Consider the Muzzler...

Looks like there’s a bit of catching up to do on the old Muzzlewatch monitoring front.

To start off, I noticed that our old MW pals have finally had something to say about the assault on free speech that took place at UC Irvine last month, the one which featured an orchestrated attempt to shout the Israeli ambassador off the stage to prevent his words from being heard from a large audience of UC students, most of whom (presumably) were there to hear him speak.

Now the Muzzlewatchers have stayed mum about this topic until now (keeping with their general refusal to acknowledge occasions when disruptive tactics – up to an including violence – have been used to prevent Israelis or their supporters from being heard at public gatherings). That said, as Adam has pointed out, Jewish Voice for Peace’s second “front” site (the first being Muzzlewatch) did mention the Oren incident, but only to demand understanding for those who tried to shut down free speech at Irvine.

Well a couple of days back, Muzzlewatch itself finally managed to chime in on the incident in a piece which focused exclusively on the punishments being contemplated for the perpetrators of the incident.

Now I don’t claim to be fully aware of how seriously school authorities are about making the incident an expellable or even prosecutable offense. Nor will I speculate (as does Muzzlewatch) on the involvement of parties outside the university in either planning the disruption of the Oren event or in attempts to influence how the perpetrators of that disruption are to be treated.

But I will note how interesting I find it that after 3-4 years online, the only statement I believe Muzzlewatch has ever made on the subject of people trying to stifle the free speech of Israeli or pro-Israel speakers (something that’s become routine in recent years, especially at West Coast universities) has been to ignore this clear-cut example of “muzzling” and instead ask us to consider only the (so far, theoretical) fate of the muzzlers.

You would think that an organization posing as champions of speech would at least be willing to acknowledge the achingly obvious fact that those with whom JVP/Muzzlewatch politically agrees might take part in attempts to stifle discussion of the Middle East (even if they can’t bring themselves to admit that virtually all attempts to shut down debate via tactics of intimidation and violence come from those they support).

But, once again, this question would assume that Muzzlewatch actually exists to promote free and fair debate which – as we’ve been proving here again and again – they most clearly do not.

Rather, Muzzlewatch is simply a tactic: a pre-emptive strike against any and all who might question the activities, motives, alliances or behavior of Jewish Voice for Peace and its allies.

While, to most of us, “muzzling” consists of actual attempts to limit free speech of others (much like what happened in Irvine), Muzzlewatch (as always) takes an opposite approach: defining as “muzzling” any attempt by their political adversaries to use their free speech rights to say things JVP would prefer never get spoken or heard.

BDS: The Hobgoblin of Tiny Minds

I had considered setting up a Google Alert to tell me if the San Francisco Jewish Federation took action after last year’s Jewish Film Festival fiasco to ensure that groups like Jewish Voice for Peace could no longer exploit the community’s resources for their own narrow-minded ends. But then, I figured, why bother? If the Federation did pass such a measure, an audible shriek would reach my East Coast ears from Northern California far faster than Google could deliver the news.

Sure enough, the Federation did decide that if JVP and similar organizations wanted to defame the Jewish state, they would have to do so with their own money. And a split second later, Muzzlewatch was on the air describing this decision as a McCarthyite call for ideological purity on the subject of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Aside from the pot calling the kettle black vis-à-vis narrowing conversation to just one point of view, Muzzlewatch spokesperson Cecilie Surasky seems to have forgotten that just a few weeks ago she was announcing their independence from the elites, declaring herself a general in some sort of Army of Davids that would win the war without the need to suck up to groups like the SF Federation.

But, of course, if they cannot infiltrate or attach themselves to more mainstream organizations, Jewish Voice for Peace remains exposed as the minority of the minority of the Jewish community, increasingly committed to just two tasks: advocating boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel and declaring any non-Jewish individual or organization accused of anti-Semitism “Not Guilty” (with a Jewish accent). And so, the Muzzlewatch Army continues it's Battle Whine of accusations against those who have the audacity to stop writing them checks.

Which gets me to Muzzlewatch’s second response to the Federation decision: their challenge to have Omar Barghouti debate Rabbi Doug Kahn, head of the SF, on the subject of BDS.

As background, it’s an old tactic to challenge your political enemies to a debate on your own narrowly restricted terms. For example, today I call on Cecilie Surasky to debate me on the following topic: “Muzzlewatch: Censoring Hypocrites, or Simply Self-Righteously Delusional.”

The purpose of such a “debate” is to put your political foes a heads-I-win-tails-you-lose situation of either fighting on someone else’s territory, or being declared too cowardly to address the issue. Now usually this tactic is not used in such a laughably obvious way, but here again we’re dealing with Muzzlewatch, a closed circle that has walled itself off from feedback that might make them realize how ridiculous they sound.

Take Barghouti’s challenge that the SF Federation, having established filters to avoid funding the defamation of the Jewish state, has demonstrated itself to be in favor of “boycotting” Israel’s defamers, and thus – in order to prove their consistency – must also support the notion of boycotts and divestment targeting Israel. But by that same token, shouldn’t JVP/Muzzlewatch/Barghouti then be in favor of US sanctions against Iran and Sudan (not to mention previous sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq) to avoid accusations of hypocrisy?

Taking it one step further, aren’t Israel’s actions against Hamas-controlled Gaza simply an application of the BDS formula Barghouti and his friends would like to inflict on Israel and thus consistency demands that the entire BDS movement support Israel’s Gaza-related choices as well?

Now the whole Barghouti issue is complicated by the fact that this champion of sanctions, who travels the world demanding (among other things) that colleges and universities sever all ties to Israeli academia is currently a heavily subsidized graduate student at an Israeli university. So if we are all to follow his demands for consistency, shouldn’t JVP be boycotting Barghouti or (to be completely consistent) shouldn’t Barghouti boycott himself?

If this is all starting to sound like a trip through the looking glass, remember that Jewish Voice for Peace (in its various guises) is actually quite consistent: If you agree with their political opinions, then everything is allowed (boycott, blacklist, censorship, shouting people off the stage, etc.). But if you don’t agree with the JVP point of view or (God forbid) have the temerity to criticize the organization then you’re guilty of hypocrisy and censorship.

To anyone at Muzzlewatch who disagrees with my analysis, the invitation to debate me on this topic, here or anywhere else, remains open.

Camel Joke-y

Another Muzzlewatch semi-regular, Sydney Levy, seems to have his panties in a bunch over a recent Israeli government program to recruit the million Israelis who travel abroad each year as ambassadors for communicating an Israeli perspective on their country. This program, whose Hebrew-language Web site can be seen here, is part of an ongoing effort to try to portray the Jewish state in terms other than those approved by Muzzlewatch and its sponsors, Jewish Voice for Peace.

Now I have heard a number of reasonable critiques about not just the Masbirim program, but the entire effort to “brand” Israel based on the country’s contributions to the world (advances in computing, bio-tech and green technology, for example), as well as attempts to “normalize” the Israeli situation in the eyes of the world by highlighting the country’s cultural and social aspects. But most of these complaints focus on whether Israel should be talking about what a nice place it is vs. aiming its fire directly at the hypocrisy and bigotry that pass for discussion on the Middle East, best exemplified by the odious Israel Apartheid Week and by Muzzlewatch/JVP itself.

But the problem for Levy is not that Masbirim might be ill suited for the times (or even potentially lame). Rather, he seems most bent out of shape by the thought that anyone should be trying to tell a story about the Middle East that does not meet his demands, demands that Israelis and their supporters start any discussion by pronouncing themselves guilty.

As ever, the self-righteous seem impervious to things that the rest of us would recognize as irony. In one video segment, the Masbirim Web site portrays a fake British reporter yammering on about camels as the primary means of transportation in Israel, used by (among others) the Israeli cavalry. Once again, I’m not entirely sold on either the program or this joke (although the cavalry gag did make me smirk). But having spent time reading and watching (and even writing for) the British media in the past, the image of the dip-shit English scribbler way out of his depth in the Middle East, getting all the facts wrong while rhapsodizing melodically about the exotic landscape seems a fair target for ridicule.

Getting back to the main issue at hand, however, Muzzlewatch’s problem seems not to be with the details of the effort, but with the fact that Israelis are being asked to step up to tell their real, human stories in the first place. As this site has chronicled, Jewish Voice for Peace does accept Jewish voices that hue strictly to their party line, continually highlighting the Jewish last names of their members as “proof” that Jews support their cause.

But once the voice of vast majority of the Jewish and Israeli people try to get another word in edgewise, then – as far as JVP is concerned – they must be dismissed, ridiculed or shouted off the stage, with this censorship dismissed as an example of legitimate rage (coupled with accusations of “muzzling” against anyone who dares point out this reality).

For a site that pretends to be yearning for a free exchange of ideas, I’ve yet to discover any source more committed to stifling and limiting debate that Muzzlewatch. No doubt now that the site is only open to true believers they can continue to spend their time congratulating themselves on their virtues and courage, oblivious to the fact that most of us wised up to them years ago.

Calm Yourself Cecile

The level of hysteria over at Muzzlewatch seems to have reached fevered pitch lately.

As has been continually demonstrated, the mission of Muzzlewatch has nothing to do with free speech, and everything to do with getting those of us who actually care about free speech to question ourselves when criticizing political positions embraced by Muzzlewatch’s “parent company” Jewish Voice for Peace.

Similarly, Jewish Voice for Peace gets rather hot under the collar when it’s pointed out that – despite their name – their organization is dedicated to war with propaganda as its chosen method of militancy.

It makes no difference whether Muzzlewatch attempts to stifle debate and JVP plays its Orwellian game of “Peace is War” out of a deep cynicism or self-righteous fury. Whether they include themselves in the list of people they are trying to bamboozle is of no material interest.

Which gets us to Cecile Surasky’s latest tirade against yet another organization that has dared to use its free-speech rights to point out the truths Surasky and her friends so desperately want to remain hidden. In this case, an Israeli think tank has simply pointed out that, just as there exists an organized pro-Israel community of individuals and institutions dedicated to support of the Jewish state, so too there exists an organized anti-Israel community dedicated to the marginalization, demonization and (for some members of this group) elimination of said Jewish state.

JVP/Muzzlewatch frequently acknowledge the existence of a pro-Israel “scene,” imbuing it with as much sinister motive and scary implications as they can manage to cram into any paragraph that includes the acronyms ADL or AIPAC. But when someone else dares make mention of the obvious: that Israel’s critics are also organized into a community of individuals and institutions with a coordinated (if somewhat loose) organizational structure, out comes a new round of accusations and hilariously impotent threats.

“It’s not our tireless efforts on behalf of boycott, divestment and sanction that’s behind the BDS movement,” shouts Muzzlewatch (I’m paraphrasing): “It’s you lousy Israel supporters who refuse to do what you’re told and continue to insist that your political, civil and free speech rights include criticizing us in any way.”

“End the Occupation!” they shout, “The Occupation” being not so much a political state as it is a sacred talisman to members of Jewish Voice for Peace, a holy totem which magically washes away every sin of the Palestinians they claim as their moral lodestone: from rejecting countless offers of peace to starting one war after another.

It may seem petty to keep reminding people of Muzzlewatch’s choice to shut down their comments section on the flimsiest of pretexts, all to avoid the scrutiny of motives they demand as their right to dish out, but refuse to take. But now that the cat has escaped the bag, with the true nature of Muzzlewatch, JVP and its friends and allies becoming clearer by the day to more and more people, can you blame them for refusing to engage in the type of open dialog they pretend to crave?

Where do the Muzzlewatch Censors find the time?

In his two most recent posts, the creator of this Muzzlewatch-Watch site has pointed out two very clear-cut examples of actual attempts to squelch debate on the Middle East: the pulling of an invitation to Professor Benny Morris to speak at a British university, and (yet another) attempt to shout down an Israeli official invited to speak on a campus that Israel-haters have decided is “theirs.”

Needless to say, Muzzlewatch has nothing to say about either of these cases of real “muzzling,” as opposed to the stories they generally post to demonstrate their own martyrdom (normally consisting of nothing more than people having the audacity to criticize the opinions of Jewish Voice for Peace, the organization for which Muzzlewatch is simply a mouthpiece).

It is interesting to look at two stories Muzzlewatch did find time to highlight during the same period when their friends and allies were either smearing Benny Morris in Britain or shouting down Oren at Berkley.

The first is simply another in a long line of Cecile Surasky’s incoherent rants set off by the fact that one blogger accused another of anti-Semitism. That’s it. No repression, no firings, no calls for government investigation. Simply one blogger using his free speech to criticize a public figure (albeit sloppily), much like Surasky and her friends at Jewish Voice for Peace/Muzzlewatch do every day.

Once again, it helps to keep in mind that the Surasky/Muzzlewatch/JVP crowd have different definitions for terms such as “censorship” and “muzzling.” While most of us view “censorship” as the use of government power to shut down political discussion, and “muzzling” as a more vague catch-all bucket in which some authority (such as a school’s administration) sets inappropriate limits on certain types of speech, Muzzlewatch has a much simpler definition of both of these terms. For them, censorship and muzzling consists of anyone doing or saying anything counter to the JVP agenda, a crime committed by anyone who has the audacity to criticize JVPers in any way.

The second story they found time to post on while Morris and Oren were dealing with attempted political stoning was this piece, written in a chilling tone, about how the American Jewish Committee is looking to expand its presence in Europe. The fact that the organized American Jewish community has always been involved with overseas partners (on projects such as the three-decade rescue effort of Soviet Jewry), or that resurgent anti-Jewish violence in Europe might give American Jews a reason to help out their landsmen overseas seems to have escaped Surasky’s attention.

Instead, she plays the old trick of citing a like-minded news service to push the point she really wants to make: that the Jews are trying to stifle debate in Europe, just as they have in the US. Which must explain why Surasky is drawing a paycheck for doing her blogging, rather than hiding under her bed from the AJC stormtroopers.

It’s interesting to note that at the same time Muzzlewatch was shrieking its condemnation of American Jewish groups reach out to their equivalents overseas, Jewish Voice for Peace was starting a new project designed to prove that Israel is not a democracy. And who are they working on with this project? Why numerous pro-Palestinian organizations in Israel and beyond. In other words, Israel’s critics are free to do whatever they want and work with whomever they want, but if Israel’s supporters do the same they’re guilty of censorship or worse.

At this hour, I don’t think it requires any more effort to demonstrate that JVP/Muzzlewatch, despite their posing as a peace organization committed to free speech, is simply a militant propaganda group dedicated to squelching all voices that do not agree with their party line.

While I presume they will not allow comments on their new site, JVPers are always free to comment here and show us where we’ve gotten anything wrong. Otherwise, readers can assume that this analysis stands unchallenged.

Poster Child

Cecilie Surasky once more draws her sword of righteousness to smite a grave violation of free speech. And lo and behold, yet again her ire is aimed at those who respond to provocative materials (in this case a poster) in support of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement!

It goes without saying that Muzzlewatch is the Website of Cecilie and her friends at Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and they are free to do with it as they want. Similarly, we here at Muzzlewatch-Watch are free to point out that the only times that Cecilie and Co seem to get hot and bothered about free speech issues is when anti-Israel partisans (particularly those in Club BDS) are limited (or even mildly criticized).

Back in the day before Muzzlewatch muzzled their audience by removing their comments section (from a recent visit, it looks like they’ve recently removed access to their archives as well so that people cannot even peruse exchanges from the past when other voices were allowed in), some of us asked rather pointed questions about the Muzzlewatchers reaction to frequent attempts by JVP supporters to shut down events featuring pro-Israel speakers through heckling, harassment and – occasionally – physical violence. I also responded to two pieces in which JVP members celebrated getting (presumably obnoxious) pro-Israel Web sites shut down, as well as asked why JVP was taking part in a muzzling lawsuit against local activists and the press in Boston.

With the exception of this final issue, Cecilie and Co never saw fit to explain this apparent contradiction, although they did find time to post dozens of entries before, during and since that characterized even mild criticism of the JVP party line as some kind of censorship.

Now getting back to the Carleton University issue, I will admit that my preference to telling students they cannot use this or that poster is to allow all voices (and posters) in the debate. In fact, this version of the controversial Israel-Apartheid Week poster would seem the appropriate antidote to the ugliness of those who are trying to hide their own nasty agenda behind suffering schoolchildren.

But that is just my opinion, and until I become the administrator of a large and diverse university (which is free to place certain limits on the student body, even in areas related to speech), it’s not entirely clear to me where to draw the line. No one would argue that racial slurs and sexual harassment have no place on a college campus (or anywhere else), but beyond that the grown-ups responsible for college campuses face tough choices when dealing with student activists who feel that their own cause is so important it gives them the right to trample on the opinions and feelings of others.

And keep in mind that Carleton is a Canadian (not a US) university and in Canada the debate over free speech has been dominated over the last year by discussions and even trials of people who have dared to speak or publish materials critical of radical Islam. And unlike 99% of what Muzzlewatch presents as stifling of free speech (most of which consists of other people using their free speech rights to criticize the opinions held by JVP), what’s been going on in Canada is a textbook definition of censorship (i.e., the use of government power to shut down discussion of a particular topic).

No doubt, divestment will fail at Carleton as it has in every college in North America over the last ten years. But that will never deter JVP and its allies from either declaring victory or claiming that the umpteenth failure of BDS was due to an administration that refused to allow them to launch a campaign based on childish provocations of the rest of the student body.

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.

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