Max Blumenthal’s “Goliath” and the Mainstreaming of Anti-Semitism. By Petra Marquardt Bigman.

Max Blumenthal’s “Goliath” and the Mainstreaming of Anti-Semitism. By Petra Marquardt Bigman. The Louis D. Brandeis Center, February 17, 2014.

Another Milestone for the Mainstreaming of Anti-Semitism: The New America Foundation and Max Blumenthal’s Goliath. By Petra Marquardt Bigman. The Louis Brandeis Center, February 17, 2014. PDF.

Whitewashing BDS and antisemitism in the New York Times. By Petra Marquardt Bigman. Jerusalem Post, February 5, 2014.

In “Goliath,” the Past Is Always Present for Palestinians. By Nadia Hijab. The Nation, February 25, 2014.

Max Blumenthal Discusses Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel at the New America Foundation. NJBR, December 5, 2013.

The Anti-Zionist Civil War on the Left. By Jonathan S. Tobin. NJBR, November 4, 2013.


Marquardt Bigman:

While Blumenthal was perfectly capable to adjust his presentations according to the audience he was addressing, he provided a chilling demonstration of what he hoped to accomplish with Goliath during an event at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was hosted on October 17 by political scientist Ian Lustick to promote his book. Lustick noted at one point in the discussion that Blumenthal showed in Goliath that “Israel is not just a little bit fascist, Israel is a lot fascist,” and according to Lustick, this was the “ultimate delegitimizer,” because after World War II, “nothing fascist can even be allowed to survive.” Referring to the biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha, Lustick invited Blumenthal to fancy himself in the position of God in order to decide whether there are enough “good people” in today’s Sodom-like Israel to save it from destruction. Blumenthal, who clearly didn’t need convincing that Israel as a Jewish state shouldn’t be allowed to survive, responded by explaining that his first concern was relieving “the suffering of the indigenous people of Palestine.” According to him, the only way to achieve this was by placing “external pressure” – such as the BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions) movement is advocating – on Jewish Israelis in order to force them to choose between emigrating and agreeing to “become indigenized” by accepting Arab dominance in political, cultural and social terms.

 

This open call for the demise of the Jewish state and a “Juden raus”-policy for those of Israel’s Jews who would be unwilling to “become indigenized ”after the hoped-for victory of the BDS movement did not remain one of the many barely noticed events staged regularly by so-called “pro-Palestinian” activists, but was reported by the Forward’s J.J. Goldberg. Yet, there were no consequences, which arguably only illustrates the urgent need to fight the alarming deterioration of the debate about Israel on American campuses.

 

When NAF President Anne-Marie Slaughter was notified at the end of November that her organization’s planned event for Blumenthal had been criticized at Commentary as completely inappropriate, she dismissed the criticism by quoting the popular notion that the “best answer for speech is more speech.” Unfortunately, however, there was no attempt whatsoever to counter Blumenthal’s “speech” during the NAF event; instead, as was to be expected, Blumenthal received some mainstream endorsements after the event, most notably from veteran NAF board member James Fallows.

 

With the Research Article published today, LDB is providing the long overdue answer to Blumenthal’s “speech” by documenting that promoting his work on Israel ultimately means to contribute to the mainstreaming of anti-Semitism.