There can be no doubt: the Orwellian-named “Jewish Voice for
Peace” (JVP) did the right thing when they quickly backtracked
and issued an abject apology for condemning Miko Peled just because he had
accused Israel of causing antisemitism. After all, Peled is a popular
anti-Israel activist and an ardent BDS advocate, and I’m really glad that JVP rushed
to re-embrace him as one of their own. As
I have long argued,
“antisemitism is not a bug, but a feature of BDS,” and Miko Peled’s odious
views and associations make him an excellent case study.
In a somewhat lengthy post on “Miko
Peled’s big anti-Semitism problem,” I recently documented that any group or
movement that was serious about opposing antisemitism would want nothing
whatsoever to do with Peled. But of course, neither JVP nor most other groups
and individuals devoted to anti-Israel activism can afford to do without the
antisemitism that is all but inevitable if your goal is to demonize the world’s
only Jewish state in order to justify its elimination for the sake of the
establishment of yet another Arab-Muslim state.
The collaboration with Tamimi has apparently paid off
handsomely for Peled: it just so happened that a mutual friend of Tamimi and
Peled in Gaza translated Peled’s book to Arabic, and Tamimi promptly invited Peled
to his TV
show to promote the new Arabic edition. One can only hope that Peled’s book
will get the publicity it deserves and be prominently displayed at book
fairs in Arab capitals alongside popular fare like the “Protocols of the
Elders of Zion” and similar
offerings.
Indeed, this is the kind of company Peled himself seeks out.
For the past year, he has been a regular contributor to the American
Herald Tribune (AHT) – a site that often features the utterly deranged conspiracy
theories peddled by its “editor
in chief” Anthony Hall as well as other AHT contributors such as the fairly
well-known anti-Semitic
conspiracy theorist Kevin Barrett. Barrett reportedly
thinks that the “Holocaust controversy” is “a legitimate topic of historical
debate;” similarly, Hall apparently
once declared that a book presenting the Holocaust as a myth requires a “very
dramatic re-looking at what happened in Europe in World War 2.” Just a few
months ago, Hall explained in a short You Tube clip “why he supports
open debate on the Holocaust;” there is also another version showing Hall and
two other people airing their obscene views on the same topic, and this clip
elicited some enthusiastic comments from fellow holocaust deniers. These clips
were posted by “CODOH - Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust;” the
offerings at this channel also
promote the hard work of dedicated Holocaust deniers, such as “Curated Lies:
The Auschwitz Museum’s Misrepresentations, Distortions and Deceptions.”
As it happens, Hall has occasionally found the work of JVP useful.
Hall may soon be able to devote himself full-time to
Holocaust denial and the various conspiracy theories he likes to promote in his
rambling AHT columns. Shockingly enough, he has so far been indulged by
the University of Lethbridge, Canada, where he has been a professor for more
than 25 years. But according to a recent report
by The Algemeiner, Hall has now been asked to resign; another recent report
indicates that he has been suspended.
The fact that Peled has been a regular contributor to a site
where Hall serves as editor in chief is a vivid illustration of the swamp from
which BDS draws support. And there are of course many other cases where just a
little bit of research will reveal similarly unsavory associations – whether
it’s Max Blumenthal being cheered
wherever there are Jew-haters, Ali Abunimah getting an award from an openly
antisemitic Islamist “news” outfit, or Stanford professor Palumbo-Liu promoting
a site with offerings that are arguably even more offensive than those on
Hall’s AHT.
Even if JVP had not backtracked so quickly from its
condemnation of Peled, it would have meant very little: the antisemitism that
infests the BDS movement is so pervasive that rooting it out would inevitably
lead to the collapse of BDS.
Last but not least, here’s a quick update on Peled’s current
activities: it seems he is currently visiting Israel and the West Bank – for him it’s
of course all “Palestine” – and he has been meeting
with old friends like the notorious Tamimis of Nabi Saleh.
According to Bassem Tamimi, they are apparently planning
some kind of “conference” in November. Just a day before Peled visited his
“brother” Bassem Tamimi, Bassem’s wife Nariman posted
a heartfelt “happy birthday” for Nizar Tamimi, a nephew of Bassem who is a
convicted murderer and the husband of Sbarro massacre mastermind Ahlam Tamimi.
No wonder Peled feels so close to them.
