[Peace-discuss] Israeli Journalist and Draft of Letter to DI

[David Green]

November 2nd, Wednesday 

“Media Coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”
Yossi Klein Halevi, New Republic and Shalem Center.
Noon. 336 Gregory Hall. Journalism, Communications,
and Jewish Culture and Society.

____________________________________________

Draft of Letter to DI:

	The Program for Jewish Culture and Society is
sponsoring Israeli Yossi Klein Halevi’s two-week visit
as “journalist in residence.” 

	Halevi began in the 1960s and 70s as a member of the
Jewish Defense League. In a 1986 study of domestic
terrorism, the Department of Energy concluded: “For
more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League (JDL)
has been one of the most active terrorist groups in
the United States. Since 1968, JDL operations have
killed 7 persons and wounded at least 22.”

	Halevi spoke at Allen Hall last Wednesday. Strangely,
given his terrorist background, there were no
complaints from the campus right regarding his
appearance.

	Halevi documents in a recent book his efforts to
“reconcile” with Christians and Muslims.
Unfortunately, this effort ended with the beginning of
the 2nd intifada, when Halevi realized that
Palestinians of either persuasion fully deserve his
abiding hatred for them.

	Halevi writes novels, but his political commentary is
also fictional. No effort is made to examine the
realities of the Israel-Palestine conflict,
specifically the nature of the occupation. Israel is
seen as innocent, Palestinians are seen as genocidal
terrorists, and well-documented contradictory
realities are ignored. He makes it clear that Israeli
Jews are morally superior to Palestinians, who cannot
be trusted.

	In Israel, Halevi is sponsored by the Shalem Center,
a think tank founded by Yoram Hazony, the Pat
Robertson of Israel. It promotes religious settlements
in the occupied territories and a religious identity
for the secular “Jewish state.” It also supports
neoliberal economic policies that have made Israel the
most economically disparate country in the developed
world. Not only does Halevi hate Palestinians, he
doesn’t much care about Jews living in poverty.

	It would be appropriate for the PJCS to consider the
peculiarly Jewish psychopathology that has sent the
likes of Halevi and many other mentally disturbed
zealots to find the meaning of their lives in Israel
at the expense of the Arab natives. It could also
consider the political mentality, neoconservative and
otherwise, of Jewish-Americans who support them. As a
Jew, however, I find it objectionable to present
Halevi as a moderate and sympathetic observer of
Middle Eastern politics. He is a propagandist from
start to finish. If the PJCS is determined not to look
critically at Jewish culture, it should at least have
the decency not to be an embarrassment to it.



		
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