Love of the Land: Top BBC presenter hosts eulogy to author who argues that the Jewish people do not exist, as UK anti-Zionist discourse hits another low

Top BBC presenter hosts eulogy to author who argues that the Jewish people do not exist, as UK anti-Zionist discourse hits another low

Robin Shepherd
RobinShepherdonline.com/
12 November 09

Shlomo Sand is a “historian” whose name you are likely to be hearing a lot more of. Following in the footsteps of Ilan Pappe, he is a far-Left, “non-Zionist”, Israeli ideologue who has just published a book –The Invention of the Jewish People — seeking to delegitimise the historical foundations of the State of Israel.

But Sand’s technique is not merely to delegitimise the Israel that was established in 1948, though he refers to that as having been accomplished by the “rape” of the Palestinian people. It is to assert that the notion of the Jewish people as a “nation-race” that was exiled from its historic homeland is pure fabrication. There is no Jewish people in the sense of having a bloodline that can be traced back to Biblical times and, therefore, there is no Jewish homeland for the current imposters to return to.

Needless to say, he has instantly acquired the status in Britain of a hero of the Israel-hating mainstream. This week on BBC Radio Four’s flagship “Start the Week” programme, star presenter Andrew Marr hosted Sand in the most one-sided, uncritical eulogy to an anti-Israeli commentator that I for one have ever heard broadcast on the BBC.

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Love of the Land: Top BBC presenter hosts eulogy to author who argues that the Jewish people do not exist, as UK anti-Zionist discourse hits another low

Love of the Land: The Places Stephen Walt Goes

The Places Stephen Walt Goes

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
04 October 09

A Norwegian university has decided to assemble a cast of Israel haters to teach a seminar on Israel. Ilan Pappe, of Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine notoriety, is involved. Pappe, a Marxist Israeli who left his native land for the UK—which is far more welcoming of people like him who support economic and academic boycotts and the destruction of Israel—will be joined by a group of similarly obscure quasi-academics whose major qualification is their hatred of Israel. As Haaretz reports,

Other speakers invited by NTNU Dean Torbjorn Digernes include Moshe Zuckermann, who in a January interview for Deutschlandradio—a widely-heard German program—said that operation Cast Lead cost hundreds of thousands of Gazan lives.

The members of the seminar’s organizing committee—Morten Levin, Ann Rudinow Saetnan and Rune Skarstein—have all signed a call for an academic boycott of Israel.

Who would feel comfortable sharing the stage with such people? Well, Stephen Walt, of course, who has joined the seminar as a lecturer. For someone who was once lauded as one of America’s greatest foreign-policy thinkers, it must be a little embarrassing to be forced to take your act to an obscure university set in a small city of a country whose major export is pacifistic moralizing. Or maybe Walt’s desire to participate in some high-octane Israel-bashing is so intense that he can only get his fix abroad, what with all the intimidation from the Israel lobby in the U.S. Who knows.

During the Chas Freeman controversy, one of Walt’s ways of defending Freeman was to compile lists of American Jews who opposed his nomination and accuse them of dual loyalties and then express puzzlement at how anyone could suspect him of animosity to Israel. After all, as he insisted, he and his co-author, John Mearsheimer,

have consistently declared our support for a Jewish state, said we “admired its many achievements,” and wrote that the United States “should come to Israel’s aid if its survival is ever in jeopardy.”

Stephen Walt is just a concerned friend, you see. Is it really possible that he is traveling all the way to Norway to appear next to Ilan Pappe so he can declare to the assembled his admiration for Israel’s many achievements and his support for the Jewish state?

Love of the Land: The Places Stephen Walt Goes