Poetry, terror and political narcissism

By Alyssa A. Lappen

AmericanThinker.com | March 4, 2005

Poetry is a window on the human soul. But the politics of American poetry, in recent years have veered into more and more radical territory, as an increasing number of poets openly declare their allegiance with ‘Palestine,’ and implicitly, with terror. Academics with one foot in Middle Eastern Studies and another in literature and poetry are the prime conduits of this degrading development. A few names that come to mind are Tom Paulin[1], a literature lecturer at Oxford University, former New Jersey poet laureate Amiri Baraka[2], Marylin Hacker[3], and Alicia Ostriker[4] at Rutgers University.

A prime example is Ammiel Alcalay, a tenured professor and former chair of Classical, Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures at City University of New York’s Queens College[5]. The author, editor or translator of at least nine literary, essay and poetry volumes[6], Alcalay has established himself as a fixture on the college speaking and poetry circuits, both realms that he vigorously exploits to disseminate sharply antiâ€”American, anti-Israel and pro-Palestine views[7].

Born and raised in Boston, Alcalay, 48, is the son of Sephardic Jews from Bosnia[8]. But his family background seems to have taught Alcalay nothing about the deficiencies of previous eras or the evils of communism. Not only does Alcalay seek a return to pre-democratic times[9], he wishes for a revolution such as outlined by French Marxist and anti-colonialist Frantz Fanon (1925-1961), author of Wretched of the Earth.[10]

Nominally literary in discipline, Alcalay is, like his idol Edward Said, better described as a political narcissist, preoccupied with his own role as arbiter of radical politics and the arts[11]. As such, he is the true interpreter and defender of ‘memory.’ ”Terrorists’ hijack planes but ‘ideologues,’ in the form of states and other acceptably licensed power structures, hijack a people’s collective memory, or at least make the attempt,’ Alcalay writes in a review of Said’s After the Last Sky, in his own vainglorious attempt to nullify Israel’s independence and statehood[12].

But the converse is actually true: intellectual hijacking is Alcalay’s specialty. In November 2002, for example, he discussed political poetry and the ‘politicization of studies’ at Cornell University–within the context of a shameless diatribe against ‘the normative narrative of Israel and Zionism,…remarkable, remarkable…[American] ignorance’ and ‘lack of any sense of empathy, solidarity, sympathy’ with the Arab Middle East[13]. For Alcalay, as it was for Said, the intellectual’s true role is opposing all forms of power and every status quo, unless those have to do with the favored ‘Other.’ Continue reading “Poetry, terror and political narcissism” →

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Witless for Peace

By Alyssa A. Lappen
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 3, 2005

Did you know that the U.S. (not Castro) has impoverished Cuba through its 40-year embargo, has waged war with Colombia, and has perpetuated an “epidemic” of unfair trade practices via the North American Free Trade Agreement, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (which put the Western Hemisphere up “for sale“)? Thanks to the Witness for Peace program, students at Ohio’s Miami University do.

Miami University — a public state-funded college located in Oxford, Ohio, near Cincinnati — doesn’t have a “Peace Studies” program, but it compensates for that by giving students academic credit to take anti-American trips sponsored by WFP. Think of WFP as a university version of Global Exchange, taking college students to see the “horrors” of American foreign policy and the supposed glories of socialism firsthand. From Wellesley College, to the University of Minnesota, to Harvard University, student groups nationwide send dozens of WFP “delegations” to South America and the Caribbean annually. Regional WFP chapters and campus-based programs draw hundreds of students who travel for $600 to $1,200 a head on programs where they are indoctrinated in Hate America rhetoric.
Last March, Miami University senior Ross Meyer won widespread acclaim for leading 13 students to Mexico as part of Witness for Peace (WFP), a national group that claims to support “peace, justice and sustainable economies in the Americas — through publications, work-and-travel “opportunities” and “action tools.” A WFP brochure explains that the group was founded in 1983 “by people of faith and conscience [in] response to U.S. funding of the Contra War.” But neither WFP nor Meyer are simple peace-loving activists or students; they indoctrinate students that America is an international aggressor, systematically impoverishing other nations for political and economic advantage. Continue reading “Witless for Peace” →

The Anti-Zionist Zionists

by Alyssa A. Lappen
FrontPage Magazine | Feb. 11, 2005

Last year, the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East launched an online petition opposed to suicide terrorism that quickly garnered more than 327,000 signatures. These voices were not heard in a November meeting with an appointee of National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams, however. Jewish “leaders” from Brit Tzedek v’Shalom presented an open letter to President Bush (from only 8,300 signatories) — seeking an end to vicious “bloodletting” — as if both sides in the Arab Israeli war had committed crimes against humanity.

That Brit Tzedek earned an audience with a White House emissary should send ripples of concern among Americans who truly care about Israel. Executive director Aliza Becker grandly claims that the 23,000-member group founded in 2002 speaks for an increasing number of American Jews.

Who are these upstarts, and why should Americans of every religious persuasion care? Brit Tzedek v’shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Peace and Justice, likens itself to “peace groups that support Israel, … but “oppose the occupation” such as Americans for Peace Now, Meretz USA, and the Tikkun Community’s Middle East Project.

The group appears far from the mainstream, however, and its self-described friends leave long and dirty anti-democratic, anti-American and anti-Zionist tracks. On December 4, for example, Brit Tzedek held a “Town Meeting” featuring Khalil Shikaki — live from Ramallah — to which 100 participants could send questions by email and phone. Billed as a peaceful and prominent pollster, the director of the Palestine Center for Policy and Survey Research is brother to the late Fathi Shikaki, the Islamic Jihad founder credited with the invention of suicide bombs. Shikaki’s hour-long interview and Q&A period dealt primarily with the hope and despair of the Arab Palestinians and their support for elections, the PLO’s dominant Fatah faction, Hamas, Islamic Jihad — and violence against Israel. Shikaki claimed that the post-Arafat period is hopeful, and offers a new opportunity for negotiation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The founders and members of Brit Tzedek should know, however, that this schpiel has the strong odor of taqiyyah, the Islamic practice of dissembling so as to gain political and military advantage. Moreover, there is reason to think that is exactly what it is.

Khalil Shikaki is not responsible for his brother’s sins, of course, but Brit Tzedek should have recognized that he has himself participated in questionable activities. Shikaki was a board member of both World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE) — the University of South Florida institute of indicted terror conspirator Professor Sami al-Arian [i] — and the Islamic Committee for Palestine, which supports Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the U.S., according to Investigative Project director Steven Emerson. [ii]

During Shikaki’s tenure, ICP published several journals and articles that quoted his brother and called for Israel’s destruction. It organized annual conventions in Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland and elsewhere that hosted Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and representatives of Hezbollah, Hamas, the Sudanese National Islamic Front and Lebanon’s Tawheed. It raised funds for Islamic Jihad and other terrorist charities — and “foundations” and overtly sought terror against Israeli, Egyptian, Tunisian, Algerian and U.S. targets.[iii]

One mistake like Khalil Shikaki might be understandable. But Brit Tzedek’s docket and associations include many questionable ideas and individuals.

Brit Tzedek condemned the assassination of the Hamas killer Abdel Aziz Rantisi, and the destruction of terrorist command centers as if they were an escalation of hostilities, for example. The group worries more about inconvenience to Arab Palestinians of road blocks and check points than about the threat to Israeli and Arab life caused by human bombs, which figures seldom, if ever, in Brit Tzedek equations. In fact, Brit Tzedek defines “terrorist violence” as part of a pattern of Arab “resistance,” implying some measure of approval, or at best a lack of distaste.

Brit Tzedek also defends the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). In a 2003 press release still posted, Brit Tzedek describes ISM’s terror sympathizers as if their “non-violent protests” against “human rights abuses” were somehow legitimate. After Rachel Corrie was crushed by an Israeli bulldozer, Brit Tzedek “deeply” regretted her death in the Gaza Strip, and whined that the “American from Olympia, Washington… was killed when she tried to prevent the bulldozer’s demolition of a house in the Rafah refugee camp.” Forget the legitimate questions raised about Corrie, who died while blocking the destruction of gun smuggling tunnels. Never mind ISM assistance to terrorists or to British suicide killers who bombed Tel Aviv’s Mikes Pub. [iv]

Several key advisers on Brit Tzedek’s Israeli committee hail from far left corners like Women in Black, Other Israel and Ometz l’Seruv (Courage to Refuse), which collectively condemn Israel, but never the Arabist attacks against Israeli civilians. Brit Tzedek seeks negotiations, regardless of the level of violence on the Arab side. It puts a high priority on “justice” for Arab Palestinian “refugees,” but never mentions Jewish refugees from Arab lands.

Brit Tzedek maintains close ties to other anti-Zionist groups such as the Arabist group Gush-Shalom. Its “goal is to work for a just peace cooperatively and in coalition with diverse, national, Middle East peace initiatives.” Those “diverse” initiatives, however, include support for the Arabist financed “Geneva Initiative,” which seeks either the colonization of Israel by Arabs or creation of a “secular” state of Palestine to replace Israel.

Questionable Support

Its own actions and positions aside, Brit Tzedek also finds support from anti-Zionist groups both within and outside the Jewish community. The Jewish Friends of Palestine lists the group as a resource — along with the divestment campaigns at Cornell and the University of California, the Israel Communist forum and party, Jewish Voices Against Occupation in Wisconsin, the New Israel Fund, Naturei Karta, and Tikkun magazine. Brit Tzedek earns high esteem from the Palestine Monitor and International Answer.

The group gets financial support from other anti-American and anti-Zionist organizations, too, including Noam Chomsky‘s Resist, Inc. and the Ford Foundation. The board of Noam Chomsky’s group is littered with admitted socialists, anti-Zionist activists, and even includes Yasir Arafat’s former economic adviser Leila Farsakh.

The New York-based Ford Foundation supports far-ranging efforts in globalization, internationalism and other internationalist leftist programs. Founded by industrialist Henry Ford, an admirer and supporter of Adolf Hitler, the Ford Foundation today continues to display anti-Jewish bias. Ford funded anti-Jewish agitprop at the UN conference in Durban and supports Al Mezan, ISM, New Israel Fund, and other anti-Zionist groups.

Recently as a result of much public criticism, the Ford Foundation claims to have stopped directly funding Brit Tzedek and Palestinian NGO’s. However, Brit Tzedek still appears to get direct support from Ford, which also finances the New Israel Fund, another source of Brit Tzedek funds.

Brit Tzedek also obtains financial support from several “clearing house” trusts that aggregate donations from various sources. These include the hate-Israel Shefa Fund, and the more famous Tides Foundation, which grants funds to several other hate-America groups, including the Council for American Islamic Relations and such pillars of the radical legal establishment as the National Lawyers Guild and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Ostensibly a “Muslim civil rights group,” CAIR is actually one of the leading purveyors of terrorism in America, with links to Hamas Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. CAIR regularly demonizes America’s war on terror. It claims, for instance, that Homeland Security measures are responsible for an undocumented surge in “hate crimes.” Similarly, the National Lawyers Guild takes pride in its beginnings as a Communist front organization. Its October 2004 convention was concluded by indicted attorney Lynne Stewart, who allegedly helped convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman communicate with terror cells in Egypt.

The Center for Constitutional Rights, established by Sixties radical and Chicago 8 defender William Kunstler and “people’s attorney” Arthur Kinoy, has since 9/11 contested every effective Homeland Security measure, including increased government sanctions to wiretap suspected Islamists. Detaining suspects at Guantanamo Bay, the CCR says, is an inexcusable form of “racial profiling” and CCR President Michael Ratner considers American soldiers guilty of 9/11, via U.S. Middle East policy, but defends Lynne Stewart’s alleged aid to Sheikh Rahman’s Islamic Jihad.

Brit Tzedek lands on the list of “organizations concerned with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” published by the International Responsibilities Task Force of the American Library Association’s Social Responsibilities Round Table. Others listed, with similar objectives, include Al-Awda (the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition), International Solidarity Movement (ISM), the terrorist Islamic Association of Palestine, and Jewish Friends of Palestine and Not in My Name, among others.

Brit Tzedek claims to be a Jewish pro-Zionist organization, but relies chiefly on UN, and leftist political to support its anti-Zionist views. It focuses on unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Jerusalem,Gaza, Golan, Judea and Samaria, and hopes for Arab promises (not concessions). The group even calls on the U.S. and the UN to force Israel to create a Palestinian state. It seeks Jewish evacuation from homes in Judea, Samaria, Gaza and the Golan and a limit to Jewish life in the Middle East to the area inside Israel’s “Green Line” either through bribery or force. Brit Tzedek does not accept historical facts concerning the Jewish ancestral homeland, nor does it care that these disputed lands initially belonged to Israel, and were conquered by the Ottoman Empire and in 1949 illegally annexed by Jordan.

Brit Tzedek’s goals would only weaken Israel and bring about her destruction. But that seems to be the point.

Note: Jack Lauber and Andrew Gelbman contributed reporting to this article.

ENDNOTES:
[i] Emerson, Steven, American Jihad (2002), pp. 112, 113, 118,
[ii] Emerson, ibid, pp. 111-123.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] LaGuardia, Anton, Ghazzali, Said, Gozani, Ohad and O’Neill, Sean, “British bombers pose as peace activists,” The Independent, May 2, 2003; Milmo, Cahal, Huggler, Justin, Morris, Nigil and Akbar, Arifa, “The trail of death that led from Britain to Israel,” The Independent, May 2, 2003; Shuman, Ellis, “British bombers entered Israel disguised as ‘peace activists’,” IsraelInsider.com, May 2, 2003; “Bomb mars historic day for Palestinians,” Guardian, Apr. 30, 2003; “Brits who carried out Tel Aviv pub attack sent by Hamas,” Agence France Presse, Jun. 15, 2003; Susser, Leslie, “Israeli Defense Forces vs. the International Solidarity Movement,” FrontPageMag.com, Jun. 13, 2003; Harvey Tannenbaum, Memorial list of victims, May 1, 2003; “Suicide Bomber rewrites the script,” Middle East Web News Service, Apr. 30, 2003.

Terrorists in the Spotlight

By Alyssa A. Lappen
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 20, 2005

Six months ago, Pierre Rehov sat in an Israeli jail, interviewing a 16-year-old boy for his newest, forthcoming documentary, Suicide Killers. He wanted to be a martyr, he told Rehov, because â€œthe Jews killed the prophet Mohammed.” Told that this is not in the Koran, the illiterate boy insisted that it is. He wants nothing but to die killing others.

When Rehov’s new film is released later this year, it will be the seventh in a series of documentaries on Israel since Rehov returned to France on Sept. 30, 2000, flipped on the television, and saw photographs of Mohammed Al Durrah. As an experienced filmmaker, he says today, he realizedâ€”in the momentâ€”that the â€œnews” of the boy’s death in Gaza’s Netzarim junction had been faked.

Fakery played in the headlines again this week. Mohamed Bakri, the maker of Jenin Jenin, admitted in a deposition that he had faked scenes in his â€œdocumentary” concerning Israel’s Operation Defensive Shield in March and April 2002. The incursion came following a wave of suicide bombings that killed dozens and injured hundreds in late 2003 and early 2004. Rehov’s film, The Road to Jenin, is cited in the plaintiffs’ complaint against Bakri. Continue reading “Terrorists in the Spotlight” →

The Israeli Crime That Wasn’t

By Alyssa A. Lappen
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 28, 2004

More than four years have passed since the picture of Mohammed Al Durrah was aired across the world, but the public still imagines the boy’s Sept. 30 2000 presence at Netzarim junction in terms described by President Clinton in My Life:

As the violence persisted, two vivid images of its pain and futility emerged,” he writes: “a twelve year old Palestinian boy shot in the crossfire and dying in his father’s arms, and two Israeli soldiers pulled from a building and beaten to death, with their lifeless bodies dragged through the streets and one of their assailants proudly showing his bloodstained hands to the world on television.

In short, Al Durrah should never have been juxtaposed with a lynching, much less by the leader of the free world. Two weeks after the Al Durrah tapes aired, two Jewish soldiers lost their way in Ramallah, where they were savagely beaten to death, their innards eaten by hysterical and frenzied crowds screaming Allah Akbar–God is great–and seeking revenge for the supposed death of the boy. Indeed, the Al Durrah case is nothing more than a classic Islamic incitement to jihad.

But evidently, the shooting was merely photographic. “The violence erupted after the Al Durrah incident,” notes Daniel Seaman, director of Israel’s Government Press Office, who openly calls the incident a hoax, a staged forgery.

Since Seaman made this charge publicly in late 2002, few mainstream news media picked up the story. These include the European Wall Street Journal and New York Sun, which both ran columns in November, respectively by Stephane Juffa, the Metula Press Agency (MENA) chief in Israel and Nidra Poller, an expatriate writer in France. Continue reading “The Israeli Crime That Wasn’t” →

Stanford’s Islamist Threat

By Alyssa A. Lappen
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 21, 2004

He denounces American “imperialism” on Al-Jazeera Television. A former Zionist, he refers to jihadist suicide bombers as “martyrs.” He praised Mideast scholars for ignoring the issue of terrorism, and he regularly repeats the most twisted and paranoid claims of Islamist regimes as though they were historical fact. He is Stanford Middle East history professor Joel Beinin, and his influence extends far beyond his classroom.

If one individual can showcase all the flaws of Middle East Studies in academia, Joel Beinin is that man. A former president of the Middle East Studies Association, Beinin teaches Middle East history at Stanford University. This professor’s politics color his work; the result is mediocre scholarship, baseless conspiracy theories, and partisan classroom instruction.

Beinin’s biography reads like a parody of an American radical. Born in 1948 to Labor Zionist parents,[1] he experienced an ideological transformation at age 22 while living on Kibbutz Lahav. Beinin joined the “New Left” at Hebrew University, then migrated to Trotskyite anti-Zionism and finally to Maoism.[2] A Marxist ever since,[3] he received his BA, MA, and Ph.D. from Princeton, Harvard, and the University of Michigan respectively. He has received Ford Foundation funds, and has taught in France, Britain, Israel and Egypt.[4] Continue reading “Stanford’s Islamist Threat” →