Sunday, November 6, 2011

UC Davis Jewish Studies Program Presents the Anti-Israel Narrative and Censors Questions

This is the report of a speaker event at the University of California at Davis, hosted not by an anti-Israel group but by the Jewish Studies Program.  It was written by Gail Rubin J.D., co-chair of StandWithUs Davis.  Please e-mail your concerns and comments to the Jewish Studies Program at jst@ucdavis.edu and to their funders:  the Koret Foundation ,  the Osher Foundation , the Taube Foundation (info@taubephilanthropies.org), and the Posen Foundation (info@culturaljudaism.org).



A WAR OF NARRATIVES AT UC DAVIS JEWISH STUDIES PROGRAM

Some UC Jewish Studies programs seem to be part of the growing problem of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist bias on UC campuses. Consider the lecture sponsored by the UC Davis [UCD] Jewish Studies Program on October 21st.

The lecturer was University of London professor Gilbert Achcar, author of the controversial book, “The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives.” He was introduced by Diane Wolf, current chair of the UCD program, Professor Susan Miller, and founding chair, David Biale. Professor Miller praised Achcar and called his scholarship “courageous.”

Achcar may have been courageous in acknowledging the Holocaust was a uniquely horrifying event directed at Jews and that Palestinian leader Haj Amin al-Husseini’s anti-Semitism and collaboration with Hitler were deplorable. But after these observations, he careened into anti-Zionist, anti-Israel charges and distortions. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, he argued that the Mufti’s Jew-hatred had little influence on Palestinian and Arab hostility to Israel. He dismissed evidence about the cross-fertilization of Muslim anti-Semitism and Nazi-inspired anti-Semitism as hyperbole and charged that Israel exploits the Holocaust and exaggerates the Mufti’s influence only for propaganda purposes.

 More disturbingly, he has argued that the rise of Zionism in 1920, not prejudice, spawned Arab Jew-hatred, essentially accusing Jews of causing anti-Semitism. Indeed, in his book, he excuses the current popularity of the Czarist anti-Semitic forgery, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” in the Arab world, arguing it must be read from an anti-Zionist, not an anti-Semitic, perspective.

Achcar minimized pogroms against and expulsions of Jews in the Arab world after World War II and after Israel’s reestablishment, equating their expulsion with the American internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. He repeated anti-Israel clichés, denying Israel’s right to exist and referring to it as a “settler colonial project” built on “Arab land,” accusing Zionists of "ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians", and downplaying any suggestion of Pan-Arab racism toward the Jewish people.

Despite these tendentious charges, challenging questions were not welcomed during the Q & A.  I was abruptly censored while attempting to establish facts to challenge Mr. Achcar’s skewed conclusion that the Grand Mufti’s anti-Semitism had only a minimal impact on both Jews and Arabs. Professors Miller and Biale angrily told me the questions were insulting and to either stop or leave the room. So much for free speech and scholarly discourse in academia.

Unfortunately, this lecture was not an anomaly. It is symptomatic of attitudes in the UC Davis Jewish Studies Program and elsewhere in the UC system. Approximately 30 Jewish Studies faculty members signed a March 3 letter to the Orange County District Attorney, opposing legal action against the “Irvine 11.” The “Irvine 11” were the Muslim Student Union students who had orchestrated a disruption of a lecture by Israel Ambassador Michael Oren on the UC Irvine campus, in violation of both campus guidelines and the law. The six UCD faculty connected to Jewish/Middle Eastern scholarship who signed that letter are: David Biale; Ari Kelman; Ze’ev Maoz; Susan Miller; Brenda Deen Schildgen; and Diane Wolf.

Yet, these same academics turn a blind eye to campus anti-Semitism. Open letters were submitted to UC President Mark Yudof in June of 2010, highlighting the rise of anti-Semitism throughout the UC system. Some of the signatories included the Simon Wiesenthal Center, CAMERA, StandWithUs, and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. More than 700 students signed an on-line petition. In September , 2011, more than 5,200 supporters sent another letter to Mr.Yudof, urging him to investigate and take action. Thus far, not one of the UCD professors referenced above has signed on to the letters, nor have they taken action to protect Jewish students from harassment and fear on their own campus. In fact, Emanuel Ringelblum Professor David Biale criticized the decision by the U.S. Office of Civil Rights to extend Title VI protection to Jewish students as “bizarre” because “the Jews are a group with power”.

Blind allegiance to any ideology is dangerous for the free exchange of ideas that is supposed to be the hallmark of a university. It is even more dangerous in the current climate where professors and academic departments encourage anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and anti- Jewish views and behaviors. Too often, students who express favorable views about Israel are ridiculed and verbally abused. Surely Jewish Studies Departments should ensure that the distortions and misinformation that propel anti-Israel dogmas are exposed and critiqued. People committed to intellectual integrity and the future of Israel and the Jewish people should be concerned about these trends in Jewish Studies Programs.


2 comments:

  1. by Jeffrey Herf

    http://www.tnr.com/book/review/not-in-moderation

    Also Achcar censures a lot of information about other arabs and the Nazi's. Fawzi Al Quwakji story is underdevelopped in his book on purpose!

    And the Mufti stated in Le Monde a couple of years before his death that he was proud he participated in the Shoah. It was yesterday November 8th, 70 years ago that the Mufti left for Nazi Germany to meet von Ribbentrop on 20th and Hitler on the 28th for the first of several meetings...

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  2. FROM ELDER OF ZIYON
    http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/11/uc-davis-jewish-studies-dept-hosts.html

    In July 2010, I looked a little at Achcar's book. Immediately I saw that his claim that Arab anti-semitism was a reaction to alleged Zionist expulsion of Palestinian Arab farmers, or as Rubin describes him at UCD saying that it only started after 1920, is laughable.

    The first Arab attack on Jews in Palestine was in 1886 in Petah Tikva, a community built on swampland that did not displace any Arab.

    A quote from an 1874 travelogue says ""Men in Palestine call their fellows 'Jew,' as the very lowest of all possible words of abuse."

    From the Saturday Magazine, 1840:

    The most distressed position in which the Algerine Jews have been placed, was when the country was under the military despotism of the Janissaries. Often when the Janissaries met them in the streets, they would beat and otherwise ill-treat them, without their daring to offer the least resistance; and their only resource was, to run away if they could. If any one among them dared to complain, the Cadi would ask the offending Turk why he had struck the Jew. "Because he spoke ill of our holy religion," would be the reply. This sealed the poor Jew's doom; he was immediately put to death, and his property confiscated to the State. When a Jew went to a fountain, he was obliged to wait until every Mahometan had left it, before he presumed to take a drop of water. A Jew passing before a mosque was often butchered by the populace, if he chanced to turn his head towards the sacred building. The Jews were excluded from all public places frequented by the Mahometans, with the occasional exception of the bazaars. When a Jew met a Turk in the street, he was obliged to salute him by bowing his head almost to the ground. The Turk would enter a Jew's house, eat, drink, insult the family, and take away anything he had a fancy to, without the master of the house daring to offer any remonstrance.

    This dreadful state of persecution was somewhat mitigated under subsequent governments; but still Jews have always been treated at Algiers with the contempt which they so generally meet with in Mahometan nations.

    Another book from 1857, talking about Jews in Sanaa:

    These poor people are awfully oppressed. The Jew is the object of continued insult and oppression. If he passes through the streets, the very beggars may knock him down, and he dare not venture to resent the insult. He is even not allowed to call a Mohammedan by his true name, but in addressing him must give him the title, "My Lord."

    While Arab anti-semitism was and still is far different from Christian anti-semitism, it was real and obvious to many observers who came through Arab areas in the 19th century. It is also worth noting, however, that Palestinian Christians imbibed in traditional Christian anti-semitism and in no small part influenced their Muslim neighbors in the decades that followed.

    But Achcar is far worse than just being selective in his history. As I proved in my earlier post, he actually frequents anti-semitic websites and used at least one quote in this book that was directly lifted from neo-Nazi literature - the proof being that he misspelled the name of the source in the same way that countless neo-Nazi sites do.

    And his interest in insulting anyone who asks hard questions did not start at UC Davis; he acted in a similar way at a talk he gave with another fraud of a historian, Shlomo Sand, at SOAS.

    Why would UC Davis Jewish Studies Department give any respect for a quasi-historian who gives no respect to his adversaries or even to the truth itself?

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