The Zionist Silencing Machine...Seven Examples of Zionist Authoritarianism
Press Action
Friday, September 10, 2004
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/cummings09102004/
By Jordy Cummings
First of all, I want to add a caveat to what I am saying. I think that this “silencing” and threatening tactic obscures the fact that there are many people who refer to themselves as Zionists, even those who are in favor of federal binationalism (in a piecemeal process that would start with two states) like myself (going back to Achad Ha’am and Martin Buber and Albert Einstien.) I think Ted Honderich put it best at Counterpunch when he differentiated between “Zionists” and “NeoZionists.”
In between these two forces is the Jewish establishment, who may not be in favor of the tactics of the NeoCon or Neo-Kahanist terrorists, but are sure cowed by them. You know who you are. As an example I give Mordechai Ben Dat, erstwhile CBC reporter and leftist turned Zionist (of the Barak variety) and editor of the Canadian Jewish News. Visiting his office in Toronto, he told me the bulletproof glass was not because of threats from Islamists or Skinheads, but from the Kahanist community, the Jewish Defense League, etc.
Ben Dat, who privately seems quite contemptuous of North American Jews, recently asserted that Canada “appeased” Islam (he uses it like “communism” was once used) by not taking part in Bush’s Iraq adventures, and as of late swoons about Iyad Allawi. Not a word on how he appeases the Kahanists and extricating all progressive content from the CJnews, once a Yiddishist Socialist newspaper, now one that lauds Sylvio Berlusconi and buries stories of Jews being ethnically cleansed in the Balkans.
Still, Mordechai and others claim to be truly against Sharon. Some high figures in the Jewish establishment claim to even be heavily critical of the wall. A donor rebellion to a local Jewish charity made the money that was to go to settlers go to a special foundation/NGO backed project to resettle the “Settlers” in “Israel Proper.” Yet at the same time, whether out of fear or assignment, they tell the elderly and working class Jewish community of Canada, those who depend on the CJnews many the “noble lie” about how in danger they are, and that the story of Israeli spies in the Pentagon is a “rumour” and “AntiSemitic,” though privately registering fear over these proven charges.
The Modus Operandi is one of silencing any information that may discredit Israel more than it has already been discredited. The trick is not to go after all critics of Israel, but to paint in broad swaths, while targeting either activists who get “too deep” (see example 1) or Jews who question the Status Quo…
I thus offer seven distinct examples of Zionist silencing tactics:
1) Kurt Nimmo, an excellent writer/photographer from New Mexico writes about some very uncomfortable and controversial topics in regard to Israel and Hamas, and the well-known fact that Russia and Israel had advanced warning (they warned the States according to Al Qaeda expert Peter Bergen) of the 9-11 attacks. A character turns up, possibly someone employed to monitor those “new AntiSemites” (I know of Israel lobby groups that pay recent Communications graduates to engage in “Hasbarah” activities on the internet.) This character asserts mental illness on Kurt’s part, not specifically different from the treatment of dissidents in the Stalin and Breznev eras in the Soviet Union, or for that matter, Thermidor France.
2) Someone claiming to be Kurt Nimmo left a few death threats on my own telephone answering machine last week. The object here seemed to be creating distance between Jewish and non-Jewish Anti-Sharon activists and writers. The message, in a fake Texan accent actually claimed to “know where I live,” and that “Jews” would be targeted soon. After writing about said threats on my web-blog, knowing that Kurt was not the agent of said threats, presumably the same fellow turns up in my comment board threatening me. After engaging the Press Action community, it was confirmed that Kurt had nothing to do with this, and instead, it was some thug/paid agent of some sort. Press Action editor Mark Hand kindly e-mailed me a deleted comment, in which said Hasbarah operative broadcasts my home address and phone number. Idiot didn’t get my apartment number though, and I wouldn’t want to mess with my superintendent.
3) It is an open secret (at the request of friends, I am not using names) that a well known female Rabbi at a local Temple has been forced to cease and desist from working with mainstream peace groups like Rabbis for Human Rights, Brit Tzedek and Gush Shalom. Many religous folks have stopped attending services, complaining that the sermons have nothing to do with Judaism. A journalist from CJnews, also known for working with CIA-backed right wingers in Canada, Stephen Harper et. al, questioned me the last time I wrote of this, openly admitting that he was planning to smear this woman in the pages of the Canadian Jewish News, thus getting her fired. Fortunately, the progressive Jewish community has gotten involved at this Temple, and it looks like our neocon Rabbi may be getting the boot instead…
4) When I moved to Toronto, from Montreal two summers ago, one of the first orders of business for me was buying a Mezuzzah (the small vial with Hebraic designs holding a Torah passage, that all Jews are to have by their door.) Despite my relative atheism, I still feel affinity to the old ritual aspects of Judaism. Visiting my local Judaica shop to buy a Tourmaline and Turqoise Mezzuzah (quite beautiful) I noticed a large display of Joan Peters’ discredited From Time Immemorial, the “Mein Kampf” of the Likud, a racist text that asserts that Palestinians arrived in Palestine AFTER Jewish immigration. Twenty years ago, Norman Finkelstien proved that Peters was a vast fraud. I explained this to the lovely Russian Jewish woman at the counter, who was fascinated and asked for sources. I walked the three blocks home and brought her my copy of Said and Hitchens’ Blaming the Victims in which Finkelstien’s essay regarding Peters’ fraud is featured, along with excellent work from other Palestinians and their advocates.
“If this is true,” she said to me, “then we have to stop selling this book!”
Two days later I returned and she was behind the counter, looking dejected. She showed her boss, an Israeli (a Toronto Jewish joke goes “Who is a worse boss than an Orthodox Jew? An Israeli Orthodox Jew”...and Jews are the ones who tell this joke) who spat at the mention of Finkelstien and went into the old Chomsky holocaust denier nonsense tirade. My friend asserted herself and asked why, even if all of these folks (Finkelstien et. al) were “enemies” than why should they still sell a book that even Daniel Pipes has called a fraud? Her boss spat at the ground, and that was that.
5) I first became heavily involved in Palestinian rights after innocuously writing a “Yom Kippur” essay in my university newspaper. Being that Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish year, specifically the day of atonement, I suggested that Jews should collectively atone for the treatment of Palestinians. I also—it was literally the next day—heavily criticized the still seemingly marginal Sharon for visiting the Temple Mount to intentionally provoke the new Intifada. Outside of the Conservative Synagogue I attended with relatives in Montreal, while putting on my “tallit,” I was accosted by an old classmate and a group of others, who called me a “self-hating Jew” and wondered why I was even attending services. I found it funny, but the further the distance I have from that day, the more I realize that this was the experience that turned me into foremost enemy of the Neo-Zionist liars who are trying to destroy the Jewish community.
6) A year or so later, as I’d come to be known as a Pro Palestinian Jew, I started receiving extreme death threats on my answering machine. Recently a pamphlet had been circulated among Jewish campus groups regarding “SHITs” (self hating Israeli threateners) and so it was that we would be targeted. This was around January/February 2002. I did the sensible thing and changed my phone number. A few days later, the crazies had my phone number again. One day in April, while entertaining people, I got a message that “we’re right outside.” A white van (was it OJ working for Dersh?) was parked on Queen Mary, right outside my building. When I went out to the balcony and saw them, they drove off. This happened a few times, and though I was never able to get their license plate, I did consult with the RCMP, who told me that that many Jewish people, as well as Arab Canadians, were experiencing similar difficulties. The kind and Quebecois Federale told me there was just about nothing he could do about it.
7) The response by the Left and Pro Palestinian groups seems to be exactly what the NeoKahanists had in mind. One group asserts truthfully that the Israeli lobby is far too powerful, and should be the focus of analysis. The other has been to shamefully—like Michael Moore telling Rabbi Shmuley Boteach that he “loves Israel”—continue to profess support for Palestine and Palestinians, also seem to bend over backwards to re-assure Israelis and Jews that they are not AntiSemites, thus distancing themselves from the first group. Both group approaches are problematic, the first in terms of nomenclature and exaggeration, leading to shoddy analysis some of the time, and offensive language at others. The second provides an opening to critique the first, not as tactically wrong but as inauthentic. The aim is to create sectarianism. The best approach would be to close ranks on both criticizing the Zionist lobby, while understanding that 70 percent of North American Jews don’t back them. As much as I respect Bill and Kathleen Christison and Jeff Blankfort, I think “dual loyalties” is a term with too much weight. Instead, a term like “Israel Symp” is strong enough.
Any time, as well, it is asserted that reporting the Israeli spy story is called “Anti Semitic,” remember that Ha’aretz—particularly the Hebrew edition—is giving the story incredible coverage.
Jordy Cummings, editor of Pure Polemics, lives in Toronto and can be reached at yorgos33ca@yahoo.ca.