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Anti-Israel Propaganda in U.S. Libraries

Pro-Hamas partisan and fundraiser George Galloway noted a few years ago that of all the American Muslim groups with which he works, the non-profit American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) was “far and away producing the biggest meetings and the biggest fundraising.” Since then the group has come under intense scrutiny for rationalizing terrorism and defending terrorists at conferences and elsewhere:

At the opening ceremony, Jamal Said… hailed “the activists and freedom fighters who gave up their personal ambitions and their own lives so our cause may live.” Said was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) Hamas financing trial…

During a session held in Arabic, Archbishop Atallah Hanna of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem supported Palestinians imprisoned by Israel for conducting acts of terrorism…

Rafeeq Jaber… argued that there are risks involved in “working for Palestine.”… Jaber served as the president of the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP)… the primary voice of Hamas in the United States. Court documents show both IAP and HLF were created by the “Palestine Committee” in America, which was established by the Muslim Brotherhood to “support Hamas from abroad.” HLF acted as “the fundraising arm for Hamas,” and IAP served as a “media entity.”

Now AMP has found a new mission: stacking American libraries with venomous anti-Israel propaganda. The group has been, according to its webpage, “working hard to place a collection of books that shed light on the history, culture and politics of Palestine into the permanent collections of public libraries.” Listed titles include:

In Search of Fatima: A Palestinian Story, by Ghada Karmi
Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood, by Rashid Khalidi
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
Fifty Years of Israel, by Donald Neff
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe
The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After, by Edward Said
Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine, by Ghada Karmi
A Doctor in Galilee: The Life and Struggle of a Palestinian in Israel, by Hatim Kanaaneh
Deliberate Deceptions: Facing the Facts about the U.S.-Israeli Relationship, by Paul Findley

It’s a little curious that they didn’t include Benny Morris’ Righteous Victims, which usually shows up on lists like these (e.g. the mandatory reading list for John Mearsheimer’s Spring 2011 seminar “Zionism and Palestine.”). An ungenerous critic might reflexively insist that AMP excluded Morris because he was just too Jewish, but a fairer explanation is they only had a finite number of slots and wanted to leave room for Paul Findley. The ADL backgrounder on Findley and anti-Semitic propagandizing, by the by, is here. Keep an eye out for the Friedman-esque line “U.S. policy in the Middle East is made in Israel, not in Washington.”

Of course, the AMP webpage lists the titles under the heading “titles include…” so maybe there are more books in their donated collections. Who knows what other valuable information about nefarious Jewish plots they’re imparting to future generations?

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2 Responses to “Anti-Israel Propaganda in U.S. Libraries”

  1. Gordinsky says:

    Americans are entitled to all viewpoints, that they may develop their own, independent viewpoint, and not one formulated in Tel Aviv.

  2. pfkga89 says:

    Jimmy Carter didn't make the list!? For too many people, reading these books prompt comparison of Israel with South Africa which leads to support for bds at the institutional level by the poorly informed in positions of responsiblity. A variety of viewpoints is only valuable when all are presented within the bounds of honesty and reality. Propaganda and subversive agendas should be identified for what they are – the literary equivalent of the suicide bomber.

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