THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XI, Issue # 173, August 16, 2009
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
NORTON MEZVINSHY'S LAMENTABLE LEGACY, & HIS FUTURE
By Asaf Romirowsky
UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD THE MIDDLE EAST & THE ISRAELI-ARAB CONFLICT: AN ATTEMPT OF A RADICAL
ANTI-ZIONIST TO INFLUENCE AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY IN WAYS THAT COULD FURTHER HARM U.S. INTERESTS IN THE
MIDDLE EAST -- SERIOUS QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CREDIBILITY OF NORTON MEZVINSKY & THE PROPAGANDA HE WILL
DISSEMINATE THROUGH THE INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR MIDDLE EAST STUDIES
FULL STORY:
A newly formed "educational think tank," the International Council for Middle East Studies (ICMES), is poised to
influence U.S. policy toward the Middle East in ways that could further harm American interests in the region. It will
be led by Norton Mezvinsky, a radical anti-Zionist who recently retired after a 42-year-career teaching Middle East
History at Central Connecticut State University (CCSU). If Mezvinsky remains true to form, ICMES will advocate for
holding U.S. policy hostage to the fallacy that Israel is always at fault for the region's troubles.
ICMES found a welcoming home at the International Law Institute (ILI) at Georgetown University in Washington,
D.C. And, according to Mezvinsky, ICMES's goal will be to build cultural bridges and promote faculty and student
exchanges between the United States and Middle Eastern countries.
An immediate question comes to mind: With whom will those bridges be built? That Mezvinsky's new organization is
being parachuted into ILI, a group that, according to its website, "raises levels of professional competence and
capacity in all nations so that professionals everywhere may achieve practical solutions to common problems in ways
that suit their nations' own needs" is most disturbing. We should question how such a politicized individual as
Mezvinsky could operate "practically" and decide what are the needs regarding Israelis and Palestinians, when he has
devoted his entire career to demonizing Israel.
For example, in 2002, Mezvinsky participated in a weeklong teaching institute for Connecticut middle and high school
teachers on the Middle East. Among the myths he perpetrated on his students, as recorded by an attendee, was that:
"Palestinians were pushed out of their homes, due
to the 'Absent-Present Laws,' which stated that, if
people who owned the land weren't on it at a given
time, the land was turned over to the JNF (Jewish
National Fund); and Israel has created refugees,
and has intensified oppression."
Jonathan Calt Harris later reported that Mezvinsky told the entire class of teachers that, contrary to historical fact, "'the
well-armed and well-funded Israelis' fought the Palestinians in 1948, but did not mention that armies of five Arab
countries first invaded the U.N.-sanctioned Jewish state."
Close observers bear witness to Mezvinsky's influence on his students. Rabbi Stephen Fuchs of Congregation Beth
Israel in West Hartford, a participant in the teaching institute, said:
"[Mezvinsky] has slanted the views of a whole
generation of students about the Middle East. I
am concerned that he has created a negative
atmosphere toward Israel."
Mezvinsky endorses the infamous 1975 UN General Assembly Resolution 3379, which declared Zionism a form of
racism. Furthermore, his biased views resemble the propaganda fed to eighth-graders in Saudi Arabia, who are
taught that, according to the Jewish religion, "the blood of non-Jews has no intrinsic value" and that, therefore, the
killing of non-Jews does "not constitute murder. . . ." Such blatant anti-Semitism has nothing on Mezvinsky's claim
that Judaism teaches "the killing of innocent Arabs for revenge as a Jewish virtue."
He also places the sole onus for the Palestinian refugee problem on Israel, while never acknowledging the estimated
750,000 Jewish refugees who were expelled from Arab lands. That many of those Arab Jewish refugees left under
pressure from neighboring Arab countries to facilitate the destruction of their Jewish communities is yet another
example of how the Arab-Israeli conflict has been taught at CCSU, absent any effort to provide historical context or
scholarly balance.
Not surprisingly, Mezvinsky joined forces with the late Israel Shahak to co-author Jewish Fundamentalism in
Israel. Shahak, a kindred spirit, was embraced by neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, and Holocaust deniers and was warmly
welcomed into the circles of Noam Chomsky and the late Edward Said. When Mezvinsky updated the book and
wrote its introduction, Amazon.com published Chomsky's endorsement:
"An outstanding scholar, with remarkable insight
and depth of knowledge. His work is informed
and penetrating, a contribution of great value."
Shahak's hatred of Israel went far beyond the simple endorsement of Arab and Palestinian views or fashionable
anti-Zionism, a common enough sentiment among Israeli academic Leftists. He openly hated Judaism and Jews.
Shahak's entire body of work rests on his conviction that Judaism is the font of all evil and that most global issues
can ultimately be traced back to Judaism via a worldwide Jewish conspiracy.
Mezvinsky and Shahak are prime examples of Jewish academics who, throughout their careers, questioned their
own religion and the legitimacy of the State of Israel. Edward Alexander, of the University of Washington, sums up
this malady in The Jewish Divide over Israel: Accusers and Defenders:
"Jews who assign responsibility for anti-Jewish
aggression to Jewish misbehavior, not only save
themselves from the unpleasant and often
dangerous task of coming to the defense of the
Jews coming under attack, but also retain the
delightful charms of good conscience. Hitler's
professors were the first to make anti-Semitism
both academically respectable and complicit in
murder."
Mezvinsky is associated with other supporters of Shahak, including the One State for Palestine/Israel group, which
advocates the "one-state solution." (They fail to note that "one state" requires no Jewish state, or that this is part
of the Palestinian-phased plan to destroy Israel as the Jewish homeland.) At their last conference, Mezvinsky was
joined by a host of radical anti-Zionist Jewish activists, including: Ali Abunimah, Co-founder of Electronic Intifada;
Joel Kovel, author of Overcoming Zionism, in which he advocates the elimination of Israel; Phyllis Bennis,
an antiwar activist and a fellow at the Far-Left Institute for Policy Studies; Ilan Pappe, a zealous anti-Zionist who
now teaches at the University of Exeter in England; and Gabriel Piterberg, a professor of history at UCLA and
devotee of Edward Said. These luminaries gathered to discuss a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a
"rational - academic fashion" and, true to form, proffered the one state solution, which is de facto the modern-day
"final solution."
This lamentable record underscores how a tenured professor who taught generations of undergraduates and was
influential and an active head of CCSU's Middle East Lecture Series, was able to spread his ideas through the many
anti-Israel/anti-Zionist speakers he brought to campus to "educate" the university community. His career illustrates
one of the most serious weaknesses in contemporary Middle East Studies: the politicized writing and teaching that
have displaced objective scholarship, and the redefinition of academic freedom as the liberty to dispense with
academic standards. All of the above should raise serious questions about the credibility of Mezvinsky and of the
"information" and "education" he will disseminate to a much larger audience through his International Council for
Middle East Studies.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Asaf Romirowsky is an adjunct scholar for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum
The foregoing article by Romirowsky was originally published in the American Thinker, August 15, 2009, and
can be found on the Internet website maintained by the Middle East Forum, a foreign policy think tank which seeks to
define and promote American interests in the Middle East, defining U.S. interests to include fighting radical Islam,
working for Palestinian Arab acceptance of the State of Israel, improving the management of U.S. efforts to promote
constitutional democracy in the Middle East, reducing America's energy dependence on the Middle East, more robustly
asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia, and countering the Iranian threat.
(Article URL: http://www.meforum.org/article/2436/ norton-mezvinsky-legacy-future)
Republished with Permission of the Middle East Forum
Reprinted from the Middle East Forum News
mefnews@meforum.org (MEF NEWS)
August 16, 2009
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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