The Nadia Abu El-Haj Debates

Since my friends and family often ask me some variation of, “What is this Anthropology “stuff” that you are interested in and what do you guys talk about?” I thought I would share an example of a current e-mail debate that I had with two other of my fellow colleagues. The debate ostensibly centered on the question of whether or not Dr. Nadia Abu El-Haj should receive tenure at Barnard, but branched out to touch other issues including the role of academics, the importance of Anthropology and even touched on the nature of Truth (the one with a capital "T").

To learn more about the debate surrounding Dr. El-Haj, I direct you to the website of those who are seeking to deny her tenure. I was planning to direct you to the Wikipedia article, but it has recently been gutted by editors with the names Malik El Shabazz and Tiamut (over 65 edits between them). If you click on their names you will probably get some idea as to what their worldviews are. For now I can at least recommend the Wiki on Dr. El-Haj’s book (though Shabaz and Tiamut have been over this as has Huldra). Other articles and links are included below in the actual discussion.

My interlocutors have kindly permitted me to reprint our exchange in its entirety in this blog. Nonetheless, in the interest of anonymity, all names have been removed. I have tried to make this easy to follow, but am not sure how well I have succeeded. I have labeled my colleagues with the exceedingly bland monikers Writer X and Writer Y while maintaining the right to publish under the name Seraph. I apologize for the excessive length, but Anthropologists are kind of notorious for their prolixity.

Letter #1 by Writer X:

This is an issue that some of y'all may find interesting. Of course I don't know anything firsthand about the quality of work in question, and I understand that there exists a dramatic diversity of opinions about Israel's place in the world through history and so forth. But it appears that in this case a collective of politically-motivated alumni may succeed in getting tenure denied to an established and academically sound archaeologist. It might help to compare to our own situation - would we want our students here at UGA passing judgement on our careers based on their political opinions? Just $.02, but you should follow the links and form your own ideas. All best, .
Quoted e-mail:

A group of Barnard alumni have drafted an online petition to deny professor Abu el-Haj tenure because of her work examining the relationship between the discipline of archeology and the construction of Israeli nationalism. Attached is a link to an article in the chronicle about it as well as a petition in support of professor abu el-Haj. Please forward widely.

please pass along, with the Chronicle article:

Seraph Response #1:

Which one is it? Do you not, "know anything firsthand about the quality of work in question" or do you think that Dr. El-Haj is an "academically sound archaeologist"?

For those who would like to read more about this issue, please consider taking a look at this link.

If you prefer a more polemical approach.

Writer X rightly asks whether we would want, "our students here at UGA passing judgement on our careers based on their political opinions?" Hopefully, no more than we would we want our professors to be the type of people who use their scholarship to pass judgments based solely on their political opinions.

Letter #2 by Writer X:

Seraph asks: Which one is it? Do you not, "know anything firsthand about the quality of work in question "or do you think that Dr. El-Haj is an "academically sound archaeologist"?

It can be both - I haven't read the work, nor am I an archaeologist qualified to judge it, but since it's passed peer review at various journals and University of California Press, I feel justified in calling it "academically sound." That's my point: me, Seraph, politically-motivated former undergrads - none of these folks are qualified to judge or doing so from a place of good faith. Now, if someone were to hold a professional forum on El-Haj's work full of critical arguments, that might be awesome - but hardly cause to deny her tenure.

There are lots of tenured academics who are widely disagreed with and still considered "academically sound." The links that Seraph provides are a perfect example of attempts to subvert the academic review process for political purpose - just like what the creationists do, or David Horowitz, or the College Republicans and the "Guard Dawg" here at UGA, and etc. Peer review and our other methods of academic self-policing are imperfect of course, but they're a hell of a lot better than the transparent lobbying of non-academics.

Seraph Response #2:

I agree that neither you nor I can judge the quality of her work. For that reason I would not sign a petition either against of or in favor of her - nor for that matter would I advocate (read: lobby) others to do so by distributing a petition.Clearly there are some of her peers who are qualified to judge this matter who feel that her scholarship is not "academically sound". That is unless, of course, you feel that Jacob Lessner's review falls into the category of the "transparent lobbying of non-academics". (To learn about Dr. Lessner)

Writer X states:

"... since it's passed peer review at various journals and University of California Press, I feel justified in calling it "academically sound. ... The links that provides are a perfect example of attempts to subvert the academic review process for political purpose - just like what the creationists do, or David Horowitz, or the College Republicans and the "Guard Dawg" here at UGA, and etc."

Frankly, it is more than slightly disingenuous to believe that publishing houses such as California Press would not publish a polemic - peer reviewed or otherwise. They are in the business of selling books and controversy sells books. Moreover, to imply that somehow the peer review process at publishing houses or the academic review process is somehow "a view from nowhere" that is (or can be) unaffected by money, power, politics (academic and otherwise) as well as narrow self-interest goes against what we have been taught (and experienced) in our studies. I also think it smacks of elitism a la "Ivory Tower".

Personally I say let Barnard College decide the matter internally. At the same time, I think that academics can not have their cake and eat it. You can not claim to be an objective observer and yet at the same time get into the ring and then be surprised when the other guy punches at you. If you want to impact (our understanding of) the world by publishing under the pretense of objectivity, do not be shocked if people call you on that point. In short, I don't see why would one think that being an academic means that you are immune from having to publicly defend your points of view? Why should the public be expected to leave this in the hands of academics?

To me this sounds a lot like leaving the cat to guard the milk.

Letter #3 By Writer X:

Hi Seraph, and you other poor suckers. These are good points, for the most part, but I think they misrepresent my argument and that of those defending El-Haj. Since Seraph agrees that he wouldn't sign a petition against her tenure or advocate doing so, we don't really have any points of disagreement left - that's what the whole discussion was about.

And yet...An academic press, even the most highly regarded academic press in the country, might publish a politically-charged piece in hopes of stirring controversy and hence, selling more books. This is no surprise. It doesn't follow, though, that therefore the book in question is less worthy than other, less controversial volumes. If the book meets the standards of a reputable academic press, than it is - by definition - academically sound. Soundness is defined by the approbation of the relevant peer group. Is El-Haj's book good, morally acceptable, or True? Dunno. Doesn't matter.This is precisely the opposite of a "view from nowhere." Peer review is a composite view assembled from several very specific places. That compiling effect defines what we do as academics - we are a public sphere. The fact that self-interest and "politics" enters into it in no way calls its validity into question, because we are not after Truth or Quality but the consensus of the relevant public. This is not a "pretense of objectivity" by any means - it's an explicit acknowledge of the imperfect quality of everyone's knowledge.

Which is what is lacking in the argument of the movement to block El-Haj's tenure, as it is lacking in the movement to remove evolution from the curricula, "politics" from the lecture hall, etc. The folks behind the petition claim that the Truth (in this case about Israel and its use of the archaeological record) is a knowable thing, that El-Haj _doesn't_ have it, and therefore shouldn't be able to pursue her career. They are attempting to bring a specific form of politically powerful influence to bear on a sphere (academia) that carefully insulates itself against that kind of influence. You could call that insulation the "Ivory Tower," or you could call it academic freedom, intellectual autonomy, etc.

Which is why this argument of Seraph's:

"In short, I don't see why would one think that being an academic means that you are immune from having to publicly defend your points of view? Why should the public be expected to leave this in the hands of academics?"

...makes no sense. Publicly defend one's points of view, share the debate about an important issue with any and every taker? Absolutely. But the people circulating this petition aren't trying to debate El-Haj's work, they are explicitly trying to silence it. If they want to publicly critique her, write scathing reviews, heckle her at speaking events, that's all wonderful. But when they are using their political influence with a university's board of regents and so forth to stop an academic from doing her work, that's just censorship. I think we should all be against that, and I don't think it's elitist to think so.

Thanks!

At this point in the debate Writer Y interjected with their opinions:

Letter #1 By Writer Y:

I have a couple of points that I would like to interject:

First of all, I would like to clarify that El-Haj is not an archaeologist, but a socio-cultural anthropologist who studies relationships between scientific knowledge and things like politics, power, identity and nationalism. If I had to put her work into a sub-disciplinary niche within anthropology, I'd say that it would be "science studies".

Secondly, El-Haj's claim to scholarship is not based simply on the publication of one book, as the anonymous authors of the petition against her tenure case claim. I have not read the book that they question, but I am familiar with some of her journal publications and her research seems pretty main-stream for anthropology. If the case against her tenure is going to be based on a rejection of a "positivist commitment to scientific methods" (see above-linked petition), then it's a sad day for many in anthropology. For the anonymous authors of this web petition to claim that El-Haj's claim to scholarship (and by extension, tenure) lies in a single publication is patently ridiculous as well.

Third, I'm not sure that I actually understand the following passage from a previous message on this thread:

Seraph states: "Personally I say let Barnard College decide the matter internally. At the same time, I think that academics can not have their cake and eat it. You can not claim to be an objective observer and yet at the same time get into the ring and then be surprised when the other guy punches at you. If you want to impact (our understanding of) the world by publishing under the pretense of objectivity, do not be shocked if people call you on that point. In short, I don't see why would one think that being an academic means that you are immune from having to publicly defend your points of view? Why should the public be expected to leave this in the hands of academics?"

I mean, I understand that a scholar should be willing and able to publicly defend his or her research (and am in fact an advocate of public scholarship), but how exactly should we go about letting the public decide who does and does not get a fair shake when their tenure comes up for consideration? Anonymously-penned web petitions? Maybe I'm being naive, but should tenure really be based on the political popularity of the/your research focus, or on the quality and quantity of your research as judged by the standards of your discipline? I don't see the movement to deny El-Haj tenure as a call to publicly defend a point of view, but to restrict a scholar's access to professional advancement based on interesting reasoning about the nature of the research and the objectivity of the research.

Here's a question, bearing in mind that anything dealing with politics and power in Israel/Palestine can set off a firestorm: If El-Haj's research was the same, but dealt with relationships between scientific knowledge and Chinese, British, or Icelandic nationalism and state power, would the situation be the same?

Seraph Response #3:

According to Writer X:"If the book meets the standards of a reputable academic press, than it is _by definition_ academically sound. Soundness is defined by the approbation of the relevant peer group. Is El-Haj's book good, morally acceptable, or True? Dunno. Doesn't matter."As I am sure you are well aware, books are notoriously easier to publish than articles, so I disagree that just because something is accepted for publication it is "by definition" academically sound. Indeed, the fact that it is published by an "academic" press does not make the academics of the work more "sound". As I noted before, even an academic press needs to publish some books that will "pay the bills".I can not judge her work, but I think that one can not simply ignore the fact that many of El-Haj's colleagues who were not consulted before the book was published have found her research to be lacking. In short, I think that it does matter if El-Haj's book is, "good, morally acceptable, or True?" (to use Writer X's words).

Having said this, I admit to being of the minority that is emphatically not relativist and believe that there are in actuality "Truths" out there that can be known. For this reason alone, I suspect that in the end we will probably have to "agree to disagree". Personally speaking, I have little respect for people who shoot arrows and then draw bulls eyes.

Which brings me to my second point. El-Haj is asking for admittance into a group of her peers. This is not only a closed group, but one that provides status and bestows the one who is accepted with a certain air of authority. She will be representing her university and her discipline. In the end, receiving tenure is not a "right" but rather a privilege.

Hence, I see nothing wrong with either her peers or the the Board of Regents at the university at which she is requesting tenure taking a close look at her scholarship to see if it meets their standards. It is also for this reason that I don't think that the academic review process should be influenced by petitions FOR or AGAINST her - regardless of the strengths/weaknesses of those petitions.

Writer X states that, "we are not after Truth or Quality but the consensus of the relevant public" and Writer Y asserts that research should be judged "by the standards of your discipline" i.e. the relevant public. I wonder what is the worth of standards not based on "Truth or Quality" or why we would think anyone else would take such findings seriously? That both Writer X and Writer Y mean "real" standards does not make it any better nor does it do much for Anthropology's credibility. In fact, it is precisely for this reason that Anthropology as a field has become more irrelevant than ever. And this precisely when it is needed more than ever.

Writer X’s point:"...makes no sense. Publicly defend one's points of view, share the debate about an important issue with any and every taker? Absolutely. But the people circulating this petition aren't trying to debate El-Haj's work, they are explicitly trying to silence it. If they want to publicly critique her, write scathing reviews, heckle her at speaking events, that's all wonderful. But when they are using their political influence with a university's board of regents and so forth to stop an academic from doing her work, that's just censorship. I think we should all be against that, and I don't think it's elitist to think so."Sorry, but this just a bit melodramatic (e.g. "explicitly trying to silence it"). As noted above, tenure means that you are being admitted into an elite club of "tenured" academics. You can still be an academic and there are many people both academics and others who do not have PhD's who conduct research, write books and even interesting and insightful papers. This is not censorship, but rather holding people accountable for what they write and say.Finally, to Writer Y:"Here's a question, bearing in mind that anything dealing with politics and power in Israel/Palestine can set off a firestorm: If El-Haj's research was the same, but dealt with relationships between scientific knowledge and Chinese, British, or Icelandic nationalism and state power, would the situation be the same?"I am tempted to say that the answer to your question is "The Jewish Lobby". Since I am afraid that there are those out there who would take me seriously, I will try to do what we are supposed to do whenever we try to understand something in Anthropology - i.e. "contextualize". This work comes in the context of a continuous assault by Palestinians to de-legitimate Jewish historical claims to the land of Israel and hence the Jewish people's right to self-determination in their homeland. If Icelandic nationalism was constantly de-legitimized and if Icelandic nationhood were under constant existential threats, then I suspect a similar work would raise a few hackles in Reykjavik and Door County. I suspect it might even cause problems for someone writing such a work to get tenure at the University of Wisconsin.

Response #4 By Writer X:

Seraph wrote: “Hence, I see nothing wrong with either her peers or the the Board of Regents at the university at which she is requesting tenure taking a close look at her scholarship to see if it meets their standards.”

Writer X: That's the tenure review process that the petition is trying to disrupt!

Response #2 By Writer Y:

According to Seraph: "Since I am afraid that there are those out there who would take me seriously, I will try to do what we are supposed to do whenever we try to understand something in Anthropology - i.e. "contextualize". This work comes in the context of a continuous assault by Palestinians to de-legitimate Jewish historical claims to the land of Israel and hence the Jewish people's right to self-determination in their homeland. If Icelandic nationalism was constantly de-legitimized and if Icelandic nationhood were under constant existential threats, then I suspect a similar work would raise a few hackles in Reykjavik and Door County. I suspect it might even cause problems for someone writing such a work to get tenure at the University of Wisconsin."

I would like to reply that I do not see what the issue at hand has to do with "Truth"; relativism; the rightness or wrongness (morally speaking) of El-Haj, the Israeli state, Palestinians, Jews, Muslims, etc. To me this issue is about freedom of academic inquiry being directly and indirectly hindered by popular politics. If a research topic is "hot-button" and causes controversy or debate, the researcher should definitely be prepared to meet the challenges put to him or her by public and peer alike because challenges will surely come. However, to be denied promotion or even the option of getting a fair shake at the tenure table when your review comes up because somebody's politics, religion, or personal passion clash with your analysis is unjust and stinks of censorship and blacklisting.

Seraph wrote: "Writer X states that, "we are not after Truth or Quality but the consensus of the relevant public" and Writer Y asserts that research should be judged "by the standards of your discipline" i.e. the relevant public. I wonder what is the worth of standards not based on "Truth or Quality" or why we would think anyone else would take such findings seriously? That both Writer X and Writer Y mean "real" standards does not make it any better nor does it do much for Anthropology's credibility. In fact, it is precisely for this reason that Anthropology as a field has become more irrelevant than ever. And this precisely when it is needed more than ever."Is it possible for one to speak of objectivity and contextualization, yet advocate evaluation of research on standards of "Truth (capital T???) and Quality"? Once again, I must say that I really do not understand this paragraph. Especially the link between the need for Truth being related to the alleged irrelevancy of anthropology. And, given the context, I would wonder what exactly is meant by the statement that "[anthropology] is needed more than ever"?

Seraph Response #4:

According to Writer Y, “I do not see what the issue at hand has to do with "Truth"; relativism; the rightness or wrongness (morally speaking) of El-Haj” AND “Is it possible for one to speak of objectivity and contextualization, yet advocate evaluation of research on standards of "Truth (capital T???) and Quality"?”

Frankly, I am not sure that I could have made my case much better than you have. The answer is: Yes. Yes, you can judge a work's quality and be objective and speak of standards and truth. I do not see why one can not talk about objectivity and Truth. That is unless, of course, one believes that there is no “Objective Truth”. Of course that would mean that you believe Truth (with a capital T) to be subjective (and no doubt relative).

As for the contention that this is a case where someone is being denied, “promotion or even the option of getting a fair shake at the tenure table … because somebody's politics, religion, or personal passion clash with your analysis is unjust and stinks of censorship and blacklisting”

First off it is too soon to tell how all this will pan out. Secondly, as I noted before, I have no problem with her peers AND the Board of Regents making this decision based on standards*.

Personally, I think that an Anthropology or (to use your words) an “analysis” that is not based on objective truths - or an “analysis” that is wholly theory driven - is akin to Creative Writing and not something I am interested in. Since a tenured Professor in Anthropology at a prestigious school represents the discipline, I think that this scrutiny is hardly censorship (after all, she already wrote what she wrote AND her ideas are getting a lot of press) nor is it blacklisting (you realize that it is actually possible to keep teaching without tenure). If anything, it would be a non-promotion - something that can happen when your work does not meet the existing standards*.

Third, I would like to take your argument and make it ad absurdum. Would you say that someone who denies Evolution should be tenured because they have an interesting “analysis”? How about someone who espouses racist or hateful ideologies – should they get tenure because their ideologies are based on a (warped) theoretical perspective? Would denying them tenure be tantamount to blacklisting and censorship?

As for your final two queries regarding what is, “… the link between the need for Truth being related to the alleged irrelevancy of anthropology. And … what exactly is meant by the statement that "[anthropology] is needed more than ever"?

I am not sure if you have been following the news lately, but there is a great deal of suffering in the world that stems to a great degree from different groups not understanding one another. What happens in a distant corner of the world has repercussions on our lives and vice versa. In my humble opinion, Anthropology is more needed than ever so that we can better understand one another and the processes that affect all of our lives.

Of course, to do so there need to be some “standards”* or the rest of humanity that is not living in “creative writing land” will find our work irrelevant (or at least not more relevant to decision-making than creative writing). In fact, the hallmark of Anthropology has been the relentless drive to understand human diversity by living in the cultures we study while actually ground-testing our theories and hypotheses to see if they conform with observed and objective reality.

Seraph

* Refer back to previous discussions on “standards” vis a vis Truth, objectivity, quality and relativism.

Response #5 By Writer X:

Hi Folks - aside from the various serious epistemological problems, there's some logistical problems.

Seraph says: “First off it is too soon to tell how all this will pan out. Secondly, as I noted before, I have no problem with her peers AND the Board of Regents making this decision based on standards.*”

As far as I know, a Board of Regents never ordinarily gets involved in tenure cases. The department takes a vote based on strict analysis of the candidates record of teaching, publishing, community work, whatever their previously published standards* stipulate. They take a vote and pass that vote to the appropriate dean. The dean, taking into account disciplinary issues, budgetary issues, the public image of the university and so on, makes a final decision. Most often this reflects the department's vote, except in extreme cases.

To bring in the Board of Regents, as this petition proposes to do, essentially says, "We don't care about the due process you usually use, or your disciplinary standards - we're going to raise a stink and threaten to take the money away." That's what the BoR is for - the money. They get involved when they think that a university's faculty-and-dean-and-President approved activity jeopardizes the funding stream from the state and private donors. If that’s where this controversy is headed, it's nothing but bad news for educators of any political orientation.

Now, regarding Seraph’s claim that being denied tenure is really no big deal at all, well - talk to a professor. One can continue to teach w/o it, but not at that university. One has to leave one's job, classes and students, pack up the house, and hope to get work somewhere else, with the lingering smell of failure hovering over one's head.

Sure, people do it - but it sucks and is generally considered the next-worst punishment to being fired. If every publication and lecture we gave carried that threat, none of us would ever write or teach anything controversial, and that would also suck. That's why I call it 'censorship,' and say that El-Haj is being silenced, and I don't think that's melodramatic, I think that's pretty explicitly what the petitioners are after.

Response #3 By Writer Y

I think that Writer X’s last post was very well-stated.

That being said, I think I need to clear up a little misunderstanding on Seraph’s part. I never said El-Haj should get tenure, but that her work should be evaluated in a fair manner (the same way that anyone's tenure case would be evaluated at her university). Your evolution analogy is little more than a straw man argument, and I still fail to understand how useful or feasible standards based on "Truth" might be. Truth (with a capital T, of course) tends to be very problematic when it comes to issues of policy.

I think that the deeper issues that have emerged in this discussion (Truth, subjectivity, relativism, etc.) may best be saved for debate over coffee at a later date.

Seraph Response #5:

Again, while I do not support either petition, I think that a university has the right to decide who it will promote. That includes ALL those who are decision makers at a university.

A quick search for the mission statement for Barnard College’s Board of Trustees did not yield results, but I did find the one for Columbia University:

“Overall governance of the University lies in the hands of its 24-member Board of Trustees. The Trustees select the President, oversee all faculty and senior administrative appointments, monitor the budget, supervise the endowment, and protect University property. (See: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/secretary/trustees/index.html)

This is pretty standard stuff for universities and while it does not mean that they get involved in every decision, every case is under their purview.

As for tenure … Sure it sucks not to get tenure, but why should someone get tenure if their work sucks i.e. does not meet standards? In the meantime I was only suggesting a “wait and see” approach.

In any case, I suspect that this thread has maxed out its utility and I am signing off. Besides, I need the time to sort out my “various serious epistemological problems”!

At this point, the debate continued off of the listserve:

Seraph’s Letter to Writer Y:

As promised, I will let you have the last word and am not sending this out to everyone. Nonetheless, I thought to write to make it clear that there may actually have been a misunderstanding on your part regarding what I was prescribing. I never said that the Board of Trustees should get involved, but certainly they could if they wanted to and I would not see that as censorship or unfair since: 1) it is under their purview and; 2) the image of the university is something that they are entrusted to maintain.

As for the "straw man analogy" ... Is it? I mentioned evolution precisely because Writer X mentioned it in one of his first posts (regarding the, "movement to remove evolution from the curricula") in the same breath he derided the notion that "Truth … is a knowable thing". This naturally begs the question of what is so wrong with the "movement to remove evolution" if Truth is really something that is not knowable.

Obviously, in practice, Writer X does not believe that it is not knowable, regardless of what he may think theoretically. Otherwise, why would he care – either in this case or the case of El-Haj? After all, if the Truth is not knowable, then Evolution is just another ethnoscience and should at most be taught along with Creationism. Moreover, based on this and paraphrasing your previous arguments, couldn't one then logically contend that the fact that we as Anthropologists do not see the need to teach Creationism is tantamount to censorship?

In any case, I will happily take you up on your offer to discuss these important and interesting matters in a more social setting.Finally, I would like to suggest an op-ed published in The Forward yesterday that addresses this whole issue of "censorship" and the debate that will certainly surround Walt and Mearsheimer's soon to be released book. Here is the link.

Writer X’s Letter to Seraph

Hi Seraph, I was just thinking that when you get around to blogging up the El-Haj stuff and etc, you might want to look at or include this discussion about Ward Churchill.

It offers some (much-needed;)) support for your argument - a popular professor exposed as a fraud only after a right-wing lynchmob went after him for a tasteless remark. Until then, peer review and tenure etc had (un)wittingly passed over his shoddy or faky scholarship. One might call it good results from bad practices, but in any case a good comparative example. $.02, as they say. Cheers.

Seraph’s Response to Writer X:

I finally had an opportunity to read the link you sent. I have been enjoying three days at home with a feverish child and no Internet access.

I.

I enjoyed reading the musings in Savage Mind and generally agree that this case is, in fact, indicative of a larger problem. If I agree with anyone, it is with Orson Buggeigh who has commented on the article. I mentioned this in our exchange as well - i.e. that we should not be rewarding scholarship that is based on shooting arrows first and bulls eyes later with tenure. I personally do not want to be associated with such a discipline since it makes the discipline a laughingstock and hence irrelevant.

So, if anything, I am advocating a balance between being totally theory driven and completely fact-focused. At the moment (in Anthropology) I think the pendulum has swung too far to the theory-driven side of things so that many people think of data collection as an imposition devised by people suffering from OCD.

II.

There are some interesting similarities between Churchill and El-Haj that do not come out of the article that I wanted to mention. I think in both cases many people want to believe what they are saying since it is only polite to do so in "progressive" circles. Of course Native Americans (and Palestinians) have suffered (and are suffering), but this certainly does not absolve anyone of the need to base their arguments in fact.

By not doing so we end up with a caricatured and essentialized view of people in history. Did whites/settlers infect Native Americans in 1763? They must have. After all we know that they were genocidal and evil.

Unfortunately, history is far more complex and not as neat precisely because people and culture is complex and far from neat. This is why I think it is so important to avoid presentist historical analysis and why it is also so important to question our own motivations.

III.

For some reason everyone seems to assume that they know my motivations and clearly to some degree it colors what they think I am saying and what they say to me. For example, I am thinking of Writer Y’s's question about whether this would all be a big thing if it did not touch on Israel/Palestine issues.

Actually, I think the same question in reverse is screaming to be asked. Would El-Haj receive such support if she were not an Arab intellectual? Would Ward Churchill's shenanigans be put up with if we did not think that his defense of an oppressed people was essentially just? Why else would people who should know better put up with such a tangled skein of lies that he has woven? To me this just smacks of a reverse discrimination and yes, a soft form of racism.

IV.

I wonder if you were aware that, much like Ward Churchill, Edward Said - the anti-Orientalist, professional refugee and anti-Oslo campaigner - invented large portions of his own life. If you don't believe me, check out the article by Justus Reid Weiner in the September 1999 issues of Commentary. In fact, when confronted with the facts Said admitted that his "autobiography" was not really. Instead he argued that it did not matter because what he had written had "really" happened to many Palestinians and was thus even more "representative"!

IMHO the fact that he was never held to account for numerous lies is a silent testimony to the acquiescence of the more "progressive" members of "respectable society". After all, he wrote what many people wanted to believe. That all of this matters can be seen in the extensive damage that his works have done to our understanding of the Middle East as well as to Israel's standing in the world.

You may think that this is an academic debate or sour grapes on my part, but in reality people's lives (both Israeli and Palestinian) are hanging in the balance. That is why I think that, regardless of whatever epistemological reservations you may have about my reasoning, that in the end truth and standards are important.

V.

Finally, if Savage Minds made my points better than me it is because I was never trying to make those points. I am smart enough to know that if I were to try to present arguments against El-Haj and her various "theories" that my arguments would be written off as the arguments of a "true-believer" or those of the Jewish Lobby. (Maybe you don't have to think in these terms, but I can't help but to think this way.)

In fact, that is why I tried to argue the law rather than to argue the actual case. Based on this I contended that the tenure review could rightly be influenced by the Board of Trustees and that the entire matter is under their purview. That is precisely why I found your point about whether or not this is usually done to be completely immaterial.

Should the Supreme Court have intervened in the 2000 election? Whether they should or shouldn't have, the fact is that they did and they do actually have the right to rule on this issue based on our constitution and system of laws. Should the person who won the popular vote be the one sitting in the Oval office? These are philosophical questions and questions regarding a particular system. The fact remains that our electoral system is not set up that way.

For recent articles on this issue: The Jewish Advocate, The New York Times

An Update to "What I Did Last Summer"

(Continued from the Previous Post)

The Sudanese Refugees

The police did indeed start rounding up Sudanese refugees and sending them to a refugee camp that was built on the grounds of Ketziot prison. The government's rationale was that this would allow them to provide services for the refugees without the need to incarcerate them. So, instead of taking the opportunity to get some good press out of a bad situation, the decision-makers chose to do the worst thing possible – take a group of refugees and put them in a tented refugee camp in the parking lot of a prison that is located in the heart of the Negev desert.

Luckily, the refugees who were camped out in the Wohl Garden were whisked away by the university students and volunteers before the police could round them up. All of them were taken to private homes and many were then provided with apartments or taken to Kibbutzes that are now hosting them. I am still in touch with one of them and they seem to be making a go of it for now.

These folks are actually the lucky ones, since the Israeli and Egyptian governments have joined hands to prevent any more Sudanese from crossing the border. Israel, as the official government spokesman is not interested in being the, “dumping ground for Africa’s problems” and Egypt is afraid people might ask why the Sudanese are so desperate to forego “Egyptian hospitality” that they prefer to sit in a prison parking lot in an enemy state. To illustrate the seriousness of this agreement, the Egyptians have taken to firing at any refugee who will try to leave Egypt. So far they have killed several refugees including a mother who was trying to free her young daughter who got stuck in barbed wire.

Sadly, the Olmert government announced that it would send most of the refugees back to Egypt and immediately turn back those caught at the border. Unconscionably, they are even trying to whip up the “terrorist” fear factor by saying that the refugees may include members of Al Qaeda who are infiltrating the country or, even more conspiratorially, that Arab governments are paying for their passage so that they overwhelm the country with Muslim immigrants. Frankly, both contentions are so ridiculous and separated from the reality on the ground that they hardly merit a retort. Children are clearly not Al Qaeda members and Arab countries who think that sending Christians (half of the refugees are from Southern Sudan) will get a really poor return on such an investment. To read about this disgrace: Click here.

Musings

In general, I found it therapeutic to be in Israel. Following the news about Israel from over here is often unnerving precisely because there are very few good things to report and very few ways to get actively involved. Also, being there one finds a certain degree of normalcy that is quite reassuring. No matter how bad the situation is, people still get up in the morning and go to work or school, spend time with their kids and have fun with their friends. Actually, most of the country is free of the day to day strife that makes the headlines and most people are not living "the conflict" every moment of their day.

On the other hand, it became sadly clear that there is an ever growing disconnect between the public and the elected authorities that is even deeper and more pervasive than what Prime Minister Olmert’s 5% approval rating suggests. In fact, there is a widespread and profound “crisis of confidence” surrounding the governmental institutions and the nation’s foundational mythos.

First of all, the President was forced to resign while I was there because he was found to be a serial sexual molester who terrorized the women on his staff. Though he never admitted to doing the things he was accused of, he left his office as part of a deal where he would not be prosecuted for his actions. This infuriated the Israeli public to the point where over 100,000 came out to protest the decision. That this did not prompt any introspection on the part of the politicians is clearly indicative of a larger trend. They felt that they could ignore those 100,000 people in the same way that they ignored the 100,000 people who came out to protest the (mis)handling of last year’s Lebanon War.

This has become part of a sadly familiar pattern that goes something like this: incompetent, corrupt and self-absorbed (take your pick) government officials make short-sighted, self-serving and disastrous decisions that cause many other people to get hurt (or die). When confronted by the public’s anger and indignation, said officials hunker down, deny responsibility, blame their political opponents for opportunism and pretend like their actions were above reproach. Not only does no one resign in disgrace, no one resigns anymore. And if, for some strange reason they do, then it is because they are using it as their “get out of jail for free” card.

Even more disturbing is the general breakdown in social solidarity (bordering on anomie) stemming from the sense that everyone is out for themselves and all alone. Contrast this with the idealism and socialism of the founding fathers and you get a clearer picture of how unsettling this shift is to most Israelis. Olmert’s volte face regarding the kidnapped soldiers and the government’s abandonment and inability to defend the residents of the city of Sderot from Palestinian rocket attacks are often cited by the man on the street as symptomatic of this mindset.

Netanyahu’s dismantling of the last vestiges of socialism and embrace of neo-liberal economic policies has also eliminated the last vestiges of what was once quite a large social safety net. That this appears to have revitalized the Israeli economy is no consolation to the thousands of homeless and 1.5 million Israelis who are currently living below the poverty line. That 19 families presently control one third of the economy and that only five of those families control 61% of the country’s wealth underlies the growing social inequalities while adding insult to injury.

Nonetheless, I would be lying if I did not say how wonderful it was to be in Israel after such a long hiatus. Jerusalem was overflowing with tourists from all over the world and has a much more cosmopolitan flavor than it once had. Today you can sample food at world-class restaurants and enjoy a rocking nightlife that even rivals Tel Aviv’s. Moreover the numerous divisions between Jews, while still there for everyone to see, no longer revolve around questions of ethnicity (e.g. Ashkenazim vs. Sephardim). At least on this point Israel can pride itself that the grand “social experiment”, which involved bringing Jews from all over the world to live together to forge a modern nation-state in their ancestral home, has been a success. Now, if only this cynical administration would get out of the way.

After Thought

On my first morning in Jerusalem, I made a beeline for the Wailing Wall to deposit some notes into the cracks of this ancient and imposing wall. Since it was a Thursday morning, the expanse was filled with families celebrating Bar Mitzvah’s. There were secular Ashkenazim and Haredim in black clothes as well as Yemenite Jews banging on drums and Sephardim with their beautiful silver-gilded “standing” Torahs. Just as I was starting to take in the raucous scene, a large group of Russian–speaking Bukharan Jews in Kaftans and large colorfully embroidered yarmulkes announced their arrival with ululations and the blowing of long “dung chen” style trumpets.

The tears welled up in my eyes as I observed this spectacle of Jewish continuity. After all, if a people who had endured 80 years of Communist repression had withstood and outlasted their oppressors, then I felt there is still hope that 80 years from now there will be Jews practicing our traditions in our land.

What I Did Last Summer

Since Labor Day traditionally signifies the end of Summer, I thought it would be proper to provide a report – especially since I disappeared for a while there. In July I received the Legacy Heritage Scholarship to study at the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem and was thus able to visit Israel after almost 14 years. While I was there I briefly wrote about my experiences as an informal article for a synagogue newsletter which in the end was not published.

The following is a slightly abridged version of that article:

My time at the Conservative Yeshiva has been wonderful and I have learned a great deal as well as met people from all four corners of the earth. My learning involves three hours of Talmud in the morning, two hours of Bible in the afternoon and then alternating days of studying Job and Torah Reading. Interspersed are also special guest lectures from prominent Rabbis specifically for the Legacy Heritage Scholarship people, of which there are 35 of us.

In Talmud class I have really enjoyed learning tractate Yebamot and in particular all the laws concerning the injunction to be "fruitful and multiply". Apparently, it is not so simple as it seems, as there are many debates among the Rabbis as to what constitutes fulfillment of this mitzvah: two boys? A boy and a girl? Two boys and two girls? Each side brings scriptural evidence, but, as usual, it is Rabbi Hillel who wins out and I am happy to inform my wife that she is off the hook, as we have been blessed with the required minimum of one boy and one girl.

The afternoon Bible class is an in-depth reading of Scripture where we analyze the major themes in the Torah by looking at the lives of such giants as Joseph and Moses. For example, we learned about the ways in which Joseph and Moses are almost mirror images of each other. Joseph epitomizes the outsider who rose to be the Pharaoh's right hand man, while Moses was an insider who tied his destiny with the lowest of the low - Pharaoh's slaves. Joseph was a lover of order and hierarchy, whereas Moses had to be convinced by Aaron to set up a system of communication between the leadership and the tribes, etc.

Jerusalem as a city has changed a great deal since I lived there 14 years ago. Clearly the religious Jews have won the demographic argument and are flexing their political muscles accordingly. The mayor of the city (Uri Lupoliansky), is in fact from the Haredi community, and their needs are being directly addressed from the municipality. Other interesting changes have to do with the presence of Palestinians in the new city. Aside from those who worked for Israeli businesses, one certainly never saw young women from East Jerusalem just hanging out in the center or families doing their weekend shopping in Mahane Yehuda. It is a pleasant and welcome change that I hope augurs some more normalcy for this most cherished and contested of cities.

In general, summer in Israel is best spent outdoors and in the numerous festivals that are constantly going on in all quarters. Over the past week I have been to four films as part of the 26th annual Jerusalem Film Festival. On Tuesday night I went with a fellow scholarship recipient to see a stark and disturbing documentary on the genocide in Darfur called the The Devil Came on Horseback. The film describes the tireless efforts of Brian Steadtle - US citizen and former African Union monitor in Sudan - to bring to light the atrocities that have been going on in that corner of the world. Brian is the "whistle blower" who provided Nicholas Kristoff of the New York Times the damning photographic evidence of what has been going on there for the past four years.

Amazingly, Brian was at the screening and we had the opportunity to meet with him to discuss the possibility of inviting him to screen this must-see film. At the same time, we were informed about the growing refugee crisis in Israel involving hundreds of Sudanese refugees who have entered Israel illegally from Egypt. To our dismay, we learned that the Beer Sheva municipality dumped 44 Sudanese refugees in front of the Knesset to highlight the fact that the central government has not come up with a solution to their plight and has not forwarded to the municipality funds that were promised for their upkeep. With nowhere to go, the group was camping out in the adjacent Wohl Rose Garden.

When we learned this, we decided to try and help these refugees in any way we could. The very next morning we collected over 1300 Shekels (over $300) from the students at the Yeshiva to purchase much-needed supplies such as diapers, baby formula, wipes, towels, soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes, shoes and underwear. With the help of Rabbi Gail Diamond, we contacted Rabbis for Human Rights and are doing our best to get these people tents so that they do not need to sleep outside in the cold Jerusalem nights. Also, since Wednesday, we have been there every day after classes to show our solidarity and to try our best to raise their spirits. While they are obviously worried about their future, they are also grateful that many Israelis have shown them kindness and treated them with respect.

It is not yet clear what the government will do to address this pressing issue, the rumor mill says that they will be forcibly evicted on Sunday and taken to Ketziot prison. The idea is to set up a refugee camp in the parking lot of this remote Negev prison and then separate out those from Darfur and those from Southern Sudan who are escaping a much older conflict. Those from Darfur will receive temporary residence permits and the others will probably be sent back to Egypt. Not surprisingly, the ad hoc group of students and citizens that is assisting these refugees is unhappy about this development because it means that they will be removed from the public eye and placed in a distant corner where access and transparency will be limited.

In the meantime, we are doing our best to make their stay as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. The city government reported with great fanfare that they were sending teams of social workers and doctors to asses the situation on the ground, but as of last night they have yet to arrive. Every day the situation in this camp becomes more perilous and only yesterday the Beer Sheva municipality sent up five more people including a woman who is half way through her eighth month of pregnancy. She and her family are now also sleeping in the Rose Garden under the Jerusalem stars.

To read a recent article on the plight of Sudanese refugees in Israel: Click here.
















Sudanese refugee camp in the Wohl Rose garden - Jerusalem, July 2007.

Taking Offense

Daniel Pearl's father Judea Pearl has recently published an interesting Op-Ed piece in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles that suggests a "novel" way to combat the de-legitimation of Israel or what is being euphemistically termed the, "long-term threat[s] to Israel's standing". Specifically, and in response to Brandeis University President Jehuda Reinharz's assertion, "that American academics are at the forefront of those denying Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state" Pearl suggests that the time has (finally) arrived for pro-Israel advocates to take offense.

He writes:

"I also noticed that personal indignation has the magic power of shifting the frame of discourse from arguing Israel's policies to the very core of the Middle-East conflict -- denying Israel's legitimacy -- an issue where Israel's case is strongest and where Israel's adversaries find themselves in an embarrassing and morally indefensible position.

More pointedly, I felt invigorated by practicing what I have been preaching for months: Religion has no monopoly on human sensitivity, Zionophobia is no less revolting than Islamophobia.

Here I have exercised my right to be offended not against abusers of my religious beliefs -- this I can stomach -- but in defense of a more pivotal part of my identity -- my people, our history, our collective memory and our collective aspirations -- in short, in defense of Zionism."

I agree that more offense needs to be taken when confronting the systematic and sustained attack against Israel's legitimacy. After all, there is no other country in the world that has been subjected to the level of scrutiny or held up to the standards that Israel is expected to maintain. No other country has its legitimacy regularly and publicly questioned and no other country faces such a continued existential assault. Certainly no other country is so regularly demonized in the mainstream press.

While Israel's detractors no doubt feel that the "stranglehold" of the American Jewish community has prevented honest debate on the Middle East, I have long felt that the American Jewish community has largely sat idle while secretly hoping that "all of this" will just go away. Many have preferred to remain silent because they think that both Israel as a country and Jews as a people are strong enough that we do not need to dignify every bit of nonsense that is uttered or reported with a response. As Pearl rightly notes:

"We, as Jews, have been grossly negligent in permitting the dehumanization of Israel to become socially acceptable in certain circles of society, especially on college campuses. Our silence, natural resilience to insults and general reluctance to confront colleagues and friends have contributed significantly to the Orwellianization of campus vocabulary, and the legitimization of the unacceptable. Most of our assailants are even unaware of the shiver that goes down our spines with utterances such as "apartheid Israeli regime" or "brutal Israeli occupation"." (Italics added)

As an anthropologist who is interested in network studies, this certainly rings true. Many studies have shown that individuals are so embedded and impacted by their social networks that the very notion of agency or free will is compromised. As Jacob Moreno showed back in the 1930s, the impact of one's social network (i.e. your society - in the most limited sense of the word) is so subtle and pervasive that even one's most prosaic decisions are being affected by their social web. During his study of a sorority, Moreno discovered that many of the housemates were purchasing the same shampoo even though they claimed never to have discussed the matter.

Basically, Pearl's point is that by not speaking up and taking offense, we are all actually complicit in the shift in discourse and stigmatization of Israel that is undermining the country's security. In fact, this can and should be seen as Israel's greatest long-term threat.

Sadly, Pearl's analysis reminds me of the "History of Anti-Semitism" class that I took at Hebrew University in Jerusalem back in the early 1990s. At the time it was my great privilege to have been a student of Prof. Robert Wistrich - a real "mensch", scholar and visionary thinker - who is currently at the helm of the Vidal Sassoon (speaking of shampoo!) International Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism. The take-home message of this class was that the real threats facing the Jewish people are precisely the long-term ones.

In a series of studies which has culminated in his latest offering, Laboratory for World Destruction: Germans and Jews in Central Europe (2007), Wistrich has demonstrated that the ideological underpinnings of Nazi anti-Semitism were being planted in the 1870s. That the incredibly talented Jewish community of that era (think Freud, Kafka and Einstein) failed to properly gauge the nature and depth of this loathsome ideology should send a chill down the spines of American Jews who have regularly failed to confront the recent wave of Zionophobia (to use Pearl's terms).

So, at the sake of being accused of seeing a Holocaust around every corner, I agree with Pearl that we can no longer be complacent or assume that reason will necessarily prevail in the end. As someone who has spent the greater part of the last six years on a college campus, I can report that reason is a much maligned notion and should not be counted on to prevail. Even worse, the panjandrums of post-modernism espouse a moral relativism that questions whether such a thing as right and wrong exists in a world where all truth is hegemonic and socially constructed.

Yet, I must also share some reservations that I have with Pearl's suggestion:

1. This approach echoes the tactic taken by the "politically correct" crowd. In practice this means that people keep thinking terrible things, but are afraid to say them in public. Sometimes it is better to have this out in the open rather than quietly festering into radicalism.

2. In the case of Judea Pearl it would be downright rude to argue with him when he says he is offended. Aside from his celebrity status and ongoing efforts to bridge the divide that separates Jews and Muslims, he is the father of a brutally slain son whose last words were "I am a Jew". When I say that, as a Jew, I am offended by the demonization of Israel, there is the distinct possibility that this will only open me up to even more scorn and derision.

3. Many American Jews are woefully unfamiliar with the specifics of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Indeed, many Jews resent the conflict as an impediment to their ongoing assimilation efforts. Even worse, there are a growing number of "progressive Jews" who have indiscriminately adopted the Palestinian narrative.

4. Finally, though I often prefer to be feared rather than loved, I find that many Jews have a deep-seated desire for approbation and acceptance from their non-Jewish neighbors that I suspect stems from generations of disenfranchisement and social isolation . Contrast the Jewish obsession with, "What will the Goyim think?" with the reaction of many Muslims to the "Cartoon Controversy" or African-Americans to the Don Imus affair.

So, while Pearl's approach has merit, we need to first educate Jewish people about their historic and national rights and then get them out on to the streets when we feel offended. Sure, this approach may not win us many friends, but if the recent history of the Jewish people teaches me anything, it is that if we fail to act now, we will live to regret it later. Besides, many of these offenders will never be our friends or allies. It is fine by me if they crawl back under the rocks that they came from.

To read Pearl's article in its entirety - Click Here.

Alan was Released!

In the extremely unlikely case that you get all your news from this site, you will be happy to learn that Alan Johnston was in fact released from captivity on July 4 after nearly four months of captivity. Since I was studying in Israel at the time and decided to get "off the grid" for a while, I did not even bring my laptop with me and took a blogging break. Now I'm back with plenty of stories and a bunch of new articles to share and review. But first let's wrap up the Alan story...

So, yes, Alan Johnston was indeed released as I predicted he would be – a little later than I thought, but released unharmed nonetheless. Apparently Hamas was so certain that this would bring them some credibility and international recognition that they paid $4 million to have him released.

I doubt that we can hope the same for Gilad Shalit who has no doubt been brutally tortured and will not see the light of day for a long time to come. Somehow the fact that he is an Israeli soldier cancels out the fact that he was on the Israeli side of the border fence when he was captured. His uniform makes his captivity acceptable in the same “respectable circles” around the world that were appalled at the capture of Alan Johnston. Of course, if he were not wearing a uniform then he would be a legitimate target by the sole virtue of his being Israeli and if that were not enough being a Jew has proven in the past to be quite a legitimate reason to target someone when in a pinch.

For all of Hamas' efforts to get some political capital out of his release, I can report that it has not really worked. Surprisingly, even the Russians and the Norwegians have seen fit to sever ties with them following their June putsch. Fortunately, they have not been able to capitalize on this “kind act” of theirs and are pretty much personae non grata in most of the world.

I was disappointed but hardly surprised that Alan Johnston did not see fit to denounce his captors after his release. Sure, he spoke of the psychological torture he endured, but he should have said clearly that what was done to him was patently unfair considering how committed he was to positively portraying the Palestinian struggle. There might have been a bit of introspection and even a sense of betrayal. Then again, this might cause cognitive dissonance and it is simply easier to continue to blame Israel for the suffering of the Palestinian people and the situation in the Gaza strip.

Another Week for Alan

Give it a couple more days. As I predicted, Hamas seems pretty determined to polish it's public image and see releasing Alan Johnston as a great way to ensure that the liberal media will continue to mislead its readers. I can already see the British journalist and academic who voted to boycott israel saying -"After all, they did let Johnston go, they couldn't be that bad could they?"

In fact, they are so desperate to solidify their hold on Gaza and so anxious for good press that they have even allegedly offered Israel a 10 year truce (hudna). Here is the latest from the JPost:

"Since last Saturday, the sources said, dozens of Hamas militiamen have been surrounding the area where the Dughmush clan lives in Gaza City's Sabra neighborhood. Hamas has warned that it will use force unless Johnston is freed
by Monday. ..."."

Of course this is all preceded by acts of carnage that are meant to drive home a point:

"On Wednesday, a member of the clan, Munir Dughmush, was shot by unknown gunmen in Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood. His killing raised fears that the clan might try to kidnap another foreigner."

Of course the logic is impeccable.

Good News for Alan Johnston

The Hamas takeover of Gaza is good news for Alan Johnston. In fact, I predict that he will be released within a week. Hamas need good will and good press and hence it is a good for business if they let Johnston go in the next few days. Let's wait and see.

Of course, the Guardian feels otherwise. See this article.

The Alan Johnston Syndrome

As an anthropologist, I find the emerging social phenomenon of British anti-Semitism to be an interesting and ironic twist on one of the world's oldest irrational hatreds. Unlike past manifestations of this scourge, which emanated from religious myths surrounding the death of Christ and represented the lowest of the social classes, this is being lead by the well-educated British intellegentsia.

Here is a must read article by Bradley Burston on the decision yesterday by the British Academic Union to boycott Israeli academics.

"Just for the sake of argument, let's suppose that you're a British academic. You believe strongly that the occupation must end, that the Palestinians should have an independent state, that Israel's military and diplomatic policies are wrongheaded to the point of immorality.

What to do? Simple. Find the one group within Israeli society which has consistently, vigorously and courageously campaigned against the occupation since its inception.

Then attack them.

Single them out for professional ruin. Do your best to get as many of their colleagues around the world to shun them. Yes, just as if you were in seventh grade and had decided to alleviate your own feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, panic and lack of requisite cool by cutting another victim from the middle school herd and lobbying your equally insecure colleagues to abuse the chosen victim.

Choose your victim with care.

Select the one group in Israel which has taken substantive physical, professional, legal and personal risks, which has defied the spirit of Israeli nationalism and the letter of Israeli law, in order to seek out Palestinians to search for equitable solutions.

Select the one group which has, from the very beginning, spoken out eloquently for the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination, to freedom from Israeli domination, to freedom from disproportionate and often indiscriminate use of force, to freedom from social injustice.

Then denounce them. Decide that your moral vision fully empowers you to declare Israeli professors and other university and college faculty to be unworthy of practicing their calling.

All of them.

That is, perhaps, the real beauty of the British campaign to declare a quarantine over Israeli academics. You really must envy the U.K. far-left for its blindness. Its consummate inability to see more than one side, which is to say, its demonstrated refusal to see Jews as fellow human beings, is only exceeded by its exquisite sense of timing.

No matter that in the whole of the 1991 Gulf war, Saddam Hussein managed to
hit all of Israel with a total of 39 missiles, and that two weeks ago, Hamas sent 40 rockets into the Sderot area in the space of a single day.

No matter that Sapir College, Israel's largest public college, has for years been a primary target of Qassam crews.

No matter that in boycotting all Israeli academics on the basis of their being Israelis, the measure is patently racist, a grotesque reprise of the history of curbing academic freedom.

No matter that Israeli Arab academics who are staunchly opposed to the occupation are vehement opponents of the boycott as well.

No matter, even, that opposition to the boycott runs strong within the British University and College Union itself.

In fact, all the more reason to press on. For the genuine elitist, the unpopularity of an opinion is the best assurance of its real value.

Perhaps this is why the whole boycott campaign smacks of a uniquely far-left British brand of moral masturbation, a desperate, delusional, sterile, supremely self-contained form of non-activism that risks nothing even as it changes nothing.

There must be some reason why no one in this world does condescension better than the British far-left.

There must be some reason why the British far-left manages to satisfy itself with a uniquely public, uniquely self-congratulatory form of ideological self-abuse.

Leftists abroad would do well to respect their Israeli counterparts for defying societal norms to work for the rights of people with whom their nation is at war.

Perhaps the Israeli left deserves respect, as well, for having to do this while enduring the racist abuse of leftists abroad."

Read the original article and comments here.

The only thing I would add is that the British academics are taking one from the Palestinian playbook. Find someone (or a group) that unabashedly and openly supports your cause and then attack and alienate them because you are blinded by an essentialist racism. Can anyone say Alan Johnston?

Viva al Nakba!

Although this time of the year should arguably be a time of reflection for what the Palestinians call al Nakba or "The Catastrophe" (i.e. the day on which the State of Israel was created), the Palestinians have once again shown their political maturity by killing at least 40 of their compatriots in the last four days. In running street battles that would not be out of place in Baghdad or war-torn Beirut, Fatah and Hamas are squaring off for the second time in less than a year.

Once again we are witnessing the complete dissolution of law and order in the Gaza Strip. As I have pointed out in other posts, this has been going on for some time now, but has only been sparsely covered by the media because most reporters have shied away following Alan Johnson's abduction back in March. With the resignation of Hani Qawasmeh, the Interior Minister, one can be assured that this situation will only continue to deteriorate.

I find it is interesting then that one would never know that all this chaos was going judging by the websites of such perennial whistle blowers as the International Solidarity Movement for Palestine (ISM) or Human Rights Watch (HRW). Of course this is not to say that these organizations have forgotten Israel/Palestine, rather that their attention is clearly elsewhere.

For example, the ISM is an organization noted for its history of using "human shields" to prevent activities that they oppose. In the past this has meant concerted efforts to prevent the bombing of Iraq and the positioning of activists in the path of backhoes laying the groundwork for the Israeli security fence. In fact, it was this type of activism that led to the death of Rachel Corrie, the American martyr and patron saint of the anti-Israel leftist movement in the United States.

So I find it interesting that the ISM website sees fit to decry the situation at Bir Zeit University, which is suffering under "...the full weight of Israel’s occupation" which has:

"...brought down on it intermittent months-long closures and restrictions that still threaten its existence today. Other Palestinian universities also face continual punitive action from the Israeli military, all deliberately designed to create fear and uncertainty in the students and academics in order to undermine the universities themselves." (See here)

Apparently it is irrelevant that Bir Zeit has long been a stronghold for radicalism that counts Marwan Barghouti and the Hamas bomb maker Yahya Ayash as graduates or that the list of Palestinian universities they are refering to includes An-Najah University. An-Najah, which claims to be "the largest, oldest, and most prestigious university in Palestine" famously distinguished itself as the place where students took time out of their busy class schedules to memorialize the horrific Sbarro restaurant bombing. But this is ancient history and does not address the charge that Israel is "deliberately" creating "fear and uncertainty" to "undermine the universities".

Of course what the ISM fails to mention is that on Sunday, the same day that they issued this repudiation of Israel, Ali Sharif, a religious studies professor from Gaza, was kidnapped from his home and beaten up by masked gunmen who took him and drove off. As he was a Hamas supporter, it is assumed that those kidnapping him were from the Fatah or PLO. In fact, the ISM also fails to mention that all the universities in the Gaza strip have been closed down since the fighting started.

Human Rights Watch, which also has a checkered history with regards to both Israel and Jews (see for example) has usually been quick to expose what it has called Israel's "war crimes" or to condemn it for being on the wrong side of international law. For example, when Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader and co-founder of the Hamas terrorist organization, was assassinated in 2004, HRW chose to focus on the bystanders (some of which were his bodyguards) that were killed rather than the fact that he was basically using the civilian population as human shields. At the time, the head of HRW, Kenneth Roth decried, "Israeli indifference to the same body of international human rights and humanitarian law that prohibits deliberate attacks on civilians."

Yet now that Gaza has unravelled and mortars are flying in civilian areas, there seems to be no outrage and certainly no expectation that either Hamas or Fatah show restraint. It used to be said that higher standards were expected of Israel because it controlled the Gaza Strip and was a government and thus bound by international agreements. Well, Israel is long gone from the streets of Gaza and both Hamas and Fatah are the government yet the double standard continues.

So I will wait to see if either the ISM or Human Rights Watch bother to mention the shooting of an ambulance today that led to the brain death of the paramedic. Will they send out action alerts to their members to serve as human shields between Fatah and Hamas? And will they campaign against the numerous checkpoints set up in Gaza by the opposing sides on the grounds that they limit the movement of the Palestinian public and thus amounts to collective punishment?

Unfortunately, condemning Palestinians for the widespread and systemic human rights abuses does little for your "street creds" in the liberal "progressive" movement. Even worse, it could cost you your friends and funding. No, it is much better to close an eye to the catastrophe that is Gaza and blame Israel for everything. Viva al Nakba!

Biladi, Biladi!

Clearly the exodus of reporters following Alan Johnston's kidnapping in Gaza has benefitted those who prefer to sow mischief away from the limelight. Here is an article from Haaretz that demonstrates that if it is not being reported for all intents and purposes it is not happening. In general, the fact that the media does not feel it necessary to relate this story conveys the casual racism that I have referred to previously - that Palestinians (or people of color) killing Palestinians is no more interesting than "dog bites man".

What is even more disturbing however, is that for some reason not even the human rights organizations seem particularly bothered by it. Could this be because it is bad for business?

Reporting this widely makes the Palestinians look violent and this means that they lose the mantle of victimhood and the cherished position of underdog. What bleeding heart will shell out money for a group that they see as aggressors?

Besides, shining a light on the tribal warfare that is going on at present risks being banned from the area. Since organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and UNRWA are already heavily invested and plan campaigns around the terrible suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israelis, this is a non-starter. It effectively becomes an internal matter.

Of course, if one were to borrow the relativist logic that is so often yet selectively used by the Left, then one might ask what difference it makes if a Palestinian child is killed by a bullet fired from an M-16 or one fired from an Ak-47? Apparently it matters to some.

Here are some examples:

Several weeks now the Gaza Strip has been burning. This is not a matter of fighting between Hamas and Fatah activists or actions by the Israel Defense Forces, but battles between armed groups that for the most part are identified with large clans. Nearly every day for the past two weeks ,men, women and children have been killed in Gaza. Every day civilians are being wounded by deliberate or stray gunfire, the result of the unrestrained use of weapons. The number of armed men in the Gaza Strip, according to various estimates, is greater than 100,000. These men belong to security mechanisms, political organizations and above all to clans, and are trying to ensure the economic interests of their kinfolk. There is a tremendous amount of weaponry in the inhabitants' homes, the entire purpose of which is a potential quarrel with a neighbor, an acquaintance or a driver on the road.

In recent weeks attacks on Western and Christian targets in the West Bank have also become common. Members of terror cells identified with Al-Qaida-type organizations - compared to whom Hamas people look like boy scouts - are blowing up and destroying institutions linked to Western culture such as the American School, a church library and dozens of Internet cafes.

But the world is ignoring this. The media in Israel and the West, which reported on every person killed or wounded in the conflicts between Fatah and Hamas or because of "the Israeli occupation," are not taking any interest in Gaza. Even before the release of the Winograd report, the television news broadcasts and the major newspapers focused on trivial matters and chose not to deal with the danger to the lives of every Palestinian living in Gaza.

(For those who are unfamiliar with Haaretz or think that this is just self-serving Israeli propoganda, I would point out that this is the most left-wing of the mainstream Israeli newspapers and has a long track record of favorable reporting of the Palestinian cause.)

The Pravda Moment - Lifting the Veil of Objectivity

For several days now I have been meaning to blog about the recent decision by the British National Union of Broadcast Journalists that voted 66 to 54 to boycott Israeli products. Since this makes Israel the only country in the world that is being boycotted, it has been getting a lot of press, almost all of it bad.

While some prominent British journalists have publicly renounced their membership in the union, the Foreign Press Association in Israel has officially slammed the decision as, "counter to core journalistic values." Some have angrily called on Israel to respect the boycott by imposing one of their own on British journalists who want access to the story.

Most of those commenting on this episode have marvelled that the motion condemns Israel for the "savage, pre-planned attack on Lebanon" and calls for the end of Israeli "aggression in Gaza and other occupied territories". Aside from clearly being tendentious, it seems to willfully overlook the fact that Israel is was provoked by the kidnapping of its soldiers in the case of Lebanon and has been out of Gaza since 2005.

Others have questioned the timing of this decision, especially considering the fact that BBC reporter Alan Johnston has been held captive in Gaza for over 40 days and the motion does not even refer to his abduction. And this only days after the unsubstantiated report that he was beheaded by his captors!

In fact, the motion not only fails to mention Johnston's ordeal but refrains from censuring the Palestinians in any way. Perhaps this is for the best since it was the Palestinian government of Haniyeh and Abbas that were quick to announce that Johnston was safe and sound, quelling the rumors of his death.

For now, no one seems to want to ask the difficult question of how or why the government knows anything about Johnston's status and why they do not put an end to his captivity if they have access to his captors. Perhaps it is in bad taste to bring up such details when the Palestinians have undertaken such "concerted efforts" to have him released.

In any case, and in what must certainly constitute a first, even the hardly fair and mostly imbalanced Guardian felt obliged this week to publish a critical op-ed leader opposing the NUBJ decision. The author of the piece was perspicacious enough to note that the problem with the motion was that it oozes exceptionalism and has, "troubling editorial aspects" since it strays, "beyond the reasonable and traditional concerns of a journalists' union."

Yet a closer read of this article reveals that the Guardian's sudden change of heart has much more to do with the understanding that such a provocative act is counterproductive because it removes what may be termed the "veil of objectivity". Referring to journalists who cover the Arab-Israeli conflict, the article notes:

"It is doubtful that many of them will have welcomed a motion which will inevitably be seen by some as casting doubts on whether they can truly approach their work in a spirit of fairness and disinterested inquiry."

In other words, if it becomes clear that those who are reporting the news are really members of a bigoted, callous and editorializing organization that passes one-sided anti-Israel motions on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, then they will lose their ability to influence public opinion with the air of authority and pretense of neutrality.

This reminds me of a conversation I once had with an Armenian Jew who had recently arrived in Tel Aviv from Baku. After our conversation began touching on world politics, I teased him by saying that it would be difficult to have an intelligent conversation with someone who grew up brainwashed by the Communist propaganda of Pravda and Izvestiya.

Unfazed by my harsh words, he proceeded to tell me that the difference he noticed between former Soviet citizens and all the Westerners he had met since emigrating was that, growing up in Azerbaijan, everyone knew without a doubt that the media was lying. This forced them to seek out other sources of information and led them to develop their own critical judgment on world affairs. Westerners, on the other hand, had an abiding belief in a "free press" and uncritically swallowed pretty much everything that they were told.

Hostage Aftermath

Between preparing for Passover and celebrating the holiday, the last few weeks have been hectic and I have not had the time to sit down and blog. I have been meaning to write about the Iran standoff and the hostages, but the truth is that there was not much to actually write about. Clearly the "press conferences" and "heartfelt" letters from Seaman Turney fooled absolutely no one in the West and for that reason I did not feel like perpetuating the farce by writing about it. And then, in what many took as a complete surprise, Ahmadinejad released the hapless Brits from their captivity with a well-timed, "Open Sesame!"

I have already spoken about the background to this entire episode in my last post, so I thought I would provide a summation in five parts in this one:

I. Iranian Actions

Personally, I found it interesting that from the first televised clip that was aired by Iran on their Arabic language TV station Al Alam, they focused in on the only female among the 15 hostages, seaman Faye Turney. Clearly, this was a bid for sympathy and an attempt at leverage in the negotiations with the British. No doubt the Iranians thought that spotlighting the lone female would pressure the British government to make concessions and apologize. No doubt they calculated that the British public would not be able to withstand either the humiliation that was being meted out to her nor would they have the stomach to stand tough when a woman was involved.

Basically, Turney became an Iranian weapon that was supposed to soften up the Brits. I think that this was a miscalculation on their part, because it only angered the Brits more and provided the sailors with more sympathy than they would have had otherwise. In effect, she became the poster child for this incident. That she was the centerpiece of the Iranian propaganda effort is evidenced by the fact that she was paraded in a headscarf and wearing baggy Iranian clothing. If ever there was proof needed that the wearing of the veil is a coercive act, then this was certainly it. The fact that she was presented with a chador was clearly the Iranian way of showing that she had been truly captured and was under their control ("domesticated").

It demonstrated that, like a bird being banded by biologists, she was the object of Iranian control fantasies and being used to send the message that the Iranians were calling the shots. This was further reinforced when she appeared the following day donning a Palestinian style headscarf - a potent symbol of the political theater that was being played out and representative of the degree to which the Iranians felt she was their most central propaganda tool.

Unfortunately for the Iranians their desire to show that they were in control backfired and came across as both heavy-handed and creepy. As an aside, I think that the fact that she was always shown with a lit cigarette in hand belies a desire to repulse the Iranian (and Middle East) people and to prevent them from overly identifying or sympathizing with her. One can only imagine how a male, let alone a female viewer in a place like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan digested those images. Perhaps as a morality tale of what happens to women when they occupy traditionally male roles?

II. British Reaction

It was as a Jew that I was particularly interested in what the British public's reaction to this entire episode would be. I say this because I believe that the British, perhaps more than any other group in Europe, have so completely turned their backs on their colonialist era and its legacy and embraced the notions of multiculturalism and the political correctness that goes hand in hand with it that they have became the epicenter - if not the source of - anti-Israel sentiment among the Left in Europe.

While Blair may have maintained the "special relationship" between Britain and the US, the British public has abandoned this path and are more likely to count Israel and the US as the source of all the world's evils than Iran. Unfortunately, the British public did not fail to disappoint. In editorial after editorial, the public and the media's ire was directed squarely at the Blair government and its "overly cozy" relationship with the Bush administration. As more than one British paper noted, none of this would have ever happened if the British had not gotten themselves involved in the "illegal" Iraq war and that no matter what the British hostages were going through it would most certainly never be half as bad as either Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib.

Clearly it was too much to expect that the reader’s comments to these articles would espouse British pride and patriotism while addressing the manifold inaccuracies of moral equivalency and false comparisons. After all, those serving time in Guantanamo were not carrying out a UN mandated mission, nor were they even in uniforms, for the most part (and thus not covered by the Geneva conventions). Based on the many anti-British comments written by ordinary Brits, it did not even seem to matter that the British soldiers were forcibly abducted from Iraqi waters. This simple fact is far less surprising if you believe that all "truth" is relative or that all governments lie and therefore the actual facts of the matter are irrelevant.

In the end the British proved no better than the Spanish, who allowed a terrorist act to affect the outcome of their national elections or the Italians, who have proven that they will unreservedly negotiate with terrorists and pay handsome ransoms to release their captured citizens. Actually, in some ways the British were far worse, because they could not even muster a wee bit of indignation.

As an aside: None of this bodes well for Alan Johnston, the BBC reporter who now has the dubious distinction of being the journalist who has been held hostage for longer than any other foreigner in Gaza. That he lived in Gaza and supplied the West with unabashedly favorable reports about the Palestinians does not seem to have inured him from this sort of treatment. The fact the British public could care less about their kidnapped soldiers, would seem to imply that journalists should go at their own peril. Apparently the message has been assimilated by the press corps and they are no longer venturing into Gaza.

Latest reports state that Johnston may already be dead – a fact that would fly in the face of countless news reports and op ed pieces that attempted to downplay this incident as an attempt to obtain government jobs or loot. While one might think that such a kidnapping would turn British public opinion against the Palestinians, I will certainly not be surprised if in the end it will all be either Israel's or America's fault. Almost on cue, the British National Union of Journalists voted today to boycott Israel!

III. Diplomacy

More than anything else, the Bush administration is routinely accused of being incapable of conducting diplomacy. I think that this is a gross overstatement and over-simplification of how diplomacy works. Certainly, this administration does not engage in the kind of “feel good” diplomacy that was common of the Clinton era, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that there is no give and take in all of these crises. I also would point out that although the Clinton diplomatic style was more camera friendly and photogenic, it was no more effective at achieving its goals than the Bush method. Besides, Clinton was also not averse to committing ground troops or lobbing missiles across the world when deemed necessary.

In the case of the British hostages, there are clear signs that the Bush administration played the cards that it was dealt with a relative degree of aplomb. For starters, the US administration provided its British ally strong verbal support, yet the President said absolutely nothing until a week had gone by. If nothing else, this shows some discipline and an understanding that words could escalate matters precipitously. When the President did speak, it was at the point where the British had decided to ratchet up the pressure a bit. Perhaps for this reason it is unsurprising that he call the British soldiers by the politically charged term “hostages”.

Lest you think that I am giving Bush way too much credit for NOT saying something or for using the word that everyone was thinking, I think we should look at what was happening on the ground at the same time. First off, the Iraqi government suddenly chose to release the sole Iranian in its possession. While the Iraqis claimed that this had nothing to do with the ongoing crisis, this seems more than a little disingenuous. The timing was more than a little suspect and there was no reason that this person could not have been released at a later time. That the Iraqis were the ones to announce this provided the British and the Americans with the cover (plausible deniability) they needed to maintain that they were not negotiating with the Iranians on this matter. Together with an unwritten promise that the Iranians in American custody would receive consular visitation rights, this was the carrot.

At the same time, the US ordered the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf from the Eastern Mediterranean. For those unfamiliar with the Nimitz, it is the flagship of a class of supercarriers that are the largest warships ever built in history. Moreover, these ships do not just travel along alone with their airplanes, but are accompanied by a large armada of ships called a “strike group”. The announcement that the Nimitz would join two other supercarrier fleets in the Persian Gulf should clearly be seen as a message to the Iranian establishment that there was a time limit to their shenanigans. Clearly, this was the stick.

I would like to point out that this is not the first time that this type of dynamic has played out. One of Al Qaeda’s most consistent demands in the run up to 9-11 was that the United States needed to remove its troops from the Arabian Peninsula. For years the Saudis and Americans said that they would do this and that the US troops were only there to protect the Saudis from the Iraqis. Yet, on the cusp of the Second Iraq War the US moved its Central Command to Qatar – farther from the fighting. The only reason that I can think of is that this was meant to be a concession to Al Qaeda meant to undercut the argument that they were only acting out of defense of Mecca and Medina.

Incidentally, the British were also willing to play a bit of hard ball with the Iranians as was evidenced by the firefight that took place in the shadow of the Iranian consulate in Basra. The subsequent Iranian use of firecrackers in front of the British embassy in Tehran should also be seen as part of this same tango.

IV. Aftermath

Now that some time has passed between the benevolent “gifting” of the British hostages by Ahmadinejad, two things have become clear – this episode was meant to send a chill down the spine of the Western powers and that the stakes in any future confrontation are much higher.

Only days after the release, the Iranians cemented their position by stating that they had initiated large-scale uranium enrichment in defiance of the international community. Clearly the purpose of the hostage-taking was meant to serve as a reminder that if the West wants to confront Iran on the nuclear issue through international bodies such as the UN, that there will be a price to pay. I find it hard to believe that the Iranians were unaware that the British would undertake the revolving presidency over the Security Council that began on April 1 and that this will be immediately followed by the US presidency starting in May.

In terms of future confrontations, the death of several British soldiers in Basra on the day that the hostages were released was doubtlessly meant primarily to reinforce this point to those in decision-making posts while further undermining British resolve. Since then, it seems that both sides are happy to continue this covert war and both the actions and allegations streaming across both sides seem to indicate that we are closer to the beginning than to the end. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I think that events as disparate as the continued unraveling of Gaza, Hizbollah bravado, Syrian preparations for a summer war, protests in Basra and Moqtada al Sadr’s pressure on the Iraqi government all have many causes but primarily one root.

V. Philosophizing

I think that the Iranian willingness to once again take hostages can only be understood as representative of a worldview that is based on philosophical perspectives that Westerners find completely foreign. This is not meant to imply that Westerners or Western powers have not or would not be able to take hostages, but it does imply that hostage-taking has become the signature Iranian tactic and together with suicide bombing has become identified with the Middle East.

If anything underlines the difference between Western philosophic thought and non-Western philosophies, it has to do with ideas of liberty and the notion of individualism. Whereas in the West personal freedom is a value that needs to be cultivated and protected, in non-Western countries like Iran and much of the rest of the World, the individual’s desires are subsumed by the needs of the group. In fact, Mohammad Khatami, the former President of Iran has identified this distinction in his writings on political philosophy and criticized what he identified as the Western “unbridled individualism” and the, “belief that humans and their needs and desires are of central importance at all times.” From Khatami’s perspective, the very real threat of this philosophy lies in, turning “human beings into a new religion”.

Yet the danger inherent in the loss of individuality can most clearly be seen in the case of suicide bombers, who literally negate the individual for the sake of their societies in the way that certain species of ants and bees sacrifice themselves to protect the hill or hive. The taking of hostages actually accomplishes two interrelated goals – effacing the individual while using the individual as a weapon.

The former is the result of the hostage taking and effectively denies each individual their identity as they become subsumed to the group and are reconfigured as “hostages”, or the “the Americans”, or whatever tag their captors decide to pin on them. The latter results when the hostages are paraded before the "neutral gaze" of the cameras. Westerners watching on TV intrinsically identify with the hostages, imagine in their minds what they must be going through and feel empathy. For non-Western people who think in essentialist terms, the differences are chasms that far outweigh the similarities. Basically, tribalism trumps humanism.

From a strictly tactical point of view, the Western preoccupation with the well-being of individuals is a liability in a time of war. From a strategic perspective, it is the Western focus on each and every individual that is the source of its strength and innovation. After all, it is individuals unfettered by custom and tradition who will not only fight but also innovate to preserve their freedom.