The smear campaign against Israel Insider

February 11, 2005

An Open Letter to Daniel Pipes, Steven Plaut, and Jonathan Tobin in response to their smear campaign against Israel Insider due to our decision to occasionally publish the writings of Barry Chamish. The correspondence from Pipes and his collaborators, mass-mailed to right-wing pundits including many Israel Insider columnists, are reprinted below, so readers can judge for themselves. The campaign also inveigled a leading big-paper columnist, a long-time colleague, who wrote to me and I responded candidly, as is reprinted below.

However, the campaign protagonists, without the columnist's permission, then circulated this private communication. In the end that may be for the best, as I stand behind my comments to the columnist and regret not a word of my defense of the controversial Barry Chamish to express his views and our right at Israel Insider to publish them. We respect the ability of our readers the right to decide for themselves regarding the merits of his arguments.

Following publication of the initial exchange, Pipes compounded his attempts at suppression -- this, too, and our response, is reprinted below.

The initial Israel Insider response to Daniel Pipes

Dear Dr. Pipes,
The trouble is that you, Jonathan Tobin and Steve Plaut apparently see yourselves as judge and jury for deciding who has a right to be published and who has a right to read what. If people disagree with you, your colleagues then "whisper" to your email lists about who is a "nasty loon" (to quote you about Barry Chamish) or (to quote Plaut about me) a "moron and a buffoon."

At least it makes an amusing rhyme.

Israel Insider has for four years, running daily, served as a forum for more than 500 writers from diverse points of view, contributing their perspective to show the diversity of views on and from Israel. You and Dr. Plaut and Mr. Tobin, who seem to be spearheading this smear campaign against Israel Insider for having the temerity to publish Barry Chamish's Lamentation for Adir Zik and some other pieces, are among them (each of you with more than 20 articles!).

http://web.israelinsider.com/Views/3873.htm (Pipes)
http://web.israelinsider.com/Views/4766.htm (Plaut)
http://web.israelinsider.com/Views/4880.htm (Tobin)

Obviously no one is challenging your right -- nor the right of any of your colleagues -- to submit or not submit to our publication. We provide an attractive and well-organized forum for your presentations and for our readers to talkback, and we have occasionally, and selectively, done the same for Mr. Chamish.

As an objective observer, I must say that your curious obsession with Chamish is perplexing. I understand that there is bad blood between you and a history of attacks and counter-attacks. But that doesn't quite explain why that needs to extend to attacking publications which publish his writings.

Surely you have enough outlets for your own opinions, without needing to squelch those of another writer who lacks the funding and connections that you enjoy! What is about Chamish's opinion that move you so to try to go to such great lengths to censor him, and us? Isn't it possible that he is right about some issues and wrong about others? Can't readers be allowed to distinguish for themselves?

I respect my readers, and fellow writers, editors and publishers enough to believe that they can read and form opinions and their own, without being censored or scared away by name-calling and gratuitous insults. Perhaps the "responsible right" -- to which you clearly believe you deserve to belong -- should assume also the responsibility to tolerate more dissent and differing opinions in our own ranks.

And when you write that I have "wildly attacked" you, you should either support that with at least one example of such an attack, or risk being dismissed as, well, paranoid or -- to use your own words -- a "nasty loon."

I have never written an insulting word against you personally, nor do I intend to. Although I do think you have not sufficiently explained your comment: "Should the [Israeli] government go ahead with the forcible removal of Jewish residents of Gaza, intra-Israeli violence appears to be a distinct possibility. Which in turn makes me wonder why the Israeli authorities do not take quite a different track and merely stop providing security for them." While I see that you have gone to great lengths to rationalize these comments, I am gratify to see that, in the end (http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/287), you regret them and realize the error of your ways.

I hope this suffices to end this little campaign of you and your buddies. All of you are welcome to keep contributing to Israel Insider, as long as you stop trying to squelch the opinions of others. But if you or your colleagues decide not to publish, I am sure we will find a way to survive without you.

I am sure your correspondents can also form their own opinons about whether they wish to give in to your censorship and boycott attempts, and I welcome those who have not contributed to our publication to see Israel Insider as a tolerant and diverse platform for news and views about the future of Israel.

It is this we should be working on, not fighting among ourselves.

Shabbat shalom to all!

Reuven Koret
Publisher
Israel Insider

What preceded and prompted our response

-----Original Message-----
From: [Daniel Pipes] Meqmef@aol.com [mailto:Meqmef@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 2:32 AM
To: splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il; jtobin@jewishexponent.com
Cc: [list of 25 columnists]
Subject: Israel Insider and Chamish

In a message dated 10-Feb-05 2:31:34 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il writes [quoting Koret]:

We Jews and journalists especially careful about ad hominem attacks. Read the pieces of Chamish and judge for yourself.

this is rich, coming from someone (Reuven Koret) defending Chamish who has for years been attacking wildly all sorts of people, including yours truly.

this is not a grudge match between Plaut and Chamish but an ugly situation in which of the responsible right need to disassociate ourselves from a nasty loon.

for anyone interested in more on this topic, see http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/189

Daniel Pipes

From: Steven Plaut [mailto:splaut@econ.haifa.ac.il]
To: Tobin, Jonathan
Cc: [list of 25 columnists]
Subject: I am ending all connections with Israel Insider and urge you to consider doing the same

I will no longer be publishing anything with Israel Insider. I suggest that you do the same. It is a disgrace to appear on the same pages with Barry Chamish. The editor of Israel Insider is a moron and a buffoon.
Steve Plaut

On Wed, 9 Feb 2005, Tobin, Jonathan wrote:

Steve:

I reached out to [the big-city columnist] and asked him to join us in writing to Koret about Chamish. He agreed and wrote to him today. Although I did not rate a reply from the great publisher, [big-city columnist] got one right back. Here it is, along with [big-city columnist]'s original e-mail.

All the best,

Jonathan

From: [big-city columnist]
Sent: Wednesday, February 9, 2005 2:12 PM
To: jstobinpa@aol.com
Subject: Re Chamish

Hi, Reuven,

I understand that Steve Plaut, Daniel Pipes, and Jonathan Tobin have been urging you to stop promoting the conspiracy theories of Barry Chamish on your web site. Please add my plea to theirs. I don't know Chamish personally, but his writing has always struck me as reckless and unsubstantiated. I wouldn't want people thinking that my commentary is as unreliable and outlandish as his. Please don't undermine the credibility of Israel Insider and your other commentators by including Chamish's bizarre material on the site. It only undercuts the effectiveness and seriousness of what you are trying to achieve.

All the best,

[Tobin:] Here's what Reuven wrote in response.

Dear [big city columnist], I think you're a great writer but I am sick of Plaut's whispering and poison-pen campaign. He and some of his buddies are clearly afraid of what Chamish writes. His campaign to ban Chamish lowers my respect for him, and raises my suspicions that Chamish is getting uncomfortably warm.....

I accept nothing Chamish says at face value, and I publish only a fraction of what he writes. I edit tough even when I do publish. But even paranoids have people out to get them.

The man has guts, good instincts, and has a veracity batting average at least as good as Plaut's.

Now he's not Ted Williams, but I think he is more or less onto the truth about the Rabin assassination, and I have found that some, not all, of his other "conspiracy theories" have at least grains of truth.

We Jews and journalists especially careful about ad hominem attacks. Read the pieces of Chamish and judge for yourself.

http://web.israelinsider.com/Views/4964.htm

Reuven

ADDENDUM: Dr. Pipes moves to suppress

Dear Mr. Koret:

In reference to your note to me, there is no "smear" campaign -- no one has said a bad word about your website -- but there was a quiet "pressure" campaign to get you to choose between Barry Chamish and several of us writers. You decided to go public with this, not us, a decision I wish you had not made.

I did not give you permission to quote my private letter, one not even addressed to you, on the internet, and I request you take it down immediately.
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Pipes

Insider Response: We are not so easily moved

Dr. Pipes,

A "private letter" sent around to twenty-five editors and columnists, urging them to take action to boycott or pressure a publication (whose name appears in the subject line) unless it censors a writer you and your friends don't like is not "going public"?

Your comment, and Plaut's, would qualify as belonging to the public domain in any court in the land (any land!). My citation of it, which refers to me personally in a depreciatory manner, is certainly within my rights, both in terms of free speech and fair use.

Do you think the phrase "moron and buffoon" (Plaut's words for the "Editor of Israel Insider," circulated in the letter that the pundits above received) qualifies as a "smear," or do you disavow all association with Plaut as "several of us writers?"

Indeed it is Tobin (who says he did it unintentionally) and Plaut (who certainly did it intentionally) who circulated my private response to Jacoby, much to [the big-city columnist's] chagrin and displeasure. He who lives in a glass house shouldn't thrown stones.

If you really want to bring this issue to broader attention, or to take legal action, I invite you to do so, as I think this whole affair only casts you and your colleagues in a most unfavorable light and brings even more attention to Mr. Chamish and his opinions, and to Israel Insider as a publication with the guts to take on those who would suppress unpopular opinions.

And I must further correct you when you say that I am defending Chamish. I am defending his right to express his opinion and my willingness at the publisher of Israel Insider to take on would-be bullies, backed by powerful organizations and interests, who use routinely use scare tactics and legal threats in an attempt to stifle free speech and freedom of the press.

Shabbat shalom.
Reuven Koret

Welcome to Fascist Israel - Part 1

I was supposed to lecture in Neve Dekalim on July 17. I received a cancellation this morning because Gush Katif is now closed by orders of the IDF. Non-residents are hereby not permitted to enter. Professionally, I knew this it would be this week. All the signs were there.

Hushing Opposition Voices

Now we know why I was entrapped into a kangaroo court by one Avigdor Eskin. The precedent set by the judge opened the floodgates to phoney libel harassment. After the raid on Gush Katif two weeks ago, Knesset member Arieh Eldad public accused Itamar Ben Gvir of inciting the attack on behalf of the Shabak. Last Thursday, Ben Gvir sued Eldad for 100,000 shekels knowing that my legal precedent gives him a perfect chance at victory. But what about poor Nadia Matar. She was actually charged by the police for "insulting a public official," and faces possible imprisonment.

Arresting My Readers

Last night it was my reader Noam Livnat's turn to be arrested. This week my correspondents young and old or their families called with horror-filled arrest stories. 48 year old Yves Cahen was incarcerated for a month and is now under house arrest for an undetermined period of time. He cannot earn a living. Fourteen year old Ezra Melamed sits in Beersheva's Dekel prison for supposedly being photographed throwing a rock at a policeman.. He insists this is a lie. His attorney has asked the court to force the police to produce the photograph. He was turned down. And on and on and on the arrests continue against those exercising their democratic right to protest.

The American Army Base

Serious research into a huge army base being built by the US in Central Israel reveals its main purpose. In 1998, Netanyahu, Sharon and Sharansky less than publicly agreed to push the plan of the Council On Foreign Relations and pull all Jews out of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. To replace the vital IDF bases within, Israel was promised a state-of-the-art border road and surveillance base which was Guaranteed Issue Health Insurance by Pres. Clinton, to hermetically seal the country from attack. Gush Katif is just the first step towards an indefensible Israel guarded by an illusionary American-built power base.

Even More Infiltration

I have the services of an internet expert who knows how, under many circumstances, to trace source addresses of sites and forums participants. We did some tracing this week. My latest revelations have been published by the popular Hebrew portal, Rotter.net. Every time they are, a hysterical voice denounces them. The voice has been traced to a psychopath in Haifa. In time he will be handled. However, far, far more worrying was his tracing the source of the Gush Katif Referendum. The address belongs not to any Gush Katif resident but to one Mike Guvosky, a longtime JDL/Kach activist who has wormed his way into the upright Kahane Chai movement. It was he who put a banner ad on Yigal Amir's site, the tipoff that anyone who signed this referendum is now known to one or two security services in Israel and the US.

Lord Save Us All. We're back to the Pinchas Wallerstein fiasco of last January. Then, he wore out thousands of youthful protesters by having them sleep in freezing, wet tents for a month outside the Knesset. As I warned, this served no purpose but to wear down resistance. Now look what the Council is offering. Three days of marching in the July heat. That will eliminate anyone over the age of 24 from even reaching Gush Katif. And after two days of sleeping on the ground, sunburn, blistered feet and bad food, the protesters are supposed to build structures?? Fat chance of this working. Instead of 150,000 protesters gathering in one place at one time, by Wednesday, at most a few tens of thousands of exhausted kids will be left. And now we know what they were grooming Sharansky for. Once a spy, always a spy. He will march at the head of the futile procession, sabotaging it as he goes along.

But note the real formula for failure. The police and army will subdue whatever pathetic crowd is left with clubs, cattle prods and tear gas. Look what they tell the participants not to bring: their own gas masks, clubs and helmets. Everyone should be running out and buying a motorcycle helmet or hardhat, finding their Gulf War gas masks and fashioning defensive sticks. The soldiers/police attack in packs. If they are overwhelmed by 10 or 20 protesters each, they could be forced to back off. Forget that. They'll face whoever was hardy enough to survive the forced march, but still strong enough to lift hammer to nail. How we have been had!

end

See also:Welcome to Fascist Israel - Part 2

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