TANYA REINHART CONDEMNED

From a B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission MEDIA RELEASE, 10 October 2006 ...

The B'nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) utterly condemns Professor Tanya Reinhart’s outrageous and extreme comments regarding Israel. Emeritus Professor of Linguistics and Media Studies from Tel Aviv University, Professor Reinhart is currently on a lecture tour in Australia.

Professor Reinhart claims that Israel is:
- practising ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians;
- engaging in the genocide of the Palestinian people by the "systematic destruction of the Palestinian economy" which drives the Palestinians out of their lands;
- an "open air prison" and a "hissing serpent";
- motivated by greed and control of water resources rather than security vis-à-vis the Security Barrier;
- justifiably targeted for terrorist attacks by Palestinians because they are a legitimate response to the fear Palestinians have of Israel.

On the recent Israel-Hezbollah conflict, Professor Reinhart claims that:
- Israel’s real aim in Lebanon was to extend its territory to the Litani River and to annex Lebanon into Israeli territory;
- Israel was sacrificing the lives of Israeli residents in the north of Israel for the wider goal of territorial expansion;
- Hezbollah’s only intention was to protect Lebanon from Israel;
- the "Israeli army is hungry for war". She believes that Israel had planned the war in Lebanon and used the kidnappings merely as an excuse to do so.

ADC executive officer Mr Manny Waks commented: "Professor Reinhart’s claims are preposterous and extreme. Her comments should be condemned by every reasonable person as being counterproductive to achieving a realistic resolution to the conflict. Like her mentor Noam Chomsky [She received her PhD in 1976 from MIT, under the supervision of Noam Chomsky - SL], it would be better if Tanya Reinhart stuck to her field of linguistics and left the Middle East to others".