Earlier this week, I posted a piece about a Jewish senior at Croton-Harmon High School in New York who by accusing John Mearsheimer of anti-Semitism in letters to school authorities was able to postpone for a year a distinguished alumnus award that had been announced for Mearsheimer, an eminent professor of international relations at the University of Chicago. My tone was ironical; but two other responses have appeared that are smarter than mine. First, Jerry Haber reflects on his own Zionist indoctrination, followed by Scott McConnell’s savage reflection, contained in my headline.
First Haber, writing in the comments section at the Jewish Week site, where young Josh Blumberg’s account appeared:
Around forty years ago, I was in a similar situation. My high school had invited a former alumnus, a retired State Department diplomat, to speak to the students, mostly non-Jewish, on the Middle East. At the time, I had been indoctrinated with the classic Zionist narrative that nowadays very few thinking Israelis would accept. I protested to the school, which as a result decided to invite a pro-Israeli speaker for balance.
It took me around thirty years of reading and thinking to be weaned away from the hasbara (It wasn’t called that at the time) that I had been fed at my afternoon Hebrew school. I also had to make aliyah, serve in the army, and see my children serve in the army before I came to the conclusion that the pro-Israel speaker was much less correct than the retired diplomat. No doubt I, too, may have thought someone like him to be “anti-Semitic,” simply because I had been predisposed to think that way by the indoctrination that I had undergone. I know now, having read Prof. Mearsheimer’s work and after some personal contact, that this is a false and defamatory charge, and that the Israel Lobby book, agree with it or not, has nothing to do with anti-Semitism; to think otherwise is to trivialize and politicize the term, as much of the study of anti-Semitism in recent years has indeed been trivialized and politicized.
McConnell at the American Conservative site:
I’m struck also by the young accuser’s enormous sense of ideological entitlement. I can recall being eighteen, and twenty-two, and getting involved in various campaigns and protests. But I can’t imagine thinking that I could write some letters leveling false and defamatory accusations against an eminent, highly scrutinized professor, with the more or less complete expectation that I would get what I wanted. Granted, American society has changed a lot since 1970, but still.
I too would commend the school board for courage in resisting a neo-McCarthyite smear attempt. Nevertheless, the entire story gives off a faint whiff of totalitarianism, of those societies in which responsible middle-aged people tiptoe around in fear of accusations from self-righteous and highly indoctrinated young people. Yes, the school board was courageous, but why should courage in this realm even be necessary?
I wouldn’t go as far as McConnell–I think Haber’s response was just right. The reason I don’t quite agree with McConnell is that, like Haber, I think Josh Blumberg has every right to speak out against his school honoring someone he thinks is an anti-semite. Suppose the school had been proposing to honor a scumbag like Elliot Abrams–then we’d be supportive of an 18 year old trying to stop it. The problem here is that Blumberg is wrong. If one wants to look for a totalitarian outlook, it would be in the propaganda that has apparently influenced Blumberg’s mindset to the point where he can’t distinguish between genuine anti-semitism and criticism of the Israel Lobby. Haber understands all this from his own past, which is probably why his response covers all the issues in his characteristically nuanced way. (That’s true of 99 percent of what Haber writes, BTW. About the only time I think he ever missed the boat was when he defended Goldstone’s retraction as not being a real retraction. But nobody’s perfect.)
The opening paragraph by Jerry Haber, omitted here, is worth reading too.
Jerry Haber: I would like to congratulate […] Mr. Blumberg himself, for doing what he felt was right and acting responsibly according to his convictions.
Blumberg acted responsibly? He tossed out (twice) the accusation of anti-Semitism without having an argument for it. How is it to congratulate someone on a prejudiced “conviction”?
RE: “I know now . . . that this is a false and defamatory charge, and that the Israel Lobby book, agree with it or not, has nothing to do with anti-Semitism; to think otherwise is to trivialize and politicize the term, as much of the study of anti-Semitism in recent years has indeed been trivialized and politicized.” ~ Haber
ALSO SEE: “Why Zionist lobby bullying strengthens occupation”, By Larry Derfner, Haaretz, 3/14/13
SOURCE OF EXCERPT – http://antonyloewenstein.com/2013/03/17/why-zionist-lobby-bullying-strengthens-occupation/
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/slander-israel-s-critics-as-anti-semites-shut-down-debate-on-israel-s-atrocities.premium-1.509519
RE: “I too would commend the school board for courage in resisting a neo-McCarthyite smear attempt. Nevertheless, the entire story gives off a faint whiff of totalitarianism, of those societies in which responsible middle-aged people tiptoe around in fear of accusations from self-righteous and highly indoctrinated young people.” ~ McConnell
MY COMMENT: To say the story gives off only a faint whiff of totalitarianism might be a bit of an understatement.
SEE: “The Trial of Israel’s Campus Critics”, by David Theo Goldberg & Saree Makdisi, Tikkun Magazine, September/October 2009
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/sept_oct_09_goldberg_makdisi
Here is another case of such anti-Semitism (it ain’t what it used to be):
Stephen Sizer is a blogging vicar in the Anglican Church. As a Christian can go, his blogs are anti-Zionist. So. A year ago he was accused of anti-Semitism for linking to a page on a website which also had dubious pages (elsewhere). The accusation was made by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and now it is in a judicial(!) process of the Anglican Church. He might lose his job.
http://stephensizer.blogspot.nl/2013/03/slander-israels-critics-as-anti-semites.html
Side effects are that dozens of interesting people have written supportive letters about him (for him), also on his site, and that I have read a lot of Sizer’s Christian viewpoints on today’s Israel.