Reader David Zasloff sent the following excellent letter to the Wooster Voice:
I have noted on The Volokh Conspiracy the flurry of incidents regarding Mr. Makhlouf’s appearance at Wooster, and I find Mr. George’s response to the criticisms of Mr. Makhlouf’s presentation to be an odd combination of historical ignorance and adolescent wishful thinking. Rather sweet, in its way, but unfortunately far from useful.UPDATE:A reader expressed concern that I am focusing too much attention on the foibles of one misguided college student. On the narrow issue, he is an adult, who wrote on a subject that had already garnered national attention, and thus should expect some scrutiny. From a broader perspective, the reaction to the current anti-Semitic undercurrent of anti-Israel rhetoric on college campuses is often “don’t worry, college students are too sophisticated to not see through even the more subtle forms of anti-Semitism propunded by anti-Zionists.” The Wooster story, however, provides an unusually graphic and explicit example of how easily a well-meaning, earnest young adult can be taken in by a skilfull, though not especially subtle (nothing subtle about the the Protocols of the Elders of Zion) anti-Semitic propagandist. And as Wooster goes, one would think, so goes the nation.Mr. George points out, no doubt correctly, that many who criticized Mr. Makhlouf’s presentation were not there to hear it. I certainly was not. Indeed, I am grateful to Mr. George for his various quotations, which suggest that Mr. Makhlouf looks upon the Middle Eastern crisis not with the usual blood-soaked rage of official Arab pronouncements, but with the deep sadness I also feel. Assuming, however, that Mr. George’s editorial is an accurate reflection of Mr. Makhlouf’s attitude, I am completely at a loss to understand how either one of them expects to cure the wounds in Israel and the Palestinian territories while adhering to strongly to objectively antisemitic sources for their solutions.
Whether Mr. Makhlouf is a genuine antisemite I am in no position to determine. I am, however, profoundly suspicious of anyone who quotes “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” as though it were a genuine historical report at this late date. That the “Protocols” are an infamous forgery, written in Russia at the time of the Czars, is not an opinion but a historical fact, and if Mr. Makhlouf finds it convenient to ignore that historical fact for the sake of casting aspersions on world or Israeli Jewry, he cannot be taken seriously.
By this time you have no doubt been told that the word “Israel” does not mean “family of God” in Hebrew. It means “wrestles with God,” and refers both to the patriarch Jacob’s transformative experience in the Bible and to the Jews’ history of relating to God as His partners in bringing spiritual awareness to Earth. For all I know, “Israel” does indeed mean “family of God” in Arabic, as Mr. Makhlouf claims, but I cannot imagine that even in Arabic the word is intended to refer to anyone but the Jewish people. The Arab peoples have never claimed the patriarch Jacob as their ancestor, and it was he who took the name Israel in the first place. Once again, it may be convenient for Mr. Makhlouf to assert that he, too, is part of Israel, but the claim is historically inaccurate and does nothing for Mr. Makhlouf’s claims as a rational Palestinian spokesman. Indeed, it simply places him squarely within a disturbing recent development in Arab rhetoric that claims all of Jewish history – the existence of the Temple in Jerusalem, the constant Jewish presence in what is now Israel since Biblical times – as a fiction that can be disregarded in favor of Palestinian assertions.
These are only the most obvious examples of the dubious foundations in Mr. Makhlouf’s speech. By relying on the Protocols, on photographs of unknown provenance, and on linguistic doublespeak, he is evidently trying to deligitimize Jewish claims in the Middle East solely on the basis of the claimants’ status as Jews. If that is not antisemitic, I don’t know what is, and if Mr. Makhlouf seeks peace with the legitimate and legal Jewish state, someone should inform him that antisemitism is not the way to get it.
In short, whatever his demeanor or motives, Mr. Makhlouf’s speech was in fact antisemitic in nature, and the apologies from the Presbyterian Church and Wooster are both appropriate and welcome. I sympathize with Mr. George to a certain extent; his idealistic ignorance is familiar to me, because it is a characteristic I shared with reference to the Middle East when I was a college student. It took me a long time and a lot of pain to learn the truth that the Palestinian “leadership” is not interested in peace. Fortunately, Mr. George is in school. He, too, will learn.
As for Mr. Makhlouf, I share his devastation at the damage the West Bank occupation has wrought. I, like all decent Zionists I know, weep at the deaths of Palestinians and of Jews, and while Mr. Makhlouf cries out at the Palestinian worship of human bombs, I cry out at the similar damage that the occupation has caused in the Jewish soul. Let us remember, however, why Israel is in the West Bank in the first place, and why it is now building that fence; it is because the Arab nations and the Palestinian “leadership” have refused to accept Israeli legitimacy, have made innocent civilians the target of choice for over 50 years, dance and sing when grandmothers get blown to bits, and have never renounced the goal of pushing Israel into the sea. Yes, the deaths of Palestinians and the destruction of their homes are devastating; if Mr. Makhlouf wants those things to stop, then instead of quoting vicious antisemitic lies, he should be telling his fellow Palestinians to call off the war. They are the ones who declared it, and they are the ones who can stop it.
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