The CUNY Internationalist Clubs denounce the thuggish campaign of slander and attempted censorship bearing down on Brooklyn College over a panel discussion on the campaign for “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) of Israel. On Thursday, February 7, the Political Science department and a number of student organizations are sponsoring the event, at which a liberal Jewish philosopher and a liberal Palestinian political activist are to speak about BDS, which is widely promoted as a strategy against Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people.

While Political Science departments routinely sponsor discussions of current political topics, academics, artists and activists that criticize Israel have been targeted over and over again by those who seek to make such views off-limits. Pushed by strident supporters of Israel and its guiding ideology (Zionism), this witch-hunting campaign – reminiscent of the notorious Joe McCarthy – has hit campuses around the country. At the City University of New York (CUNY), Board of Trustees member and former FBI agent Jeffrey Wiesenfeld – in cahoots with state assemblyman Dov Hikind and the New York Post – has spearheaded a series of outrageous attacks on the most basic academic freedoms, such as having the appointment of Brooklyn College adjunct instructor Kris Petersen-Overton cancelled and blocking an honorary degree to playwright Tony Kushner (both moves later reversed after a storm of protest – see “Witch Hunt Against Tony Kushner Spiked” [May 2011]).

The same cast of characters has been raising a hue and cry against the February 7 BDS event: the gutter press, Hikind (a founder of the Zionist terrorist Jewish Defense League), and Wiesenfeld, whose blog raves that “taxpayer dollars should not fund illegitimate, racist and anti-Semitic activities by any academic department.” Do you suppose he was referring to the speeches at Brooklyn College (including one sponsored by the same B.C. Poli Sci Department) given by B.C. alumnus Alan Dershowitz, a fanatical war hawk who proclaims his support for using torture in the “war on terror”? Of course not. Meanwhile, Dershowitz denounces the president of Brooklyn College for her “claims that...this is  an issue of freedom of speech and academic freedom.”

Joining this hue and cry were ten members of the New York City Council, led by Democratic Assistant Majority Leader Lewis Fidler, who signed a letter to B.C. president Karen Gould threatening to cut off funding for the public university. While some (such as Letitia James) later backed away from this, the damage was done. Nineteen Democratic “progressive” elected officials, headed by U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler and including mayoral candidates Christine Quinn and Bill De Blasio, sent a letter to president Gould with the patently absurd smear that the Political Science department “has actually stifled free speech by preventing honest, open debate.”

Students and faculty at Brooklyn College have organized to defend their basic rights, and the Professional Staff Congress union has vocally protested the attempted assault on academic freedom. Unfortunately, like most other city unions, the PSC backs the “Working Families Party,” which endorsed the election of many of the same politicians who are now threatening Brooklyn College. The fact that a raft of Democrats jumped on the witch-hunt bandwagon (as did their predecessors in the years of McCarthyism) is yet another lesson in how crucial it is to break with this party of war and repression, together with its front groups like the WFP.

The CUNY Internationalist Clubs stand with Brooklyn College students, faculty and staff against the would-be Joe McCarthys and grand inquisitor Torquemadas of today. We should be clear on the underlying political fact: it is because they are unable to blot out the facts about Israel’s trampling of democratic rights and its murderous assaults on the Palestinian people that its apologists go all out in their drive to intimidate, smear and silence critics. They will not succeed. It is a very good thing that increasing numbers of students and faculty are discussing these issues, with many expressing outrage against the racist and apartheid-like practices that have always been central to the Zionist state. We encourage students throughout CUNY to discuss all the issues involved as broadly and widely as possible.

As Marxist revolutionaries, we Internationalists defend the Palestinian people. We see the working people of the entire region – Arabs and Jews, Kurds, Persians, Turks and of all other national and ethnic groups – as the power that is key to defeating Zionism as well as the other oppressive regimes that enforce capitalist rule with blood and iron. Thus our strategy is very different from that of the BDS campaign, which is ultimately an appeal to the U.S. imperialists (the biggest and most dangerous mass killers on the planet) to get tough on their Israeli junior partners. Further, the strategy of seeking to isolate Israel’s population can actually backfire by strengthening the hold of Zionism, which thrives on a “Masada complex.” Despite this disagreement, we militantly defend the right of BDS supporters to hold events free of intimidation and threats from Zionist hoodlums and their apologists, in or out of public office, and applaud Brooklyn College students, faculty and union members for defending that right.

Stop the Zionist Witch Hunt – Defend Free Speech at Brooklyn College!

CUNY Internationalist Clubs