semitism.net

Readers over sixty may recall the moment when Mississippi Senator James Eastland, a notorious racist and an ally of anti-Communist witch-hunter Joseph McCarthy, declared to Jacob Javits, “I don’t like your kind.” Javits was a liberal Republican, a civil rights supporter, a McCarthy opponent, and the only Jew in the Senate.

Now, ironically, some Jewish groups are resorting to outright McCarthyist tactics against a critic of Israel’s settlement policy - and claiming they are doing it in Javits’ name. The Conference of Presidents, the American Jewish Committee and other groups are pressuring the Empire State Development Corporation to reject a plan for the 1.7 billion dollar redesign of the Javits Center because the architect has ties to a group critical of the separation wall…

From The Guardian (thanks to Bruce Hawkins for the link):

Yesterday Lord Rogers, architect of the new Welsh Assembly building and the Pompidou Centre in Paris, was scheduled to meet the chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, which oversees the redesign on Manhattan’s West Side. The company summoned the architect to New York to explain his involvement in Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine… ”

Local politicians and some Jewish organisations have demanded Lord Rogers be sacked from the project because of the group, which opposes the separation barrier that has sliced up the West Bank and the building of settlements in Palestinian territories. The group has also criticised Israeli building companies for their support of settlement building, and has called for an economic boycott of those firms.

I could not find a web site for Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, but according to a report in European Jewish Press, the group met for the first time in mid-February, in Lord Rogers’ offices. The group released a statement that read:

We hold all design and construction professionals involved in projects that appropriate land and natural resources from Palestinian territory to be complicit in social, political and economic oppression and to be contrary to internationally acceptable professional ethics.

Apparently, the group discussed supporting a boycott of industries that supply Israel with buiding equipment for separation wall but came to no decision. A member of the group said the group’s aims are

to encourage local and international activity to bring an end to the occupation, and particularly to the establishment of the settlements and the separation fence, as well as the unchecked destruction of historical values in the cities of the West Bank, and the destruction of infrastructure.

Now, pro-settlement advocates may not like this position, but I don’t think you could say it falls outside the mainstream political discourse when institutions like the Presbyterian and Anglican churches are having basically the same discussion. The EJP article goes on to quote Charles Jenckes, an architectural critic not evidently associated with the group:

“There reaches a certain point where an architect can’t sit on the fence. Not to stand up to it would be to be complicit.”

Describing the barrier as “a contorted, crazy, mad, divisive, drunken thing”, Jenckes added: “In 10 years’ time its builders will see it as a great folly. Architecturally it is madness. I understand fully that security is the problem for Israel and they have the right to protect themselves. But this is not the solution.”

Nonetheless, American Jewish Committee Executive Director David A. Harris wrote a letter to the Empire State Development Corporation, declaring that

Clearly, the agenda of this group reflects very deep seated anti-Israel and anti-Semitic views.

In a similar vein, Malcolm Hoenlein, the Director of the Conference of Presidents, told the Guardian

“The relevant issue is a group that is convened for the purpose of activities detrimental to a democratic state.

This is highly reminiscent of Joseph McCarthy’s tactics in the 1950’s. His House Committee on Unamerican Activities kept an ever-growing list of U.S. citizens (most of them political leftists, many of them Jewish) who were “suspected” of having links to communist groups. Just being on this blacklist was sufficient to bar a person from employment with most major American companies.

Initially, the argument made by Jewish groups was that Rogers was inappropriate for the Javits project, since Javits was a supporter of Israel. This argument is questionable in itself. Javits was a liberal Republican with a strong libertarian bent, and a great advocate for persons who faced discrimination and oppression. A supporter of Israel, yes, but he also believed American Israel policy should serve American interests. He would probably not have approved of the separation wall, and I am sure he would not have brooked the awarding of government contracts based on the political loyalties of the contractor (an old Tammany Hall trick).

But the Javits angle is moot anyhow, since advocates are pushing the case beyond the Javits Center redesign and calling for cancellation of Rogers’ contract for the East River Waterfront Esplanade.

In the end, Rogers may get the contracts - but only because he has publically renounced the views of the Architects and Planners group he helped to found and declared his support for the separation wall. I guess his firm couldn’t afford to lose both projects.

Please take a minute and think about the implications of all this. Are we going to allow the leaders of our Jewish organizations to smear anyone they disagree with? Will the AJC now keep a blacklist of people who attend meetings where divestment is discussed? Are professionals to be prohibited from competing for public contracts if they join groups that oppose the occupation? How far is this going to go?

Calling all New Yorkers: If you want to raise your voice against the smear campaign - if you think Rogers’ association with Architects and Planners for Justice is irrelevant and should not be considered in the awarding of the Javits Center and and Waterfront contracts - please contact New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (contact info here) and Governer George Pataki (here) and tell them so.

Even if you’re not from New York State - they should hear from you. Don’t let this be done in your name.