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Since then the executive board of the university has considered the matter and issued a public statement. Overcoming Zionism has now been reinstated but the University of Michigan Press plans to review its ongoing relationship with Pluto Press in October.
I haven't seen a copy, let alone read Overcoming Zionism. I'm therefore not prepared to accept the characterization of this book that is offered by Stand With Us. But even if it were every bit as awful as they say, and somehow I doubt it, and their other accusations were true, I suggest that pressuring the U.S. distributor to drop this title is not the way to counter what they regard as the baleful influence of this book.
There are several issues here. One is the definition of antisemitism. Another is freedom of the press which exists in the US but can be cancelled in the UK by court decision, as has happened several times recently, as I have discussed above. I don't deny the legality of publishing or distributing Kovel's screed or the rants of others whom you mentioned. The issue in the Kovel case is whether a university press should be distributing that book. Such distribution tends to give the book a seal of scholarly, academic approval, which many people believe is unjustified. I have read quotations from Kovel's book on the InsideHigherEd blog [as I recall]. One such is Kovel's outburst that Israel is an "abomination." I personally think that UK foreign policy, where the Pluto Press is located, is abominable. I don't much like US foreign policy either, although I believe that UK policy is --proportionately to population size & geographic size-- much much more dangerous than US policy. It's funny that Pluto seems to fit in so well with the UK's anti-Israel policy. Be that as it may, I do consider Kovel's remark that I have quoted, as well as others that I have seen, to be rather crassly Judeophobic, and here consider the historical ramifications of his anti-Israel position. I also view the mainstream of Leftist attitudes towards Jews since Marx [who was much influenced in his view of Jews by Kant & Hegel] to be Judeophobic by nature. So Leftism, as a historical cult with its own views, values [albeit often shifting], world outlook, etc., can be expected to manifest Judeophobic attitudes on almost any relevant issue. This ought to be viewed together with the convergence of contemporary Leftist Judeophobia/Israelophobia with the policies of several Western empires.
Now, Prof Brady, it may well be that my definition of Judeophobia [antisemitism] is much different from yours. But if I and others who have seen Kovel's tract as Judeophobic are right, then the issue is not freedom of the press, but whether an academic institution ought to publish/distribute such material [also taking into account several other criticisms of Kovel's book].
Mark Brady -
9/25/2007
I've found that accusations of antisemitism against writers like Lenni Brenner, Norman Finkelstein, Michael Neumann, and Virginia Tilley are not supported by the facts, which makes me doubtful whether Joel Kovel's is.
I am familiar with Pluto Press and I'm don't equate their writers' opposition to Zionism as antisemitism.
And, no, I don't have to be a Marxist-Leninist to find that some titles published by Pluto Press and, I might add, Verso Books and Counterpunch Books, offer valuable insights into history and current affairs.
Craig J. Bolton -
9/25/2007
Well, it probably would be a good idea if I read it before characterizing it, and if you read it before "having doubts."
The only difference between our respective errors is that I'm well familiar with Pluto Press and the sort of stuff they put out. Are you also a Marxist-Leninist as well as a doubter?
Mark Brady -
9/25/2007
Two quick thoughts.
Your position was entirely different. You were a customer of the Conservative Book Club and you chose to cancel your membership.
We shouldn't assume that Joel Kovel's Overcoming Zionism is "thinly disguised antisemitism" just on the basis of what Stand With Us has said. I'm doubtful.
Craig J. Bolton -
9/25/2007
"I suggest that pressuring the U.S. distributor to drop this title is not the way to counter what they regard as the baleful influence of this book."
=====================================
Just curious, what WOULD BE "the way" to "counter... the baleful influence of this book"?
Let me give you an example of what I did about 2 years ago and see if you think I was wrong. I made the mistake of rejoining [after a 25 year haitus] the Conservative Book Club. They immediately sent me [without my order] a poisonous little libel on Islam put out by what turned out to be an Eastern Orthodox publisher entitled "The Sword of The Prophet." I, in turn, told them to cancel my membership, along with some passing comments about bigots and fascists ruining the once glorious conservative movement in the U.S..
But now I wonder if I was wrong. Maybe I shouldn't have attempted to "pressure them" to not carry hate books about Islam. Maybe there was a better way to deal with this propensity of their's.
Still waiting for what that might be......
Or maybe it is O.K. to carry books that are thinly disguised antisemitism, but not O.K. to carry books that promote hatred of other groups?
Elliott Aron Green -
9/23/2007
I wasn't aware of the other case involving Pluto Press and Shaykh bin Mahfouz that you mention. It only strengthens the point that both of us are making about UK libel law, which in my view can and sometimes does lead to post-publication censorship. Now, I took pains to mention Pluto Press, since a spokeswoman for that publisher is quoted --at some length, it seemed to me-- on the Inside Higher Ed site. She ranted on a bit about UofM Press refusing --at first-- to distribute the Kovel tract. But she had nothing to say about censorship in the UK against the Griffin book published by Pluto or about the other two books that the same Shaykh Mahfouz successfully quashed, at least within the UK. To be truthful, I am not sure that she used the word "censorship," although I think that she did. At any rate, she did not mention the censorship of the Griffin book, published by her own company, at least not as she was quoted on the InsideHigherEd site.
To conclude, here we have an issue, the UK libel laws, that should be of widespread concern to English-speaking academics.
Mark Brady -
9/23/2007
"I don't propose to debate Israel's history with you at this point, nor discuss US & UK policy toward the Holocaust as it was happening. However, let us stay within the sphere of book publishing, book distribution, and censorship."
That's a relief. It wasn't my purpose to debate Israel's history nor U.S. and UK policy toward the Holocaust.
"Every years thousands or tens of thousands of books are rejected by publishers, academic and otherwise. Is every publisher's rejection of a book an act of censorship?"
No, and I didn't say it was. I didn't talk about censorship, which, I should note, usually refers to prior restraint of the press and broadcasting by the state. That said, as an advocate of free speech and free expression, I am totally opposed to libel law, not least the tough libel laws in the UK. It's appalling that for a decade a so-called progressive Labour government hasn't seen fit to modify this law. Many authors and publishers have been penalized through UK libel law, including Pluto Press, which was successfully sued by Sheikh Khalid Bin Mahfouz and Namir Petroleum for Michael Griffin's Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan. Ironic, eh? That's one case you didn't mention.
Elliott Aron Green -
9/23/2007
I don't propose to debate Israel's history with you at this point, nor discuss US & UK policy toward the Holocaust as it was happening. However, let us stay within the sphere of book publishing, book distribution, and censorship. Yet, I will "disclose" my relationship with Stand With Us. They picked up and linked to an article I had written on the history of the term "Palestine" and other names for the land that Jews have traditionally called the Land of Israel [also see the Christian Book of Matthew, chap. 2:20-21].
It is reasonable to expect, in my opinion, that a university press should publish and distribute books that meet rigorous academic and scholarly standards --and only such books. Every years thousands or tens of thousands of books are rejected by publishers, academic and otherwise. Is every publisher's rejection of a book an act of censorship? Rather, I believe that censorship is when a state or state-like body forbids publication of a book. If Prof Benzion Netanyahu submitted an article favorably viewing the Zionist political thinking of Max Nordau and Ze'ev Jabotinsky to the Middle East Journal and that article were rejected, would you call it editorial judgement or censorship? No doubt Kovel could find other publishers/distributors in the UK and US for his book, quotes from which make it sound like an agit-prop harangue rather than a scholarly work. Be that as it may, censorship does exist in the UK through libel laws that favor complainants who can afford extremely expensive litigation. This occurred in the case of Robert Collins who recently wrote of his own experience with Cambridge Univ Press here at HNN. The CUP had published a book by Collins and another scholar on the funding of international terrorism. A superrich Saudi mentioned in the book sued the CUP in the UK and won a judgement mandating destruction of existing copies of the book, its recall from libraries, etc. [see Collins' article here at HNN for details]. The same rich Saudi had sued Dr Rachel Ehrenfeld for much the same "offense" as that of Collins and his co-author. In that case too he won the judgement, but Ehrenfeld managed to get a judgement from a US court denying applicability of such a UK judgement in the USA. About ten years ago, David Irving sued Prof Deborah Lipstadt in a UK court for calling him a Holocaust denier, which he is. In that case the plaintiff, Irving, lost the judgement. So it seems that there is very real censorship in the UK, although Irving failed in his effort to censor. Further, it seems to me that the British Pluto Press, which represents anti-Israel views that are now very fashionable in the UK, should be more concerned about the censorship in the UK than about losing a distribution contract with U of M Press, if freedom of the press is really the issue. I'm sure that another US distributor could be found for Kovel's book and others of that ilk.
However, Prof Brady, don't you think that censorship in the UK, as manifested in the Collins case and in other ways perhaps, should be of concern to you? Since Americans often take pride in sharing a common language and --to a certain extent-- a common culture with the UK and other English-speaking countries, shouldn't British censorship, whether through courts or otherwise, be a matter of great concern to American academics??
Mark Brady -
9/23/2007
Stand With Us is indeed a "Zionist lobby group" and it would be at best misleading to focus on what are probably the Jewish identities of the majority of its members. Their Judaism or Jewish identity is not the point.
I'm not offering unsolicited advice to any particular persons. I'm asking whether we should welcome other people doing this to counter a "bad" book. And you are quite mistaken in thinking that my post is directed to "American Jews," some of whom, of course, are anti-Zionist. You seem to believe that I am saying "Jews should just sit down and shut up when they see things they think are manifestly false, but others should not do the same when they see Jews making 'mistakes?'" You thus appear to identify an antisemitic animus that is not there. If so, this is a complete misapprehension on your part.
Of course, Stand With Us and anyone else has the right to complain about anything they want. My point, however, is that calling on a publisher not to distribute a particular book or books is likely not a welcome development. I would say exactly the same about a lobby group that called on a publisher not to distribute pro-Zionist literature.
I agree there is nothing that "is wrong, from a libertarian perspective, about writing to a publisher complaining about the content of a book and the publisher then deciding, after actually looking at it, that it was not something they wished to distribute." And I did not say there was.
If you read this, to which I linked in my original post, it is quite clear that Stand With Us wants the UMP to drop Pluto Press and not just Joel Kovel's Overcoming Zionism.
As a matter of fact, I'm not clear there's "a whole bunch of other publishers out there who'd be glad to distribute the book" but my original point doesn’t turn on the lack of prospective distributors of this and other Pluto books.
In conclusion I wish to emphasize that my posts about Zionism are motivated entirely by my concerns about the Zionist record before and after its foundation in 1948 through to the present day. I’m not prepared to give a pass to Zionism any more than to any other statist ideology.
Steven Horwitz -
9/23/2007
A small organization with offices in 3 states? That this American Jew who pays attention to Israel issues has never heard of? Who has no office in Washington DC? Whose mission statement reads:
"StandWithUs is an international education organization that ensures that Israel's side of the story is told in communities, campuses, libraries, the media and churches through brochures, speakers and conferences."
Let me note once again that you seem to take pleasure in offering unsolicited (and patronizing, IMO) advice to American Jews about what they should be doing and saying and how they should fight their battles.
So I guess it's okay for you to offer unsolicited criticisms of their choices to them, but not okay for them to offer unsolicited criticisms of the University of Michigan Press's choices to the Press, is that it?
Jews should just sit down and shut up when they see things they think are manifestly false, but others should not do the same when they see Jews making "mistakes?"
Can you explain to me what exactly is wrong, from a libertarian perspective, about writing to a publisher complaining about the content of a book and the publisher then deciding, after actually looking at it, that it was not something they wished to distribute? Unless you can show me that a contract was broken, or broken without compensation, it's just not clear to me why, from a libertarian perspective, this is such an awful thing.
It's not like there's not a whole bunch of other publishers out there who'd be glad to distribute the book.
