What Would Kahane Do?

 

Back in the Day, I worked in a New York TV newsroom where “if it bled, it led.” During the late Sixties and early Seventies, one of our most reliable sources of organized mayhem was the Jewish Defense League, led by the ultra-Orthodox rabbi Meir Kahane. He preached a violent form of Zionism, and sent black-clad young thugs out to attack opponents of Israel. I vividly recall one incident when JDL members broke up a small pro-Palestinian march near the UN, screaming “There is no Palestine, Arab dog!”

The Israel Lobby and Us

 -- By Tom Phillips 

Columbia University’s Law Review was taken offline Monday after its editors published an article that said Palestinians are living under a “brutally sophisticated structure of oppression” by Israel that amounts to a crime against humanity. As of Wednesday night, the Review’s website said only that it was “under maintenance.”  By week’s end, the website was back online, with the complete fall issue including the article, titled “Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept.” It was accompanied by a statement from the review’s Board of Directors, complaining that not everyone had a chance to read the article before it was published.  The Board said for now it would “memorialize” its concern with the process, and continue to review it.

This was the latest iteration of a story that has been going on for decades. In 2012, after the Occupy Wall Street protests, I wrote about it, offending some people. But 90 percent of what I wrote then is relevant today — and more important than ever. At the certain risk of offending more people, I invite you to read “Across the Barricades 2: The Israel Lobby.” originally published here in January, 2012.

Occupying Wall Street, 2011

Last year’s occupiers of Wall Street included protesters against not just the financial and banking lobby, but other powerful interest groups that dominate political life in America.   And the harshest criticism from across the barricades was directed not at people like me denouncing corporate greed, but against a lone fellow with a sign protesting U-S aid to Israel – billions of dollars in annual aid to a modern, prosperous country, far more than anything we give to any of the world’s poor nations.  He was subjected to long, heated lectures from passersby offended by the idea that the U.S should not provide such extraordinary support to its special friend in the Middle East.   I sympathized with him, and told him so, because I’ve been through it.

In fifty years as a journalist, I learned that criticizing Israel is a risky business in America – it can cost you friendships, reputation, career, or political office.  For example, in the current presidential campaign, no candidate including the President has questioned U.S. support for Israel, even as Israel has repeatedly threatened to ignite a disastrous war by attacking Iran’s nuclear program.  They haven’t because to do so would guarantee a storm of protest from one of the most powerful interest groups in America, known as the Israel lobby.