JVP Cheers Muzzlers. Really. (And: "They" Could Have Made A Two-State Solution Possible)

Here's a correction. An earlier post on MuzzleWatch Watch suggested that Jewish Voice For Peace, the self-proclaimed watchers of muzzling, "looked elsewhere" after Israeli ambassador Michael Oren's speech was stopped by hecklers at UC Irvine.

How wrong I was. On MuzzleWatch's sister site -- the one with the title that casts Israel as not being a democracy (MLK be damned) -- Jewish Voice for Peace actually celebrated the assault on open debate: "Well, kudos to the protesting UCI students, let us support them if the authorities try to punish them, and let us hope that more and more diverse groups of protesters will face Michael Oren...." Wow.

Finally, I'll add one thing to Jon's comments about MuzzleWatch chief Cecilie Surasky's latest attack (targeting an organization that recently shed some light on the "anti-Israel lobby").

It's just too hard to resist saying something about this particular assertion by Surasky, in the same way it's difficult for circus-goers not to stare at a bearded lady. Here's the outlandishness: "If the Israelis really wanted the Palestinians to have a state of their own, they could have made it happen years ago..."

Are they even trying anymore? Surasky's statement is a testament to the piddling faith she has in the intelligence of her readers, or the enormous faith she has in their stubborn dogmas. Because, in the real world -- the world occupied by most of us, the people don't dwell in the fringe-left or -right revisionist circles, and consider facts and the historical record to be of some value, it's Israel that has accepted or offered peace plans that would have ended the occupation and created a Palestinian state, not once, not twice, but three times in the past ten years, and it's the Palestinian leadership which has rejected each offer.

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.

Oren "Muzzled" at UC Irvine, MuzzleWatch Looks Elsewhere.

"Tracking efforts to stifle open debate about US-Israeli foreign policy." That's MuzzleWatch's tag line.

Maybe they are actually tracking such efforts. But what's certain is that they're not saying anything about attempts to stifle open debate when the ones being muzzled are moderate pro-Israel voices.

From UC Irvine, we have some more evidence that the Jewish Voice for Peace considers some muzzling to be condemnable, and some commendable, some types of speech to be good, and some bad.

This video shows what JVP and their MuzzleWatch blog seem to categorize as "commendable" muzzling of "bad" free speech:

Morris Muzzled, MuzzleWatch Silent

Benny Morris has pissed off all sides of the debate about the Arab-Israeli conflict. But, as far as I can tell, he's only been "muzzled" due to pressure from the anti-Israel side. And as usual, being that the muzzling comes from Israel's critics, there's not a peep from MuzzleWatch.

Cambridge University's Israel Society had invited Morris to speak, only to disinvite him following pressure by critics, including "the university’s Islamic and Pakistan societies who claimed he was an 'Islamophobic hate speaker'."

The Israel Society's explaination:

Ultimately, we place respect for those who have been offended above the importance of hosting this speaker. As such, in response to complaints about this speaker, we have cancelled this proposed event, and apologise for any unintended offence.

Controversial and potentially offensive as some remarks by Morris might have been, the allegation that he is an Islamophobe seems pretty dubious to me. In any rate, even those who see in Morris's mind "highly disagreeable" views make no bones about describing this affair as a "stifling free speech."

Not so MuzzleWatch, which has a history of winking at, or even speaking highly of, the censorship of pro-Israel voices.

(UPDATE: Video Footage Casts Doubt On Story) On Canadian Campus, Pro-Israel Students Muzzled... With Fists

See important update, titled Update II, below.

Is it irony? Or is violent intimidation of pro-Israel students on Canadian campuses so common that the odds of such coincidence are favorable? Only hours after MuzzleWatch Watch co-blogger Jon was writing his post about difficulties faced by pro-Israel students in Canada, we have a new physical attack at York University.

It's not Jon's fault, really. His typed words simply couldn't have conjured this incident. It's impossible (even if there are a couple of fantasy movies with that premise). But the news is disturbing nonetheless.

York's rather vague account of what happened is as follows:

York University is looking into an incident that occurred on Monday,

Feb. 1 at about 4pm in Vari Hall at the University’s Keele campus.

York Security personnel were summoned to that location, where they found two groups involved in a dispute. Order was restored and both parties indicated that they did not want to involve the Toronto Police Service. Security agreed to their request and provided information about further dispute resolution options. Subsequently, three people gave statements of their version of the incident.

York deplores any comments and actions that are racist or anti-Semitic in nature. An investigation is currently underway, with the potential for disciplinary action. The University is reviewing closed-circuit video of the incident and is speaking to students who may have been involved. If there is evidence of a crime, the matter will be referred to the Toronto Police Service.

York University is committed to respectful discourse and civil engagement and is encouraging the parties to avail themselves of the services of the University’s Human Rights Centre.

Ah, that helps clarify things. It was an incident. But wait... something something something "anti-Semitic in nature"? What really happened here?

More details were provided by the Canadian Jewish news website ShalomLife:

Two Jewish students at York University were assaulted on Monday during a pro-Israel program.

Tyler Golden, Co-President, Hasbara Fellowships at York University, who was on the scene when the incident occurred, described the happenings in a conversation with Shalom Life: “Hasbara was tabling for Gilad Shalit. We run a campaign called Free Palestinians from Hamas. It was a very peaceful day and we had permission from the university to table. At around 4 o’clock, several anti-Israel known faces on campus came to start questioning us and debate with us.”

Golden said that the debate that had sprung up between the Hasbara people and the anti-Israel individuals quickly escalated into an angry mob of around 50 students, who surrounded his group and chanted anti-Israel and anti-Semitic slurs. “Security has asked us, when we come across these types of things, to call them which we did, as well as videotape it so they can see the faces and hear the voices of the people that do it. A few students on the other side were upset that there were cameras in their faces, so they started yelling and screaming. As they were trying to push cameras out of the way, they actually hit two students.”

Two York Security officers arrived on the scene. “They took down stories and students were allowed time to file complaints. I heard from the president’s office this morning that an investigation is under way,” said Golden.

But there's more. According to some very reliable hearsay that comes my way, one of the students that was slapped was a young female undergrad.

And despite York University's sanitized version, campus security apparently laughed at the two Jewish students when they asked if they should report the incident to Toronto police, thus discouraging them from taking action. The camera was apparently damaged during the fracas after falling to the ground as the student was being smacked.

Update: The reliable hearsay also suggests involvement by York University student Jesse Zimmerman. Zimmerman is said to be one of the "anti-Israel individuals" who initially was debating with the pro-Israel students. According to the account, Zimmerman stepped away from the debate to made a phone call, after which the 50 students quickly appeared and started bullying the two students. If true, this wouldn't be the first time Zimmerman headed an angry mob — see more at Jewlicious.


Update II: As noted in the comments to this post, I should have been more precise with my language, and more skeptical about an account relayed to me, indirectly, from a student involved in the incident.

The word "reliable," which I used to describe the hearsay, was meant to suggest that the source was someone very close to the action — like I said, a student directly involved in the incident. But I should have chosen a different word, since "reliable" wrongly suggests that I vouched for the honesty of this source, whom I don't know personally.

The more I look into it, the more it seems as if the source was dramatically embellishing what happened. If so, the misinformation is unfortunate in-and-of itself — lying is bad — and also because it's just not necessary for Israel's moderate defenders to invent things. The facts work just fine.

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.

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: