‘The Third Narrative,’ and Michael Walzer and Todd Gitlin, Join the Fight Against Israel

[Valin]

PJ Media:

RONALD RADOSH AND SOL STERN

12/13/14

 

Michael Walzer, the distinguished political philosopher who writes on topics as varied as the theory of just war and Judaism, is now one of the leading lights of a group of academics called The Third Narrative, which recently issued a statement calling for “personal sanctions” against right-wing Israeli political figures whose views are allegedly so beyond the pale of acceptable discourse about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that they should be turned into non persons.

For starters, Walzer and his fellow “liberal Zionists” are demanding that the United States and the EU impose visa restrictions and freeze bank accounts for such dangerous Israeli politicians as Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, Housing Minister Uri Ariel, Likud MK Moshe Feiglin and Ze’ev Hever, head of a group called Amana, which oversees Israeli settlements. These four right-wing activists were chosen, a scholar told The Forward, “because they stand out by working to make the occupation permanent and irreversible.”

 

The group’s members include sociology and journalism professor Todd Gitlin, historian Michael Kazin, sociologist Alan Wolfe and other self-proclaimed center-left academics, some of whom are social-democrats affiliated with the journal Dissent. Most of them are proud members of the “democratic Left.” They also proclaim themselves liberal Zionists who oppose academic boycotts such as those advocated by the BDS movement.

 

Some years ago, Michael Walzer wrote a penetrating essay titled “Can There Be a Decent Left?” But by signing on to these destructive and hypocritical demands, Walzer himself has provided strong evidence that the left (including even the social-democratic left) has become indecent about Israel. Having taken on those he called the “Blame America First” leftists, Walzer has himself joined the “Blame Israel First” crowd. His group says it distinguishes itself from the BDS extremists who hate Israel. Rather than ostracize all Israeli academics, they stress that they are only targeting individuals whom they see as most responsible for the “occupation.” As they say in their Dec.8^th statement, these individuals pursue “unjust, unlawful, and destructive policies in their most extreme and dangerous form.”

 

Walzer and his colleagues believe that these perfidious individuals do not have the same rights of free speech as the “good Israelis” who favor a two-state solution and the creation of a Palestinian state.......(Snip)