Charles Manekin

Overview

Manekin is a staunch defender of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and has published numerous articles, as well as blog posts, promoting it. Manekin underplays anti-Semitic statements by BDS’ leadership and the anti-Semitic effects of BDS on campuses. Manekin accepts at face value what he terms the "official statements" of BDS and says “what individuals think” is not his “concern.”

Manekin is the author of The Magnes Zionist blog, which is highly critical of Israel and challenges the necessity of a Jewish state.

Manekin is Professor of Philosophy, and Director of The Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center and Program for Jewish Studies, at the University of Maryland (UMD).

Blaming The Victim

In the 2014 Har Nof Massacre, two Palestinian terrorists murdered six people using a gun, axes and a butcher knife, during morning prayers in a West Jerusalem synagogue. Hani Thawbta, a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) leader in Gaza praised the massacre as "heroic."

Manekin continued: "The scenes of praying Jews lying in their blood remind me of the Jewish terrorist Barukh Goldstein and not Kristalnacht." Manekin then followed up by stiffening his “resolve not to be swayed by tribalist emotions.”

Manekin also lashed out at "the IDF and the settlers" — and against “clueless Israelis,” whom, he claimed “hold everybody and everything but themselves responsible.’

Manekin also condemned Israeli security measures — specifically slamming the deterrent of punitive house demolitions.

Excusing Hamas War Crimes

Manekin also trivialized Hamas’ genocidal intentions as "meaningless," because — he reasoned — they were unrealizable.

Ignoring that Hamas has used sophisticated weaponry to specifically attack civilian targets, Manekin advocated for Hamas to be armed with such weaponry. On July 27, 2014, Manekin posted on Facebook that he wanted "to hear more Jews, including orthodox Jews, say that the Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves with the use of advanced weaponry against attacks by Israel... while doing as much as possible to minimize civilian casualties." Manekin reasoned: “This would be the case were the Palestinians to have an independent country. It is a fortiori the case for a people under military occupation and control.”

Arguing for An Armed Palestinian State  

Manekin went on to imply that only a state with the ability to invade and occupy another was able to defend its own citizens. Manekin slammed those who supported the idea of a demilitarized Palestinian state, insisting: "If you say you support a two state solution, but are not willing to allow from the outset the establishment of a Palestinian state with the military capacity of invading and occupying Israel, then you don't really support a Palestinian state."

Rejecting Jewish National Self Determination  

On February 14, 2016, Manekin posted on Facebook, likening Israel to apartheid South Africa and stating that “an Israel which has Hebrew and Jewish traditions within the fabric of its cultural institutions” would be “Jewish enough” for him. In the subsequent Facebook thread Manekin said he would object to applying an unlimited ‘Law of Return’ to Jews.

In a blog post published on February 12, 2015, Manekin urged progressive Zionists to vote for the Joint List, sometimes known as the Joint Arab List — that condemned the "enshrinement of Israel as a Jewish State" as “racist” and “fascist.”

Although the Joint List billed itself "an expression of the unity of the struggle of the Arab-Palestinian public against all branches and parties of the government," Manekin insisted the party was "not the Joint Arab list," because it incorporated Jewish “progressives” also hostile to Jewish statehood.

In the same blog post Manekin condemned efforts to disqualify anti-Israel inciter Member of Knesset (MK) Haneen Zoabi as "disgusting."

In July of 2014, Zoabi was suspended from the Knesset, after she defended the Hamas terrorists, who kidnapped and murdered three Israeli high school students from a bus stop. In October of 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initiated a criminal investigation against Zoabi, who was quoted in a Hamas-affiliated newspaper, Alresalah, imploring Muslims to provide "popular support" for an upsurge in violence across Israel incited by Palestinian political and religious leaders.

Demonizing Israel  

On the same day, in a comment thread regarding his posted questions, Manekin implied that Iran had a better human rights record than Israel and — while Iran was under sanctions — was more worthy of defense than Israel.

On December 3, 2016, Manekin posted on Facebook a response to the U.S. Senate’s unanimous passage of an "Anti-Semitism Awareness Bill." Manekin said Holocaust denial constituted "protected" speech and stated: “Comparing Israel's actions to those of the Nazis is not anti-Semitic.” Manekin also claimed: “I don't know of anybody who holds Israel to a higher standard than other democracies.”

On May 6, 2016, Manekin shared a link to Facebook to an article from anti-Israel 972 website. The article lauded Haneen Zoabi’s comparison of contemporary Israel to 1930’s Germany, as she refused an invitation to a Holocaust memorial event.

On December 1, 2011, Manekin posted on Facebook his endorsement of a Ron Paul campaign ad where Paul called Gaza a "concentration camp (:45) " and condemned the U.S. government for “blindly” supporting Israel. Manekin referred to Paul as “the only presidential candidate on both sides who gets Israel right.” and said: “I won't vote for Ron Paul, but I will donate to his campaign just for this ad.”

On January 31, 2008, Manekin published a blog post in which he compared Israel to Hamas - claiming that in "Israel's siege against Gaza, civilians are the intended target ".

The “siege” that Manekin referenced referred to the U.N.-approved joint Israeli and Egyptian naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The blockade was implemented to stop Hamas from acquiring more sophisticated rockets to fire at Israeli civilian populations.

On December 13, 2007, Manekin blogged that Israel practices "horrible and immoral unilateral separation much worse than South African apartheid".

On December 30, 2009, Manekin published a blog post that claimed that the temporary closure of a road to Palestinians after Jews were attacked on it was not motivated by security. Instead, Manekin claimed, "it was about “the Zionist enterprise" and “control of the land.”

Promoting Incitement  

Palestinian Astrophysicist Professor Imad Barghouthi of Al Quds University was sentenced in 2016 to seven months in prison for incitement to violence.

Barghouthi is a vocal supporter of Hamas's military wing — the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades — and has called for killing and being killed in the name of Islam.

An October 22, 2014 video showed Barghouthi at an Al-Quds university Hamas rally, draped in a Hamas banner, [00:00:33] urging students to design precision guided missiles, and sniper rifles as [00:01:11] “weapons ofthe resistance” to [00:02:35] kill “zionist soldiers” in their bedrooms.

Blaming Israel for Anti-Semitism  

For example, on August 5, 2009, Manekin wrote a blog piece, claiming "many more Jews have died in Israel and because of Israel, than all other places combined; the "new" anti-Semitism, from which Jews around the world, and especially in Europe, suffer, is really anti-Zionism and anti-Israelism in disguise".

Denying Anti-Zionism is Anti-Semitism

Manekin denied the central premise of the conference — that anti-Zionism is a new form of anti-Semitism, and claimed the study of anti-Semitism has gravitated in the direction of "hard-line Zionism" because “it has been taken over by Israelis and Zionists, and is supported mostly by hard-line Zionist money.”

Manekin noted that the PLO representative complained to Yale's president that the conference bashed Palestinians who are themselves Semites. Manekin also condemned the lack of voices from the "other side" such as — anti-Zionist Brian Klug, Tony Klug, who has blamed Israel for anti-Semitism, and Norman Finkelstein. Manekin then continued “[t]here is anti-Semitism around the globe, and there should be serious scholarship of it. And those scholars who are serious should refuse invitations to conferences that are so extraordinarily one-sided.

Manekin concluded by accusing the conference of anti-Semitism for its criticisms of Jewish anti-Zionists.

Whitewashing Yasser Arafat  

Despite statements made on December 5, 2000, by Imad Faluji, PA Minister of Communication under Arafat at the time of the second intifada — re-capped in Al-Ayyam the following day — Manekin claimed that "a single scrap of evidence has never been produced" supporting the theory that Arafat came back from Camp David and started an intifada.

However, as Al-Ayyam noted: "Imad Faluji, PA Minister of Communications stressed that the PA began the preparations and to get ready for the outbreak of the current Intifada since the return from the negotiations at Camp David at the request of President Yasser Arafat, who expected it [to be] the stage complementing the Palestinian resolve in the negotiations, and not just as a protest to [Israeli Parliament Member Ariel] Sharon's visit to the Noble Sanctuary of Jerusalem (i.e., the Temple Mount) …"

Nonetheless, Manekin claimed the outbreak of the intifada took Arafat "by surprise."

Yasser Arafat was the former leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and is known by some as the “father of modern terrorism.” Arafat reportedly told Arab diplomats in a secret meeting in 1996: "We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. Jews will not want to live among Arabs. I have no use for Jews. They are and remain Jews."

Promoting Max Blumenthal  

Manekin slammed Eric Alterman of the progressive magazine, The Nation, who critiqued Blumenthal’s book. Alterman dubbed the book "The Israel Hater’s Handbook" and wrote “[i]t is no exaggeration to say that this book could have been published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club (if it existed) without a single word change once it’s translated into Arabic."

Defending Steven Salaita

On September 11, 2014, Manekin posted a blog post about Steven Salaita, claiming "Salaita’s job offer was revoked by the President of University of Illinois at Urbana-Campaign after some pro-Israeli donors had complained about some of his tweets that offended them."

Manekin criticized the President’s decision on the basis that Manekin had "yet to see a single person defend the President’s decision who is not pro-Israel." He also undermined Salaita’s detractors claiming they felt free to attack him “because he is a Palestinian American, rather than an American Israeli.”

In 2014, The University of Illinois withdrew an offer of employment to Salaita after becoming aware of his anti-Semitic tweets. One tweet, posted shortly after Hamas kidnapped three teenage Israeli high school students, read: "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.” In 2017, Salaita posted to Facebook: “People ask if I would go back in time and change anything. I would not…I will die unapologetic.” In February 2019, Salaita stated that he had become a school bus driver in the Washington, D.C., area.

Supporting BDS -"Right of Return"  

Manekin went on to accuse those who oppose BDS of maintaining " – without a scrap of evidence – that all this is a trick, that there is ‘hidden agenda,’ ‘implied by the goals ,’ or, at least, a ‘possible (negative) implication of the goals.’ "[sic.] “ Manekin did not address Norman Finkelstein’s comments of February 2012, positing precisely such a hidden agenda, or those of Prof. As’ad AbuKhalil, a BDS proponent from California State University, who clarified in a February 2012 blog post that addressed Finkelstein's comments: “The real aim of BDS is to bring down the state of Israel….That should be stated as an unambiguous goal. There should not be any equivocation on the subject. Justice and freedom for the Palestinians are incompatible with the existence of the state of Israel.”

Finally, Manekin urged BDS opponents to assume that, at most, "around a million Palestinians" would “opt to return to their homes and properties” — and also insisted BDS opponents “remember that, according to resolution 194, they return after having declared that they are willing to live in peace with the Israelis and to abide by the laws of Israel.”

On February 11, 2016, Manekin posted on Facebook, again promoting the Palestinian call for "the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194." In response to comments on the Facebook thread, Manekin then claimed — despite clear statements by BDS Founder Omar Barghouti and prominent BDS activist Ali Abunimah to the contrary — that Barghouti and Abunimah have argued all three of the BDS calls are compatible with “with a two state solution.”

BDS

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement was founded by Omar Barghouti in 2005 to challenge “international support for Israeli apartheid and settler-colonialism.” BDS is an allegedly “Palestinian-led movement,” although leading BDS activists have admitted [00:01:01] this is not true. 

One of the demands of BDS includes [point 3] what is generally known as the “right of return,” a demand discredited as a way to eliminate Israel. Barghouti said the “right of return” is a means to “end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.”  

Barghouti has said that BDS “aims to turn Israel into a pariah state, as South Africa once was.”

In his activism, Barghouti has also said [00:05:55] regarding Israel: “Definitely, most definitely, we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No…rational Palestinian, not a sellout Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

The movement has been linked to numerous terrorist organizations and received a public endorsement from Hamas in 2017.

BDS initiatives include calling on institutions and individuals to divest from Israeli-affiliated companies, promoting academic and cultural boycotts of Israel, and organizing anti-Israel rallies, protests and campaigns.

The movement’s most notable achievement has been the infiltration of university campuses through lobbying for “BDS resolutions.” In these cases, student governments and student groups, backed by their own anti-Israel members and affiliates, have proposed resolutions on some form of boycott of, or divestment from, Israel and Israeli-affiliated entities.

Boycott resolutions, although non-binding, have been passed by student governments on numerous North American campuses.

BDS activity is often aggressive and disruptive. It has been noted that universities that pass BDS resolutions see a marked increase in anti-Semitic incidents on campus. On one campus, when the student government debated a BDS resolution, reports emerged of violent threats against those opposing it.

Social Media and Weblinks

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/jerry.haber

Twitter:https://twitter.com/JerryHaber

Blog:http://www.jeremiahhaber.com/

Youtube [Jeremiah Haber]:https://www.youtube.com/user/bunthorne1

Youtube [Charles Manekin]:https://www.youtube.com/user/chipmanekin