Roger Cohen, Dupe of Tehran

(Pictured: Roger Cohen)

New York Times columnist Roger Cohen wrote a piece earlier this week ("What Iran's Jews Say," Feb. 23) that brought to mind the naïve and insidious reporting by such legendary Times dupes as Walter Duranty and Herbert Matthews, whose whitewashing, respectively, of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and '30s and Fidel Castro in the 1950s will stand forever as monuments to the argument that the self-described "paper of record" is often anything but.

It also conjured memories of the insufferable Mike Wallace filing reports for "60 Minutes" from Syria and the Soviet Union back in the 1970s and '80s designed to confirm the liberal rubes of Cambridge and the Upper West Side in their instinctive belief that real evil in the world was to be found only in the warmongering fantasies of Ronald Reagan. (More about Wallace later.)

To be sure, Cohen peddles his views on the paper's opinion page, while Duranty and Mathews did their editorializing in the guise of news stories, but Cohen's style often strays from the conventional thumbsucking "here's my opinion" format to a more newsy-seeming "these are the facts" approach.

Such was the case with his column on his visit to Iran and the all-around contentedness - and anti-Israel sentiment - he says he found among the Jews with whom he came into contact.

Perhaps, observed The New Republic's Martin Peretz in an online critique of the article, the happy talk Cohen heard in the Iranian Jewish community "is authentic. Maybe. And maybe not. After all, until the railroad cars rolled living Jews into Sobibor and Maidanek from which they did not emerge, many German Jews (or Germans of Jewish extraction) also gave the Reich the benefit of the doubt. Some gave it even to Hitler himself. Certainly, many Americans and Brits and French did."

And while he believed Cohen was being truthful when he wrote, "I am a Jew and have seldom been treated with such consistent warmth as in Iran," Peretz made the point that "There are probably millions of Persians who feel warmly about their Jewish neighbors ... and remember their Jewish former neighbors with fondness. Forgive the German analogy again: even under the Nazis there were Germans who bemoaned the loss to Germany of its Jews ."

It would be easier to take Cohen's reporting from Iran at face value if one weren't acquainted with his biases and preconceptions, but by writing the following he sort of gave the game away even to readers less familiar with his history of sanctimonious posturing:

"One way to look at Iran's scurrilous anti-Israel tirades is as a provocation to focus people on Israel's bomb, its 41-year occupation of the West Bank, its Hamas denial, its repetitive use of overwhelming force. Iranian language can be vile, but any Middle East peace - and engagement with Tehran - will have to take account of these points."

So there you have it. Whether or not those Jews Cohen spoke with are truly representative of Iranian Jewry is a matter open to debate. But Cohen's attempt to rationalize Iran's genocidal threats against Israel by putting the onus on Israeli actions and policies (leave it to a liberal to blame the victim) calls into question both his motives and his judgment.

In a February 1991 article in Commentary, the late Jerusalem Post editorial page editor David Bar Illan wrote that when the aforementioned Mike Wallace traveled to Syria in 1975, he "gave a clean bill of health to [Syrian dictator Hafez] Assad's treatment" of the Syrian Jewish community. "He was particularly delighted to show that the Jews of Syria - though suffering from some travel restrictions - were quick to declare on camera that if they could only join the Syrian army they would be eager to fight against Israel."

Bar-Illan also recalled Wallace's contribution to Americans' understanding of the plight of Soviet Jewry: "From 1980 on," he wrote, "Leonid Brezhnev claimed that no Jews wanted to leave the Soviet Union. But pesky Jewish organizations in New York and that intolerably intransigent government in Israel kept insisting that 400,000 of them, risking jobs, jail and family safety, had applied for visas to Israel.

"Again Wallace knew whom to believe: standing in front of the Kremlin, he announced, with an arrogance only celebrated TV know-nothings can muster, that all the Jews who wanted to leave the Soviet Union had done so and the rest were getting along just fine."

Bar-Illan would have loved Roger Cohen.

The Late Israeli Democracy - Dies on a Car Bumper?

To the Right - Anti-Insensitivity Crusader Shulamit Dotan

Freedom of speech in Israel just took another bullet. The Leftist First Amendment, under which anti-Israel leftists and Arabs are entitled to the protection of freedom of speech for everything they say but know one else is, made a comeback this week. The Israeli dual court system also struck back.

Neria Ofan was convicted this week of racism by a Jerusalem Magistrate's Court. He was convicted of driving with an insensitive bumper sticker on his car. This is not a spoof. It really happened.

Ofan's felony? Ofan, who lives in the West Bank, had a bumper sticker on his car that reads, "Where there are No Arabs, there is No Terror." That, fatwa-ed the court's judge Shulamit Dotan, constitutes racism. Another Jew was similarly convicted in criminal court six months back for wearing a Tee shirt containing the same slogan. You can see the bumper sticker in Hebrew just below here, but if you do not hear from me again for several years, it is because my posting it here was also deemed "racism" and I was sent off to prison to learn sensitivity.



Now what does NOT constitute racism or incitement in post-democratic Israel? Arab students chanting "Death to the Jews" does not. Waving PLO and Hamas banners on campuses does not. We know that merely calling for Jews to be exterminated and for Israel to be annihilated also does not. The Supreme Court ruled just before the last election that two Arab parties whose platforms call for Israel's annihilation should be allowed to run and to sit in Israel's parliament. We know that Holocaust revisionism is protected speech, or at least that is what an Arab woman judge in Nazareth court wrote in one of her better known verdicts. We know that cheering on terrorist murders of Jewish children is not racist. After all, there are scores of leftist faculty members at Israeli universities who do THAT all the time.

Dotan was one of the judges who had earlier "convicted" Moshe Feiglin of "sedition" because he had blocked a traffic intersection in the 1990s with a group of protesters against Oslo. Blocking traffic intersections for other things, such as for the demands of the Histadrut or when students want lower tuition, is democratic and permitted. Among Dotan's more notorious acts of bias was this: she was the lead judge in the trial over the indictment of Israel's ex-President Moshe Katsav, accused of sexual molestation and rape. Except that it is looking more and more like Katsav is innocent and the prosecutor is right now proposing that the case be thrown out (see this). It seems that Judge Shula held deliberations on the punishment sentence to be handed to Katsav even before his trial began!! See this.

As for that slogan, "Where there are no Arabs, there is no Terror," it is very close to being an empirically verifiable statement. One can, I suppose, find terror here and there in places where there are no Arabs, like in Sri Lanka. But racism? I mean, if the court had accused the driver of perpetrating a drive-by slight empirical exaggeration, perhaps it might have a case.

It actually turns out that the slogan and bumper stickers were first the invention of an operator of a bed and breakfast on the Golan Heights, who handed them out during the 2000 intifada violence in the Galilee. Its point was that the Galilee is dangerous, but the Golan, where there are virtually no Arabs, is safe, so come on up for the weekend.

The sticker was then picked up by others, perhaps with a different agenda.

I personally prefer the bumper sticker that reads, "Where there are No Leftists there is no Treason," and I am prepared to go to prison for having one on my car if anyone can get one printed up and sent to me.

Honestly Frum

The author of the Honestly Frum blog, an intriguing blog that chronicles the author's many pet peeves of the frum community, asked Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, columnist for The Jewish Press, of course, some questions.

You can read his unique take on the problems of daas Torah and contemporary yeshiva education here.

Cleaning out the Gutter: Joel Kovel gets Fired!

To right: Unemployed, down and out. Anti-Semite Joel Kovel

The malicious anti-Semite Joel Kovel, author of the Israel-bashing hate propaganda diatribe, Overcoming Zionism, published by the anti-Semitic "Pluto Press," has been fired by Bard College. His "book" calls for Israel to be annihilated. It is a demonization of Zionism that is no doubt popular in Iran, and it is celebrated on the web sites of Neo-Nazis and Holocaust Deniers. Betsy Kellman, director of the Michigan Anti-Defamation League chapter, has described the book as dealing in "anti-Semitic canards." A shallow Marxist, Kovel had been the "Alger Hiss Professor of Social Studies" at Bard, a title so funny I really would not know where to begin to mock it!

Bard is generally one of the most extremist monolithically Far Left colleges in the US, and also one of the least respectable academically. To its credit, the wonderful Prof. Jacob Neusner taught there for many years. For a while Bard even lost its academic accreditation altogether. Some call it Osama Bard Laden.

Was the pseudo-scholar Kovel too much of a bigot even for Bard? Actually Bard claims Kovel was canned all because of money. Bard lost some serious money in the scam run by Uncle Bernie (Madoff).

The full story is here.

Note the delicious part of that news story, in which Kovel accuses Bard of being a Zionist lapdog institution:

'His faculty letter concluded this way: .If the world stands outraged at
Israeli aggression in Gaza, it should also be outraged at institutions in the United States that grant Israel impunity. In my view, Bard College is one such institution. It has suppressed critical engagement with Israel and Zionism, and therefore has enabled abuses such as have occurred and are occurring in Gaza. This notion is of course, not just descriptive of a place like Bard. It is also the context within which the critic of such a place and the Zionist ideology it enables becomes marginalized, and then removed.... In his letter, Kovel argues that his position at Bard deteriorated as his opposition to Zionism grew and became more public.'

Poor baby - muzzled and prevented from bashing Israel on campus!! We know how rare it is to find bigots denouncing Israel and Jews on American campuses these days. But who knows, perhaps the University of Tehran is hiring? Actually, Bard College is ganging up with the Hamas "school" calling itself Al-Quds University in "educational collaboration." I guess Bard will help the Hamas build rockets with longer ranges to be able to hit more Jewish children.

Kovel, who appears sometimes with Ben Gurion University's own venomous Israel hater Neve Gordon, currently the chairman of the department of political science there, is the latest in the list of anti-Semitic pseudo-academics to be canned from academic institutions. He now joins Norman Finkelstein, Ward Churchill, and others on the list of recipients of unemployment insurance. We wonder if Ben Gurion University will ever have the courage of DePaul University and Bard College and evict its full-time anti-Israel pseudo-scholarly propagandists!

Meanwhile Kovel's anti-Semitic "book" was distributed for a while by the University of Michigan, but they later repudiated it and stopped the distribution. Pluto Press has published dozens of anti-Semitic and pro-Syrian books and is thought to have financial ties to the Syrian Baathists.

The leftist moonbatocracy is having hysterics and numerous web sites are bellowing about the "Israel Lobby" suppressing academic freedom. Now where have we heard that before?

Crybaby Kovel issued his own statement, carried here. You will note that he spends much of the time in this statement bragging about his "scholarly credentials" consisting of a series of bash-Israel articles for Tikkun Magazine, the pro-LSD anti-Israel hippy magazine run by pseudo-rabbi Michael Lerner.

If you would like to send a Yasher Koach to the heads of Bard for this uncharacteristically courageous decision, write:

President Leon Botstein: president@bard.edu
Executive Vice-President Dimitri Papadimitriou: dpapadimitrou@bard.edu

Hebrew University Professor Arrested for Malicious Vandalizing Jerusalem "Eruv" as anti-Judaism "protest"

To Right - the Tenured Vandal Danny Mandler
Seems like hardly a week goes by without some new anti-Israel or anti-Jewish outrage coming out of the Hebrew University. The latest is the arrest this week of a Hebrew University professor of chemistry for maliciously vandalizing the Jerusalem "eruv." Danny Mandler is an Argentina-born full professor of chemistry at the Hebrew University.

An "eruv" is a boundary constructed of stings or wires to define an area in which observant Jews may carry items on the sabbath. Usually the "eruv" runs along existing poles or trees. It is usually in public areas and does not impose any sort of inconvenience on others.

Nevertheless, in some cases anti-Semites have campaigned against the "eruv" as somehow violating the rights of non-Jews or "imposing" Judaism on the public. In Palo Alto, California, for example, anti-Semites recruited the ACLU to try to block placing an "eruv" in the trees along streets.

In Jerusalem, a group of radical anti-Orthodox bigots have been slicing the "eruv" in some places, illegally. The only motive of the vandals is to show their contempt for Orthodox Jews and for Judaism. After several acts of sabotage, the police staked off an area. They caught the good professor redhanded while sabotaging the "eruv" with a knife! The story is carried in Haaretz, Israel National News and elsewhere.

According to INN, "Rabbi Avraham Moshe Katzenelbogen, who is responsible for the eruv as a member of the Jerusalem Religious Council, recently took community center leaders on a tour of the eruv, showing them it was not in the way and did not pose an obstacle to anyone. A number of hours later, activists again tried to destroy it."

Mandler is not the first hater of Judaism at the Department of Chemistry of the Hebrew University. For many years the world's worst Neo-Nazi, Israel Shahak, was also employed as a professor of chemistry there. Shahak, who died in 2001, was best known for claims that Orthodox Jews secretly worship Satan, that Judaism is a form of Nazism, and claiming things like Orthodox Jews pull down the pants of traffic accident victims to check if they are circumcized before attending to them. He was so openly anti-Semitic that David Duke dedicated his book to Shahak. An open collaborator with Palestinian terrorists, Shahak toured the world "confirming" the accuracy of every Nazi smear against Jews. He justified pogroms against Jews as something they deserved. His "work" continues to be carried on every Holocaust Denial web site on earth.

The heads of the Hebrew University never took any action against Shahak during the many years in which he devoted himself to promoting Neo-Nazism while drawing his salary from the university. It remains to be seen if they will take any action now against Mandler.

Update: Prof. Mandler has issued the following statement regarding the affair:

February 17, 2009

I did not expect you to get my comment before publishing this article or verify the details, yet, I will appreciate if you post my comments and the facts about the “Eruv” in Jerusalem:
1. Comparing me with Prof. Shahak is not only offending and misleading but also of cheap accusation that reminds of the general allegations used against Jews in Europe. I am not anti-Israeli or anti-Judaism and I wonder what you wanted to achieve by writing such a long paragraph about Prof. Shahak. This has nothing to do with me and you had better searched more about me before writing these irrelevant, not to say, disgusting words.
2. Your article is full of incorrect information, such as the fact that I was not arrested. You even misspelled my name, which is Daniel and Danny Mandler. But this is not the major point. You completely misled the readers by your own opinion that is not based on the facts about the “Eruv” in Jerusalem. Therefore, I bring here the facts, which I will be glad if you can share with your readers. And let them decide.

Some Facts about the “Eruv” in Jerusalem
Since Saturday night I constantly receive accusations, threats and other “blessings” by Jews who read articles like that published in The Jewish Press Blog. Most do not know and maybe do not even want to know what is behind my action on Friday night. Many of you do not live in Israel and yet found it very easy to run into conclusions about my faith and Judaism. So let me try and explain to you the facts, and as a scientist, I will tightly adhere to them. It is not my intention to convince you, as most of you have very clear opinion about me being a secular Jew.
Until 2004 the “Eruv” around Jerusalem satisfied the orthodox population in Jerusalem. You can still find in the Internet (http://www.daat.ac.il/daat/shabat/eruv/shaar-2.htm) the map of this “Eruv”. We, who are secular, have nothing against this “Eruv” who is common in every city and village in Israel including army bases. From 2005 and on and for some unclear reasons (also to most of the orthodox Jews living in Jerusalem) a small and very fanatic group decided that this is not enough. Illegally and without the permission of the municipality or the Jerusalem Religious Council (which is, in fact, responsible for the “Eruv” in Jerusalem) they have installed hundreds of “Eruv” poles across the neighborhoods, religious and non-religious. They never asked the people in the neighborhoods. Moreover, they even welded aluminum gates to the fences of private houses without asking the owners! Trees were cut in a vandalistic manner (I can provide photos) and poles were installed adjacent to the roads in a dangerous way. Even more surprising and frustrating was the fact that the private company, which was responsible for that “Eruv Mehudar”, obtained a document signed by one of the council members of Jerusalem (Rabe Shmuel Itzhaki, who was responsible for parking issues) and was not authorized to issue such permission. Whenever, we called the police they took out this document and the police did not stop them from their illegal act.
I wrote several letters (can provide you with them) to the previous mayor of Jerusalem Mr. Luplianski who did not answer for a long time. Finally he sent an unclear letter saying that the municipality objects any violence. Then, I wrote a letter to the municipal comptroller, attorney Shlomit Rubin. She sent a letter to Shmuel Itzhaki who denied that he issued such authorization letters (although we have a copy of the letter signed by him). A letter sent by her to Mr. Luplianski has never been replied. More recently the manager director of the city Mr. Yair Maayan ordered to remove the poles, due to the fact that they were installed illegally. However, the municipal supervision acting director, Mr. Meir Dadya refused (he probably was afraid). A few weeks ago the legal consultant attorney Yossi Havilio published a clear decision stating that the poles should be removed.
In spite of all this, the new elected mayor of the city Mr. Nir Barkat decided recently to establish a committee which should try and find a solution for the “Eruv” poles. This was very disappointing for most of the secular citizens who voted for him and were hoping that he will simply enforce the law and remove the poles from the non-religious neighborhoods in Jerusalem.
It is not a secret that many of the secular Jews are leaving Jerusalem. During the last 15 years since Ehud Ulmert became the mayor (for the second time) the non-orthodox population in Jerusalem is constantly abused and discriminated. Only recently, just before the municipality elections Mr. Polak (deputy to the mayor) decided to build kindergartens for the orthodox children just in the middle of Kiryat Yovel, where I live and which is a secular neighborhood. The citizens appealed to the court, demonstrated and acted very strongly against this decision, which was finally cancelled (only after Nir Barkat was elected).
Jerusalem is a very problematic city. For someone like me who has been living here since I completed my army service in 1980, life has not been simple. The orthodox, secular and Arab populations have to live together, live and let live. Jerusalem belongs to everyone and life cannot be dictated by one of these parties.
I would not propose to build a non-kosher (and illegal) restaurant in the middle of an orthodox neighborhood but at the same time the orthodox people have to understand that we will not let them control our lives. Surprisingly, orthodox people usually do not understand why the “Eruv” poles disturb the secular population; however, will get mad of innocent advertisement pictures if hung in a bus station in a secular (yes, not orthodox!) neighborhood.
I am against any type of violence. I am not proud by my symbolic act carried out on Friday night, which was meant to protest against the attitude of the municipality and our disappointment by the fact that Nir Barkat has decided to legalize the illegal “Eruv” poles. I and my friends do not have another Jerusalem and will not leave the city, which we love and fought for it. We do not hate Jews and have nothing against Judaism. Sentences like “Mandler is not the first hater of Judaism at the Department of Chemistry…” reminds me of the anti-Semitic propaganda in some neighboring countries.
There is a big barrier between me and most of those who had sent me nasty mails and articles and who unfortunately believe that the law of Torah is above the law of the State of Israel. Moreover, many of those justify violence and aggression by the name of God against me and my family. Since Saturday night I and my family are constantly threatened. Yesterday, a few people have tried to assault me in my office at the Hebrew University. I and my friends have never acted violently against any Jew.
I hope that the “Eruv” matter will be solved peacefully; however, we will fight for our right to live in Jerusalem according to our faith. My parents were born in Europe and survived the holocaust, my father fought for the State of Israel and so I did and my son (only recently). My daughter is currently in the army and my younger son will join the army as well. Nobody, neither in Israel nor abroad will tell me and my family what it means to be Jewish and how to live in Jerusalem.

Daniel Mandler

פרופ' דניאל מנדלר Prof. Daniel Mandler
הפקולטה למדעי הטבע Faculty of Science
המחלקה לכימיה Department Chemistry
ירושלים 91904 Jerusalem 91904

Rabbi Noach Weinberg

Among the many memories being shared about Rabbi Noach Weinberg, founder of Aish HaTorah who passed away last Thursday, let me share these two from two of his nieces.

Dr. Aviva Weisbord, the daughter of Rabbi Noach’s brother Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, said that her father told her that after the Six-Day Way, while Rabbi Noach was already living in Israel, he had sent his older brother a letter. Rabbi Noach had seen an article stating that no miracles had taken place, but rather everything was natural. The letter, Rabbi Yaakov told his daughter, was soaked in tears.

Another daughter of Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, Mrs. Yehudis Zwick, said that after her father Rabbi Yaakov passed away in 1999, Rabbi Noach wanted to sit shiva in Israel, but that he saw that he could not leave Rabbi Yaakov’s children and grandchildren. A granddaughter of Rabbi Yaakov told me that during the shiva her great uncle Rabbi Noach would sit with all the grandchildren and tell them stories about their zeidy.

Mrs. Zwick also said that her father and uncle were so close that even in their 60’s, they would sometimes walk hand in hand.

(This is part of reporting I did for an obituary that did not end up being published. We ran the JTA obituary.)

The Hebrew University Tenured Left launches a Jihad against a General

NO HEROES NEED APPLY!
In recent years Israel's airhead leftist professors have taken to demonizing the officers of the Israeli Defense Forces. It goes well beyond the silly "Boycott ROTC" campaigns on American campuses, in which anti-American students and faculty demand that the military be kept off campus while at the same time demanding federal funding for themselves.

Over the past few weeks the anti-military behavior of the Campus Left in Israel was in the headlines because of a petition of professors and lecturers at Tel Aviv University to prohibit a woman army colonel from the IDF's international law section from lecturing at the Law School at TAU. In response to a public outcry against the leftists and open threats from Olmert to block funding for any academic institution that persecuted or boycotted army officers, Tel Aviv University repudiated the petitioners, hired the colonel, and the Dean of the Law School defended the decision. The far Left's First Amendment, which holds that you have the right to freedom of speech if and only if you agree with them, crashed.

Previous to that there were numerous other attempts by the tenured Left in Israel to demonize and boycott the military. There were petitions against allowing police and military intelligence officers to study at the universities. An Arab professor at a college refused to allow a student wearing a reserves uniform to enter the classroom. A Hebrew University professor of history threatened sanctions against students who serve in the army. Petitions of hundreds of Israeli tenured leftists called on students to refuse to serve in the IDF.

But now the campaign of the tenured Left against the military has escalated to attacking and smearing a general who is a candidate for President of the Hebrew University.

The current President of the Hebrew University, Prof. Menachem Magidor, is about to end his term (he has held the job for 12 years). Among the contenders to replace him is an IDf general, Eliezer Shkedi (sometimes written Shkedy), who had been commander of the Israeli Air Force. (The other contenders include two professors and a couple of business moghuls.) Shkedi personally shot down two Syrian planes in the 1982 Lebanon War. He led Israel's task force on Iran and also holds a degree from the US Naval School. He is outspoken about Iran and Israel's security needs. So naturally the Friends of the Hamas around the world consider him to be a war criminal.

(to right - leader of the attack on Shkedi, Yaron Ezrahi)

And that is what has upset the Tenured Left. A group of Hebrew University leftist faculty members are lobbying to prevent Shkedi from even being considered for the post. They are led by far-leftist Yaron Ezrahi, a political science professor at Hebrew U and the main personality at the Far-Leftist think tank, the Israel Democracy Institute. He is all in favor of freedom of speech for the Left, he promotes affirmative action for Arabs, and he denounces Israel for its "war crimes." He was joined by Prof. Ruth Hacohen, who teaches musicology there.

Now let me clarify that in general I do NOT think that generals make good heads of universities, but that is because they understand the command and control style of management that works in the army but cannot work in universities. THAT, however, is NOT why the moonbats are opposing Shkedi. In any case, the Technion in Israel has been managed by generals, so there is ample precedent.

The leftist moonbats oppose Shkedi because they oppose Israel exercising military force to defend its civilians and they oppose anyone who dares to do so.

The Tenured Left opposes Shkedi because the Israeli Air Force under his command actually killed terrorists without reading them their Miranda rights and defended Jewish children from genocidal terrorists. No one who is involved in "using force" should be the head of a university, they whine. The leading contender to replace Magidor is not even Shkedi but rather Professor Menachem Ben Sasson, except that HE was until now a Knesset Member from Olmert's Kadima. Now that Kadima is considered to be the leftist opposition to Netanyahu, the campus leftists see no problem with having a politician from it serve as university chief.

In any case, if Shkedi were to get the job, it is hard to believe that he could muck things up worse than Magidor did over the past 12 years. Beside leading the Hebrew University into a financial nosedive, Magidor made headlines by endorsing the most incredible atrocities of the campus Left, including that infamous thesis that claimed that the reason IDF soldiers do not rape Arab women is because the Jews are so racist, and also circled the campus wagons around a leftist professor of sociology accused of raping his graduate students.

The Underhanded Slime of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel

Israel is plagued by a leftist "civil rights" organization named the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. It is a far-left anti-Israel advocacy group. Like most "civil rights" groups these days, it is terribly concerned about the human rights of genocidal Islamist terrorists but not very concerned about the human rights of the children of Sderot and Ashdod.

Anyway, the ACRI is in the news today because it tried to pull an underhanded dirty trick on 37 prominent law professors, including deans of law schools, in Israel. Haaretz Feb 6, 09 reports that the ACRI approached 37 law dons and announced that it was planning to add their names to a statement denouncing Israel for its "war crimes" in Gaza and its murdering innocent Palestinian civilians – UNLESS the law professor explicitly requested that his or her name NOT be included.

In other words, the ACRI has sunk to the level of those junk email spammers who claim they have the right to flood you with spam and use your name UNLESS you have explicitly told them not to.

According to the news story in Haaretz, which is not on their web site (yet?), evidently all of the 37 deans and professors who got the "invitation/announcement" from the ACRI asked that their names be removed from the anti-Israel statement. The "invitation" was the initiative of ACRI's own house shyster, one Dan Yakir, and a second shysterette, one Debby Giller-Chio, who heads the ACRI's department on legislation. The statement these two people wrote, and upon which they added the names of the 37 others without bothering to get their permission, called for an investigation into Israeli war crimes against Gazan civilians in the recent Cast Lead operation. In a letter to the 37, the ACRI's lawyers pontificated that "You have the moral and legal responsibility to demand an investigation of these events that led to the developments (deaths of civilians)."

This is a bit like demanding an official investigation into the violation of the human rights of Germans by anti-Nazi partisans in World War II. How would the shysters of ACRI like it if someone added their names to petitions to support Avigdor Lieberman, or to impose capital punishment on traitors and terrorists, or to expel Arab politicians from Israel, unless the lawyers explicitly ask not to have their names added to the list?

Among those going public in demanding that their names be removed from the bash-Israel letter were Prof. Yoav Dotan, Dean of Law at the Hebrew University, the Dean of Law from Bar Ilan University Arie Reich, and the Dean of Law from the Academic College of Kiryat Ono Dodi Schwartz.

Dotan complained that ACRI has a long track record of falsely claiming to be the automatic representative of academic legal opinion.

Lest anyone be misled by its harmless sounding name, the ACRI is a pro-terror anti-Israel extremist group. Here are some older postings about the ACRI:

Bias at the "Association for Civil Rights in Israel"
by Steven Plaut

INN today carries a news report on yet another one-sided biased "report" coming out of the misnamed Association for Civil Rights in Israel or ACRI. The "Association" is for Civil Rights for everyone except Jews. The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) is an anti-democratic extremist group that does not endorse free speech. ACRI, like B'tselem, Physicians for Human Rights and many other assorted splinter far-left, anti-Israel, pro-PLO groups in Israel, pretends it is nothing more than a neutral human rights watchdog but this is an Orwellian lie. (B'tselem by the way distributed a special brochure this week via Haaretz in which it claims to prove that Gaza is still "occupied" by Israel because Israel refuses to let the Hamas import weapons freely at the entrance points into the Gaza Strip. Importing explosives - now THERE is a human right B'tselem can get all indignant over.) Its latest "report" is a one-sided attack on the Jews in Hebron. As usual. the ACRI just can't seem to locate any acts of violence against Jews by Arabs. And self-defense is definitely not a civil right of Jews in the eyes of ACRI.

ACRI is an extremist anti-Israel group that only cares about "human rights" when "defending them" is part of delegitimizing Israel (such as in this case). It has never heard of a human right for Jews not to be murdered by terrorists.

Think I am exaggerating? The president of ACRI, Sami Michael, best known for romanticizing communism, was cited in Haaretz (Oct 21, 2004) as justifying Palestinian terror attacks against Jewish Israelis. Here are his words as quoted by Haaretz:

Michael understands the Hamas members who are fighting these Jews, who stuck a wedge down their throats. In an interview published in the latest issue of New Horizons, a monthly on society and the state published by the Berl Katznelson Foundation, Michael rejects the definition of Hamas fighters as "terrorists."
"Imagine the feeling if I woke up tomorrow and saw this neighborhood, which we inhabit, forcibly conquered by the Syrians, and they established settlements here, and in order to go to the bus station, I needed permission from the Syrian army. How would I feel?" the author from Haifa asked. "If I fight them, I will be considered a terrorist. Why am I a terrorist? Why do we call Hezbollah or Hamasniks terrorists? Why? Because he fights on his own territory? Suddenly, aliens, occupiers, land on him and tell him: "Your house is ours. It's his land, he and his forefathers were born here, and the settlers say: We will never leave ... How would you respond to this?"

A few years back, I approached ACRI and offered them an opportunity to defend free speech in Israel and prove they support human rights for all, even for those who might disagree with their leftist extremist ideology. As you may know, I am being sued in a harassment SLAPP** "libel suit" by a leftist extremist lecturer at Ben-Gurion University because I dared to criticize his political opinions and his public political behavior. The lecturer in question (Neve Gordon) served, for example, as a human shield for Yasser Arafat while Arafat was hiding in his offices the murderers of an Israeli cabinet minister and other terrorists, all this in order to interfere illegally with an Israeli anti-terror military operation. The suit is clearly nothing more than an anti-democratic assault on free speech by a leftist extremist who thinks it is a crime to criticize him.

So, I contacted ACRI and asked them to take up my case and denounce the Ben-Gurion extremists' tactic of trying to use SLAPP litigation as a bludgeon to suppress free speech for non-leftists. There can be no clearer opportunity for those who value free speech as a human right to denounce such misuse of the courts as this case. I invited ACRI to help defeat this cynical move by the leftist extremist in question, Neve Gordon of the political science department at Ben-Gurion University. The liberal Prof. Alan Dershowitz that "Neve Gordon has gotten into bed with neo-Nazis, Holocaust justice deniers, and anti-Semites. He is a despicable example of a self-hating Jew and a self-hating Israeli."

In response, I got a peremptory refusal from a spokesperson for ACRI. They are not interested in defending free speech for Zionists.

** SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. SLAPP suits are anti-democratic libel suits designed to suppress the free speech of one's critics.



Association for Civil Rights in Israel - Isn't
Adar 28, 5764, 21 March 04 09:21
by Steven Plaut
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) is an anti-democratic extremist group that does not endorse free speech.

ACRI, like B'tselem, Physicians for Human Rights and many other assorted splinter far-left, anti-Israel, pro-PLO groups in Israel, pretends it is nothing more than a neutral human rights watchdog. This is an Orwellian lie. ACRI is an extremist anti-Israel group that only cares about "human rights" when "defending them" is part of delegitimizing Israel (such as in this case). It has never heard of a human right for Jews it wishes to defend, such as their right not to be murdered by terrorists.

Think I am exaggerating?

So when exactly does ACRI protect free speech?

Well, I will tell you when.

This past November saw a quiet but significant victory in Israel over the treasonous far-left. Some Israeli extremists were operating an Israeli branch of the "Indymedia" web network, which is a network of dozens of Marxist-anarchist web sites all over the world who devote their days to the singing of praises for communism, terrorism, the International Solidarity Movement, violence and anti-Semitism. The one operating out of Israel was famous for its posting messages praising suicide bombers, denying the Holocaust, posting messages mocking Judaism and the Bible and otherwise anti-Semitic harangues, not mere anti-Israel pieces. Its managers claimed they did not pick the pieces and that it is open web publishing where anyone can post trash; but the fact of the matter is that they regularly censored anything on the site that was pro-Israel and deleted it, leaving up the Nazi screeds (at www.indymedia.org.il).

In November they ran, alongside their other filth, a cartoon showing Ariel Sharon French-kissing Hitler. Some people were outraged and filed a petition with the Attorney General to shut the site down. It has been successfully shut down ever since, evidently thanks to a court order; although recently, a new substitute site just opened at israel.indymedia.org (you might want to stop in to post some pro-Israel material there to annoy them).

For months, ever since the original Israel Indymedia web site was shut down, its URL carried a message in English and Hebrew from this same ACRI protesting the shutting down of this suicide-bombing-cheerleader web site.

I guess ACRI supports free speech only for leftist traitors...

* SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. SLAPP suits are anti-democratic libel suits designed to suppress the free speech of one's critics.

The ACRI also has a track record of rallying to support Neo-Nazi Norman Finkelstein.

See the reports on the ACRI carried on the NGO Monitor web site.

The ACRI has never spoken out against Israel's arbitrary "anti-racist" laws, that criminalize speech for far-Right Kahanist groups but have never been used against Arab or Far Leftist anti-Semitic groups or individuals. The ACRI represents routinely participate in anti-Israel pro-jihad conferences and demonstrations. For details, see NGO Monitor.

This Week @ www.jewishpress.com

A Letter from a Soldier

I Am the Soldier Who Slept In Your Home:
By: Yishai G (reserve soldier)

Hello,

While the world watches the ruins in Gaza, you return to your home which remains standing. However, I am sure that it is clear to you that someone was in your home while you were away.

I am that someone.

I spent long hours imagining how you would react when you walked into your home. How you would feel when you understood that IDF soldiers had slept on your mattresses and used your blankets to keep warm.

To read the rest of the letter, click here