Details of the NYC Muslim Anti-Semistism Conference Part 3

The afternoon events began with a 1½ hours buffet lunch, which gave both the attendees and panelists an opportunity to mingle with each other. The conference became an oasis for the uncensored exchange of information, ideas, agreements and disagreements, in search of answers to ‘Muslim Anti-Semitism.’ There was a sharing of personal Muslim Ant-Semitic experiences and discussions looking for possible solutions. Most ideas were based on “finding Islamic partners to dialogue with who are willing to publicly talk about and criticize the hatred against Jews and Infidels that is written in the Qur’an, and to discuss the incompatibility of ‘Shariah Law’ and Western law. “But, this is not likely to happen in Islam, as the very few Muslims who do speak out are often discredited or delegitimized.” The reference to Islam’s ‘no mea culpa’ was made several times by various attendees and panelists and was recognized as the biggest obstacle to overcoming Muslim Anti-Semitism.

‘Teaching about Anti-Semitism’ and ‘Campus Jihad’ were the first panel discussions. Paul Bartop, Dr. Florette Cohen, Elizabeth Midlarsky and Gil Kahn are all professors who shared their experience of teaching Anti-Semitism to others. The first panelist, Paul Bartop is a teacher of comparative genocide studies at Bialik College in Melbourne, an Australian Zionist school. He is the co-author (with Steven Jacobs) of the book ‘Fifty Key Thinkers on the Holocaust and Genocide,’ published this year. He brought with him a slide presentation that depicted Hamas’ continued attacks on Israeli civilians, showing how Hamas teaches their children the hatred of Jews, to be martyrs fighting for their cause, and uses them as human shields. One slide in particular made the statement that ‘Hamas is harassing and abusing the children of Gaza.’ Mr. Bartop’s years of teaching experience led him to express his anxiety that is a result of the “intense student apathy about real issues…kids just do not want to know…The challenge is to wake them up.” 

Dr. Florette Cohen, assistant professor of psychology at College of Staten Island/CUNY and lead researcher of Modern Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israeli attitudes, spoke of her study ‘The New Anti-Semitism Israel Model: Empirical Tests’ linking Anti-Semitism with Israel. “The results suggested that Jews constitute a unique cultural threat to many people’s worldviews, and that Anti-Semitism and hostility to Israel are related.”

ColumbiaUniversity’s professor and Columbia’s Teacher College Jewish Association faculty advisor, Dr. Elizabeth Midlarshy, shared her experience of putting up a mezuzah in her office doorway in response to a swastika being painted there a week earlier. She said: “It makes the blood boil… This is a terrible act, not just against me, but against any Jewish person at Columbia.” Ms. Midlarsky mentioned that her name had also been added along with the swastika, but it had been crossed out, indicating a personal attack of hatred against the Holocaust scholar.

Gil Kahn, a professor in the Political Science Department of Kean University, Union, NJ, has been a consultant to the Council for the Rescue of Syrian Jews, the domestic affairs department of Hadassah, the Synagogue Council of America and Shvil Hazahav. He has stated: “The data are slowly starting to suggest that the more knee-jerk, monolithic response in the Jewish community is not what it once was…Among younger people committed to Israel, you are going to get more nuanced responses.” From hawks to moderates, to left-wing, this accounts for the debates American Jews are having these days, pitting Jews against Jews in the various nuanced responses to what it means to be pro-Israel in 2010.

The panel discussion ‘Campus Jihad’ included Samuel Edelman, Alex Joffee, Kenneth Lasson and Kenneth Marcus. The discussion began with a presentation by Samuel Edelman, Executive Director of ‘Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and former dean at the American Jewish University and emeritus professor at California State University. He strongly expressed his disappointment with faculty incompetence when dealing with hatred on campus. “Campuses must have support to fight propaganda…teachers need to get students to learn how to become critical thinkers and to fight back on Jewish and Israeli issues…schools must develop an infrastructure of response to deal with hate on campus…academic freedom must be protected.”

Alex Joffee is the Director of Campus Watch, a national group that aims to monitor professors who teach Middle Eastern studies for bias, and believes that many Middle East studies organizations are hostile to US administrations policy on the war on terror. “They are all fairly negative regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict generally and ascribe most of the problem to the Israeli side in various forms.”

Kenneth Lasson teaches law at the University of Baltimore and Director of Haifa Summer Law Institute. He is the author of 10 books, of which the most well-known are The Workers, Private Lives of Public Servants, Mousetraps & Muffling Cups, and Trembling in the Ivory Tower. His numerous articles include Murderous Marginalization of Women in the Islamic World and Women’s Rights Law Reporter 2009. He spoke of the legal dimensions of Modern Campus Anti-Semitism.

Kenneth L. Marcus’ credentials include the Ackerman Chair in Equality & Justice in America at the School of Public Affairs, CUNY/Baruch College and director of the Anti-Semitism & Anti-Israelism Initiative for the Institute for Jewish & Community Research. His most recent book ‘Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America’ focuses on the legal issues of religious persecution of Jews and this was the topic he brought to the table. “Congress should amend religious discrimination laws so as to overcome propaganda, which makes us react on an emotional level not a rational one.” 

‘Globalized Hate’ was a discussion with Phyllis Chesler, director of Phyllis Chesler Foundation, emerita professor of psychology and women’s studies at CUNY, and author of ‘The New Anti-Semitism’ stated: “The propaganda war is rampant.” Ms. Chesler has noted that “all documentation of the impending Holocaust of Jewish Israel, of the ongoing Islamic jihad against the world is not enough either to stop these calamities or to change brainwashed minds which are closed to reason and fact…it is a good thing that more and more scholars have taken up the cause of Truth…given how rapidly the Big Liars and those who fund them have escalated and seized the moment.”

Professor Daniel Jonah Goldhagen is a political scientist at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University. He is the author of several books including ‘A Moral Reckoning’ which served as the basis for the PBS special of the same name. He is currently completing a book on the globalization of Anti-Semitism. He talked about “Anti-Semitism taking on the new idioms of today and the multiple forms it has taken on around the world. Anti-Semitism is everywhere and ever-present. It is in global governing institutes like the United Nations…it is used as prejudice on many levels and is used as political mobilization in many parts of the world… It must be kept out of our political lives.”

At the end of the presentation Ms. Chesler raised her hand to ask the first question: “What must we do, what must be done to stop this very specific genocidal threat to the Jewish state – and the overwhelming jihadic threat against civilians everywhere? I do not think our documentation will be enough. I do not think we have enough time to reason with the brainwashed, one by one. Only a military victory will do it. But in the 21^st century, military victories may look different, they may look like Stuxnet, (a 2010 Windows-specific computer worm) and may include targeted assassinations that we never get to hear about.”  There was only silence.

Daniel Pipes, founder and director of the Middle East Forum, founder of Campus Watch, and probably the most well known panelist at the conference, chaired ‘Denial of the Islamists Agenda.’ He started the discussion by asking: “Why is Islam not getting the blame?

Before responding to this question, Dr. Clemens Heni, a political scientist with a focus on German Anti-Semitism, first thanked the editors of JSA for dedicating the conference to Sandra Samuel, who rescued the Holtzberg baby during the Mumbai massacre of November 2008 – academia and politics is in denial of the Jihadist background of this mass murder in India.

Dr. Heni then responded to the question by stating: “Germans are generally in denial and are so intimidated that Islamism is a bad word and talking about Muslim Anti-Semitism is racist.” He discussed the various techniques that are being utilized to deny Islamism by academics, political and social leaders. “Accusation of ‘Islamophobia’ is the popular trend to counter any criticism of political Islam.” He added “probably the most important contribution to Islamic denial or downplay it was a conference in the Berlin Center for Research on Anti-Semitism in December 2008. Professor Wolfgang Benz, head of the center, equalized the situation of Jews in the 19^th Century with the situation of Muslims today. Muslims are portrayed as victims of 9/11 and as victims in the Netherlands after the killing of Theo Van Gogh in 2004…Just to talk about Muslim Anti-Semitism is by itself problematic and racist…This seems to be true for the entire academic world today.” During a private talk with Prof. Chesler,  Dr. Heni  expressed that as a German, he felt a responsibility to “learn the right lessons from the Holocaust…so many so-called scholars of German Anti-Semitism are now more interested in “Islamophobia” than in Anti-Semitism…This is another form of either Holocaust denial or a way to continue the Holocaust. I cannot remain silent.” (Link: LINK`http`cifwatch.com/2010/10/06/can-we-learn-the-right-lessons-of-the-holocaust-in-time/`color: rgb(0, 0, 204); `LINK06/can-we-learn-the-right-lessons-of-the-holocaust-in-time/ ).

Dr. Neil Kressel, professor of psychology at William Paterson University, wrote back in 1996 Mass Hate: The Global Rise of Genocide and Terror, the exploration of why brutality of mankind explodes and flourishes in the 20^th Century more than ever before and recommends specific steps to help stem this bloody global tide of slaughter, terror and genocide. More recently he has written extensively on Muslim Anti-Semitism in his latest book Bad Faith: The Danger of Religious Extremism where he looks at what separates constructive religious impulses from destructive ones…and how someone who begins his relationship with God by committing an act of murder.Mr. Kressler confirmed that there is deep resistance and avoidance to speaking on the topic. “Many worry about losing their careers and of physical attacks.”

Daniel Pipes added that “the history of Anti-Semitism has changed over time and being able to combat it has changed. Wishing not to alienate Muslims with ideas and actions has been counter-productive. Security at airports is just ‘theater,’ while we really should be looking at people (profiling) and not 4 ounces of liquid.” He is sad to say: “It will take something even more destructive than 9/11 to wake people (on the left) to see Muslims as the true issue.” He believes that “Islamism equals Fascism” and is a grave danger to the Western civilization. Not believing that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is strongly backed by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, is serious about annihilating the ‘little Satan’ Israel and then the ‘big Satan’ is an even greater mistake.

The last event of the evening was the closing ceremony, which included the JSA co-editors giving awards to several writers in recognition of their contributions to JSA. The awards were as follows: Best Original Article: ‘The Jewish Genocide of Armenian Christians and Other Outrageous Claims of Christopher Jon Bjerkness’ by Steven Jacobs; Best Original Essays: ‘Riga and Remembering’ by Clemens Heni and ‘Tarek Fateh Silencing Canadian Jews’ by Andrew Bostom; and Best Book Review: ‘A lethal Obsession’ by Frederick Schweitzer.

The general consensus of the group was that violence attributed to Muslim Anti-Semitism has taken the place of Christian Anti-Semitism globally. It will take the ability to look beyond the sweet talk and lies, to look into past words and actions of Muslims who profess to be ‘peace loving,’ to find their true agenda. It will take the courage to face accusations of bigotry and racism, hatred and violence, and still be able to continue to speak out against this bellicose reality.

Jacobs, Edelman, Pipes and Landes

Paul Bartop