Regarding the MW controversy, and especially the ridiculous articles by Tony Judt (NY Times) and Richard Cohen (Washington Post) defending the paper.
1. hundreds of articles, books and speeches every year say that Israel’s supporters have tremendous and too much influence on U.S. policy. (It would be no exaggeration that probably more than 80 percent of material produced relating to this issue in Middle East studies makes similar claim.) None of these attracts such tremendous attention and anger or is called antisemitic. (I don’t like Cohen’s word “immense” but that would not be a cause for charging antisemitism, certainly.) The MW article is antisemitic because it says that Israel’s supporters control all aspects of U.S. Middle East policy. It thus parallels historic and current antisemitism (for example, the Hamas Covenant says Jews are responsible for the French revolution, World Wars One and Two, etc).
2. It shows clear malice in omitting any information contrary to its thesis, using doctored quotes, and making so many mistatements of fact that even a minimal intellectual honesty or scientific method would have omitted. It is so clearly written as a prosecutorial document that has nothing to do with academic inquiry that the demonizing goal is clear. The paper had more in common with an editorial in a Syrian or Iranian newspaper than a serious work of research on the issue. In short, the authors are clearly trying to inspire hatred toward those who are pro-Israel and Israel itself rather than disagreement.
3. It puts pro-Israel activity in the framework of being un-American and conspiratorial. I would bet that most people in the State Department, for example, would decry pro-Israel influences on policy but few would portray it as anything but a legitimate (even if they thought regrettable) exercise by American citizens of their rights.
What the handling of the controversy in general shows is that:
a. Lots of people don’t bother to read or cannot understand things they remark about publicly.
b. A steadily higher level of antisemitic discourse is permissible in American and Western public discourse.
c. People in many cases feel no need to be fair or accurate when dealing with Israel, what we call “double standards.”
d. Many people, including Jews, know nothing about what antisemitism is or has been beyond the image of Nazi Germany.
e. In some ways, antisemitism–or at least the expression of anti-Jewish feelings, is the sole prejudice allowable under many people’s standards of “political correctness.”
f. Finally it underlines the steady decline of much of American academia. That two professors at major universities can write something which–even just looking at it in academic terms–was so shoddy that I would flunk an undergraduate for this type of research, shocks and surprises me more than the vile antisemitism it incites.
g. If this article had been written about some topic in European, Asian, African, or Latin American politics, the authors would have been drowned in ridicule.
h. A number of Jews in public life know they can profit by “proving” they are not part of the conspiracy and virtually make a living on criticizing Israel. Attempts to promote or protect oneself professionally in this regard (see for example what the NY Times editorial board comes up with, NY Review of Books, etc., etc.) has become an immense (word chosen deliberately) feature of American intellectual life.
Professor Barry Rubin,
Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center
Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal
Editor, Turkish Studies
Visiting Professor, American University
