Professor LeVine, the UCI chameleon, strikes again

In a post That little UCI chameleon, dedicated to the idiosyncrasies of a Jewish professor of history from UC Irvine, one Mark LeVine*, I have made a few inspired guesses about the motives that drive his behavior. I didn't read up much on the bio of the professor, however after some googling I've discovered that all my guesses hit the spot: see the piece Academic Marxist Rock Star that goes into some details. If you are interested, that is.

For the moment I would like to introduce another opus by our hero - a long article titled Goldstone and the futility of repentance, published in Al Jazeera (between HuffPost and Al Jazeera our professor doesn't seem to have a need for a more respectable venue for his output). Lo and behold: I agreed straight away with the first sentence in that article: "It has not been a good two years for South African Justice Richard Goldstone."! What do you know? But then... then it went downhill.

Since I am more than sure that you wouldn't read the whole article, it being too long and boring, here is the gist of it: Mark LeVine is unhappy with Judge Goldstone's about-turn that happened during the two years since his epic failure of a performance as the impartial man of law at the head of Goldstone committee. And Mr LeVine is especially unhappy with Judge Goldstone's retraction of the main, and most libelous, point of the report conclusions: the one that accuses Israel in "a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate, and terrorise a civilian population". It is vital for Mr LeVine that this lie, which could be safely regarded as one of the more heinous blood libels leveled at Jews over the history, stays unchallenged. To this end he uses his considerable ability to string words together, producing a long litany of claims and blames, strewn by many "gems" of ill logic and borderline Jew-hate.

I am not going to fisk this huge pile of garbage - it will be a most thorough waste of time, so I've decided to instead to point out a few of these gems for your enjoyment and benefit**.

On top of that, he [Goldstone] also is Jewish, with strong ties to Israel, which offered some insurance against the inevitable claims of anti-Israel bias that would surely be leveled against the mission.

How nice of Mr LeVine to confirm the penchant of modern anti-Zionists I have just addressed in that "Hey, we got us a Jew!" post.

Although the [Goldstone] report doesn't mention it, using violence to force a civilian population to change its political behaviour is in fact among the most basic definitions of terrorism.

That would mean that IDF attacks on Gaza are aimed at changing the "political behaviour" (whatever it means) of its population. Sweet...

Right-wing Islamophobe and Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin...

Islamophobe Jennifer Rubin... how nice and how familiar.

...Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer for the Atlantic who is known for his uncritical and apologistic reporting on Israel...

And the two last quotes were just a warm-up to the real shot:

The cultural revolutionaries of Maoist China had nothing on these grand inquisitors of the organised Jewish community.

Frothing at the mouth is fine with me, but mixing one's metaphors in such a hideous way... I bet Jeffrey Goldberg is going to drown his sorrows in alcohol now, while Jennifer Rubin might want to jump from a highest point in Washington...

Goldstone's half-hearted but much-publicised attempt to reassess the mission's finding are the first indication that the justice was now operating outside the bounds of objectivity and rules of evidence that guided his work in the past.

That from a man whose principles of objectivity and rules of evidence are amply illustrated by this infamous case (with a bonus add-on).

More infamously for Israel and its supporters, the United Nations passed the "Zionism equals Racism" resolution in 1975, which declared that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination"...

More infamously for Israel or for the initiators of the infamous resolution? But whom am I asking?

In reality, race is a political construct, one that is intimately tied to power and territory - specifically to the power of certain groups to control territory and through it control who has the right to live and work within a given territory.

I know, I know - professor LeVine is not the one to be blamed for "race is a political construct". This pearl gains more and more foothold in the politically correct corridors of academia. I fully expect gender to be defined a political construct soon as well. Then the absence of breasts, the hair stubbornly receding from the top of my head to my chest and some other contradictory facts I wouldn't mention - all of this will go the way of some not so subtle identifiers of what used to be called "race" once. Oh well...

And now to the biggest pearl in this scintillating summit of intellectual achievement:

It's important to note here that Israel could in fact have occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 and continued the military occupation to this day under the justification of protecting the security of its citizens, within the framework of international law.

It could have done so, however, only if it never established a single settlement, or bypass road or seized and/or destroyed huge swaths of Palestinian property and territory - that is, if it maintained a purely military occupation that did little to disturb the daily life and natural development of the occupied population.

It is worth repeating: "a purely military occupation that did little to disturb the daily life and natural development of the occupied population". What can I say: even after learning about our hero being a gifted musician, with all that this occupation involves nowadays, I still think that one's intake of controlled substances should be somehow... er... controlled.

Now the last - and really the least: "Former US President Jimmy Carter also suffered viscious attacks for his Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid." Normally I am not a spelling Nazi, especially when English isn't my mother tongue. But, Jimmuh's "suffering" notwithstanding, "viscious attacks" from a professor in UCI? Bleh...

And this is the way it goes... but what do you expect from the little UCI chameleon?

(*) Yes, it is not Levin or Levine but LeVine - he pronounces his name nowadays as "Leh-Vee-Neigh", according to UCI source. Difficult to see how that rejection of his origins could get more ridiculous.

(**) In no way does this post defend and/or protect Judge Goldstone. What we said about the man stands.