Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch

HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.

Weekend Edition January 10-12, 2004

An Honor Roll of Self-hating Jews

Making the Shit List

by BRUCE JACKSON

The most vicious anti-semites in America aren’t the few surviving retro fruitcakes with swastikas in their closets, but rather those self-righteous Jews who attack and try to silence-without conscience, doubt or scruple-any Jew who attempts to discuss seriously the ethics or morality or decency or utility of any action taken by the State of Israel or the illegal squatters in the Occupied Territories.

The latest in that venomous war against free, open and intelligent discussion is the Self-Hating Israel-Threatening List (it’s an acronymn; get it? gee), which includes such enemies of thought as Gloria Steinem, Studs Turkel, Alan Trachtenberg, Woody Allen, Susan Sontag, Stew Albert, Susan Udin, Harvey Weinstein, Ed Asner, George Soros, Art Spiegelman, Uri Avneri, Richard Dreyfuss, Tony Judt, Neve Gordon, Jimmy Breslin (I guess they made him an honorary Jew), Andrew Cockburn, Barry Commoner, Sandy Berger, Phyllis Bennis. Such a list! The opening prose will give you a sense of the quality and character of mind involved in the compilation of the list; the list itself is a roll of honor, and I’m delighted to have been found deserving of inclusion.

BRUCE JACKSON, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. Capen Professor of American Culture at University at Buffalo, edits the web journal BuffaloReport.com. His most recent book is Emile de Antonio in Buffalo (Center Working Papers). Jackson is also a contributor to The Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: bjackson@buffalo.edu