When a former history professor tried to compare the blockade-running Mavi Marmara with a boatload of Jews trying to run a British blockade in 1947, university professors protested on JFR: the Jewish Faculty Roundtable, an e-mail discussion group.
Ron Grossman had written in the Chicago Tribune commentary section on June 9, 2010 that “the storming of the Turkish aid ship the Mavi Marmara has played into the hands of hostile regimes and leftist ideologues seeking to delegitimize Israel.”
His criticism of the Israeli action turned to what he saw as a historical analogy. “The British made a similarly fateful error in 1947,” he wrote.
“British warships maintained a blockade in the eastern Mediterranean. Determined to break through — and to demonstrate the plight of Holocaust survivors — a Zionist organization bought an aged passenger ship that lately had seen duty during World War II. “
The Royal Navy boarded the ship renamed the Exodus 1947 a few miles off the Palestinian shore. “The passengers fought back, he wrote, “and in the encounter two passengers and a crew member of the Exodus were killed.”]
Here are some of the responses JFR received after the Grossman commentary, along with other articles taking other perspectives on the flotilla incident, was distributed for analysis.
Yechiam Yemini of Columbia questioned an analogy between radical Islamists, trying to stage a violent media-event, and the plight of Exodus refugees, trying to reach their “national homeland.” He said that Ron Grossman should show more respect toward facts.
Herman Rubin of Purdue held that “the situations are quite different. Israel is not trying to keep unarmed people out, but supplies which can be used for military purposes.
Stephen Macht, a rabbinical student at the Academy for the Jewish Religion in California, wrote, “It’s plain foolish and smug to equate the Israelis with the British.”
Seymour Mayne of the University of Ottawa said, “England was still a major imperial power after World War II. Its ships and forces were stationed in many colonial lands. Israel is a small republic with none of the resources or reach of the former British Empire. There is really little symmetry between the United Kingdom and the State of Israel when it comes to naval blockades.”
Peter Suedfeld of the University of British Columbia said, “The difference is that Great Britain didn’t really need Palestine, and could pull out without serious negative consequences.”
Peter Shalen, University of Illinois at Chicago, said that “Ron Grossman writes that ‘it will do Israel and her supporters little good’ to point out the facts of the case. His core message seems to be that the truth doesn’t matter.”
Jack Arbiser of Emory pointed that “the comparison between victims of the Holocaust fleeing a Europe that despised them with supporters of Hamas is obscene. It is like comparing Gaza to Auschwitz.”
Anna Melnikov of the University of Haifa commented on Golda Meir being quoted as saying “not to underestimate Jewish resolve to fight for independence.” Melinikov remembered that “Golda also said that it is better to have a bad press than a good epitaph.”
See also: Helsinki Principles on the Law Of Maritime Neutrality http://www.achgut.com/dadgdx/index.php/dadgd/print/0016515
Avi Bass is editor of the JFR: the Jewish Faculty Roundtable
