Israel Lobby Intimidates American Academia

by Riaz Haq

May 5, 2009

"Gaza is Israel's Warsaw -- a vast concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians. We are witness to a slow-motion process of genocide," says sociology professor William I. Robinson of University of California at Santa Barbara. As is the norm at universities in America, any criticism of Israel is immediately followed by an orchestrated campaign of attacks and intimidation against the critic. In this case, there has been swift condemnation of professor Robinson, who is Jewish, as being an anti-Semite. Beyond verbal attacks, he is being actively harassed by the well-known actors usually involved in curbing any freedom of expression that involves criticism of the Jewish state. In addition to its powerful presence in Washington, the Israel lobby has moved into the university campuses in America to ‘take back the campuses’, according to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt of Harvard university. The Israeli lobby also monitors what professors write and teach. In September 2002, Martin Kramer and Daniel Pipes, two passionately pro-Israel neo-conservatives, established a website (Campus Watch) that posted dossiers on suspect academics and encouraged students to report remarks or behavior that might be considered hostile to Israel. This transparent attempt to blacklist and intimidate scholars provoked a harsh reaction and Pipes and Kramer later removed the dossiers, but the website still invites students to report ‘anti-Israel’ activity. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of all this is the efforts Jewish groups have made to push Congress into establishing mechanisms to monitor what professors say. If they manage to get this passed, universities judged to have an anti-Israel bias would be denied federal funding. Their efforts have not yet succeeded, but they are an indication of the importance placed on controlling debate.
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  • Riaz Haq

    Ex #CIA officer Valerie Plame blames #Jews for #America's wars on behalf of #Israel, then backtracks. #Iran #Iraq

    http://www.jpost.com/International/Former-CIA-officer-blames-Jews-f...

    Valerie Plame Wilson, a former covert CIA operative, caused a controversy on Thursday when she tweeted several antisemitic messages to her nearly 50,000 followers. 

    ''American Jews are driving America's Wars,'' the rampage began. The tweet linked to an article from UNZ.com, a site that claims "a collection of interesting, important, and controversial perspectives largely excluded from the American Mainstream Media.'' 


    The article, written by Philip Giraldi - whose author page on the site reveals a plethora of articles focusing on Israel and Jewish leaders like former Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz - suggested that Jews working in foreign policy-making positions should 'recuse themselves when dealing with the Middle East.''

    Twitter users were quick to criticize Plame Wilson, who then charged that her retweet was ''not an endorsement'' before sharing that she is ''of Jewish descent.'' She then told Twitter users to ''put aside [their] biases and think clearly.''

    In what could be construed as a contradiction, the pinned tweet at the top of Plame Wilson's page links to a GoFundMe petition that aims to ban President Donald Trump from Twitter for his use of the platform to encourage what she labeled 'violence and hate.'

    With Twitter users lambasting her for her comments, Plame Wilson sent out several apologetic tweets two hours after her original controversial one. She tweeted that she "messed up'' having only skimmed the article, and that the whole situation was ''a doozy.'' She then replaced the pinned tweet about Trump with her apology. 

    "There is so much there that's problematic,'' the tweets continued. "Thank you for pushing me to look again.''

    Plame Wilson was the center of a political scandal in the early 2000s after her identity as a covert officer in the CIA was leaked by a journalist. Plame Wilson had penned a memo to senior officials in which she recommended her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for a diplomatic mission to investigate claims by the then-president that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had purchased uranium from different African countries. 

    After her husband published several op-eds about the mission and publicly disputed the president's claims, a journalist named Robert Novak "outed" Plame Wilson as an "agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.'' 

    The scandal and subsequent court cases led to Plame Wilson's resignation from the agency in 2005. Since then, she has stayed largely out of the media - aside from selling the rights to her story to Warner Bros. for a film than was highly criticized for its inaccuracies - after moving to New Mexico to work as a consultant. 

    Sep 25, 2017

  • Riaz Haq

    #israelelections2019: How Jewish Should #Israel Be? #Jewish men and women are drafted into #military, but ultra-Orthodox #Jews are exempt. Unlike other #Israelis, many ultra-#Orthodox receive state subsidies to study the Torah and raise large families https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/world/middleeast/israeli-electio...

    In a country buffeted by a festering conflict with the Palestinians, increasingly open warfare with Iran and a prime minister facing indictment on corruption charges, the election has been surprisingly preoccupied with the question of just how Jewish — and whose idea of Jewish — the Jewish state should be.

    “I have nothing against the ultra-Orthodox, but they should get what they deserve according to their size,” said Lior Amiel, 49, a businessman who was out shopping in Ramat Hasharon. “Currently, I’m funding their lifestyle.”

    This election was supposed to be a simple do-over, a quick retake to give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a second chance to form a government and his opponents another shot at running him out of office.

    Instead it has become what Yohanan Plesner, president of the nonpartisan Israel Democracy Institute, calls “a critical campaign for the trajectory of the country.”

    Blame Avigdor Lieberman, the right-wing secular politician who forced the new election by refusing to join Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition with the ultra-Orthodox. The hill Mr. Lieberman chose to fight on was a new law that would eliminate the wholesale exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men to serve in the military.

    Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers wanted to water it down. Mr. Lieberman refused to compromise.

    It may have been a ploy to grab attention, but it struck a nerve. Almost overnight, Mr. Lieberman’s support doubled, and he became an unlikely hero to liberals.

    For years, says Jason Pearlman, a veteran right-wing political operative, the two main axes of Israeli politics, religion and the Palestinians, had been “zip-tied” together. Mr. Netanyahu’s longtime coalition was just such a merger — right-wing voters, who favored a hard line toward the Palestinians, and the ultra-Orthodox, who promised a bloc vote in exchange for concessions on religious issues.

    “What Lieberman did was to snap those zip-ties, popping the axes back apart,” Mr. Pearlman said.

    Secular and liberal leaders from the left and center responded by effectively joining forces with the right-wing Mr. Lieberman against the prime minister’s ultra-Orthodox and religious-nationalist allies.


    ----------

    Most of them favor annexation of the West Bank, which would nearly extinguish the possibility of a two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict, and many support building a Third Temple on the site of the Dome of the Rock, an affront to a Muslim holy site that could set off a cataclysmic holy war.
    ------------------

    More than 70 percent of the population wants the Sabbath “to be a more free day” and favors civil marriage and other changes that the ultra-Orthodox have blocked, said Gilad Malach, a scholar who studies the them.

    Mr. Netanyahu has desperately tried to change the subject, repeatedly bringing security threats to the fore.

    “For him, these issues are ticking bombs,” said Mr. Plesner, of the Israel Democracy Institute. “He’s on a collision course with his own voters. The majority of Likud voters are secular or traditional, and do not support the ultra-Orthodox demands.”

    But opponents have learned never to write off Mr. Netanyahu, and he could still make the numbers work. The recent fiery attacks on the ultra-Orthodox offer just the threat to rally the base and potentially bring back into the fold voters who might otherwise stray to more modern parties.

    Sep 13, 2019

  • Riaz Haq

    Chris Menahan 🇺🇸
    @infolibnews
    Israeli-American Council to billionaire Haim Saban: How do you buy and exercise influence over politicians in the US?

    Saban: "I wanna be cautious…We just play within the system…Those who give more have more access, and those who give less have less access—it's simple math."

    https://x.com/infolibnews/status/2012732736193151356?s=20

    ---------------
    Suppressed News.
    @SuppressedNws1
    🇺🇸🇮🇱They aren’t even trying to hide it!

    IAC to Zionist billionaire Miriam Adelson: How do you buy and exercise influence over politicians in the U.S?

    Adelson: "Can you allow me not to answer? ... I want to be truthful and there are so many things I don't want to talk about."

    Clip:
    @infolibnews

    -----------------

    Ryan Rozbiani
    @RyanRozbiani
    Billionaires at the Israeli-American Council talk about how they Buy U.S. Politicians and Influence Them to help Israel

    Billionaire Miriam Adelson
    - $5 Million to AIPAC (2024)
    - $100 Million to Trump via Preserve America PAC (2024)
    - $4.9 Million to Friends of the IDF (2021)

    Billionaire Haim Saban
    - $1 Million to AIPAC via United Democracy Project (2023)
    - $10 Million to Friends of the IDF (2021)
    - $30 Million raised for Friends of the IDF

    https://x.com/RyanRozbiani/status/2012749837775626339?s=20

    11 hours ago