The Neocons are a branch of the Israeli lobby that has an emotionally intense commitment to Israel. They use a variety of tactics to stifle debate on Middle East issues. A favorite is to label those holding opposing views anti-semites. Neocons from Elliot Cohen to David Frum to Max Boot to Lawrence Kaplan to Jonah Goldberg to Midge Decter to Charles Krauthammer have hurled the epithet of anti-Semitism at people whose views they disagree with. Targets have included Nobel Peace prize winners Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, distinguished professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, media personalities Chris Mathews and Pat Buchanan among many others. The point of most of these attacks is to personally discredit anyone who would criticize Israel and to taint them with the smear of "controversy" – and thereby surpress genuine debate. The climate of fear that the neocons have created now permeates the media, the universities, and the halls of Congress.
Neocons use a variety of tactics to create a climate of fear in addition to smearing and character assassination. One tactic designed for college campuses is to use web sites to monitor professors speech. Groups such as Campus Watch, Stand With Us, the David Project, the Israel on Campus Coalition, and the disingenuously named Scholars for Peace in the Middle East are dedicated to the task of monitoring our campuses and bringing pressure to bear on those critical of Israeli policies. These sites list the names of "deviationist" professors on their sites. As a result, many of these professors have received torrents of hate mail, spam and the like. One professor, the renown Middle East scholar, Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, has received telephone death threats. (It is comforting that one such site recently stopped its monitoring after 100 professors wrote in asking be listed!) The neocons are also active sponsors of a bill in Congress to have the Department of Education monitor Middle East studies department in order to insure "balance."
The point of the smearing, harassment, surveillance, etc is to shut down debate. It is of interest that no critic of Carter ever refuted the major tenet of his book that Israel engages in apartheid. As is well known Israel maintains two different road networks, and even two entirely different legal systems, in the West Bank, one for Jewish settlers and the other for indigenous Palestinians. Those basic facts were ignored by those who, like Elliot Cohen, denounced Carter for being an anti-semite and having a "blood libel" against the Jewish people.
We need to be able to have an open debate about our Middle East policy, especially now that the neocons are pushing for a war with Iran. To have this debate Americans must resist the intimidation of the neocons who would push us to be the world’s jailers and torturers, and not what we should be, its champion of freedom.