Antony Lerman on the improvement in antisemitism research

Here is Antony Lerman's take on the axing of the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism (YIISA). I must say I am jealous of his headline: Antisemitism Research Just Improved: Yale’s ‘Initiative’ for Studying Antisemitism is Axed.

For some years now I have argued that the academic study of contemporary antisemitism has been badly compromised by the growing politicisation of the subject. Back in September 2008, in an op-ed piece for Ha’aretz, I wrote:

Practically the entire business of studying and analyzing current anti-Semitism has been hijacked and debased by people lacking any serious expertise in the subject, whose principal aim is to excoriate Jewish critics of Israel and to promote the ‘anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism’ equation.

A number of institutions, supposedly tasked with undertaking serious research on antisemitism, have contributed to this situation. One of the foremost of these is the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism (YIISA), established in 2006, and I had it in my sights when I wrote my op-ed.

Lerman goes on to list some of the organisations and individuals that have "badly compromised" the study of contemporary antisemitism.

Unsurprisingly, organizations that have contributed to the debasement of serious antisemitism research are not happy. The Anti-Defamation League’s National Director, Abe Foxman, said:

Especially at a time when anti-Semitism continues to be virulent and anti-Israel parties treat any effort to address issues relating to anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism as illegitimate, Yale’s decision is particularly unfortunate and dismaying . . . it leaves the impression that the anti-Jewish forces in the world achieved a significant victory.

The American Jewish Committee said it was surprised and saddened by the decision. AJC’s Executive Director, David Harris, warned: ‘If Yale now leaves the field, it will create a very regrettable void’.

Yup, the ADL and AJC are big hitters in the field of "debasement of serious antisemitism research".

After a little detour to consider, by way of a hysterical howl of protest at YIISA's demise from the New York Post's, why YIISA has been ditched:

Foxman and Harris were relatively measured in comparison with the report in the New York Post headed ‘Yale’s gift to antisemitism’. The writer claimed that Yale ‘almost certainly [decided on closure] because YIISA refused to ignore the most virulent, genocidal and common form of Jew-hatred today: Muslim anti-Semitism.’ She also added: ‘Some suggest that Yale feels it can act with impunity because, earlier this spring, one of YIISA’s most powerful backers died; without his money and influence, the school can rid itself of a politically inconvenient nuisance.’

YIISA’s funders are not revealed by the institution so it’s possible that closure may have something to do with the withdrawal of funds, though the story may just be a rumour set running by those who suspect an anti-Israel agenda at work. But whatever the specific reason, it was obvious from YIISA’s inception that it would promote the notion of the ‘new antisemitism’, focus heavily on criticism of Israel and prioritise the issue of Muslim antisemitism.

And then back down to the debasement:

Among the first papers presented at YIISA seminars were those by Dr David Hirsh (2005), a sociologist at Goldsmiths, University of London and founder of Engage, a website dedicated to opposing the boycott of Israel, Professor Shalom Lappin (2007), professor of computational linguistics at Kings College, University of London, and Professor Irwin Cotler (2006), professor of law at McGill University and a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada. All three are well-known for their highly politicised approaches to current antisemitism.

Hirsh’s paper was essentially a continuation of his political battles with the anti-Zionist left over the issue of boycotting Israel, which he claimed was an expression of antisemitism. Lappin’s academic work is not in the field of antisemitism yet he was regarded by YIISA as a proper person to present a paper that linked modern anti-Israel sentiment in the UK with centuries-old English antisemitism and claimed that the political class in contemporary Britain had abandoned the Jews – and this was written at a time when, in Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government, Jews in Britain had never had a more pro-Jewish and pro-Israel national political leadership. Cotler has probably done more than anyone to popularize the notion of the ‘new antisemitism’ having been responsible for coining the phrase ‘Israel is the Jew among the nations’. His paper, effectively an exercise in sophisticated hasbara (propaganda for Israel), likened the current situation to the 1930s and developed a framework for identifying forms of criticism of Israel as antisemitic.

The director of YIISA, Dr Charles Small, an academic with little experience of antisemitism research, had clearly put down a marker that Israel was going to be the central concern of YIISA.....Not all who have given seminar papers or lectures at YIISA have been quite as blatantly partisan as my three first examples, though one or two have been worse. (A list of some of those exemplifying YIISA’s approach can be found at the foot of this post.*)

Here's the list:

Some of the individuals who spoke at YIISA and are representative of its politicised orientation: Anne Bayefsky, Barry Kosmin, Edward Kaplan, Michael Oren, Emanuele Ottolenghi, Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Dina Porat, Matthias Kuntzel, Gabriel Schoenfeld, Ruh Wisse, Gerald Steinberg, Alan Dershowitz, Hillel Neuer, Kenneth Levin, Richard Landes, Melanie Phillips, Shimon Samuels, Robert Wistrich.

So how good is the news of the demise of YIISA?

The wider issue raised by YIISA’s imminent closure is whether it’s a watershed moment representing a rolling back of the politicisation of academic antisemitism research. I doubt very much whether the UK Universities and College Union’s decision to distance itself from the EUMC ‘working definition’ of antisemitism can be linked to it, although the vote brought to public attention that the EUMC’s successor body, the Fundamental Rights Agency, has in effect dropped the definition – a potentially damaging blow to the lifespan of the ‘working definition’.

Hmm, end of YIISA and ditching of the EUMC working definition - good linkage!

More significant, although it’s not in the US, is the example set by the establishment of thePears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism at Birkbeck, University of London.  Its Director, Professor David Feldman, an eminent expert on Jewish history, is taking a rigorously objective academic approach to his task, while not in any way ignoring the complex interconnections between contemporary antisemitism, Israel, Islam, Islamophobia, racism in general and policy questions. Feldman has won plaudits across the academic world for his stance, which gives the lie to the arguments of Cohen and Glick that antisemitism cannot be studied dispassionately and value-free. And while the Pears Institute is not in the US, the international nature of the field of contemporary antisemitism research means that what Feldman does could have a very significant impact beyond the shores of the UK.  With YIISA out of the picture and Pears at Birkbeck looking very secure, some sanity may now return to the discipline.

I say ‘may’ because the combined forces of those institutions and groups which have a vested interest in maintaining the ‘new antisemitism’-based politicised approach to the subject are very strong. YIISA was important, but the ship sails on with the Israeli government and the entire political right-wing in Israel blowing a powerful wind into its sails. And it’s not impossible that American Jewish funders will try to persuade Yale to change its mind, or get the money together to transfer YIISA to another institution, or set it up as in independent body.

Finally Lerman gives the last word to Jerry Haber, the Magnes Zionist, who he finds in similar celebratory mood over the axing of YIISA:

I am by no means alone in having smelled a rat when YIISA came on the scene....The Magnes Zionist blog also knew the score. In a post on 9 JuneJerry Haber cuts to the quick:

The moral of this story? Take an important phenomenon which is worthy of study and have it hijacked by people with an ideological agenda, who organize conferences that revel in Islamaphobia and rightwing Zionism, mixing mediocre academics and non-academics with serious scholars, all of whom have axes to grind – in short, trivialize anti-Semitism in order to silence critics of Israel – and sooner or later, God willing, real academics will write it off as an embarrassment.

So, good news for now. Within a couple of weeks of each other, Yale and the UK's Universities and Colleges Union have dealt major blows to zionism's antisemitism industry.

Another blow to the antisemitism industry

The Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Anti-Semitism (YIISA) is to close for lack of interest and, apparently because of quality issues. I first read about this in an Engage posting of a Yale News article by David Burt. Googling YIISA I can't find much on this from any side that doesn't support the scrapping of the 5 year old "initiative". (How long can an initiative remain an initiative?).

The David Burt article ever slightly exaggerates when it claims that the "decision to end the program has met criticism from groups across the nation that show support for Jewish people". He names but two of these groups that "show support for the Jewish people", The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League. I can't see much evidence of any other groups that "show support for the Jewish people" taking issue with the ending of the initiative. And I can't find any primary or secondary source for the decision itself. Maybe there's something on some Yale site and to be honest I haven't looked very hard.

But Engage carries a link to an article by Ben Cohen published on both Harry's Place (a bit of a zionist hate site if you ask me) and Pajamas Media. So let's see what Ben has to say:

Here, in essence, is what Yale University told me on June 7, after I contacted its communications office to ask why an institute dedicated to the study of antisemitism had been shut down: some of our best friends are Jews.

“As you may be aware,” Yale spokesman Thomas Conroy wrote in an email, “Yale has long been a leader in Judaic research, teaching and collections. Yale’s Judaic Studies program has outstanding faculty members who conduct path-breaking research and inspire graduate and undergraduate students who choose from scores of courses and may earn degrees. The University library’s Judaica Collection is one of the strongest in the Western Hemisphere. The Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies is a historic treasure and exceptional scholarly resource.”

All well and good. But why, I asked Conroy, was this information pertinent to the closure of the Yale Interdisciplinary Initiative for the Study of Antisemitism (YIISA), just five years after it opened its doors? “Yale has certainly made, and is making a contribution…through scholarly endeavors related to Jewish civilization, history and contemporary thought and issues,” he replied. “I point it out to add context.”

I have no doubt that Conroy made this statement with the best of intentions. However, his words reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the very phenomenon which YIISA will no longer be able to probe. For any institution that invokes its munificence towards Jewish civilization, in answer to a question about its commitment to scholarly research on antisemitism, clearly doesn’t grasp what antisemitism is and what it represents.

One of the pitfalls of the contemporary antisemitism debate is that there is too much focus on intent.

Yup, we're in antisemitic in effect if not in intent territory. Ok, let's accept that. Does that still require a separate interdisciplinary initiative? Can antisemitism really not be dealt with by some of the "best friends" that Ben feels so slighted by.

But what is Yale saying about YIISA?

If scholarly enquiry into antisemitism is, then, a legitimate pursuit, what was the problem with YIISA? According to Yale, YIISA was an academic dud. Professor Donald Green, the director of Yale’s Institute for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS), said that YIISA’s papers failed to excite the interest of  “top-tier journals in behavioral science, comparative politics, or history.” Students were not attracted to its programs. Contrast that, Green went on, with another ISPS program “that straddles social science and humanities, Agrarian Studies, [and] has produced dozens of path-breaking scholarly books and essays.”

It's an "academic dud" and not very popular among students.  That seems fair enough  but not to Ben:

This is an unfair comparison. Few scholars will bat an eyelid at the mention of Agrarian Studies, whereas the idea of studying contemporary antisemitism — the “historical” kind is a little more acceptable — will meet with howls of disapproval in countless political science departments. Just by existing, YIISA was going against the grain. In that kind of environment, getting your papers published was never going to be easy.

YIISA, in point of fact, did produce some important scholarly work during its short life-span, including three outstanding papers by David Hirsh (on anti-Zionism and antisemitism), Bassam Tibi (on the Islamization of antisemitism), and Yaakov Kirschen, a.k.a the cartoonist “Dry Bones” (on antisemitism and ‘coded images’). Its regular seminars featured some of the leading thinkers on the subject, like Moishe Postone and Gregory Stanton. Those in the YIISA community with whom I spoke emphasized that they wanted to do even more, citing lack of resources as the main reason why they didn’t.

So why didn't they get the resources. Did they ask anyone and if so, who? We'll never know but Ben has only been warming up.

He knows the real reason for the closure and it was nothing to do with academia.

This is where the politics comes in. In my correspondence with Thomas Conroy, I pointed out that YIISA’s 2010 conference, which extensively examined antisemitic manifestations in Iran and in the wider Arab/Muslim world, had provoked angry responses from, among others, Maen Areikat, the PLO’s Washington representative, who ranted about “anti-Arab extremism and hate-mongering.” “Yale doesn’t make decisions about programs (or individual scholars) based on outside criticism,” Conroy told me.

Even if Conroy is correct here, Yale’s decisions resonate far beyond its ivory towers. It beggars belief that Yale’s academics did not pause to consider that closing YIISA would be interpreted by Areikat — a man who recycles the idiocy that Arabs cannot be antisemites because they are “Semites” — as a vindication of his attack. Moreover, Areikat was not alone. Among those joining the anti-YIISA clamor were Philip Weiss, the pea-brained anti-Zionist blogger sponsored by The Nation magazine, and his sidekick Ben White, a frankly creepy figure who couches his antisemitism in the language of Christian liberation theology. After the YIISA conference, this duo — of all people!! — whined about the “besmirching of Yale University by the presence of this festival of propaganda.”

Of course, were Yale to organize an academic conference on the subject of “Israeli apartheid,” Weiss, White et al. would be salivating at the prospect. For critics like these, academic integrity is only relevant when it boosts their argument.

Any dispassionate survey of the social sciences reveals that there is precious little “value-free” research going on anywhere. I only have to look at my own alma mater, the London School of Economics, which, inter alia, has accepted funding from the murderous Gadhafi regime, and gave the clownish Naomi Klein a fellowship. Or I could venture into upper Manhattan, where Joseph Massad’s Columbia University classes on Middle East politics are their own “festival of propaganda.” The point is, why pick on YIISA alone?

They run their propaganda, why can't we run ours? But the fact remains, YIISA was considered an academic dud.

Actually I don't think we've heard the last of this.  If the ADL and AJC are so concerned then perhaps they can fund the thing or find someone who can but meanwhile this, together with the recent UCU congress decision to ignore the EUMC bogus definition of antisemitism, is another blow to the antisemitism industry. We should be pleased about that.

The Jews want to leave Israel, apparently

I’ve just read the latest claim about hordes of Jews wanting to leave Israel. It’s by Franklin Lamb and is a useful article, since it contains the entire gamut of reasons for Israeli Jews to leave: ambient fear, lack of roots, religious fanatics taking over, corrupt leaders, centripetal forces in Israeli society, Russians returning home, Jewish values being corrupted, guilt over colonialism and so on. The article has been eagerly circulated around the web and is clearly something many pro-Palestine activists would like to be true. However it’s not true. More than that, if we see the claim as a form of wish fulfilment, it hides a host of ideological positions, some benign and others malign, but all unhelpful.

False Claims
First let’s deal with the factual accuracy of the claim. There is a kernel of truth in that Israel’s victimhood ideology has created a sense of fearfulness and insecurity among Israelis. Also, Israel is becoming a nastier place for Jews as well as non-Jews, something that has an effect on migration. Since the year 2000, net emigration (i.e. the total of emigration over immigration) is about 10,000 a year, give or take. That figure includes Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, pushed out of the country. It also includes many leftist Israelis, many ordinary folks only too ready to aver how crazy Israel is and so on.

It is indeed useful to note that Israel is no longer a country of immigration. There is a real story here which undercuts Zionism – the fact that diaspora Jews are less likely to commit aliyah, another indication of their gradual distancing from Israel. But this lack of immigration does not mean that emigration is central for Israel. I speak as someone coming from a country (Ireland) where emigration is running at over three times the rate of Israel’s and yet nobody predicts that Ireland will internally implode (or rather, emigration won’t cause this implosion).

The two statistics that are regularly raised to show how little Israelis like Israel are the figures for multiple passports and Russian return migration. According to a survey Lamb quotes, 70% of Israelis have applied for or are considering applying for a foreign passport. Let’s leave aside how much this sounds like the type of forced question one asks in order to show that yes, there really is a crisis. For even if we accept that many Israelis do hold multiple passports – so what? In an era of increasing globalisation and growing border controls, a second passport makes sense and doesn’t necessarily indicate detachment.

The second issue is Russian-Jewish return migration to Russia from Israel, which is apparently about 22%. This sounds about right – that is, slightly above average for the usual rate of return migration. For instance, nineteenth century return migration from US to Europe was between ten and twenty percent. The combination of limited opportunities in Israel and an improving Russian economy adds to the usual migrant difficulties in moving to produce this not hugely noteworthy figure. In other words, there really isn’t much to see here.

And yet the Lamb article is only the latest one to circulate around pro-Palestine circles, asserting pending mass Jewish emigration from Israel. Since this doesn’t seem hugely likely, the question then moves to why do we wish this claim to be true.

False Hopes
One can’t help recalling, being delicate about it, the unoriginality of this particular wish. We can all, if we cast our minds back, recall a movement which said that the inhabitants of Palestine didn’t belong there and didn’t have proper roots in the Land. They were as sand across the desert and all they’d need was the gentlest puff of wind for them to leave and make way for the rightful inhabitants of the Land.

However, the veiled ethnic cleansing element to the claim that Jews are leaving – insofar as it exists - remains secondary. It is more plausible to see these claims of Israeli Jews voting with their feet as a way of demonstrating how bad Israel is and how wrong Zionism is, while at the same time absolving ordinary Israelis for the situation. After all, they’re leaving. This is not so much an anti-Israeli stance as a pro-Israeli-and-anti-Israel position. Or rather is a means of reconciling the two elements in this position.

I’ve a lot of sympathy with this attitude. We've probably all made the claim that Israeli society is so messed up that even Israeli Jews are rejecting it. Whenever we trumpet the occasional voices of Israeli resistance as being the voice of ‘real’ Israel, we’re doing this. This is nothing more than the necessary over-optimism of people seeking change. Equally, pointing out that the edifice of Israeli racism is collapsing gives people hope to continue the struggle.

Mass emigration would indicate both what a mess Israel is and also undermine a central tenet of Zionism - the solidity of Israeli love of the Land. Since Zionists defend any landgrab, dispossession and exclusion of non-Jews by referring to this ‘natural’ link between Israeli Jews and the Land, there is something delightful in pointing out the tenuousness of this link. I certainly feel a smug and ironic sense of satisfaction in seeing how Israeli Jews are becoming more and more like other diaspora Jews with their multiple passports and so on. Yet even though it is useful to undermine the ‘blood and soil’ narratives of Zionism by noting how unattached to Israel Israelis actually are, it remains nonsense to claim that Israelis are going to en masse up sticks and go. It gives false hope.

As a claim, it also does what Gabriel has accused activists of often doing – wishfully talking about how unsustainable oppression is and waiting for the future to happen, rather than bringing it about themselves. Really, if Israel is so terrible that even the racial elite are leaving, we can just wait for the process to play itself out. A counter-argument is that this fantasy may lead to intensifying boycott actions as much as to quietism. However, building our work on such glaringly false claims discredits this work and is a recipe for future disillusionment. This remains true whether the claim appeals to base hopes – that the Other just leaves; or romanticised hopes – that Israelis are so good that uniquely among colonising people they realise what they are doing is bad, and so will go.

So let’s say it now. Israelis are going to stay in Israel/Palestine. No doubt some will leave should Israel/Palestine become a democratic state, but the present sickness of the Israeli state should not, cannot be measured in wishful hopes that the racial elite will sicken of it all and leave. It should rather be countered by offering a vision where along with refugee return, all can stay in equality.

Fuad: fear of a BDS Europe

From Ha'aretz, June 6:

"Listen, Bibi," MK Benjamin [Fuad] Ben-Eliezer (Labor ) growled, "I congratulate you on your hug from Congress, but it will not take us off the path to confrontation. Our situation in Europe is very bad. President Obama said everything we wanted him to say. Now you have to announce that Israel will vote for a Palestinian state in the UN this September ... As a former industry and trade minister, I tell you: The markets are closing. We will suffer a devastating economic blow."

& from May 15, from the Israeli tech business publication Calcalist, as translated by the Alternative Information Center:

“We are quickly turning into South Africa” noted Idan Ofer to the Israeli paper Calcalist, a prominent Israeli player in international ventures and future technologies. “The economic damage in the wake of boycott and sanctions will be felt by every family in Israel. The top percentiles, members of the middle class and first and foremost the distressed classes,” he added.

Together with Yaakov Peri, the former head of Israel’s General Security Services (GSS) and Dani Gilerman, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Ofer initiated the meeting of some 80 of Israel’s most prominent businessmen.

“Global business provide us with heightened senses and in recent months we are experiencing signs of substantial erosion in the legitimacy of the state of Israel, stated Ofer. “If in the past the community of business people tended to desist from taking a position in relation to the political process, today’s situation obligates us to act in defence of the Israeli economy. In an age in which exports represent almost 50% of the gross domestic product, damage to Israel’s international position will immediately endanger jobs and households in Israel.” Therefore, said Ofer, “we must act with all the means at our disposal to call on the government of Israel to initiate a political initiative that will prevent any possibility of the imposition of a boycott on Israel.”

Dani Gillerman, the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, said “the morning after the expected recognition of a Palestinian state, a dramatic and painful process of South Africanisation of the state of Israel will commence. The economic quiet existing today in Israel is illusionary, and is very likely to explode immediately following the declaration. I continue even today to receive messages from senior Palestinian officials that the Palestinian side prefers a peace agreement over a unilateral move. Therefore, the (Israeli) prime minister must initiate a real political process which will allow this, and prevent a catastrophe from an Israeli perspective.”

Cross with Brian Haw

Brian Haw and some camp followers have hung in for a long time at Parliament Square to protest wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, in Palestine, now on Libya. Well, it's really a protest against war in general now. Many methods have been used to try to get rid of Brian Haw but now it looks like the end is nigh.

Here's The Independent from a few days ago:

Brian Haw's anti-war protest camp has dominated Parliament Square for 10 years, cut off from curious pedestrians by the busy lanes of traffic that surround it.

Now Westminster City Council wants to change that by installing a pedestrian crossing. Although they claim their intention is merely to make it easier for Londoners and tourists to access the square, its creation is also likely to result in the eviction of Mr Haw and the protesters gathered around him.

In March, a High Court ruling obtained by the Mayor of London Boris Johnson forced Mr Haw to move his camp from the grass on the square to the pavement.

Now the council, which is responsible for the pavement, is seeking to repeal his right to sleep there too – by establishing that he and his fellow protesters are "proving an obstruction to the footway" and acting as a "hindrance" to pedestrians. Mr Haw, a carpenter from Worcestershire, set up his camp in 2001 and remained there until September last year, when he was flown to Germany to be treated for lung cancer.

Well now there are two letters protesting the move against the peace camp:

So it looks like a pedestrian crossing will spell the end for Brian Haw and his peace camp (report, 3 June)?

This is a great shame because, even for those not directly associated with his cause, the camp provides a important (and colourful) focus for our consciences in stark contrast to all-pervasive advertising which dominates the rest of London aggressively encouraging us to indulge in "the latest gadgets, cheap flights and various forms of fast food".

In my view, we could do well to have a little more "conscience" and a lot less "stuff". Indeed, Councillor Colin Barrow mentions, "We of course support the right to protest and will continue to do so [...]". If this is the case, why not lift the ban on protests within a half-mile radius of Parliament Square?

Alan Mitcham

Cologne, Germany

When I first visited London after moving back here from America, I was delighted by the sight of Brian Haw's protest camp in Parliament Square. What a lesson, for tourists from China or even America, in the tolerance that ornaments a free society.

How disillusioning to learn that our society, too, has set over itself humourless and narrow-minded repressors such as the Mayor of London and the Westminster council ("Pedestrian crossing may spell the end for Westminster peace camp", 3 June).

Guy Ottewell

Lyme Regis, Dorset

It's been a remarkable protest. Still it ain't over til it's over.

Mordechai Vanunu seeks permission to leave Israel

Here's a piece by Duncan Campbell in The Guardian on the treatment of nuclear whistle blower, Mordechai Vanunu, by the Israeli authorities:

Britain has a responsibility towards Vanunu, a man who gave his story to a British newspaper – the Sunday Times – and whose kidnap and removal from Italy started on the streets of London; Israel had not wanted to embarrass Margaret Thatcher's government by carrying out the deed in the UK. It is time that the British government recognised the British link and spoke up for a man who risked his freedom and his sanity because of his hatred of nuclear weapons. And high time that a peaceful man in a violent world was allowed to live his own life in peace.

I have always wondered why the successive UK governments have been so cavalier about a kidnap that was initiated in London.

Freedom for Palestine!

From youtube:




Read about it here.

Zionists fight hard for their antisemitic definition of antisemitism

There has been so much flying around the internet about the UCU's rejection of the EUMC working definition of antisemitism that it's hard to know where to start but helpfully The Jewish Chronicle has a kind of round up in the form of an article by one of the rabid right wing loons who plays some role in editing the Jewish Chronicle.

The leaders of the Jewish community have recorded their outrage at the University and College Union, which has voted to distance itself from the European Union's working definition of antisemitism, at its annual congress in Harrogate. 

Delegates overwhelmingly supported the move on the part of the union's executive, which believes the 2005 European definition prevents the full and open discussion of Israel and Palestine on campus.

Straight away there's an issue here in that these people are not the leaders of the Jewish community, they are leaders of Jewish organisations. That is not the same thing. Still, at least he got the UCU's beef with the working definition right. It is designed to prevent "full and open discussion of Israel and Palestine on campus" and elsewhere. But read on:

But Jeremy Newmark, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: "After this weekend's events, I believe the UCU is institutionally racist."

Representatives of the JLC, the Board of Deputies and the Community Security Trust have now appealed to government ministers David Willetts and Eric Pickles to support a formal Equality and Human Rights Commission investigation into the decision.

Their calls were echoed by John Mann MP, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism.

"These claims have been made and should be investigated independently, ideally by the EHRC," he said.'''...

....Trevor Phillips, chair of the EHRC, said he was "surprised" at the failure of the UCU to introduce its motion on the definition of antisemitism "without consulting the EHRC" at all

Ok, he was surprised. But what the article doesn't say is that EHRC chair, Trevor Phillips, also said, in his letter,

neither we (EHRC) nor the EUMC has ever considered the EUMC's working definition to be wholly definitive; therefore its retention or abandonment should not be seen as an indication of what should be regarded as anti-racist [sic] or anti-semitic conduct.

Not quite the sacrosanct document these "leaders of the Jewish community" are making it out to be.

But check out the Board of Deputies on this:

The Board's president, Vivian Wineman, also wrote to university vice chancellors asking them to consider whether maintaining a normal relationship with UCU could still be compatible with their requirement to "eliminate discrimination and foster good relations" with minorities.

"Business as usual should not be an option with an institutionally racist organisation," he said.

He added that vice chancellors should put in place procedures to ensure that UCU's institutional racism and perverse definitions were not allowed to "pollute your own processes for handling reports of antisemitism on campus".

Mr Wineman said that if the UCU refused to address the issue, "we would ask that you reconsider whether formal union recognition of UCU is appropriate at all".

Now this is a serious bit of brinkmanhip and Whine is sticking his neck out here. For a fairly thorough look at the EUMC working definition of antisemitism check out Richard Kuper's article on Open Democracy or Ben White on Liberal Conspiracy where you will see that these Jewish leaders are having a hissy fit over a bogus definition of antisemitism that asserts that, "subject to overall context", it "could be" antisemitic to "deny Jews their right of self-determination by claiming that Israel is a racist endeavour, to compare Israel to the nazis and to criticise Israel over issues that you have not criticised other "democratic nations" over.  It's bonkers that anyone with any self-respect could support such a thing let alone intelligent people with high profiles in public. But the Board of Deputies could be heading for a showdown with the EHRC if Trevor Phillips fails to support them or even dismisses them as a bunch of disingenuous supporters of the last of the colonial settler states.

Phillips might note that it is not antisemitic to say that Israel simply has no right to exist, nor to say that Israel is racist nor to say that Jews are not an appropriate case for self-determination.  He might go further and ask for clarification of the assertion that Israel amounts to a "democratic nation".  He might even dismiss the term as ludicrous since democratic is a description of an institution, not a nation or people unless one is essentialising a people as containing within them a political persuasion. And there is the main rub with this bogus definition, it essentialises Jews not as an identity in the usual sense of the term but as a political persuasion, and in the case of zionism, a racist political persuasion.  What if, horror or horrors, Phillips points out that the definition is itself antisemitic?  I doubt if he will do that but the working definition is so glaringly mischievous I don't see how its critics can lose.  If it is accepted by an august body like the EHRC then it comes under scrutiny and is revealed for what it is, negative hasbara. If it is thrown out by the EHRC then its proponents are discredited even sooner.

I think the UCU has performed a wonderful service no matter what happens in the short term.

Neutrality on Israel?

Two letters in today's Guardian, one following on from a report of the appointment of an "Israel studies professor at Oxford University and the other commending The Guardian for a report on how the Palestinian village of Lifta was ethnically cleansed in the 1940s and is now being lined up for settlement by Jews only:

Derek Penslar (First professor of Israel studies at Oxford vows neutrality, 27 May) says he will strive for political neutrality in a professorship created with a £3m donation from long-standing supporters of Israel. But claims to be politically neutral generally obscure particular political positions since "you cannot be neutral on a moving train" or while riding the back of an angry crocodile. The report shows the difficulty of achieving neutrality by referring to "the Jewish state" as one might refer to the UK as a Christian state or Egypt as a Muslim state, none of which could be seen as politically neutral positions since they elevate the power of one group of citizens above others. States are defined by their borders. So in struggling to achieve neutrality, perhaps Derek Penslar will inform us of his politically neutral position on the borders of Israel.

Tony Booth

Cambridge University

• We commend you for putting Lifta in the news (We will never forget this village, G2, 30 May). Its Palestinian population was attacked and terrorised between Christmas 1947 and February 1948 and forced to leave by Menachem Begin's IZL and Yitzhak Shamir's Stern terror gangs. By February 1948 the village was emptied and its inhabitants were trucked to East Jerusalem. Now, the Israel Land Authority plans to parcel Lifta's private land and sell it to Jewish developers in an attempt to create a luxury enclave for Jews only. The international community must not remain silent in the face of this continued theft of private Palestinian land.

Antoine Raffoul

Co-ordinator, 1948: Lest We Forget

Actually there appeared to be an error in the report on Lifta not mentioned in the letter. See this:

The development plan was approved by the Jerusalem municipality five years ago, but earlier this year the Israel Lands Administration – the state agency that took ownership of Lifta's land under the Israeli law governing property deemed to be abandoned – began marketing the plot to private developers. A legal challenge stayed the tender process, but a decision is due any day on whether to proceed. The proposal is for 212 luxury housing units, expected to be advertised to wealthy expatriate Jews, a chic hotel and shops, and a museum. It suggests that some of the ruins be restored. But Lifta as a sanctuary and de facto heritage site will be lost.

Expatriate Jews? Where might they be? The largest number of expatriate Jews, understood as Jews living away from their country of origin, lives in Palestine. It wasn't me that noticed the error, it was Frank Fisher at the Just Peace UK list.

UK academics' union rejects EUMC bogus definition of antisemitism

The congress of the Universities and Colleges Union has just voted to support motion 70, copied here from the Engage website together with David Hirsh's report of the actual proceedings:

70 EUMC working definition of anti-semitism - National Executive Committee

Congress notes with concern that the so-called ‘EUMC working definition of antisemitism’, while not adopted by the EU or the UK government and having no official status, is being used by bodies such as the NUS and local student unions in relation to activities on campus.

Congress believes that the EUMC definition confuses criticism of Israeli government policy and actions with genuine antisemitism, and is being used to silence debate about Israel and Palestine on campus.

Congress resolves:

1. that UCU will make no use of the EUMC definition (e.g. in educating members or dealing with internal complaints)
2. that UCU will dissociate itself from the EUMC definition in any public discussion on the matter in which UCU is involved
3. that UCU will campaign for open debate on campus concerning Israel’s past history and current policy, while continuing to combat all forms of racial or religious discrimination

1443. proposal to change the rules to allow Conference Business Committee to co-opt members between Congresses

1445.  Business of the equality committee.  Chair of the committee to move.

1448. Marion Hersh argues for Motion 66, which says that the union should be in favour of institutions carrying out equality impact assessments.  This means that things such as cuts imposed by universities shouldn’t impact on one ‘equality’ group more than another.

But there is no call that the union itself should undergo a quality impact assessment about how its policies on Israel impacts on minorities within the union.

1458.  Motion 67.  From Black members standing commitee.  Another motion about impact assessment.  remitted.

1500.  Motion 68.  Every branch should have a properly resourced Equalities Officer.

1503.  Motion 69. “defend multiculturalism”.  conratulate UAF for its opposition to the EDl.  Work with UAF and Hope Not Hate against fascism.  Defend the values of multiculturalism.

1504.  The atmosphere in conference is calm, quiet relaxed.  Nobody is cheering or booing.  Just doing business in a normal kind of way.    See if the atmosphere changes for motion 70 on the EUMC defiinition?

1505.  Ammendment: give United Against Fascism (UAF) £1000.

1509.  another speech about how the EDL’s “flash mob” tactics make it necessary for the union to give £1000 to UAF.

1511.  vote on the motion.  Surprisingly, Sally Hunt is on the platform.

1512.  Sue Blackwell to propose the motion against the EUMC.  definition adopted by NUS, parliamentary inquiry, US State Department.  In Jan 2010 Denis Mcshane tried to have Azzam Tammimi banned from speaking.  [Tammimi is Hamas's guy in London - DH]  Blackwell goes on,McShane argued that an external speaker should be rejected if they have a history of antisemitic language in line with the EUMC…”   EUMC comes from the American Jewish Committee, European Jewish Congress, self confessed lobby groups for Israel.  Ken Stern, author of EUMC is deeply concerned about “politically based antisemitism” otherwise known as antizionism which treats Israel as the classic Jew….  antisemites seek to qualify israel from membership of the community of nations.”  In other words, if you are for a boycott, you are an antisemite.  These influences are evidenced by American spellings in the document.  Definition is not fit for finding Real antisemitism but is ideal for those who want to blur boundaries between antisemitism and antizionism.

1515.  Mike Cushman, LSE.  Opponents of this motion have been filling the internet with insults against this union.  Lets see how EUMC definition is used.

One example:  a member wrote “no compromise with Zionists or university closures”.  Claimed to be antisemitic.  Linking the international with the local is part of our politics.  Not racist.  By making Israel a special case the proponents of EUMC are being antisemitic.

Cushman goes on: David Hirsh that “expert” on antisemitism says “Israel murders children is antisemitic”   Not its not, its pro children.  Antisemitism must never never  be normalized.  Puts jews at risk  Crying wolf puts the sheep and the shepherd at hazard.

Support this motion because the EUMC definition is dangerous to Jews.

1517.   Ronnie Fraser (I had this text already):

I, a Jewish member of this union, am telling you, that I feel an antisemitic mood in this union and even in this room.

I would feel your refusal to engage with the EUMC definition of antisemitism, if you pass this motion, as a racist act.

Many Jews have resigned from this union citing their experience of antisemitsim.   Only yesterday a delegate here said ‘they are an expansionist people”. It is difficult to think that the people in question are anything other than the Jews.

You may disagree with me.

You may disagree with all the other Jewish members who have said similar things.

You may think we are mistaken but you have a duty to listen seriously.

Instead of being listened to, I am routinely told that anyone who raises the issue of antisemitism is doing so in bad faith.

Congress, Imagine how it feels when you say that you are experiencing racism, and your union responds: stop lying, stop trying to play the antisemitism card.

You, a group of mainly white, non-Jewish trade unionists, do not the right to tell me, a Jew, what feels like antisemitism and what does not.

Macpherson tells us that when somebody says they have been a victim of racism, then institutions should begin by believing them. This motion mandates the union to do the opposite.

Until this union takes complaints of antisemitsim seriously the UCU will continue to be labelled as an institutionally antisemitic organisation.

It’s true that anti-Zionist Jews may perceive things differently.  But the overwhelming majority of Jews feel that there is something wrong in this union. They understand that it is legitimate to criticise Israel in a way that is, quoting from the definition, “similar to that levelled to any other country’ but they make a distinction between criticism and the kind of demonisation that is considered acceptable in this union

Ronnie met with stoney silence.

1519.  Speech against.  Pete Radcliffe, (AWL).  No definition of any form of racism can prevent misuse.  each time an accusation of racism is made it should be assessed by the specifics.

The fact that defs may have been misused is no argument that they are wrong.

What does it say?

Look at what is written.

The most controversial is where it says those who claim that the existence of the israeli state are antisemitic.  Consider the peaceniks and the Israeli peace movement.  The def says that to call such people racist – because they are Israelis – is antisemitic.  They are Israelis who aren’t racist.

Congress we should be endorsing this definition, not condemning it.

We are going to have a general secretary election.  We need to take care.  OUr union is never more in the public eye.  do we want to make this a bit issue?

Des Freedman, Goldsmiths.  “As a Jewish member of this union I urge you to support.”

By conflating justificed criticism of Israel with antisemitism it restricts our ability to make justified criticism.

One example:  the NEC of NUS recently passed a motion calling for freedom for Palestine.  The reaction by the outgoing president was to promise to campaign against it and referred to it as a form of hate speech.  The point of something like that which was much debated, reflecting on the events for example in gAza, over a thousand people who were killed – adopting the EUMC definition unnecessarily curtails our ability to intervene, to call for justice, to call for freedom for Palestinians.

We shouled be firm in opposition to a-s.  EUMC prevents us from doing that.  I urge support.

1526.  Another speech.  This union should not be challenging antisemitism by rejecting a definition.  We should propose our own definition if we want to speak on this.

EUMC does not use the definition.

1527.  Sean Wallis.  Definitions include things and exclude things.  Read the definition and you’ll see how we need to be clear.  My branch defines antisemitism as a form of racism and so we oppose it.  The only way of doing this concretely is in concrete circumstances.  This elaborate extensive definition is unhelpful.    I was libelled 2 years ago.  There are people in this room who participated in this libel.  As a jew I find it offensive that the term antisemitism should be used in this way.  Throw it out .  It is not a definition. It is not working.

[ I think Sean Wallis means us:http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/ucl-ucu-branch-secretary-sean-wallis-lines-up-with-antisemitic-lehman-brothers-conspiracy-theorists/  - DH]

Ronnie Fraser point of information.

The EUMC definition itself.  It is used by law enforcement authorities throughout the world for guidance to recognise antisemitic statements and acts.  It is recommended to be used in academic and the unions by the Parliamentary Conference of 2009.

Sue Blackwell:  I think Ronnie just made a speech in favour of the m0tion – that’s why we should be worried about it.

EUMC has been replaced.  successor organisation have no plans for any further development of it.  the latest publication doesn’t mention the definition.  They’ve dumped it because it is not fit for purpose.

Whether we need an alternative definition.  I recommend Brian Klug’s “hostility towards Jews as Jews”.

Quoting richard Kuper: the strong fight back by israel and its supporters has been sometimes crude… the EUMC has been effective.  inadequate, yet it is increasingly presented as THE definition of antisemitism, it cannot bear this weight.

The vote was overwhelmingly carried.  4 people, I think, voted against.

After the vote, Ronnie was very upset.  “I feel physically sick and so upset because of their racism,” he told me.  He was close to tears.

DH

This a good result and I'm glad that Sue Blackwell and Mike Cushman managed to cover some of the main issues, especially the genealogy of the working definition which came originally from the American Jewish Committee, an Israel lobby group.

At the moment there are 8 comments on the Engage site of which Tony Greenstein's is the latest.  Here it is:

Tony Greenstein Says:
May 30, 2011 at 4:06 pm

This is the best news for a long time. Congratulations are in order. Now instead of accusing everyone who supports the Palestiniains of ‘anti-Semitism’ and thereby giving a boost to the real anti-Semites like Gilad Atzmon and co. we will be able to sort out the wheat from the Zionist chaff.

Ironically the EUMC Definition, coming as it did from the AJC, was itself anti-Semitic, in suggestion that to deny ‘the Jewish people their right to self-determination’ was anti-semitic. Only Zionists and anti-Semites pretend that Jews from India to Argentina to France comprise one people i.e. race.

And why is drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis anti-semitic? Israeli leaders and Zionists do it with monotonous regularity or is it only allowed for racists to make the comparison? Didn’t eg Matan Vilnai, deputy Defence Minister promise a ‘little Shoah’ not long before the slaughter of 1,400 people in Gaza?

I agree that ‘holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.’ But this has never been applied to Zionists and the Board of Deputies who continually proclaim that the Jewish community in Britain is behind Israeli war crimes.

well done to Sue Blackwell, Tom Hickey et al.

Yup, well done those people!

The reactionary Egyptian government DID NOT open the Rafah crossing

While most gush over the public relation stunt pulled by the lousy, reactionary, zionist, neoliberal, comprador government of post Mubarak Egypt, it is worth noting the Rafah passage remains tightly controlled in coordination with Israel.

Egypt on Saturday reopened the Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip to people but not goods after keeping it closed for more than four years.

It will be open to people for eight hours daily except Fridays and public holidays People under 18 or older than 40 will require only a visa to pass, but those between 18 and 40 will still need security clearance, crossing officials say.

Commercial traffic will continue to have to pass through border points with Israel, which controls all other access points to the area.(RFI)

The most important outcome of the "new" Egyptian policy is that Israel continues to decide how many calories people in Gaza ought to consume. Goods cannot pass through Rafah.

The second most important outcome is that Israel's policy of singling out young men, which has been in force for years in Jerusalem (men between 18 and 45 cannot visit the holy sites of Islam in Jerusalem), is now exported to Gaza. What has happened is that the "new" Egypt is becoming even more like the "old" Israel in relation to Palestinian liberty. 

Finally, there is the issue of the security clearances. The file of every Palestinian man from Gaza who wants to travel will be sent by the Egyptian security services to their supervisors in Israel, to be approved or rejected.

What did change is that the new Egyptian government, unlike the Mubarak government, is afraid of its people. It therefore must use the technology of the spectacle, which Western governments are so well trained in, to confuse the people. Thus, we had a public relation stunt, consisting of "the opening of the Rafah border crossing," playing in newspapers and networks, with dramatic music and pomp. And Israel, playing its role in the spectacle, reacted with anger and fear (which is directed at Israeli Jews, who need to be scared out of their wits by the mere thought that people in Gaza would enjoy anything.) But Israel has nothing to fear from the "new" Egyptian government. That government is still Israel's best ally in the region. 

Then there is the Egyptian people. The people, as an upper-class Englishman once said, is "a many headed monster" that causes folks like Netanyahu, Obama and Tantawi to wet their beds at night. Whether the people will be fooled remains to be seen.

Hassan Hijazi, the prophet of the Palestine to come

Rahela Mizrahi, a radical Arab Jewish writer, welcomed Hijazi from Tel-Aviv as "the first returning refugee":

Hassan Hijazi reminded Israelis that he is not going to give up his hometown of Jaffa. For now, Tel Aviv exists as a European colonial bubble protected by the human shield of Sderot, the violent settlers in the West Bank and Jewish-Arab Mizrahim pushed by white gentrification to settlements such as Maale Adumin and Pisgat Zeev. But that bubble, surrounded by fences and more fences, is soon to pop.

Welcome home to Jaffa, Hassan Hijazi — the first returning refugee!

(Time to tear down the fences, Rahela Mizrahi, The Electronic Intifada, Tel Aviv 28 May 2011)

UK equalities chief responds to zionist lobby on working definition

The story so far is that the Fundamental Rights Agency (formerly known as the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia or EUMC) came up with a working definition of antisemitism that appeared to preclude most or all criticism of the State of Israel. Check out EUMC in the search bar. Well the Universities and Colleges Union has a motion to its congress on 30 May rejecting the working definition out of hand. The Jewish Leadership Council, a coalition of Jewish lobby groups, has written to the leader of the UK's Equalities and Human Rights Commission. On that, here is the Jewish Chronicle:

The Jewish Leadership Council has written to the equalities watchdog, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, to express its concern at moves within the Universities and Colleges Union to reject the widely-accepted definition of antisemitism.

Well Trevor Phillips has replied and David Hirsh of the Engage website has reported, kind of, on the reply thus:

He says that he is “surprised” that UCU had brought the motion on the definition of antisemitism “without consulting the EHRC” at all.

He expects UCU’s National Executive Committee to discuss the motion with the EHRC as Britain’s National Human Rights Institution, even if it passes

 EHRC stands by the MacPhearson Report, which requires organisations to start from the perception of the victim. Trevor Phillips says:

 ”..if the object of harrasment or attack regards her treatment as being anti-semitic, even if the perpetrator maintains that their action is politically motivated, the presumption is that the victim’s perception is what defines the incident”.

 On the issue of reporting incidents -  both for students on campus and academics inside UCU – he says: “Nothing should be able to prevent Jewish students (or any other group, for that matter) being able to complain of harrasment, racism or anti-semitism”

 He suggests that there could be legal problems under Human Rights and Equality law if the motion is fully enacted.

What Hirsh reports is almost all accurate in that Phillips did say most of those things, but let's have that last para again:

He suggests that there could be legal problems under Human Rights and Equality law if the motion is fully enacted.

Now the only thing that I could find in Phillips's letter that looked anything like that was this last paragraph:

Finally, in practice, the international human rights treaties like the UN's Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Human Rights Act and the UK's mew exemplar Equality Act 2010 give us the guidance we need on this matter, in particular in equality duties imposed on the latter. Nothing should prevent Jewish students (or any other group, for that matter) being able to complain of harrassment, racism, or anti-semitism.  Such complaints should be taken extremely seriously by every institution; and it would be hard to imagine any institution which did not provide appropriate remedies for students' complaints being able to comply with its legal duties under the 2010 Act.

Unless I am missing something, and taking the letter as a whole, Phillips appears to be saying that Jews can and should expect protection from racism regardless of the UCU motion.  And look at the bit that Hirsh doesn't mention at all:

neither we (EHRC) nor the EUMC has ever considered the EUMC's working definition to be wholly definitive; therefore its retention or abandonment should not be seen as an indication of what should be regarded as anti-racist [sic] or anti-semitic conduct.

Now Phillips could be saying anything about the working definition itself. He could think it contains too much or too little. He could think it is plain wrong or even right but he does not seem to be saying that its abandonment could cause "legal problems under Human Rights and Equality law if the motion is fully enacted."

Overall, whilst it would be nice to see Trevor Phillips distancing himself more from the working definition, his letter is hardly a ringing endorsement of it. Hopefully, if the JLC pushes harder the EHRC will have to openly dismiss the working definition just as, hopefully, the UCU is going to in just a couple of days.

Gil Scott Heron April 1, 1949 – May 27, 2011

Gil Scott-Heron died on Friday 27 May 2011.  The Guardian.

Cameron tiptoes away from the Jewish National Fund

UK premier, David Cameron has quietly dropped his honorary patronage of the Jewish National Fund.  This is the first time in years that the JNF has had no UK premier as an honorary patron though former PMs, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are still honorary patrons.  They are mercifully no longer PMs.  Here's Scottish PSC:

Cameron drops Israel 'racist' charity

27 May 2011
Stop the JNF Campaign: Media Release

Prime Minister David Cameron has quietly terminated his status as an Honorary Patron of the controversial Jewish National Fund (JNF).  His office confirmed he had “stepped down”.  For many years leaders of all three main political parties became Honorary Patrons of the JNF by convention.  According to Dick Pitt, a spokesperson for the Stop the JNF Campaign, “Cameron was the only leader of the three major parties remaining as a JNF Patron.  This decline in political support for the JNF at the highest levels of the political tree may be a sign of the increasing awareness in official quarters that a robust defence of the activities of the JNF may not be sustainable.” 

The news of Cameron’s move has reached Palestinians in refugee camps, people whose land is under the control of the JNF.  Salah Ajarma in Bethlehem’s Aida Refugee Camp was “delighted to hear the news that the British Prime Minister has decided to withdraw his support for this sinister organisation involved in ethnic cleansing. My village, Ajjur, was taken by force from my family and given to the JNF who used money from JNF UK to plant the British Park on its ruins. For the Palestinians who were evicted from their villages and have been prevented from returning, Cameron's withdrawal is another victory on the road to achieving justice and freedom for the Palestinians".

The JNF chairman Samuel Hayek defends the work of the organisation saying, “for over 100 years we have had one mission: to settle and develop the Land of Israel” as pioneers of the “historic Zionist dream”.  The registered charity claims their work, especially in the Negev region of Israel, deals with “the rising demographic challenges faced by Israel”.  In recent months the JNF’s activities in the Negev have received extensive international media coverage, linking them to the demolition of Palestinian Bedouin villages and confiscation of the land of the village.  Campaigners report that “even Israeli courts have criticised the JNF as an organisation that discriminates against non-Jews and there is mounting evidence of the JNF’s involvement in Israel’s programme to change the ethnic composition of areas inside 1948 Israel as well as in Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories.  It is not acceptable that such an organisation is allowed to operate in the UK, much less to enjoy charity status”.

Now taking my earlier post together with this one, if the EUMC working definition of antisemitism were to be accepted it could, subject to overall context, be construed as denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination" since the activities of the JNF are clearly necessary for establishing and maintaining the State of Israel as a state for Jews. If campaigning against the JNF is ok, then the EUMC working definition is definitely not ok.