Motto of Anti-Israel Academics: "Free Speech For Me, But Not for Thee!"

Do anti-Israel professors "tremble in fear" when they criticize Israel at Harvard and other American universities? Not likely, if you have any sense of what's going on on college campuses today where Israel-bashing is rampant among hard left faculty and students. But a Harvard professor named J. Lorand Matory who teaches anthropology and Afro-American studies, whined to the Harvard faculty last week that he "tremble[s] in fear" whenever he criticizes Israel. Well, he must tremble an awful lot, since he spends so much of his time criticizing Israel, a country he has never even visited and a country that he recently told an interviewer he has never even read a book about. Matory submitted a motion stating that "this faculty commits itself to fostering civil dialogue in which people with a broad range of perspectives feel safe and are encouraged to express their reasoned and evidence-based ideas." Nothing wrong with encouraging free speech as long as speech is free to people representing different perspectives. But Matory's motion received support from other paragons of political correctness, who are well-known for their advocacy of censorship of the "offensive" speech of others, but who are now complaining that there's not enough free speech for them at Harvard.

At Columbia University, on the other hand, a group of professors -- who are generally in sync with their extremist colleagues at Harvard -- are complaining that Columbia's President, Lee C. Bollinger, has too much freedom of speech when it comes to the Middle East. A campaign is underway to rebuke Bollinger for expressing his personal views about the Iranian dictator, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Led by well-known radicals such as Eric Foner -- who complained that Bollinger's harsh description of Ahmadinejad was "completely inaccurate" -- these politically correct censors want to muzzle Bollinger. They also want to muzzle students, alumni, and other "outsiders," who have legitimate complaints about the Middle East Studies Department, which has become a wholly owned subsidiary of radical Islam.

It all seems so inconsistent unless you understand what the real agenda is, and then everything becomes completely clear and totally consistent. The agenda is Israel. If you're against Israel -- as Matory, Foner, and their ilk are -- then they want you to have complete freedom to speak against the Jewish state (as they certainly should and do). If, on the other hand, you're perceived as pro-Israel (or pro-American, for that matter), then suddenly you have no right to free speech. It is so transparently cynical that I'm amazed that any reasonable person actually falls for it.

The hypocrisy is rather easy to spot if you've been around long enough to remember when it was leaders of the radical left, led by MIT linguist Noam Chomsky, who were trying to intrude on the tenure process for political reasons. I recall vividly when Chomsky campaigned to prevent Columbia from granting a tenured position to Henry Kissinger. Chomsky spoke at a noisy rally against Kissinger's tenure. It was that same Chomsky who complained when I wrote a letter -- in response to a request from the former chairman of the political science department -- detailing misquotations, made-up facts, and other scholarly sins by anti-Israel extremist Norman Finkelstein and urging DePaul University to deny him tenure. I also remember when it was Professor Matory who tried to prevent former University President Lawrence H. Summers from exercising his freedom of speech with regard to Israel when he was president.

What I don't remember (because it didn't happen) are any complaints by these born-again freedom of speech phonies when Summers, as a mere professor, was prevented from making a speech to the University of California Board of Regents this September. Those political-correctniks who weren't actually demanding censorship of Summers were predictably silent because it wasn't one of theirs who was being censored. Nor do I remember (because it didn't happen) the hard left at Columbia protesting when the University provost defended an anti-Israel professor who was caught by a camera throwing a rock at an Israeli guardhouse. Nor do I remember (because it didn't happen) Professor Matory complaining when Israel's former Prime Minister Ehud Barak was prevented from speaking at Concordia University by a hard-left anti-Israel crowd of violent censors. For that matter, where was Columbia's Eric Foner when the leader of the Minutemen was chased off the stage at Columbia by another group of freedom-suppressing hooligans?

I challenge Matory and his hard left political cronies to show a history of supporting the free speech rights of those they disagree with. Has Matory defended the right of Professor James D. Watson, whose despicable theories of racial inferiority resulted in the cancellation of his speech at Rockefeller University? I, and many other genuine civil libertarians, have long histories of defending the free speech rights of those we most despise. I supported the right of Nazis to march in Skokie, Ill. 40 years ago. I opposed the cancellation of a speech by Tom Paulin, who advocated the murder of Israelis. I defended, pro bono, a virulently anti-Israel Stanford professor who was fired for inciting violence. I opposed Harvard's attempt to prevent students from flying the Palestinian flag to commemorate the death of mass-murderer Yasser Arafat.

Don't expect the defense of those with whom they disagree from the Israel-bashers at Columbia, Harvard, and MIT. For them, it is "free speech for me, but not for thee!"

Freedom of speech to criticize Israel and the U.S. is alive and well at Harvard and most other universities. Matory need not "tremble in fear" of anything except his pernicious opinions being rebutted in the marketplace of ideas.

Freedom of speech to criticize Palestinian extremism is however in short supply at many American and European universities. Jewish students do actually "tremble in fear" of offending anti-Israel professors who have the power to downgrade and negatively recommend them. This is an issue that deserves serious attention in the real world of academia, rather than in Matory's ersatz world of topsy-turvy newspeak.

So let us all support complete free speech for every perspective relating to the Middle East, not just for perspectives supported by the hard left.

Comments

[fmmcfarren]

See, if you scream you are being censored, then you get ample space to sling mud and make personal attacks against other academics. You might as well start attacking me, Mr. Dershowtiz. I criticize Israel all the time, and I think you should be muzzled. You are no different than Malkin, Beck, or Coulter.
That being said, I will bleed my last drop of blood to protect the freedoms you abuse, and try to deny others.

[guajiro]

". But Matory's motion received support from other paragons of political correctness, who are well-known for their advocacy of censorship of the "offensive" speech of others, but who are now complaining that there's not enough free speech for them at Harvard."
Ah yes, Alan, the old strawman fallacy argument. Set up the 'paragons'(the straw man) and then knock them down, thus 'proving' Matory is just as evil.

"The agenda is Israel. If you're against Israel -- as Matory, Foner, and their ilk are -- then they want you to have complete freedom to speak against the Jewish state"

You really should be honest about the facts as you present them Alan. From Matory's own writing is the following:
"In a 2006 faculty meeting, Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature Ruth R. Wisse vocalized the underlying rationale of such censorship as few other professors have dared. Denying that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are separate phenomena, she declared anti-Zionism—that is, the rejection of the racially-based claim that Jewish people have a collective right to Palestine—the worst kind of anti-Semitism. For such defenders of Israel, any acknowledgment that Zionism in principle and in practice violates Palestinian rights is tantamount to an endorsement of the Holocaust."


Matory's concern is as follows:
"Thus, my concerns about Zionism are motivated by neither pro-Arab nor anti-Jewish bias, but by the fear that those who dismiss all anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism—or, equally often, as Jewish self-hatred—risk creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Israel’s defenders convince the world that all legitimately Jewish people are Zionists and that Jewish people are uniform in their opinions about Israel and its policies, then the convinced will conclude that condemning Israel or its policies requires them to hate Jewish people."

As to supporting those with whom he disagrees, an old saying says it best: hoe the weeds in your own garden, before you hoe your neighbor's weeds.

[WDW]

Now Just think if Abraham's wife Sarah wasn't going through menopause - and Abrham kept it in his rope - way back when - What would the middle east look like now.

Or what if the world came out against genocides during the 1800's of the Native Americans - Then Hitler may have never rose up -A end to manifest-destiny supremacy-bull - jews never leaving europe.

But were not playing what if's - and you should be looking at your hard right - there the one's that think the sins of the jews can only be saved by converting to Jesus.

So what better then to have the Jews do all the hard work of building Isreal - Then step into a already built city - converting to Jesus.

[DontSpin]

There is obviously a difference between offering evidence-based criticism of Israel and insulting the leader of a country after inviting him to speak, which by the way, he is now using to make his own case for why there is no true freedom of speech in America. Mr. Dershowitz, as long as you see yourself in the position to criticize the Iranian government or the country without having visited Iran or talked to a single reformist leader within Iran, Israel's 4-decade illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and America's unconditional support and 47 vetoes of UN Security Council resolutions against them, you are in no position to claim the intellectual high ground.

[progresemulo]

There is no correlation between progressivism and "anti-Israel" sentiment. At all. I urge all people who think that such a correlation exists to take a good hard look at the priorities of the far right, especially those of the theocons who believe in premillennial dispensationalism.

[Snowball]

Mr. Dershowitz, I'm Jewish, left wing and support the right of the state of Israel to exist and think it is a nation borne of necessity. Your knee-jerk branding of every criticism of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians as anti-Semitic only serves as fodder and justification for real anti-Semites and lends them unwarranted credibility. You must learn to distinguish between legitimate criticism and real anti-Semitism otherwise you do nothing more than dilute the very concept. You do Israel and the Jewish people a great disservice and dishonor us with your rabid brand of fanaticism and use of sophistry to support our cause. Do us (Jewish Americans and Israelis) a favor and give it a rest. Please.

[JBEddison]

To the naive Prof. Dershowitz's essay makes perfect civil liberties sense and has in fact some merit. What makes it self-serving and vitiates his point is his failure to acknowledge, much less criticize relentless criticism of any critic of the government of Israel in the US. Why is there much more criticism of the Israeli government in Israel than here? Why have important speakers been prevented from speaking (e.g. Walt and Mersheirmers (sp)? here when their arguments are regularly made in the Israeli press?

[jrockbg]

This yet another issue that separates the left, from the FAR-left. It's good to transparency in our government, but fundamentally, we nor Israel are the problem. Ceding unreasonable ground to people sworn to destroy us will not deter them either. The far-left gets so anti-war/conflict they feel that showing solidarity with the enemy will prevent violence. Its a sad and dangerous opinion.

[ffa]

Have you no sense of decency, Sir, at long last?