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Today's New Republic has a less-than-flattering profile of Juan Cole, president of the Middle East Studies Association and author of the blog Informed Comment. A couple of weeks ago, Cole had a bizarre reaction to the New York Times editorial criticizing Columbia's MEALAC investigatory report. He rationalized pro-Palestinian bias in MEALAC classes on the grounds that"the real question here is whether it is all right to dispute the Zionist version of history," given"that the master narrative of Zionist historiography is dominant in the academy."
As the TNR piece points out, Cole has seen Zionist conspiracies lurking in many places beyond the academy. He claimed that Ariel Sharon manuevered U.S. forces in Iraq into going after Moqtada Al Sadr"because he had objected so loudly to Sharon's murder of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, the clerical leader of the Hamas Party." Cole predicted,"[I]f Sharon and aipac decide that they need the US government to take military action against Iran, it is likely that the US government will do so." Indeed, in rhetoric that could have come from Pat Buchanan, he sees Israel playing the puppet-master role for U.S. policy in the Middle East as a whole:"The Founding Fathers of the United States deeply feared that a foreign government might gain this level of control over a branch of the United States government, and their fears have been vindicated." One might wonder just how"informed" this"informed comment" is.
Your story of Israeli criminal conduct is deplorable if true but totally irrelevant to what we've been debating here. This is another example of the many techniques of obfuscation practiced by the defenders of MEALAC. To paraphrase The Atlantic's Benjamin Schwartz (no relation),
Your caviling seems to be an excuse to rehearse occasions of Israeli injustice, of which there are many. I hope and assume you would as readily recount the equal—perhaps greater—number of Palestinian and Arab atrocities and injustices perpetrated against Israelis and Jews.
Louis N Proyect -
4/20/2005
Ephraim Karsh? You mean the guy who denies that the Palestinians were expelled? That is tantamount to denying that Cherokees were expelled from Georgia. Even Benny Morris understands why it was necessary to kick the Palestinians off their land. In a recent interview he said, "Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history." I'll stick with the Prophet Isaiah:
And he shall judge among the nations,
and shall rebuke many people:
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruninghooks:
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
By contrast:
Daily News, Dec 1, 2003, 01:19
Former Israeli soldier: “we behaved like animals, criminals, thieves” toward Palestinians
Occupied Jerusalem - A former Israeli soldier who served three years in the Gaza Strip has described Israeli treatment of Palestinian civilians as befitting “animals, criminals, and thieves.”
Staff Sergeant Liaran Ron Furer has written a book on his experience as an Israeli soldier manning roadblocks throughout the Gaza Strip.
The book, Titled “Checkpoints-Twilight Zone,” contains personal testimonies and often brash accounts of the daily harassment and humiliation inflicted by young Israeli soldiers on Palestinian civilians.
Major publishers in Israel, including the famous Steimatzky bookstore chain refused to publish the book because, apparently because of its scathing criticism of Israeli army behavior.
“You can adopt the most hard-line political positions, but no parent would agree to his son becoming a thief, a criminal or a violent person. The problem is that it is never presented this way. The boy himself doesn’t portray himself this way to his family when he returns from the territories. On the contrary, he is received as a hero, as someone who is doing the important work of being a soldier,” says Furer in his book.
Furer describes several types of sadistic behaviors by Israeli soldiers including beating Palestinians and then taking souvenir pictures with them.
“ I remember how we humiliated a dwarf who came to the checkpoint every day on his wagon. They forced him to have his picture taken on the horse, hit him and degraded for a good half hour.”
Among the accounts narrated by Furer are stories of soldiers having souvenir pictures with Palestinians they had beaten up, soldiers pissing on the heads of a Palestinian because the man had the nerve to smile at a soldier and how one soldier, nicknamed Dado, forced a Palestinian to stand on four legs and bark like a dog.
One of Furer's most chilling confessions related to his abuse of a 16-year old mentally retarded boy.
“ I ran toward them and punched an Arab right in the face. I’d never punched anyone that way. He collapsed on the road. The officers said that we had to search him for his papers. We pulled his hands behind his back and I bound them with plastic handcuffs. Then we blindfolded him so he wouldn’t see what was in the Jeep. I picked him up from the road. Blood was trickling from his lip onto his chin. I led him up behind the jeep and threw him in, his knees banged against the trunk and he landed inside. We sat in the back, stepping on the Arab…who was crying softly to himself.
“His face was right on my flak Jacket and he was bleeding and making a kind of puddle of blood and Saliva, and it disgusted and angered me, so I grabbed him by the hair and turned his head to the side. He cried out loud and to get him to stop, We stepped harder and harder on his back. That quieted him down for a while and then he started up again. We concluded that he was either retarded or crazy.”
“One of the soldiers went up to him and kicked him in the stomach. The Arab doubled over and grunted, and we all laughed. It was funny. I kicked him really hard in the ass and he flew forward just as I’d expected. They shouted that I was totally crazy, and they laughed…and I felt happy. Our Arab was just a 16-year-old mentally retarded boy.”
Furer stresses that behaviors as such are by no means isolated but rampant in the Israeli army.
An Israeli army spokesperson refused to comment on the book.
The spokesman said “sorry, I haven’t read the book yet.”
Zionist scholarship is a contradiction in terms? But I guess you think anti-Zionist scholarship is the cat's pajamas? It'll take more than wishful thinking to get rid of the work of important scholars like Anita Shapira, Ephraim Karsh, and even people like Benny Morris whose scholarship doesn't fit neatly into these 2 categories.
I'm glad and heartened to hear of your encounter with a single 91 year old Egyptian Jew. It goes without saying that his story is only a very tiny piece of the much larger story of institutionalized anti-Semitism in the Middle East. Do you seriously doubt this? I assume you are familiar with the scholarship on the long history of Muslim anti-Jewish "dhimmi-tude", pograms, massacres, farhoods, discrimination, etc. Take a gander at the section on anti-Semitism in Joan Peters's book and see if you can debunk it. Why do you think one man's story repudiates centuries of documented history?
As for MEALAC, Why do you credit a few students who defend Massad while ignoring the students who claim he taught objective lies in his classroom? Further, the substance of some of these defenses is at least as suspect as you believe the complaining student's to be. Some students stated that Massad views any line of questioning critical of his own views as hostile and disruptive. Moreover, this diversionary tactic, while common among MEALAC's defenders, is irrelevant to the issues of professorial bias, lying, and intimidation. If major disruptions did occur, that's not acceptable and that should be dealt with, but it sheds absolutely no light on Massad's interaction with critical students. In other words, it's non-responsive.
You ask if, after reading the testimony of Massad's defenders I still believe charges against him have merit. My answer is a resounding YES. As I mentioned beofre, one has only to read the hysterical tone of his published writing to see that he appears to be incapable of suppressing his visceral hatred of everything Israeli in both his "scholarship" and his classroom.
Louis N Proyect -
4/20/2005
Okay, if Joan Peters is a straw man, then what about Alan Dershowitz? He was invited to speak on the Columbia campus on behalf of the anti-MEALAC forces. His "Case for Israel" is pure garbage, like a fish rotting in the sun. The plain fact is that Zionist scholarship is a contradiction in terms like "military justice" or "compassionate conservative".
Arab anti-Semitism? Check this out:
Last month I was in Egypt, where I had the good fortune to spend a morning with the truly remarkable Youssef Darwish, a 91 year old Jewish Communist veteran of the post-war workers' struggles that formed the backcloth to Nasser's coup in 1952.
Youssef, all faculties intact and chomping away at cigars, waxed lyrical on many issues, not least the rich texture of Jewish life in Egypt in the early part of the 20th century. It's standard in these sort of discussions to debate the prominent role Jews played in the Communist movement throughout the Arab world. And of course we did.
But what struck me more was something else. It was the long historical Jewish attachment to and involvement in Egypt--one of its greatest medieval synagogues still stands--and the way this blossomed in the early 20th century, with now forgotten cultural expressions in painting, books and later film.
As Youssef says, the banner of independence was being raised, and the idea of achieving equality among the different social groups was vigorously pursued. Later Zionism sucked nearly all the Jews out of Egypt and told them they were coming "home".
It told the same nonsense to Jews from all over the Arab world, and helped them to forget their long history as it recruited them to build the Iron Wall against their new Palestinian Arab neighbours. Recovering that history someday soon will be an important part of showing just how Arabs and Jews can live together in peace.
With respect to the allegation of Massad's version of the killings at Munich, we are up against the same old problem. It is simply one hostile student's testimony. With all of the problems surrounding the semi-clandestine "Conduct Unbecoming," I'd be inclined to take such allegations with a grain of salt.
Finally, I would suggest a look at these statements from students who attended Massad's class and ask yourself if the charges against him have any merit:
"Several individuals who audited this class regularly attempted to disturb the progress of the class. During these disturbances, the auditors often attempted to dominate the class discussion with personal statements unrelated or extremely loosely related to the course material. They were regularly unprepared for the classroom discussion, not having completed the required reading, and for the most part were largely ignorant of the class' subject matter. It was fairly obvious that these individuals had registered for the course for the sole purpose of disrupting the progress of the class. To my amazement, [Massad] allowed each and every student in the class an opportunity to speak, regardless of their familiarity with the class subject matter and required course material."
-John Taplett
"I am Jewish. I am not a Zionist. Joseph Massad is a man who understands the distinction and does not attempt to conflate the two around a vague connection with Israel. Knowing that he is being accused of anti-Semitism is not only a slap in HIS face, it is a slap in the face of every Jew who understands a legacy of oppression and chooses not to become an oppressor."
-Maura Finkelstein
"On the question of religion, he was openly critical of all religions including Islam - his anti-Israeli opinions could not reasonably have been construed as anti-Semitic. Similarly, while being critical of Israeli policy, he did not hesitate to offer critical opinions of Yasser Arafat. In general, he maintained a tone of critical scholarly inquiry."
-Hitesh Manglani
"As for academic discrimination, I am a Jew who wrote a term paper criticizing Palestinian nationalism for its foundation in support for violence, and despite Massad's supposed bias, he gave me an A."
Derek also highlighted the issue, and I went ahead and destroyed a couple of the ways that harsh makes the argument. THis is not to say I disagree that Cole has an agenda of sorts...but you will find a different reason for proof.
just go have a look
i know that the honest academics like Dr Luker will take a look and actually look at this from a critical perspective. I don't know about KC, given his ideological bias, but would hope everyone would actually think critically about the article instead of being the usual sheep...
CP
Dani Schwartz -
4/20/2005
First, Prof. Luker: Mr. Proyect is not a professor. (Neither am I, in case that matters).
Second, Mr. Proyect: why set up a straw man like Joan Peters? I've followed the MEALAC controversy closely and have never heard anyone say that her book should be required reading. And while Norman Finkelstein has claimed to debunk her book From Time Immemorial, Finkelstein himself is frequently accused of fabricating facts and sources, as well as falsifying history.
Furthermore, Finkelstein never even attempted to debunk the important first portion of Peters's book, which deals with the institutionalized anti-Semitism of the Arab and Muslim Middle East.
Since this discussion touches on MEALAC, one of the major allegations against MEALAC that I have never heard adequately addressed by its defenders (or its faculty) is the claim that Massad, among others, knowingly teaches objective lies to his students, such as that Israelis massacred their own Olympians in Munich. The silence on this point is disappointing but not surprising: this kind of refusal to deal with the difficult issues presented is typical of MEALAC's allies, the self-proclaimed defenders of free speech. The question is simple: If Massad is knowingly teaching lies to his students (all of which point consistently in one direction, by the way) what should be done? The Left (including Juan Cole, Massad, Dabashi, etc.) wants so badly to defend (and promote) anything to do with anti-Zionism that it willfully overlooks many real problems here, such as what goes on in Massad's classroom, where students allege his visceral hatred of all things Israeli permeates nearly every sentence in his lectures. One has only to read his published essays to see that this allegation seems not only reasonable but obvious. As one expert in this field has told me, it seems that Massad (and Dabashi) want the Jews to disappear--for their own good.
Louis N Proyect -
4/20/2005
Let me repeat myself. Joan Peters is a grand falsifier. We have come a long way since her book received unanimous acclaim. Over the past 20 years or so, some of the most powerful scholarship about the birth of the state of Israel has been coming from Israeli historians, the so-called revisionist school. If a MEALAC professor is forced under the pressure of Hillel, the NY Sun, KC Johnson, Nat Hentoff, The NY Post, Alan Dershowitz, Congressman Anthony Wiener, Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz and major Jewish donors to Columbia's law and medical schools to include Peter's perspective, that will be a sad day. Thank goodness my employer had the backbone to stand up to this neo-McCarthyite attack, even if in a flawed fashion.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/20/2005
We wouldn't be surprised if an "objective narrative" conformed to your point of view, would we? If you can believe it, neither Cliopatria nor Crooked Timber are hostile to Cole. Informed Comment wouldn't be on our blogrolls if we were. At my invitation, Cole will be on a panel with me at next year's AHA convention. He is taking some criticism right now and the "Zionist master narrative" meme invited it. His larger point, that the academy must not become the captive of any individual party is well taken.
Louis N Proyect -
4/20/2005
Frankly, I am not impressed that Crooked Timber is hostile to Juan Cole. On the political spectrum, Crooked Timber is perhaps 5 degrees to the left of Cliopatria as demonstrated by both forum's eagerness to scandalize Ward Churchill.
Yes, I do believe an objective narrative is possible. If one cannot determine whether Joan Peters is objective vis-a-vis Ilan Pappe, then I cannot help you.
Here is what Juan Cole had to say on the matter. It is quite accurate:
The David Project wants Middle East historians to reproduce faithfully in the classroom the Zionist master narrative as the "true" version of history. We aren't going to do that, and nobody can make us do it, and if anyone did make us do it, it would be destructive of academic, analytical understandings of history. Next the Serbs will be demanding that we explain why the Bosnians had to be suppressed, and the Russians will object to any attempt to understand the roots of Chechen terrorism, and the Chinese will object to our teaching about Taiwan. The American Nazi Party will maintain that the Third Reich is presented unsympathetically in university history classes, etc. etc. Ethnic nationalisms if allowed to dictate the teaching of history would destroy the entire discipline.
Ralph E. Luker -
4/20/2005
Professor Proyect, Do be sure to troll on over to Crooked Timber, where Juan Cole took the same criticism for his finding a "Zionist narrative" in American scholarship about the middle east. Do you really believe that "an objective narrative of the history of Israel" is a possibility? In my experience, scholars like other ordinary human beings have a tendency to be so polarized on the issues that any claim of "an objective narrative" invites its own critical inquiry.
Louis N Proyect -
4/20/2005
What pretzel logic. If you present an objective narrative of the history of Israel and the displacement of Palestinians, this is "bias". As I stated here before, the opponents of critical scholarship smear it as "bias" when their real goal is to root out the tiny sliver of critical scholarship about Israel in the academy.
