Harvard, BDS, and The ADL
Let’s begin at Harvard University, where some history was made last week. The editorial board of The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper that’s existed since 1873, came out in support of the BDS movement.
They declared their support via a stirring op-ed that identifies Israel as “America’s favorite first amendment blindspot” and details the repercussions that journalists, activists, and students have faced for standing up for Palestine. “As an editorial board, we are acutely aware of the privilege we hold in having an institutional, effectively anonymous byline,” it reads. “Even on this campus, many of our brave peers advocating for Palestinian liberation can be found on watchlists tacitly and shamefully linking them to terrorism.”
“These twin factors — the extraordinary abuses and our privileged ability to speak to them and face comparatively less unjustified retribution — compel us to take a stand. Palestinians, in our board’s view, deserve dignity and freedom,” it continues. “We support the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction movement as a means to achieving that goal.”
The op-ed also wrestles with the paper’s own past. Twenty years ago, before Palestinian civil society organizations officially called for BDS, The Harvard Crimson’s editorial board ran a piece opposing divestment from Israel. It claimed that the country was a “victim of a double standard” and “needs all the support it can get.” It also rejected the idea that there were any parallels between Israel and Apartheid-era South Africa, calling the comparison “so fundamentally flawed as to be offensive.” The new editorial says that the paper regrets and rejects that view.
“Two decades ago, we wrote that divestment was a ‘blunt tool’ that affected all citizens of the target nation equally and should be used sparingly,” reads the recent op-ed. “Yet the tactics embodied by BDS have a historical track record; they helped win the liberation of Black South Africans from Apartheid, and have the potential to do the same for Palestinians today. Israel’s current policy pushes Palestinians towards indefinite statelessness, combining ethnonationalist legislation and a continued assault on the sovereignty of the West Bank through illegal settlements that difficults the prospect of a two-state solution; it merits an assertive and unflinching international response. The arguments made against BDS could have been and indeed were once made against South Africa, and we are no longer inclined to police the demands of a people yearning to breathe free.”
The big news out of Harvard was predictably condemned by defenders of Israeli policy. The AJC said it was “a shameful acquiescence to a movement that feeds off of and propagates antisemitism”, a Jerusalem Post op-ed called it a “self-aggrandizing canard”, and the CEO of StandWithUs said it “displayed ignorance at best and journalistic malpractice at worst.”
One of the more incensed reactions came from Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt. On Twitter he called the op-ed “beyond disturbing”, accused the paper of spreading misinformation, and instructed the editorial team to “check their own blind spots.” Greenblatt’s outrage turned out to be a small preview of coming attractions. Just a couple days later he delivered a speech at the ADL’s Virtual National Leadership Summit and took direct aim at the Palestine advocacy.
Greenblatt referred to groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as “extremists”. He equated critics of Israel with white supremacists and the Jan 6th insurrectionists. He denounced Georgetown Law School for inviting Mohammed El-Kurd to speak at an event and told a bunch of lies about him. He attacked groups that use the word “intifada.” He criticized a Tufts SJP campaign that calls on students to refrain from joining pro-Israel groups. He compared the DSA to “1950s Kremlin supporters.”
“To those who still cling to the idea that antizionism is not antisemitism – let me clarify this for you as clearly as I can – antizionism is antisemitism,” he told viewers. “I will repeat: antizionism is antisemitism.”
This isn’t the first time Greenblatt has made that specific point. At an ADL event in November he told his audience the same thing. In that speech he was railing against the Irish novelist Sally Rooney’s BDS stance and claiming that antisemitism was “intensifying” like climate change on the left. What’s interesting is that Greenblatt’s assertion seemingly contradicts the ADL’s official stance. If you take a look at their website (at least at time I’m typing this) it says that anti-Zionism “isn’t always necessarily antisemitic.” This clarification certainly hasn’t impeded their attacks on anti-Zionists, but Greenblatt’s blatant disregard for this detail is notable.
In an article about the speech at Jewish Currents, Mari Cohen and Isaac Scher remind readers that, when Greenblatt took the gig in 2015, many believed he would move the organization in a different direction. A “friendlier place” for Muslims and Israel critics after the Abe Foxman years.
After all, Greenblatt is not a product of the American Right. He comes out of the liberal establishment. He founded a bottled water company with a social mission, started an open source platform for volunteer opportunities, and helped run a private equity firm focused on “conscious capitalism” before becoming a Special Assistant to Obama. “I am confident that Jonathan will build on Abe’s extraordinary legacy, ensuring that the Anti-Defamation League remains at the forefront of efforts to achieve greater justice, freedom, and equality for people in the United States and across the globe,” said the former president when Greenblatt left The White House.
Things have changed since 2015. A group like the ADL has to confront a lot more than campus activism and the occasional antisemitic outburst from a celebrity. Its targets now include a liberal ice cream company, mainstream human rights organizations, and the Harvard University student newspaper. A majority of Dem voters want the U.S. to apply pressure on Israel and condition aid to the country. Most say that their congressional representatives support Israel more than they do. Nearly half of Democratic voters familiar with BDS support it and most of them oppose anti-BDS laws. When Greenblatt attacked the Tufts SJP he made a point to tell viewers that it was “my own alma mater.” Greenblatt is watching his own world shift on this issue and it gets worse for his side every time Israel’s human rights abuses make the news.
The ADL maintains an astronomical budget and they’re obviously not going anywhere, but it’s going to become increasingly more difficult to frame yourself as a civil rights group as your efforts become more akin to Canary Mission’s. It seems pretty obvious that calls to “Drop the ADL” will only increase in coming months.
Biden and The Six
The mainstream media has largely stopped covering the six human rights groups that Israel tagged as terrorists (without a shred of evidence) seven months ago. The Biden administration certainly hasn’t mentioned them and it seems obvious that they’d rather the controversy just go away. That’s impossible. Not just because of the consistent activism around the issue, but because the ridiculous designations continue to create real problems for human rights activists.
Last week Ubai Aboudi (Executive Director of Bisan Center for Research & Development, one of the targeted groups) was detained by Israeli forces while trying to enter Jordan. Aboudi was on his way to attend World Social Forum in Mexico. “All these Human Rights Violations would not happen if it were not for the complicity of governments and officials that are refusing to hold #ApartheidIsrael accountable for its crimes,” he tweeted. “This denial will not scare me, we will continue the work.” Sahar Francis, the longtime director of Addameer–another one of the groups, was also prevented from traveling to the event by Israeli authorities. “Preventing the directors of leading Palestinian civil society organizations from traveling and speaking abroad is a dangerous escalation in the Israeli-led harassment and isolation campaign,” wrote the group on Twitter.
Fortunately the issue has not died in the State Department’s Briefing Room. In the last newsletter I mentioned that Al Quds’s Said Arikat asked State Dept. spokesman Ned Price about the groups and was told that Biden administration is still looking at the alleged evidence. The administration whether war crimes are committed in Ukraine right away but we are expected to believe that the Israeli dossier is taking more than half a year to comprehend. This week it was the AP’s Matt Lee who asked the question:
LEE: Anyway, tangentially to this issue – and Said has been asking about this – but these six human rights groups that were declared terrorist organizations. So two members – two senior members – of two of these groups have been denied exit from Israel, one of whom is an American citizen. The other one has a valid U.S. visa. They were trying to get to Mexico for a meeting of the World Social Forum, which I imagine that you might be aware of, but they can’t get out. Now, I know that you don’t – you probably won’t have a lot to say about a U.S. visa holder because they’re not an American citizen, but there is one American citizen, and I’m just wondering – this is Sahar Francis. Do you have anything to say about the Israelis (inaudible)?
PRICE: You’re right, Matt, we don’t. As you know, visa records are confidential, so we’re not in a position to comment on any individual visa holders. As we discussed with Said last week, we have made clear to our Israeli Government and Palestinian Authority counterparts that independent civil society organizations in the West Bank, in Israel must be able to continue their important work. We value the monitoring of human rights violations and abuses that these types of independent NGOs undertake in places like Gaza, in the West Bank, in Israel, and elsewhere around the world, and we strongly believe that respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and a strong civil society are critically important to responsive and responsible governance and democratic governance. And so that’s why it’s important that we continue to monitor those conditions, and we absolutely will with the help of our partners in civil society.
LEE: Okay. And on – then on the – on the actual – on the U.S. citizen, the U.S. passport holder, Ubai Aboudi, the executive director of the Bisan Center for Research and Development?
PRICE: Again, Matt, as you know, we’re not in a position to speak from the podium to actions as it relates to a particular American citizen.
LEE: Well, how about just denying American citizens the ability to leave? I mean, it’s one thing to not allow them in. It’s another to not let them leave, isn’t it?
PRICE: Matt, I can’t speak to a specific American citizen in this case.
There’s a slight shift here. Price doesn’t talk about how they’re still looking over the alleged evidence and he implies that the work that these groups do is important. Ok so the groups are important, but you won’t acknowledge that they’re not terrorists? Like everything with Israel, one has to look at what’s being said between the lines here. The Biden team is monitoring this stuff and groups that document Israeli human rights abuses are valuable, but it’s not going to condemn Israel’s treatment of these activists or admit that its “evidence” is bogus. They’d prefer if people stopped asking about. Here’s hoping the reporters at the State Department don’t.
Odds & Ends
? Rep. Shontel Brown beat progressive challenger Nina Turner in a contest that was a lot more lopsided than the first time around. At The Intercept Akela Lacy has a piece about how progressive groups sat the race out this time around. “Nina is a giant in the progressive movement and we’re proud to have gone all in for her campaign last year,” said Justice Democrats in a statement. “The reality is our organization has to be strategic about our priorities as we are getting massively outgunned by Republican donors funneling millions to super PACs like AIPAC and DMFI against our existing candidates.”
? The Jewish Insider had a piece about Brown’s victory party, where an Orthodox rabbi named Pinchas Landis praised Brown’s anti-BDS efforts. “So, to have a congresswoman who’s willing to stand up and cosponsor legislation supporting the state of Israel or to stand up and tweet that antisemitism has to stop — that is something that truly is remarkable,” he told the crowd.
?? AIPAC had a tweet celebrating Brown’s victory that took a shot at J Street. “Rep. Brown is a pro-Israel member of Congress in the Progressive Caucus and backed by @POTUS and Rep. Clyburn,” it read. “Her opponent was anti-Israel. The choice was clear for pro-Israel organizations. AIPAC proudly backed pro-Israel Democrat Shontel Brown. J Street sat it out.”
It’s kind of funny to embrace Biden’s support for a candidate while bankrolling a bunch of lawmakers who don’t think he won the election.
? Binghamton University apparently made a new rule limiting faculty from posting political content on bulletin boards after biology professor Matthew Parker put up a poster about Israel killing Palestinian kids in 2018. Palestine Legal recently wrote the school about the issue:
SUNY’s justification for censoring Parker’s poster evinces unconstitutional content and viewpoint-based discrimination. The decision must be reversed, and professors must be allowed to post content supporting Palestinian rights outside their offices.
Universities’ scrutiny and censorship of speech critical of Israel harms all campus community members, especially those who are interested in exploring the critical issue of Israel and Palestine. It threatens to shut down robust debate on one of the most urgent foreign policy, moral and political questions of our time. The First Amendment and well-established values of higher education that envision the university as the “marketplace of ideas” do not permit this type of viewpoint discrimination.
?️ Jewish Insider had an article about former Governor Pat McCrory’s attempted comeback in North Carolina. He says Iron Dome should get more funding. “You don’t understand Israel unless you go there,” said McCrory. “I went on a bus ride to the Golan Heights and the folks there were explaining to me the..importance of the highlands. You have to see it to believe it.”
?? The war crimes hearing on the torture of former Gitmo detainee Ahmed Muhammed Haza al-Darbi is currently taking place. At the New York Times Carol Rosenberg covered the testimony of former Army private Damien M. Corsetti, who participated in the torture. The prisoner was “held hooded and nude, deprived of sleep, used as an ashtray, and made to clean up a fetid spill of human waste and diesel fuel with his bare hands.”
“I laughed at him while he did it,” Corsetti admitted to the judge.
? From Defense News:
The U.S. Air Force’s secretive Next Generation Air Dominance future fighter program could be the most expensive aircraft program in history, with each piloted, sixth-generation aircraft expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
When asked about the price tag for NGAD during a Wednesday appearance before the House Armed Services Committee, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall did not specify exactly how much an individual aircraft could cost, but said the service was talking about “multiple” hundreds of millions.
?? There’s a really interesting piece in The Forward from Dany Bahar, an Israeli professor at Brown who attended grad school at Harvard a decade ago. He’s coming from the pro-Israel perspective and he doesn’t think his side should just write off the Harvard Crimson embracing BDS. He sees support for Israel fading and thinks this should be taken seriously.
“Whether we like it or not, I’m afraid that The Crimson’s editorial is not just noise, but a data point,” says Bahar. “And despite BDS not being a real economic threat to Israel, these incidents send a clear signal that the Israeli government cannot continue to ignore the conflict thinking they can change public opinion only through ‘better’ hasbara or by calling Christiane Amanpour a liar on her own CNN show.”
“That’s not going to cut it anymore,” he continues. “The Israeli government, the Israeli people and Jews around the world cannot expect to maintain the status quo for another 55 years without jeopardizing the two-state solution. The writing is on the wall, and it cannot be more clear.”
Stay safe out there,
Michael
