Abe Foxman has historian Tony Judt's talk on the Israel Lobby cancelled

Historian Tony Judt says Abe Foxman had his lecture on the power of the Israel Lobby cancelled: Via Daniel Larison, I see that Tony Judt, the prominent historian (who is Jewish), writes:

I was due to speak this evening, in Manhattan, to a group called Network 20/20 comprising young business leaders, NGO, academics, etc, from the US and many countries. Topic: the Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. The meetings are always held at the Polish Consulate in Manhattan.

I just received a call from the President of Network 20/20. The talk was cancelled because the Polish Consulate had been threatened by the Anti-Defamation League. Serial phone calls from ADL President Abe Foxman warned them off hosting anything involving Tony Judt. If they persisted, he warned, he would smear the charge of Polish collaboration with anti-Israeli anti-Semites (= me) all over the front page of every daily paper in the city (an indirect quote). They caved and Network 20/20 were forced to cancel.

Whatever your views on the Middle East I hope you find this as serious and frightening as I do. This is, or used to be, the United States of America.

And here's the neocon NY Sun crowing about this triumph:

The Polish decision was hailed by one of the leading Jewish defense organizations. "Bravo to them for doing the right thing," said the executive director of the American Jewish Committee, David Harris. "Tony Judt's message is the polar opposite of the remarkable surge in bilateral relations between Poland and Israel and between Poland and world Jewry."

The speech was to have been at the consulate, but it was actually sponsored by an outside group called Network 20/20, which describes itself as an apolitical educational organization. The group's president and founder, Patricia Huntington, yesterday blamed one Jewish organization, the Anti-Defamation League, for the cancellation of the speech. "Apparently the Anti-Defamation League tracks Tony Judt's talks on the Internet and tries to get the talks canceled," Ms. Huntington said. "This is censorship, which is of concern to Americans who believe in free speech." She accused the Anti-Defamation League of having "forced," "threatened," and exerted "pressure" on the Polish consulate to cancel the talk.

Somehow, I don't think this will get as much publicity as the cancellation of the German opera for fear of Muslims.

Foxman denies being the cause of the Polish Consulate canceling the regular meeting of the Network 20/20 group.

Philip Weiss notes in the New York Observer:

Once again supporting Walt and Mearsheimer's point: the lobby brags about its power till you call them on it, and then it howls antisemitism.

You might think that in these days of the Internet, crushing free speech like this would be a pointless exercise because there are so many other outlets, but, yet, it's actually a very valuable tactic. The point is not to completely silence Dr. Judt but to get out the message that he is weaker than the important people who want to shut him up, so if you know what's good for you, you won't go around repeating what he says because he has powerful enemies, and you don't want to have powerful enemies, too, now do you?

P.S. Here's a longer piece by Weiss on the whole Israel Lobby quasi-debate.

P.P.S., Judt's speech is back on for October 16, but no word on where.

A reader writes:

I can't tell you how disturbing this Tony Judt business is for anyone who knows the man. Judt was one of my mentors, more like a sponsor, actually.

Although generally, and rather proudly, a lifelong "man of the left," Judt is one of the few prominent academics today who actually enjoys being around clever people who disagree with him: his Remarque Institute is a tiny little oasis of freedom of speech in American academe. At the end of my time with him, he actually told me, more or less point-blank, that I would not be hired by any university in the US in the next decade, because I was too politically incorrect in both my views and the subjects I studied; but that he would stick with me through thick and thin and go to bat for me whenever he could. A great man.

And now Judt's been blacklisted himself by the neocon lobby as an "anti-semite." How utterly absurd--aside from the fact Judt himself is Jewish, his Remarque Institute regularly hosts *Holocaust Studies seminars*, for pete's sake! It's their bread and butter!

Oh, I shudder for freedom of speech in America. Are there any oases left?

New York University's Remarque Institute, dedicated to the study of modern Europe, is named after Erich Maria Remarque, the German author of All Quiet on the Western Front. His widow Paulette Godard, who costarred with her second husband Charlie Chaplin in "The Great Dictator" and "Modern Times," left $20 million to NYU on her death in 1990. Judt founded the Remarque Institute in 1995.

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer