THE GAP BETWEEN POLITICS AND ACADEMIA ON ISRAEL

Pomona

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/03/10/freeman_speaks_out_on_his_exit

This episode will serve to widen the gap between academic and political opinion on the question of Israel. At the elite colleges that educate the ruling class in America, taking a vocal and passionate pro-Israel stand is risky business. It is getting just as difficult to be pro-Israel in academia and on campus as it is to be anti-Israel in politics. This gap is unhealthy, and in order to explain the gap between academic and political opinion, people are resorting to narratives that imperil the respect for the Jews that has long made the American diaspora experience unique, even if these accusations are only intended to shame factions within the Jewish community. The cause of a Jewish state in Israel is one that young Jews were educated by smart and loving people to take seriously and are told by serious minds to abandon.

Obviously, there is an Israel Lobby, but we need to be especially careful with this term. Here's is why-- it is not a thesis that can be disproved, it is not testable. The Israel Lobby thesis is the most incendiary, and bold, idea to be uttered by the American foreign policy establishment in years. It puts forth the possibility that everyone who is pro-Israel is actually being held hostage.

WE ARE CREATING A WORLD WHERE ALL PRO-ISRAEL STATEMENTS, BY POLITICAL OFFICIALS, MEDIA OUTLETS, AND THE ACADEMY CAN BE INTERPRETED AS HAVING THEIR ORIGINS IN FEAR OF THE ISRAEL LOBBY. WHO WANTS TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD?

I trust that the realists and Mearsheimerites do not. I trust that most Americans or moderate members of the Professoriate do not. Existential enemies of Israel, be they on the far intellectual left or in the Muslim nations, would welcome this state of affairs.

The scandal of the Freeman affair, was that the Pro-Israel Community was screwed either way. He basically said, "Zionist Jews control American foreign policy." And then Zionist Jews said, "We really do not like it when people say that." Then, Freeman said, "look! I told you so!."

How can Freeman at once say, "no one is allowed to say so," and then... say so? What I find shocking about this entire discourse on Israel is the way that the smartest anti-Zionists simultaneously propagate their views through the most efficient technologies ever created, get their books published at the most respectable publishing houses, speak freely in the most prestigious universities, and still insist that they are silenced. They are so used to being beleaguered that they cannot see that they have largely crippled or muzzled the pro-Israel zeal in the next generation of highly educated Jews.

Perhaps some words from Mr. Churchill can remind us why the formation of the character of the next generation of Jews needs to be on the mind of those who care about America in 2050. If your goal is the complete secularization of America and the abolition of the nation-state, like Mr. Chomsky, the best thing you can do is continue to tilt the young Jew's messianic impulse away from national goals and towards international and secular goals. This is best accomplished through publicly and privately shaming those who publicly declare themselves to be Zionists.

http://www.patriot.dk/churchill.html

Freeman was a casualty of a larger war-- the struggle between those who seek to preserve the nation-state and those who are not loyal to the national idea. Freeman's glorification of Mao and admiration for Islamic illiberalism made him a traitor to the national idea. One of the source of America's greatness is that we were not hit as hard by the tidal wave of materialistic Marxism in the second half of the 20th century. The commitment of our Jews to Zionism inoculated some of them from commitment to international socialism in the 20th century -- a disease that Jews, especially impoverished ones from eastern Europe, are unfortunately and understandably, prone. Today, young Jews are similarly prone to the temptations of public atheism and aggressive secularism. Zionism, and public deference for it, can inoculate them to these new threats to liberty-- if you indeed agree with Madison and Tocqueville that religion is good for democracies. You cannot blame even the most nefarious Israel Lobbies or neocon cabals for disloyalty to this national idea.

America and Israel are and remain staunch allies in opposition to the anti-nation-state politics of the UN, the European left, the Berkeley campus left, and the at times philotyrannical imagination of Chas Freeman.

That said, this is still a sad day for intellectual freedom. All freedom-loving people, including Americans, a few PLO members, Israelis, and Chas Freeman on his good days, should be disturbed by the limitations placed on those who seek public office.

Yet, character assaults are not as bad as the physical assaults, lynchings, and knee-breaking to which young Fatah members are currently being subjected for insinuating that Israel might not be the physical incarnation of Satan, as they are now educated to believe. Perhaps Obama and Clinton, who apparently read Itamar Marcus' http://www.pmw.org.il/ weekly, can figure out how to bring peace to this embattled region.