Thursday, February 8, 2007
Richard Landes fisks Michael Lerner on his complaints about having his dissent crushed: Michael Lerner Weighs in, Disturbingly
Leif Knutsen tackles the same issue at slightly less length, here: Who does Michael Lerner fear most?
The complaint is this: "Accusations of antisemitism are stifling an honest debate on Israel."
The issue is where the boundary lies between criticizing Israel's policy and promoting (even inadvertently) antisemitism of the newish kind.
As for the complaint, there is very little evidence to support it. The volume and tone of anti-Israeli activism is remarkable by any standard, and I can see no sign of restraint...
You can listen to an NPR interview with Alvin Rosenfeld, author of the AJC piece, Alan Wolfe, who seems rather put out that anyone should have the audacity to criticize his criticisms and should just shut up, Shulamit Reinharz, a Brandeis professor, and Lerner himself: On Point: American Jews and Israel
On-topic with regard to Lerner's judgment and how he gauges or even cares about how he is used by others is this article in The Forward: A 9/11 Conspiracy? ‘I Would Not Be Surprised,’ Says Tikkun Editor
“I would not be surprised to learn that some branch of our government conspired either actively to promote or passively to allow the attack on 9/11,†Lerner wrote in an essay published in the new book, “9/11 and American Empire: Christians, Jews, and Muslims Speak Out.†Lerner added that he would also not be surprised if it turned out that the attacks were not the result of a government conspiracy.
“I am agnostic on the question of what happened on 9/11,†he wrote in his essay for the book, which includes articles by other contributors arguing that a government conspiracy was behind the September 11 attacks. “As other authors in this collection have shown, there are huge holes in the official story and contradictions that suggest that we do not know the whole story.â€
Contacted by the Forward, Lerner repeatedly insisted that he was, in fact, “skeptical†— a word that did not appear in his essay — toward claims advanced by the book’s other contributors of a government conspiracy...
...The book in which Lerner’s essay appears is billed as having been “inspired by†David Ray Griffin’s “The New Pearl Harbor,†a seminal text of the so-called “9/11 Truth†movement. The new book includes an essay by Griffin in which he makes the case that the September 11 attacks were likely “orchestrated, like many previous false-flag attacks, by U.S. agents as a pretext for a war to expand the American empire.â€...
...“I salute the people in this collection of articles who are doing an amazing job of examining what may prove to be one of the most perverse conspiracies in the history of democratic governments,†Lerner wrote...
...Lerner said that Tikkun is planning to publish an article by Griffin in its March issue, which would be accompanied by “a little note saying if you go to our Web site, you’ll see why we don’t agree with this.†Although he says he does not agree with all of Griffin’s conclusions, Lerner said that Griffin — who has suggested that the Twin Towers were brought down by “controlled demolition†— draws attention to important unexplained facts about the attacks...
...“Anything about Israel and the relationship to 9/11,†Lerner said, “I think is total baloney.â€
Yes Michael, but the vast majority of people to whom you're lending credence by your respectful tones and recommendations certainly don't think it's total baloney. This is, in a way, similar to the way in which many of the people take Lerner's (and others like him) over the top hyper-criticism of Israel and simply use it for their own purposes without Lerner paying it any mind.
These two issues -- hyper-criticism of Israel and dancing with 9/11 conspiracy-mongers -- seem highly related in this sense. Lerner is oblivious to the world outside his personal intentions. He's the very definition of irresponsibility, and he should be criticized for it, whether he complains about being "silenced" or not.
It's difficult to believe a person as bright as Lerner, can be so blind.
Have his ideals and desire to see only good, made him unable to perceive what's going on out here?
The very troubling nexus between conspiracy theorists, Holocaust deniers and Israel-bashers, laced with both far left and far right propaganda, speaks to an alarming and virulent resurgence of antisemitism.
I suppose you could split a hair and say, well, it isn't NEW antisemitism.
Whatever it is, sweeping it under the rug or pretending it isn't there, won't make it go away.
And I'll argue the obvious: the inclusion of Israel as the Jew among nations, makes this brand of antisemitism new and different from the old, equally obnoxious and dangerous brand - with the ugly new feature that Israel is now called "The One-bomb State" and instead of just exterminating "International Jewry", the talk is of "wiping Israel off the map."
What about this isn't antisemitic or just plain inhumane?
Hmmm, interesting report.
Thanks for the article.
you're right on in your speculations. i had a conversation with lerner in which i begged him to tone down his "prophetic inflation" in criticizing israel because the wrong people were listening. "no one listens to me," he replied. "what are you talking about?" i asked. "none of the jews will give me the time of day." "but what about the non-jews, the "progressive" christian churches who eat up what you have to say?" i asked. they're not a problem, he replied in the middle of the period of calls for divestment.
he is probably the best illustration of a moral narcissist i've ever met. "i must be perfect. my people must be perfect. if they're not, i'll sacrifice them to my moral perfection."
One other observation, also directed at Jimmy Carter and others, who complain The Israel Lobby Is Preventing Them From Speaking Out: baloney.
We hear you loud and clear. We hear you in the press, in the blogosphere, on TV, on the radio. Increasingly, it is we, the supporters of Israel, mainstream Jewish people and those in the center, center Left and center Right, who are unable to speak. People are flat out shouted down on campuses. We're abused in the blogosphere. Mainstream news outlets, last summer, unblushingly broadcast Hezbollah-controlled media events. Mainstream newspapers published doctored, staged and just flat phoney photographs. The British press has, for years, published unbelievably biased articles, TV pieces, and cartoons right out of der Sturmer.
Michael Totten wrote an article called "The Berkeley Intifada?" in 2004, which in turn linked to another long, hair-raising piece about the virulent, hateful antiIsrael and antisemitic behavior on certain California campuses. Increasingly, the really nasty, bigoted propaganda and antisemitic memes from Europe and the Middle East are infecting the American political and intellectual discourse.
This must be acknowledged.
Israel-bashing may be chic, but it's anything but harmless and it is growing increasingly bizarre and detached from reality. There is also nothing reassuring about Left Wing support for crushingly oppressive Middle Eastern theocracies or organizations modeled on fascist ideology.
To see the sort of imagery and behavior previously associated with 1930's Europe on American campuses, is a sign that we can't afford to sleep. And, it's also a sign that we can't afford polarization - not just polarization of the Jewish community, but within the Western community as a whole, the community which stands in defense of the values we hold dear.
Regardless of our various philosophies regarding economics, the environment, and so forth, we are still members of the same community and we must defend it, and we must extend support to people in the Middle East and beyond, who are reaching out to the West.
http://www.techcentralstation.com/061004D.html
Lerner's would appear to be a voraciously prepossessing ego. The reality/ideality nexus, that's where the individual is and is revealed; we all variously fail at times, but good grief. Desperately seeking recognition.
Bright is not a description I would apply to anyone who prefers to believe, not only apparently, in the possibility that 9/11 was a [US] government put-up job, but also that attacks on a left-wing kibbutz attributed to Arabs was, as Lerner opined on the CBC a few years back (when he was bawling about being excluded from the protests against the then imminent invasion to depose Saddam), as likely the work of right-wing Jews trying to make the Arabs look bad.
those of us who have observed that 9/11 was obviously an inside job that was prophesised and perpetrated by the neo cons who run the bush administration, many of whom are jewish, are not being anti-semetic, at least i am not. i am anti crime, and i preferred the old system of justice we used to have in this country, the one where crimes were investigated and culprits punished according to certain rigorous principals. all that went out the windows of the world trade center. many people who call themselves jews have a hard time seeing that the attacks were obvioulsy from within the bush administration. this is understandable, but lamentable, and it will have to be overcome. it takes a certain skill to be able to see 9/11 for what it was, and not be deluded by the sensational job the media has performed in creating the false impression that it was done (primarily) by Arab terrrorists. the great (jewish) social psychologist Solomon Asch, who (briskly) immigrated to the US from germany performed i think the most important research that demonstrates the unfortunate propensity of people to conform to false socially constructed reality. that same tendency led to Hitler's accent to power and is operative again in the case of 9/11. try to pay attention to the facts: buildings don't fall down like that from fire. they just don't. when buildings fall down like they did on that day it means they were set up with very carefully planted explosives. don't let your ideas about what "can" be get in the way of what you can see with your own eyes. Hitler and the Nazi- neo con propagandists are counting on you to be afraid to see the big lie. let's show them we are not. our humanity is more important that your jewishness. we must be strong and realize that we have a very great problem on our hands and on our hearts. the good people of the world have to unify against this evil, it doesn't matter that some of these killers are jewish and some of them go back to the Nazis, like the Bush family. we have to put our differences aside and prosecute these war criminals. it won't be easy.