By Janet Tassel, AMERICAN THINKER
“I’m looking for Rick Santorum. I guess he preferred to go to AIPAC.” Thus lamely, Stephen M. Walt broke the ice in the opening panel of Harvard’s One State Conference Saturday. With these lines, Walt, the co-author of The Israel Lobby and professor of international affairs at the Kennedy School, delivered one of the very few light-hearted remarks at the deadly serious two-day conference.
In the packed auditorium, Walt was unique, too, in saying nice things about the two-state solution, which is apparently now known as “partition,” and which in any event was pronounced dead by every other speaker. “At first glance,” he said, “the two-state solution still looks good: the Green Line separating two states for two peoples.” Forcing these two people together in one state would be a “mess.” But why have we failed at two states? He blamed, on the Palestinian side, “the Palestinians’ lack of unity, personal corruption, and a series of tactical errors following the Oslo Peace Process,” including poor public relations. All of which naturally necessitated “reliance on suicide bombers.” Of course, “the real culprit is Israel. Their leaders have never been interested.”
At this, one grew dizzy recalling names from all over the Road Map, from Madrid to Oslo to Camp David to Wye River, from Taba to Annapolis to Gaza, this last, by the way, still considered “an occupied prison.” But none of these destinations was mentioned. Meanwhile, Walt went on to harpoon Netanyahu and also to castigate the United States, calling it “Israel’s lawyer,” defending as usual the stronger party, thanks again to “domestic politics,” aka the Israel Lobby. Even Obama came in for criticism — for “raising hopes at Cairo, and later retreating by working to prevent Palestinian membership in the UN.” Strange as it may seem, Obama was frequently chided at this conference — while simultaneously being lionized at AIPAC.
Being at the One State Conference was a disorienting experience; somehow one had been translated to an alternate, not quite parallel universe, a cloud cuckoo land blooming with exotic pathologies. But navigating this terrain requires an awareness of its guiding principles, which include Marxism, multiculturalism, globalism, secularism, sexuality (any kind), inclusivity/diversity, and gender equity. And it is helpful to have a command of the vernacular (college students will not need this guide). For example, every chronicle, every story, is a narrative: a hegemonic narrative, a nationalistic narrative, one that is heteronormative, colonial or postcolonial, feminist, transgressive, progressive, regressive, or repressive.
However, having navigated this paradise, one unfortunately finds the obligatory serpents, in this case organized religion, capitalism, racism, imperialism, and of course, Zionism, which conveniently encompasses them all.
Interestingly, it is a land where certain words are never uttered; for example, Sharia. Apparently, it doesn’t exist there.
Walt, like many others, managed to incorporate many of the requisite shibboleths into a couple of sentences, as in “Israel’s support depends on far-right, xenophobic racists and fanatical Christians. But there is a community there that cares about human rights, and this opens a space for us.” And: “The Old Testament is not a good guide for political action.” The Qur’an, along with Sharia, was not mentioned.
Now, touching on the Old Testament brings up the question of anti-Semitism. One wag muttered as he took his seat next to me, “There haven’t been as many anti-Semites in one room since the Nuremburg rallies.” But in fairness to the participants, it must be said that they earnestly endeavored to keep separate — imagine a Green Line — the concept of Zionism and actual human Jews. As stated by Nimer Sultany, an Israeli doctoral candidate at Harvard Law School, “There is no identifiable correlation between Jews and Zionism. Zionism, a political and colonialist movement, has created a new nation.”
Yes, a dangerous freak show looking similar to the early nazi freak shows in germany where they were seen as cartoon buffoons.
Agreed. Perhaps more clandestine approaches could help in the interim: Dirty tricks, exposure of personal links to saudi money, creating compromising situations, accidents occurring while being mugged. The leaders, I believe, are on a payroll to kill Jews through circumspect means involving lies and manipulation of “useful idiots” Until one considers those like Walt as existential enemies one is confused as to what to do. What really is the difference between the Walts and the assasinated hamas leaders. They are only a further step removed from the actual genocide. Before HItler was able to physically exert power to achieve his goals he used the same means as Walt. The reason to use holocaust analogies is that Jews tend to be blind in recognizing dangerous existential situations. Certainly we would have applauded a bomb blowing up hitler and his supporters at one of his speeches in the early days. Jews treat such events as exchanges of ideas rather than as hitler trying to whip up a mob. The distinction they make between Jews and zionists is temporary and used to make them more acceptable to non jews and kapo Jews seeking appeasement. At the next stage it will be all Jews. Did I hear someone say “it couldn’t happen here”?
Definitely a “freak show”. This McCarthy girl ought to be forcibly married to Schulman, and both have mandatory sex-changes under Ovomitcare.
As for Walt, he’s a Nazi plain and simple. Someone who has been cheating David Duke of his shekels for years, a coward who hides behind the typical Liberal A-hole administrators who are running U.S. colleges and Universities into the ground by their usually insane defense of “Freedom of Expression”. The only freedom of expression someone like Walt deserves is at Gaza U. – no where else.
If some Lib or Ovomist wag wants to call this “McCarthyism” fine by me. A lot of U.S. colleges do deserve a drastic return of McCarthyism as our kids deserve better than Leftist Fascist Anti-Semites who throw objective learning out the window with their third-world, gender-bending, globalization, Islamofascist crapola. They’re the ones who deserve being thrown out of the window themselves while the Larry Summers of the world have a hissy fit.
Sounds like a freak show. I commend the author for having the stomach to sit through that abomination.
I agree!! Here’s How
The observer Tassel reports that protesters were outside the symposium she attended, but she is silent on the matter of whether anyone there loudly raised their voice against the baseless calumnies heaped on Israel. She notes only the whispered words of a person next to her was derisive about the symposium saying:
Those who are set against the radical chic of these anti-Israel leftists need to do more than just whisper.