In 2014, Mr. Godziek posted an article to twitter called “Collective Punishment and the Value of Israeli vs. Palestinian Lives.” The article in question is full of cliched anti-Israel tropes.
The article was posted to PulseMedia.org and written by Danny Postel and reads:
In the aftermath of the tragic killings of three Israeli teenagers, Gaza has been bombed (yet again). More than 30 targets were hit last evening. Israel is good at collective punishment. We know this.
The murder of the three Israeli teens is quite awful. What is also awful is that these three kids will get more news coverage than the hundreds of Palestinian kids killed by Israel in the last several years. Numerous academic research studies all say the same thing: western reportage favors and humanizes the Israeli perspective, while delegitimizing and condemning the Palestinian perspective. The research also shows that Israeli deaths are covered more prominently than Palestinian deaths. For western media, Israeli lives are worth more than Palestinian lives. It’s that simple, really.
Palestinians do not have a military, and — after having been robbed of their land, slaughtered, and kicked out of their homes in 1948— have been illegally occupied for nearly half a century. For many years, the US and Israel have been virtually the only countries in the world to vote against the UN resolution for “peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine,” which would require Israel to end its illegal occupation. The vote is usually something like 160 to 5 (with the Marshall Islands and Micronesia always voting with the US. and Israel, and the rest of the world voting in the other direction). In November 2012, the vote was 163 to 6. Israel and the US have also systematically obstructed peace negotiations, as has been meticulously documented by Norman Finkelstein and other leading scholars.
The occupation is utterly brutal (one need only consult any of the countless independent eyewitness accounts, or, alternatively, the human rights reports). Palestinians can do nothing without the permission of the Israeli Defense Forces, are not allowed freedom of movement, do not have control over their own resources, and have to put up with the regular home demolitions that make room for illegal Israeli settlements. Over the years, many thousands of Palestinians have been killed —including more than 1,300 children between 2000 and 2011 alone — and many thousands more imprisoned while defending themselves against IDF atrocities.
We Americans give Israel several billion dollars per year in aid. Most of us (Americans) do not know the first thing about the conflict and are too consumed with our busy lives (i.e. sporting events, television shows, movies, etc.) to give a damn what our government does with our tax dollars. To add insult to injury, our national media reportage of the conflict is dreadful, and, occasionally balanced reporting notwithstanding, overwhelmingly projects Palestinians as the aggressors and Israelis as the victims. Many studies have confirmed this basic finding. See the studies cited below, among numerous others.
Also in 2014, Mr. Godziek created a graduate school presentation titled “Israel, Palestine, and the Arab Uprising.” The presentation blames Israel for the Arab’s self-inflicted problems, uses anti-Semitic tropes to attack wealthy Israelis, and makes excuses for Islamist ideology.
(Source)
“The Impact of the Israeli occupation upon the West Bankand Gaza Strip”
This slide blames the so-called “Israeli occupation” for the predictable consequences of Arab corruption.
“A handful of tycoons runs Israel”
This slide revives the libel that a cabal of rich Jews runs the world behind the scenes. He went as far as to blame wealthy Israelis for the rise of Hamas.
“The Rise of Islamism in Palestine”
This slide blames Israel for the rise of Hamas and other Islamist organizations.
“The Development of Israeli Civil Society”
In 2014, Andrew Godziek, as a graduate student at the University of Denver, gave a presentation entitled “Critical Theory of the Franklin School: An Interdisciplinary Approach to History.” This is especially noteworthy given that graduate students have wide discretion in their courses of study.
In this presentation, Mr. Godziek reports favorably on the work of Theodore Adorno regarding so-called “authoritarian personalities.”
(Source)
Most troubling, Mr. Godziek’s presentation favorably cites “example questions” such as “The businessman and manufacturer are more important to our country than artists and writer”, with an affirmative answer meaning someone is more likely to support authoritarianism:
Equally troubling, Mr. Godziek favorably cites Adorno’s belief that “discipline” and “conventional values” are “causes/effects of authoritarian personality.”
Mr. Godziek is the assistant to USCIS deputy director Jennifer Higgins. As documented in her section, Ms. Higgins holds views outside the mainstream on subjects such as the role of ‘disinformation’ in political discourse, and the threat posed by so-called ‘homegrown extremism.’ Presumably, Mr. Godziek shares Ms. Higgins’ views. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t work with her.
As Ms. Higgins’ assistant, Mr. Godziek would oversee the implementation Ms. Higgins’ policy decisions. Given the nature of Ms. Higgins’ views, this is deeply troubling.
Mr. Godziek’s favorable citation of broadly-held, mainstream, values as being conflated with “authoritarian personalities” is especially troubling given his role in executing policies based on non-mainstream definition of ‘disinformation’ and ‘homegrown extremism.’
