Indy Media Watch

This article, spotted first on Michigan IMC and crossposted globally is entitled: The Witchhunts Continue: Columbia University and the New Anti-Semitism .

It begins:

Rape, massacre, theft, torture, ethnic cleansing: these are not crimes which nations can defend with ease - especially when unearthed by their own historians. Israel recently faced this most troubling predicament. Combing through declassified state archives, Israeli scholars of the past twenty years have discovered their nation was founded upon the mass expulsion and deliberate destruction of the native Palestinian people

and therein lies the problem.

Israel, hasn't declassified any documents.

Only after the 50th anniversary of the State, are some documents from 1948 finally being declassified and this is an exception, rather than a rule (such as age-based document declassification in the US).

Indeed, a Google search for any combination or derivative of "Israel declassified state archives" leads to some pretty interesting results:

• Lefthook: A Radical Youth Journal Based in the US (and author of the above)
• www.arabmediawatch.com - previously reported on here
• www.uruknet.info - Pro Saddam Hussein site
• www.dawn.com - an Islamist Pakistani website

And for some unknown reason, http://news-dictionary.dailyreviews.net/wildavi.html which includes "declassified state archives" amidst dozens of keywords for naked chicks...
And of course, the article above, reposted on numerous IMC, Arabist and far-right/far-left websites.

What's going on? Guess...

The document then uses the tactic of disarming accusations of anti-Semitism by arguing:

Empathy for Palestinians being beaten, bullied, and bulldozed out of existence, the doctrine goes, is nothing but some disguised expression of Jew-hatred

Bulldozed out of existence? One house at a time presumably, this should take around 900 years assuming of course the Palestinian birthrate drops to zero immediately.

Wielding this new ideological weapon, Israel's champions aim to cut down pro-Palestinian voices inside America with the same ruthlessness Israeli soldiers employ to shoot up Palestinian children outside their homes.

Ruthlessness? By this, it is referring to the protests at Columbia University. Evidently, the right to protest is considered "ruthless" when exercised by Jews. Looking at the article I can see why they would have every right to be upset, and indeed it seems my earlier comments about some groups who strongly support freedom of speech provided you agree entirely with them.

Reading the article itself, you will also notice literally dozens of source references cited in the footnotes. Apparently, this adds credibility and is a well used tactic even by non-scholarly types like Faruque Ahmed (who continues to bug me). The gratuitous use of references, to support a premise which is fundamentally wrong from a factual standpoint (let alone an intellectual, moral or ethical one) however is disgraceful.

Unsurprisingly, while most of the references are clearly detailed in the Harvard Style, the sole reference to the "declassified documents" is rather... Vague.

1. The Israeli historians who have gone through some of the state's massive archives of the pre-war and war period of 1947-9 sometimes refer to themselves as 'new historians.' They include Simha Flapan, Benny Morris, Avi Shlaim, Tanya Reinhart, Ilan Pappe, and many others. I would recommended as an introduction The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948, edited by Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim, which contains a number of 'new historian' essays.

Uh huh...

Despite commencing with intellectual dishonesty and dismissing accusations of anti-Semitism and with that out of the way, following up with Jewish blood-libel, conspiracy theories and outright anti-Semitic 'logic' about Jewish control of the media and politics, it is undeniable that the article is well written. So much so, it will no doubt be reposted globally by 'certain' groups and maybe even find its way into more 'respectable' disgraceful publications.

I will probably be called a Zionist stooge again for this, but it really bugs the hell out of me that people go to such obvious trouble to deliberately spread lies about Jews. It bugs me even more that Indymedia provides the publicity time and time again.