Professor John "Tito" Gerassi Responds To Attack
John Gerassi has apparently won the ire of a good number:
http://clogic.eserver.org/4-2/monchinski.html
http://www.democracynature.org/dn/vol9/gerassi_war.htm
http://www.zmag.org/gerassicalam.htm
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=24837
http://www.qcknightnews.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=7e987463-ba86-435b-a7cc-e530bb8beb59
The following was sent to our CUNY Faculty Senate list. I don't agree that the Palestinians using random violence are freedom fighters. They in fact are defeating their own cause by not using more sophisticated means (e.g. non violent civil disobedience) to protest the Israeli abuses which look increasingly directed to expelling any and all Palestinians at the behest of the Eretz Israel extremists who are now dominating Israeli policy?
And I would agree that it is well past time that the U.S. update its policy from carte blanche support of whatever Israel does to its dominated peoples. Now the oppressors are sadly and increasingly those in Israel who should all too well know that such brutal policies should never again to be inflicted on anyone or any people. It is a disgrace that Olmert has included the Liberman racists in his government:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avigdor_Lieberman
Ed Kent
.................................
The following is an excerpt from the response by Queens College Professor John "Tito" Gerassi to the attack on him published in the Queens College student newspaper which was the subject of Andrea Peyser's NY Post column yesterday:
Ever since I denounced JFK's invasion (by so-called "advisers") of Vietnam, I have been smeared by bigots, American-firsters, racists and just plain idiots who believe what they read in the mainstream media. I have never bothered to answer them on the simple grounds that such yokels never listen to anyone else's point of view. I will this time to Rubin's hysterical diatribe but only because he cites for support one of the most despicable lawyers the pro-war, pro-Israel fanatics have produced: Harvard's Alan Dershowitz, who has publicly praised the use of torture by US forces, even while Bush was trying to deny that the US did so.
***[Paragraph deleted to conform to Senate-Forum line limitation]***
I research my facts carefully. Every day I read two British papers, France's Le Monde, Spain's ABC, Argentina's La Prensa, even the India Monitor, plus seven weeklies, ten monthlies (even such esoteric revues as Switzerland's Illustre) and I comb the web. I receive information via email from dozens of folks all over the world, even Indonesia. Nevertheless, I tell my students that the facts they will hear in my courses are one-sided, facts never or rarely available on mainstream media. If you want that point of view, I tell them, watch TV, read Time. If Rubin had not walked out after ten minutes, he would have heard me say: "You don't have to agree with me. I cannot penalize you if you do, as I give strictly objective exams." Ask any student. That's why I am a good teacher. That 55 of them walked out of my class as the Post's hysterical columnist reported is a lie. The only student who walked out, and who had not even registered for the course, was Rubin.
Speaking of lies, let's deal with them. I was not interviewed by that Post columnist. I hung up on her three times, once explaining that to me Murdoch, her boss, "was Bush's Goebbels. I do not talk to Bush, I do not talk to Goebbels and I won't talk to you working for Goebbels." Nor have I ever lived on the upper (or lower for that matter) eastside, as she reported. I certainly know better to believe in a Jewish control of the media; capitalists own the media, and when I say so I always give the examples (e.g GE owning NBC, Viacom owning CBS, etc).
Now let's deal with Israel and what I said and say. Zionism is an imperialism. The policy of every Israeli government has always been to regain "greater Israel" (whatever that may be) and eliminate all Palestinian characteristics. On Face the Nation (CBS, June 11, l967) Moshe Dayan (then the Israeli Defense Minister)
made that quite clear: "...We can absorb them [Palestinians] but it wouldn't be the same country...we want a Jewish state like the French want a French state." But the French state don't want a Catholic state or a Huguenot state or a Shinto state. They want a French state. Quite a difference.
>From its inception, Israeli leaders have lied, taught well by their mentors, the US. They claimed and by and large still claim that the Palestinians left Israel on their own accord, when in fact they were driven out, and all the belongings they could not carry were confiscated by the "Jewish" state. They claimed and still claim that those who remained were and are given equal rights, when in fact they suffer an apartheid regime. And Israel receives more aid, more free arms and technical support from the US than any other nation in the world, proportionally and in absolute figures. Israel is an occupying power, and I stress in my class, never judge a poor people trying to win freedom by the same criteria as you judge the powerful, the dominant power. We didn't judge the Norwegian underground or the Polish ghetto insurgents or the French Maquis by the same criterion as we judged the Nazis. So don't do it now, I tell me students, either in Afghanistan (where the US helped Taliban come to power) or Iraq (where Saddam Hussein was a paid CIA agent when he was head of Iraqi intelligence) or in Palestine. And I add: "When one country occupies another, all deaths, no matter how
committed or by whom, are the responsibility of the occupier." When freedom fighters have neither tanks nor planes, neither missiles nor canons, anything they can do against those do have them and who try to subdue them into slavery is absolutely justified. Those freedom fighters who then blow themselves up to attack their dominator are not only justified, but fantastic heroes. And the deaths, those innocent children on the bus? The murderers are the occupiers.
>From that to pretend I said such an inane remark that I thought Hezbollah would win in 40 years, is the epitome of stupidity. I did say and maintain that Hezbollah had the right to defend itself. I did say and maintain that Israel's cruel devastation of Lebanon has resulted in such hated of Israel among all Arabs and Moslems that peace now is impossible, that no Moslem will ever forget it, and that perhaps in 40 years, 400 million Arabs
may decide to get even by driving the Israelis to the sea. Nor will they ever forget that Israel used the same weapon, the anti-personnel cluster bombs that the US used in Vietnam. They know as we all do but never say in our mainstream media that Israel is just as guilty of crimes against humanity as was and is the US. They know but can never read in our mainstream media that only the weak, the losers, the helpless are tried for such crimes. That's why I say so in my classes.
-John "Tito" Gerassi
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
http://clogic.eserver.org/4-2/monchinski.html
http://www.democracynature.org/dn/vol9/gerassi_war.htm
http://www.zmag.org/gerassicalam.htm
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=24837
http://www.qcknightnews.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticlePrinterFriendly&uStory_id=7e987463-ba86-435b-a7cc-e530bb8beb59
The following was sent to our CUNY Faculty Senate list. I don't agree that the Palestinians using random violence are freedom fighters. They in fact are defeating their own cause by not using more sophisticated means (e.g. non violent civil disobedience) to protest the Israeli abuses which look increasingly directed to expelling any and all Palestinians at the behest of the Eretz Israel extremists who are now dominating Israeli policy?
And I would agree that it is well past time that the U.S. update its policy from carte blanche support of whatever Israel does to its dominated peoples. Now the oppressors are sadly and increasingly those in Israel who should all too well know that such brutal policies should never again to be inflicted on anyone or any people. It is a disgrace that Olmert has included the Liberman racists in his government:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avigdor_Lieberman
Ed Kent
.................................
The following is an excerpt from the response by Queens College Professor John "Tito" Gerassi to the attack on him published in the Queens College student newspaper which was the subject of Andrea Peyser's NY Post column yesterday:
Ever since I denounced JFK's invasion (by so-called "advisers") of Vietnam, I have been smeared by bigots, American-firsters, racists and just plain idiots who believe what they read in the mainstream media. I have never bothered to answer them on the simple grounds that such yokels never listen to anyone else's point of view. I will this time to Rubin's hysterical diatribe but only because he cites for support one of the most despicable lawyers the pro-war, pro-Israel fanatics have produced: Harvard's Alan Dershowitz, who has publicly praised the use of torture by US forces, even while Bush was trying to deny that the US did so.
***[Paragraph deleted to conform to Senate-Forum line limitation]***
I research my facts carefully. Every day I read two British papers, France's Le Monde, Spain's ABC, Argentina's La Prensa, even the India Monitor, plus seven weeklies, ten monthlies (even such esoteric revues as Switzerland's Illustre) and I comb the web. I receive information via email from dozens of folks all over the world, even Indonesia. Nevertheless, I tell my students that the facts they will hear in my courses are one-sided, facts never or rarely available on mainstream media. If you want that point of view, I tell them, watch TV, read Time. If Rubin had not walked out after ten minutes, he would have heard me say: "You don't have to agree with me. I cannot penalize you if you do, as I give strictly objective exams." Ask any student. That's why I am a good teacher. That 55 of them walked out of my class as the Post's hysterical columnist reported is a lie. The only student who walked out, and who had not even registered for the course, was Rubin.
Speaking of lies, let's deal with them. I was not interviewed by that Post columnist. I hung up on her three times, once explaining that to me Murdoch, her boss, "was Bush's Goebbels. I do not talk to Bush, I do not talk to Goebbels and I won't talk to you working for Goebbels." Nor have I ever lived on the upper (or lower for that matter) eastside, as she reported. I certainly know better to believe in a Jewish control of the media; capitalists own the media, and when I say so I always give the examples (e.g GE owning NBC, Viacom owning CBS, etc).
Now let's deal with Israel and what I said and say. Zionism is an imperialism. The policy of every Israeli government has always been to regain "greater Israel" (whatever that may be) and eliminate all Palestinian characteristics. On Face the Nation (CBS, June 11, l967) Moshe Dayan (then the Israeli Defense Minister)
made that quite clear: "...We can absorb them [Palestinians] but it wouldn't be the same country...we want a Jewish state like the French want a French state." But the French state don't want a Catholic state or a Huguenot state or a Shinto state. They want a French state. Quite a difference.
>From its inception, Israeli leaders have lied, taught well by their mentors, the US. They claimed and by and large still claim that the Palestinians left Israel on their own accord, when in fact they were driven out, and all the belongings they could not carry were confiscated by the "Jewish" state. They claimed and still claim that those who remained were and are given equal rights, when in fact they suffer an apartheid regime. And Israel receives more aid, more free arms and technical support from the US than any other nation in the world, proportionally and in absolute figures. Israel is an occupying power, and I stress in my class, never judge a poor people trying to win freedom by the same criteria as you judge the powerful, the dominant power. We didn't judge the Norwegian underground or the Polish ghetto insurgents or the French Maquis by the same criterion as we judged the Nazis. So don't do it now, I tell me students, either in Afghanistan (where the US helped Taliban come to power) or Iraq (where Saddam Hussein was a paid CIA agent when he was head of Iraqi intelligence) or in Palestine. And I add: "When one country occupies another, all deaths, no matter how
committed or by whom, are the responsibility of the occupier." When freedom fighters have neither tanks nor planes, neither missiles nor canons, anything they can do against those do have them and who try to subdue them into slavery is absolutely justified. Those freedom fighters who then blow themselves up to attack their dominator are not only justified, but fantastic heroes. And the deaths, those innocent children on the bus? The murderers are the occupiers.
>From that to pretend I said such an inane remark that I thought Hezbollah would win in 40 years, is the epitome of stupidity. I did say and maintain that Hezbollah had the right to defend itself. I did say and maintain that Israel's cruel devastation of Lebanon has resulted in such hated of Israel among all Arabs and Moslems that peace now is impossible, that no Moslem will ever forget it, and that perhaps in 40 years, 400 million Arabs
may decide to get even by driving the Israelis to the sea. Nor will they ever forget that Israel used the same weapon, the anti-personnel cluster bombs that the US used in Vietnam. They know as we all do but never say in our mainstream media that Israel is just as guilty of crimes against humanity as was and is the US. They know but can never read in our mainstream media that only the weak, the losers, the helpless are tried for such crimes. That's why I say so in my classes.
-John "Tito" Gerassi
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Israel_Palestine
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net
posted by Ed Kent at 3:17 PM
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