The Ayatollah Judea

Judea Pearl – driven to extremes

It saddens me to note that a leading intellectual godfather behind the Zionist war on free inquiry is the grand Ayatollah Judea Pearl, father of the murdered journalist Daniel Pearl. Maybe lots of other people knew this but it is news to me.

In this disturbing article sent to me by one of many who have recently called me an anti-semite, Pearl has called for jihad on anyone who questions Zionism. In what is hard to describe as other than a fatwah he declares a singular interpretation of the shared experience of Jewishness to be that of Zionism and that in consequence, “Anti-Zionism is racism.”

This call to arms has been quite successful. Recently, followers of  Judea Pearl have pronounced racist (amongst others) Jimmy Carter, Christiane Amanpour and Joel Kovel, among the distinguished. And of course, in a very small undistinguished way, me. It might be suggested that this is painfully inconsistent with the spirit of inquiry personified by Pearl’s courageous son. One can understand what makes Joel Kovel angry.

Judea Pearl is completely unhistorical. He states:

Anti-Zionism earns its racist character from denying the Jewish people what it grants to other collectives (e.g. Spanish, Palestinians), namely, the right to nationhood and self-determination.

The kindest thing you can say about this claim is that it is muddled. More manifestly, it is profoundly ignorant. Judea obviously knows very little about Spain. Has he consulted any Basques or Catalans lately? Has he read any Spanish history at all? And of course there is no Palestinian state. And if there was to be one, why should Jews not be a part of it? One must be candid. What he is advocating here is irridentism and apartheid. And he’s telling those who disagree they are racists.

You may agree or not with the case against Zionism but it is perfectly respectable, and not least when it is made by Jews or people of Jewish origin who do not want a homeland in the middle east, parts of which have been stolen.

The case against Zionism is that it is a terrifying doctrine for Jews because by demanding a separate state it implies that Jews do not belong anywhere else. This licences anti-semites. Millions of Jews have paid a heavy price. Millions of Palestinians continue to. And the final consequences of this demand and state have yet to be measured.

Is it fair to say that Pearl is as crazed and irrational as the people who murdered his son?

If anyone who even discusses the basis for Zionism, or proposes the idea that Jews and Palestinians should be living in a single state, or suggests that fundamentalist religion is not a just basis for a modern state, is called a “racist,” then the word has lost all meaning and has become merely a tool of intimidation.

Intellectually, Pearl, an engineer by training, is not equipped for his own project. Pace him, Zionism is no longer a political movement. Nor even a religious one. It is a racial one. Never mind there is no scientific basis for race. You can still be a racialist.

American academics and journalists must defend themselves from the attack on inquiry led by Judea Pearl and his confused, deranged accolytes. Even in Israel, the debate is not circumscribed like this. Islamists are not the only fanatics.

More on American campus fanaticism: A very good take on the forthcoming Islamo-Fascism Week starring Ann Coulter et al, is here.

Further information from this parish about Islamo-Fascism Week is here.

Wikipedia entertainingly explores Islamofascism here.