We've failed to cover the the University of California Santa Barbara's investigation of sociology professor William I. Robinson, who The whole thing is, of course, an attack on free speech and academic freedom, recalling the David Project's campaign at Columbia. Well, here is political scientist Alan Wolfe at the New Republic of all places, "Enough with the Campus Inquisitions!":
during Gaza circulated the assemblage of photographs I'm sure many of you
have seen, of Israeli atrocities side by side with Nazi ones. UCSB says it began the investigation following a complaint by two students who were offended by the photos and Robinson's description of Gaza as a Palestinian Warsaw Ghetto. The university was not responding, it said, to pressure by the Anti-Defamation League, which called for an "anti-Semitism" investigation of the prof.
A Committee to Defend Academic Freedom at UCSB has been formed
and it includes a protest against Robinson's treatment from Noam
Chomsky. I almost never find myself in agreement with my fellow alum of
Philadelphia's Central High School. [maybe Central's Doug Feith is more to Wolfe's taste?] But I would be dismayed if only
those protesting the ADL's actions in the Robinson case were those who
shared his political views.There are all too many inquisitors out there in the world opposing
this or that speaker or campus, watching what professors are saying; in
my own neighborhood, Clark University considered cancelling a speech by
Norman Finkelstein while Boston College did cancel one by Bill Ayers.
This whole business is threatening to spin out of control. Those of us
who once opposed the smug political correctness of the academic left
ought to be just as opposed to the new version of political correctness
adopted by the ADL and its supporters.
And you thought Palestinian students were the only ones who spoke of "witchhunts" on campus. Says a friend in academia: "These guys are shameless and they actually engender anti-Semitism. I don’t worry about dissing Islamists, nationalists, but I worry that if I say something critical then some bully (kid at the college) will blog away and then hysteria sets in."
Huh? http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/03/cha...
I saw these photos and I thought they were eerily very comparable Shame on ADL for its witch hunt on academics who are critical of Israel….
ADL's goal is to have an intellectual Fortress-Israel within the US against Israeli policy critics which in the mind of ADL are perceived as anti-semites just one step away from sending Jews into gas chambers. Abraham Foxxman and his ilk have a bad case of alethophobia.
Wolfe published to his own blog at TNR. Will his comments become an official print or on-line TNR article? With regard to Joe Massad Marty Peretz has no problem with academic censorship whatsoever.
I don't usually cover I/P at my blog. I did during the Gaza bombardment and invasion, though. I was tempted to post William M. Robinson's photo comparison set, but didn't. I thought the photos fit the comparison he evoked, but that the parallel lacks historical credibility. I'll help defend Prof. Robinson, though.
It's really odd, isn't it? College students can criticize the US government but they can't criticize the Israeli government.
Robinson's underlying claim–that the treatment of Palestinians by the Israelis is equivalent to the treatment of Jews by the Nazis–is an exaggeration. The Israelis certainly have the military ability to kill or expel the remaining Palestinians. They oppress them, steal their land, brutalize them and kill some of them, but not on the scale or intensity of the Nazis. That said, there nevertheless are parallels, and the comparison, although exaggerated, is a legitimate subject for debate. The impetus for the email is leftish outrage and a desire to provoke discussion, not antisemitism. Although antisemites may attack Israel, many are critical of Israel without being antisemitic. The ADL simply seeks to suppress debate where strong criticsm of Israel (richly deserved, incidentially) is made.
I didn't read it. Did he actually say "equivalent"? As in "my stack o' dead people is as high as yours"?
Not only not in scale or intensity, but not with the same purpose. The Nazi purpose was always liquidation of the Jews. The Jews purpose, at this time, is liquidation of the Palestinian means of commiting war crimes. Anyone who promotes otherwise is not honest, purposely.
Grumps, strictly speaking, true, but in light of what has gone down on the Pals for 40 plus years, and our American support of it at the UN & with our foreign aid packages & other special entanglements affecting our own security and reputation, don't you think the only reason Israel has not come even closer to NAZI atrocities is because of the PR problem, which would lead to less enablement, especially by the USA? If so, yes, we all know Israel is not using Zyklon B in shower heads, but on the other hand, it is post 1945, no? Doesn't Nuremberg matter? And its international law progeny? In a way, this makes Israel's actions worse. They are sure not progressive in any humanitarian sense, though they be consistent a la Streicher, Goebbels, Goering et al–imagine those guys operating in a post-1945 world & what do you get? Israel & the USA?
"commiting war crimes. " Yeah, sure. That's just how it looks to the entire world. A forty-year occupation littered with UN resolutions, collective punishment, and land theft, and the people of Gaza are committing "war crimes". Yeah, you just keep fighting along those lines. You'll get real far, and benefit your precious Israel in so many ways. But as long as you've got ziocaine, what care you?
It is the right fight. Doesn't matter how far I go, at least i can hold my head high and know I did the right thing, even though it may not be the popular thing, at least not here.
link to robinson's email and photos. http://sb4af.wordpress.com/robinson-case/the-orig... We should support his efforts by circulating these photos to EVERY Jewish organization, every synagogue, every JCC, every legislator, every news outlet, plaster them up at every purim, every passover, leave them on busses, trains, jets, mail them to friends and enemies, in short, make the visual evidence of Israel's abominations inescapable.
You may want to stop war crimes, but others on your side have no issue committing them against Palestinians as long as they can keep the PR under control, and provoking Palestinians to do the same against Israelis while exploiting that as PR cover for Israel's ongoing conquest of the West Bank, which is what fuels this conflict. Furthermore while the scale and tactics are obviously different, the Zionists attempt to Judize the West Bank is also similar to the Nazi's attempt to Aryanize Europe, and of course both movements thought they are fighting the "right fight".
RE: 'New Republic' attacks ADL for 'inquisition' against California professor…" A RELATED ARTICLE: "The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built" – By DANA L. CLOUD, April 30, 2009 (EXCERPT) …Fewer people will know the names of four other targets of the Right’s attack: Margo Ramlal-Nankoe, William Robinson, Nagesh Rao, and Loretta Capeheart. All four face harassment, threats, or potential removal from their jobs at their universities because they have criticized Israel, defended multiculturalism, and stood up as organized employees in defense of their rights as workers… ..Professor William I. Robinson, a tenured Sociology and Global Studies full professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has been attacked by the Anti-Defamation League and two of his former students. In January of this year, he forwarded an email condemning the Israeli attacks on Gaza. The email was an optional read for students. Within a week, the ADL wrote him a letter charging him without basis with anti-Semitism and sundry violations of the Faculty Code of Conduct. The Academic Senate Charges Officer then notified him that two of he students in the class to which he circulated the email had filed complaints against him. Acting for all intents like a co-complainant of the students, the Officer fabricated additional charges not raised by the students…. …The charges have reached the Committee on Committees, which is now in the process of convening a committee to assess the complaints. The campaign for Professor Robinson urges readers to 1) email the UCSB Chancellor and responsible authorities on campus to register your protest, and 2) sign the petition. Information and links are at http://www.counterpunch.org/cloud04302009.html Contact the Committee to Defend Academic Freedom at UCSB at http://www.counterpunch.org/cloud04302009.html
It appears the Israeli government is concerned outside of PR issues. But the Palestinians do exploit every nuance of every casualty to make it a crime even though it is not. The Israeli policy to make Jewish Jerusalem Jewish in not remotely similar to any efort by nazi germany.
I have spent a lot of time in researching the history of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe during the Nazi period, and it certainly is not true that liquidation of the Jews was always the purpose of the German Nazis. Check out my blog entry Summary: Holocaust and Ashkenazi Genocidalism. Too many people are hiding between a false distinction between German Nazism and Zionism, which is ethnic Ashkenazi Nazism. In many regards Jabotinskians as ethnic monists were and remain far more extreme than German Nazis, who never really transcended mere ethnic fundamentalism.
Appearances are always rosy though glasses tinted as such, but Israel's ongoing conquest of the West Bank extends far beyond "Jewish Jerusalem" however you care to define that, and Israel wasn't even concerned by denying pasta to Gazans until it became a PR issue.
Boy, you got that right.
They are exactly like the Nazis…Exact same Mentality. Everything they are doing now is exactly what the nazis did, steo by step, before they implemented Final Solution. "If" they don't finally wipe out or 'transfer' the Palestines it will only be because the US or someone else stops them. That is their "Intent".
Everything appears rosy though glasses tinted as such, but Israel's conquest of the West Bank extends far beyond "Jewish Jerusalem" however you care to define that, and Israel wasn't even concerned about denying pasta to Gazans until it became a PR issue.
The only thing that needs to be said to the zionist and Israeli fanatics any longer is …Fuck You…and don't let the door hit you on the way out of the US or Palestine. We've talked about it long enough.
Read some history books, and some sociology would be good too–especially dealing with Nazi Germany. Your ignorance is embarrassing.
Read some history books, and some sociology would be good too–especially dealing with Nazi Germany. Your ignorance is embarrassing.
I am not defending the occupation and its injustices. Perhaps the hearts of the Likud are as black as those of the Nazis. Perhaps in a situation of total war we would see "transfer" or a "final solution of the Palestinian question." For whatever rreason, it hasn't happened yet. Let's hope it doesn't.
It certainly is true that destruction of European Jewry was on the agenda of Hitler's nazi germany.
They certainly are not anything like nazis. But some of the propaganda on this comment section is certainly along the same lines.
The previous comment was in regard to Jerusalem. Changing the subject does not change the original answer.
Must be a full moon tonight.
Too bad you don't own the door.
I'm sure it's not difficult to go through the photo archives and find photos that appear to show something similar, but that doesn't make it so. However, what I find most disturbing, are the outright lies presented perpetuated by Robinson in this photo montage. For example, on page 19 the classic photo of the Jewish boy with the Wehrmacht soliders pointing rifles at him juxtaposed with the Palestinian boy who has wet his pants, being led away by Israeli soldiers. What we don't see is what happened a few minutes before, when this same boy was throwing stones at police: http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques...
And then there are just the outright lies. For example, on page 12 at the lower right, we see a mounted policeman charging a crowd of "Palestinians". However, this doesn't ring true for me or anyone familiar with the situation on the ground. After doing some research (which Robinson could have done in about 15 minutes), my suspicions were confirmed: what we see is, in fact, the evacuation of the illegal outpost at Amona: http://www.iris.org.il/brutality/brutality.htm Makes one kind of wonder how many other misrepresentations there are here.
Jpost reported it: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=J...
Your remark on the Holocaust agrees with my own readings and seems to be the direction of current Holocaust studies. It's clear that Hitler intended to ethnicly cleanse the Jews from Europe, but the exact methods appear to have been vague. Immigration to Palestine was certainly encouraged before the war started, although the British quotas made this difficult. Hitler imagined that there would win vast colonial territories from the USSR, and there was talk that the Jews could be expelled there. Once the war started and borders were closed, and Jews were already regarded as non-German nationals (therefore subject to internment), Europe became a deathtrap. Personally, what I find most horrifying about the Holocaust is its indifferent, bureaucratic development. Jews and other undesireables were not even important enough to require a demonic plan of extermination; rather they were crushed by a ponderous, bureaucratic solution to the dilemma of ethnically cleansing a population during wartime when borders were sealed.
I agree that comparisons between Israelis and Nazis are made too often, and the analogy fails in important ways. Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state with total control of the media, and once the war started any dissent was regarded as treasonous. Israel is not remotely totalitarian; it has perhaps the most vigourous and freest press in the world. There was certainly no Nazi equivalent to B'tselem! If one criticises Israel on humanitarian grounds, chances are one's data is coming from Israelis. If the Israelis acted like Nazis, the Meir would have spoken the truth: there would be no Palestinians. If Himmler were alive, he would mock the Israelis for being indecisive and soft-hearted, and not understanding the stern duties required to create a pure and undivided nation. Quite so. Too many Israelis were indecisive. Too many of them were humane, and protested what they saw as injust. I deeply respect them for that.
You can hold your head high because it is filled with lots of hot air. Wrong fight, wrong thing–but very popular with the powers that be here in the USA. This tiny blog is David, you are a pimple on Goliath's face.
A Jewish MP here made similar claims that the Israelis were being Nazis and a UK Paper the next day had a poll asking readers whether they thought this was true? A simple question I thought (90% of people said yes) but apparently the Zionist thought police saw it as anti-Semitic, forced the paper to apologise and forced them to take off the poll from their website.
The intent is the restriction of the Palestinians, minimizing their ability to commit war crimes.
But the previous post concerned Jerusalem. Just because that was answered doesn't mean the same thread gets expanded. Start another.
Too bad you don't own the door.
Didn't you know, only Zionists are allowed to call people Nazis? And only they are allowed to make comparisons to the Holocaust
Oh, sure, _that's_ BIG misrepresentation, you nailed it. Maybe the Jewish boy was also throwing the stones into Germans? then it's justified, isn't it. You probably think that your arguments empower the ADL side of story, but in fact, it's exactly the opposite. With "revelations" like this, better keep quiet until you find a better one.
Then again, maybe on the left, Nazis were also evacuating illegal Jewish outpost somewhere in Poland?
What historical analogy is always on all fours? None. There are enough similarities comparing Gaza to Warsaw Ghetto to make any honest & moral person think really hard about whether Israel's long occupation is something that should be supported. I think not.
Groc22, you don't see how dishonest it is for someone to show a mounted policeman trampling a Jewish settler in an illegal outpost on the West Bank?
Pure rubbish, Jacob. The 'jews' purpose is to remove the Palestinians from there own land – only to do it while trying to maintain the illusion that they are a good, decent country 'defending' themselves from 'terrorism'. Genocide isn't merely the physical annihilation of a people – it's also the cultural, social, economic etc. If Israel could get away with physical annihilation they would do it today – anybody who promotes otherwise is not honest – period.
To bad you won't own it forever, either. And then you better start praying for forgiveness. Hard….
No Groc. I don't think that I ever "empowered the ADL side" of the story. Nor did I say that I don't support Dr. Robinson's right of free speech. I just pointed out the inaccuracies – and yes, they are major misrepresentations and throw everything else into question. And then you have the nerve to tell me that I "better keep quiet". Well Groc, screw you!
That has to be up for one of the stupidest posts I've ever read from the zio-fascists.. And that's saying something…
Inaccuracies? So somehow, the IDF Soldiers were justified in scaring the boy witless because he threw stones at their tank? They're not in anyway misrepresentations, just a portrayal of all the similarities between the two situations.
"But the Palestinians do exploit every nuance of every casualty to make it a crime even though it is not." It's always the ziocaine talking. Wolfie, do you think this is the first time any of us have heard of Palestine? But of course, an amnesia of convenience is one of ziocaine's most well-noted effects. Have another line!
Since when is the ADL against Nazi comparisons?
Gosh, if only the Israelis could have known that the Palestinians were going to invade Israel, occupy it, and control the entire country. Perrhaps the US could intervene and throw the Palestinians out of Israel. Do I have it right, now, Wolfie? Yeah, Wofiewitz, you just keep trying to sell that line to America. I can't see any reason why they won't swallow it, hook line and sinker. It's all the Palestinian's fault.
when its with Israel
First of all, I don't think that the boy was throwing a rock at a tank. He was throwing a rock at police officers. This is quite evident from the photo. Secondly, I don't know if the IDF soldiers were justified in "scaring the boy witless". I do think, however, that the key difference is that chances are that the Jewish boy did not survive, while the Palestinian kid was probably sent home to his parents the same day. As far as portraying the similarities, well chocholate and shit are both brown, but you wouldn't want to eat shit.
And I think highly of you to Stevie!!!!
HAARETZ: "American Jewish professor probed after comparing Israel to Nazis" – By Cnaan Liphshiz and News Agencies, 04/30/09 (EXCERPT) "A Jewish professor from California who is under review for disseminating material that equates Israelis to Nazis has petitioned other scholars to protest a probe of his actions, an Israel advocacy group has told Haaretz. The University of California, Santa Barbara, is investigating allegations of improper conduct and anti-Semitism against Sociology professor William I. Robinson for sending an e-mail to 80 of his students in January that contained photos of Jews killed by the Nazis and similar photos of Palestinians killed in the recent Israeli offensive in Gaza. "The bylaws of the school forbid using classrooms for as platforms for dogmas that have nothing whatsoever to do with the material being studied," StandWithUs founder Roz Rothstein from Los Angeles said while on a visit to Israel. The founder of the group whose members filed the complaint against Robinson, the U.S.-based Israel advocacy student group StandWithUs, told Haaretz that the e-mail used the terms "concentration camp" and "genocide" when referring to Gaza. The complaint against Robinson was filed by two students. Lia Yaiger, one of the pair, is a graduate of StandWithUs' Emerson Fellowship program, which trains students in campuses in "response techniques" to anti-Israel efforts on campus…." ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1082136.html
There is a masked man holding a knife in the room with you, you know he intends to cut you with it. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? a) Good b) Bad c) Not enough information Answer is "C". Is the man a crazed killer in your bedroom, or is he a surgeon in an operating room? Context is all important. Same with these pictures. The professor is making a cock and bull analogy. "Nazis carried guns, the Allied forces carried guns, therefore the Allied forces were the moral equivalents of the Nazis". Or if you prefer a more extreme example of the professor's "logic": "The Nazis wore underwear, you wear underwear, therefore you are just like the Nazis". If the professor knows that his analogy is bull, then he is a liar, if he thinks it is a legitimate comparison, then he is an idiot. Either way he shouldn't be teaching. Quite apart from the anti-Semitism implied if he knows his analogy is bull. That said, if he has tenure he shouldn't be fired for this. Academic freedom includes the freedom to make moronic statements. Of course, if you are going to piss people off, make sure you don't have any skeletons that can get you in trouble once people start scrutinizing you (see Ward Churchill and Blair Hornstein, both of whom got nailed for plagiarism after doing unrelated things that pissed people off).
George Washington on Israel "A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification." ~George Washington Farewell Address "The nation which indulges toward another habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interests." ~ George Washington "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson
That is ridiculous. There are 4.5 million Palestinians that have been displaced, and many tens of thousands that have been killed. And not only in Palestine, but in Iraq and Lebanon as well. Grumpy Old Man, you are out of touch.
That is not their intent. There are quotes available all over the net that prove otherwise. Every ISraeli PM has made speeches saying that all Palestinians need to be wiped out. It amazes me how many times I have seen Israel condemn other countries for quotes they supposedly gave, i.e. "wipe Israel off the map", when the truth is that Israel has made those exact quotes many times over the decades..
Genocide isn't merely the physical annihilation of a people – it's also the cultural, social, economic etc. Sorry Stevie. Genocide is not defined, under the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide quite explicitly as: "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." There's nothing in that definition about destruction of "cultural, social, economic" aspects. And certainly no substantiation for charges of genocide in the present case where Israel has killed fewer that 5,000 Palestinians (most of them combatants) over nearly a decade.
Groc, you appear to have missed my point. Amona was an illegal Jewish settlement in the West Bank that was evacuated by Israeli security forces. The photo is of that evacuation; the horse is indeed ridden by an Israeli mounted police officer;but the people being arrested are all Israeli Jews!
Is it still acceptable to call someone a fascist?