Mark LeVine Unhinged on Facebook

ahqdefaultUC Irvine history professor Mark LeVine, who recently suffered a meltdown after being called “anti-Israeli,” has since proven the point by posting this profanity-laden, unhinged rant on Facebook:

[P]eople like Carey Nelson and other “machers” [Yiddish for a self-important person] in the American Jewish community get up in arms about BDS [boycott, divestment, sanctions]. Well, Cary Nelson and the rest of you: F— you. Call me uncivil, but still, f— you. F— all of you who want to make arguments about civility and how Israel wants peace when this is what Israel does, it’s “mowing the lawn” and “defending” freedom. This is, in no uncertain terms, genocide. If you want to argue about it, come to Gaza with me. Come look at Palestinians in the eye and talk about how uncivil Steven Salaita is and how you are in fact a “critic” of Israel. There is only one criticism of Israel that is relevant: It is a state grown, funded, and feeding off the destruction of another people. It is not legitimate. It must be dismantled, the same way that the other racist, psychopathic states across the region must be dismantled. And everyone who enables it is morally complicit in its crimes, including you.

LeVine was commenting on a photograph from French freelance photographer Anne Paq, who, according to her bio, has been “based in Palestine since 2003,” and who specializes in the sort of emotionally-charged—and, all too often, staged or manipulated—imagery regularly employed by Hamas and others to demonize Israel in the international media. Paq’s photograph certainly elicited that reaction in LeVine, who, one can safely assume, would be quick to “dismantle” the allegedly illegitimate nation of Israel long before he gets to the other unnamed “racist, psychopathic states.”

LeVine’s primary target is Cary Nelson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences and past president of the American Association of University Professors. Nelson has been an outspoken opponent of BDS, including co-editing the recently published book of essays, The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel. His principled defense of academic freedom has not gone over well with BDS supporters such as LeVine, who signed an August, 2014 letter calling on Middle East studies scholars and librarians to boycott Israeli academic institutions. Accordingly, at the annual Middle East Studies Association (MESA) convention last month, members voted overwhelmingly in favor a resolution that sets the stage for MESA to adopt BDS in 2015.

In his diatribe, LeVine alludes to Nelson’s public support of UIUC’s decision to withdraw an offer of tenured professorship to former Virginia Tech University English professor Steven Salaita. UIUC made its choice based on Salaita’s atrocious academic record and inflammatory, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic Twitter posts, which went far beyond incivility, the charge leveled at the time by some of his critics.

As LeVine demonstrates with his ad nauseam repetition of “uncivil” and “civility,” the terms have become rallying cries both for Salaita’s defenders and for the now-famous ex-academic himself, who, speaking on the “Scholars Under Attack” panel at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association in November, made this inane proclamation:

Civility is the language of genocide. It’s inherently a deeply violent word. It’s a word whose connotations can be seen as nothing if not as racist.

Indeed, Salaita has become a cause célèbre in academia, even warranting his own panel at the recent MESA convention, at which he was hailed as a hero and a martyr. LeVine sees him as a victim of nefarious forces, ludicrously blaming his “dehiring” on the “wrath of pro-Israel conservatives in the United States.” Lost amidst the pity party is the fact that Salaita’s “scholarship” was never up to the task. As Michael Rubin, writing for Commentary, put it:

The scandal isn’t so much that the University of Illinois rescinded its preliminary tenure offer after learning about Salaita’s incitement on twitter; rather, it’s that he was seriously considered in the first place.

It’s not difficult to ascertain why LeVine would defend Salaita: both of them embody the activist academic that has overtaken the field of Middle East studies; both are incredibly thin-skinned; both are prone to posting juvenile, profanity-riddled rants on social media; and both, LeVine’s disingenuous protestations notwithstanding, are unambiguously anti-Israel.

Nor is it a mystery as to why LeVine would accuse Nelson of being “morally complicit” in Israel’s purported “crimes,” given that he sees those who “enable” the nation simply by supporting its existence to be responsible for (an imaginary) “genocide.”

With his immature, petulant, and hateful outbursts, LeVine has shown his true face. When hotheaded advocates take the place of objective scholars, this is the result. And it isn’t pretty.

Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum. She can be reached at stillwell@meforum.org.

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  • hitz

    LeVine still flaunting his Hannah Montana hairdo!

  • hitz
  • Yehuda Levi

    “Civility” is racist?

    Is there any word in the English language that leftists cannot say is “racist?”

    I don’t think so. They see racism everywhere – even in the mirror.

    • http://www.dilbert.com scook84

      Every word in the English language is racist! Including “and” “the” and “is”! /src

      <3 Muah!

  • John Pallyswine

    This California freak is a proud commentator on Al Jazeera. Such a proud member of America`s confused and morally worthless academics

  • kiwi41

    He’s the type of vermin that would ride a bike ” being green you know. ”
    So unfortunate if he got in the way of a large, gas guzzling pick-up.

  • RAM500

    Capitalizing the V in Levine tells the story.

  • tagalog

    “…and F***k you too, LeVine.”

    And the white horse you rode in on.

    “Civility is a deeply violent word.” The latest in cleverness of the unthinking, moronic, variety. Thanks for that.

  • steve b

    DROP THIS MORON INTO THE MIDDLE OF AN ISIS CONTROLLED AREA OF THE MIDDLE EAST. THEN NUKE THE AREA!

    • GinoMachiavelli

      I’ll fold his “parachute”, personally. ;)

      • steve b

        UNDERSTAND ME – I WANT HIM TO REACH THE GROUND ALIVE SO HIS FAVORITE ISIS FOLKS CAN TAKE GOOD CARE OF HIM!

        • GinoMachiavelli

          Then give him 2 parachutes and pair of knee pads .

          • SoCalMike

            That’s what I’m saying.

          • GinoMachiavelli

            Affirmative… Over and out.

  • ArentIpretty

    That this guy passes for a professor is sad.

    • GinoMachiavelli

      Professor of Underwater Basket weaving… no less.

  • Hard Little Machine

    Before he was LeVine (one thinks LEE-VIINE) he was Levine, aka Luh-veen. Like “Juan” Cole who’s name is John but who informally adopted a nome de guerre “Juan” because, and I quote the man himself here it ‘sounded more revolutionary’, Mark is constantly looking to distance himself from his own ancestry while at the same time using the occasional Yiddishism to beat others over the head with his pretend moral superiority.

    Mark LeVine is a gadfly and no one need take this lightweight very seriously.

    • unclesamnephew

      but seriously, he is indoctrinating the students that attend his classes

  • Hard Little Machine

    By the by I’ve never fully understood why racists and Nazis and Jew haters object being called racists, Nazis and Jew haters. They should at least have the courage of their own convictions and stand proudly and admit it. The KKK does, Hamas does, Max Blumenthal does. Why does Mark whine about it?

  • garyfouse

    I was the target of Markie’s meltdown (see link) at UCI. And to think that he told me if I ever called him anti-Israel again I would have a problem- that it was slander! Then you read the above and you just have to shake your head.

    You can’t put a price tag on a college education these days.

    LOL.

  • Joatmoaf

    It looks to me like Spicoli needs to put the bong down.

  • GinoMachiavelli

    LeVine is le schmuck.

  • garyfouse

    “Civility is the language of genocide. It’s inherently a deeply violent word. It’s a word whose connotations can be seen as nothing if not as racist.”
    This is a classic example of the quackery we have posing as scholarship in academia today.

  • JayWye

    this guy could not get a real,private-sector job,outside of universities or government. He’s probably never had a real job.

  • Bob Sten

    The best book I’ve ever read that succinctly describes how academia was taken over by illogical, emotionally immature loons like Levine is called “the rape of alma mater”.

    A truly enlightening read.

  • SoCalMike

    For Levine and academics like him psychology and attitude replace and substitute for thinking.
    Like my intelligent 4 year old cousin who got a scary looking toy one year that scared the heck out of him so much he tried to befriend it so (he reasoned) it wouldn’t hurt him. This is the sort of “thinking” that passes for reasoning among adults like Levine in positions of authority.
    Mark Levine is a boy trying to pass his unfounded beliefs off in an adult world.
    I’m sure he has plenty of friends at Al Jazeera and in Gaza and the rest of the Jew-hating Muslim world who agree with him and reinforce his demonstrably false beliefs.
    He may be a convert to Islam. Jihadis consider atheists lower than pond scum and even Jews. If he ever admitted to being an atheist, the jihadis would cut his head off even though he is a reliable water boy. Then again maybe he has a jihadi boy friend(s) who find other uses for him.

  • I_Am_Me

    Prediction: Soon, individual letters will be called racist. I’d go with “N” as the starting favorite.

    After that, certain sounds will be called racist. I’m going to go with “shh” as it is the call for unruly people to be quiet, say children you are trying to quiet down. You’ve just violated their emotional civil rights, so it’s racist.

    Then the eye roll you do when a Leftist tells you you are racist for saying “shh” will become a racist gesture.

    Finally your dumbfounded blank stare will be called racist because the Leftist will know you are thinking something racist.

  • Michael Garfinkel

    His self-hatred has been projected onto the entire Jewish people, with the Jewish homeland as ground zero.

    It’s really quite remarkable that so many Jews, while not as emotionally disturbed as Levine clearly is, exhibit similar attitudes and procivities.

    It’s also very disconcerting, and points to a real problem in the Jewish psyche.

  • http://libertyandculture.blogspot.com/ Jason P

    It’s time to cut federal funding to the Middle East Studies departments. They are just leftist pro-Islamist propaganda machines. Pull the plug!

  • Shel Zahav

    LeVine loves to write anti-Israel tirades on Al Jazeera. He must be Jewish. Nobody hates like someone who hates his own.

  • Shel Zahav

    There are no Palestinians in Gaza, only Gazans.

  • Shel Zahav

    Most Palestinian Arabs are descendants of the 1845-1947 Muslim migrants
    from the Sudan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, as well as from Iraq, Saudi Arabia,
    Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Morocco, Bosnia, the Caucasus, Turkmenistan, Kurdistan,
    India, Afghanistan and Balochistan.

    Arab migrant workers were imported by the Ottoman Empire and by the
    British Mandate (which defeated the Ottomans in 1917) to work on infrastructure
    projects: The port of Haifa, the
    Haifa-Qantara (1918), Haifa-Edrei (1905), Haifa-Nablus (1914) and
    Jerusalem-Jaffa (1892) railroads, military installations, roads, quarries,
    reclamation of wetlands, etc. Legal and illegal Arab laborers were also attracted
    by the relative economic boom, stimulated by the annual Jewish immigration
    beginning in 1882.

    The Arab population of Haifa surged from 6,000 in 1880 to 80,000 in
    1919, as a result of workforce migration, modernization introduced by the
    British occupation, and the establishment and expansion of Jewish settlements,
    which enhanced the infrastructure and employment base. The eruption of World
    War II accelerated the demand for manpower and the flow of migrants to the area
    west of the Jordan River.

    According to a 1937 report by the British Peel Commission, “The
    increase in the Arab population is most marked in urban areas, affected by
    Jewish development. A comparison of the census returns in 1922 and 1931 shows
    that, six years ago, the increase percent in Haifa was 86, in Jaffa 62, in
    Jerusalem 37, while in purely Arab towns such as Nablus and Hebron it was only
    7, and at Gaza there was a decrease of 2 percent.”

    As a result of the substantial 1880-1947 Arab immigration – and despite
    Arab emigration caused by domestic chaos and intra-Arab violence – the Arab
    population of Jaffa, Haifa and Ramla grew 17, 12 and 5 times respectively.

    The (1831-1840) conquest, by Egypt’s Mohammed Ali, was solidified by a
    flow of Egyptian and Sudanese migrants settling empty spaces between Gaza and
    Tul-Karem up to the Hula Valley. They
    followed in the footsteps of thousands of Egyptian draft dodgers, who fled
    Egypt before 1831 and settled in Acre. The British traveler, H.B. Tristram,
    identified, in his 1865 The Land of Israel: a journal of travels in Palestine
    (p. 495), Egyptian migrants in the Beit-Shean Valley, Acre, Hadera, Netanya and
    Jaffa.

    The British Palestine Exploration Fund documented that Egyptian
    neighborhoods proliferated in the Jaffa area: Saknet el-Mussariya, Abu Kebir,
    Abu Derwish, Sumeil, Sheikh Muwanis, Salame’, Fejja, etc. In 1917, the Arabs of
    Jaffa represented at least 25 nationalities, including Persians, Afghanis,
    Hindus and Balochis. Hundreds of
    Egyptian families settled in Ara’ Arara’, Kafer Qassem, Taiyiba and Qalansawa.
    In 1908, Yemenite Arab migrants settled in Jaffa, and Arabs from Syria’s Huran
    proliferated in the ports of Haifa and Jaffa.

    “30,000-36,000 Syrian migrants (Huranis) entered Palestine during
    the last few months alone,” reported La Syrie daily on August 12,
    1934. Az-ed-Din el-Qassam, the role-model
    of Hamas terrorism, which terrorized Jews in British Mandate Palestine, was
    Syrian, as were Said el-A’az, a leader of the 1936-38 anti-Jewish pogroms and
    Kaukji, the commander-in-chief of the Arab mercenaries terrorizing Jews in the
    1930s and 1940s.

    Libyan migrants settled in Gedera, south of Tel Aviv. Algerian refugees
    (Mugrabis) escaped the French conquest of 1830 and settled in Safed (alongside
    Syrians and Jordanian Bedouins), Tiberias and other parts of the Galilee.
    Circassian refugees, fleeing Russian oppression (1878) and Moslems from Bosnia,
    Turkmenistan, and Yemen (1908) diversified the Arab demography west of the
    Jordan River.

  • cajunwarthog

    Typical california “educator”.
    “We will destroy you from within.”

  • hyedenny

    Someone tell this moron that I will take him up on his offer to go to Gaza to witness firsthand this supposed “genocide.” It ought to be fun for him — especially with a name like Levine.