Cary Nelson and Joe Lockard: The Modern Language Association, Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism
The MLA Executive Council have hit a new low by acting in secret, without notice and without membership approval, to conflate support for the IHRA definition of antisemitism with American racism. Cary Nelson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Joe Lockard, associate professor of English at Arizona State University, set out the facts and call on MLA members to reform the organisation.Radical left NGOs failed to follow law, owe millions in fines
For many years, the Modern Language Association’s members voted overwhelmingly to reject resolutions condemning Israel. Now the MLA’s main governing body, the Executive Council, has joined with its Committee on Academic Freedom to endorse anti-Zionist complaints about the most widely adopted definition of contemporary antisemitism. Realising that the members would likely vote down their statement, the members of these two committees acted in secret, without notice and without membership approval.
We are both long-time MLA members, one of us since 1969, the other since the early 1990s. One, Cary Nelson, is a former member of the MLA Executive Council, as well as a former president and current lifetime member of the AAUP. We are deeply troubled by the MLA’s decision to do an end run around the membership and make a flawed understanding of antisemitism and Zionism part of the MLA’s public profile.
The definition at issue is the one adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2016. In addition to misrepresenting the IHRA definition, they have joined the national American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in slandering those who find the IHRA definition’s examples helpful in understanding the contemporary world. Worse still, they link the IHRA definition with international racism: ‘Proponents of overly broad definitions of antisemitism and proponents of eliminating teaching about the history of racial and other violence share a desire to mobilise the government to enforce particular, emaciated accounts of history, harm, and injury.’ The AAUP and the MLA have conflated legislative efforts to block discussions of racism with a statement designed to do exactly the opposite: encourage discussions of antisemitism. Though the MLA leadership was not honest enough to complete the implicit equation, the intent is clear — to invoke the antisemitic claim that ‘Zionism is racism’.
To be clear: racism is the founding wound of US history and must be taught forthrightly throughout the educational system. Structural racism remains a potent force in many American institutions. We reject efforts to block the need to confront that history. Indeed, anti-racism has been foundational in our teaching and scholarship.
Im Tirtzu's Research Division has released a report that shows 5,264 charity reports that do not meet the qualifications of the law. The fines that these radical left non-governmental organizations (NGOs) should, by law, receive for these reporting infractions total more than 150,000,000 shekels.Col Kemp: Special forces of Zionist youth
The law was originally passed as a way to provide the public with clarity on which NGOs are receiving foreign government support. Since the inception of the law through 2021, approximately 74% of reports filed by these NGOS did not meet the law's requirements.
However, the Ministry of Justice has not been enforcing the law.
Alon Schvartzer, Head of the Research Division of Im Tirtzu, explains, "In Israel there are NGOs that receive most of their funding from foreign governments, mainly European, as well as the United Nations and the European Union. Between 2012-2021 NGOs that are usually identified as leftist and many that are far-left groups have received more than 750 million shekels in foreign funding. These include, 'B'Tselem,' that received 63 million shekels, 'Yesh Din' and 'Hamoked,' that each received 50 million shekels, and, 'Breaking the Silence,' which has received 35 million shekels."
"These NGOs all share the goal of opposing or uprooting Zionist values. Their agenda is to mislead the Israeli media and legal divisions to act against the will of the Israeli public regarding topics such as the fight against terrorism, nationalism, immigration, military interventions, and more.
"The revelation of the agendas and the funding of these organizations was instrumental in the successful effort to have legislation passed in the Knesset that requires these organizations to disclose their funding from foreign governments. These laws were enacted in order to enable the Israeli public to identify Israeli organizations that are representing foreign interests."
Watching the high school teens of Club Z in dialogue with pro- and anti-Zionists in Israel was an education in itself. Even the most ardently Zionist speakers approached their topics with caution, more used to American students that get triggered, fleeing to safe spaces and crying rooms, if faced with too strong a dose of the truth.
This lot had no use for safety and their tears were reserved for Rachel Frankel and Miriam Fuld who told stories of their loved ones brutally slaughtered by jihadist fanatics. Every speaker was left awestruck by the students’ unyielding stance, unexpected knowledge and deep-penetrating questions.
The anti-Zionists thought their words would elicit the standard sympathetic nods and murmurs, as they spun their halftruths and outright falsehoods to hand-wringing youths who would scurry back home and parrot them to gullible school friends.
Instead, they got an audience that saw straight through the tired narrative, and vigorously but politely pushed back against every fake tale of woe and fabricated legal recitation with the most powerful weapon in their armory: the truth.
Yes, they knew all about the Fourth Geneva Convention but unlike the self-proclaimed peace activists, fully equipped with bushy beards and patronizing clichés, they also knew it doesn’t come close to applying in Judea.
Nor, in contrast to many high school and college students, did they buy the flimsy, anonymous and unconvincing stories of IDF abuse that have been bought and paid for by foreign funds to undermine the legitimacy of Israel.
Until it was too late, the Israel-haters didn’t realize these kids are the special forces of Zionist youth. Preparing to face the antisemitic bile so prevalent on US campuses, they have been trained by experienced instructors while at high school and they practice their skills on the battlefields of Israel Apartheid Weeks and Jew-hating street demos. In Israel, they were on reconnaissance: seeing, hearing, touching and smelling the reality of the conflict for themselves.