[Peace-discuss] Intimidation at Columbia University

[David Green]

ZNet | Israel/Palestine
 
Racists Feel “Intimidated”
Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing at Columbia
 
by M. Junaid Alam; March 06, 2005  

Political language…is designed to make lies sound
truthful and murder respectable, and to give an
appearance of solidity to pure wind. -Orwell


Rape, massacre, theft, torture, ethnic cleansing:
these are not crimes which nations can defend with
ease - especially when unearthed by their own
historians. Israel recently faced this most troubling
predicament. Combing through declassified state
archives, Israeli scholars of the past twenty years
have discovered their nation was founded upon the mass
expulsion and deliberate destruction of the native
Palestinian people. (1) Israel, it turned out, was far
more Goliath than David. Since this presented somewhat
of a public relations problem for a state still
engaged in brutalizing Palestinians and stealing their
land, a new self-justifying rationale needed to be
authored. 

Enter the “new anti-Semitism.” This doctrine turns
reality on its head, declaring criticism of Israel’s
racist behavior to be itself racist – “anti-Semitic.”
Empathy for Palestinians being beaten, bullied, and
bulldozed out of existence, the doctrine goes, is
nothing but some disguised expression of Jew-hatred.
Goose-stepping Germans and uprooted Palestinians are
portrayed as part of the same unbroken line of
anti-Semitism, even though those inhabiting
concentration camps today – “the largest ever to
exist,” says Israeli historian Baruch Kimmerling - are
the Palestinians themselves. (2) But no matter.
Abusing the memory of Holocaust victims to shut down
criticism of Israeli crimes – crimes unearthed mostly
by Jewish historians - may be obscene, but it is also
effective. 

Wielding this new ideological weapon, Israel’s
champions aim to cut down pro-Palestinian voices
inside America with the same ruthlessness Israeli
soldiers employ to shoot up Palestinian children
outside their homes. (3) The latest targets in this
well-organized hit are Arab-American professors at
Columbia University who teach Middle Eastern studies.
The targets have been judiciously selected. Since
these particular professors are Arab in an age when
bombing and torturing Arabs has virtually become a
national sport, they make for easy prey; and since
they have added to their original sin of being Arab
the even graver sin of speaking the truth about
Israel’s past – no less in a country which subsidizes
Israel’s existence - they also make for necessary
prey. 

In full accordance with “new anti-Semitism” modus
operandi, the attacks paint the professors themselves
as the attackers. With Orwellian brushstrokes, they
are rendered as demons bent on “intimidating” Jewish
students at the university. This much is to be
expected. Less expected, however, is the almost
embarrassing shoddiness of the trumped-up production.
The wild charges made against the professors are so
poorly substantiated and the political motives of the
accusers so painfully transparent, one almost forgets
that America’s well-financed pro-Israel network has
extensive experience in smearing its opponents. (4) 

Curiously, the charges of “silencing” and
“intimidation” first made waves when it was learned
that the accusing students made their case on camera.
They appeared in a short film, titled “Columbia
Unbecoming”, produced by a Boston-based group called
the David Project. At this point it is both necessary
and prudent to ask: what is the “David Project”? 

At its website, the organization describes itself as
“a grassroots initiative that promotes a fair and
honest understanding of the Middle East conflict.” A
noble enough endeavor, no doubt. But a few lines
later, we come to this: “We train people to be
pro-active in their Israel advocacy…” Another page
offers – for a fee, of course – an intense three-hour
ideological session titled “Making the Case for
Israel.” Searching for a “Making the Case for
Palestine” program yields no results. Similarly, a
look at the speaker’s roster reveals many pro-Israeli
speakers, but not a single pro-Palestinian. Perhaps
most revealing is the text prefacing their speaker
section: “For more information on how to bring our
speakers to your synagogue, school, church, or
community center, please call…” (5) Apparently
churches and synagogues are welcome, but mosques need
not apply. One wonders why. 

The site then goes on to describe what it considers to
be a “fair and honest position”: “The essence of the
Middle East conflict is about Jewish existence and
self-determination in the face of a hostile Arab world
and radical Islamists.” (6) Israel’s own recent
historians take a rather different view. Commenting on
the founding of Israel, Senior Lecturer of Military
History in the IDF Aryeh Yitzhaki says, “…a generation
has passed, and it is now possible to face the ocean
of lies in which we were brought up. In almost every
conquered village in the War of Independence, acts
were committed, which are defined as war crimes, such
as indiscriminate killings, massacres and rapes.” (7)
Describing Zionism – the founding ideology of Israel –
another Israeli historian, Tom Segev, writes:
“'Disappearing' the Arabs lay at the heart of the
Zionist dream, and was also a necessary condition of
its existence…. With few exceptions, none of the
Zionists disputed the desirability of forced transfer
- or its morality.” (8) 

Committing war crimes and disappearing people from
their homes doesn’t quite square well with pious
rhetoric about “self-determination.” But the folks at
the David Project are free to cling to their
pro-Israel political line. That they do so while
pretending to be some kind of impartial educational
group, however, speaks volumes. So much for “fairness”
- and, even more so, “honesty.” 

Given the clear ideological orientation of the David
Project, one is forced to ask the obvious: why would
students claiming to be “intimidated” and “silenced”
by their professors bypass all university channels,
and rush headlong into the arms of a political front
group? Looking at the film itself provides us some
answers. 

In this half-hour production featuring 14 students,
only six present firsthand complaints; standing
accused are professors Joseph Massad, George Saliba,
and Hamid Dabashi. Complaints range from random
flyering incidents having nothing to do with
professors, to general ideological disagreements with
what professors have written, to statements they
allegedly made in person. No evidence is presented for
any of the charges. 

Columbia student Adam Sacarny wrote in the school’s
newspaper upon seeing the film: “Much like the
electoral campaigns, it uses talking points in place
of pesky verifiable facts,” adding, “The film’s case
is so shoddy that I fail to see how any critical
viewer could leave the theater convinced that [the
department] has violated academic integrity
standards.” (9) Even the generally sympathetic Israeli
daily Haaretz admits, “The movie fuses few solid
examples of intimidation – only some of which involved
professors and the students they were teaching – with
generalized complaints of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic
statements and behavior on campus.” (10) And despite
these students’ claims of being “silenced,”
“intimidated,” and “denied”(their own words), not one
of them say their grades were affected. (11) 

Quite “coincidentally,” the main target of the film is
the untenured professor, Joseph Massad. He is accused
of making outlandish comments and exhibiting an
extreme intolerance toward pro-Israeli views in class.
Yet only one of the students in the film has even
taken a course with the professor. Moreover, precisely
none of them even majored in the “offending”
department of Middle East and Asian Languages and
Cultures. (12) But rest assured. The complaining
students have other “qualifications.” 

One student shuttles back and forth from America to
Israel to explain how to adjust the prefatory sales
pitch for the film depending on the audience. (13)
Another served in the Israeli military, which,
according to events personally witnessed by former New
York Times Middle East Bureau chief Chris Hedges,
“entice[s] children like mice into a trap and
murder[s] them for sport,” and which also, according
to a CIA study, acquires “data for use in silencing
anti-Israel factions in the West” and engages in
“sabotage, paramilitary and psychological warfare
projects, such as character assassination and black
propaganda.” (14) Another complaining student who was
a lead organizer for the film, Ariel Beery, boasts an
impressive resume: he served as a spokesman for the
Israeli military, is the head of the on-campus Zionist
group, and is also an agent and informer for Daniel
Pipes’ notorious CampusWatch.org website, where
students are encouraged to “report” their professors’
political views if they are deemed insufficiently
servile to the conservative party line. (15) 

But this is not all. None of the targeted professors
were even allowed a chance to rebut the charges on the
film. The reason for this, according to David Project
head Ralph Avi Goldwasser, in comments given to the
Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post, is that “the film
wasn't meant to be a documentary; it was merely an
effort to collect students' testimony about classroom
incidents.” Unsurprisingly, the David Project is
simply being dishonest (again), since it turns out
that they deliberately ignored the voices of Jewish
and non-Jewish students who found such “incidents” to
be fabricated and had no problems with the targeted
professors. Eric Posner, who describes himself as “a
Jew, an Israeli, a Jerusalemite, and an American,”
reports that “I was approached last year by Ariel
Beery who wanted to hear my opinion about MEALAC and
Massad, whose class I was enrolled in at the time.
When I expressed my profound appreciation for Massad’s
critical approach and the multiplicity of perspectives
that he offers in his classroom, Beery told me that he
wouldn’t be calling me back for a taped interview.”
(16) 

Posner also took it upon himself to gather some highly
illuminating statements from other students who took
Professor Massad’s classes. Below are four: 

“Several individuals who audited this class regularly
attempted to disturb the progress of the class. During
these disturbances, the auditors often attempted to
dominate the class discussion with personal statements
unrelated or extremely loosely related to the course
material. They were regularly unprepared for the
classroom discussion, not having completed the
required reading, and for the most part were largely
ignorant of the class’ subject matter. It was fairly
obvious that these individuals had registered for the
course for the sole purpose of disrupting the progress
of the class. To my amazement, [Massad] allowed each
and every student in the class an opportunity to
speak, regardless of their familiarity with the class
subject matter and required course material.” 

-John Taplett 

“I am Jewish. I am not a Zionist. Joseph Massad is a
man who understands the distinction and does not
attempt to conflate the two around a vague connection
with Israel. Knowing that he is being accused of
anti-Semitism is not only a slap in HIS face, it is a
slap in the face of every Jew who understands a legacy
of oppression and chooses not to become an oppressor.”


-Maura Finkelstein 

“On the question of religion, he was openly critical
of all religions including Islam – his anti-Israeli
opinions could not reasonably have been construed as
anti-Semitic. Similarly, while being critical of
Israeli policy, he did not hesitate to offer critical
opinions of Yasser Arafat. In general, he maintained a
tone of critical scholarly inquiry.” 

-Hitesh Manglani 

“As for academic discrimination, I am a Jew who wrote
a term paper criticizing Palestinian nationalism for
its foundation in support for violence, and despite
Massad’s supposed bias, he gave me an A.” 

- Benjamin Wheeler (17)


By now the general picture is quite clear. An
ideologically motivated clique of Zionist students,
possessing no actual evidence of “intimidation” but
infuriated upon hearing their fairy-tale version of
Israeli history dismantled, teamed up with a
pro-Israel political front group masquerading as
educators to smear a few Arab professors as
“anti-Semites” - conveniently excluding the opinion of
those “Semites” who fully support their teachers and
actually took classes with them. 

More damning than the poverty and hollowness of the
film, however, is the fact that it was even produced.
After all, what kind of “victimized” students are able
to summon to their command the financial and technical
resources of something like the David Project?
Moreover, how do such “victims” procure for themselves
a $3 million dollar building on campus, a privilege no
other Columbia group enjoys? (18) Claims to
victimization – a central feature in the
reverse-reality trick known as “the new anti-Semitism”
- are also completely discredited by the fact that
viciously right-wing tabloids in New York, the Sun and
the Daily News, have joined in on the attack against
the professors, castigating them as “firebrands” and
demanding they be fired. Prominent New York City
politicians have also demanded that the professors be
“investigated” if not fired outright. (19) Truly
remarkable is the “victim” so well-endowed in assets
and allies. 

I do not mean to suggest, however, that these Zionist
students have no understanding of intimidation or
persecution - far from it. Indeed, they well know of a
place where people are intimidated in extreme ways,
often “ordered to urinate and execrate on one other,”
“beaten and ordered to crawl around;” a place where
children are forced to clean their masters’ latrines
and are then taken into rooms to be beaten senseless,
until “they cannot stand up”; where passengers are
pulled from cars and then “beaten with rifle butts and
helmets”; where pregnant women are prevented from
reaching hospitals; where the masters refer to the
slaves as a “cancer” requiring “chemotherapy” or
“amputation” – where in essence, people are treated
far worse than anything these students claim to have
undergone. (20) 

The “where” is occupied Palestine, the people being
brutalized are Palestinians, and those doing the
brutalizing are Zionists. Here is where millions of
natives suffer under military occupation imposed by
Israeli soldiers - at least 20% of whom “join the army
with the preconception that Arab lives are worth less
than Jewish lives, ” according to Israeli Major
General Elazar Stern. (21) Here is where unarmed 13
year-old girls can be shot twice “from close range at
[the] head” and then “sprayed with automatic gunfire”
afterwards without penalty. (22) Here is where real,
actual, tangible “intimidation” and “silencing” takes
place. And here is where our whining Zionists at
Columbia could go and learn an object lesson in what
intimidation is all about – if only they were not
preoccupied with endorsing it. 

It is a resounding indictment of the intellectual and
moral poverty of our times that those who support
murder, torture, brutality, and racism - while
lounging around in plush multi-million dollar offices
on an Ivy League campus and starring in
pseudo-documentaries, no less - are considered the
victims, those speaking on behalf of the suffering are
considered criminals, and those actually suffering
from the real atrocities taking place are not
considered at all. 

For those concerned with justice, the course of action
could not be clearer. Now is a time not for
interminable hesitance, but immediate resistance. The
extraordinary level of arrogance, cruelty, and hate
embodied by the forces promoting this and numerous
other right-wing witch-hunts cannot be allowed to
prowl about unchecked. For this is merely an extension
of the war of bombs and bullets being waged upon the
Arabs abroad; it is an attempt to Guantanomize our
minds, Abu Ghraib our hearts, and Fallujah our souls -
to remove from us every last trace of what is the best
in each of us: the instinct to side with the weak and
aid the oppressed. 

To resist this colonization of our compassion, to
re-cultivate our resistance against those who believe
in the “compassion” of colonization – these are the
pressing demands of the hour. How vigorously we
respond to these demands will determine whether those
bruised, beaten children of Palestine will ultimately
receive some respite from their inhumane condition, or
instead find themselves further abused by the silent
whip of indifference. In their eyes we will read
either the redemption or indictment of the moral
standing of our own country. 

M. Junaid Alam, 22, is co-editor of the radical youth
journal Left Hook (http://www.lefthook.org ), and a
student at Northeastern University. He can be reached
at alam at lefthook.org . 

Left Hook endorses the Week of Campus Resistance in
response to the second anniversary of the invasion of
Iraq. To learn more or to participate, visit
www.tools4Change.org/wcr 


Notes 


1. The Israeli historians who have gone through some
of the state’s massive archives of the pre-war and war
period of 1947-9 sometimes refer to themselves as ‘new
historians.’ They include Simha Flapan, Benny Morris,
Avi Shlaim, Tanya Reinhart, Ilan Pappe, and many
others. I would recommended as an introduction The War
for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, edited
by Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim, which contains a
number of ‘new historian’ essays. 2. 

3. Kimmerling is cited by American Jewish historian
Norman G. Finkelstein in the Postscript to the German
edition of his book, The Rise and Fall of Palestine.
(http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=4&ar=8)
In the preface to Kimmerling’s own 2003 book,
Politicide, which argues that Israel is trying to
exterminate the Palestinians as a political entity, he
says his country is experiencing a “recent drift
towards fascism.” (p. 7) 4. 

5. For an account of Israel’s pattern of shooting
Palestinian children, see the article “Killing
children is no longer a big deal,” by Gideon Levy, in
the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, October 17, 2004. 6. 

7. For an account of the treatment meted out to those
who defy the Israeli line in the U.S. by America’s
pro-Israeli lobby, see They Dare to Speak Out: People
and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby, by Paul
Findley, who served as congressman of Illinois for
over two decades. 8. 

9. The David Project website is located at
http://www.davidproject.org. See the “Training” and
“Speakers” pages. 10. 

11. See note 5, the website’s front-page box titled
“Understanding the conflict.” 12. 

13. Yitzhaki is cited in the Israeli paper, Ha’ir, by
Guy Erlich in his May 6, 1992 article, “Not Only Deir
Yassin.” Deir Yassin was an Arab village whose
inhabitants were massacred by Zionist militia in 1948.
14. 

15. Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete, pp.404-5; cf.
pp. 403, 406-7, 508 – as cited in the matchless
synopsis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by
Norman G. Finkelstein, titled “An Introduction to the
Israel-Palestine Conflict.”
(http://normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=4&ar=10)
16. 

17. “Shedding light on MEALAC,” by Adam Sacarny,
November 12, 2004, Columbia Spectator. 18. 

19. “The ‘Silent Jews’ speak out,” by Shoshana
Kordova, Haaretz, February 9, 2005. 20. 

21. About grades not being affected, see:
“Non-academic debate,” by Uriel Heilman, The Jerusalem
Post, December 23, 2004 (updated December 29, 2004).
22. 

23. Only one student actually had Massad for class –
see “CAN Fights Zionist Smear Campaign at Columbia
Univ.,” by Suzie Schwartz, a Columbia student, Left
Hook, December 17, 2004.
(http://lefthook.org/Ground/Schwartz121704.html); and
none majored in the department – see Eric Posner, as
quoted in Independent Press Association (IPA-NY), “The
Arab answer to the Columbia University question,” by
Amal Hageb.
(http://www.indypressny.org/article.php3?ArticleID=1834)
24. 

25. See note 10. 26. 

27. Chris Hedge’s A Gaza Diary, published in Harper’s,
October 2001; CIA study is titled “Israel: Foreign
Intelligence and Security Services,” reprinted in
Counterspy, May-June 1982 – as cited in Noam Chomsky’s
A Fateful Triangle Updated Edition, 1999, cited on
page 11, sourced on page 33, as note 9; one of the
accusers in the film was Tomy Schoenfeld - “a student
who had served in the Israeli army” – according to
“Mideast Tensions are Getting Personal on Campus at
Columbia,” by N. R. Kleinfield, The New York Times,
January 18, 2005. 28. 

29. Ariel Beery proudly advertises himself at his
personal website, http://www.arielbeery.com, where it
is written, “He finished his service in the IDF
Spokesperson’s Unit where he wrote and translated
information packets…” on this specific page:
http://www.arielbeery.com/Ariel.html; a host of his
“documents” submitted to Campus Watch are kindly made
available at the website:
http://www.campus-watch.org/docs/author/Ariel+Beery
30. 

31. As quoted in IPA piece cited in note 12. 32. 

33. All quoted in IPA piece cited in note 12. 34. 

35. This is a reference to the Kraft Center -
“Understanding the Attacks on Pro-Palestinian
Professors at Columbia,” by Jonah Birch, a Columbia
Student, Left Hook, January 28, 2005.
(http://lefthook.org/Ground/Birch012805.html) 36. 

37. Congressman Anthony D. Weiner has called for
Massad’s firing. The New York City Council and members
of the New York City Council have called for an
outside investigation against him, egged on of course
by the Sun and the Daily News. 38. 

39. On urination and execration, beating, and being
ordered to crawl around, see “Do not say: ‘We did not
know, we did not hear’,” by Aharon Bachar, in Israeli
newspaper Yediot Ahronot, December 3, 1982 – as cited
in Noam Chomsky’s A Fateful Triangle, cited on page
131, sourced on page 176-7. On being forced to clean
latrines and then being beaten in rooms, see “Peace
Now officers recount atrocities,” in Israeli newspaper
Al Hamishmar, May 11, 1982 - as cited in Noam
Chomsky’s A Fateful Triangle, cited on page 132,
sourced on page 177; on being beaten with rifle butts
and helmets, see “Reports of Torture by Israelis
Emerge,” by Lee Hockstader, Washington Post, August
18, 2001; for pregnant women being stalled at Israeli
checkpoints, see Israeli human rights group B’TSelem’s
website, www.btselem.org, and see note 3; it was
Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon who said in an
August 30, 2002 interview with Haaretz Friday Magazine
that there was a “Palestinian threat” the
“characteristics of [which] are invisible, like
cancer”; he then goes on to elaborate, “There are all
kinds of solutions to cancerous manifestations. Some
will say it is necessary to amputate organs. But at
the moment, I am applying chemotherapy, yes.” 40. 

41. “General: 1 in 5 troops behave badly at
roadblocks,” by Gideon Alon, Haaretz, December 6,
2004. 42. 

43. “Gaza girl death officer cleared,” BBC News,
October 15, 2004. The article notes, “Without
revealing their identities, soldiers from the Givati
brigade platoon told Israeli television how their
officer sprayed Iman al-Hams with automatic gunfire on
5 October…” after having “approached her and fired two
bullets from close range at her head.” The army chose
not to believe the platoon, and accepted the
awe-inspiring explanation of the commander that “he
fired into the ground near the girl after coming under
fire in a dangerous area.” The BBC adds wryly, “It has
not explained why the officer shot into the ground
rather than at the source of the fire.” 44.