The above words signaled the birth of "McCarthyism." McCarthy and his sidekicks in the House Un-American Activities Committee forced investigations of just about every group and any person who ever stood for a black lady in a bus or was overheard to say that Francisco Franco was not a great friend of liberty, and any person who knew a person who had done such things. Having a Jewish sounding name was sufficient cause for being the target of suspicion, because "everyone knew" that Jews are communists. McCarthyism was discredited only when McCarthy tried to wreck the United States Army.



Recently, Larry Cohler-Esses charged in The Nation that attempts to present alternative narratives to those proposed by people like Holocaust minimizer Norman Finklestein and post-structuralist anti-Zionist Nadia Abu El Haj are "New McCarthyism." He repeated the McCarthyism charges here:

According to him, part time amateur bloggers are really agents in a sinister plot to discredit upstanding paragons of intellectual integrity and limit academic freedom. They are equivalent in power to United States senators and congressional subcommittees. Cohler-Esses and The Nation would have us believe that behind the mild and innocent daytime facade of Israeli housewife and businesswoman, Paula Stern hides her real vocation of international agent of the Jew-Zionist neoconservative conspiracy, with "important ties to government figures." When nobody is looking, she vanishes into a telephone booth and emerges in her super-Jew costume in Washington DC, perhaps using teleportation, as a powerful and sinister lobbyist, able to vault tall buildings at one leap and banish the enemies of Zion.

Paula Stern and other bloggers have no real power, and everyone has the right to form or join an organization. They are citizens excercising their right to free speech, freedom of the press and freedom of organization. Despite their alleged insidious efforts at subversion, their targets continue to flourish, by and large, in the halls of academia and government. Nadia Abu El Haj reportedly got tenure, apparently because of her anti-Israel efforts rather than despite them. Norman G. Finkelstein has never gotten tenure at any institution in his long career. We can safely assume that this is not related to efforts by the nefarious Zionist conspiracy of housewife Web loggers to discredit him. Joseph Massad, the Columbia Israel-basher, apparently did not get tenure. Perhaps this is related to his record of publication or non-publication, or perhaps it is related to the fact that he compared the 9-11 suicide bombers to the founding fathers of the United States. Maybe the D.A.R. lobby blocked his tenure.

But there is already a new McCarthyism in full swing. It is not a joke or an amateur campaign of bloggers. The FBI is investigating AIPAC and other Jewish organizations on charges of violating offical secrets laws. This McCarthyism is quite like the original. It is conducted by a branch of government, against government employees. It claims that there are enemy agents working in the United States government. Who are the ringleaders of the New McCarthism? Decidedly, they are not Jimmy Carter or Professors Measheimer and Walt, though they are part of the chorus. The agitation began long before they published their views.

The "foreign agents" were "exposed," for example, by the late Thomas Staufer, writing in Middle East International of March 21, 2003

Stauffer named the names. He made no bones about his accusations. These are not just people with Zionist sympathies according to him. He implies that they are agents of the Mossad.

As we have seen, these McCarthyite charges about "traitors in the Defense Department are echoed at numerous Web sites and in numerous publications, though no real proof is ever offered. Stauffer's alleged proof of this Zionist conspiracy is flimflam. None of these men were ever convicted of anything. Douglas Feith was "reportedly" caught transferring classified materials, but no charges were ever filed. Perle was allegedly investigated by the Justice Department, but no charges were ever filed. Since Perle appointed Feith, he must be guility. Perle also appointed one Stephen Bryen as assistant deputy secretary of defence. Bryen is alleged by Stauffer to have passed documents to an Israeli officer, but that allegation is unproven as well. Paul Wolfowitz is presumed guilty because he hired Feith and Perle, whose guilt was never proven. In the court of the new McCarthyism, if you support Israel, you are guilty and you can never be proven innocent.

Jonathan Pollard, who had nothing to do with the above "traitors" was actually caught performing espionage for the Israeli government. He was a relatively low level functionary who was arrested, convicted, and is serving the longest sentence ever given in such cases. It is not credible that Israeli would risk such exposure again, nor is it credible that if there were any real grounds for suspicion against any of these people, the investigation could be quashed.

The above logic is the stuff of witch hunts. But "where there is smoke, there must be fire" right? Or maybe there are some some people in the FBI and elsewhere with an obssession about "Zionist" spies? Of course, Stauffer did not originate these stories.

A June 1985 article by Max Holland in The Nation alleges

No charges were ever proven of course. The Nation has also been at the forefront of allegations against Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Richard Perle. Like Stauffer, they falsely alleged, with no proof, that an Israeli controlled neoconservative conspiracy was behind the invasion of Iraq.

Front and center in the McCarthyite campaign, for many years, is the magazine The Nation, which alleges itself to be a guardian of liberty. And yet, The Nation, a presumably responsible US national magazine, has the gall to claim that there is a "New McCarthyism" perpetrated by a Zionist conpiracy of amateur bloggers.

Ami Isseroff