Alexander Cockburn - Criticism - Cockburn and Anti-Semitism

Cockburn and Anti-Semitism

Cockburn wrote a great deal on the use of anti-Semitism accusations in modern politics, particularly by the state of Israel and its supporters, and co-edited a book on the subject, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Cockburn was, himself, accused of anti-Semitism, which he denied. He considered it an example of the use of that accusation to intimidate criticism of Israel and avert attention from Israel's policies.

One of those making anti-Semitism charges against Cockburn was Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. In November 2005, Dershowitz wrote to the National Catholic Reporter that Cockburn's Counterpunch web site was anti-Semitic. This was in response to a review of Norman Finkelstein's book Beyond Chutzpah by Counterpunch contributor Neve Gordon. Cockburn had previously accused Dershowitz, in 2003, of plagiarism, and, in October 2005, of supporting torture. Cockburn and Dershowitz each denied the other's charges. Dershowitz also claimed that Cockburn was one of three writers (along with Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky) engaged in an attempt to discredit him, which Cockburn also denied.

A 2002 Cockburn article on anti-Semitic remarks by Reverend Billy Graham reprinted elsewhere, discussed the furor over recently released tape recorded conversations between Graham and President Richard Nixon. Cockburn contrasted that response to the response to revelations in 1989 that Graham had advocated destroying Vietnam's irrigation infrastructure, which by Nixon's estimate would kill a million civilians, if the Paris peace talks failed. The latter revelations, in Cockburn's view, received little press coverage, while the anti-Semitic remarks caused a media firestorm. Cockburn wrote that Graham's anti-Semitic comments were

consonant with the standard conversational bill of fare at 75 percent of the country clubs in America, not to mention many a Baptist soiree? But they (Nixon, Graham, and White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman) didn't say they wanted to kill a million Jews. That's what Graham said about the Vietnamese and no one raised a bleat.

His critics quoted the final passage, reproduced below, to accuse Cockburn of spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories:

Certainly, there are a number of stories sloshing around the news now that have raised discussions of Israel and of the posture of American Jews to an acrid level. The purveyor of anthrax may have been a former government scientist, Jewish, with a record of baiting a colleague of Arab origins, and with the intent to blame the anthrax on Muslim terrorists. Rocketing around the web and spilling into the press are many stories about Israeli spies in America at the time of 9/11. On various accounts, they were trailing Mohamed Atta and his associates, knew what was going to happen but did nothing about it, or were simply spying on US facilities.

One of his critics was Franklin Foer of The New Republic, who first noted Cockburn's response:

To be fair, Cockburn doesn't exactly endorse these theories. Rather, by noting that all of these Jewish conspiracy stories are "sloshing around the news," Cockburn seems merely to be pointing out that, hey, anti-Semitic ideas are still out there today — so why the shock that Graham endorsed them 30 years ago? Indeed, when I reached Cockburn to ask him about these conspiracies, he insisted he was just reporting what was already in circulation.

Part of Cockburn's response to the Graham article controversy was his ironically entitled essay My Life as an "Anti-Semite", from the The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Cockburn wrote:

Over the past 20 years I've learned there's a quick way of figuring out just how badly Israel is behaving. You see a brisk uptick in the number of articles here accusing the left of anti-Semitism. ... Back in the 1970s when muteness on the topic of how Israel was treating Palestinians was near-total in the United States, I'd get the anti-Semite slur hurled at me once in a while for writing about such no-no stuff as Begin's fascist roots in Betar, or the torture of Palestinians by Israel's security forces. I minded then, as I mind now, but overuse has drained the term of much clout.

In May 2012 Cockburn said of Marine Le Pen, leader of the French National Front, that she is a "nationalist politician, quite reasonably exploiting the intense social discontent in France amid the imposition of the bankers' austerity programs". He disputed the impact of Le Pen's attacks on Muslims and immigrants and rejected claims of her antisemitism.