The Washington post reports on an academic who was to deliver a lecture at the Polish Consulate in New York City.
In: In N.Y., Sparks Fly Over Israel Criticism, Polish Consulate Says Jewish Groups Called To Oppose Historian the Post describes the last minute cancellation of a lecture by Tony Judt. The Polish Consul General, Krzysztof Kasprzyk, caved to pressure from the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee who do not agree with Mr. Judt.
Mr. Judt and other academics who espouse any thinking contrary to the sanctified image of the Jewish State and the United States’ multi-billion dollar support of that state have faced blistering attacks and cancellations of their lectures.
Personally, as a Polish American, I am ashamed of Mr. Kasprzyk.
The beauty of Poland was that it was once, and still is, a country that welcomes all (including, historically, millions upon millions of Jews who sought and received freedom there). Poland’s history as a nation is all the richer from the learning, growth, and development that occurred there based on a free exchange of ideas between peoples and cultures (much as the United States has).
The roots of today’s Jewish State go back to the social and political developments that took place within the Jewish community in Poland. Unfortunately, the connection between free speech and free development seems to be lost on people who would rather hold on to their tenuous grasp of what is today.
Groups like the ADL and the AJC have done a fantastic job of placing themselves in a position of influence. I actually credit their ingenuity and hard work.
I would just encourage people to peek under the covers and ask themselves if they like everything they see.
As to Mr. Kasprzyk, perhaps he likes being an errand boy. To him I would simply say —“ Iść i łudzić się (Go and deceive yourself). Perhaps you think that the ADL and AJC will stop labeling all Poles as anti-Semites, or that Poland will get a big fat thank you? Good luck! You should have learned in the school of hard knocks diplomacy that the convenience of today will be the downfall of tomorrow. I hope you are recalled from your post.
A few excerpts from the Post article with my commentary interspersed:
NEW YORK — Two major American Jewish organizations helped block a prominent New York University historian from speaking at the Polish consulate here last week, saying the academic was too critical of Israel and American Jewry.
The historian, Tony Judt, is Jewish and directs New York University’s Remarque Institute, which promotes the study of Europe. Judt was scheduled to talk Oct. 4 to a nonprofit organization that rents space from the consulate. Judt’s subject was the Israel lobby in the United States, and he planned to argue that this lobby has often stifled honest debate.
And… here’s the irony and the self fulfilling prophesy come to realization.
An hour before Judt was to arrive, the Polish Consul General Krzysztof Kasprzyk canceled the talk. He said the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee had called and he quickly concluded Judt was too controversial.
“The phone calls were very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure,” Kasprzyk said. “That’s obvious — we are adults and our IQs are high enough to understand that.”
Mr. Kasprzyk has bought into natavist stereotypes. He is defending his IQ, not freedom of speech.
Judt, who was born and raised in England and lost much of his family in the Holocaust, took strong exception to the cancellation of his speech. He noted that he was forced to cancel another speech later this month at Manhattan College in the Bronx after a different Jewish group had complained. Other prominent academics have described encountering such problems, in some cases more severe, stretching over the past three decades.
The pattern, Judt says, is unmistakable and chilling.
“This is serious and frightening, and only in America — not in Israel — is this a problem,” he said. “These are Jewish organizations that believe they should keep people who disagree with them on the Middle East away from anyone who might listen.”
The leaders of the Jewish organizations denied asking the consulate to block Judt’s speech and accused the professor of retailing “wild conspiracy theories” about their roles. But they applauded the consulate for rescinding Judt’s invitation.
In diplomacy what goes unsaid often speaks louder than what is said. It is also what terrorists do; they create an atmosphere of fear. They needn’t say anything, everyone knows what …might… happen.
“I think they made the right decision,” said Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. “He’s taken the position that Israel shouldn’t exist. That puts him on our radar.”
David A. Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, took a similar view. “I never asked for a particular action; I was calling as a friend of Poland,” Harris said. “The message of that evening was going to be entirely contrary to the entire spirit of Polish foreign policy.”
If you weren’t asking for anything why call —“ to chat up the weather? Oh, and thank you for your affirmation of yet another country’s foreign policy. If it weren’t for your take on foreign policy the world might fall apart —“ but then again —“ it is…
Judt has crossed rhetorical swords with the Jewish organizations on two key issues. Over the past few years he has written essays in the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books and in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz arguing that power in Israel has shifted to religious fundamentalists and territorial zealots, that woven into Zionism is a view of the Arab as the irreconcilable enemy, and that Israel might not survive as a communal Jewish state.
The solution, he argues, lies in a slow and tortuous walk toward a binational and secular state.
…
Foxman has referred to Judt’s views of Israel as “an offensive caricature.”
…
And we all know what offensive caricatures did to the Danes.
Thank you to Daithí Mac Lochlainn for Historian’s Voice Silenced which pointed to this and to the Young Fogey’s Conservsative Blog for Peace for the pointer to Mr. Mac Lochlainn’s article.
