Septic Mondoweiss Plumbs New Depths

Here's another guest blog by Professor William D. (Bill) Rubinstein.in his occasional series examining the execrable Mondoweiss blog.

He writes:

As this writer has pointed out on the Daphne Anson blog before, the anti-Israel and anti-Zionist website "Mondoweiss" functions as a kind of general septic tank or cesspit to collect and publish virtually any kind of posting that is hostile to Israel's policies or its existence.

Many readers have questioned whether it is antisemitic as well, especially as (needless to say) it does not apply the same standards to any Arab or Islamic regime that it applies to Israel, and virtually whitewashes Muslim and Palestinian terrorism and violence.

As I pointed out in a recent posting here, many of the "Comments" it prints by readers are almost certainly antisemitic by any standard, and the site makes no effort to delete them, despite its stated policy of doing so.

Two recent postings on the "Mondoweiss" site have been so extreme that Daphne's readers should be told about them.

1) The first (11 April 2016) was by Nada Elia, described as a "Palestinian scholar-activist," and is entitled  "As Threats Against BDS Grow, It Is Time for 'Sumoud' in Activist Communities". ("Sumoud" is defined as "the persistence of the Palestinian people.")  Reviewing the history of Zionism, the author states that 

 "Close to a century ago, in November 1917, British Lord Rothschild promised Palestine as a 'national homeland' for (Europe's unwanted) Jewish communities. The rest is a history of US and Europe-sponsored settler-colonialism, genocide, and apartheid..."

Without commenting on any other nonsense in this passage, I would draw the reader's attention to Nada Elia's insinuation that "British Lord Rothschild" wrote the Balfour Declaration. This is, of course, pure codswallop. The Balfour Declaration was signed by Arthur Balfour, Britain's Foreign Minister (a former Prime Minister and a lifelong pro-Zionist). It was actually written by Leopold Amery, a junior minister, and then discussed by the British Cabinet, which made some minor changes and then accepted it.

Lord Rothschild was, of course, not the author of the Balfour Declaration, but its recipient. The Balfour Declaration was addressed to him as the unofficial head of the British Jewish community, as well as being a member of Parliament (in the House of Lords). This Rothschild, the second Baron, was a distinguished scientist and zoologist who had no role of any kind in procuring the Balfour Declaration. He was not a member of the British government, and could not have "promised" the Blarney Stone to gullible American tourists, let alone Palestine to "Europe's unwanted Jews."

It seems clear that Nada Elia has misidentified Rothschild as the author of the Balfour Declaration to stir up what is often termed "rich Jew antisemitism". Whether she has done this deliberately, or because she thinks that the Rothschilds, through some kind of supernatural means, can command the British government to give countries away, isn't clear. More likely sheer ignorance.

2) Secondly, there was the long declaration "Mondoweiss" published on 17 April 2016, "We Stand With Palestine in the Spirit of 'Samud': Statement From the US Prisoner, Labor, and Academic Delegation to Palestine".

I will spare readers any of this very long and rambling disquisition, and will only say that it makes Yasser Arafat look like a speaker at a Keren Hayesod fundraising dinner. The most notable facet of this document, however, is its signatories, those who went on this "delegation" to Palestine and signed this "Statement".

Examining just who they are via entries on the web (often written by themselves or their allies) shows that its nineteen signatories include the following:

Laura Whitehorn (b. 1945) who is described as a "former US-held political prisoner." In reality, in 1985 she was arrested with seven others for conspiring to blow up the US Capitol Building in Washington D.C., as well as three military installations in Washington, and four sites in New York, including the Israeli Aircraft Industries Building and the offices of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association (i.e., the pension fund for retired New York policemen). For this, she spent fourteen years in prison. Her association with left-wing extremism began long before. In 1969, as a member of the Weathermen/Weather Underground, according to Wikipedia she "travelled with them to Havana, visiting one of the camps established by Soviet KGB Colonel Vadim Kotchergrine." In 1970 she took part in the Greenwich Village Townhouse explosion in which three members of the Weathermen extremist group were killed.

Claude Marks (pictured, with Whitehorn), who was sentenced in 1995 to six years in prison for "buying thirty-seven pounds of plastic explosives in a plot to help a Puerto Rican separatist leader escape from federal prison." Previously, he had "lived underground" for ten years under an assumed name to avoid arrest. His wife Diana Block, also a signatory, "spent 13 years living underground [under an assumed name] with a political collective committed to supporting the Puerto Rican movement and the Black Liberation movement."

Emory Douglas, who is described as a "Revolutionary Artist and Minister of Culture, Black Panther Party, 1967-82." Many readers will assume that the position of "Minister of Culture" of the "Black Panther Party" would have few duties and a rather short c.v., along the lines of "short books" like The Wit and Humour of Ayatollah Khomeni.

Rachel Herzing (pictured here, seated far right, at an anti-Israel event last year; part of the audience and a wall sign shown below), a "co-founder of "Critical Resistance" [in Oakland, California], a national grassroots organization," which (I'm not joking) is dedicated to abolishing the police. Personally, I would be all in favour of abolishing the police – but would prefer to wait until we have first abolished the criminals.

Manuel La Fontaine, described as "a former captive and survivor of California's Department of Corrections better known as the Punishment System by its survivors".  It is even better known as California's state prisons.  The online material about this gentleman is rather lacking in detail as to why he was in the slammer, although he noted that the "longest time" he served "in captivity" was "approximately 51 months". He did not enlarge on the other "times" he spent inside, or why. The inference from one website is that the 51 months was for attempted murder.

I haven't gone into detail about the other signatories, although readers with time on their hands and a strong stomach might give it a try.

It remains to be seen whether this collection of antisemitism, convicted criminals, and loony-tunes will now be standard fare on Mondoweiss.