Anna Baltzer is a Jewish-American writer now doing a series of presentations on Israel/Palestine. Go see her, I’m going to. I love her website name: Anna in the Middle East. I believe Baltzer’s a non-Zionist, for she is against the occupation and has documented human rights abuses in the West Bank–the pogroms that I speak of here, which are worse than the pogroms that my ancestors experienced in Russia and Poland.
CAMERA is now attacking Anna Baltzer in an ugly manner:
Anna Baltzer is
one such Jewish defamer, a relative newcomer who tours US campuses,
churches and community venues denigrating Israel with baseless and
propagandistic allegations. Her personal story has a familiar ring; she
claims to have been raised on the Zionist dream but says “vacations” in
Iran, Syria and Lebanon [as if she was paid by jihadis] and an extended visit to the West Bank opened
her eyes and transformed her into a determined opponent of “the
occupation.” Those well versed in the history and contemporary reality
of the conflict will recognize in Baltzer’s presentation a re-packaged
version of standard accusations against the Zionist state.
Equally predictable are her anecdotal descriptions of Palestinian
hardship and alleged Zionist brutality. Likewise familiar is Baltzer’s
invoking of her Jewish roots and grandparents lost to the Holocaust to
establish her supposed moral authenticity.
But family aside, Baltzer’s ideological roots are firmly planted in
the anti-Zionist movement. An acolyte of deceased Israeli radical..
This is truly regrettable language. Note the denial of human rights abuses as anecdotal. This is a form of denial as repugnant in its way as Holocaust denial. It is disfiguring and shameful, and reminds me that the chairman of the New-York Historical Society engaged in the same kind of disgraceful suppression.
The attack on Anna-in-the-Middle-East also reflects the ongoing generational battle between ardent Zionists and kids who are not drinking the Koolaid. Like every other generational battle, it has an obvious outcome, and it would be wise if the older generation understood this as a generational battle and sought to learn something from the kids. Two years back Alvin Rosenfeld of Indiana University and CAMERA slimed this group of idealistic people as reflecting or espousing anti-semitism in a report on anti-Zionist Jews for the American Jewish Committee. Last year sociologists Ari Kelman and Stephen Cohen did a more dispassionate report on the next generation of American Jews, showing that they are slowly trickling off the Israel bus. Norman Finkelstein is working on a book on this subject.
This is big news, and surprising to me that it has not shown up in the mainstream media. Though the Jerusalem Post covered it the other day, in a scabrous manner, saying Ignore the grandchildren! Think how ineffective a strategy that was, in civil rights days, or the sexual revolution… The tide is ours. This is a great trend that could save America. Will it be in time?
