[Cerchio] interessante da z-net

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Author: Leonid Ilijc Brezhnev
Date:  
Subject: [Cerchio] interessante da z-net
>>ZNet Commentary
>>How To Shut Up Your Critics With A Single Word October 23, 2002
>>By Robert Fisk
>>
>>Thank God, I often say, for the Israeli press. For where else will you=20
>>find the sort of courageous condemnation of Israel's cruel and brutal=20
>>treatment of the Palestinians? Where else can we read that Moshe Ya'alon,=

=20
>>Ariel Sharon's new chief of staff, described the "Palestinian threat" as=

=20
>>"like a cancer -- there are all sorts of solutions to cancerous=20
>>manifestations. For the time being, I am applying chemotherapy."
>>
>>Where else can we read that the Israeli Herut Party chairman, Michael=20
>>Kleiner, said that "for every victim of ours there must be 1,000 dead=20
>>Palestinians". Where else can we read that Eitan Ben Eliahu, the former=20
>>Israeli Air Force commander, said that "eventually we will have to thin=20
>>out the number of Palestinians living in the territories". Where else can=

=20
>>we read that the new head of Mossad, General Meir Dagan -- a close=20
>>personal friend of Mr Sharon -- believes in "liquidation units", that=20
>>other Mossad men regard him as a threat because "if Dagan brings his=20
>>morality to the Mossad, Israel could become a country in which no normal=

=20
>>Jew would want to live".
>>
>>You will have to read all this in Ma'ariv, Ha'aretz or Yediot Ahronot=20
>>because in much of the Western world, a vicious campaign of slander is=20
>>being waged against any journalist or activist who dares to criticise=20
>>Israeli policies or those that shape them. The all-purpose slander of=20
>>"anti-Semitism" is now used with ever-increasing promiscuity against=20
>>anyone -- people who condemn the wickedness of Palestinian suicide=20
>>bombings every bit as much as they do the cruelty of Israel's repeated=20
>>killing of children -- in an attempt to shut them up.
>>
>>Daniel Pipes and Martin Kramer of the Middle East Forum now run a website=

=20
>>in the United States to denounce academics who are deemed to have shown=20
>>"hatred of Israel". One of the eight professors already on this=20
>>contemptible McCarthyite list -- it is grotesquely called "Campus Watch"=

=20
>>-- committed the unpardonable sin of signing a petition in support of the=

=20
>>Palestinian scholar Edward Said. Pipes wants students to inform on=20
>>professors who are guilty of "campus anti-Semitism".
>>
>>The University of North Carolina is being targeted -- apparently because=

=20
>>freshmen were required to read passages from the Koran -- along with=20
>>Harvard where, like students in many other US universities,=20
>>undergraduates are demanding that their colleges disinvest in companies=20
>>that sell weapons to Israel. In some cases, American universities --=20
>>which happily disinvested in tobacco companies -- have now taken the step=

=20
>>of blocking all student access to their records of investment.
>>
>>Lawrence Summers, the Jewish president of Harvard, has denounced=20
>>"profoundly anti-Israel views" in "progressive intellectual communities",=

=20
>>that are -- I enjoyed this academic sleight of hand -- "advocating and=20
>>taking actions that are anti-semitic in their effect if not their=20
>>intent". Mr Said himself has already described all this as a campaign "to=

=20
>>ask students and faculty to inform against pro-Palestinian colleagues,=20
>>intimidating the right of free speech and seriously curtailing academic=20
>>freedom".
>>
>>Ted Honderich, a Canadian-born philosopher who teaches at University=20
>>College London, tells me that Oxfam has refused to accept =A35,000 plus=20
>>other royalties from his new book After the Terror following a campaign=20
>>against him in the Toronto-based Globe and Mail. Now I happen to take=20
>>issue with some of Professor Honderich's conclusions and I think his book=

=20
>>-- praised by the American-Jewish scholar Noam Chomsky -- meanders. I=20
>>especially don't like his assertion that Palestinians, in trying to free=

=20
>>themselves from occupation, have a "moral right to terrorism". Blowing up=

=20
>>children in pizzerias -- and Professor Honderich's book is not an=20
>>endorsement of such atrocities -- is a crime against humanity. There is=20
>>no moral right to do this. But what in God's name is Oxfam doing refusing=

=20
>>Professor Honderich's money for its humanitarian work? Who was behind=

this?
>>
>>Our own John Pilger made a programme for Carlton Television called=20
>>Palestine Is Still The Issue. I have watched it three times. It is=20
>>accurate in every historical detail; indeed its historical adviser was a=

=20
>>left-wing Israeli academic. But Carlton's own chairman, Michael Green --=

=20
>>in one of the most gutless statements in recent British journalism --=20
>>announced that it was "a tragedy for Israel so far as accuracy is=20
>>concerned". Why Mr Green should want to utter such trash is beyond me.=20
>>But what does he mean by "tragedy"? Is he comparing Pilger to a suicide=

bomber?
>>
>>And so it goes on. It is left, of course, to the likes of Uri Avneri in=20
>>Israel to state that "the Sharon government is a giant laboratory for the=

=20
>>growing of the anti-Semitism virus". He rightly says that by smearing=20
>>those who detest the persecution of the Palestinians as anti-Semites,=20
>>"the sting is taken out of this word, giving it something approaching=20
>>respectability". But we can take comfort that 28 brave academics have=20
>>signed a petition condemning President George Bush's build-up to war and=

=20
>>Israel's support for it and warning that the Israeli government may be=20
>>contemplating crimes against humanity on the Palestinians, including=20
>>ethnic cleansing.
>>
>>Have Mr Pipes and his chums put the names of these good men and women on=

=20
>>their hate list? You bet they haven't. Because all of them are Israeli=20
>>scholars at Israeli universities. I wonder why we weren't told about this.
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>buona giornata di merdra