Michael Curtis

The international assault against Israel

This article deals with the insidious propaganda campaign against the state of Israel by official and unofficial international organizations, human rights groups, the media and academic institutions, in addition to Palestinian and Arab spokespersons, to challenge the legitimacy of the Jewish state and to demonize it. The campaign is to some extent code for thinly veiled antisemitism, but it also results from a number of factors: admiration of third-worldism and disapproval of democratic systems and values, and adopting as meaningful and relevant to criticism of Israel modern post-modernist thought, cultural relativism and multiculturalism.

Antisemitism: Different Perspectives

Antisemitism in America Today: Outspoken Experts Explode the Myths. Jerome R. Chanes, ed. New York: Birch Lane, 1995. Anti-Semitic Stereotypes: A Paradigm of Otherness in English Popular Culture, 1660-1830. Frank Felsenstein. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995 Hitlers Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. Daniel Goldhagen. New York: Knopf, 1996. T. S. Eliot: Antisemitism and Literary Form. Anthony Julius. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Antisemitism Without Jews: Communist Eastern Europe. Paul Lendvai. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971. The Anatomy of Prejudices. Elisabeth Young-Bruehl. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996.

The Founding Fathers of Zionism. By Benzion Netanyahu.

In recent years, the very legitimacy of the state of Israel as a Jewish state has been challenged not only by foreign critics, Jewish and non-Jewish, but also by so-called post-Zionists, Jewish academics and writers, of whom the most well-known are Avi Shlaim, Ilan Pappe, Shlomo Sand, and Danny Rubinstein. Their criticism is essentially a denial of the whole Zionist enterprise, a denial that, in effect, undermines the national foundation on which Israel rests. The main themes of these Jewish post-Zionists are: that Zionism, the movement of Jewish selfdetermination that led to the establishment of the state of Israel in May 1948, is a colonial enterprise; that a Jewish state is, by nature, undemocratic; that the state is basically immoral as it was based on the domination, or even the removal by force or other means, of another people; that the establishment of the state was a nakba, a catastrophe for the Arabs living in the area; that Israeli occupation, after the series of wars against it, of occupied territory is a gross violation of human rights; and that Israel is an imperialistic power and a threat to world peace. Despite the naysayers who wallow in the ‘‘crisis of Zionism’’ or the doubting Thomases living in Oxford, Geneva, and Washington, who are troubled by the perilous state of the ‘‘soul’’ of Israel, the miracle in the desert is not only flourishing but is making extraordinary, innovative scientific and economic contributions to the world. These critics misinterpret or deliberately distort both the nature and behavior of the state of Israel and the ideology of Zionism on which it rests. They disregard the fundamental premise that the area that is now the state of Israel is the birthplace and the ancestral home of the Jewish people, linked by historical ties and by religious and cultural traditions. This reality, in addition to the approval of the establishment of the state of Israel by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) of November 29, 1947, is the basis of its existence and legitimacy. Appropriate criticism of the actions and policies of Israel is certainly justifiable, but the inchoate mélange of disproportionate charges against and condemnations of the state by post-Zionists go far beyond any reasonable commentary. Those charges suffer from two problems: they are fancifully naı̈ve in their expectations of a perfect society and perfect people in the 64-year-old state, and they discount the continual physical attacks and rhetorical hatred that forces Israel to defend itself and take measures to ensure its security. The essential problem is that many Arab countries and Palestinians still refuse to recognize the legitimacy and legality of Israel. Zionism, a word coined by Nathan Birnbaum in 1891, is a nationalistic movement for Jewish selfdetermination of people with a common heritage. Zionism was (and is) not monolithic but has included a pluralistic variety of different approaches, some tactical and some based on different visions of the nature of the state to be established. It is, therefore, never clear what particular aspects of the different views of Zionism are unacceptable to the postZionist critics. The timing of the translation from Hebrew into English and publication of The Founding Fathers of Zionism (Balfour Books) by Benzion Netanyahu, the eminent historian who died recently at 102, has been most fortunate. Benzion was the patriarch of an important Israeli family, including Jonathan, the celebrated hero who was killed while leading the mission to rescue Jewish hostages held by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) at Entebbe American Foreign Policy Interests, 34:280–286, 2012 Copyright # 2012 NCAFP ISSN: 1080-3920 print=1533-2128 online DOI: 10.1080/10803920.2012.721329

Journey to Brussels: A Report and Policy Recommendations

hree members of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP) conducted a fact-finding mission to the European Union (EU) from May 14 to 17, 2002. The group consisted of George D. Schwab (president of the NCAFP), Bernard E. Brown (professor of political science at CUNY Graduate School and director of the NCAFP project on NATO and Global Security), and Michael Curtis (professor of political science at Rutgers University and member of the NCAFP Executive Committee). Before departing for Brussels, the fact-finding group consulted with Ambassador Nancy Soderberg (member of the NCAFP Advisory Board; former member of the National Security Council; currently vice president for multilateral affairs, International Crisis Group) and others. The main purpose of the mission was to present to five distinguished European researchers a National Committee proposal for launching a series of roundtables on reinventing the transatlantic partnership. With the assistance of Ambassador John B. Richardson (head of the European Commission’s delegation to the United Nations in New York) and George Cunningham (director of the delegation’s Public Affairs Office), the NCAFP mission met individually with six highlevel officials of the EU. The group also held discussions with the U.S. ambassador to the EU and three members of his staff and with the U.S. and Canadian ambassadors to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), also based in Brussels. In order to encourage a frank exchange of views, some of our respondents asked that they not be quoted or identified. Therefore, we are not Journey to Brussels: A Report and Policy Recommendations