But Professor Massad shows little respect for his audience or for history. At a core passage in the piece, he quotes Theodore Herzl's Der Judenstaat as saying, "The unfortunate Jews are now carrying the seeds of anti-Semitism into England." Massad uses as evidence that Zionism sees anti-Semitism as valid and encouraged it. He ignores the next paragraph where Herzl describes anti-Semitism in 1800's Europe: "In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers. and often by those whose ancestors were not yet domiciled in the land where Jews had already had experience of suffering."
Massad's over-generalization in the lengthy piece equates the actions of Jewish Zionists with those of the Nazis. This is deeply offensive to Jews and supporters of Israel, especially given that the Zionists who worked with the Nazi regime were only a small subset of the diverse global Zionist movement. This movement also included 50,000 Jewish Americans who rallied for a Nazi boycott under the organization of American Zionist Stephen S. Wise.
Palestinians like Professor Massad deplore - and rightfully so - efforts to hide IDF participation in the forcible removal of Palestinians from their homes in 1948 or the denial of their struggle for national recognition. But Massad's argument just creates the same pain on the other side of the conflict. His piece stokes divisions between sides rather than dealing in a reality in which both Zionist Israelis and anti-Zionist Palestinians must negotiate a final status agreement to avoid mutual destruction.
After six days of hosting Professor Massad's piece on its website, Al-Jazeera removed the editorial. Immediately after, accusations flew that al-Jazeera was engaging in "censorship" stoked by "Zionists." As if the media organization which refers consistently to Israel's capital as "occupied Jerusalem" were concerned primarily with not offending Zionists. As if the content in the article was not itself highly incendiary and factually incorrect.
The idea that removing an editorial after six days constitutes censorship is ludicrous. A 15-page Justice Department document on surveillance guidelines with all 15 pages blacked out is censorship. Trying to ban Harry Potter because it indoctrinates Wicca is censorship. Al-Jazeera removing an editorial off its own website after running it for six days is not censorship. The piece is still on other websites and enjoyed wide dissemination.
More concerning, the idea that influential Zionists are responsible for censoring arguments that challenge their beliefs is unsubstantiated. In the rush to stake out victimhood status, Massad's defenders miss the forest for the trees. The Massad article is offensive because it accuses Jews of complicity in the creation of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, not because it identifies linkages between the Nazi government and Zionist elements. The manically articulated arguments to the contrary reek of a conspiracy theory along the lines of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
For proponents of the censorship conspiracy, playing the victim of discourse policing is a cowardly defense. It is not anti-semitic to point out linkages between Zionists and Nazis. But it is blatantly anti-semitic to extend this evidence to the conclusion to claim that Jews were complicit in the forces of their own destruction and are trying to censor this "truth." Professor Massad's tinfoil hat-wearing defenders are without a shred of justification to stand on. And in the blame-shifting and rhetorical house of mirrors they construct, real people suffer. Israelis and Palestinians gain no benefit from the circle jerking of ideologues. Rather, they benefit from careful historical examination and the confrontation of history as a basis for a sustainable future.
Ultimately, Professor Massad's piece is little more than a dangerous distraction from the real and important work ahead.
