Dr Hirsh censors himself on the Engage site

Here's a curious thing. When I read the following intro to one of David Hirsh's masterpieces on the Engage site yesterday, I thought I saw something like this:

My daughter is five and she knows what a Likudnik is. Well, kind of. If I catch her kicking her little brother, and I tell her she is not allowed to hit people, she will say: "Well, he started it." And my answer to that will be: "We're not Likudniks, you know."

Fortunately, she is still (just about) young enough not to be embarrassed by her Dad's lame and repetitive jokes.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is not five, but it does seem to be inspired by Likud's traditional strategy of taking revenge: you hit us, we'll hit you back harder; you hit us again, we'll hit you back again, harder.

Looking at the same page now, in fact later yesterday, the intro looked more like this:

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) seems to be inspired by Likud's traditional strategy of taking revenge: you hit us, we'll hit you back harder; you hit us again, we'll hit you back again, harder.

ADL's response to the "academic intifada" is like Likud's response to the real intifada. Abraham Foxman, ADL's national director, said:: "We call on the entire academic sector in the United States to cut funding, support and contact with any academic who advocates a boycott of Israel."

You see he drew some flak from Likudniks for indoctrinating his five year old daughter against the zionist overt right and came to his senses. But the original version of the intro is still in tact on the Guardian's Comment is free space.

Further, he posted the following comment about his self-censorship:

I've removed references to my children in this piece. I was wrong to mention them.

That too has now been removed.

So here we have an academic who campaigns against academic boycotts of Israel on the grounds, he says, that they are antisemitic. He claims to be a non-zionist. And yet he encourages his daughter to beware of one narrow segment on the zionist political spectrum. Leaving aside the sheer disingenuousness of Likud's atrocities amounting to "retaliation" and the idea that such atrocities are a singular preserve of Likud led governments, which zionist parties does he want his daughter or anyone else to emulate?

But it gets curiouser. Remember the Engage rules of Engagement.

The editors of Engage are looking to enforce a stricter policy in the comments boxes. We all had our fun over the holidays - but:

1 Comments will be posted if the editors think that they add something to the debate. Editors will make a judgment about the quality and relevance of comments. Editors will try to be consistent but will not always succeed. Commenters should not feel they have a right to have their comments posted - it is an editorial decision.

2 Engage is not primarily a forum for discussion of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Its focus is on antisemitism. Endless and in-depth discussion about why the peace process broke down, for example, are interesting and important - but are not the core business of Engage.

3 Short comments are more likely to be posted than long comments.

4 Reasoned argument is more likely to be accepted than insults and hype.

Have a quick look at those same comments again. The absence of comments from pro-boycotters or anti-zionists have cut down on the insults that clutter up the box and even had one anti-boycott zionist complaining bitterly of juvenile behaviour in an earlier post but what's this?

While the ADL reacts a bit too strong, it may be worth to point out that ADL's offer is completely in sync with that of NAFTHE. After all, if the counterpunch is not stronger or equal to the original punch... Oh, well, stupid is as stupid does.

This is not why I am here, actually. I have accidentally stumbled on a dialog between two odious persons that includes a highly significant remark by one of them (Deborah Fink, who appears here frequently):

"But I guess we all need to be careful what we say on blogs in case it ends up in the JC!"

It appears here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JustPeaceUK/message/18483

One could ask why would a person call for such a strange behavior, after all what is it she considers worth hiding from the public eye? Hmm...

Actually blogs are both ephemeral and potentially permanent. It's so easy to make a comment without thinking, that you might want to retract having thought about it but, too late, it's in the public domain. A throwaway line becomes engraved on a tablet of stone. And who was it who cast aspersions on Deborah Fink? Why none other than , er, Snoopy the Goon from a blog called Simply Jews; one of the more ridiculous among the zionist blogs. Stupider than Engage but not quite as stupid as Banned by Elf. Now I'm not an intrepid blogger. I'm not going to investigate this Snoopy the Goon character to find their real identity but I am guessing Snoopy the Goon is not the character's real name. This raises some queries. How did someone who posts pseudonymously (effectively anonymously) to their own (and other) blogs not realise how hypocritical they were being by attributing a sinister motive to Deborah Fink's suggestion of due caution over postings to blogs? How in Engage's name did such a silly comment get past the censor on the Engage site? Did it contribute to the debate? In fairness they do say "Editors will try to be consistent but will not always succeed." But are the editors really trying to be consistent? Or are they silencing dissent on the one the hand and having it swamped by juvenile insults and absurd hypocrisy on the other?

I think we have been told.


UPDATE: I gather that the Guardian Comment is free post has been updated now and that Deborah Fink has tried to respond on Engage to a comment against her by this Snoopy the Goon character but it hasn't been approved.... yet.

Airbrushed out of history?

This is bizarre. Socialist Workers Party activist Alex Callinicos recently wrote an article fretting that to go for a boycott vote was a mistake. He subsequently wrote a "clarification." But the clarification has disappeared from the Socialist Worker website. Now I have a google cache copy here:

Unite against this gagging order on a trade union

Very unusually, this is the second column of mine running on the same subject – the controversy caused by the UCU lecturers' union decision to discuss a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

My suggestion that the left in UCU should not propose a boycott at next year's union congress caused some anger among Palestinian solidarity activists. I regret this, but believe our disagreement was essentially over tactics, not principle.

I support boycotting Israel, but believed that we needed to head off the danger of a big defeat for the left if UCU general secretary Sally Hunt went ahead with a membership ballot on the issue. But now Hunt has gone even further than I expected.

On Friday of last week the union's strategy and finance committee declared a ballot would be "unlawful" and cancelled the planned series of meetings around the country to implement the congress decision to hold a debate on the boycott.

This decision was based on legal advice that "it would be beyond the union's powers and unlawful, directly or indirectly to call for or to implement a boycott by the union and its members of any kind of Israeli universities and other academic institutions".

The lawyers also say, "to ensure that the union acts lawfully meetings should not be held to ascertain the level of support for such a boycott".

This amounts to the most astonishing and self-imposed gagging order on a trade union. We've grown too used to the scope of trade union action becoming heavily restricted thanks to the Tory legislation that New Labour has kept in force.

But now we're being told that we can't even debate a boycott. As a UCU member, the first thing I want to know is who provided this legal advice.

I was astonished to learn that over the summer UCU head office had consulted the solicitor Anthony Julius, Princess Diana's divorce lawyer.

He has equated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, denounced the UCU decision to discuss a boycott as "truly appalling", and offered to act for academics or students affected by any boycott.

What on earth is Sally Hunt doing using UCU members' subscriptions on consulting someone so clearly associated with one side of the argument?

[apparently this was wrong - see below]

The strategy and finance committee's decision follows the most massive international campaign by supporters of the state of Israel against the UCU decision. The Harvard lawyer Alan Dershowitz threatened legal action to "devastate and bankrupt" anyone acting against Israeli universities.

Witch-hunted

Dershowitz is an arch-hypocrite. He claims to be a civil liberties lawyer but has defended the use of torture and the destruction of Palestinian villages in the fight against terrorism.

He has witch-hunted US academic critics of Israel, helping to block the award of tenure to the anti-Zionist historian Norman Finkelstein. That's how much he cares for freedom of speech.

But the UCU's leadership's caving in under pressure goes way beyond the debate over Israel and the boycott. This is a fundamental attack on the right of trade unions even to discuss, let alone to engage in, international solidarity.

As Amjad Barham of the Palestinian academics' union points out in a letter to Sally Hunt, "during the struggle against the odious apartheid regime in South Africa, British academics were at the forefront of the academic and other boycotts of the racist state. We do not see why considering ways of fighting Israeli oppression of Palestinians should be subject to different considerations."

It's bitterly ironic that this decision should have come the week there were widespread calls in the Western media for tougher international sanctions on Burma. Why is it OK to boycott Burma but we can't even discuss boycotting Israel?

This issue now transcends the question of the boycott. Whatever our views on that subject, lecturers – and all trade unionists – should unite to condemn and to demand the reversal of last week's decision.

We won't stand for being gagged on the say-so of anonymous lawyers. The debates on the boycott should be reinstated. And the next UCU congress should have high on its agenda how to deepen our solidarity with the Palestinian people.

---

© Copyright Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original and leave this notice in place.

Not easy leaving a link to the original when the original doesn't have a link to the original. But what's all this about? I just posted a post about how Ha'aretz has broken a taboo and used the A-word, apartheid, to describe the situation in occupied Palestine. I had a quick look at Engage to see if they had misrepresented the article and smeared the editor as a blood libeller or some such, as they do when someone approaches a truthful description of the "non"-zionists' favourite state and I stumbled on the most ludicrous case of hypocrisy I can think of right now: Engage berating the Socialist Worker for removing a page from their site as if the page had never happened. That's where I got the google cache from. They used the "airbrushed etc" schtick to hurt the feelings of these trots. Trots hate being likened to Stalinists you see(chortle, snigger). But the post is by the same David Hirsh who removes his own posts willy nilly whenever they make him, whenever he realises they make him look silly. Remember the non-zionist lecturing his daughter that "we're not Likudniks you know?" Remember him telling "Diasporist" that Richard Littlejohn is more anti-racist than the trade union movement and then saying that he didn't mean or even say what he definitely did say. And then he removed the whole thing, comments and all when his web got too tangled. And whatever happened to the likely lad, Alf Green? And Engage cocks a snook (is that the expression?) at the SWP. What a bunch, honestly! Honestly? Hark at me!

UPDATE: The SWP has run an apology and correction over the above article. Apparently the UCU leadership didn't take advice from Anthony Julius.

Follow up on Oslo and ethnic relations in Israel

The video of Israelis hailing Hitler posted here on JSF some times ago is making the rounds of the blogs, but usually without attention to the historical context. Yet without this context it helps misunderstanding the reasons for the fateful historical bankruptcy of the Israeli "peace movement."

When it was published on JSF, I was challenged by Emmanuel Shiff, apparently a student from the Hebrew (colonial) University, about my criticism of the Israeli peace movement. I thought this discussion is worth a second look, so I reproduce it below in full.

ES: "The great success of the Ashkenazi dominated Labor Party was to create a linkage between peace with Palestinians and intensified racism against Jews of Arab origin. This is the foul fruit of that achievement."

I'm not sure I understood you correctly. Are you saying that the Labor Party used the peace process in the 1990's to intensify discrimination of Mizrahi Jews? If that's what you're saying, it makes no sense. The peak of discrimination was the 1950's, 60's and 70's. In recent decades, the discrimination of Mizrahim has gone down, though it is not gone completely and the effects of the earlier discrimination are still very present.

GA: Its frustrating that on the web you cannot get away with sloppy writing. ;-)

That was sloppy formulation. My apologies. What I should have written is that the the peace process was perceived, correctly, as threatening to lead to the intensification of the oppression of Mizrahis. Indeed the height of oppression was in the period up to the 1970s. But the way that oppression lessened was through the rise of Likud, and the transformation of the occupation into a welfare system and upward mobility tool. Oslo was a not primarily about peace, it was primarily about economic liberalization, globalization and investment. It was a program of stopping Mizrahi upward mobility for the sake of integrating Israel globally.

I will change the body of the article later tonight, for the sake of future google searches.

ES: A big part of Oslo was indeed the economic liberalization aspect, though I'd say it came hand in hand with, and was equally important as, peace and security, and wasn't more important than those two aspects. The way you put it, the weakening of the welfare state was meant to preserve Ashkenazi domination, but that isn't the case.

The transition to a more capitalist economy may have hurt the lower classes, which tend to be Mizrahi Jews, but that wasn't the goal, but rather a side-effect.

GA: The transition to a neoliberal economy (it was 100% capitalist before as well) was a 'passive revolution' (Gramsci) driven by the exhaustion of the previous economic configuration in an inflationary spiral that ended in a collapse of the banking system (1985). Of course, neoliberalism was not the only logical option. It was the option favored by the dominant Ashkenazi class, because it preserved their economic and social domination. It opened up new forms of capital accumulation (globalization), which were of course only available to those in the position to buy the state's assets or to manage them. It also transferred power away from state institutions to the private sphere exactly at the moment when Mizrahis were finally starting to use their voting power to increase their numbers in the state apparatus (following 1977). This was not analyzed by most Mizrahis at the time in marxist terms, but the scope, direction and social implications of the transformation was clearly grasped by the masses. Elections between 1981 and 1996 were polarized on race/economics (with signposts such as dudu topaz' 1981 gaffe, or the 4% [from memory] jump in the stock market on the announcement that labor won the 1992 elections).

Eventually, globalization took hold but the Oslo processed collapsed. In principle, it could have been the other way around. Labor could have run on...welfare and wages (unimaginable, right?) and Rabin could have taken the Hebron settlement down after the Goldstein massacre, and could have replaced the ultra hostile Barak with a pro Oslo general. Then we would have reached the end of the century with a much less capitalistic Israel and some sort of a (inadequate) two state solution. In practice, that could not have happened, because Israel of course would have then to go against the global neoliberal trend. But the carriers of that trend in Israeli society were the Ashkenazi left who benefited from it most (and voted labor). Sure they wanted peace. nobody says that most "left" voter weren't sincere. But the social compromise that Begin already articulated in the early 80s and that Netanyahu consolidated in the late nineties was based on Ashkenazis accepting the continuation of the occupation and Mizrahis accepting globalization.

ES: I'm not a marxist, so I don't see it the same way you do, but even from a marxist standpoint this isn't necessarily an Ashkenazi vs. Mizrahi issue, but more a question of socio-economic standing. Yes, it is undeniable that the well-off tend to be Ashkenazis and the poor tend to be Mizrahis, but by that reasoning all neoliberals are actually racists. Were George W. Bush's economic domestic policies intentionally anti-black and and anti-hispanic? As horrible a president as he was, I don't think he's a racist (at least not towards African-Americans and Latino-Americans)

Regarding the elections between 1981 and 1996 (I'd say even earlier and later), there was definitely an ethnic divide, with the Mizrahim clearly preferring the the right (which is still the case today) and the Ashkenazim preferring the left (something that isn't as clearly the case nowadays). I think this has much more to do with Labor's racism in the earlier period than with economic liberalization. Likud (and its predecessor Herut) was smart in embracing Mizrahim while Labor rejected them. However, starting with the late 70's, the Mizrahim stuck with Likud despite the fact that it was hurting them no less then labor. Likud, after all, was the party that started the economic liberalization and hurt the poorer classes. From that point, it wasn't ongoing discrimination by Ashkenazi-dominated Labor that made Mizrahim Likudniks, but rather a combination of Mizrahi Jews' hawkish tendencies and inertia.

GA: I think you miss a couple of important things. First, regarding George Bush’s malice and racism. His personal attitude is of little importance, but there is what is known as the GOP’s ‘Southern strategy,’ which appeals to white Southern voters using coded language that, as GOP strategist Lee Atwater explained,

“You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.”

Indeed there is a much larger history that associates “socialism” in the popular American consciousness (correctly, by the way) with Black empowerment. So part of the way neo-liberal policies were marketed in the U.S. was indeed through their direct appeal to racism. What you call the racializing “by-product” of the neo-liberal policy mix has its own political appeal to sectors threatened by racial equality

Second, I’m afraid that in one matter, and precisely where I beg to differ from classical marxist explanations, you are more marxist than I. You explain Mizrahi support of Likud in the nineties as self-damaging “hawkishness and inertia.” The way I see it, both power and hegemony shape the field of choices available to agents, but within this field, agents make relatively rational choices. The liberalism of Likud started with measures that benefited small businesses and the self-employed (many of them operated by Mizrahis). Begin liberalized the way state land was made available for private (Jewish) use, allowing the less wealthy (and mostly Mizrahis) to build small detached houses. Israel being a settler society that stole all its land from the indigenous people, land is a very strong signifier of social status that Ashkenazis monopolized and Likud opened up for Mizrahis. (Compare the land taken by kibuttzim to the congestion and small rooms often allocated to Mizrahis by state housing authorities). Likud governments allocated resources for non Ashkenazi culture, which was both symbolically important and a source of budgets and patronage available to Mizrahis when Likud was in power.

Finally, there was colonization in the West bank itself, which offered social mobility and a safety net to the less affluent Jewish Israelis and which, while both parties supported, was more visibly and more enthusiastically supported by Likud. Hence, while it is true that both Labor and Likud supported economic measure that benefited the Ashkenazi dominated upper class, it was the Right that offered to soften the blow with a mix of policies that appealed to lower class interests, at once symbolically and materially. The so called “Left” effectively told them to take a hike.

Why was “labor” so cavalier? Secular Ashkenazi Zionism is a European settler ideology that is foundationally racist against the indigenous culture, which is Arab, perceived as inferior to the European culture brought by the settlers. Mizrahis brought with them Arab culture to Israel. Their political ascendancy and increased cultural visibility, as well as the increased importance of religion since the seventies, was experienced by Ashkenazis as both a threat to their hegemonic position and as “the State of Israel going haywire” i.e., as the unthinkable victory of the inferior Arab over their superior European culture. The left has always pandered to this racism. Indeed, given that the “Zionist left” in Israel had little on its platform that could be described as “left” in economic terms, and given that its commitment to a just solution of the conflict with Palestinians was at best questionable if not downright dishonest (I’d go with dishonest), the other major component of its electoral appeal (apart from globalization), was identity politics for Ashkenazis, i.e., secularism and racism.

Mizrahis, as Shabi writes in the link Nedster provides below, had to prove their worthiness under Zionism by distancing themselves from their Arab heritage. They did so by adopting hawkish attitudes. But after 1977, this hawkishness opened ways to compete with Ashkenazis on symbolic capital, which in Israel was strongly associated with colonization (Palmakh, kibutz, etc.). The security forces, like other sectors of state bureaucracy, were opened for Mizrahi advancement. The Oslo framework was going to outsource the work of the IDF to Palestinians and the reduction of friction and official end of the colonization process would have closed that avenue for advancement and competition on status. For many reasons, therefore, their hawkishness was not just “traditional,” but a political choice that must be understood within the range presented by the Israeli political system and the limitations imposed by settler ideology.

ES: Sounds like Israel can never be alright, according to your theory. If it doesn't advance toward peace, it is an anti-Arab colonialist. If it does, it only does so to limit Mizrahi power.

GA: There is no such thing as "advancing towards peace" while maintaining and even increasing oppression. This is the bullshit language of the Zionist left you are using.

Nothing that actually happened under the term of "Oslo" constituted advancement towards peace. What happened was closures, the further segregation and destitution of Palestinian labor, the institution of a pass system, further colonization and settlement buildup, a network of roads for Jews only, and the establishment of a small comprador Palestinian class, sustained by international capital, tethered to the occupation and in charge of a Palestinian security apparatus whose sole capability was intended to, and still is, to further the oppression.

"Oslo" contained within it, purely on the imaginative plane, the spark of desire for peace, on the part of a significant portion of the Israeli electorate. Nothing unfortunately came of that spark because it was made subservient to the anti-Arab racism that animates Ashkenazi Zionism and to the capitalists interests that led the process at every step.

The exclusive choice between Peace and Mizrahi empowerment is exactly the choice designed by the Zionist establishment in order to prevent both. It is has no doubt worked like a charm, producing the present moment. One doesn't have to a genius however to understand that a state built on white supremacy and the inferiority of the "Orient" will never be at peace in the middle of that Orient. The fight against white supremacy must be consistent and make no exceptions. Ashkenazi racism is not a foundation on which peace can be built.

Whether Israel can or cannot do right is not a theoretical question. Let it do right first, and ask for that to be recognized later. You want credit for nothing.

There are further links and quotes in the comments.

JC's Jewish power has Hirsh and Grant down to a T

The Jewish Chronicle has started to publish its list of 100 powerful Jews in the UK. Actually it's "100 people who exert the greatest influence on British Jewry." Nice to see the Jewdas crew (aka Geoffrey Cohen) straight in at number 67. They're actually publishing numbers 67 to 100 today with 67 being more powerful than 100 so for this week, as if to rekindle our faith in human nature, Jewdas topped the chart:

Jewdas (Geoffrey Cohen)

67 (New) “Geoffrey Cohen” is the collective pseudonym for representatives of the subversive Jewish group. It came to wider attention in 2006 when four members were arrested at the Simcha in the Square celebration in Trafalgar Square on suspicion of disseminating antisemitic material — flyers for a “Protocols of the Elders of Hackney” party. Police decided not to press charges. A more recent event featured obscure films on Jewish anarchists, “extreme Jewish food” and “Jewla hooping” (Jewish hula-hooping, obviously). Once promised a talk from Lord Levy on “fraud, antisemitism and where to buy in Totteridge”. Unsurprisingly, the peer didn’t show.

But it couldn't last. Glance down the list and the hasbara parrots start to make an appearance. Look:

DAVID Toube

71 (New) An up-and-coming name as key contributor to the well-regarded Harry’s Place blog, which is sympathetic to Israel, if at times critical, and exposes what it sees as left-wing hypocrisy. In professional life, the Oxford-educated blogger is an associate at the London office of international law firm Cleary Gottlieb, where he specialises in Financial Services Authority requirements to which regulated companies are subject. He has also authored legal guides and lectured in law at Queen Mary College, University of London.

Harry's Place has criticised Israel? I remember HP hinted that Linda Grant might be lying about an incident once but that doesn't actually count as criticising Israel. But then truth is about as relevant to the JC as it is to David Toube. Just an aside here. David Toube has actually tried to have people lose their jobs for opposing Israel. Ok, many zionists do that but I've seen an email where the same David Toube asks an anti-zionist not to out him as David t of Harry's Place because it could cause him problems in his work. What a scumbag!

Still with Israel's elite hasbara unit:

David Hirsh

96 (New) A sociology lecturer at Goldsmiths College, University of London, David Hirsh established the Engage website to counter left-wing and trades-union anti-Zionism and antisemitism. He was also to the fore in the campaign to reverse the academic boycott of Israeli universities.

Dr Hirsh has this hypocritical habit of accusing people of the things he is guilty of. Projection, we call that. He once wrote a ludicrous story about how he lectures his daughter not to behave like a Likudnik. When I picked up on it, I was guilty of bringing his children into things! Anyway, he airbrushed the story after complaints from Likudniks. I'm not joking, it's true.

I wonder if Alf Green or Shachtman will make an appearance in the coming weeks. I know Alf Green was Dr Hirsh, I'm only 99.9% certain Shachtman is. I say that because once in the comments to a Linda Grant article at Comment is free, I criticised her piece using the name Ilan (because Linda Grant had my levi9909 id banned from there) and took a swipe at Shachtman for (what else) falsely accusing someone of antisemitism. He came back and accused me of ad hominem attacks and said that I'm the "Tommy Cooper of the anti-zionists". Now in fairness, Linda Grant too has accused me of ad hominem attacks in place of debate whilst calling me and other anti-zionists "cold callous bastards" so perhaps Hirsh isn't uniquely stupid but at least Grant's stupidness was in a thread where she did pass off some comment as genuine discussion. This Shachtman chap didn't even try to veil his personal abuse. He also pops up, as Alf Green did, to support Hirsh's own arguments from time to time.

Anyway, that brings us to the last on the list. Guess who:

Linda Grant

100 (New) Since her first novel, The Cast Iron Shore, in 1996, Linda Grant, 57, has won six major literary awards and been shortlisted for two more. The child of Russian and Polish immigrants has written regularly on Jewish themes. Her latest work, The Clothes On Their Backs, tackles issues including the Holocaust, racism and the dilemma facing Jewish refugees to Britain — maintain a low profile, or seize on opportunities.

I'm not sure if she has ever used bogus id. I've certainly suspected it but there'd be a citation needed as they say at Wikepedia.

Anyway, here's the link to the article again because the whole thing is worth a look at. It even has Ken Livingstone up there at 76, up from 92 last year.