December 16, 2002

The Company you Keep

Mona Baker, the British academic who couldn't tell the difference between "boycott" and "purge," has surfaced once again. Professor Baker, the Times reveals, is engaged in a lively email correspondence with celebrity holocaust denier David Irving. Very little of the contents of the correspondence has come to light, but from what I can gather, the two anti-Zionists have been brainstorming and bouncing ideas off each other, pooling their resources in search of innovative ways to extend her trail-blazing anti-Israel "boycott" to new and more fruitful territory. Here's the latest plan for keeping the dream alive, a letter from Irving quoted by the Times's Giles Coren:

“Dear Amazon, I have been shocked to get an e-mail from Prof. Mona Baker of the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology which indicated that your company advertises itself in the Israeli press via a logo which reads: ‘Buy Amazon.Com and Support Israel’ and which displays an Israeli flag.”

Coren continues:
I think, on balance, that anti-Zionists have a reasonable gripe with Amazon in this instance, and letters are a harmless way of expressing that. But why is Mona Baker sending e-mails to David Irving about it? Is the potty Holocaust denier the sort of chap she sees as a possible political collaborator? One is so often implored to remember that not all anti-Zionists are anti-Semites. But not all of them aren’t. And Irving is one who is. His aversion to Israel is based not on political but racial revulsion...

Now, Professor Baker, in choosing to boycott people on the ground of their nationality rather than their personal politics, treads a fine line herself between legitimate opposition to state brutality and fascistic denial of free speech on the ground of race. Anti-Zionists and Nazis do share a common cause, in a way, in so far as their enemy is Jewish, and sometimes the two end up doing each other’s dirty work — it is no coincidence that the French lawyer Jacques Verges represented both Klaus Barbie and Carlos the Jackal — but only the anti-Zionists can claim political validity for their occasional apparent racism.

It is not impossible that Mona Baker is a rational woman who thinks that her boycott is the best way to liberate the disfranchised Palestinians. And it is also not impossible that she is a misguided nutter. It is not for a miserable clown like me to judge. But if she does not want her attempts to legislate against a group of people who just happen to be Jewish to come up smelling of Hitler, then she should avoid soliciting the support of his most prominent modern disciple.

Posted by Dr. Frank at December 16, 2002 12:25 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Dr. Frank:

Seems a little rash of you to automatically condemn Mrs. Baker's "association" with Irving when you haven't heard from Mrs. Baker herself. What evidence is there that such an association actually exists??? For all you know, Irving could be on a listserv that Mrs. Baker and thousands of others are on.

Perhaps you should get Mrs. Baker's side of the story before you villify her. Your commentary is based on an unfounded assumption which itself is based on the statement of a Holocaust denier.

Sincerely,

Stuart

Posted by: stuart at August 29, 2003 10:50 PM