[Peace-discussion] Understanding Why Islamophobia is on the Rise
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Phyllis Bennis certainly has her problems and this piece is no
exception. Yet, her work often has merit and the piece below is an
informative analysis of the neo-conservative "Islamo-fascism" campaign.
Michelle
**
*
<http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=199>*
**
*Understanding Why Islamophobia is on the Rise*
By Phyllis Bennis
Institute for Policy Studies/U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
15 October 2007
Download the Speak Out! Against "Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week" here
<http://www.endtheoccupation.org/downloads/IslamoFascismFactSheet.pdf>.
Right-wing and neo-conservative political forces are calling for campus
mobilizations 22 -- 26 October 2007 for "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week"
events. They deliberately use the provocative term "Islamo-Fascism,"
linking Islam (and blurring the religion, the countries where it is a
majority, and its adherents) with the most despised political movement
in history -- fascism. They do so despite the disdain with which the
most violent and extremist versions of political Islamism holds both the
nation-state and corporations, both of which fascism holds sacred. Their
call predicts "the biggest conservative campus protest ever" and
identifies their goal as "to confront the two Big Lies of the political
left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming
is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat."
The very language of their goals makes clear that this is not solely a
racist assault on Muslims, Arabs, Arab-Americans, South Asians and
anyone viewed as sympathetic towards those communities. Certainly this
Islamophobic crusade, led by the neo-conservative David Horowitz
FreedomCenter, does reflect a deeply rooted racist demonization of those
targeted communities.But it reflects dangers even beyond the threat it
poses to those communities and to the social fabric of this country from
the consolidation of racist demagoguery as a "legitimate" part of public
discourse. [1]
<http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=199#_ftn1>
There is an understandable instinct to roll one's eyes at these risible
assertions, and to dismiss the grandiose mobilization claims as just one
more fringe right-wing nut job, but such a response would be a serious
mistake.Not because the "claims" are anything other than preposterous,
but rather because there is far too much public belief in these
preposterous assertions for anyone concerned with public education and
mobilization to blithely write them off.And with the clear links between
Islamophobia and support for war, the stakes are simply too high to ignore.
***CLAIMING OTHER PEOPLE'S OIL, TARGETING ISLAM*
It is clearly no coincidence that the areas that are the ultimate
targets of the so-called "war on terror," countries where Islam is
preeminent as majority populations and often the basis for governance,
are the same countries and regions where strategic resources -- most
notably oil and natural gas -- are concentrated.It is also no
coincidence that both the 2002 and 2006 versions of the Pentagon's
"Quadriennial Review" demonized Muslims, Islamic countries and Islam, in
various guises, as grave threats to U.S. security.
The call for "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" uses rhetoric that recalls
1950s-era anti-communist attack and innuendo, saying that "In the face
of the greatest danger
Americans have ever confronted, the academic left has mobilized to
create sympathy for the enemy and to fight anyone who rallies Americans
to defend themselves. ...Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is a national
effort to oppose these lies and to rally American students to defend
their country."
The political framework of this "Global War on Terror" has tweaked the
idea of a "clash of civilizations" to refer to something slightly
different. Now the Bush administration speaks not of that clash
/between/ civilizations, but rather a clash /within/ a civilization --
specifically within the Muslim world.It is a "clash," administration
officials warn, in which "we" must prevail.This has shaped the latest
version of how the U.S. proposes to understand the Arab world, the
Middle East, the Islamic countries -- as a clash between "moderates" and
"extremists."Those people, governments, countries, dictators, militias
whom "we" define as "moderate" support U.S. efforts towards control and
domination of their country or region. The "extremists" are those who
resist such efforts.
The "global war on terror" framework thus serves the Bush
admininistration's goal of permanent war -- a permanent war economy,
permanent reliance on preventive and preemptive wars, and permanent
control of the world through a network of military bases and expansion
of military force.It is a Manichean world-view, a view of good vs bad,
white vs black, and ultimately "us" vs "them."
This is a throwback to the language of totalitarian regimes.Nazi
propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels bragged that if you repeat a lie often
enough, the people will believe it. And Hitler's Reich-Marshal Hermann
Goering, while recognizing that "naturally the common people don't want
war," went on to remind the world how easy it was to convince people to
support war."All you have to do," he said, "is to tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
DECONSTRUCTING "ISLAMO-FASCISM AWARENESS WEEK"
This call for an "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week," shocking in its
explicitness, is an effort to mobilize support for a carefully crafted
campaign, designed to use familiar racist imagery to bolster the Bush
administration's key strategic foreign policy objective:strengthening
the so-called "global war on terror."
The campaign aims to reach a wide swath of U.S. public opinion. But
there is no question that it seeks particularly to mobilize Christian
Zionists, with whom it most often shares a right-wing political and
social agenda, as well as Jewish Zionists -- those ordinarily liberal,
but pro-Israeli communities who can easily be pulled into at least
acquiescence, if not full support, for a future U.S. war in Iran. For
example, the newest "pro-Israel" lobby on the block -- Christians United
for Israel -- called on the 4,000 participants at its July 2007 national
conference to back "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week." Calls to take action
against Iran dominated the conference and the talking points for CUFI's
lobby day, just as those issues top the agenda of AIPAC (the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee). The CUFI leadership called their
anti-Iran effort "the movement of our time."
There is a clear link, for instance, between Columbia University
president Lee Bollinger's statement (featured at the center of a
full-page /New York Times/ ad purchased by the American Jewish
Committee) equating what he called "the mission" of Israeli and U.S.
universities, and his leading role in insulting the Iranian president
when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared to speak before Columbia students.Not
quite willing to openly reverse Ahmadinejad's invitation to his
university, Bollinger was prepared to employ a novel kind of
censorship-through-humiliation:acquiesce to the appearance of an
unwanted guest, but control the discourse through rudeness and humiliation
*AN OLD INJUSTICE: USING RACISM TO BUILD SUPPORT FOR WAR*
This is hardly the first time the U.S. has used racism to build support
for war.The carefully orchestrated "Islamophobia" effort closely mimics
the U.S. campaigns of World War II. They were not designed to condemn
Japan's military or its policies of imperialism and militarism, so much
as to denigrate Japanese people themselves.In these campaigns "Japs"
were caricatured in racist images with pigtails, buckteeth, and faulty
speech, much as Muslims and Arabs are disparaged in cartoons, films, and
popular culture today.In both eras, the racist campaign aimed at the
strategic goal of building public support for war.
The World War II campaign to disparage and defame all Japanese was
broadened to include Japanese-Americans, and of course that led to the
infamous U.S. decision to imprison more than 120,000 men, women and
children of Japanese descent in internment camps for years during the
war.More than 2/3 of them were U.S. citizens.It is not coincidental that
attacks on Muslims, Arabs, Arab-Americans and south Asians have
similarly escalated in the six years since Bush announced the so-called
"Global War on Terror."
It is no coincidence that racism against other communities is at the
core of the work of such the David Horowitz "FreedomCenter," which has
also targeted African Americans. The Muslim Public Affairs Committee,
among others, has reported on how Horowitz's racist diatribes led to
self-critical retractions and apologies from student newspapers across
the U.S. that had accepted his advertisements.
<_http://www.mpac.org/publications/campus-activism/MPAC-IFAW-recommendations.pdf_>
The targeting of Muslim and Arab communities has an earlier history. In
1987 a secret report of the inter-agency "Alien Border Control
Commission" was leaked to the /Los Angeles Times/.Coordinating the work
of the Justice Department, FBI, immigration services and several other
related agencies, the ABCC outlined a plan for the internment of U.S.
residents from seven Arab countries plus Iran, in the event of a future
unspecified "national emergency."Internment camps, including a large one
in Oakdale, Louisiana, were to be built to hold an unknown number of
detainees.
During the years of the Cold War, the word "communism" served as a
convenient basis for mobilizing popular support for war, hysterical fear
that shut down critical thinking, and the wholesale violation of U.S.
Constitutional rights.While many Americans didn't really know what
communism was, during the McCarthy period anti-communism still succeeded
in creating new fears, demonizing whole communities, and legitimizing
the notion that an accused communist was guilty till proven innocent.
Are we surprised that years later equivalent assumptions shape the
treatment of Muslim detainees accused of "terrorism" and held for months
or years in Abu Ghraib, in GuantanamoBay, at Bagram Airbase or in secret
CIA detention centers hidden across Europe?
SIX REASONS TO RESIST ISLAMO FACISM WEEK
These are some of the major reasons why we must not laugh
"Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" away or brush it under the carpet.
1. The invention of Islamophobia, or fear of Muslims or Islam, is a
key weapon in the Bush administration strategy for building public
and congressional support for illegal and unpopular wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, for potential future war against Iran, for
Israel's policies of occupation and apartheid, and for a broader
drive towards empire.
2. As the threat rises of a new U.S. war against Iran, there is
already evidence of a campaign to insult Iran and Iranians
dangerously reminiscent of the anti-Islam mobilization that took
shape in the relentless demonization of Iran at the time of Iran's
1979 Islamic revolution.
3. The high percentage of Americans who continue to believe the false
claim that the ruthless yet /secular/ Saddam Hussein was
responsible for the terror attacks of September 11, 2001,
indicates a far too widespread inability or unwillingness to
distinguish between Islamic and Arab people, countries and movements.
4. While Islam-bashers in the U.S. government, media, academic and
other circles are sometimes careful to claim that their hostility
to Muslims or Arabs or Islam is limited to the "extremists," the
goal /and the impact/ of these campaigns is in fact to demonize
entire countries and communities.As Islamophobic views find
increased acceptance in public discourse, there is also a rising
danger of growing public acceptance of attacks --including legal
discrimination, denial of rights, violent assaults, and more -- on
U.S. citizens and residents who happen to be Muslim, Arab, or
Arab-American. The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
(www.adc.org <http://www.adc.org/>) and other organizations have
documented frightening numbers of such attacks.
5. Anti-Muslim and anti-Arab sentiment is not limited to extremist,
racist fringe forces; it is reflected in U.S. political, public,
academic and media discourse at the highest levels, including from
leading U.S. presidential candidates.Senator John McCain says that
"since the U.S. was founded on Christian principles" he prefers a
Christian president to a Muslim one. Congressman Peter King, top
advisor to presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, says that
"unfortunately, we have too many mosques in this country" and that
the Muslim community is "a real threat here in this country."
6. The spread of Islamophobic attacks to campus is aimed at limiting
academic discourse to a narrow range of anti-Islamic, anti-Arab,
pro-Israel and pro-war opinions.These attacks form part of
concerted public pressure to
* Refuse to hire or deny tenure to numerous academics whose work
challenges what is defined as "acceptable" mainstream dogma on
Middle East and U.S. policy issues;
* Intimidate Middle East scholars through recruitment of
students to record classes and lectures with the goal of
"exposing" opinions deemed unacceptable;
* Create websites (by organizations such as Campus Watch and
others) to undermine the credibility of Middle East scholars
who challenge anti-Muslim, pro-war orthodoxy;
* Construct a climate of self-censorship severe enough that
many applicants for scarce Middle East studies teaching
posts refuse to teach Israel-Palestine history until after
achieving tenure.
Academic attacks are on the rise against those scholars who resist such
censorship, particularly on the question of Israel. The Harvard /Crimson
/reports that during a faculty meeting in 2006, Professor of Yiddish
Literature Ruth R. Wisse articulated the basis for such censorship.
"Denying that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are separate phenomena, she
declared anti-Zionism---that is, the rejection of the racially-based
claim that Jewish people have a collective right to Palestine---the
worst kind of anti-Semitism." Such false accusations of anti-Semitism
remain potent instruments in suppressing open political discourse.
*__REASONS FOR OPTIMISM*
Despite the rise of racist, anti-Arab Islamophobia, it is clear that
public opinion (however slowly) is actually beginning to shift away from
accepting such propaganda. In fact it is arguable that the escalation of
racist attacks is actually a response to those changing popular views.
Those changes have been brought about through a number of factors.
Former President Jimmy Carter's book, /Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid/
has had a major impact. Its stunning title has brought new legitimacy to
the once-demonized analysis of Israeli policy as a new form of
apartheid. Others, including the U.S. Campaign to End Israeli Occupation
(www.endtheoccupation.org <http://www.endtheoccupation.org/>), are
highlighting evidence of how Israeli policies towards Palestinians in
the occupied territories and inside Israel violate the UN's 1974
International Covenant on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of
Apartheid.
The work of Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearscheimer on the
pro-Israeli lobby, culminating in their recent book /The Israel Lobby/,
has broken a longstanding taboo on bringing the role and influence of
the lobby into public discussion. While Walt and Mearscheimer were
hardly the first to write about the lobby, their original article
(refused by the /Atlantic Monthly/, which had originally commissioned
it, but eventually published by the /London Review of Books/) reached a
much broader audience than any earlier critical analysis because of the
impeccable academic and political credentials of the two scholars. Their
tenured positions at Harvard and the University of Chicago, and their
mainstream "realist" foreign policy positions, brought new familiarity
and, most important, new legitimacy to the critical examination of the
pro-Israeli lobby that had long been limited to smaller, progressive
publications.
Whatever the weaknesses or limitations of these two important books,
their publication has enabled a level of nuance long made impossible in
mainstream discussion of these issues. Organizations such as Jewish
Voice for Peace (www.jvp.org <http://www.jvp.org/>) are rising, bringing
Jewish opposition to Israeli occupation to new visibility. These
sustained voices are resisting the efforts to shape an intellectual
climate in which challenging Israeli occupation policies is equated with
anti-Semitism and discussion of "dealing with" Iran is limited to the
choice between crippling economic sanctions or nuclear attack.The
traditional efforts to narrow or circumscribe the debate no longer go
unanswered.
*__*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]
<http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=199#_ftnref1>
See also "Horowtiz's Latest Hate Campaign Heads for Campus," by Gary
Leupp in Counterpunch, 10 October 2007 (counterpunch.com) and "The
Mother of All Pretexts" by Uri Avneri at
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1192288533/
See the excellent analysis and materials on
http://www.defendcriticalthinking.org/"
<http://www.defendcriticalthinking.org/%C2%B2> and then follow with the
rest. And also under reasons for optimism could we add "A coalition of
academics and scholars has come together to defend academics and freedom
of speech at http://www.defendcriticalthinking.org/ and has compiled
several useful resources for campus activists
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<p class="MsoBodyText2">Phyllis Bennis certainly has her problems and
this piece is no exception. Yet, her work often has merit and the piece
below is an informative analysis of the neo-conservative
"Islamo-fascism" campaign.<br>
</p>
<p class="MsoBodyText2"><br>
Michelle<br>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong
style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"></strong></span></p>
<p class="MsoBodyText2"><span
style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong
style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><font size="3"><small><font
color="#000000"><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=199"><http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=199></a></font></small></font></strong></span><br>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong
style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"></strong></span></p>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong
style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><font size="3">Understanding Why
Islamophobia is on the Rise</font></strong><o:p></o:p></span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">By
Phyllis Bennis <br>
Institute
for Policy Studies/U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation <br>
15
October 2007</span></p>
<p><font face="verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Download
the Speak Out! Against "Islamo-Fascist Awareness Week" <a
href="http://www.endtheoccupation.org/downloads/IslamoFascismFactSheet.pdf">here</a>.
</font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">Right-wing
and neo-conservative political forces are calling for campus
mobilizations 22 –
26 October 2007 for “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” events. They
deliberately
use the provocative term "Islamo-Fascism," linking Islam (and
blurring the religion, the countries where it is a majority, and its
adherents)
with the most despised political movement in history -- fascism. They
do
so despite the disdain with which the most violent and extremist
versions of
political Islamism holds both the nation-state and corporations, both
of which
fascism holds sacred. Their call predicts “the biggest conservative
campus
protest ever” and identifies their goal as “to confront the two Big
Lies of the
political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that
Global
Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">The very
language of their goals makes clear that this is not solely a racist
assault on
Muslims, Arabs, Arab-Americans, South Asians and anyone viewed as
sympathetic
towards those communities. Certainly this Islamophobic crusade, led by
the
neo-conservative <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">David</st1:placename><st1:placename
w:st="on"> Horowitz </st1:placename><st1:placename w:st="on">Freedom</st1:placename><st1:placetype
w:st="on">Center</st1:placetype></st1:place>, does reflect a
deeply rooted racist demonization of those targeted communities.<span></span>But
it reflects dangers even beyond the
threat it poses to those communities and to the social fabric of this
country
from the consolidation of racist demagoguery as a “legitimate” part of
public
discourse. <a name="_ftnref1"
href="http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=199#_ftn1"><span
class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span
class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">There is
an understandable instinct to roll one’s eyes at these risible
assertions, and
to dismiss the grandiose mobilization claims as just one more fringe
right-wing
nut job, but such a response would be a serious mistake.<span></span>Not
because the “claims” are anything other
than preposterous, but rather because there is far too much public
belief in
these preposterous assertions for anyone concerned with public
education and
mobilization to blithely write them off.<span></span>And with the clear
links between Islamophobia and support for war, the
stakes are simply too high to ignore.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<strong><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;"><strong>CLAIMING OTHER
PEOPLE’S
OIL, TARGETING ISLAM</strong><o:p></o:p></span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">It is
clearly no coincidence that the areas that are the ultimate targets of
the
so-called “war on terror,” countries where Islam is preeminent as
majority
populations and often the basis for governance, are the same countries
and
regions where strategic resources – most notably oil and natural gas –
are
concentrated.<span></span>It is also no coincidence
that both the 2002 and 2006 versions of the Pentagon’s “Quadriennial
Review”
demonized Muslims, Islamic countries and Islam, in various guises, as
grave
threats to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
security.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">The call
for “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” uses rhetoric that recalls
1950s-era anti-communist
attack and innuendo, saying that “In the face of the greatest danger <br>
Americans have ever confronted, the academic left has mobilized to
create
sympathy for the enemy and to fight anyone who rallies Americans to
defend
themselves. …Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is a national effort to
oppose these
lies and to rally American students to defend their country.” <br>
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">The
political framework of this “Global War on Terror” has tweaked the idea
of a
“clash of civilizations” to refer to something slightly different. Now
the Bush
administration speaks not of that clash <em>between</em>
civilizations, but
rather a clash <em>within</em> a civilization – specifically within
the Muslim
world.<span></span>It is a “clash,” administration
officials warn, in which “we” must prevail.<span></span>This has shaped
the latest version of how the <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region>
proposes to understand the Arab world, the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle
East</st1:place>,
the Islamic countries – as a clash between “moderates” and “extremists.”<span></span>Those
people, governments, countries,
dictators, militias whom “we” define as “moderate” support <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
efforts
towards control and domination of their country or region. The
“extremists” are
those who resist such efforts. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">The
“global war on terror” framework thus serves the Bush
admininistration’s goal
of permanent war – a permanent war economy, permanent reliance on
preventive
and preemptive wars, and permanent control of the world through a
network of
military bases and expansion of military force.<span></span>It is a
Manichean world-view, a view of good vs bad, white vs black, and
ultimately “us” vs “them.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">This is a
throwback to the language of totalitarian regimes.<span></span>Nazi
propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels bragged
that if you repeat a lie often enough, the people will believe it. And
Hitler’s
Reich-Marshal Hermann Goering, while recognizing that “naturally the
common
people don’t want war,” went on to remind the world how easy it was to
convince
people to support war.<span></span>“All you have to
do,” he said, “is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce
the pacifists
for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the
same in
any country.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;"><span></span><o:p></o:p></span>
<h1><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">DECONSTRUCTING
“ISLAMO-FASCISM AWARENESS WEEK”<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">This call
for an “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” shocking in its explicitness,
is an
effort to mobilize support for a carefully crafted campaign, designed
to use
familiar racist imagery to bolster the Bush administration’s key
strategic
foreign policy objective:<span></span>strengthening
the so-called “global war on terror.” <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">The
campaign aims to reach a wide swath of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> public opinion. But
there is
no question that it seeks particularly to mobilize Christian Zionists,
with
whom it most often shares a right-wing political and social agenda, as
well as
Jewish Zionists – those ordinarily liberal, but pro-Israeli communities
who can
easily be pulled into at least acquiescence, if not full support, for a
future
U.S. war in Iran. For example, the newest “pro-Israel” lobby on the
block –
Christians United for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>
– called on the 4,000 participants at its July 2007 national conference
to back
“Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.” Calls to take action against <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>
dominated
the conference and the talking points for CUFI’s lobby day, just as
those
issues top the agenda of AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee).
The CUFI leadership called their anti-Iran effort “the movement of our
time.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">There is
a clear link, for instance, between Columbia University president Lee
Bollinger’s statement (featured at the center of a full-page <em>New
York Times</em>
ad purchased by the American Jewish Committee) equating what he called
“the
mission” of Israeli and U.S. universities, and his leading role in
insulting
the Iranian president when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared to speak before
Columbia students.<span></span>Not quite willing to
openly reverse Ahmadinejad’s invitation to his university, Bollinger
was
prepared to employ a novel kind of censorship-through-humiliation:<span></span>acquiesce
to the appearance of an unwanted
guest, but control the discourse through rudeness and humiliation<span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<strong><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">AN OLD INJUSTICE: USING
RACISM TO BUILD SUPPORT FOR WAR<o:p></o:p></span></strong>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">This is
hardly the first time the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
has used racism to build support for war.<span></span>The carefully
orchestrated “Islamophobia” effort closely mimics the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
campaigns
of World War II. They were not designed to condemn <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Japan</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
military or its policies of
imperialism and militarism, so much as to denigrate Japanese people
themselves.<span></span>In these campaigns “Japs”
were caricatured in racist images with pigtails, buckteeth, and faulty
speech,
much as Muslims and Arabs are disparaged in cartoons, films, and
popular
culture today.<span></span>In both eras, the racist
campaign aimed at the strategic goal of building public support for
war. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">The World
War II campaign to disparage and defame all Japanese was broadened to
include
Japanese-Americans, and of course that led to the infamous <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
decision
to imprison more than 120,000 men, women and children of Japanese
descent in
internment camps for years during the war.<span></span>More than 2/3 of
them were <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
citizens.<span></span>It is not coincidental that attacks on
Muslims, Arabs, Arab-Americans and south Asians have similarly
escalated in the
six years since Bush announced the so-called “Global War on Terror.”<span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">It is no
coincidence that racism against other communities is at the core of the
work of
such the David Horowitz “<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Freedom</st1:placename><st1:placetype
w:st="on">Center</st1:placetype></st1:place>,” which has also
targeted African Americans. The Muslim Public Affairs Committee, among
others,
has reported on how Horowitz’s racist diatribes led to self-critical
retractions and apologies from student newspapers across the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
that had
accepted his advertisements. <<u><span style="color: blue;"><a
href="http://www.mpac.org/publications/campus-activism/MPAC-IFAW-recommendations.pdf">http://www.mpac.org/publications/campus-activism/MPAC-IFAW-recommendations.pdf</a></span></u>><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">The
targeting of Muslim and Arab communities has an earlier history. In
1987 a
secret report of the inter-agency “Alien Border Control Commission” was
leaked
to the <em>Los Angeles Times</em>.<span></span>Coordinating the work
of the Justice Department, FBI, immigration
services and several other related agencies, the ABCC outlined a plan
for the
internment of <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region>
residents
from seven Arab countries plus <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
in the event of a future unspecified “national emergency.”<span></span>Internment
camps, including a large one in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city
w:st="on">Oakdale</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">Louisiana</st1:state></st1:place>,
were to be built to hold an unknown number of detainees.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">During
the years of the Cold War, the word “communism” served as a convenient
basis
for mobilizing popular support for war, hysterical fear that shut down
critical
thinking, and the wholesale violation of U.S. Constitutional rights.<span></span>While
many Americans didn’t really know what
communism was, during the McCarthy period anti-communism still
succeeded in
creating new fears, demonizing whole communities, and legitimizing the
notion
that an accused communist was guilty till proven innocent.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">Are we
surprised that years later equivalent assumptions shape the treatment
of Muslim
detainees accused of “terrorism” and held for months or years in Abu
Ghraib, in
<st1:placename w:st="on">Guantanamo</st1:placename><st1:placetype
w:st="on">Bay</st1:placetype>,
at Bagram Airbase or in secret CIA detention centers hidden across <st1:place
w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>?<span></span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h1><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">SIX REASONS TO
RESIST ISLAMO FACISM WEEK <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">These are
some of the major reasons why we must not laugh “Islamo-Fascism
Awareness Week”
away or brush it under the carpet. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">The invention of
Islamophobia, or fear of Muslims or Islam, is a key weapon in the Bush
administration strategy for building public and congressional support
for illegal and unpopular wars in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region>,
for potential future war against <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>,
for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
policies of occupation and apartheid, and for a broader drive towards
empire.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<ol start="2" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">As the threat rises of
a new <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region> war
against <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>, there
is already evidence of a campaign to insult <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> and Iranians dangerously
reminiscent of the anti-Islam mobilization that took shape in the
relentless demonization of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>
at the time of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
1979 Islamic revolution.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<ol start="3" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">The high percentage of
Americans who continue to believe the false claim that the ruthless yet
<em>secular</em> Saddam Hussein was responsible for the terror
attacks of September 11, 2001, indicates a far too widespread inability
or unwillingness to distinguish between Islamic and Arab people,
countries and movements.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<ol start="4" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">While Islam-bashers in
the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
government, media, academic and other circles are sometimes careful to
claim that their hostility to Muslims or Arabs or Islam is limited to
the “extremists,” the goal <em>and the impact</em> of these campaigns
is in fact to demonize entire countries and communities.<span></span>As
Islamophobic views find increased acceptance in public discourse, there
is also a rising danger of growing public acceptance of attacks
–including legal discrimination, denial of rights, violent assaults,
and more – on <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
citizens and residents who happen to be Muslim, Arab, or Arab-American.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (<a
href="http://www.adc.org/">www.adc.org</a>) and other organizations
have documented frightening numbers of such attacks.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<ol start="5" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">Anti-Muslim and
anti-Arab sentiment is not limited to extremist, racist fringe forces;
it is reflected in <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region>
political, public, academic and media discourse at the highest levels,
including from leading <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> presidential
candidates.<span></span>Senator John McCain says that “since the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
was founded on Christian principles” he prefers a Christian president
to a Muslim one. Congressman Peter King, top advisor to presidential
candidate Rudy Giuliani, says that “unfortunately, we have too many
mosques in this country” and that the Muslim community is “a real
threat here in this country.”<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<ol start="6" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">The spread of
Islamophobic attacks to campus is aimed at limiting academic discourse
to a narrow range of anti-Islamic, anti-Arab, pro-Israel and pro-war
opinions.<span></span>These attacks form part of concerted public
pressure to <o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li><!--[if !supportLists]--><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Symbol;"><span><span
style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 7pt; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal;"></span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">Refuse
to hire or deny tenure to numerous academics whose work challenges what
is
defined as “acceptable” mainstream dogma on Middle East and U.S. policy
issues;
<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<ol start="6" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">Intimidate <st1:place
w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place> scholars through recruitment of
students to record classes and lectures with the goal of “exposing”
opinions deemed unacceptable; <o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
</ol>
<ol start="6" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">Create websites (by
organizations such as Campus Watch and others) to undermine the
credibility of <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place> scholars
who challenge anti-Muslim, pro-war orthodoxy; <o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
</ol>
<ol start="6" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1">
<ul style="margin-top: 0in;" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;">Construct a climate of
self-censorship severe enough that many applicants for scarce <st1:place
w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place> studies teaching posts refuse to
teach Israel-Palestine history until after achieving tenure.<span></span><o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
</ol>
<p style="margin-left: 0.75in;" class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><o:p>Academic
attacks are on the rise against
those scholars who resist such censorship, particularly on the question
of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
The
Harvard <em>Crimson </em>reports that during a faculty meeting in
2006,
Professor of Yiddish Literature Ruth R. Wisse articulated the basis for
such
censorship. “Denying that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are separate
phenomena, she declared anti-Zionism—that is, the rejection of the
racially-based claim that Jewish people have a collective right to
Palestine—the worst kind of anti-Semitism.” Such false accusations of
anti-Semitism remain potent instruments in suppressing open political
discourse.</o:p></span><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<strong><font size="2"><u><span
style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana;"></span></u></font><font
size="2"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">REASONS
FOR OPTIMISM<o:p></o:p></span></font></strong>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Despite
the rise of
racist, anti-Arab Islamophobia, it is clear that public opinion
(however
slowly) is actually beginning to shift away from accepting such
propaganda. In
fact it is arguable that the escalation of racist attacks is actually a
response to those changing popular views. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Those
changes have been
brought about through a number of factors. Former President Jimmy
Carter’s
book, <em>Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid</em> has had a major impact.
Its
stunning title has brought new legitimacy to the once-demonized
analysis of
Israeli policy as a new form of apartheid. Others, including the U.S.
Campaign
to End Israeli Occupation (<a href="http://www.endtheoccupation.org/">www.endtheoccupation.org</a>),
are highlighting evidence of how Israeli policies towards Palestinians
in the
occupied territories and inside <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>
violate the UN’s 1974 International Covenant on the Suppression and
Punishment
of the Crime of Apartheid.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">The
work of Professors
Stephen Walt and John Mearscheimer on the pro-Israeli lobby,
culminating in
their recent book <em>The Israel Lobby</em>, has broken a longstanding
taboo on
bringing the role and influence of the lobby into public discussion.
While Walt
and Mearscheimer were hardly the first to write about the lobby, their
original
article (refused by the <em>Atlantic Monthly</em>, which had
originally
commissioned it, but eventually published by the <em>London Review of
Books</em>)
reached a much broader audience than any earlier critical analysis
because of
the impeccable academic and political credentials of the two scholars.
Their
tenured positions at Harvard and the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype
w:st="on">University</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Chicago</st1:placename></st1:place>,
and their
mainstream “realist” foreign policy positions, brought new familiarity
and,
most important, new legitimacy to the critical examination of the
pro-Israeli
lobby that had long been limited to smaller, progressive publications.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="2"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Whatever
the weaknesses or
limitations of these two important books, their publication has enabled
a level
of nuance long made impossible in mainstream discussion of these
issues.
Organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace (<a
href="http://www.jvp.org/">www.jvp.org</a>)
are rising, bringing Jewish opposition to Israeli occupation to new
visibility.
These sustained voices are resisting the efforts to shape an
intellectual
climate in which challenging Israeli occupation policies is equated
with
anti-Semitism and discussion of “dealing with” Iran is limited to the
choice
between crippling economic sanctions or nuclear attack.<span></span>The
traditional efforts to narrow or
circumscribe the debate no longer go unanswered.<span></span><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<font size="2"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><o:p></o:p></span><strong><u><span
style="font-family: Verdana;"><o:p><span style="text-decoration: none;"></span></o:p></span></u></strong></font><!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->
<br clear="all">
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%"><!--[endif]-->
<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><font size="1"><a name="_ftn1"
href="http://www.endtheoccupation.org/article.php?list=type&type=199#_ftnref1"><span
class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span
style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"><span><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span
class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span
style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;">[1]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span
style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Verdana;"> See also “Horowtiz’s
Latest Hate
Campaign Heads for Campus,” by Gary Leupp in Counterpunch, 10 October
2007
(counterpunch.com) and “The Mother of All Pretexts” by Uri Avneri at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1192288533/">http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1192288533/</a></span></font></p>
<font face="verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="1">See the
excellent analysis and materials on <a
title="http://www.defendcriticalthinking.org/²"
href="http://www.defendcriticalthinking.org/%C2%B2">http://www.defendcriticalthinking.org/”</a>
and then follow with the rest. And also under reasons for optimism
could we add “A coalition of academics and scholars has come together
to defend academics and freedom of speech at <a
title="http://www.defendcriticalthinking.org/"
href="http://www.defendcriticalthinking.org/">http://www.defendcriticalthinking.org/</a>
and has compiled several useful resources for campus activists</font>
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