policy advanced by 2.4% of their population in favor of a foreign country that currently exists on our dime, and insists on favored nation status to hijack our foreign policy.
Now you want to call that anti-Zionism? Go ahead. I call it being an American first and resent anyone saying I dont have the right to claim that. And that when I do, I am branded anti- whatever you favor.
Humanity? Israel starting WWIII with Iran is humane?
And many if not most of the "Jewish progressive" bloggers like Matthew Yglesias support this censorship.
Ah Mr Witty,
Attributing the motive of zionism to the actions of the group: "Stand With Us" is certainly most plausible. You may not like its actions and seek to distract us with dust in the eyes: making pathetic comments about "the notion that the Jewish people are a people, and constitute a nation".
But the truth is The NY Sun knows a zionist project when it sees one….
It had this to say about the group:
"Pro-Israel Group Puts Emissaries on Campuses
By ANNIE KARNI, Staff Reporter of the Sun
December 10, 2007
A group working to promote pro-Israel sentiment at American colleges is hiring students to act as campus emissaries of the Jewish state.
Jewish student leaders from Columbia University, New York University, and Queens College will receive up to $1,000 a year from the advocacy group StandWithUs to bring speakers and films to campus that portray Israel in a positive light.
"There's an atmosphere that everything has to be intellectually valid," a sophomore history major at Columbia University, Ariel Pollock, said of her campus. "It's a great framework, but for some reason Israel has fallen outside of that paradigm."
Ms. Pollock, 20, is one of 38 "Emerson Fellows" selected for the new initiative, funded by California-based philanthropists Rita and Steven Emerson.
She said she plans to use her stipend to bring to campus a film about Moroccan and Indian immigrants to Israel, "Turn Left at the End of the World," and to organize academic debates between Columbia faculty in the department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures and pro-Israel professors she plans to invite.
A sophomore at NYU, David Avraham, who is on the board of the Middle East Dialogue Group, and a junior at Queens College, Alisa Bodner, have also been chosen as fellows from a pool of more than 100 applicants.
Mr. Avraham plans to organize social gatherings for Muslim and Jewish students. "There's a lot of effort at NYU to build bridges between the Jewish and Muslim communities," Mr. Avraham, 20, said. "The right-wing Jewish side, and the right-wing Muslim side, neither of those groups have their information correct."
In hiring its Emerson Fellows, StandWithUs gave special weight to finding student advocates at "problem campuses," where discourse on the Middle East is skewed by anti-Israel rhetoric, officials said.
The North American campus director of StandWithUs, Daniel Klein, identified Columbia, MIT, and the University of Michigan as hot spots of anti-Israel sentiment. "The story of democracy in Israel, of a vibrant diverse country, is not being told on campuses," Mr. Klein said. StandWithUs is an international education organization founded in 2001."
“>link to nysun.com
poor poor patrick buchanan…whom the jews hate they tag as an anti semite.
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=13021
Was the Holocaust Inevitable?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
"What Would Winston Do?"
So asks Newsweek's cover, which features a full-length photo of the prime minister his people voted the greatest Briton of them all.
Quite a tribute, when one realizes Churchill's career coincides with the collapse of the British empire and the fall of his nation from world pre-eminence to third-rate power.
That the Newsweek cover was sparked by my book Churchill, Hitler and The Unnecessary War seems apparent, as one of the three essays, by Christopher Hitchens, was a scathing review. Though in places complimentary, Hitchens charmingly concludes: This book "stinks."
Ilan pappe on his website today has a review of overcoming zionism…
http://ilanpappe.com/
Jun 17, 2008
Read →
What does seem certain is that whether there will be one or two states or some as yet unimagined resolution of the conflict, the two peoples will have to live together rather than separately, the solution that both right and left wing Zionists typically envision.
Jewish Peace News note:
Assaf Kfoury’s review of Joel Kovel’s Overcoming Zionism succinctly summarizes the limits of the abstract debate between proponents of one state and two states in Israel/Palestine. A critique of Zionism is not new. But it is still very much worth reiterating for as many audiences as possible. But the rejection of Zionism does not lead automatically to either resolution of the conflict. The Israeli settlement project in the West Bank, fully aided and abetted by the United States despite occasional slaps on Israel’s wrists and some wailing and moaning, has made two viable states all but impossible. However, one state is at least as unlikely for the foreseeable future. It is presumptuous of those who are not residents or prospective residents of Israel/Palestine to propose political arrangements for those who do live there. What does seem certain is that whether there will be one or two states or some as yet unimagined resolution of the conflict, the two peoples will have to live together rather than separately, the solution that both right and left wing Zionists typically envision. [JB] Continue →
here is an article from haaretz…..about a book that was banned quicker than you can say what.
after pressure was put on this prof he succumbed.
look it up and check it out for yourselves.
Bar-Ilan prof. defiant on blood libel book 'even if crucified'
By Ofri Ilani, Haaretz Correspondent
The author of a book on the use of blood by Jews in Ashkenazi communities in the Middle Ages said Sunday, in the face of the furor its publication aroused, "I will not give up my devotion to the truth and academic freedom even if the world crucifies me."
In an interview with Haaretz from Rome, Professor Ariel Toaff said he stood behind the contention of his book, "Pasque di Sangue," just published in Italy, that there is a factual basis for some of the medieval blood libels against the Jews. However, he said he was sorry his arguments had been twisted.
"I tried to show that the Jewish world at that time was also violent, among other things because it had been hurt by Christian violence," the Bar-Ilan history professor said. Of course I do not claim that Judaism condones murder. But within Ashkenazi Judaism there were extremist groups that could have committed such an act and justified it," he said.
the pluto press ought not to feel singled out…there are many of examples to go around..here is another one that defies logic.
Forty Years Later
Searching for the Truth About the USS Liberty
By WARD BOSTON
Forty years ago this week, I was asked to investigate the heaviest attack on an American ship since World War II. As senior legal counsel to the Navy Court of Inquiry it was my job to help uncover the truth regarding Israel's June 8th 1967 bombing of the USS Liberty.
On that sunny, clear day 40 years ago, Israel's combined air and naval forces attacked our American intelligence-gathering ship for two hours, inflicting 70 percent casualties. Thirty four American sailors died and 172 were injured. The USS Liberty remained afloat only by the crew's heroic efforts.
Israel claimed it was an accident. Yet I know from personal conversations with the late Admiral Isaac C. Kidd — president of the Court of Inquiry — that President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara ordered him to conclude that the attack was a case of "mistaken identity".
The ensuing cover-up has haunted us for forty years. What does it imply for our national security, not to mention our ability to honestly broker peace in the Middle East, when we cannot question Israel's actions even when they kill Americans?
On June 8th, survivors of Israel's cruel attack will gather in Washington, DC to honor their dead shipmates as well as the mothers, sisters, widows and children they left behind. They will continue to ask for a fair and impartial congressional inquiry that, for the first time, would allow the survivors themselves to testify publicly.
For decades, I have remained silent. I am a military man and when orders come in from the Secretary of Defense and President of the United States, I follow them. However, attempts to rewrite history and concern for my country compel me to share the truth.
Admiral Kidd and I were given only one week to gather evidence for the Navy's official investigation, though we both estimated that a proper Court of Inquiry would take at least six months.
We boarded the crippled ship at sea and interviewed survivors. The evidence was clear. We both believed with certainty that this attack was a deliberate effort to sink an American ship and murder its entire crew.
I am certain the Israeli pilots and commanders who had ordered the attack knew the ship was American. I saw the bullet-riddled American flag that had been raised by the crew after their first flag had been shot down completely. I heard testimony that made it clear the Israelis intended there be no survivors. Not only did they attack with napalm, gunfire, and missiles, Israeli torpedo boats machine-gunned at close range three life rafts that had been launched in an attempt to save the most seriously wounded.
I am outraged at the efforts of Israel's apologists to claim this attack was a case of "mistaken identity."
Admiral Kidd told me that after receiving the President's cover-up orders, he was instructed to sit down with two civilians from either the White House or the Defense Department, and rewrite portions of the Court's findings. He said, "Ward, they're not interested in the facts. It's a political matter and we cannot talk about it." We were to "put a lid on it" and caution everyone involved never to speak of it again.
I know that the Court of Inquiry transcript that has been released to the public is not the same one that I certified and sent to Washington. I know this because it was necessary, due to the exigencies of time, to hand correct and initial a substantial number of pages. I have examined the released version of the transcript and did not see any pages that bore my hand corrections and initials. Also, the original did not have any deliberately blank pages, as the released version does. In addition, the testimony of Lt. Lloyd Painter concerning the deliberate machine-gunning of the life rafts by the Israeli torpedo boat crews, which I distinctly recall being given at the Court of Inquiry and including in the original transcript, is now missing.
As much as you would wish the sentiment of Israel as the nation of the Jewish people to disappear, it won't.
It may diminish in the minds of entirely assimilated young (and ever-young) Jews, that don't have children or religious practises, and the requisite shift to affinity.
But, those that do have a sense of the continuity of society (elders, my generation, children, grandchildren) do self-identify as a people. There is a shift to a self-identified people regarding themselves as a nation, and then a further shift to the mechanism of a state.
And even if many that call themselves Jews (either assertively or residually) flirt with a-Zionism or anti-Zionism, a critical mass of Jews DO regard an inseparable affinity with Israel.
They will not disappear or magically, or even politically, renounce that.
It is oil and water, childhood and adulthood if you will, having a life or observing a life.
For those of us that have accepted our identity and continuity, the question is how to do it.
So, those of us that regard the commandment of "love thy neighbor as thyself" as applying to us and them alike (however defined: Jew/non-Jew, loyal American/disloyal American), adopt a benign approach that accomplishes our own and others' health simultaneiously.
If it is not possible to accomplish both, we err on the side of our families' and close neighbors' health.
Acceptance of the other is the litmus test. Does Israel accept Palestine and Palestinians? Do Palestinians accept Israel?
In fact, not just in rhetoric, and the repitition "Israel caused all the problems" is misrepresentative.
the story of israel is a story of the truth being suppressed and the myth being held up for everyones approbation…at first it was as fairytale…now that some truths are making their way across the realm the chosen method to get the myth to be accepted seems to be turning to blackmail…oppression…….political pressure…basically coercion writ large.
israel has every right to exist…no question about that in my mind…but the bullshit these liars peddle needs to be exposed. the only reason that state (israel) has the support of the american jewish community is due to sympathy which is upheld by the mythology which is held up to make the israeli state some nirvana which must defend itself against the bad people that for no reason other than anti semitism want its destruction.
its bullcrap pure and simple….i used to believe the lie and supported that crap.
Simon and Schuster, 264 pp., $27.00
Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide
by Jeffrey Goldberg
Knopf, 316 pp., $25.00
1.
Perhaps an intrepid researcher will one day go through the many Internet pages that make assertions pro and con on the question of whether Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories can properly be assessed as "apartheid." Then we may be in a position to tell whether the first polemicist to sling the term in the context of the West Bank was a foreigner, a Palestinian, or, just possibly, an Israeli. Suffice it to say, it wasn't Jimmy Carter, whose recent book, with its unpunctuated title Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, has been high on the best-seller lists for nearly three months despite—maybe, in part, because of—the wrath his use of the term has provoked among Israel's supporters. Not all of them have been as restrained as Abe Foxman, the director of the Anti-Defamation League, who complains of Carter's "bias" but avoids tossing the epithet "anti-Semite" at the president who, nearly three decades ago, brokered the Camp David accord, which did more to secure Israel's place and legitimacy in the region than all the diplomacy that preceded or followed it.
The branding of Israel as an "apartheid state" was one of the themes of resolutions presented at the World Conference Against Racism held in Durban, South Africa, under United Nations auspices in 2001 (and one of the reasons Secretary of State Colin Powell cited for calling the American delegation home). Yet at about the same time, the term "apartheid" began to surface in discussions in what might broadly be called the Israeli peace camp as a plausible if somewhat contentious way of characterizing the occupation of the territories or the prospects of the Jewish settlements there; as a benchmark, a description of what the occupation already was or might become. Five years ago, writing in Haaretz, Israel's most respected newspaper, Michael Ben Yair used the A-word in describing the occupation that he said began on "the seventh day" of the Six-Day War. Ben Yair, the attorney general in the governments of Yitzak Rabin and Shimon Peres in the 1990s, is no fringe figure. "Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories," he wrote,
we developed two judicial systems: one—progressive, liberal—in Israel; and the other—cruel, injurious—in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture.
Two years later, the political commentator and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem Meron Benvenisti used the word prospectively. Ariel Sharon's plan to disengage from Gaza and build a security wall along—and beyond—the western frontier of the West Bank was tantamount, he argued, to making Israel "a binational state based on apartheid." It meant, he said, "the imprisonment of some 3 million Palestinians in bantustans."
In recent weeks, largely in response to the controversy in this country over the Carter book, the word "apartheid" has popped up in Israel's interminable security discussion more often there than it normally does in print. Thus we find Uri Avnery, a veteran of the peace movement, detecting "a strong odor of apartheid" in a military order (since rescinded) forbidding Israeli drivers to give rides to Palestinians on the West Bank; and Shulamit Aloni, the education minister in the last Rabin cabinet, declaring on the Web site of the tabloid Yediot Ahronot that Israel "practices its own, quite violent, form of apartheid with the native Palestinian population."[1] Two clicks on the Web site of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, a small but vocal peace group, brings you to a screen headed "Campaign Against Apartheid," proposing a "Civil Society Call to Action." Israelis using the term "apartheid" in debates that go on mainly in Hebrew provoke a predictably hostile reaction. But that reaction in Israel is ritualized by now, not nearly as fresh in its outrage as the one the former president aroused here by using "apartheid" as a verbal battering ram in order to reopen a debate about the occupation of Palestinian lands—one that Democrats and Republicans, unlike Israelis, outdo each other in shunning.
The Mega Prison of Palestine
June 16th, 2008 | Published in Articles by Ilan Pappé
link to ilanpappe.com
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In several articles published by The Electronic Intifada, I claimed that Israel is pursuing a genocidal policy against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, while continuing the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank. I asserted that the genocidal policies are a result of a lack of strategy. The argument was that since the Israeli political and military elites do not know how to deal with the Gaza Strip, they opted for a knee-jerk reaction in the form of massive killing of citizens whenever the Palestinians in the Strip dared to protest by force their strangulation and imprisonment. The end result so far is the escalation of the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians — more than one hundred in the first days of March 2008, unfortunately validating the adjective “genocidal” I and others attached to these policies. But it was not yet a strategy.
However, in recent weeks a clearer Israeli strategy towards the Gaza Strip’s future has emerged and it is part of the overall new thinking about the fate of the occupied territories in general. It is in essence, a refinement of the unilateralism adopted by Israel ever since the collapse of the Camp David “peace talks” in the summer of 2000. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, his party Kadima, and his successor Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, delineated very clearly what unilateralism entailed: Israel would annex about 50 percent of the West Bank, not as a homogeneous chunk of it, but as the total space of the settlement blocs, the apartheid roads, the military bases and the “national park reserves” (which are no-go areas for Palestinians). This was more or less implemented in the last eight years. These purely Jewish entities cut the West Bank into 11 small cantons and sub-cantons. They are all separated from each other by this complex colonial Jewish presence. The most important part of this encroachment is the greater Jerusalem wedge that divides the West Bank into two discrete regions with no land connection for the Palestinians.
The wall thus is stretched and reincarnated in various forms all over the West Bank, encircling at times individual villages, neighborhoods or towns. The cartographic picture of this new edifice gives a clue to the new strategy both towards the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The 21st century Jewish state is about to complete the construction of two mega prisons, the largest of their kind in human history.
They are different in shape: the West Bank is made of small ghettos and the one in Gaza is a huge mega ghetto of its own. There is another difference: the Gaza Strip is now, in the twisted perception of the Israelis, the ward where the “most dangerous inmates” are kept. The West Bank, on the other hand, is still run as a huge complex of open air prisons in the form of normal human habitations such as a village or a town interconnected and supervised by a prison authority of immense military and violent power.
As far as the Israelis are concerned, the mega prison of the West Bank can be called a state. Advisor to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Abed Rabbo, in the last days of February 2008, threatened the Israelis with a unilateral declaration of independence, inspired by recent events in Kosovo. However, it seemed that nobody on the Israeli side objected to the idea very much. This is more or less the message a bewildered Ahmed Qurei, the Abbas-appointed Palestinian negotiator, received from Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, when he phoned to assure her that Abed Rabbo was not speaking in the name of the PA. He got the impression that her main worry was is in fact quite the opposite: that the PA would not agree to call the mega prisons a state in the near future.
This unwillingness, together with Hamas’ insistence of resisting the mega prison system by a war of liberation, forced the Israelis to rethink their strategy towards the Gaza Strip. It transpires that not even the most cooperative members of the PA are willing to accept the mega prison reality as “peace” or even as a “two state settlement.” And Hamas and Islamic Jihad even translate this unwillingness into Qassam attacks on Israel. So the model of the most dangerous ward developed: the leading strategists in the army and the government embrace themselves for a very long-term “management” of the system they have built, while pledging commitment to a vacuous “peace process,” with very little global interest in it, and a continued struggle from within, against it.
The Gaza Strip is now seen as the most dangerous ward in this complex and thus the one against which the most brutal punitive means have to be employed. Killing the “inmates” by aerial or artillery bombing, or by economic strangulation, are not just inevitable results of the punitive action chosen, but also desirable ones. The bombing of Sderot is also the inevitable and in a way desirable consequence of this strategy. Inevitable, as the punitive action cannot destroy the resistance and quite often generates a retaliation. The retaliation in its turn provides the logic and basis for the next punitive action, should someone in domestic public opinion doubt the wisdom of the new strategy.
In the near future, any similar resistance from parts of the West Bank mega prison would be dealt with in a similar way. And these actions are very likely to take place in the very near future. Indeed, the third intifada is on its way and the Israeli response would be a further elaboration of the mega prison system. Downsizing the number of “inmates” in both mega prisons would be still a very high priority in this strategy by means of ethnic cleansing, systematic killings and economic strangulation.
But there are wedges that prevent the destructive machine from rolling. It seems that a growing number of Jews in Israel (a majority according to a recent CNN poll) wish their government to begin negotiations with Hamas. A mega prison is fine, but if the wardens’ residential areas are likely to come under fire in the future then the system fails. Alas, I doubt whether the CNN poll represents accurately the present Israeli mood; but it does indicate a hopeful trend that vindicates the Hamas insistence that Israel only understands the language of force. But it may not be enough and the perfection of the mega prison system in the meantime continues unabated and the punitive measures of its authority are claiming the lives of many more children, women and men in the Gaza Strip.
As always it is important to be reminded that the west can put an end to this unprecedented inhumanity and criminality, tomorrow. But so far this is not happening. Although the efforts to make Israel a pariah state continue with full force, they are still limited to civil society. Hopefully, this energy will one day be translated into governmental policies on the ground. We can only pray it will not be too late for the victims of this horrific Zionist invention: the mega prison of Palestine.
witty give me a break …israelis and american zionist jews accept palestinians as their schwarzes maybe …or their slaves but certainly not as their equals…i only wish that you and your ilk would have to put up with an america that wishes to be only for christians or some such absurdity like your people in the middle east seem to want for their little piece of nirvana on earth.
all i know is that if in the u.s a movement would start to make just one state in the nation a christian state the op ed columns led by non other than the chosen diversifiers of humanity in all nations but their own would be up in arms pointing others to battle against religious bigotry and discrimination…face it witty here in america jews can speak about diversity but when it comes to inclusivity in the holy land….the talmud forbids it but the GOD of the jews never did.
"The left engages in Rovian rumor-mongering as well as the right. Its ugly, and forces a conflict between one's "profession" and one's humanity."
Why don't you admit you defend censorship on these issues, instead of using smear tactics?
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/10/29/university_of_michigan_press_to_continue
Nov/10/2007
AMY GOODMAN: So your book will continue to be published.
…
JOEL KOVEL: … And they panicked this summer when they dropped my book. I mean, they were pressured by this Zionist watchdog team, which is really part of the same apparatus that’s putting out “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” and many other things. And the director just wrote me this absurd letter saying that my book was not worthy of free speech, because it was hate speech. My book was so full of hate to the state of Israel. My book was really written to open the dialogue, which is so wretched in this country on this subject.
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4238
10/2007
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4482
11/2007
http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/18/pluto
6/2008
Michigan Severs Ties to Controversial Publisher
In September, the University of Michigan Press faced intense criticism from pro-Israel groups — and questions from some regents — over its distribution of a book called Overcoming Zionism, which argues that the creation of Israel was a mistake and urges adoption of the “one state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which Israelis and Palestinians would form a new country, without a Jewish character. Michigan wasn’t the publisher, but it distributed the book under a deal with Pluto Press, a leftist British publisher with extensive lists on the Middle East and international affairs."
"Defend censorship on "these" issues"?
I don't presume to compel the University of Michigan to publish or not based on political correctness.
That attitude seems more censorial than an organization hearing others' concerns and making their own combination of judgements.
Ever publish anything in your life? You have to make choices. Some legal, some strategic, some political.
I ran a publishing company of spoken word materials for 6 years, on primarily liberal/left themes. We got far far more heat from the left on our choice of whom to publish and distribute than ANY on the right.
It was frankly a bit sickening. A lot of it was a litmus on attitudes towards Israel.
What would you call a series of very long articles distracting from a discussion thread?
Censorship? Propaganda? Deliberate manipulation of the bandwidth?
Witty lets just call it sharing other stories relatively related to the discussion, i realize that reality doesnt sit well with zionist who like to have the u.s.a fund their experiment with our hard earned tax dollars and the soldiers blood.
Let's try it again, Richard. You wrote this:
"While you may not like, or likely know, the actual reasons or motives or means that Kovel's and Pluto's contracts got severed, to gamble in the attribution that it is censorship, is itself at best a gamble, at worst a fraud.
The left engages in Rovian rumor-mongering as well as the right. Its ugly, and forces a conflict between one's "profession" and one's humanity."
My answer was a series of links that tell a rather simple story, including an interview with the author, who, you have to agree, should know.
But your statement above suggests that you deny this story. So please give us some evidnece that it is propaganda or "a gamble in attribution" and "fraud" at worst.
The issue is not so much the First Amendment as it is middle market restraint of trade.
StandWithUs seems to have been most upset because Joel Kovel is Jewish.
Ghada Karmi made essentially the same points in her book "Married to Another Man," but the Zionist groups didn't even comment.
Anyway, link to eaazi.blogspot.com
lists my blog entries on Kovel and Pluto Press.
Have any of you ever published?
I have. I published spoken word materials on progressive themes, as well as maintained a borrowing library of progressive spoken word materials.
Different progressives complained vehemently about the inclusion of many works in the library, often conflicting with other patrons strong perspectives.
There is NO OBLIGATION of a publisher to publish a particular work. To imply that is to remove the word freedom from the phrase "freedom of the press".
Richard, you keep avoiding to address your statement, about Phil et al distributing propaganda that is–from your point of view–not based on facts.
Obviously no publisher has the obligation to publish every book. I find it completely irrelevant, if I have publishing experiences or not. Obviously authors aren't free to choose their publishers.
The problem I have though is that you equate the "trench fights on the left"–if I read you correctly–you experienced concerning the contents of your library with a longstanding distribution contract that was severed due to the contents of ONE book by a well known scholar that specific and seemingly easy to identify groups consider hate speech.
If there were other motives in play, tell us. Instead of smearing collectively the left and yes your old friend Phil as propagandists by opening another chapter of your life experiences that, I am sorry, does not quit fit the evidence.
Why is Pluto carrying the can for the one-state solution? Why not shut down NYRB, through which Judt reached more readers on the topic than Kovel has?
"Why is Pluto carrying the can for the one-state solution?"
Is it? Or is it only offering the public a book lenght discussion of a position that exists anyway?
What a strange authoritarian mindset that feels to be in the possession of the exclusive truth. What deep distrust of the reader to make up his own mind.
Power and control vs debate and communication.
Leander,
The assertion that the U of Michigan severed its contract with Pluto on the basis of one book is a speculation, exagerated by repitition, including Phil's.
Richard, there is clear evidence that Kovel's book led to the ending of the contract with Pluto Press. So far besides ad hominem you haven't given evidence to the contrary.
Don't you trust the regents meeting either? It lists the people that were heard on the case:
"Jonathan Harris, director of StandWithUs-Michigan, Donald Cohen, director, Great Lakes Region,B'nai B'rith International, Betsy Kellman, executive director, Anti-Defamation League, and Nick Israel, alumus, all on the topic of University of Michigan Pluto Press contract."
As it clearly states, that Kovel's book led to a reconsideration of the contract.
http://tinyurl.com/4vjz9r
I am still waiting for your evidence.
http://tinyurl.com/3ocsbu
http://tinyurl.com/3rte8r
This is a case in which your "pure coincidence theory simply won't work.
"Controversy over Distribution Arrangement with Pluto Press
Pluto Press is distributed in the United States by the University of Michigan Press. In the fall of 2007 this arrangement became the subject of a controversy when a pro-Israel advocacy organization, StandWithUs, criticized the University of Michigan Press for distributing "anti-Semitic" books issued by Pluto Press, including those by Israel Shahak and "Overcoming Zionism," by professor of social studies at Bard College, Joel Kovel. U-M Press Director Philip Pachoda wrote to Kovel, saying that no one at U-M Press had read the book before distributing it and that after reading it that he and other faculty "were apalled [sic] by your reckless, viscious [sic] and unmodulated attack on Zionism and all Zionists. For us, the issue raised by the book is not free speech but hate speech. Perhaps such vituperative and aggressive rhetoric works for the barricades, but it cannot be countenanced or underwritten by the university or the university press, even in this peripheral, distributed capacity." [1]
Betsy Kellman, director of the Michigan regional chapter of the Anti-Defamation League described Kovel's book "Overcoming Zionism" as dealing in "anti-Semitic canards."[2] A group of six pro-Israel organizaitons, including the National Christian Leaqdership Council for Israel and the Michigan chapters of the American Jewish Congress, the Jewish Community Relations Council, and B'nati Brith, issued a statement describing Kovel's book as "often anti-Semitic in nature."[3] The American distributor, the University of Michigan Press, temporarily suspended distribution of the book.
The controversy was not about the right of Kovel or Pluto to publish the work, rather, critics challenged was the propriety of a university press distributing a book that the director of the University Press characterized as "hate speech." [4] Three University of Michigan regents called on U-M Press to end its relationship with Pluto Press. [5] The Regents criticized distribution of Kovel's book on the grouds that it "debases the press’ franchise and leaves the press and the university open to damage." [6]
The U-M press suspended distribution of Pluto Press titles in August, but resumed distribution in October.[7]
In December, an editorial in the Detroit Jewish News called on the Press to sever all ties to Pluto Press.[8]
In January, 2008, the Press issued new Distribution Guidelines[9] that Peggy McCracken, an associate dean at Michigan who is chair of the executive board of the University Press said that Pluto will probably not meet.[10] The guidelines call for "scholarly publishers whose mission is aligned with the mission of the UM Press and whose academic standards and processes of peer review are reasonably similar to those of the UM Press[11] whereas Pluto Press has "a radical political agenda."[12]"
Its up to the University of Michigan to establish its own guidelines for what it publishes and doesn't, as it asserted at the very end of the first reference Leander.
Similar language was used to describe the comments on Walt/Mearsheimer as on the Kovel book ('lacking in academic integrity and rigor' 'rhetorical, polemic'.)
I haven't read the Kovel work, so I'm not capable of commenting. I do concur on the criticism of the Walt/Mearsheimer article and book. I personally found them polemic, rhetorical, containing falsehood, apparently prejudicial, worthy of academic apology not particularly praise.
And, I know, "who am I to talk"?
From the wording of the U of Michigan text, my sense is that the Kovel book is more of a tip of an iceberg, than THE cause for the renunciation of contract with Pluto. That the regents felt that they didn't want to publish Pluto's publications in general, at least without editorial accountability.
"Similar language was used to describe the comments on Walt/Mearsheimer as on the Kovel book ('lacking in academic integrity and rigor' 'rhetorical, polemic'.)"
That's the really interesting part of the story.
How do you define: "academic" integrity and rigor:
"integrity":
without defects or flaws,
wholeness,
honesty,
moral or ethical strenght.
"rigor":
The fact or condition of being rigorous and unsparing
Something that obstructs progress and requires great effort to overcome
And what precisely shows they are missing?
I still feel you are in complete denial concerning the hard facts, what led to the ending of the contract and who pushed it.
What you want to read into the words is not what the convey. If there hadn't been pressure nobody would have bothered to read the book. What bothers me very much is how you and the people that you support play with antisemitism. And that, it feels to me, is an enormous insult to the victims.
There is no evidence presented of censorship.
You err in asking that those that feel offended by Kovel's statements to just shut up, just as those that insist that Kovel just shut up are in error.
The test of academic integrity includes the ABSENCE of polemic. You know it when you see it.
I saw it in Walt and Mearsheimer's texts, and although they moderated their tone in the book (compared to the article), I personally felt abused by the fraud of their publishers and advocates declaring their credentials as "evidence" of the academic integrity of the work.
"There is no evidence presented of censorship.
You err in asking that those that feel offended by Kovel's statements to just shut up, just as those that insist that Kovel just shut up are in error."
Nowhere did I write something even vaguely similiar to demanding people to shut up. I simply object to your smear tactics, your generalizations about the left, their supposedly "Rovian" attitudes.
pressure – censure:
The distinction between the use of pressure to stop the distribution of a book including its branding as "antisemitic" and "hate speech" and censure is neglectable. I completely agree with Phil here. The aim is to silence dissens; and to stop people from buying and reading it. How many people like to be seen buying a book that is called antisemitic and hate speech?
According to this mindset the public has to march in lock-step. One side afraid of antisemitism the other of being called antisemites.
In the process power is both celebrated and denied and that is probably the most significant part of the story. If you allow me a little thought reading, since you merrily guessed at mine above, that is your central problem. You wouldn't mind to celebrate in private, but out there you know you have to strongly deny even a trace of it.
sorry I meant censore
Then criticize the left for seeking to censor, er pressure.
I consider it the right of those that are offended to voice their experience, and the right of the University press to contract as they choose.
Don't you?
There are ALWAYS limited paths to publish. It costs a bunch of money to do so. Those that are spending the money have the right to choose, for whatever non-hateful reason, what they publish.
Joel Kovel is still published. Pluto Press still publishes. They only needs to adjust their distribution paths.
It happens daily in the business that I work. Companies that we considered our "right" to sell through, discontinue our products.
Its not censorship. Its not even wrong.
"I consider it the right of those that are offended to voice their experience, and the right of the University press to contract as they choose.
Don't you?"
No, I don't consider it right to silence left Jewish voices. And I don't like the way it is done. And if you admit it or not, there was only one factor that ended the contract and that was Joel Kovel's book and pressure from Jewish groups.
Your whole story about the publishing business is again irrelevant, since University of Michigan press does neither print the books, nor is there any visible connection between Pluto and Michigan Press beyond their role in DISTRIBUTION.
It no doubt is business as usual to end a contract, but the accompanying scapegoat scneario: Blame someone as an antisemite as a propagator of hate speech, is far from business as usual. Although we start to get used to it.
"Then criticize the left for seeking to censor, er pressure."
What pressure, should I criticize them for? I won't criticize them for calling pressure to stop distribution: censorship. As I wrote I consider the differences minor. Pluto got a strong signal from the States, that this book is not wanted there. You wont be able to wipe that away with any rationalizations. The facts speek for themselves.
You don't like to openly applaud the people that brought this about, fine. That's your right, and it is no doubt the right of the people that made it happen and their sisters and brothers to celebrate the event.
I am far more concerned about the pressure from the hawkish pro-Israel-crowd to nuke, nuke, nuke; nuke, nuke Iran; the evil and dangerous left scapegoat is only a minor diversion on the way; perception management.
SMcB:[An Israeli attack on Iran would push disaster capitalism to a whole new level.]
http://tinyurl.com/3hafkb
and I guess in your book the Iranians that will lose, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends and as a result don't like Israel/and or the US can simply called antisemites and Anti-Americans after. Right?
Leandor,
You are imagining my sentiments, how unusual.
There is relentless censorship from the right and from the left. It would be humane to acknowledge the ways that the left and left/right seeks to impose.
I find blinders often, "its ok if our side does it".
Some think of a-zionism or anti-zionism as "timeless justice", or "the future".
I don't get it. Nationalism is not less relevant in the world now. It is more relevant. And Zionism, Jewish nationalism, is in particular not less relevant in the world now (even as Israel seems to self-talking eyes to be militarily secure, dominant).
It will stay that way, until the Arab world accepts Israel, and takes the next steps of open relations (and travel, and work).
Israel won't become less relevant by agitation to urge that Israel dissolve. The ideas advocating for a single state are not that compelling, nor do the proposals afford sufficient confidence to Jews to relax.
Ask a current Jew, not a former Jew.
"You are imagining my sentiments, how unusual."
Yes, I was a bit provocative. But, the impression from reading your notes and exchanges is that, this is exactly what you keep doing. I am repeating myself. You did as a response to my very first note, which believe me, expressed genuine concern, but which you immediately misread it as suspicious, with a tendency to antisemitism. So how could I trust you judgment of others?
"There is relentless censorship from the right and from the left. It would be humane to acknowledge the ways that the left and left/right seeks to impose."
It would help if you would drop your constant generalizations? What left and right proposals are you talking about?
What does the right and what does the left seek to impose? I can only repeat myself here, the right's perspective of imposing its vision of the "evil, mischievous 'Arab mind'" on the whole world is absolutely revolting to me, can you give me an example from the left that matches it in your eyes?
Are you alluding to Kovel? I think that Kovel's book is valuable in elaborating ONE perspective of the "left": The one state solution, but that doesn't mean I support it.
Or are you alluding to Lev Leviev? Where you call activities, spreading information about his support of the settlers, in other words the theft of Palestinian land: censorship.
While if the regents pressure the University of Michigan to stop a contract with Pluto, that is simply something else, business as usual?
So the grassroot movements are the evil and the more elitist layers are the good when it comes to making ones position known?
How comes? How else should I read this contradiction than in the provocative reading I have suggested above?
There is one thing, I deeply dispise, and that are double standards.
Elsewhere you defined yourself as democrat and progressive, where do you deviate from the American pro-Israel hawks, how many dead and how many bombs do you consider justified for Israel's survival? If you allow me to put it that bluntly.
Leandor,
Did you read this sentence?
"I find blinders often, "its ok if our side does it"."
"Censorship", "genocide" – all used in exagerated forms by those seeking to trivialize discussion, rather than illuminate it.
And, all stated as in support of open discussion.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/world/africa/23zimbabwe.html?hp
This is an example of censorship.
A little different scale than the University of Michigan cancelling its contract, no?
"I find blinders often, "its ok if our side does it"."
room full of mirrors
Don't worry, I noticed. We all got the message by now: Richard is the noble/antisemites hunter, and the pack reading Phil's notes aren't only antisemites, but the worst scum on earth.
Personally I start with myself, before I go out hunting faults in others.
And since I do not belong to any crowd or party, I do not need to defend anybody's follies. But I instinctively detest the US Zeitgeist that equates left/liberal/progressives with choose-your-favorite-derogatory-term-of-the-day.
It's a deep irony that you instinctively detest any generalization of your people but extensively use it for others.
Noble self-presentation is the most easy thing on earth. And in context it shows.