IsraCampus.Org

Moshe Behar's background states he completed his Ph.D. in political science at Columbia University and is currently a post-doctoral fellow in Comparative Politics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His research focuses on Jewish and Arab nationalisms.

Sounds innocuous enough, no? But Moshe Behar's work could only be described as pandering to the worst anti-Semites in the world and his comments, vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, demonstrate he is a sloppy scholar at best relying on his anti-Israel political clique to validate his poor understanding of research and international law.

Israel today, as something that grew out of the ashes of the Holocaust, is one giant concentration camp for Jews in this world. The only difference is the Jews are armed for self-protection this time. As with any other concentration camp of Jews, there have always been those Jews who would curry favor with the anti-Jewish tormentors either for better privileges, money or notoriety. This could be said to describe Moshe Behar.

As an Israeli himself, Behar wants to recruit and organize every Jew who hates Israel and wants to see the Jewish state's destruction regardless of the myriad reasons why some Jews are out to encourage another Holocaust-in-the-making. That is, if some Jews are anti-Semites because they are communists, or because they are narcissists, or because they are self-hating, or even if they are mentally ill, Behar wants them all working as a team player like he does with the Arabs.

Behar's work is prominently displayed by the Journal for Palestine Studies, a pseudo-intellectual think tank set up by the late Edward Said and the PLO at Columbia University where Behar got his PhD in political science (being an Israeli, one only needs to regurgitate as much anti-Israel diatribes masked as "scholarship” as possible to get personal acceptance as one of the boys and a chance to publish and be listened to everywhere and anywhere in academia that Israel has enemies, even within Israel's own ivory towers of academia like Hebrew University where Behar is now a postdoctoral fellow. Columbia University is otherwise known by competent Middle East academics like Martin Kramer as "Bir-Zeit on the Hudson" (for those unfamiliar with Bir-Zeit University, it is a Hamas stronghold in the Palestinian Authority areas of the West Bank, another gift from an Israeli government that can't do enough for its enemies), so Columbia was a fitting place for Behar to earn his chops in academia.

Behar drafted a letter to every Jew in the world that wants to see Israel ended as a Jewish nation in which he calls for "a clear call of a halt to all American and other aid to Israel" and implementation of UN Resolution 242 that he says "emphasized the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force" and "affirmed the principle of withdrawal of Israeli forces from territories occupied in the recent [1967] conflict."

Right away we can see there's some problems with this pseudo-intellectual-academic-scholar-Arab-irredentist-asskisser's logic for arguments in favor of the PLO's tactics:

Boycotting Israel only forces 30% of the elderly and children to eat in soup kitchens and is just another way of assaulting Jews by trying to starve them out; one Arab assaults Jews with an AK-47, whereas another tries to inflict harm by starving his children in hopes of collapsing the Israeli economy. It is truly obscene that Moshe Behar should be affiliated with Hebrew University in Jerusalem not far from poorer Jewish neighborhoods. But even more insulting is he has been teaching in Sderot, the Jewish community besieged by Kassem rockets after 8,000 Jews were deported from their homes in Gaza in the interests of peace, in a prequel of what he is demanding be implemented in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

Behar says that Jews around the world opposed to a Jewish state should insist on the implementation of UN Resolution 242 that calls for Israel to withdraw from some of the territories taken in 1967, but he chooses to define it in Arab newspeak as calling for the complete withdrawal of Jews from all the territory taken by Israel in the Six Days' War.

Middle East historian Bat Y'eor in her book, Eurabia, has described how the Arabs continually misquote the intention of Resolution 242 insisting it says Israel must withdraw from all the territories and give it to the Arabs. But Eugene Rostow, who wrote the Resolution for the UN, says it says Israel must withdraw from part of the territory in return for secure borders. Those two issues never come into play for an Arab League that insists international law be followed only when they agree with it. There were 23 Jewish settlements in Gaza and Judea and Samaria (The West Bank) prior to 1948 that Arab armies destroyed that Israel took back in 1967. Israel already gave back Gaza by deporting its own people and giving up 70% of its agricultural export business and we all know the outcome of that: over 4,000 rockets fired on Sderot and environs immediately. Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) has a legitimate right to hold onto parts of the land regained by what could be called an attempted Arab pogrom to run the Jews into the sea in 1948. Since Behar teaches in Sderot, he of all people should logically see the folly of acceding to the Arab demands in Judea and Samaria. But logic plays no role in the careers and vocalizations of "intellectuals" like Behar who work diligently on behalf of the Arabs and enjoy fellowship sponsorship at Hebrew University, courtesy of the Israeli taxpayer.

Behar also says the world should condemn and boycott Israel over implementation of UN Resolution 338 that calls for a unilateral ceasefire, but the it is the Arab world that maintains a constant state of war since Khartoum in 1967 where the Arab League announced the three no's: no negotiation, no peace, no Israel. Saudi Arabia, allowed to dictate a "peace plan" called the Road Map, is still in a declared state of war with Israel since 1948.

Apparently, none of these facts bother Behar, especially since they do not fit the Palestinian Arab narrative. He found his academic niche as a mouthpiece for the Arabs and even now Israel will give him a sounding board at Hebrew University.

Disgraceful.

Behar has also contributed to the Electronic Intifada website, an affiliate of the International Solidarity Movement, set up by the founders of Al Awda who openly call for Israel's destruction to be replaced by an Arab dominated "Palestine" and that also supports Hamas. Unbelievably, Behar wrote an article urging Israel to negotiate with Hamas. Astonishingly, what scholar who has read the Hamas charter would advocate negotiating with an entity that not only claims to want land, but sees it as a Godly duty to annihilate Jews? One has to wonder, has Behar even read the Hamas Charter? It's doubtful, as he only concentrates his studies on supporting Arab propaganda, not on reality that results in dead Jews. Nigel Parry, the head editor at EI is the former webmaster for the Hamastan that is Bir-Zeit University.

Hamas's Charter also makes it clear it isn't interested in just the moiety of a Palestine state, but the destruction of a Jewish one. Behar puts Israel on an equal footing with Hamas because Israel sometimes uses violence to defend itself from Arab violence and he faults the Quartet for advocating violence against Israel to stop such attacks on her population. He also ignores that even the Fatah says in Arabic the same things that Hamas does in English, praising terrorists and claiming eventually all of Israel will be overrun. Behar writes also for Occupation Magazine, a publication that may talk about "occupation" of the West Bank, but means all of Israel is "occupied." According to Behar, the intellectual ensconced now at Hebrew U., it takes "two to tango", so that any time Israelis are murdered and do something to stop it, they are equally to blame with their murderers.

There can be no doubt that Israeli academia has created monsters by creating a haven and sinecure for academics like Behar who want to destroy Israel as a Jewish state and ultimately end the self-determination and security of the Jewish people that make up that state. Moshe Behar, residing in Sderot and making excuses for Jew-killers, by intentionally misinterpreting for Arab irredentists any attempts to preserve Israel as a Jewish state, is one of the worst of those monsters.

========================================

Op-Ed articles appearing on IsraCampus.org are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the opinion of IsraCampus.org