Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Stanford's anti-Israel Joel Beinin Whines about Israeli Airport’s “Harassment”
1.
Joel Beinin Whines about Israeli Airport's "Harassment" – by Steven Plaut
Posted By Steven Plaut On December 1, 2009 @ 12:06 am In FrontPage | No Comments
Being a leftist Anti-Zionist means not only never having to say you are sorry, such as when you get your facts all wrong. It also means that you have an obligation to represent yourself as a victim of harassment. Armchair martyrdom is as fundamental a part of leftist ideology as anti-Americanism and hatred of Israel.
In his now-famous essay from July, 1976, "The Intelligent Co-ed's Guide to America," Thomas Wolfe wrote about how desperately American academics wish to feel persecuted. A pretense of being persecuted today seems to do wonders both for their ego and for their web traffic. The entire "Zionist Lobby" is largely an invention by these same people, anxious to show that they are being oppressed by an evil nefarious conspiracy. You just need to wave your stigmata and denounce the "Neo-Conservatives," the "Rightwing McCarthyists," and – of course the Jews. Whining about being persecuted seems to be the leading participation sport of today's far Leftists and the radical armchair postureurs.
As documented recently on this web site [1], Joel Beinin, the Israel-hating pro-Hamas sometimes-Maoist professor of Middle East Studies at Stanford University is just such a persecution whiner. Here is what we wrote:
'"McCarthyism" seems to be Beinin's third favorite "m" word, after Marxism and Mao, and he applies it liberally to anyone who dares to criticize him. Beinin wrote a 2004 article called "The New McCarthyism: Policing Thought about the Middle East [2]." In it, Beinin denounced the Ford Foundation [3]'s decision to withdraw funding from any university grantee that finances the promotion of "violence, terrorism, or bigotry or the destruction of any state." What worried Beinin was that such restrictions could potentially hurt a "Palestinian student group [that] called for the replacement of the state of Israel with a secular, democratic state," meaning one seeking the extermination of Israel.'
Beinin went on to declare that Bay Area Zionists silenced him and prevented him from giving a talk to a school in San Jose. The San Francisco Chronicle checked and reported that no one at all from the local Jewish Community had even spoken with anyone at that school.
Well, the good professor is back. Over the Thanksgiving weekend he widely circulated the following epistle, which we reprint for you here in full, spelling errors and all:
26 November 2009
I arrived in Israel at about 15:00 on Wednesday, 25 November afternoon to visit my mother, brother, and sister who are Israeli (and US) citizens resident in Israel since 1973. My mother has been ill, and this visit was prompted primarily for that reason. I have visited Israel dozens of times before – most recently December 2008 – and resided in the country for extended periods on several different occasions. Yesterday, for the first time since my first visit to Israel in 1965, I was detained without explanation at Ben-Gurion airport for nearly two hours and ultimately interrogated. The questioners asked questions that they surely already knew the answers to. The asked, for example, my profession and my email. My position as Donald J. McLaughlan Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History at Stanford University and my email are a matter of public record, easily obtainable from the website of Stanford's Department of History. The questioners also asked whether I had travelled (sic) to "other countries in the region" which, since they had my passport in their hands for the better part of two hours with all the relevant visa stamps, was also not obscure information. My luggage was not searched nor was I asked any question remotely related to the security of Israel except whether I had travelled (sic) to Iran (I was there once, for two weeks, in 1970 when Israel had warm relations with the Shah's regime).
It therefore appears that this "investigation" had no purpose other than to harass and intimidate me.
Upon leaving I was told that I would be contacted further by one "Amos" from the Ministry of Defense. For my convenience, I was given his phone number: 054-*******.
Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History
Professor of Middle East History
Joel Beinin
Contact in Israel: 054-565-2320
The main reports about the horrific suffering by Beinin at the hands of the security personnel at Israel's airport have been on web sites run by Israel's own predominantly-Arab Stalinist communist party and on one of its front groups named "The Left Bank."
Now the above Beinin hysterics about being "intimidated" need a dose of deconstruction. Beinin routinely travels to countries that happen to be at war with Israel, and has visited Iran, which happens to be officially on record as calling for the annihilation of Israel and its population. By his own admission, Beinin's passport is bristling with visas from such countries. One would expect even the sleepiest airport passport inspector at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport to sit up and take notice of someone coming into the country with such visas. Most passport inspectors at Tel Aviv airport, by the way, are teenage girls. So you can imagine the terror and intimation experienced there by the poor professor.
Now Beinin's insistence that the airport security staff must have known who he is rings a bit curious. I did a search of the Hebrew web, and – sure enough – there are some internet mentions of him in Hebrew, but almost all of those are on the web sites of communist party and its fronts, which the airport inspectors may not visit on a regular basis. There are two mentions of Beinin's getting sued by Los Angeles journalist Rachel Neuwirth for his posting false smears about her.
What about Beinin's claim that being questioned about his travels in belligerent countries constitutes "harassment" and "intimidation?" (We have only his word that the questioning took two hours, and no mention at all of his being offered cookies and tea; I have waited in that airport for longer just to get a guitar case out of the belly of a plane!) Well, an acquaintance of mine named Julia is an Israeli Jew born in Libya, a fact noted on her Israeli passport, and you would not believe the hassle she goes through every time she wants to come to the United States for a visit! My wife was questioned at length and searched at Tokyo airport after 9-11 because her passport says she was born in the Middle East.
More to the point, Joel Beinin is an anti-Israel hate propagandist, someone who has made a career out of rationalizing anti-Jewish terrorism and endorsing Arab demands for Israel's annihilation. Other countries routinely bar hostile propagandists for far less provocation. Canada banned ultra-leftist [4] and Saddam's agent George Galloway from entering, and also banned some other radicals [5]. Canada also banned a controversial rap group from entering. The US banned Tariq Ramadan due to his terrorist connections. It has banned others for security reasons, including Cat Stevens, the British author Sebastian Horsley [6], a pro-LSD Canadian psychologist [7], and at least one Israeli [8]. The UK banned radio host Michael Savage [9] (along with 15 other people [10]) for being insensitive to Moslems, and tried to ban Dutch politician [11] Geert Wilders. Egypt has barred Hamas members from entering. The Ukraine banned the mayor of Moscow [12] from entering the country because of things he said.
Now as it turns out, Israel almost never prevents anti-Israel propagandists and anti-Semitic hate-mongers from entering the country. For example, it rather stupidly allows lots of "anarchists" from the "International Solidarity Movement" and similar pro-terror groups to enter the country and then to attack its policemen and soldiers as their attempt to help Palestinian terrorists. The only two anti-Israel propagandists of note who have been barred from entering Israel in recent years were: 1. Norman Finkelstein, a Neo-Nazi who was fired by DePaul University and who was barred from entering Israel due to his intimate ties with the Hezb'Allah, and 2. Richard Falk, the anti-Semitic retired professor from Princeton who was barred from entering Israel as head of an anti-Israel UN propaganda "commission." (When Falk arrived earlier as a private person to give university lectures, he was admitted.)
Anti-Israel fanatics, like Noam Chomsky and the Swedish journalist who recently invented a medieval blood libel about Jews stealing the body parts of Palestinians, have been admitted to Israel freely, although they never would be if I had anything to say about it. Even Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, whose nasty diatribe, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, has become the Koran for Israel-bashers and Jew-haters around the world, were welcomed in Israel for a speaking tour.
It goes without saying that Beinin has never expressed any criticism of the fact that Israelis are prohibited altogether from entering Iran and most Arab countries. Some of those countries prohibit entry to Jews from anywhere. In Saudi Arabia you will get expelled and beaten to a pulp if you have a Hanukka Menorah or a Christmas tree.
Of course the greatest irony in all of this is that Beinin was not banned from Israel at all, in spite of being a fanatical pro-terror anti-Israel propagandist. He was simply interviewed by an alert young passport inspector, suspicious of all those visas in Beinin's passport from countries seeking Israel's annihilation. For Beinin, however, the incident was a priceless opportunity to wave his stigmata and show the world what a persecuted martyr and victim he is. His questioning in the airport proves he is being intimidated and harassed by them damned Zionists!
Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/01/joel-beinin-whines-about-israeli-airports-harassment-by-steven-plaut/
URLs in this post:
[1] documented recently on this web site: http://frontpagemag.com../2009/10/16/collaborators-in-the-campus-war-against-israel-and-the-jews-joel-beinin-%D7%92%E2%82%AC%E2%80%9C-by-steven-plaut/feed/
[2] The New McCarthyism: Policing Thought about the Middle East: http://www.censoringthought.org/beinin.html
[3] Ford Foundation: http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/funderProfile.asp?fndid=5176
[4] banned ultra-leftist: http://www.911blogger.com/node/19654
[5] banned some other radicals: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/10/04/peace-activists.html
[6] British author Sebastian Horsley: http://blog.beliefnet.com/idolchatter/2008/03/british-author-barred-from-ent.html
[7] pro-LSD Canadian psychologist: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2007/04/canadian_psycho
[8] at least one Israeli: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/17/israels-national-security-aide-barred-from-us
[9] banned radio host Michael Savage: http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2009/02/government-bans.html
[10] 15 other people: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/16-banned-from-britain-named-and-shamed-1679127.html
[11] tried to ban Dutch politician: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5709892.ece
[12] banned the mayor of Moscow: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1A1-D90K90UG1.html
PS: Beinin publishes his "version" of the events here: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/beinin281109.html
Note the part about how the awful harassing Israeli security officer offers Beinin the former's own personal cell phone number in case Beinin needs any help during his visit to Israel.
2. Haaretz gleefully reports that the EU is about to demand that Jerusalem be recognized as the capital of "Palestine." See http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1131926.html Now the other newspapers are not reporting this, so it may be another Haaretz fabrication. But let us suppose for a moment that the story is for real.
I am trying to come up with a sufficiently snarky snide response to the idea, and am having trouble doing so. Calling for turning European capitals over to the Mongols just does not cut it. Nor does turning Washington over to the confederacy.
The best that I can come up with is this. We must all tell the Eurotrash that such an idea must be stopped at all costs for the sake of protecting the rights of homosexuals.
You see, under Israeli rule, homosexuals can hold "Pride Parades" in Jerusalem. People may freely cheer them on or curse them or throw eggs at them. After all, Israel is (sort of) democratic. But if Jerusalem were to become the capital of "Palestine" or even a shared capital with the savages, clearly one of the first things they will do is to criminalize homosexuality in their "capital." The Palestinian Authority and its satellite terrorist groups routinely torture, murder and kneecap homosexuals. So once they have any control in Jerusalem, you can kiss those Gay Pride Marches goodbye.
Given that homosexual rights are far more important to the Eurotrash than preventing Iran from conducting a nuclear war against civilization, this argument might get through to them. I can also imagine it finally persuading the Tikkun crowd to turn anti-Palestinian!
3. As you know, Jerusalem has been having more than its fair share of hooliganism lately, most coming from the ultra-Orthodox chareidim, who are not above taking to violence to impose their medieval life style and world outlook on the rest of the country. But the problem is not restricted to them. Some Jerusalem ultra-secularists are joining in the thuggery and hooliganism. And in the latest version, some of these philistines have taken to painting the Tetragrammaton, the four letter name of God in Hebrew on streets in order to upset the chareidim. You know, so cars can run over it. See this report: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1131910.html
I propose instead that we chain those ultra-secularist philistines to the violent chareidim rabble and make them scrub all the graffiti off Jerusalem's walls together in chain gangs.
4. Anti-democratic McCarthyist David Newman of Ben Gurion University smears NGO-Monitor:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1259243045210&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
5. From Arlene Kushner
November 30, 2009
"When I Stop Laughing"
Sometimes I have a choice: either I laugh, or I weep. And, as my friends know, while it's not always possible (I cannot laugh about a nuclear Iran), I do try to choose the former. Without laughter, I'd lose it completely in this insane world.
That said... I look at a piece by Barry Rubin. The settlement freeze, he tells us, has improved US-Israel relations. No surprise there, and nothing funny either. This, clearly, is what Netanyahu was about with that freeze: attempting to make the US administration happy, or at least less discontent.
The freeze will have no effect, however, Rubin advises us: "On the contrary, the Palestinians and the Arab states will complain that it isn't enough and that they have more demands."
Then, says Rubin, whom I respect as a frequently savvy, "tell-it-like-it-is" observer of the political scene, "In giving something in exchange for no material gain or even a gesture from the other side, Israel can only hope that the president appreciates this and remembers that he did not deliver on his promise to get some concession from the Arab side to match it."
That's when I started laughing. For, rather than feeling appreciation and recalling that he let us down, Obama has already tightened the screws. Hope? We can expect nothing from him, and any expectation that it is otherwise will turn out to be, well, laughable.
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Consider this report from today's Haaretz, which is right in line with what I wrote about yesterday. Israel is now announcing that the number of prisoners to be released to Hamas, if there is a trade for Shalit finalized, will be 980, released in two stages (if this progresses, I'll follow with details). However, this does not account for "the hundreds of prisoners Israel is likely to release in a bid to furbish the image of PA leader Mahmoud Abbas."
The release would be done at the behest of the American president, if reports are correct. Some gratitude. At the end of the day, we may see close to 2,000 prisoners released. This is cause for weeping and wailing.
~~~~~~~~~~
In passing I would like to mention one other possible motivation for Netanyahu to have decided on that freeze. I doubt that this was the major factor, but a factor it indeed may have been:
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who is head of the Labor party, has been having trouble within his party with dissidents who are threatening to split. They had been sorely discontented with the leader of their left-wing party holding a major position in a centrist/right government. Then, lo and behold! the centrist/right prime minister out-does leftist prime ministers with his offer to freeze building in Judea and Samaria.
Yesterday, Barak told his party's executive committee that he was responsible for the decision to freeze building. See? he declared to the rebels, there is good and solid reason for us to be in this government. And at least some of the rebels are listening.
All of this plays to the stability of Netanyahu's coalition.
What is unsettling is one comment that Barak made, which has the absolute ring of truth. "Everyone should close their eyes and ask themselves who would be in the government without us. [National Union MKs Ya'akov] Katz,Uri Ariel and [Michael] Ben Ari. Would a narrow right-wing government have frozen settlements and could it have begun a diplomatic process?"
Well, never mind that there is no diplomatic process because the PA doesn't want one. Barak's point is clear. And we are left to ponder precisely what Netanyahu had in mind when he chose Labor as a coalition partner over National Union.
~~~~~~~~~~
I spoke today with the Chief of Staff for MK Danny Danon, who says that Netanyahu can make declarations as he wishes about not honoring requests to hold a debate about the freeze in the Likud Central Committee, but the law is not with him. Danon has collected the necessary 500 signatures on the required petition and expects to gather some 200 additional signatures. I will be following with more on this.
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Iran. It is behaving as obstinately and non-cooperatively as possible, which is stiffening backs somewhat. The latest ominous announcement is that there will be another 10 uranium enrichment plants developed. The decision to do this was made, it seems, as an act of deliberate defiance. According to the Washington Post :
"Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi told state radio that Iran needed to give a strong response to the International Atomic Energy Agency's resolution Friday demanding that Iran halt...construction of its newly revealed uranium enrichment facility and end all other enrichment activities."
But stiffened backs is not enough. What is needed is international outrage of such proportions that actions are actually taken. And somehow, that point is never quite reached.
For example, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said yesterday:
"If true, this would be yet another serious violation of Iran's clear obligations under multiple UN Security Council resolutions and another example of Iran choosing to isolate itself....Time is running out for Iran to address the international community's growing concerns about its nuclear program."
Time is running out??? It ran out a long time ago.
But the Washington Post also cited "a senior official" as saying:
"Iran will face a 'package of consequences' if it does not soon become a 'willing partner' in talks on its nuclear ambitions.
That allusion to Iran as a willing partner is worth at least a chuckle. If anything, Iran would be dragged kicking and screaming, but even that is not going to happen.
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And yet, and yet, we do seem to be at a turning point that will lead to actions against Iran. They better be taken mighty fast, and they had better be serious. The Wall Street Journal reports that discussions with regard to sanctions are focusing on specific areas that could be targeted: Iranian banks, shipping companies, insurance firms and energy assets. "U.S. officials said they have also focused on the assets of Iran's elite military unit, the Revolutionary Guard."
Iran is vulnerable and serious sanctions could have the desired effect. The Iranians are defiant now, but may face the point at which they must cave or collapse.
Is British anti-Semitism in danger of getting out of control?
7. http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/01/the-deal-for-gilad-shalit-by-jacob-shrybman/
Netanyahu's coming prisoner-release atrocity.
8. Yet another Hebrew University moonbette: http://www.isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/HebrewU%20-%20Daphna%20Golan%20-%20lends%20credibility%20to%20Goldstone's%20Hamas%20Propaganda.htm
