The next time your campus hosts one of those pro-Palestinian events that bash Israel, you may see some guys in suits carrying briefcases in the crowd. (Actually, they will probably be middle aged hippies with shoulder length grey hair, blue jeans and sandals.) That's because the National Lawyers Guild is teaming up with something called the Center for Constitutional Rights to make sure wise guys like me are not "repressing" the rights of anti-Israel groups to bring in radical, anti-Semitic speakers like Amir Abdel Malik Ali or trying to videotape their events.
http://palestinelegalsupport.org/about/
And who is the National Lawyers Guild? Well the above web site has a link that tells you who they are.
"The National Lawyers Guild was formed in 1937 as the nation’s first racially integrated bar association to advocate for the protection of constitutional, human and civil rights. For decades, the NLG has sent delegations to the West Bank and Gaza to investigate international law violations by the Israeli government against Palestine. The Guild also works to defend the free speech rights of students and community activists who are in solidarity with the Palestinian people."
Well, that's not quite accurate. The National Lawyers Guild was formed in 1937 as a legal arm of the Communist Party USA, which they conveniently neglected to put in there. Their LA Chapter president, James Lafferty, has spoken at UCI on behalf of the Muslim Student Union and is a leader of Occupy LA. What else do you need to know about NLG?
The Center for Constitutional Rights is a left-wing group co-founded by none other than William Kunstler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Constitutional_Rights
And we note that this bunch has jumped into the Cal State Northridge controversy over math professor David Klein using the CSUN web server to spread his personal views on Israel.
http://palestinelegalsupport.org/2013/09/25/ccr-and-nlg-stand-up-to-protect-cal-state-professor-attacked-for-criticizing-israel-on-university-server/
So now the thuggery and intimidation is being stepped up a notch. Now these legal goons will be showing up on campus to try and intimidate those who come to express an opposing point of view from those attacking Israel, the US and Jews in general.
Bring it on.
7 comments:
As Lenin said so presciently, "Beware a Pan-Islamic movement masquerading as a national liberation front."
I guess the "communist" National Lawyers Guild overlooked that one.
So, between 1937, when Israel didn't exist, and 2013, when NLG was runnning around in suits and briefcases defending anti-Israel speakers... anything happen that might connect the dots?
Siarlys,
Just what dots are you trying to connect? My dots are connected.
There is a yawning chasm between 1937 and 2013. In 1937, to be communist was to be anti-Nazi and pro-Jewish. (Not all communists were Jews, nor all Jews communists, but communists in 1937 were pro-Jewish).
So when and how did bashing Israel become a "left wing" position? Lenin endorsed the Balfour Declaration. Stalin cast all three of the USSR's votes in the United Nations for partition. (It accorded with his theory of "Marxism and the National Question").
Its true, subsequently it became a common "left wing" position to support the Palestinian cause, particularly that most left-wing of all Palestinian leaders, Dr. George Habash, an Orthodox Christian. Why and how the change? Do you have any idea? A lot of dots to connect there.
You're also missing a lot of history of NLG. You seem to think repeating a one-line mantra makes everything self-evident. If the communist party ever really controlled it, that control lapsed circa 1970, when a lot of refugees from the collapse of SDS flooded in, briefly Maoists, but soon, its a bunch of lawyers after all, comfortably prosperous social democrats who dabbled in left-wing rhetoric while building nice houses in the suburbs.
There are a lot more dots to connect, but you don't have enough pages to list them all.
The CPUSA had egg all over its face when the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was signed. Similarly when all the news of the excesses of the USSR, deportations to Siberia, millions killed, you know, stuff like that. Similarly when the whole thing collapsed ca 1990. The commies are all progressives again now.
As for Israel, to my thinking, opposing Israel is just another manifestation of opposing the US and all her policies. Also, if you look at the recent history of NLG, they take up every single cause that makes America look bad.
But why is it that they seem to be camoflaging their communist origins?
1) Its not good PR.
2) They haven't been communist in decades.
Why doesn't the Republican Party talk about their origins as the party that opposed slavery, promoted Reconstruction, and gave huge subsidies to railroad companies? Because their current membership wants nothing to do with any of the above.
Siarlys,
They haven't SAID they are communist in decades. Look at the issues they take up.
I have Gary. There is nothing communist about the issues they take up. If they think they are somehow "left," they are flattering themselves. If you think their issues are "communist," you have no idea what communism is. Methodologically it has failed, on its own terms, but it was fundamentally about working class issues, not about the cultural navel contemplation of prosperous professionals.
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