Questions for Walt and Mearsheimer

Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer have been invited to speak at Hebrew University. They will continue to pedal their bigoted drivel about the iron grip, the Jewish lobby - which they call the "Israel Lobby," in capital letters - holds over American foreign policy. They will claim, as they did in their previous writings, that Israel's birth was an original sin and crime, that Israel holds the moral low ground, and that if the cause of Israel were in any way deserving of American support, it would not need a lobby. They don't make similar claims about the powerful Saudi lobby or the numerous other lobbies that have been part of America since the days of Thomas Jefferson. If just causes did not need lobbies, then it would follow that the causes of civil rights, civil liberties, gay rights, environmental rights, the rights of the elderly, etc. would all be unjust since each of them has high-powered and effective lobbies. 

Read the rest of this post   |  Comments (56)

Hamas has declared war on Israel - how should Israel respond?

Article 51 of the United Nations Charter guarantees its members "the inherent right to...individual self defense" against "an armed attack." In January 2006, Hamas was elected to govern the Palestinian Authority. After Israel ended its occupation of Gaza and removed all of its settlers, Hamas threw the Palestinian Authority out of the Gaza and assumed de facto as well as de jure control over the entire Gaza Strip. Its leaders then instructed its military wing to direct rockets at civilian targets in southern Israel. At first these rockets were Kassams with a relatively short range. Now they include Katyushas, which can reach Israel's large cities, including Ashkelon, with its population of 120,000 civilians. Hamas has officially declared that its policy is to develop or smuggle even longer range missiles capable of reaching Israel's largest city Tel Aviv and its lifeblood, Ben Gurion Airport. It has promised to keep aiming its missiles at civilian targets until the Jewish state is finally destroyed.

Read the rest of this post   |  Comments (100)

'Free speech for me, but not for thee'

Sometimes it's hard to determine whether the academic hard left, which spends more time blasting Israeli imperfections than Arab genocides, is living in an Alice in Wonderland Topsy Turvy world or in an Orwellian Newspeak world.  In a recent example, a group of hard left radicals at Harvard claim they are being muzzled. At a recent Faculty meeting, Professor J. Lorand Matory, who teaches Anthropology and Afro-American studies, but who spends much of his time bashing Israel, (a country he has never visited) alleged that critics of Israel like him "tremble in fear" when they express their views at Harvard. He submitted a motion stating that "this Faculty commits itself to fostering civil dialogue in which people with a broad range of perspectives feel safe and are encouraged to express their reasoned and evidence-based ideas."

Matory's motion received support from other paragons of political correctness, who are well-known for their advocacy of censorship of the "offensive" speech of others, but who are now complaining that there's not enough free speech for them at Harvard.

Read the rest of this post   |  Comments (1)