Muzzlewatch vs. the Elites?

According to Muzzlewatch’s self-declared Generalisimo, Cecilie Surasky, Israel’s latest dastardly attempt to thwart its critics by building relationships with leaders outside of the Jewish community is doomed to failure. For, as Surasky points out, the Muzzlewatch army no longer needs these elites to win their battles, for they are now an army of unstoppable, Internet-connected grassroots Davids which, as she describes:

“We’ve all bypassed the elites in the state/media/law/culture etc.. who have failed miserably to bring a just peace. The era of centralized power, and the associated power of the gatekeeper, is quickly ending. Today it is quick-moving, under-funded, decentralized, non-hierarchical, grassroots activism that is winning and unstoppable.”

To which I would reply:

(1) As one of the three Internet-connected, non-hierarchical, grassroots activists who contribute to a site with “Muzzlewatch” in its name (the other being the creator of this Muzzlewatch-Watch site, and the third being Surasky herself), I believe that it is only Cecilie who draws a paycheck for her political activity.

(2) As Surasky points out, an important priority for Muzzlewatch’s parent organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) is the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) “movement” targeting Israel. Yet as I’ve pointed out in the past, the only successes BDS ever achieved was in the Mainline Protestant Churches between 2004-2006 when JVP’s friends and allies exerted enormous effort cultivating the very elites Surasky now declares they are going to bypass.

In fact, it was only by going behind the backs of rank and file members of a church, city, union or other organization and appealing directly to these elites that JVP’s pet divestment projects ever achieved any (albeit temporary) success. Once grassroots church members discovered what was being done in their name (and without their consent), they rejected these JVP-supported divestment projects in democratic votes by margins of 95-100%.

In other words, the folks behind Muzzlewatch spent years chasing after the very elites they now claim to disdain and if an opening presented itself to get a college president, union leader or other elite leader to embrace the BDS project, JVP/Muzzlewatch would leap at the opportunity like a dog on meat.

So what seems to be driving the new-found populism of Muzzlewatch is not the existence of “elites” per se but the fact that these civic leaders are listening to the Jewish community and – more importantly – to their own members, rather than simply trusting Jewish Voice for Peace, Muzzlewatch and their like-minded friends in the BDS movement for all of their information. Given the penchant for JVP et al to manipulate civic organizations and dump information needed to make informed decisions about the Middle East conflict down the memory hole, this strikes me as a wise policy indeed.

MuzzleWatching and Knee Jerking Into a New Decade

It's January. A new year. A new decade. There's fresh, white snow outside my window.

And what is MuzzleWatch up to in 2010? Oh right, the same old knee-jerk defenses of the most virulent anti-Israel propagandists, and attacks against mainstream Jewish organizations.

Not new either is the dishonesty of said defenses and attacks. Currently at the top of their site is a January 13 article lamenting that an organization that doesn't share Jewish Voice for Peace's political views is "unfortunately ... still in business." (Yes, the free market of ideas is "unfortunate" in the mind of those self-proclaimed defenders of free speech.)

One of MW's criticisms of this organization is that they recently described professor/activist Rashid Khalidi as having been an "official spokesperson for the PLO," despite Khalidi's recent denials. (Never mind that the article MW criticizes doesn't actually use the word "official.")

In fact, question of whether Khalidi had been a PLO spokesman was deeply investigated during Obama's run for the White House. Now, this blog doesn't concern itself with the president's relationship with Khalidi. And frankly, I still have no regrets about having voted for ... well, I'll also leave party politics out of this blog.

The point is that MuzzleWatch's assertion that calling Khalidi a former PLO spokesperson is a "smear" because he had denied this affiliation makes clear that MW's "analysis" is not nuanced or thoughtful, but rather resembles a jerk of the knee. (Khalidi is anti-Israel? Then he must be right!)

Khalidi, it seems, was indeed a spokesperson for the PLO. The evidence is convincing, and as it emerged convinced at least one reporter to dramatically change his mind after initially insisting on Khalidi's innocence of PLO affiliation.

---

MuzzleWatch is also disturbed by Jane Fonda. A recent posting — okay, I admit the posting is from late-2009 and not 2010 — asserts (emphasis mine):

What is it about Atlanta and Israel?

First, in response to a firestorm of criticism and vilification, Atlanta resident and iconic film star Jane Fonda issued a mea culpa about the wording of a petition she signed protesting the Toronto International Film Festival’s celebratory spotlight on Tel Aviv. She said she signed it, “without reading it carefully enough, without asking myself if some of the wording wouldn’t exacerbate the situation rather than bring about constructive dialogue”. To her credit, Fonda did not remove her signature. But it was still an extraordinary move that reflected the intense pressure she was under. (This level-headed group of Atlanta Jewish leaders rose to her defense.)

Fonda upsets MW's because the actress expressed regret for behaving in a knee-jerk manner rather than with nuance and thoughtfulness.

"I signed the letter without reading it carefully enough," Fonda explained in her apology.

She added:

[I]t can become counterproductive to inflame rather than explain and this means to hear the narratives of both sides, to articulate the suffering on both sides, not just the Palestinians. ...

The Israeli-Palestinian story cannot be reduced to a simplistic aggressor-victim relationship. In order to fully understand this, one must be willing to come together with an open heart and really hear the narratives of both sides.

Sounds reasonable enough. Who would disagree that completely closing your ears to one side's narrative can be counterproductive? Oh right -- MuzzleWatch and its parent organization Jewish Voice for Peace disagrees.

Joining the Muzzlewatch-Watch

[Voice of Troy McCleur]

Hello there Muzzlewatch-Watchers! You may remember me from such blog entries as this one, or this one, or from the comment section of Muzzlewatch itself (before they decided the kitchen was getting too hot and they shut the comments down forever).

The challenges raised by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)’s Muzzlewatch project has led to, among other things, this Web site whose creator has been kind enough to let me start posting here occasionally.

As noted in the first story linked above, I originally got interested in Muzzlewatch as a way to explore how a demonstrably false thesis (that criticism of Israel – howled from the rooftops of every campus in the country - is somehow repressed) could gain traction with today’s allegedly sophisticated news audiences.

As I’ve watched postings at Muzzlewatch itself become more and more hysterical once they shut out all voices other than their own, it dawned on me that with Muzzlewatch we were watching a truly post-modern political phenomenon. For the key purpose of Muzzlewatch is to make sure that any discussion critical of Jewish Voice for Peace and its allies is immediately stifled by pushing it beyond the pale.

And how do they attempt to pull off this act of censorship? By turning the tables on their critics, accusing them of trying to stifle debate, despite the fact that every example of “stifling” Muzzlewatchers manager to dredge up look a lot like other people exercising their free speech rights to say something at odds with the world view of Jewish Voice for Peace, the arms, legs and hands behind Muzzlewatch.

This is where it gets interesting, for (whether consciously or unconsciously) those behind the Muzzlewatch site understand that it is their critics who actually maintain the respect for free speech that JVP/Muzzlewatch only feign. So by accusing those who comment negatively on JVP’s political positions of censorship, Muzzlewatch is trying to trigger our reflexive respect for open debate, hoping to confuse censor and censored, and making us doubt the legitimacy of using our own freedom of speech.

Of course, turning the tables on JVP/Muzzlewatch would only be effective if they actually believed in free speech, rather than simply pretending to possess a desire for open debate while actually working day and night to try to ensure that they are the only ones allowed to express their opinions freely.

But while they can shut down their own comment section once the reality behind their squalid little project gets too exposed, they have not yet managed to gain control over the Internet. Which means that this site (and others) will continue to watch (and expose) their attempts to censor others through cynical accusations of censorship.

And if anyone over at JVP wants to let us know where we’ve gotten it wrong, well comments are open over on this site…

Jon

Brandeis Students Disrupt Debate, Get Scolded. Audience Yawns.

Seems that upon brainstorming ways to "disrupt the Zionist narrative," Students Against Open Debate decided to tape onto their t-shirts loose-leaf paper scribbled with quotations about peace (since, you know, Zionists hate peace). After Richard Goldstone had his turn to speak to the mostly polite audience, and Dore Gold dared to start presenting his own views, the handful of activists stood up, removed their jackets and showed their righteous handwriting to the attendees sitting directly behind them.

After a quick rebuke by a moderator, they sat back down, undoubtedly satisfied that they've sufficiently promoted the ideal that people should act out disruptively when someone they disagree with is speaking.

Brandeis Students Vs. Free Speech, Academic Freedom

Below is an email sent by Brandeis student Jonathan Sussman to the list serve of Students for a Democratic Society. The note suggests "seeding the audience" at upcoming debate between Richard Goldstone and Dore Goldwith people who would "disrupt" the civil exchange of ideas, possibly with "direct action."

Since MuzzleWatch's tag line purports that their mission is "Tracking efforts to stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy," they'll surely speak out about this particular effort to... well... "stifle open debate." Right? Right?? No silly, it's just an empty slogan meant to cover up their extremist, anti-Israel obsession.

From: "Jonathan M. Sussman" [jsuss@brandeis.edu]
To: sds [sds@lists.brandeis.edu]
Subject: Goldstone Forum Action Planning - Wed. @ 10!
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:32:19 -0400 (EDT)

Hey! As many of you know, Brandeis will be hosting a forum next Thursday, 11/5, to discuss the Goldstone Report, a report from the United Nations which determined that Israel used excessive force in its occupation of Gaza. Believe it or not, this was poorly received within the Zionist community. Thus Brandeis is hosting a forum between the report's author, international jurist Richard Goldstone, and former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, Dore Gold. Full details here: http://brandeis.edu/now/2009/october/goldstonegold.html.

Many of us are concerned that this forum is inherently slanted, as it contrasts 'nuetral' international opinion with a wildly pro-Zionist message, excluding voices from the Palestinian community. In light of this, activists across campus will be meeting this Wednesday, 10/28 @ 10 PM in the Village C Lounge to discuss a possible response. Possibilities include inviting Palestinian speakers to come participate, seeding the audience with people who can disrupt the Zionist narrative, protest, and direct action. Please come and help us coordinate a response!

Fuck the occupation,
Jon

Hamas and Israel on MuzzleWatch's Scale of Justice -- and the Winner is...

... I wish it weren't so predictable, but yes, MuzzleWatch's Scale of Justice clearly tilts in favor of Hamas.

Seriously.

Let's take a peek at Rob Lipton's Sept. 24 post gleefully cheering the much maligned Goldstone Report. Here, with quotes directly from the MuzzleWatch post, is my feeble HTML attempt to visualize the trays of their scale:

Israel		Hamas
		"The war crimes committed by Hamas are deplorable ... but..."
		"... placed within the context of a people trying to fight occupation"
	/	Hamas, "like Jews or anyone else in the same situation, fight back"
"slaughter of civilians"		Hamas "dwarfed" by Israel
"governmental censorship efforts as well as government efforts to suppress dissent"
"massacre"

Clearly, there's a reason why I'm not a Web designer. I'm afraid my little illustration here doesn't do justice to just how stunning — and perhaps I should no longer be stunned, given the glimpses of MuzzleWatch's stance that I'm oh-so-slowly accumulating on this blog — the MuzzleWatch post is.

Here's the relevant excerpt in straight prose:

The recent release of the UN study headed by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone is a watershed of sorts in the diplomatic history of Israel. An ardent supporter/friend of Israel with family living in Israel, Goldstone’s report is sober yet scathing regarding Israel’s actions in Gaza. The report details not just the slaughter of civilians but the seemingly planned destruction of civilian infrastructure that could, in no way, be considered militarily related (unless the futile goal was to make the bombed civilians turn against Hamas). The report also unequivocally condemns Hamas for the war crime of firing on civilian populations in Israel, and likely for that reason, both Israel and Hamas were finally able to agree on one thing, their condemnation of the report.

Further, the report goes on to describe Israeli governmental censorship efforts as well as government efforts to suppress dissent within Palestinian Israeli populations (obvious Muzzlewatch concerns) . Perhaps most importantly, the report goes into detail describing the effects of the occupation in the West Bank as well as the siege of Gaza. This contextualization is particularly damning and frequently completely missing from mainstream analysis. The fact that such a high profile report seamlessly includes this context is refreshing from the point of view of those working to stop the occupation, and conversely, quite galling for those who seek to keep the status quo.

The war crimes committed by Hamas, are deplorable and also described in the report, but they are also placed within the context of a people trying to fight occupation. Israel’s actions are allowed no such context. Israeli maximalist existentialist fears, whether heartfelt delusion or cold eyed cynicism, are simply not treated. Thus most of the responsibility, as it should be, is placed on the shoulders of Israel, whose firepower, and the resulting death toll, utterly dwarfed that of Hamas. (One is left to conclude, logically, that a government seeking to protect the citizens of Sderot and Ashkelon, as it should, would do so by ending the illegal siege of Gaza, not by making life even more intolerable for people who would, like Jews or anyone else in the same situation, fight back.)

After one compulsory word ("deplorable") of criticism of Hamas, a group that unhesitatingly claims "credit" for attacking civilians on buses, cafes, pizza shops, dance clubs, and malls, the author wastes no time with his key follow up word: "but..."

And then, what certainly looks like a justification for the anti-Semitic group's murderous attacks. Hamas is just fighting against the occupation (what jaw dropping ignorance of Hamas's admitted goals!), and just doing what anyone else would do. And after this apologia, the author looks back toward Israel and adds, "there is no way to explain away Israeli actions."

Yes, I'm stunned. I knew MuzzleWatch is anti-Israel and soft on Hamas. But seeing these stances so closely juxtaposed so as to make apparent their relative views of the parties... wow.

Censorship of Holocaust Facts Ignored by MuzzleWatch

The evidence continues to pile up that MuzzleWatch isn't really interested in muzzling, and it's parent organization Jewish Voice isn't really interested in peace.

The groups' raison d'être is much more narrow. It is attacking Israel while minimizing Palestinian responsibility for the ongoing conflict.

Here's the latest example of MuzzleWatch ignoring censorship that doesn't fit in with their anti-Israel message. The Jerusalem Post reports that

The publicly funded Multicultural Center's (Werkstatt der Kulturen) decision to remove educational panels of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini, who was an ally of Adolf Hitler, from a planned exhibit, sparked outrage on Thursday among a district mayor, the curator of the exhibit, and the Berlin Jewish community.

The curator, Karl Rössler, told The Jerusalem Post that it is a "scandal" that the director of the Werkstatt, Philippa Ebéné, sought to censor the exhibit

Predictably, there hasn't been a peep from MuzzleWatch.

I can't help but wonder, though: Since MuzzleWatch and its ilk like to argue that critique is actually "muzzling," perhaps they'll say that the Berlin Jewish community's "outrage" over the exhibit's censorship is itself censorship. Now wouldn't that be as convoluted as an MC Escher drawing...

MuzzleWatch: Muzzling Understandable if Targeting Pro-Israel Speaker

Maybe they don't see the hypocrisy; or maybe they just don't care.

Either way, MuzzleWatch continues to provide evidence exposing the fact that its real interest isn't free speech, but rather to promote a narrow view of the Arab-Israeli conflict while attacking opposing views.

The byproduct of the discord that comes from being an anti-Israel organization while pretending to be a free speech defender seems to be — it's hard to think of a nicer word to describe it — hypocrisy.

Take the following statement, which was expressed by "a member of JVP’s Advisory Board" and approvingly relayed by MuzzleWatch not once, but twice in the past few days:

"The fact that the vast majority of people in the crowd at the Castro Theatre would not let the Voice of Israel representative speak his mind without interruption ..."

... is another example of muzzling? Is condemnable? Is unfortunate?

Nope. It's understandable, or even commendable. Here's how the JVP leader (Jewish Voice for Peace is the parent organization of MuzzleWatch) justified what is apparently, in their view, the good kind of muzzling:

“The fact that the vast majority of people in the crowd at the Castro Theatre would not let the Voice of Israel representative speak his mind without interruption reflects growing frustration with the use of pubic slander, character assassination, cancellation of speakers, firing of faculty and demand for resignations by the so-called defenders of Israel. Since when are people with views that differ from AIPAC, for instance, invited into mainstream circles to speak for five minutes before a pro-Israel speech or film? The representative of Voice of Israel was not there to dialogue. Only to chastise. The crowd refused to be chastised.

So let me get this straight: If a crowd refuses to let anti-Israel vitriol pass without critique, they are, as per the raison d'etre of MuzzleWatch, smeared as muzzlers. But if a crowd refuses to let a supporter of Israel speak in peace — check out the video below to see what happened — they are celebrated as noble resisters who "refuse to be chastised"!

Got it.

(This, by the way, is hardly the only instance of blatant hypocrisy by MuzzleWatch. For another telling example, click here.)

Here's the video of the speaker being muzz... err... shouted down... I mean... chastised... no, no. Here's the video of the speaker being the justified-target-of-good-aka-anti-Israel-frustration-as-opposed-to-bad-aka-pro-Israel-frustration:

Hate and The Daily Planet

I got a note today in my inbox about Berekeley, California's small-time local newspaper The Daily Planet.

In a nutshell, the note calls for people to read and sign a petition calling on the newspaper's publisher to "display integrity and responsibility to ensure that their pages are devoid of irresponsible misstatements of facts whose sole malicious intent is to besmirch Jews at large, the State of Israel, and individual citizens who decry the Daily Planet’s practices."

The petition also links to a website that can help you decide whether there is indeed something rotten with the newspaper. Although a few of the points raised on that website fail to move me as much as they move the site's editor, much of it is extremely damning. There is, for example, the following passage quoted from the Daily Planet that blames the Jews for antisemitism:

One should ask why anti-Semitism has persisted throughout the centuries. Let us go back to 539 BC, when Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, went to Babylonia and liberated Jews. One can ask why Jews were enslaved by Babylonians. Also, one can ask why Jews had problem with Egyptians, with Jesus, with Europeans, and in modern times with Germans? The answer, among other things, is their racist attitude that they are the 'Chosen People.' Because of this attitude, they do wrong to other people to the point that others turn against them, namely, become anti-Semite if you will.

I checked, and yes, the Daily Planet did indeed publish this on Aug. 8, 2006. I don't want to boost their google ranking by linking to it, but if you really want to read it at the source, go to berkeleydailyplanet (dot) com (slash) issue/2006-08-08/article/24823?headline=Commentary-Zionist-Crimes-in-Lebanon&status=301.

Below is the relevant portion of the email I received, which includes a link to the petition. It introduces

a new online petition statement decrying the weekly inclusion of extreme anti-Israel screeds in the Berkeley Daily Planet. As you may already be well aware, the Berkeley Daily Planet (which is supposed to be a locally focused community newspaper) has turned itself into an open sewer for bashing Israel in any form, Zionists and Zionism in all its guises and sometimes Jews quite nakedly.

The statement now being circulated under the auspices of the Israel Action Committee of East Bay claims:

WE ARE JEWS AND NON-JEWS AND

We abhor the deliberate and willful publication of anti-Semitic and other hateful rhetoric and screeds by the Berkeley Daily Planet.

We stand with the free speech rights of those who would criticize the Berkeley Daily Planet for its obsessive and one-sided campaign against the State of Israel.

We join these people in insisting that the publisher and editor of the Daily Planet display integrity and responsibility to ensure that their pages are devoid of irresponsible misstatements of facts whose sole malicious intent is to besmirch Jews at large, the State of Israel, and individual citizens who decry the Daily Planet’s practices.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/fight-anti-semitic-rhetoric-at-the-berkeley-daily-planet.html

Black is White, and Israel's Cellcom Commercial is Racist

"They — those on the other side, the ones we are at war with — are actually exactly like us. They don't all want to hurt us."

You'd think that message would be welcome, even if it's in an advertisement meant to sell products. Or maybe especially in an ad, since it reaches so many people and, if the ad agency's consumer research is any good, reaches more than just their TV screens.

But in some quarters, the message isn't welcome. Because the message is in... Hebrew.

I'm breaking from the usual topic of this blog because I just can't help myself. The scandal caused by the ad is so contrived, and so absurd, I just can't help myself.

First, the commercial:



And now, the scandal. Reuters reports:

A television advert for an Israeli cellphone firm showing soldiers playing soccer over the West Bank barrier has sparked cries of bad taste and prompted Arab lawmakers on Sunday to demand it be taken off air. ...

Since the ad went out last week -- as Palestinians marked the fifth anniversary of a World Court ruling that Israel's walls and fences in the West Bank were illegal -- some Israelis have taken to blogs and social networking sites to voice dismay. ...

A Hebrew-language Facebook group called "I too got nauseous watching the new Cellcom ad" had signed up 218 members. They demanded "take this racist commercial off the air immediately."

Et cetera, et cetera.

Now I understand that most Palestinians don't like the barrier, whatever their reasons may be. I also understand that most Israelis are thankful that it prevents suicide bombers from making the short walk into Israeli cities so that they can kill kids on buses and in cafes.

So? In the end, the message is that we're all human. It is the opposite of demonization. In fact, I'd contribute a fair sum toward getting ads like this to air in the West Bank, Gaza, and across the Arab world...

(transition with foggy, wavy lines and wind chimes)

Some Lebanese soldiers are patrolling the border with Israel. They're invited by some Hezbollah gunmen to join them for some Turkish coffee. Once in the bunker, the soldiers and the gunmen start loudly singing The Beatles. Somehow, from across Hezbollah two-way radio, we hear faceless Israelis join in the singing. The Lebanese soldiers are initially startled by the sound, but when the figure out what's happening, they gleefully continue the song, taking the harmony part. The voice over says: "We all like good music and good times. Buy Pepsi!

(transition with foggy, wavy lines and wind chimes)

Okay, it's a shitty commercial. Hezbollah fighters probably don't sing The Beatles. But racist? Worthy of uproar? Worthy of a news article?? Give me a break. And give me an address where I can contribute to getting my version of the commercial aired. (Or at least a better version of one with the same message.)

Because I'd be heartened if that's what kids in the Arab world are taught about the faceless enemy. It sure beats this:

"Censorship" Loses Its Meaning

From CAMERA Snapshots:

Some anti-Israel commentators, hoping to ward off criticism, charge those who scrutinize their claims as being guilty of censorship, intimidation, or otherwise stifling debate.

The thinly-veiled subtext is that criticizing someone is the same as censoring them. (See, e.g., CAMERA's Op-Ed "Asserting Mideast facts isn't the same as censorship.")

But why bother to thinly veil or to imply? One journalist recently did away with those formalities.

About the BBC Trust's ruling that Mideast editor Jeremy Bowen violated the BBC's ethical guidelines, a Guardian journalist wrote, simply:

"Criticising Bowen could affect his reporting of the region, which surely amounts to a form of censorship itself."

And that is how inane the "censorship" argument looks when stripped down to its essence and expressed in straightforward language.

Unsubtle Censorship

In my last post, I offered the opinion that stacking the deck, as much as it may conceal certain points of view, can't be categorized as actually censoring those points of view.

This, on the other hand, is a story about a man who called for true censorship.

A leading candidate to be the next director general of UNESCO — the acronym is worth spelling out here: the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — has called for burning Israeli books.

As the BBC recounts,

Opponents of Mr Hosny's candidature have cited his response to a question in parliament in May 2008 from an opposition MP about whether Israeli books were held by the new library in Alexandria.

He said: "Burn these books; if there are any there, I will myself burn them in front of you."

Hosny, perhaps concerned that wanting to burn books might not be the ideal qualification for heading the UN's culture and education center that acts as a "clearinghouse ... for the dissemination and sharing of information and knowledge," has recently apologized for his remarks. (He apparently hasn't apologized for saying that "Israeli culture is an inhumane culture; it is an aggressive, racist, pretentious culture based on one simple principle: steal what does not belong to in order to then claim its appropriation.")

Apology notwithstanding, book burning is, of course, censorship of the worst kind. To read MuzzleWatch's critique of Hosny's remarks, click here. (No really... click it. Otherwise the joke doesn't make sense.)

Subtle Censorship?

I blogged earlier about UCSB professor William I. Robinson, who sent his students an email essentially saying the Israelis are the same as the Nazis. MuzzleWatch, if you recall, urged its readers to express support for the professor.

Here's a bit more on that.

A group at UCSB organized a panel to support Robinson, whose adherence to the school's ethics code is apparently being investigated by the school's Academic Senate. All of the panelists were united in opposing any investigation of the professor.

Here's what one Nobel Prize-winning UCSB professor said of this uniformity of opinions:

“It’s unfortunate that the constitution of the panel was one-sided,” [Walter] Kohn said. “I was wondering how four highly intelligent people who knew that they all had very similar viewpoints didn’t feel embarrassed to be up there without anyone from the other side of the argument.”

According to another observer,

All four panelists at the rally — sorry, “forum” — asserted that academic freedom requires the testing of ideas through dialog and intellectual exploration, yet there was little room for dialog or honest exploration on Thursday night. All four speakers agreed that academic freedom requires critical analysis of complex situations, but their talks were, for the most part, highly polemical. It is telling that they never once challenged or disagreed with one another on any point.

Valid points. But do I think this contrived, one-sided forum constitutes subtle censorship, as my headline might suggest? Not really. It is what it is: A one-sided panel meant not to challenge the audience by forcing them to weigh varying opinions, but to sway the audience to a particular point of view. It's certainly not academic freedom at its finest, but I'm sure all sides of all controversies sometimes do this.

I can only wonder, though, if this forum is the type of thing that MuzzleWatch, with their oversized and overactive "Muzzle" stamp, would label as a form of censorship if the panelists were all of the opposite point of view.

The True Story of Man Discovers MuzzleWatch

The man described in the title of this post isn't me. It's Jon Haber, of Divest This!, who this past weekend shared his story on the Solominia blog.

An excerpt follows, but be sure to read the whole well-written piece here.

In my curiosity to discover how such a demonstrably false thesis (that discussion of Israel, the subject of perpetual high-volume attack on campus after campus, was somehow fearfully repressed) could be taken as gospel, I stumbled on a new Website/blog dedicated to perpetuating this accusation, a site called Muzzlewatch. And because my curiosity had gotten the better of me, I chose to do something I had not done in over a decade: participate in online debate on the site's comment section.

It's not that debate can't be fun (anyone else out there remember the Wild West days of Usenet?), but on highly trafficked sites with active forums, I've generally discovered that it takes about 25 comments before debate tends to "gravitate towards the meme" (i.e., degenerate to the lowest common denominator, normally a stale, un-listening slinging of accusations broken down along party lines). Still, the desire to get to the bottom of this conundrum overwhelmed me and in I jumped.

The first thing that needed to be pointed out (and still does) is that Muzzlewatch is a project of an organization called Jewish Voice for Peace, a group that (among other things) became very agitated when a different group of politically organized Boston citizens began criticizing the construction of a huge mosque in the region. To show their disapproval, JVP signed onto a lawsuit by the mosque as a friend of the court which attacked the Boston activists (as well as local media) for the scrutiny they were giving the mosque project. So my first question was why a group dedicated to using state power (i.e., the courts) to stifle public discourse about which JVP disagreed had chosen to project its own censorship agenda onto its critics.

It would be a while before the creators of Muzzlewatch got around to responding to my questions (and only then because I refused to stop asking them). In the meantime, I had several weeks to discover what Muzzlewatch had in mind when they claimed their point of view was routinely stifled or censored.

The thing was, in posting after posting (sometimes several a day), the creators of the Muzzlewatch site never managed to provide a single actual example of their opinion being shut down in the way they had tried to shut down debate about the Boston mosque.

MuzzleWatch's Holocaust Hypocrisy

It's right there on the front page of the MuzzleWatch website, for all to see. One post "shames" someone who dared to point out the fact that a Palestinian leader was closely allied with the Nazis. And another, posted just a few days later, rushes to the defense of someone who distributed images suggesting that the Israelis are the same as the Nazis.

No rhyme. No reason. Just plain old hypocrisy.

Below is an image (click it to enlarge) from MuzzleWatch's April 26 posting. It attacks Alan Dershowitz because he referenced the very real collaboration and mutual admiration between Palestinian leader Haj Amin al Husseini and the Nazis. Thus, they protest, Dershowitz made a "shameful association of Palestinians with Nazis."



(It is indeed shameful that there was an association of Palestinians with Nazis; but it was Husseini who opted for that association, not Dershowitz. But I digress.)

Now look at the the April 30 posting by MuzzleWatch. In that entry, they urge their readers to "express support for Sociology and Global Studies Professor William I. Robinson."

William I. Robinson is the UCSB professor who, in the words of the Los Angeles Times, "sent [an email] message -- titled 'parallel images of Nazis and Israelis' -- to the 80 students in his sociology of globalization class."

That grotesque image meant to suggest that Israel's operation against Hamas in Gaza was no different than the Nazi genocide against Europe's Jews. In case his students didn't understand, the professor told them: "Gaza is Israel's Warsaw -- a vast concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians. We are witness to a slow-motion process of genocide."

(The genocide is soooo slow motion, that it's actually moving in reverse rather than forward. Palestinian population growth, after all, is booming. But I digress.)

Here's a bit of what MuzzleWatch has to say on the Robinson affair (click the image to enlarge):



Got it? If you refer to Haj Amin al Husseini's Nazi links, then you deserve shame.If you tell your class that Israelis are doing to the Palestinians just what the Nazis did to the Jews, genocide and all, then you deserve support. (A link!)