Brandeis: Jimmy Carter Can Come, If He Does a Dog-and-Pony With Dershowitz
M.J. Rosenberg has a terrific piece on TPM about his alma mater Brandeis saying that Jimmy Carter can only speak there if he's balanced by Alan Dershowitz.
It is with real pain that I note that Brandeis is yielding to what amounts to an academic boycott of a former President for criticizing Israel.... We look like mini-Joe McCarthys and we are all being hurt by this...The Boston Herald reports that the Dershowitz act was dreamed up by Brandeis trustee Stuart Eizenstat, a former Carter adviser, along with Brandeis Prez Jehuda Reinharz. Just like when the New York Theatre Workshop decided it could only put on Rachel Corrie's show last spring if it was suitably "contextualized," with pro-Israel voices. These paroxysms speak to the same lesson: the Israel lobby isn't a control room in Washington, it's a general climate of fear about Israel's future that clouds the minds of goodthinking liberals who are empowered—with the ability to shut off debate. Even a former president lacks standing.Israelis themselves just laugh. How is it, they ask, that they can debate Israel-Palestine with absolute freedom but we Americans are afraid to...
Invite Carter to speak. Alone. Like any other speaker. Your students can handle it. Trust me. Trust them.
But watch out. The success of Carter's book, the contract to Walt/Mearsheimer, the Corrie run at the Minetta Lane, the Iraq Study Group's hail Mary to Syria—the world is changing.
Jimmy Carter was invited to a debate, nobody censored him and in fact I can't turn on the TV without seeing his face. Taking incredibly easy softball questions. And he pulled out of Brandeis. The question is not what Brandeis is afraid of but what is Jimmy Carter afraid of. Also, if little Phil thinks that this is like HUAC in 1949 he has a rather intersting take on peanut Jimmys situation. And should read a fucking book about the era.
little phil says;
..." watch out. The success of Carter's book, the contract to Walt/Mearsheimer, the Corrie run at the Minetta Lane, the Iraq Study Group's hail Mary to Syria
Bill Pearlman takes about softball questions? When have you seen a pro-Israel media person asked a tough question, especially one about their personal bias? On the prior week's Meet the Press, Tim Russert allowed Eliot Cohen and Ken Adelman do the neocon babble bit calling all in sight anti-semitics, in particular the professors, the Baker Group and Jimmy Carter. Too bad Pearlman needs to further demonstrate his inability to construct a reasoned discussion by reverting to what for him must be his second favorite four letter word, after anti-Semite. Get over it Israeli apologists, you can no longer drag out anti-Semitism and the Holocast in order to silence any and all honest debate about what ought to be serious questioning about the US-Israel relationship and its negative impact on the United States as well as on states in the region near Israel.
Regards,
Don
the wise king:"the "world" has always hated the jews
The United States welcomed Jews, provided an atmosphere where they could flourish, voted them into high office and approved and supported their appointements (on their merit) everywhere else. But a small number of neoconservative Jews betrayed their trust and put the welfare of Israel ahead of that of their fellow Americans. If any Americans are mistrustful of neoconservative Jews today, they have good reason. These Jews routinely take public positions that help Israel at America's expense. They are delighted we attacked Iraq. They are willing to fight in Iran to the last dead American GI.
Don:
the facts are this, I can't turn on the TV without seeing Jimmy Carters mug. He gets fawning softball questions that are astounding in their sucking up. he doesn't lack for a platform. Brandeis invites him to the campus in order to debate Alan Dershowitz. In a word, to defend his book. At this point he decides he has better places to be. Tell me what I have wrong here and how this is some sort of censorship of the sainted Jimmy Carter.
I have never seen these pro-Israel zealots express an iota of concern for the 3000 dead Americans killed in the war they foisted on this country.
If 3 Israeli soldiers are killed, Pearlman and his fellow hassids weep. But 3000 dead Americans are just dead goyim to them, They are a 5th column.
Hey Geoff, I don't want to see any American soldiers get killed, not now, not ever. And personally I don't think one marine is worth the entire Arab world, has far as I'm concerned they can all slaughter each other. Personally I'd like to see us pull out of there tomorrow and let the Shia and the sunni's go out it in a steel cage deeath match. But I fail to see what that has to do with the idea that somehow Jimmy Carter is being censored. That one is bullshit.
PS I'm not chassidic
You know Geoff I stand in awe of the kids, and when your my age they seems like kids who are in our armed forces. Their better men and women than I'll everr be and when you think of just how much of the free world is riding on the actions and bravery of a few hundred thousand young Americans its really kind of mind boggling. And I personally think there is a tremendoud disconnect between American society and the fact that we have men in the field. But again, I fail to see the connection to peanut Jimmy and some sort of strange idea that he is being censored when I can't turn on the TV or read the paper without seeing him. Again, the question remains, why is he afraid of a debate.
you know Geoff, I think they idea was to try and make a decent country in the middle of the Arab world. Democratic, pluralistic, something that might be an example and bring them into the 21st century, human rights, rights for women, an independent judiciary, press. It was and is a noble effort. The problem is 20-20 hindsight is great. It can't work because tht Arabs are simply not capable of civil society. It's a clan and tribal culture and western thought and customs don't work. Their a bunch of lunatics, less a people that a death cult and not worth the fingernail clippings of a single American soldier, sailor, airman or marine. Not the Kuwati's who we went to war for, not the Bosnians, and not the Saudi's, who live under American protection. Last but not least. I know that in your feverish mind the elders in Jerusalem pull all the strings but the only soldiers that have died in defense of israel are Israeli's. Since 1948 we've lost men in Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Panama, and Grenada, and lebanon. All in defense of Asians and Moslems.
"Again, the question remains, why is he afraid of a debate." Bill Pearlman
You're right Bill. I see the usual pro-Arab fanatics try to dodge this question with their name calling, their diversions and ad hominen attacks. So allow me to answer the question:
Carter is afraid to debate because he knows he doesn't have the facts or logic on his side.
I would understand it if he were asked to debate a Muslim. After all, no one wants to wind up dead on the street like Hugo Van Gogh, or have a fatwa on their life like Salmon Rushdie....
But Carter is simply to cowardly to face the shame and humiliation of losing the debate (a debate he wanted to provoke!) and admitting that he's wrong.
Very well put Gene and Geoff.
If the world ALWAYS hated Jews, I'm sure it had a good reason. Fortunately, it didn't and there wasn't.
Why on earth should Jimmy Carter debate Mr. Dershowitz? Who is this Mr. Dershowitz anyway? Looks like a stooge with nothing to lose who'd do his best to rain mud on Carter if he can instead of engaging him in honest discussion. That there seems to be an effort to bait President Carter into a no win situation is proof enough for me that there is a concerted effort out there to discredit him. Such efforts only serve to create resentment against Jews. I thank Mr. Rosenberg for his piece. The expression of such sentiments allow me to maintain my respect and admiration for Jewish people.
Gene and Geoff -- maybe instead of your hate blinding your view you should realize that their are many Jews serving in our armed forces, including neocon Elliot Cohen's son. Maybe you should reason a little bit -- i've got one for you -- how does a failed state of radical Islamists a stone's throw away from the West Bank help Israel one iota? The Iraq War will be a disaster for Israel with what will come after Saddam. Get a clue.
"their are many Jews serving in our armed forces"
Yes there are, but far fewer than you would expect. Although representing about 1.7% of the population, Jews account for less than 0.5% of armed forces personnel (and an even smaller proportion of active soldiers actually on the front lines). This is from James Petras, Texas Versus Tel Aviv: U.S. Policy in the Middle East.)
(BTW, I can think of many reasons why Israel would prefer a fragmented, squabbling Iraq to a healthy powerful country able to challenge Israeli hegemony in the region. Hasn't divide and conquer been the Jewish state's strategy since the beginning?)
Why should the USA's greatest living president, a symbol of a humanity for which this country used to be respected, feel compelled to debate a man who helped keep a multiple murderer from justice? Why should he feel remotely comfortable being in the same room as Dershowitz, OJ Simpson's favorite surviving attorney?
Maybe the glove doesn't fit.
Gene Machina claims the US has always welcome Jews.
Gene is an ignorant jerk. For starters:
1) Stuyvesant did not want to allow the first Jews to stay in New Amsterdam. He and most of his neighbours were bigots.
2) Some states barred Jews from office well into the 19th century.
3) Leo Frank was lynched and still has not been exonerated.
4) Grant "ethnically cleansed" several states of Jews.
5) Henry Ford's anti-Semitic Daerborn Independent is the source from which Hitler learned about the Protocols.
6) In the depression the anti-Semitic KKK marches half-a-million strong down the main streets of Washington.
7) Father Coughlin
8) Farrakhan
9) Crown Heights pogrom
10) Morgenthau study: "Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews"
11) Massive anti-Semitic pogrom (by police and Irish workers) at the 1902 funeral of Rabbi Jacob Joseph.
The list is endless.
Philip, Carter isn't "the USA's greatest living president."
His incompetence is responsible for the existence of the theocratic and dangerously imperialist Iranian regime.
His lies are responsible for one of the world's most brutal disctatorships, North Korea, becoming nuclear.
He has never found a horrid, brutal, leftists regime he doesn't like.
His book is replete with anti-Semitic lies.
Carter is a traitor and an anti-Semite, and his book and interviews border upon a neo-Nazi's fanatical hatred of Jews.