The complex conflict between the Arab and Muslim world on the one hand, and Israel on the other, is first-page news around the world. It is also at the forefront of discussion on many university campuses around the globe. I have visited many such campuses over the past several years and am distressed to report that the level of discourse has become increasingly dumber, shriller, and less nuanced. Name-calling has replaced serious academic discussion. This is particularly so among hard left Israel-bashers. Israeli policies certainly warrant just criticism, as do the policies of Israeli’s enemies. I am not talking about such comparative and contextual criticism. I am talking about abusive words that contribute nothing of substance to the quest for peace. Indeed, by demonizing Israel and dehumanizing its supporters, this kind of hate speech encourages those who oppose a compromise peace and discourages those who seek it.
The favorite rhetorical reversal of the hard left is to call Israel and its supporters “Nazis”.
Listen to Ali al-Mazrui, professor of humanities at the State University of New York - Binghamton, director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies, and former North American spokesman for the Islamic extremist group Al-Muhajiroun:
Norman G. Finkelstein, a Hezbollah-supporting ideologue up for tenure at Depaul University, has repeatedly analogized Jews to Nazis and said that he “can’t imagine why Israel’s apologists would be offended by comparison with the Gestapo.” When criticized for these and other comparisons, Finkelstein responded, “Nazis never like to hear they’re being Nazis.” Finkelstein finds support from Rutgers Professor Robert Trivers, a most recent winner of the Crafoord Prize, who published excerpts from a letter he sent to me in The Wall Street Journal:
Hamid Dabashi of Columbia views supporters of Israel as “Gestapo apparatchiks.” Joseph Massad of Columbia has compared former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon to Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
Professor Leighton Armitage, an adjunct lecturer in political science in the Business and Social Sciences Department of Foothill College in Northern California, uses the Nazi analogy frequently.
Closely related to the Nazi name-calling is the absurd claim that Israel’s actions in relation to Palestinian terrorists is a “Holocaust,” comparable to the systematic genocide of six million innocent Jews. José Saramago, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature, was quoted as saying,
Nicholas De Genova, a Columbia University assistant professor of anthropology has said that:
Another Columbia professor, Bruce Robbins, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, has said that “The Israeli government has no right to the sufferings of the Holocaust.” Columbia Professor Hamid Dabashi likened Israel’s presence in Jenin to the Nazi conduct of the Holocaust after canceling classes to lead a protest against the Israeli incursion into the terrorist stronghold of Jenin.
Prof. Fawaz Gerges, ABC News Consultant and Sarah Lawrence College professor said on National Public Radio in a discussion about the Holocaust Denial conference in Iran, that
The most recent entry into this parade of name-calling is Jimmy Carter who insists on calling Isreali policies in the West Bank, “apartheid”. This sort of name-calling obscures the reality that the Palestinians could have had their own state if they accepted the Barak-Clinton offer at Camp David. To heighten the irony of the pot calling the kettle black, Jimmy Carter has praised Yasser Arafat for rejecting the offer of statehood, and almost certainly advised him to reject it at the time. (See Alan M. Dershowitz, A Real Dialogue Would Have Been Better, accessed at Ex-President for Sale Part 4 Carter therefore bears at least some of the responsibility for what he calls “apartheid.” This name-calling -- “Nazis,” “Holocaust,” “apartheid” -- turns a complicated issue into simple-minded sloganeering. It dumbs-down the debate. It drowns out the nuanced constructive criticism of particular Israeli and Palestinian policies. And it discourages peace efforts.
