Campus Watch Responds:
In an op-ed on the “restoring civility” meme currently en vogue among the chattering classes, J.J. Goldberg, writing for The Forward, mischaracterizes Campus Watch (CW) and a slew of other organizations:
Some people don’t want anyone discussing Israel’s bad side. In fact, we’ve got a whole network of organizations these days to monitor public discourse and let us know when somebody says the wrong things about Israel: JCC Watch to monitor the movies, Campus Watch to monitor the professors, Palestinian Media Watch, U.N. Watch, NGO (for non-governmental organization) Monitor and a whole potpourri of Watches and Watchamacallits checking up on newspapers, TV reporters and anybody else who might be saying bad things about Israel, including Israelis in their own country.
Goldberg then concludes that we “monitors” are intimidating “ordinary folks” and silencing free speech. As he puts it:
The monitors say they’re merely disclosing the facts so the public can decide, but we all know what happens next: People hear the monitors’ reports as a call to arms and promptly hit the phones and e-mail with threats and imprecations. Ordinary folks are intimidated. Which was exactly the plan, frankly. . . . [I]f the monitors are right that it’s the critics themselves who endanger Israel’s survival, then they have a moral duty to try and silence them.
Moreover, how does publicizing already public material--lectures, papers, books, and so on--"silence” anyone? The answer is, it doesn’t. Goldberg, like most CW opponents, falls into the trap of equating criticism with censorship. Ironically, it is he who seems to want to “silence” dissenting voices, not us.
(Posted by Cinnamon Stillwell)