(Comments should now be working, sorry about that. I thought I had reactivated them when I came back to blogging, but I had forgotten to flip one of the switches.)

Last Sunday and Monday I attended CAMERA's excellent conference held at Boston University, "War By Other Means: The Global Campaign to Delegitimize Israel". It was like a whole season of good speakers crammed into one two day event. Thanks to the CAMERA folks for the balcony seats. It was also nice seeing Neo-Neocon again, as well as all the other faces, familiar and new, I've come into contact with through this site. Neo did her own write-up of the event here. It was also nice seeing the usual anti-Israel suspects protesting out front. We had some of the old lefty-guard, with some of their Arab friends and the local chapter of 'Students for Just Us in Paleostine'. They were out literally beating on drums and blowing horns. It was quite a show and carried the benefits of annoying passers-by, giving us something to laugh about in the check in line and serving as a reminder of why we were there.

I feel guilty that after CAMERA's hospitality I didn't blog at all about the event outside of a few tweets, so below you'll find pasted CAMERA's own event wrap-up. There was a very entertaining (in a political blood-sport sort of way) confrontation between Dershowitz and Melanie Phillips that would be well worth blogging, but it's just not the same without video, unfortunately.

Dershowitz, to his credit, went after J Street hard during his remarks. Later, Melanie Phillips gave her usual terrific commentary, though, as is her style, she took a right-of-center perspective on things, criticizing, for instance, the cults (my term) of global warmingism and scientism. Too much for Dershowitz, he begged special privilege for the first question during the Q&A (questions were done on cards) and went after Phillips for her "radical right-wing views" -- useful for showing both left and right were in attendance, yet at the same time a bit rude to so confront another speaker in that manner. Phillips had her say in reply (eloquently as could be expected) and that was that. With luck, video will emerge, though I suspect the CAMERA folks will wish it down the memory hole.

By the way, as Neo reminds me, did you know the holidays are coming? Did you see the Amazon links in the sidebar and elsewhere? Did you also know that if you do some shopping through Amazon using those links that anything you buy will result in me getting a cut without it costing you a penny extra? Did you further know that Amazon.com Gift Cards make a wonderful stocking stuffer or Thanksgiving place-setting give-away?

Below is CAMERA's event wrap-up. I am not going to put the entire thing in a quote box for ease of reading's sake:

(BOSTON, Mass - October 12, 2010) Now, more than ever, Israel finds itself in a battle for fair treatment on the world stage. CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America) has just concluded a two-day conference at Boston University that brought together international experts to articulate the enormous challenges of the moment and to formulate constructive action. The important event was co-sponsored by the Florence and Chafetz Hillel House at Boston University.

More than 1000 people attended the conference - coming all across America, as well as Australia, England, Canada, Argentina, Israel, and France. Over 200 of these were college students, from 13 U.S. states, Argentina and Canada.

Renowned figures from journalism, academia and other fields focused on the role of the media, NGO's, the UN, academia and the mainline churches in threatening Israel's legitimacy and offered strategies for reversing the situation; they also turned to urgent conditions in Europe and examined solutions there as well. Attendees participated in hands-on sessions dedicated to training and activism. Featured speakers additionally led special workshop sessions geared exclusively towards students and young adults.

"The goal of the conference," said CAMERA Executive Director Andrea Levin,"was to define the issues, raise awareness, and create an action agenda. It won't be easy to turn back the tide running against Israel, but it's impossible if people aren't clear about the prime sources of the campaign to delegitimize the Jewish state."

Professor Alan Dershowitz opened the conference with his presentation, 'Israel and the Case for Moral Clarity.' He focused special attention on the crisis on college campuses, calling out J Street as a potent threat that "...serves as a platform for anti-Israel zealots who claim allegiance to Israel." He pointed to the irony that Israel, with one of the best human rights records in the world, is criticized more than any other country and held to a standard of perfection. "Moral clarity emerges from unvarnished truth. Pursue truth without fear or compromise," he exhorted attendees. "Challenge constantly those on the other side in every context and forum and we will prevail."

Keynoter Alan Dershowitz opens the conference

Dr. Daniel Pipes (Director of the Middle East Forum) and Yigal Carmon (founder of MEMRI--Middle East Media Research Institute) addressed perceptions of Israel in the Arab-Muslim World. Pipes' historical analysis of Muslim anti-Semitism portrayed it as, in the main, a Christian import and not indigenous to the Muslim religion and culture. He argued this augurs well for the future, through alliances with like-minded moderate Muslim scholars and activists and hard work. Carmon, although presenting a grim picture of simultaneous Holocaust denial and morbid glorification of the Nazi killing of Jews in mainstream Arab media, ended on a similar note of hope--showing footage of reformers from within the Muslim/Arab community courageously and ably refuting anti-Semitic slanders.

Daniel Pipes

Andrea Levin and Philippe Karsenty (French media analyst and founder of Media-Ratings) addressed the assault against Israel in today's media, examining several of the most critical threats. Levin focused on the New York Times as a case study of an historic wrongdoer. She highlighted how, just as it failed to report the genocidal assault on the Jews of Europe during the Holocaust, the New York Times today is essentially silent about the biased onslaught against the Jewish state.

"Such silence makes the paper morally culpable; it amounts to supporting the perpetrators." Levin further faulted the Times for disproportionately and uncritically relying on politically radical and factually unreliable critics of Israel, sources such as Peace Now. "Reporting extreme partisan detractors as neutral observers, including repeating false information as fact, can totally distort the public perception of reality." To achieve reform, she urged both readers and advertisers to protest such biased coverage. Philippe Karsenty put the Mohammed al-Durah myth in context, showing the profound extent to which this falsified media account helped motivate the last decade of Jihadist attacks-including 9/11 and the beheading of journalist Daniel Pearl. He recounted his long and difficult legal battle with French television network France 2, explaining how he won his case in court--- that he was justified in calling the al-Durah event staged and a hoax; and how this victory affirmed his hope that justice can prevail.

Professor Anne Bayefsky (Senior Editor of Eye on the UN and Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute) presented an historical snapshot of the extreme anti-Israel agenda of the U.N. and, in particular, its Human Rights Council. She noted that although the current U.S. administration's desire to address international human rights abuses is admirable and high minded, by choosing to actively work with the UN Council on Human Rights, the U.S. is legitimizing that body's extreme bias against Israel and giving fuel to its efforts to deprive Israel of its right to self-defense. "The current administration feels Israel bashing is a price worth paying for progress on other fronts."

Founder of NGO-Monitor Professor Gerald Steinberg described the NGO challenge, and how his organization strives to reverse the deleterious effects of their 'research.' Steinberg explained how, through sole reliance on Palestinian 'eyewitness accounts,' NGO's report alleged human rights abuses which media outlets accept as trusted, reliable sources without any fact checking. The media perspective then affects diplomacy and policymaking, as well as academia. Entirely unregulated and very well funded, NGO's use the language of morality to promote their highly immoral agenda: to isolate Israel and cast it as an apartheid state. Steinberg explained the five point strategy of NGO-Monitor: naming and shaming, demanding transparency, calling for accountability, underlining the need for checks and balances, and demanding a moral approach to the question of human rights. He presented a case study that demonstrated how, through employing the strat egy outlined above together with education of NIF (New Israel Fund) donors, they have had some success in reforming that organization.

Melanie Phillips (British columnist, Daily Mail ) and Manfred Gerstenfeld (Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) addressed anti-Israel sentiment in the UK, Europe and Israel. Phillips presented anti-Israel sentiment as part of a tide of moral relativism overtaking British academia and progressive intelligentsia in general. She cited the prevalence of 'victim culture'-a point of view citing the Third World and underprivileged as inherently good because they occupy the alleged 'victim' position. Such ideologies are utopian, Phillips asserted, and therefore not realizable - but because they promise pursuit of a better world free of injustice, Jews sign up for them. Gerstenfeld deemed the delegitimation of Israel in Europe 'death by 1000 cuts' and cited omissions and falsehoods in the media, European government interference in internal Israeli affairs, boycotts and divestments, and 'humanitarian racism' (holding Israelis to higher standards of hu man rights than Palestinians and other nations) as fueling the process. Although taking place under the banner of Anti-Israelism (a more innocuous phrase than Anti-Semitism), he sees the process' roots in the deep historical nature of European anti-Semitism. Gerstenfeld presented the '10 Commandments for Fighting Israel's Delegitimization and Anti-Semitism,' a communications strategy that takes Israel out of the defensive position and puts her on the offensive.

With his trademark charismatic and humorous delivery, political commentator Mark Steyn presented a message at the conference dinner that was anything but funny. He described a current tendency in the Muslim world to believe 'state constructed realities,' e.g. versions of reality that contain internal contradictions and have no basis in rationality. For example, only 17% of Arab Muslims believe there was any Arab involvement in 9/11, yet huge crowds and national celebrations laud the 'magnificent 19' who carried out the heinous acts. At the same time, western liberal thinkers cannot react against this mindset in general and the government of Iran in particular. Since 'there are no enemies, only potential friends with unrelieved grievances,' such action would create an existential crisis for Western liberalism. Under the guise of multicultural tolerance and colonial guilt, Western liberal thought therefore casts irrational behaviors as ra tional, calling those who blow themselves up militants and not terrorists and protecting practices and institutions that deny rights and freedoms in the name of rights and freedoms. Steyn cautioned strongly against this behavior, saying that 'the culture that believes in everything believes in nothing and will stand for nothing' and quoting Eric Hoffer: '...as it goes with Israel, so will it go with the rest of us."

Professor Irwin Cotler (Canadian MP and former Attorney General of Canada) discussed 'lawfare,' or the delegitimization of Israel under the disguise of law. He cited its roots as the globalization of law and the reconfiguration of the Arab/Israeli conflict to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. As long as Israel's enemies denied her existence, they had no case; once they portrayed Israel not only as a state but as the cause of the conflict, they had a platform for falsifications and the mainstreaming of Israel as a human rights violator. Cotler describes the constituent parts of lawfare as delegitimization of Israel through 1) the protective cover of UN resolutions, with faux-legal wording and constant focus on language like 'settlements;' 2) selective use of the principle of universal jurisdiction, 3) the permanent anti-Israel agenda of the UN Human Rights council, 4) falsely casting Israel as an 'apartheid state' and then condemning it under the rubric of the 'struggle against racism,' 5) accusations of genocide - which Cotler denounces as 'an apocalyptic situation where the only state in the world today which is in fact the object of state-sanctioned incitement to genocide stands accused daily of being its perpetrator." 'Lawfare' puts Israel daily in the docket of the accused; Cotler urges taking back the narrative and putting radical Islam and Achmadinejad in the docket. He exhorted attendees to put the case of Jewish refugees from Arab lands on the agenda, and talk about the corruption of the UN and of the concept of human rights and the struggle against racism.

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin (Lecturer in Jewish Studies, UC Santa Cruz) and Dr. Alex Safian (Associate Director of CAMERA) addressed anti-Israel sentiment in American Universities. Rossman-Benjamin painted a grim picture of anti-Israel sentiment on UC campuses, and suggested a pragmatic course of action. She argued Israel supporters should focus on safeguarding students from anti-Semitic harassment as opposed to defending Israel's reputation. "Strategies which focus on addressing the hostile environment that anti-Semitic behavior creates for Jewish students seem more promising right now, in part because in the current campus climate, defending the basic civil rights of Jewish students is more acceptable than defending the Jewish state," Rossman-Benjamin said. "Achieving protections for Jewish students, I believe, will almost certainly lead to the diminution of the demonization and delegitimization of Israel on campus."

Alex Safian focused on Walt and Mearsheimer's infamous book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Safian pointed out that "While many critics of Israel claim that they -- at great personal risk -- speak truth to power, Walt and Mearsheimer prove that the opposite is true. These days, for so-called intellectuals the surest way to fame and fortune is to bait the Jews. If there is no response to charges about the allegedly nefarious "Israel lobby," that just proves the charges are true and unassailable. And if there is a response, that also proves the charges are true, with the added benefit that the Walts and Mearsheimers of the world can then claim to be martyrs at the hands of the powerful Israel lobby." Despite the fact that the authors falsified quotes and abandoned scholarly methodology to 'prove' their provocative thesis, the fact that the two held named chairs at two of the world's leading universities lent great weight to their arguments and led to a clear impact on the popular consciousness.

Psychiatrist and historian Kenneth Levin (author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege), Alvin Rosenfeld (Professor of English and Jewish Studies at Indiana University) and Yaakov Kirschen (creator of the Dry Bones political cartoon) addressed the topic of Israel's Jewish defamers. After recounting the historical roots and psychological motivations for Jewish denunciation of Israel, much of it based in attempted appeasement of those who attack and denigrate Jews and the Jewish state, Levin suggested a strong strategy of at once distancing, yet trying to still educate: "Call them out as fellow travelers in the campaign that ultimately seeks Israel's annihilation, but strive to make them aware that this is where their actions will lead." Rosenfeld noted that when Israelis and Jews contribute to the anti-Israel movement, it especially condemns Israel in the court of world opinion and protects the anti-Israel movement from charges of anti-Semitism. "A determined group has removed the words 'peace and justice' from the lexico n that could apply to Israel, and given it to the adversary. They are especially effective in their destructive efforts because of their Jewish pedigree." The way to limit their toxicity, he believes, is to take back the lexicon. Kirschen added a comic touch to the topic through a series of cartoons called 'Cuckoos in our Nest,' and showed the power of humor to drive concepts of truth.

Bret Stephens (Global View columnist and Deputy Editorial Page Editor, Wall Street Journal ) argued we no longer need to make the case for Israel. We don't need defense lawyers, but prosecutors instead. He described the entire debate as one sided, focusing only on Israel's needed 'concessions.' Instead of asking what else Israel can do for the Gazans, why not ask what the Arab world has been doing to help Palestinians? Describing the situation as the difference between the 'A+ standard' and the 'D-' standard, Stephens decried the fact that Israel is always expected to perform at a much higher level: "Of those whom everything is expected, nothing is forgiven; of those whom nothing is expected, everything is forgiven." He also exhorted attendees not to be scared to use the word anti-Semitism. "People who make the argument that Jews are the only people in the world who don't deserve their own statehood are, plain and simple, anti-Semitic." Stephens further noted that the essential case for Israel is not the conservative, Jewish, or Christian case for Israel-but the liberal case. Today's young people must be made to understand that the values they support are the values of Israel, and not the values of her adversaries. To accomplish this, Stephens proposes framing the argument not about 'rights' per se, but about where rights are better protected. "Where are human life and minorities flourishing?" he asked. "Where is the environment flourishing? Where is the economy flourishing? Where can gay people and women enjoy equality? If you call yourself a liberal or a progressive and you bash Israel, you are a fool or a hypocrite-most likely both."

Attendees participated in break-out sessions for advocacy and activism focused on using blogs and social media in defense of Israel; getting published in the mainstream media and making an impact on-line; effective activism within the Spanish-language media; and how to respond to anti-Israel bias in mainstream Protestant churches. The conference also included practical workshops and discussions geared especially for students dedicated to letter-writing, student leadership and activism. These student programs were co-sponsored with BU Hillel, The David Project, and StandWithUs.

Associate sponsors of 'War by Other Means' included: Hadassah, Stephen S. Wise Temple (Los Angeles), Sinai Temple (Los Angeles), East Brunswick Jewish Center (NJ), Har Zion Synagogue (Philadelphia), Boston Israel Action Committee, Boston Synagogue, Combined Jewish Philanthropies, Christians and Jews United for Israel, Congregation Kehillath Israel (Boston), Consulate General of Israel to New England, David Project, Doc Emet Productions, Israel Campus Roundtable, Stand With Us, Jewish Community Relations Council, Maimonides School, MIT Hillel, Temple Emanuel (Boston), Temple Isaiah (Boston), Temple Reyim (Boston), Tufts Hillel, and ZOA.

CAMERA, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, is a national research, educational and activist organization that monitors media coverage of Israel and the Middle East, working to promote accurate, balanced and complete reporting. Knowing that public perception of events ultimately shapes public policy, CAMERA believes it is vital to ensure Americans are provided factual and fair portrayals of Israel. Many of CAMERA's 65,000 members actively participate in communicating the facts about Middle East issues to media outlets, encouraging sound coverage and countering error and bias. CAMERA also supplies accurate information directly to the public as well as to the media on key topics frequently in the news. The organization is not aligned with any political party, nor does it take positions on policy issues. For more information on CAMERA, please visit www.CAMERA.org. Follow CAMERA on Twitter: twitter.com/cameraorg, or be a fan on facebook: www.facebook.com/CAMERAorg. For more informa tion about the War by Other Means conference, please contact David Mladinov 617-789-3672 or at davidm@camera.org or Isabel Smith at 818-922-5520 or Isabel@camera.org.