semitism.net

Charles Jacobs has made a career of accusing media outlets, human rights organizations and, of course, Columbia University of anti-Semitism. Dr. Jacobs’ true colors were on display at a conference at Columbia earlier this month, when he, himself, used a particularly offensive anti-Semitic slur to refer to Jews who dissent from his ultranationalist positions. From The Jewish Week:

Charles Jacobs, founder of the David Project, one of the event’s sponsors and the man behind the “Columbia Unbecoming” documentary, called Jewish critics of the film, including some Columbia professors, “Marranos of Morningside Heights,” a derogatory reference to Jews who converted to Christianity to avoid the Spanish Inquisition.

“Marrano” is Spanish for swine. In the fourteenth century, the Catholic Church headed a campaign to purge Spain of its Jewish population. Fifty thousand Jews were killed in riots and another one hundred thousand were forced to convert. Some of the converts secretly retained their Jewish identities and practiced their religion in secret. They were dubbed Marranos and were the target of the Inquisition, which lasted from 1478 to 1834.

Over the course of the Inquisition, nearly half a million Jews underwent a “trial” consisting of physical torture designed to elicit a confession, and 30,000 were burned at the stake. The public execution of a Marrano was called an Auto-de-Fe (Act of Faith).

One can only assume that Dr. Jacobs wishes the same fate for Jewish faculty and students who have thrown a wrench in his works by defending the Arab professors in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures (MEALAC) who are the target of his film.

The professors accused in the film are forceful critics of Israel. The film does not purport to question their right to hold or teach this view. Rather, it alleges that these professors have created a classroom atmosphere inimical to dissent, and are thus infringing on the freedom of Jewish students to express their own pro-Israel views.

The basis for this approach is well outlined in a paper called “Tenured or Tenuous” prepared by the Israel on Campus Coalition, of which Dr. Jacobs’ organization, The David Project, is a member. The paper serves as a strategic blueprint for combating academic criticism of Israel.

One of the most difficult and frustrating aspects of confronting the problem of anti-Israel behavior by faculty is the umbrella most universities give to their staff under the rubric of academic freedom…

Faculty speech is almost always protected from discipline by principles of academic freedom. The ideal of academic freedom demands that faculty members on university campuses be free to develop and espouse original and controversial ideas. Universities that have attempted to silence or remove faculty members for unpopular speech have faced significant pressure from the academic community not to do so. For these reasons, most universities are reluctant to regulate the speech of their professors both in and out of the classroom.

The paper goes on to suggest a remedy:

…colleges and universities are required to provide a learning environment that is safe and free from hostility for all students. A school violates its duty to prevent a hostile environment when

• a hostile environment exists;
• the school has notice of the problem; and
• it fails to respond adequately to remedy the situation.

In keeping with this strategy, “Columbia Unbecoming” claims legitimacy not as a polemic against anti-Israel sentiment among faculty, but more broadly as as a defense of student rights and academic freedom. In the early phases of the project, Dr. Jacobs and his colleagues were very careful to stick to the script. He wrote in The Columbia Spectator in November:

We believe that the values of tolerance, pluralism, and civil society are prerequisites for achieving genuine peace. We do not endorse a political agenda beyond Israel’s right to exist peacefully among its neighbors. We believe in Jewish political self-determination in the Middle East, and are proud to be called Zionists. We also believe in the Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

We had never heard of Professor Joseph Massad before we were invited last October to hear students’ concerns. These students love Columbia, but are troubled by certain professors who promote a biased education and deny dissenting views in class. We made the film to ensure that students’ voices be heard, and thereby encourage Columbia’s administration to take corrective actions.

Now, flush with success, they are getting a little sloppy. The conference referenced above was titled “The Middle East and Academic Integrity on the American Campus.” It was sponsored by The David Project along with, according to a report in the Forward,

the Zionist Organization of America, which opposes the creation of a Palestinian state and American peace efforts, and…Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, a three-year old organization that is working to “develop effective responses to the ideological distortions, including antisemitic and anti-Zionist slanders, that poison debate and work against peace.”

The anti-Arab agenda is pretty hard to miss.

In one especially fiery speech, Phyllis Chesler, professor emerita at the College of Staten Island and author of “The New Anti-Semitism,” argued, “The largest practitioner of apartheid on the planet is Islam, in terms of both religious apartheid and gender apartheid…”

Chesler, in a speech enthusiastically received by the crowd, said that the Palestine Solidarity Movement, an organization that has demonstrated on many American campuses, “is a group in my opinion that’s quite similar to the Ku Klux Klan, or to the Nazi party.”

One of the sharpest-edged speeches came right at the end, from the president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein. “There is no occupation,” Klein said, referring to Israel’s presence in the West Bank and Gaza.

Ariel Beery helped Jacobs produce “Columbia Unbecoming.” He and two other students tried to distance themselves from the more extreme statements made at the conference.

“Much of what has been said today is not only unproductive, it is counterproductive,” Beery said. “Anything that is said in order to disparage or to generalize or to characterize some type of people is wrong.”

The students drew angry shouts from an audience that had applauded their arrival onstage moments earlier. Their appearance was billed as a question-and-answer session, but the students were cut off by the organizers after just a few minutes…

Jacobs defended the tack taken by most of the day’s speakers.

“It’s more than (the student’s) story now,” Jacobs said. “Their story is harassment and intimidation. The story now includes not how what’s being taught is taught, but what is being taught, and who has captured these departments.”

Well, yes. Exactly. Was Mr. Beery really suprised to find out that Jacobs had an ulterior motive in making the film?

If he is looking for a place to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with academic rigor, and without invective, perhaps Mr. Beery should try taking a class in MEALAC. According to Columbia student Elisheva Cohen, whose testimony was collected by Eric Posner along with that of twenty-four others in support of the department,

I, as a Jew who is fairly supportive (though critical) of Israel, have had nothing but positive experiences in the MEALAC department… To be honest, in all the MEALAC classes I have taken, Professor Massad, more than any other professor.. is open to hearing the other side, answering questions, and entertaining criticism. In my experience, he does it readily because, as a teacher, it is his job to make students think.

At any rate, Liel Leibovitz, writing in The Jewish Week, found the values of tolerance and pluralism honored mainly in the breach by the conference’s erstwhile defenders of academic integrity:

When Chesler defended Israel’s actions regarding the 2002 battle in Jenin, one woman in the audience shouted, “We should have bombed them from the start” - referring to the Palestinian residents of Jenin.

“We should have killed them all,” a man yelled.

Another man in the audience, who turned out to be a member of the leftist group Jews Against the Occupation, rose to ask a question, prefacing his remarks by saying that he had once been shot by the Israeli army.

He was drowned out by a sea of invectives.

“Too bad they missed,” shouted a young man with a denim shirt.

Another man added, “They should have shot you in the head…”

The Jewish Week’s reporter was approached with…demands for identification and was flash-photographed repeatedly by a woman in the audience. When asked to stop, the woman said, “We’re taking pictures of you. We want to know who you are.”

A New York Times photographer, taking photos of the silenced dissenter from Jews Against the Occupation leaving the room, was surrounded by a large group of people telling her to put down her camera.

I understand that the New York Department of Health has located the dog that bit these conferees, and placed it under quarantine.

I’m happy to report that the Columbia students who support MEALAC have put up an excellent web site called Censoring Thought, and an accompanying weblog of the same name.

As to Dr. Jacobs’ anti-Semitic slur… I find it deeply offensive, as will many Jews who are proud of our heritage. Forced converts from Spain were among the first Jews to settle in the New World. American Jewry owes its existence to them.

Readers who wish to take action might consider filing a complaint against Dr. Jacobs with the Anti-Defamation League. This can be done online by following the link.

Last week’s New York Times story on the film “Columbia Unbecoming” was balanced, in the sense that equal weight was given to those who agreed and disagreed with the film’s allegations of intimidation of Jewish students by Arab professors at Columbia University.

But in focusing on the controversy the film caused on campus, the article misses the main point. “Columbia Unbecoming” is part of a larger strategy by the conservative pro-Israel lobby to suppress campus criticism of Israel.

The David Project, which has ties to neoconservative think-tank The Mideast Forum, also belongs to a larger group called The Israel on Campus Coalition. The Coalition is made up of right-wing Jewish organizations such as AIPAC and the Anti-Defamation League. Its goal is “to promote Israel education and advocacy on university campuses across the United States.”.

The Coalition’s strident opposition to dissent is evident in a recent report titled “Tenured or Tenuous: The Role of Faculty in Supporting Israel on Campus“.

Anti-Israel teachings in the classroom create a hostile learning environment for students and place pro-Israel students, in particular, under great pressure. Professors may try to impose their views on students and can coerce them by punishing those who do not agree with them with lower grades or withholding recommendations. Even if professors do not go to such extremes, students may still be intimidated by the fear of retaliation.

The malignant teachings of anti-Israel scholars spreads like a cancerous growth throughout the academy by way of publications and conferences.

It is notable how closely the conclusions of “Columbia Unbecoming” - that students are being coerced and intimidated by anti-Israel professors - mirror those of the report. Equally notable are the ways the film bends the truth to reach these conclusions.

• The most dramatic acccusations in the film are based on brief, unsubstantiated public encounters with MEALAC professors by pro-Israel students who never took a class in the department.
• None of the students who complain of intimidation in the documentary made any attempt to notify the University administration of the incidents or to pursue grievances through existing channels at Columbia.
• The filmmakers talked to Jewish students who denied intimidation, but refused to interview them for the film.
• Many of those who were interviewed were misrepresented. Four of the seven students in the film later told Jewish Week that the film was wrong - they had good relationships with their MEALAC professors and there was no intimidation.
• Jewish students who have taken courses in MEALAC are virtually unanimous in their support of the accused professors.

Despite the evidence that the film is a piece of flim-flam, Columbia’s president is under enormous public pressure to address the issues it raises. He has appointed an investigative panel, which will meet twice a week to hear student testimony on the topic and make recommendations.

The Times observes:

A curious facet of the dispute is that for the most part, the complaining students seem much less angry than people on the periphery. For instance, Mr. Schoenfeld, [a student featured in the film] who took only a few Mealac courses and has graduated, said he has no problem with the department and did not find it unbalanced. He does not think Professor Massad should be fired.

On the other hand, an assistant professor in the medical school sent an e-mail message to Professor Massad, saying: “Go back to Arab land where Jew hating is condoned. Get the hell out of America. You are a disgrace and a pathetic typical Arab liar.”

And therein lies the point. The film was not made to help students who were threatened by professors. It was made to expose and intimidate academic critics of Israel. This is part of the political strategy of the far-right Israel-expansionist groups that make up the Israel on Campus Coalition. The film’s intended audience is the periphery.

Regardless of what the panel recommends, The David Project has already accomplished its goal. Columbia is at the center of a major controversy. The school’s reputation is tarnished, and donors and alumnae are putting pressure on the president to end the publicity by getting rid of offending faculty.

It is impossible to gauge the institutional damage from the quarrel. Some faculty members say alumni have told them they will withhold donations. Other professors say some parents are directing their children elsewhere. “Parents of Jewish students have said to me, given the turmoil at Columbia, I think I’ll send my kid to Penn,” one professor said.

Most importantly, academic institutions all over the country have been put on notice: watch what your faculty members say about Israel. We can do the same thing to you.

I wrote in an earlier post about The David Project - a Boston-based organization that has made a film about alleged harrassment of Jewish students by professors at Columbia University. The film seems to target professors who have made statements critical of Israel. Jewish students in the department, interviewed by Jewish Week, denied harassment. Nonetheless, the film has created an uproar at Columbia, sparked an internal investigation, and caused one professor, Dr. Joseph Massad, to cancel a class on Palestinian and Israeli politics.

The president of The David Project is Dr. Charles Jacobs. His bio makes him sound like a pretty upright guy. Directly from the site, he was

[the] founder of the American Anti-Slavery Group and co-founder of CAMERA. A veteran of the civil rights movement, Jacobs received the 2000 Boston Freedom Award from Coretta Scott King, as well as the Keter Torah award from the Bureau of Jewish Education in 2003. He has appeared on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, ABC Nightly News, and PBS - and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Los Angeles Times.

Now, The David Project looks like kind of a small operation. A fellow like that must have a day job, right? Yup. He does. He works for a PR firm called Benador Associates. The firm seems to have a particular interest in the Middle East, Islam and terrorism. It has a roster of public speakers, including such neoconservative lights as Richard Perle, Charles Krauthammer and Andrew McCarthy. It’s just opened up a new branch, specializing in campus events.

Dr. Jacobs also happens to be mentioned favorably by Daniel Pipes’ Campus Watch, and will be speaking for the new Israel on Campus Coalition funded by pro-Israel groups.

His bio on the Benador site clarifies the nature of his civil rights activism. Evidently he “attended Dr. Martin Luther King’s March on Washington in 1963″. He’s also the Director of the Sudan Campaign, “a coalition of activist and rights groups calling for an end to slavery and slaughter in Africa’s largest nation.”

I was intested in Dr. Jacobs’ human rights work. The Benador site was kind enough to reprint an article he had written in the Boston Globe on the slavery issue, called Why Israel and not Sudan, is singled out. He states that in Sudan,

atrocities…exceed every other world horror… In Khartoum, a Taliban-like Muslim regime is waging a self-declared jihad on African Christians and followers of tribal faiths in South Sudan… Tens of thousands have been displaced, and 100,000, according to the US Committee on Refugees, forcibly starved.

He goes on to give some particularly graphic examples of rape and mutilation. Then he gets to his main point:

It is hard to explain why victims of slavery and slaughter are virtually ignored by American progressives. How can it be that there is no storm of indignation at Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, which, though they rushed to Jenin to investigate false reports of Jews massacring Arabs, care so much less about Arab-occupied Juba, South Sudan’s black capital?

The answer? Suprise! The human rights community has a double standard, obsessively criticizing Jews and others of European descent, while remaining mum in the face of atrocities committed by non-whites, especially Arabs. Hmm. You can disprove this pretty easily with a visit to the the Amnesty International web site.

Then there’s the piece he wrote in 2003 after NPR aired a series exploring the Mideast conflict:

NPR’s relentless effort to single out Israel in a demonizing fashion is very disturbing. As organized Palestinian violence continues to rage, and as a new anti-Semitism, connected to the Middle East conflict, arises worldwide, the stakes have been raised. There is a growing sense in the Jewish community that NPR’s defamation of Israel contributes to a climate of intellectual and even physical hostility against Jews everywhere. When NPR reporters call a terrorist who shoots children cowering in bed a “militant,” or the head of a terrorist organization a “spiritual leader,” they debase the English language and they cheapen Jewish life by making attacks against Jews seem normal, even legitimate.

Actually it was an excellent series, scrupulously balanced, and not even remotely anti-Jewish. So what’s the deal with Charles Jacobs? He presents himself as a humanitarian, a civil rights campaigner, an activist on behalf of enslaved Africans - but all his lines of argument eventually seem to turn into attacks on progressives, the media, etc. for anti-Israel bias.

In 1999, Ismail Royer, the Washington Bureau Chief of the Muslim media outlet Iviews, did a little research on Dr. Jacobs’ background. According to his report, Jacobs has also served as a spokesperson for the National Unity Coalition for Israel and the President of The Mosaic Group, and has affiliations with several other right-wing pro-Israel groups.

In The National Unity Coalition, Jews are collaborating with Christian Zionists to advocate for permanent Israeli annexation of the occupied territories (see my post from November 21). Americans for Peace Now accused members of the Coalition of deceptive proselytizing.

The Iviews article and another in Shia News suggest that the American Anti-Slavery Group grew directly out of Jacobs’ pro-Israel advocacy. The group is associated with the South Sudan Independence Army (SSIA) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), which have reputedly received funding from Israel and have been accused themselves of human rights abuses. The Shia article quotes a colleague of Jacobs’ as saying, with regard to Mosaic, “Well, it’s not the name that he [Jacobs] goes under anymore. I think that sort of fell by the wayside when he renamed it the American Anti-Slavery Group”.

It looks to me like Jacobs’ anti-slavery work is a front for hard right pro-Israel advocacy. To speak out about human rights abuses as a matter of conscience is admirable. To use human suffering as a propaganda tool is contemptible. Students should know about Jacobs’ background before they invite him to talk on their campuses. Columbia University should also take it into consideration in investigating the flap caused by his organization’s film. Mainstream American Judaism would do well to put a good distance between itself and operators like Charles Jacobs.