igh. This is the kind of post I hate. The bitchy, snarky politics of the political blogosphere, the exact thing I try to avoid getting sucked into. But I feel almost as if I have no choice but to say something. Humph. Anyway, if the title doesn’t mean anything to you, you may as well skip the article and wait for me to post about the real world again.

The punchline: Harry’s Place is a cesspool of rightwing nastiness. It’s wrong for it to be closed down, but that doesn’t mean we should join its witchhunt.

First, the back story.

There’s a nasty little blog out there called Harry’s Place, run by a onetime Stalinist turned Western imperialist. I say “little”; actually it’s a pretty big blog, as these things go – thousands more readers than this place, or hundred at least – playing the same role to the pro-war “Left” as the Lenin’s Tomb blog plays to the likes of me. One of their causes celebres recently has been a smear campaign against the movement to boycott Israel, particular within the academics’ union UCU. And recently they struck gold, finding this post on the UCU mailing list from pro-boycott academic Jenna Delich:

John,

In support to your link this may be a long but also an interesting reading:

http://www.davidduke.com/general/humanitarian-disaster_595.html

No comment necessary. The facts are speaking for themselves.

Jenna

JENNA DELICH

Now if you’ve already heard of David Duke, it will be pretty obvious what’s wrong with this. But of course, it’s possible that you haven’t. David Duke is a former leader of the Klu Klux Klan, North America’s foremost White supremacist organisation. If you look at the “about” page on his website, for example, there are plenty of clues to indicate his generally racist and, in particular, anti-Semitic beliefs. But the page to which JD had linked was entitled “Gaza Strip Faces Humanitarian Disaster”, and is followed by an article denouncing the racism inherent in Israeli politics. I’ve scanned through it (it is indeed long), and noticed a few hints in the last paragraph that keen anti-semites would be able to pick up. Most of it, however, is fair enough.

The thing is, you have to be really careful, really strict with anti-Zionism, to avoid being co-opted by the very nasty and insidious traditions of anti-semitism. In particular, it is undeniably true – and highly pertinent – to say that there is a lobby of wealthy Zionists, many of whom are Jewish (but, it’s worth underlining, some of the most aggressive of whom are Christian fundamentalists with more than a touch of anti-semitism about themselves), which exercises enormous influence over the policy towards Israel of the US and UK. It is also undeniably true – and highly pertinent – that there are plenty of racists scumbags out there who would love to tell you that “the” Jews rule the world. We must not give any succour to the latter.

Likewise, it is true that there are many who use wild accusations of antisemitism to dismiss any criticism of Israel, but it is also true that this fog of false accusations provides cover to a lot of genuine anti-semites. That’s something the likes of HP have on their consciences, but we have to be careful not to play into the hands of those who would love nothing more than to deny the existence of real anti-semitism. We also have to be careful not to give ammunition to those who would love to discredit our movement. And JD was careless.

This much is forgivable, really, but the political blogosphere is an unforgiving place. There was a time when this blog was a light-hearted exercise of saying whatever came into my head, to let off steam or to see what it sounded like, as if I was talking to a mate (one who have to be a very good listener, but still). I’ve been disciplined into stressing to fuck over every little sentence, because unlike words spoken at the pub, every little sentence stays written down for all to see long after the mood’s passed in which you’ve said it. And it’s a horrible, horrible feeling to know that someone somewhere could google your name and fall upon dirty and dishonest denunciations from your political rivals, a feeling that once made me seriously consider giving up the blog altogether.

Now, I haven’t seen what HP actually wrote about JD, for reasons that will become clear. But I can imagine it to be very vicious, personal and intimidating. And it’s clear that the correct reaction to discovering her mistake would be an apology. But the record shows that just 5 hours after the post above quoted, she was back saying:

I didn’t realise who David Duke was nor did I hear of him. I just looked at the article not the website where it appeared. Apologies for picking up that website as I personallly am strongly against any racists, anti-semitists and the likes of them. I just found the article quite powerful, and none are saying that Joe Quinn (the author of the article) is a racist or anti-semitist, and the article is quite interesting. So, perhaps we should focus on the article itself and not where it appeared (if we look at it in a broader sense, the website itself appeard on Google and so did the article)? Anyone can put anything on their website… Sincere apologies once again though for picking the wrong website, but it’s the article that I found interesting as it gives some amazing facts and it was not written by David Duke (who, I most certainly agree, has no place in UCU but is the author of the website and not the article).

And then what happened? It seems a certain Mike Cushman of UCU complained, or threatened to complain, to the ISP hosting HP. In his statement, he makes it pretty clear that 1/ he’s long warned against members leaking postings from the mailing list to HP, and 2/ that this is because it usually results in them receiving a fair amount of intimidation, and so 3/ he thinks action should be taken against HP. For the record, I think he’s wrong. Not on point 2/ – it is indeed all about intimidation – but this doesn’t lead to point 3/. Anyone can cry intimidation, as disingenuous as you like, and you don’t want to make it that simple to censor a point of view you don’t like.

If you’re going to take a stand on a controversial issue, like the academic boycott of Israel, you’re going to receive a lot of flak, some elements of which will be more professional, impersonal and intellectual than others. Especially if you allow an opening for reasonable criticism through careless mistakes. Learn to be thicker-skinned in future, and learn to check your sources.

But now, presumably motivated by the implicit or explicit threat of a libel case from JD’s supporters, HP has been taken down. And this is terrible. The more decisions ISPs take over the content of the websites they host, the more precarious is this little bit of democratic space we have carved out for ourselves online. The crux of the matter is, someone should tell JD and her allies that, tempting as it is, closing down HP is not acceptable. It will only make things worse for her (when in a hole, don’t let them taunt you into digging), and it’s just plain wrong. Presumably it’s not to late for her to withdraw her threat, apologise for letting her emotions get the better of her (and again, when you’re the target of that kind of hate campaign, it’s easily done), and that’s exactly what she needs to do.

But I won’t join in the witchhunt against Jenna Delich, who seems to have slipped up, then been drawn into a confrontation from which she hadn’t the nouse to back down. That doesn’t make her an anti-Semitic authoritarian.

PS you should all be aware of two things. Moderation is on. I have a job (shift work at that). It is therefore very unlikely that your comment will appear much before midnight, if at all. Get over it.