More Carter Commentary

Enjoy the following review of Carter's screed by a Shalom Achshavnik (Peace Now), of all people. Carter would seem to be really out of his depth.

A Partial Fisking of the 'Carter Letter'

The magalomanaical Jimmy Carter has come out with a letter justifying his recent screed blaming Israel and exonerating Palestinians everywhere (Check out the following analysis of Carter's misrepresentation of Camp David and the Clinton Proposals. Hat Tip to both links: Martin Kramer, who has been covering this from day one). I thought I might give a try at a (partial) fisking:

There are no significant countervailing voices (emphasis added) (to pro-Israel outfits such as AIPAC)

Has Carter been living on Mars over the past few years (then again, that would explain a lot...)??? What about the constant attacks in the New York Review of Books, the "evenhandedness" of the New York Times and NPR, not to mention the bile coming out of British outlets such as the BBC, the Guardian, the London Review of Books? Heck, what about the English version of Ha'Aretz? What about the "expert" analysis of MESA members such as Juan Cole and Charles Smith, which is very pro-Palestinian?

I am familiar with the extreme acts of violence that have been perpetrated against innocent civilians, and understand the fear among many Israelis that threats against their safety and even their existence as a nation still exist. I reiterated my strong condemnation of any such acts of terrorism.

WTF?? Who were these extreme acts of violence commited by - Eskimos? Aliens? Is it so hard to admit that acts of terrorism and political violence have been commited by Palestinians (and supported by many Palestinians) against Jews? Is it that hard to admit that Palestinians sin, or that they are largely responsible for their own predicament, by rejecting, time and again, partition plans - in 1937, in 1948 etc?

When asked my proposals for peace in the Middle East, I summarized by calling for Hamas members and all other Palestinians to renounce violence and adopt the same commitment made by the Arab nations in 2002: the full recognition of Israel's right to exist in peace within its legally recognized 1967 borders (to be modified by mutual agreement by land swaps). This would comply with U.N. Resolutions, the official policy of the United States, commitments made at Camp David in 1978 and in Oslo in 1993, and the premises of the International Quartet's "Roadmap for Peace."

I see...what about the demand for the 'right of return', also enshrined in UNresolutions according to Palestinian pressure groups??

In addition, I pointed out that the Palestinian people were being deprived of the necessities of life by economic restrictions imposed on them by Israel and the United States because 42% had voted for Hamas candidates in the most recent election. Teachers, nurses, policemen, firemen, and other employees are not being paid, and the U.N. has reported that food supplies in Gaza are equivalent to those among the poorest families in sub-Sahara Africa with half the families surviving on one meal a day. My other request was that American Jewish citizens help to alleviate their plight.

Why, may I ask, is this solely the fault of Israel? What about Hamas, committed to Israel's destruction and spending oodles on arms and weapons procurement? Also, what about Israelis right to life, that most basic right, which, if we removed all restrictions now without a renouncement of violence from Hamas and others, would be constantly denied by suicide bombers and the like? Why, also, is there no mention of the Qassam rockets and munitions constantly rained on Sderot and Ashkelon?

that I acknowledge the deep concern of Israelis about the threat of terrorism and other acts of violence from some Palestinians (emphasis mine)

Now we acknowledge that some Palestinians engage in violence. Hows about the fact that one such organization now runs the parliament?

Jimmy Carter declared that he won't debate Alan Dershowitz. Maybe Norman Finkelstein would be a better choice.

Tidbits - Book Reviews

• Mitchell Bard rips Jimmy Carter a new one for his putrid piece of pro-Palestinian propaganda. The book has clearly demonstrated that Carter is a complete pro-Arab tool. If the links provided by Martin Kramer are any indication, it is also a very poorly written tract.
• Efraim Karsh takes Rashid Khalidi to the cleaners.

That's all for now, folks.

Throw the Jews Down the Well!

Well, it's official. If anyone ever doubted it, comes the Iraq Study Report and makes clear that we are to be sold down the river. This report is the culmination of years of anti-Israel propaganda which deligitamized Israel and Zionism from every angle, and in which, frustratingly, Jews played a major role.

Myself and my family are beginning to feel what the Jews in Israel felt right after the invasion of Israel in '48 and during the hamtana in '67 - palpable existential dread, the fear that we are going to be wiped off the face of the earth. Even during the worst times of the past intifada the main fear was that any of us would be killed individually. Now it look like we will all go together when we go, only it's not funny.

Don't give me BS about how the world's sympathy will prevent it from happenning. The world's sympathy did not stop Auschwitz. It did not stop Rwanda, the boat people of Vietnam or the killing fields of Cambodia. I don't believe that Olmert, the most venal, corrupt (morally and legally) and unprincipled bum we have ever had the displeasure of representing us has the guts to order a strike or push the red button when the time comes.

God help us all.

Kudos to Prof. Kenneth Stein...

for resigning his position at the Carter Center in protest of Jimmy Carter's recent screed which, a la Prof. Stein, is a parody of academic standards (Hat Tip: Martin Kramer). Prof. Stein is known to be on the left wing of the political spectrum, which makes his stand even more admirable. Thank God there are still people of principle in this world...

I've said it before, I'll say it again...

Israeli scholars are highly critical and engage in debate, Palestinian and pro-Palestinian scholars don't. This last is confirmed by Shalom Lappin's response to Jacqueline Rose's response to his excellent review of her book. Money quote (emphases are mine):

In response to my statement that no significant element of Palestinian society has challenged the official myths of the Palestinian narrative in a way comparable to that in which the official Israeli version of history has been subject to fierce debate among Israelis, Rose ‘is left wondering whether he reads any Palestinian writing’. She cites the work of several Palestinian (and Israeli Arab) writers and poets as evidence of such a challenge. Given this list it seems that Rose has seriously misunderstood the question at issue here. While the writers whom she mentions have certainly expressed empathy for Israeli Jews and, on occasion, criticised Palestinian terrorism, none of them, to the best of my knowledge, has questioned the view that Jews came to Palestine as European colonialists with a program for dispossessing its Arab inhabitants and establishing a western enclave of imperialist power. Quite the contrary, Mahmoud Darwish is a nationalist poet who promotes this idea. In fact, he resigned from the executive of the PLO in 1993 in protest when Arafat signed the Oslo Accords with Rabin. Similarly, Ghassan Kanafani was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a close associate of George Habash. [8] Anton Shamas, although he writes in Hebrew, is a militant advocate of this approach to Israel and Zionism. Elias Khoury (who is actually Lebanese, born in Beirut in 1948 to a Christian family) does indeed seek to overturn stereotypes of Israelis dominant in the Arab world. Moreover, to his credit, (together with Darwish and Edward Said) he publicly opposed the convening of a Holocaust denial conference, planned in Beirut for 2001. However, like Darwish he does not question the official Palestinian understanding of the history of the conflict.

Palestinian intellectual life is vibrant, and it has produced political theorists and historians of considerable distinction. But when one reads the work of some of its most notable representatives, such as Edward Said, Ahmed Khalidi, and Rashid Khalidi, one generally finds that moderation consists in the grudging acknowledgement of Israel’s non-eliminability. In historical terms Palestinians are portrayed as passive victims who have been the blameless targets of relentless Zionist aggression. The decisions, political programs, and military initiatives of the Palestinian leadership throughout the period leading up to 1948 (and, often, well beyond) are rarely if ever subjected to serious critical evaluation, even from the narrowest perspective of national self-interest. The fact that, in many cases, the solutions that these thinkers now suggest were previously proposed by the leadership of the Yishuv (or by the international community), and rejected by the Palestinians themselves, is rarely, if ever, acknowledged. Bi-nationalism, partition, and a federated state were all originally Zionist ideas that the Palestinians turned down in their time as incompatible with their political aspirations. The intense controversies over the facts of the 1948 war are being conducted entirely by Israeli historians, on the basis of recently opened Israeli public archives. Palestinian and Arab archives remain closed, and historical debate and revision is not part of the Palestinian public discussion. One can see this state of affairs as, at least in part, due to the fact that the Palestinians remain under a deeply repressive occupation within the territories beyond the Green Line. Unfortunately, the absence of critical debate is itself a factor that prevents the emergence of viable political strategies for ending this occupation.

QED. The last point bears repeating. When, and only when Palestinians acknowledge that Jews have right and justice on their side as well, can we have true peace and co-existence. As long as they keep viewing "justice" solely in Palestinian terms or adding "rights" of refugees, or "peace with (their) justice" as a price tag, peace will remain an impossiblity. It takes two to tango.

Job Application

Seen in the Bar-Ilan copy shop (HaMaf'il) (rough translation):

Needed for a state in the Middle East:

• A Prime Minister
• A Defense Minister
• A Chief of Staff
• A Minister of Justice
• A Chief of Police

Experience not necessary. Good conditions.

Torn: The Cry for Help of a Religious University Student

I have recently finished, besha'ah tovah, my requirements for a BA in Land of Israel Studies. I am now continuing my studies in an interdisciplinary graduate program at Bar-Ilan. Although I am still quite busy and sometimes feel overwhelmed with work, I will continue to blog as much as possible anyway.

When I started this blog two years ago, I had two main reasons - hasbara (defending Israel) and personal catharsis. While my need to debunk libels against Israel has waxed and waned over the years, my need for some outlet to pour out my thoughts and musings on life, especially university life, has only increased. The dillemas and questions I've faced have not gone away - they have only increased in intensity, and I feel that if I do not "spill my guts" somewhere, I will explode. Although I will not give up other aspects of this blog (such as the "Research Suggestions" section), I will be spending more time wrestling with questions rather than debunking certain falsehood.

Perhaps the most fundamental tension that I feel is that of a religious Jew, commanded to believe and follow the Law of God, studying in a University, an institution where nothing is sacred save the right to question and criticise. True, I study at Bar-Ilan University, where ostensibly the tension should not be as great as avowedly secular or even anti-religious universities elsewhere. Judaism, although not preached as dogma, is certainly treated with respect and deferrence at Bar-Ilan - historical analysis, and critique, of Jews and Judaism throughout the ages is done more often with a surgeon's knife rather than a machete.

Even when it comes to politics we are something of an anomoly. Although there are certainly plenty of left-wingers at Bar-Ilan, we have no Ilan Pappes or Zeev Sternhalls. Dr. Menahem Klein is the exception that proves the general rule, a curiosity if you will. You will notice that on many of the various moonbat petitions supporting refusal to serve in "the territories" or in favour of the Palestinians, people from Bar-Ilan are either not represented at all or only a handful of people are signatories.

All this is true, and yet Bar-Ilan University is still just that - a University, a part of the scholarly world. We still have to read articles and discuss views of Judaism and faith-involved issues (such as the accuracy of the Rabinnic sources in the Second Temple period; analysis of archaeology that is not in line with the accepted biblical historiography and so on). It is impossible to be an honest student or scholar without hearing and having to seriously argue with scholarly opinions and analysis that are simply anathema for a believing Jew.

It often feels that even when our beliefs and lifestyle are not challenged, they are ridiculed. How many times have the loaded, negative terms - "fundamentalism", "conservativism" (in the sense of "not liberal", not the religious meaning) and other such verbal daggers been bandied about, with the reckless abandon of a street demagogue, in "respectable" scholarly forums? I often feel that a religious Jewish scholar feels a need to have to apologize for not being a secular liberal humanist, has to apologize for his/her existence. How can I live, function, grow in such a world as a Jew?

One answer would be that it is impossible. The Gordian Knot must be cut - it is either the university or the kollel/yeshiva. I remember an exchange between a student and a teacher, whom I respect tremendously, over the issue of scholalrly opinion on the Chumash, which of course does not hold that it was written by God through Moses. The teacher ended the argument that, if you don't want to deal with these questions, then don't go to university.

I wish I had that option, but I don't. Ever since I was a child, I was fascinated with learning new things, gaining new knowledge. At first I tended towards "hard science", later I caught the "history bug". People who know me can tell you that I read an enourmous amount of non-fictional books on every subject in history, at a speed that has earned me the monicker of bola'at sefarim (literally, swallower of books, a play-on words for the hebrew term for bookworm - tola'at sefarim). I check academic publishers' websites on a daily basis to see if there's anything new and exciting to read.

Even when I was at yeshiva, my Ram suggested to me that I spend at least some time studying university courses. Although he didn't intend it, I felt and still feel this to have been a rejection. In the end, he was right, though - I wasn't capable of studying at yeshiva 24/7, and I gravitated towards university and academic study. For me, learning, researching and especially writing are for me no less critical than food and sleep. To read a particularly well-written piece; to write a well-written article or blog-post, these things are my psychological oxygen. To deny myself that would be equivalent to forbidding a pianist to touch a piano or a basketball player from shooting hoops.

I'm not sure who to turn to for help, either. Plenty has been said and written about how Judaism deals with "hard sciences" such as physics or biology. I am not aware of anything even remotely comparable dealing with Judaism's attitude towards the "soft sciences" of the humanities and the social sciences. I am sure that each religious scholar now in the field has developed his/her individual approach to the problem, but this is of no help to newcomers such as myself. Also of no help is the suspicious and often negative attitude of those who might render assistance - the yeshiva world - to the world of scholarship, known derisively as 'mehkar'.

I feel alone, exposed to the elements with no guide and no-one to hold my hand. I have tried to duck this feeling, to ignore it or deny it. Now it stares me in the face, filling me with terror and dread.

God give me strength to get through this. גם כי אלך בגיא צלמוות לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי

The Palestinian (Historical) Malaise (on Walid Khalidi)

Recently I came across the following loving endorsement of Rashid Khalidi's book:

Rashid Khalidi, American-born, comes from one of Jerusalem's most distinguished families, which has also provided another distinguished historian, Walid Khalidi. Together they have done much to provide a Palestinian narrative rooted in their personal histories but disciplined by the standards of Western scholarship. (my emphasis)

I have said it before and I'll say it again, if you want a side of history in which all of its members agree with one another that their side is completely right - look no further than the Palestinians. Anyone familiar with the often virulent debates in Israeli academia know just how much debate there is over every facet of Jewish and Israeli history. Barely a year goes by without at least a few "provocative", "critical" or "controversial" books coming out about Jews or Israel.

Not so with Palestinian historians. Uniformly they see history as a tool to be twisted for thier pre-conceived conclusions (For a great example of this see Maissy-Noy, Rachel, "Palestinian Historiography in Relation to the Territory of Palestine", Middle Eastern Studies 42, 6, p. 889-905). It is a 'given' in this school that Palestinians are descended from Canaanites, that Zionists were evil colonialists apartheid interlopers in league with the evil British, that the Palestinians are utterly blameless for their predicament.

No-one exemplifies, nay - personifies this sad state of affairs more than Walid Khalidi. Anyone familiar with the works of Prof. Walid Khalidi will know that his analysis of Zionist actions and motives is badly flawed and one sided (See, for instance, his "The Arab Perspective" in Stookey and Louis, eds, The End of the Palestine Mandate, University of Texas Press, 1988). His argument that Plan Dalet was a master plan for expelling the Palestinians has not been accepted by students of the subject, such as Benny Morris and Yoav Gelber, excepting of course those who are willing to swallow Palestinian propaganda wholesale like Ilan Pappe and Norman G. Finkelstein. His book, All That Remains, was blasted by Israeli geographer Moshe Brawer for numerous errors of fact and interpretation.

Avraham Sela, in a fascinating article, (Sela, Avraham, "Arab Historiography of the 1948 War - The Quest for Legitimacy", in: Silberstein, Lawrence, New Perspectives on Israeli History, New York 1991) demonstrated that it was Khalidi, among others, who established and enshrined the "Zionist conspiracy" to expel the Arabs from the start - before that Arab historiography had beeen at least somewhat more self critical. The totality of Khalidi's works (such as From Haven to Conquest) are nothing less than the canon of the Palestinian outlook, the foundation for a view of Zionism, Jews and Palestinian-Arab history so distorted, it makes "official" Zionist history look downright timid. This view now is almost hegemonic (yes, I use the term intentionally) among the various scholars of the Middle East in the USA. If Said was the salesman of the Palestinian Propaganda Narrative, Walid Khalidi can be said to be its primary author. More than anyone except perhaps Said, W. Khalidi has helped to prevent any real historical study of Palestinians that is not sycophantic and 100% anti-Zionist in its outlook.

Far from being "disciplined" by the standards of Western scholarship, W. Khalidi bent it for his own nationalistic ends. He is not an example to be emulated, but an abberation to be shunned by all those who care for the proper study of history.

Research Suggestions

(For previous suggestions see here, here, here, here and here)

This post's subject: The Syrian Army in the 1948 War

This post was prompted not so much by the lack of research into the conduct of the Syrian Army before and during the 1948 War, though that certainly was part of it. Rather, I have posted this with the hope that a reader will study this selfsame subject, incorporating the Official History of the Syrian Army published in 2000, and which should be available via Lebanese or London Arabic booksellers (Thanks to Dr. Josh Landis for the heads up, as well as Dr. Eyal Zisser for his help). The source in question is the first volume of the Official History edited by Mustafa Tlas and it is entitled Tarikh al-Jaysh al-Arabi al-Suri (Damascus, 2000), according to the British Library.

As an ardent "1948 war" buff, I am personally very curious if the volume contains any new information (documents, stats, war objectives). Obviously the book must be read with a critical eye, but here's hoping it's not all fabricated propaganda.

May the force be with you, enterprising researcher!

Historians' Fallacies - Prof. Rashid Khalidi

The following quote of a footnote in Rashid Khalidi's new book (Hat Tip: Martin Kramer) reveals some basic errors in scholarship:

The exact number of Palestinian refugees in 1948 is difficult to ascertain, and has long been highly disputed. Contemporary UN estimates put the figure at over 750,000, while Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1, writes of "some 600,000-760,000" refugees. The first figure given by Morris is low; the latter is probably closer to the truth. Morris's book, which drew on the newly opened Israeli archives to dispel some of the most tenacious myths regarding the Palestinian refugees, has become the standard work on this topic. See also Morris's 1948 and After, rev. ed. (Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1994. Norman G. Finkelstein argues convincingly that Morris fails to draw the requisite conclusions from the damning evidence he assembles: see Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict (London: Verso, 1995, 51-87. Among the first to publish results of research in the Israeli archives regarding the Palestinian refugees that reached conclusions similar to those of Morris were Segev, 1949, and Flapan, The Birth of Israel, published in 1986 and 1987, respectively. [emphasis mine]

OK, problem no. 1 is the highlighted sentence - Khalidi does not make any attempt to actually prove that the 'latter figure' is closer to the truth. Even if we were to consider the 'UN document' estimate as proof, one would expect Khalidi to at least adress the problem of the reliability of UN estimates due to widespread fraud; the UN documents themselves discuss this problem (See Gelber, Yoav, Komemiyut VeNakba, Dvir 2004, in the Chapter "Pelitei HaPelishah"). Heck, Walter Pinner adressed this issue a-way back in 1960 (Pinner, Walter, How Many Arab Refugees? A Critical Study of UNRWA's Statistics and Reports, London, 1960.) Obviously Khalidi doesn't have to agree with this, but surely he must adress the issue - one can not simply ignore opinions contrary to one's own because it's inconvenient like Norman Finkelstein.

There's another problem that is just as fundamental. The quoter of the book, Rick Richman from Jewish Current Issues, has pointed out that Khalidi is horribly outdated, in not mentioning Morris' revised work of 2004 [BTW, if you ignore the 'transfer-mania', the book is pretty good].

I think this is being much too kind, if only due to the fact that Benny Morris is no longer the sole major authority or student of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. The past 6 years has seen a virtual explosion in scholarly books, as well as MA and PhD theses written on the 1948 War, including works on various aspects of the refugee problem (for instance, Yaacov Tubi's Phd thesis, Haifa, 2002). For instance, a book by Prof. Alon Kadish, Prof Avraham Sela and Dr. Arnon Golan came out in 2000 directly challenging Morris' description of events in Lydda in July 1948.

Even when it comes to books on the Problem as a whole, Prof. Yoav Gelber's book, which does not agree with Morris in interpretation of many events, is comparable both in scope and use of source material. In the coming years, it is likely that this area of 'expertise' will become even more crowded. That's not to mention the many scholarly articles on the subject.

If Khalidi doesn't at least refer to some of these sources, then one wonders where he has been hiding in the last 15 years?

Take off your hats...

Another brave soul has gone off the deep end...

[This feature will be posted whenever a scholar of Middle Eastern Studies/Israel/Zionism joins the looney left or the looney right. Today we have Mark LeVine with an article in HNN favorable towards the "one-state solution", or "bi-nationalism" (see link above), traditional code word for "No More Israel!"]

Rotten to the Core

Anyone who thinks Scandinavia is a beautiful, moral group of countries ought to look at this disgusting display of base hatred in Norway.

Know Before Whom You Stand

My Obiter Dicta has a recent post that laments the lack of spirituality and connection to God in Modern Orthodox prayer. The irony in this is that the self-same "dry" halakhic texts contain within them a great deal of spiritual advice - if you look for it, that is. Having recently gone through much of Hilkhot Tefilah (Tur/Shulkhan Aruch) with a friend of mine, I can attest that many of the simanim are chock full of practical advice for one who wants to know how to properly daven. In this post I would like to address one such recommendation: preparation.

There was a tradition among pious Jews in the Talmudic period known as "Hasidim Rishonim" to prepare for an hour before actually engaging in prayer. The Tur advises that everyone should wait a few moments before starting prayer - advice that he repeats a number of times. Instead of rushing in from work or sleep and immediately getting to praying, one should step back and mentally prepare oneself to stand before God Almighty. I can not stress enough how much this exceedingly simple tip helps. Instead of seeing davening as just another task to get out of the way, the "prepping period" helps get one in the necessary frame of mind.

Indeed, those who are capable of doing this during everyday davening have an immediate advantage over those who only work on kavanah during the High Holidays. It's like comparing two contestants in a race - one does jogging on a regular basis, the other went through a quick crash course a week, or even a month, prior to the race. Who do you think will have the easier time of it?

Indeed, we could all improve our yiddishkeit if we took more preparation for mitzvot more seriously. If we treated Erev Shabbat with more awe, if we realised that the pre-pesach period is time for more than just spring cleaning, if we understood that mental preparation is an integral part of doing mitzvot with the proper kavanah, we would all be the better for it.

Shanah Tovah to you all and Ketivah VeHatimah Tovah.

I Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself

A commenter on this blog asked whether anyone can rebut our good friend Norman Finkelstein's claims against Israel, which were based almost entirely on reports of various human rights NGOs. Well, here's one of the main reasons that Finkelstein's book should be considered, at most, a tendentious prosecutor's brief - that's how the NGOs work. This according to a an informed critique of Human Rights Watch (there is an even more scathing critique here). Money Quote:

More broadly than that, however, my primary problem with Human Rights Watch's reporting is its lawyerly tendency toward tendentiousness. I mean that Human Rights Watch's reports are not neutral, scrupulously acknowledging the evidence or law or legal views that run against its reporting and legal conclusions. On the contrary, it rather proudly offers what can only be called briefs - shaping the law and evidence towards whatever conclusions it has decided to offer. In occasional conversations I've had with its senior staff and lawyers over the years, they defend this practice on the grounds that it is a legal organization, writing conclusions based on law applied to facts.

In my view, it is, however, a tendentiousness and frankly noxious practice because this 'brief-writing' is aimed not a court, which will at least have the benefit of an opposing counsel's briefs, with a different point of view, but instead a credulous, not well educated, and alas not-so-bright media. The media tend already to share HRW's point of view, and hence tend to ask few questions - if they could even think of any - and mostly wind up quoting the press release. (I don't think anyone - except in the most extraordinary instances, such as the Lebanon war - ever reads the actual reports, least of all the press, and it became something of a joke in the organization, with senior executives pleading with staff not to write so many pages that simpl;y won't get read. I'm sure that during the years I worked with and for HRW, and wrote many reports from the field, no one ever read the actual texts.)

In my view, an organization genuinely scrupulous about its neutrality and objectivity would make a concerted point, in its reports and analyses, of noting the objections that might be raised to its views, on both factual issues as well as legal points of view. It should adopt, that is, a scholarly or historical point of view, rather than that of a lawyer presenting one side to a court. This is not to say that it should not adopt whatever conclusion it thinks is right - but that it should make a genuine point, always, of presenting what a knowledgeable opponent might reasonably say on the other side, rather than relying on the ignorance and credulity and pre-existing sympathy of its media audience to not ask it any hard questions.

Finkelstein, in his zealousness to libel Israel, fell into this trap.

QED (Quod Erat Demonstrandum), or in plain English, I rest my case.

Index Blues

Recently I finished preparing an index for a scholarly volume scheduled to come out in a few months. Along the way I ran into some difficulties with some of the references. In order to prevent this happening in the future, I have prepared some indexer's recommendations for article writers:

1. When referring to an article or book, please write the name of the author/editor in full - both the first and last name - no initials. This includes when you refer to your own work. Doing otherwise forces the indexer to spend a great deal of time playing 'guess the author', or hunting down your self-references.
2. Pick one form of notation or referencing and stick with it. For instance, if you're referring to a passuk, don't change mid-article from 7:13 to 7.13. If you're referring to the Israel State Archives, don't change (if you're writing in Hebrew) from AMI [Archiyon Medinat Yisra'el] to GM [Ginzach hamedinah]. Be consistent.
3. There is such a thing as overkill. There is no need to bring 10 different references or page numbers to make a simple point or mention an uncontested fact - 2 or 3 will do. These additional references only mean more (unnecessary) work for the indexer.

Remember, the faster the indexer's work is finished, the faster your work gets published.

Guess who's up for tenure?

Having learned that a good friend of ours is up for tenure at a "midwestern university", I thought I might write a quiz for those who would like to discover who he is (answer at bottom of post).

1. Who compares Jews and Israelis to Nazis at every given opportunity, to the point where it becomes simply tiresome?
2. Who's "academic record" consists mostly of footnoted op-eds and review essays in journals like the Journal of Palestine Studies?
3. Who attacks others for abusing the Holocaust, yet hides behind his status as a son of survivors?
4. Who has spent most of his free time and energy conducting personal character assassination of Israel supporters?
5. Who denies being an anti-semite, yet wholeheartedly embraces Israel Shahak, known crank and Jewish anti-semite?
6. Who wholeheartedly supports Hizbollah?
7. Who claims "historical concensus" by only mentioning people who agree with him?
8. Who complains that Jews try to hold a monopoly on human suffering, yet does not spend even a fraction of the time he dedicates to Israel-bashing to helping those suffering from genocide (i.e. Darfur)?
9. Who's "academic" works on Israel have received plaudits almost entirely from the looney-left end of the scholarly spectrum? Who is getting references from Noam Chomsky and Avi Shlaim?
10. Who is, contrary to common sense, being given the opportunity to get tenure at a university, when his actual contibutions (journal articles) to Political Science (he's not an historian) approach zero?

Answer: Norman G. Finkelstein

Historical Travesty

In her (justified) attack on the incompetence of Ehud Olmert during the current war (see My Obiter Dicta's latest posts), Dr. Judith Klinghoffer compares him to Levi Eshkol, Prime Minister of Israel from 1963 to 1969, including the Six-Day War. Here Klinghoffer relies on the popular, selective, memory, which remembers Eshkol as a stammering, hesitant, leader, the wrong person at the wrong time, only to be saved by the dashing Dayan who went on to win the war.

Like most popular recollections based on fear and innuendo, it is an inaccuracy filled with half-truths. Dayan certainly got all the glory for the victory, but he did not deserve all the credit. Even Rabin later admitted that Eshkol had been done a disservice by the character assassination done to him before, during and after the war, a tradition which Klinghoffer unfortunately continues.

Recent research has demonstrated that Eshkol was far wiser and more resilient than he is given credit for. I highly recommend reading Dr. Michael Oren's article on Eshkol (free reg' reqd.), which puts Eshkol's performance in its proper place. We can only hope that more such articles will help rehabilitate Eshkol's reputation based on historical facts rather than skewed popular images.

"Beirut Decimated" Myth

The constant reports of aerial bombing have created the myth that Israel is "carpet bombing" Beirut. This map proves otherwise - I strongly recommend checking out the other myth-busting parts of the linked blog as well. (Hat Tip: LGF)

How it all began

Prof. Yoav Gelber, one of Israel's most prominent historians, gives a very good summary of relations between the Zionist movement, and later the State of Israel, with Lebanon. The article goes all the way from the beginnings of contacts in the 1930s to the present day. Recommended.

Research Suggestions

(For previous suggestions, click here, here, here or here)

This post's subject: The Palestine Post and its successor, the Jerusalem Post

Strange as it may sound, the only English language newspaper in British Mandatory Palestine, and for many years the only such paper in the state of Israel, has not been the subject of academic study. This in spite of the fact that newspapers, both in Hebrew and Arabic, have been researched, both as subjects of study in their own right, as well as sources for the studying of historical periods. This fact is even more galling when one considers the fact that the Palestine Post has recently been digitized and made fully available online, free of charge and registration requirements. There is even a fascinating blog dedicated to showing snippets of history based on the selfsame digitization.

Though the possibilities are almost limitless, I will list here but a few of the possible research topics:

• What was the relationship between the paper and the Zionist movement. Did they receive funding from them, or have any special contacts with the Zionists?
• What was the relationship between the paper and the British, and later the Israeli authorities?
• Were there differences of outlook between editors?
• What was the political, and economic position of the paper throughout its existence?

  Good luck, and may the force be with you :). AIWAC

The Defense Rests? Haredim and Israeli Society

The new Azure is out, with plenty of goodies to choose from. This post will refer to an article that's sure to cause discussion - a full-fledged defense of Haredi norms and values in Israeli society.

First, the good news. The article is nothing if not thorough, critiquing the arguments of scholars from Jacob Katz and Menahem Friedman to Bernard Susser and Charles Liebman. All are criticized for interpreting the Haredi community solely through the lens of modernity, rather than looking for the deeper historical and theological roots at the base of the Haredi outlook. Rose surely has a point that Haredi society in Israel can not attribute its success solely to the support of the Israeli government, since similar communities are equally successful and prosperous abroad - in Holland and in the US, for instance. After so many years of academic Haredi criticism, it is nice to finally see such a well-articulated defense. Whether or not one agrees with it, and I certainly don't, it will certainly enrich the discussion about Haredim, breaking down many old stereotypes.

Now for the bad news. Though I don't pretend to be able to completely respond to the article (I'm sure there are many others who will do that), I thought I might point out but one of the problems in this spirited article. The main issue I have is that the author seems to view the world in black and white (no pun intended). There is Haredi, or religious Jewish society, and there is the secular modern world. A substantial section of Israeli society is actually in the middle, made up of "traditionalists"s, Modern Orthodox and so forth. Rose seems to think that the Modern Orthodox are simply pale copies of the "real thing" - Haredi society (reinforcing an already existing inferiority complex in MO society, where WE seem to think the same thing, sigh...). As opposed to the secular world, MO ideology just doesn't seem to be worth as much effort. There is also a sub-current of unintentional condescension towards the reader, who apparently just doesn't 'understand' the Haredi way. I hope that the author will modify this a bit in the future.

Anyway, like I said, the article is sure to cause discussion. I just hope someone will one day write "Modern Orthodox Judaism: A Defense" in a similiar vein - showing why we think WE'RE right, against both the Haredi and secular worldviews. Now THAT would be something to read.

The Arabs and the Holocaust

Much research has been done on the sufferings of North African Jewry under Vichy and Nazi rule. Just recently we have learned of an einzantzgruppe unit that was meant to wipe out the 500,000 strong Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine, after Rommel's expected victory.

What, however, of the response of the Arabs of North Africa, both the general populace and the religious and lay leadership to the persecution of the Jews? Robert Satloff is coming out with a book this October that promises to try and answer that question. It will be very interesting to see what he has to say.

Finkelstein Faces the Facts? Not a chance.

We have made mention before of Norman Finkelstein's false claim that there is a "scholarly consensus" that Israel "ethnically cleansed" the Palestinian-Arabs in 1948. Apparently he has now backtracked a little - claiming that "scholars widely agree" on this. This is still false, of course, but a far cry from his earlier strident statements.

Unfortunately, there is even more evidence that Finkelstein will always remain a rabble-rousing propagandist. One of the first rules of thumb for actual historians is that you must never accept sources uncritically. It is always important to view everything with a sceptical eye, lest you be duped into accepting fairy tales as fact. This is especially true with regard to the Arab-Israel conflict, where almost everything, from architecture to archaeology is politicized by at least one of the sides.

Finkelstein is apparently unaware of this fact. For instance, he seems to think that human-rights organizations are all apolitical and neutral sources, and can be consulted without checking other sources. This is, of course, baloney. Anyone who lives in Israel could tell you that B'Tselem is a highly politicized organization. Benny Morris recently charged (free reg' reqd) Human Rights Watch for using a one-sided (Palestinian) version of events in Jenin in 2002, and Gerald Steinberg has shown that they did the same with regard to IDF operations in Rafah in 2004. Obviously, this does not mean that reports from Human Rights NGOs are worthless, just that they need to be viewed critically.

Someone examining said reports needs to ask themselves questions such as - Did the organization get both sides of the story? Is their report based on facts and proper context? etc. Finkelstein, apparently, can not be bothered with this. His response on his site (NO, I will NOT link to him) to the Israeli findings that it was not responsible for the Gaza family incident is simply to post Human Rights Watch's response. Never mind that the "expert" testimony is problematic. For Finkelstein, the HRW report is correct simply because it is stated by them. No legitamite scholar (that I know of) would use such methods.

Though I have not read, and don't intend to read, Finkelstein's screed on alleged Israeli human rights violations, I can't help but wonder whether he uses the same type of ipse dixit ("because I say so") argumentation in that work as well. If this is indeed the case, then there really is no need to "refute" the book as one commentator has asked me to do. There is no reason to grant scholarly legitamacy to such sophistry.

Israel's Academic Moonbats

I wish I could say that the stories given in this article are an isolated phenomenon. I wish I could say that some in Israel's universities do not share the same nihilistic impulses as their European and American counterparts. If I did that, however, I would be lying.

An influential and very vocal minority in Israeli academia is openly anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian - NOT just "anti-occupation", but anti-"Israel as Jewish state". Perhaps the best explanation of the problem comes from an article analyzing a special issue of the flagship anti-Zionist journal, Theory and Criticism. Money Quote (Emphases are mine):

Post-modern academics cannot come to terms with the “existing order,” but they do not know how to change it without turning today’s “oppressed” into tomorrow’s “oppressors.” They do not know how to wage an effective fight against the evil, which, in their view, is inevitably rooted in political reality. Lacking the possibility of engaging in practical action, all they have left is negation for its own sake.

Despite the impression conveyed by some of its articles, Theory and Criticism is not the ephemeral publication of a fringe group. Unfortunately, it presents us with a reliable picture of a mode of thinking now accepted as the norm in important circles in Israel’s academia, especially in the humanities and social sciences. In light of this fact, it is impossible to avoid certain depressing conclusions about the role played by the academic elite in Israeli society.

Most Israelis expect that their institutes of higher learning will contribute to the advancement of the public discourse in Israel; that the tens of thousands of young people who enter the universities each year will benefit from their education by becoming better citizens, and learning to make intelligent political decisions within a democratic framework. Yet Israel’s campuses are gradually becoming hothouses for political anarchism, as the Israeli intelligentsia busily educates towards resentment of the Jewish state and the values that permit it to exist. Academic “post-Zionism” does not even play the important positive role that intellectual opposition sometimes does in a pluralistic society; it does not bother to advance realistic alternatives or formulate a creative, inspiring vision which offers a kernel of hope. In its cultivation of chronic and sterile resentment, bereft of both responsibility and imagination, the trend represented so powerfully by Theory and Criticism in the end offers nothing more than “theory” and “criticism.”

Tidbits - Annoyances

1. Norman Finkelstein is kinda like the Energizer bunny. He just keeps going and going - in the same direction. Recently at UC Irvine, he gave his stock speech on Israel's faults. Once again, he repeated the myth that "most historians" agree that Israel committed "ethnic cleansing" in 1948. Once again, he quoted Morris' interviews rather than his actual scholarly works. ...and going and going and going...
2. It is now the year 2006, and not one scholarly study has been written on the city of Jaffa during the Mandate. Arab Haifa has been studied, even Arab Safed. Yet people keep insisting on only analyzing Jaffa through "cultural visions" and "mutual perceptions" with Tel Aviv. What is so hard about studying the actual city, its people, its economy, its development? Is there no historical material? Is it just easier not to do the footwork? Please, someone explain this to me!

Justice - Real and Counterfeit

Maybe I'm paranoid, but when pro-Palestinians say they want "peace with justice" or a "just solution to the Palestinian Refugee Problem", I believe they mean the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state, either through outright dissolution or indirectly by allowing the "Right of Return". Since they can't say this outright, they use vague terms that mean one thing to one audience (Westerners) and another to Palestinians and their supporters. It seems to me, at least, that the justice is only for the Palestinians, not the Jews. This would also explain why "Nakba Day" is davka on the day of the establishment of the State. Thus the "injustice" is not just the Nakba but the very establishemnt of a Jewish state.

Luckily, there are still a few tzadikim in Sodom who will call a spade a spade - Prof. Amnon Rubinstein is one of them. In a well-written article he lays out the justice of the Jewish national cause. God Bless men like him.

Research Suggestions

(For previous suggestions see here, here and here)

This post's subject: David 'Mickey' Marcus

Those of us who saw Cast a Giant Shadow might be surprised to learn that no academic-level bio (based on archival documents) has been written on the first 'Aluf' (Major-General) in the IDF. Other than the popular book of the same name, written more than three decades ago, no-one else has tried their hand at studying the man and his times.

This is a shame, because many, if not most, of the documentary material for such a study is now available to researchers in the IDF and Israel state archives, as well as US archives. The controversial subject of the battle of Latrun in which Marcus was involved, has already been the subject of a number of studies. Many people who were acquainted with Marcus, such as Shlomo Shamir, and Yigal Allon, have had their chance to tell their side of the story. Marcus deserves no less.

Those of you with a knowledge of the period and a passion for biography are invited to take up the challenge of telling the story of Marcus' travails with the Haganah, Palmach and later the IDF. Many questions remain about Marcus await uncovering - Why is he barely mentioned in unit or official histories? Was his relationship with the Palmach really as rosy as Allon and Rabin later tried to claim? What was his contribution to the defense of Israel? What was his real relationship with David Ben-Gurion?

Good Luck and Happy Hunting! AIWAC

Walt and Mearsheimer in the Dock

Our good friends Walt and Mearsheimer have hit back in the London Review of Books, after a period of silence. As a public service for future fiskers, I will point out but some of the many flaws in their reasoning:

"At least two of the letters complain that we ‘catalogue Israel’s moral flaws’, while paying little attention to the shortcomings of other states. We focused on Israeli behaviour, not because we have any animus towards Israel, but because the United States gives it such high levels of material and diplomatic support. Our aim was to determine whether Israel merits this special treatment either because it is a unique strategic asset or because it behaves better than other countries do. We argued that neither argument is convincing: Israel’s strategic value has declined since the end of the Cold War and Israel does not behave significantly better than most other states." (emphases mine)

Benny Morris has already put paid to their one-sided study, which was mostly reliant on anti-Israel sources and quotes. People should immediately notice the logical flaw here - "we" focus on Israel's behaviour solely to see whether it was better than other states, then conclude that it doesn't, all without actually comparing Israel and other states in various categories (freedoms, laws etc.).

Dershowitz also claims that we quote David Ben-Gurion ‘out of context’ and thus misrepresented his views on the need to use force to build a Jewish state in all of Palestine. Dershowitz is wrong. As a number of Israeli historians have shown, Ben-Gurion made numerous statements about the need to use force (or the threat of overwhelming force) to create a Jewish state in all of Palestine. In October 1937, for example, he wrote to his son Amos that the future Jewish state would have an ‘outstanding army . . . so I am certain that we won’t be constrained from settling in the rest of the country, either by mutual agreement and understanding with our Arab neighbours, or by some other way’ (emphasis added). Furthermore, common sense says that there was no other way to achieve that goal, because the Palestinians were hardly likely to give up their homeland voluntarily. Ben-Gurion was a consummate strategist and he understood that it would be unwise for the Zionists to talk openly about the need for ‘brutal compulsion’. We quote a memorandum Ben-Gurion wrote prior to the Extraordinary Zionist Conference at the Biltmore Hotel in New York in May 1942. He wrote that ‘it is impossible to imagine general evacuation’ of the Arab population of Palestine ‘without compulsion, and brutal compulsion’. Dershowitz claims that Ben-Gurion’s subsequent statement – ‘we should in no way make it part of our programme’ – shows that he opposed the transfer of the Arab population and the ‘brutal compulsion’ it would entail. But Ben-Gurion was not rejecting this policy: he was simply noting that the Zionists should not openly proclaim it. Indeed, he said that they should not ‘discourage other people, British or American, who favour transfer from advocating this course, but we should in no way make it part of our programme’.

See Efraim Karsh and Joseph Heller for rebuttals to these charges. Check out Benny Morris also.

We provided a fully documented version of the paper so that readers could see for themselves that we used reputable sources.

I would hardly call The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, MERIP, Simha Flapan, Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein 'reputable sources'. The paper also relies excessively on journalistic material rather than academic (i.e. primary-source based) studies for many of its charges.

On a related point, Michael Szanto contrasts the US-Israeli relationship with the American military commitments to Western Europe, Japan and South Korea, to show that the United States has given substantial support to other states besides Israel (6 April). He does not mention, however, that these other relationships did not depend on strong domestic lobbies. The reason is simple: these countries did not need a lobby because close ties with each of them were in America’s strategic interest. By contrast, as Israel has become a strategic burden for the US, its American backers have had to work even harder to preserve the ‘special relationship’.

Perhaps it has occured to Messrs. Walt and Mearsheimer that there are competing interests in the Middle East (as opposed to the above-mentioned cuntries where ther are no challenges to strategic interest), hence the need for a lobby for one of the sides? NOOO, it must be that we're a strategic burden....

Although we are not surprised by the hostility directed at us, we are still disappointed that more attention has not been paid to the substance of the piece.

Oh, plenty of attention has been directed at it, you just chose to ignore it.

Ladies and Gentelman, this is the level to which scholarship has sunk. You can swallow libels wholesale, invent consensuses where none exist, rely heavily on newspaper sources and non-academic diatribes, and contradict yourself repeatedly. All that is asked is that you attack Israel, and all will be forgiven. Propaganda may thus be paraded as scholarship, as long as it's for the right cause. It's official, the institution of the university has been destroyed, not by outside forces, but by its own hand. Pathetic.

Checkmate

Benny Morris wipes the floor with the "Israel Lobby" in the New Republic (free reg. required), exposing their errors, as well as their misrepresentation of his work. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

The Company He Keeps

Our resident Middle East "expert" Norman Finkelstein continues to dig himself into a hole, this time by openly associating with a cartoonist (well, the cartoonist gave him a good portrayal, after all) who has rather strange political tendencies (I would think that supporting Osama Bin-Laden was beyond the pale...), and whose comparisons, well... (Hat Tip: Whacking Day)

An Hypothesis on the "Israel Lobby" Coverage

A writer for salon.com recently pulled an Alterman in mentioning only op-ed attacks on the "Israel Lobby" and not the ever-increasing amount of scholarly rebuttals, with the exception of Alan Dershowitz's much-publicized rebuttal.

I'm starting to sense a pattern here. The cynic in me says that, of course, "Israel critics" will only mention emotional attacks and ignore more temperate ones in order to set up a straw man of "hysterical ranting" on the part of Israel defenders. Still, I'm starting to think that there's a more prosaic reason for this behavior.

Put simply, the MSM only pays attention to itself. Only op-eds or newspaper articles, where there is very little space to conduct academic argument, are mentioned, as are "celebrities" such as Alan Dershowitz or "anti-celebrities" such as Norman Finkelstein. Rebuttals posted on non-MSM websites such as Jewish institutions or on (not necesarilly Jewish) blogs, are simply ignored - they don't count.

The fact that the author of the above-mentioned article makes no mention whatsoever of Martin Kramer's site, which has been covering the issue from day 1 and has provided at least two witty and informed rebuttals, says something about the self-contained nature of the MSM. It reminds me of similiar tendencies at academic conferences, where scholars repeat each other and refuse to actually step into the world, outside their little bubble.

Some thoughts on the "Israel Lobby"

1. We have already made mention of Norman Finkelstein's artificial 'scholarly consensus' on 1948, created by only mentioning the scholars who support his view and ignoring those who disagree with him. Lately, Eric Alterman has recently pulled the same shtick, mentioning only the virulent op-ed attacks on the "Israel Lobby", and ignoring the many scholarly rebuttals that make mincemeat of the paper's "scholarly" pretentions. One wonders why folks do stuff like this...
2. The most well-remembered self-defense of antisemites is that "some of my best friends are Jews". Now this has been replaced by anti-Zionists with "BUT we support the right of Israel to exist". To demonstrate the absurdity of this statement I have made a song, modeled on Dayennu (If you're interested, you could use this as a party game where you match lines with various anti-Zionists. I have added some of my own matches):

   We compare only Jews/Israelis to Nazis on the slightest pretext, BUT we support the right of Israel to exist. (Finkelstein)

   We deny both Zionism and the state of Israel any moral validity, BUT we support the right of Israel to exist. (Finkelstein)

   We swallow wholesale every libel ever made against the Jewish state uncritically, BUT we support the right of Israel to exist. (Walt+ Mearsheimer)

   We support, excuse or 'understand' all attacks against the country and its citizens, BUT we support the right of Israel to exist.

   We deny that the Jews have the right to self-determination as a nation, or that they even are a nation, BUT we support the right of Israel to exist.

   We believe against all contrary evidence that Israel is the sole, or one of the main causes of danger to world peace, BUT we support the right of Israel to exist.

   We support the Right of Return for Palestinian Refugees, which would demographically overwhelm the state and eliminate its raison d'etre, BUT we support the right of Israel to exist. (This is especially egregious) (Again Finkelstein...fill in others here)

   I'm sure I could add others, but I don't have the energy for it now.

Of Note - Fringe Lunatics and Actual Scholars

• Norman Finkelstein, Israel Shahak fan, goes off the deep end, yet again.
• Ali Abunimah joins the 'One-state' (No-Israel) crowd. Big surprise.

In other news,

• Michael Oren's book on America and the Middle East is slated for January of next year.
• Dr. Tamir Goren, whose expertise is Haifa in the Modern Period (and who teaches at Bar-Ilan) has recently come out with a book on Arab Haifa during the War of Independence (in Hebrew - see link to invitation to conference on the book). Recommended.

Agree or Disagree?

Today, instead of posting my own thoughts, I will present to you an interesting argument made in the recent issue of Azure. Readers are invited to discuss it in the Comments box. Emphases are mine.

Honest liberals know that they are not pluralists. They know that the liberal worldview does not recognize the validity of other worldviews, and that it aspires–using all the economic, media, and military means at its disposal–to make itself dominant. Liberalism is not tolerance, liberalism is not pluralism, and admitting this is not a mark against it; it is simply to recognize the difference between the perception of a liberal agenda as the just, indispensable agenda, and “let a thousand flowers bloom.”

But not all liberals are willing to admit this. The greatest teacher of those liberals who are convinced that they are pluralists was Isaiah Berlin. Berlin’s thought, more than any other liberal doctrine formulated in the twentieth century, reveals a conceptual confusion between pluralism and liberalism. At the end of the twentieth century, this confusion did not appear to be critical or potentially dangerous. In the 1990s, with the fall of the Eastern Bloc, with the euphoric rise of capital markets, and with the fashionable post-modernist discourse that flourished in academia, the West celebrated what seemed to be its final victory. For ten years it had no enemies, and when you have no enemies, it is possible to babble on about pluralism, denigrate the “oppressive” culture of the West, and demand that the “voice of the other should also be heard.” The multicultural discourse that flourished at the time did not stand up to scrutiny, because the “other” did not speak. On September 11, 2001, four years after the death of Berlin, we heard the clear voice of the “other.”

Since Osama Bin Laden made his voice heard, every liberal has had to figure out for himself if he really is a pluralist, as he imagined himself to be. This is no longer an academic or theoretical issue. To counter the clear voices of the enemies of the West, the West must speak out clearly, or else it will be defeated. This year, Europe has incurred Muslim riots in France and Muslim unrest in England and Germany; it has enabled the “others” to build mosques in its capitals that nurture hatred of the West. The repercussions of this foolishness in the name of pluralism were foreseeable but are still being denied. French intellectuals were quick to interpret–and justify–the riots in Paris by portraying them as acts of protest by the poor and the downtrodden. They presented the issue as a social struggle, and in so doing exempted themselves from the question of pluralism. When the Muslim “other” is portrayed as oppressed, his true and declared identity as a jihadist soldier is denied, and so the test facing multicultural pluralism in our time is rejected. Understanding Berlin’s philosophical doctrine, therefore, has become a pressing matter for our time.

That Does It!

"I wish to register a complaint!" - First line in the immortal Monty Python Dead Parrot Sketch

Today, I attended an all-day conference. As usual, most of it was torture. This time, however, my wrath will be directed not at the lecturers, but at the audience. Look, I hate conferences just as much as the next human being. I don't object to people sleeping, reading a book (I tried both today) or doing something to pass the time that doesn't disturb others. Unfortunately, audience members repeatedly disturbed the rest of us by either talking or, more often, by forgetting to shut off their cellphones, which went off at pretty regular intervals during sessions.

I can't be clear enough here - such conduct is disgusting and irresponsible, even if unintentional (in the case of the cellphones). It bothers the audience and the lecturer, and it sends a clear message to the lecturer that said disturber doesn't care to disrupt his presentation.

Put yourself in the position of the lecturer for a minute. S/he worked hard to prepare for an important conference. S/he probably knows that some of the audience will not pay attention, but at least will be respectful and not interfere. Then some jerk(s) start talking loudly, or some phone goes off with a bad rendition of classical music. If you do this often - imagine yourself at the podium and understand why this is so repulsive.

So, please, when you're in a conference, KEEP QUIET AND TURN OFF THE G-D DAMN PHONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Read it and Weep (Religious Zionism)

The results are in, and the Right was clobbered. Now would be a good time for the "not one inch" and "orange rising" crowd to read the following article on said crowds' delusions. It's do or die now, ladies and gentlemen.

Students, Teachers and E-mails

Prof. Lehman-Wilzig's weekly post (in Hebrew) discusses a relatively new problem for lecturers - the ability of students to send e-mails rather than only meet them at the office or call them up at home. On the one hand, this makes it much easier for students to communicate with their teachers and ask questions (even send papers in some cases!). On the other hand, students often send e-mails on relatively trivial matters since it's so easy to send them. They also can forget, due to the distance involved, that the lecturer is not their equal or friend and that their authority needs to be respected.

Personally I have had quite a bit of e-correspondence with teachers, both within my university and without. My experience with this has been somewhat mixed. For instance, the response time of a teacher varies from a few days to a few weeks to never. Also, their policy with regard to sending papers via the net is different - some do and some don't allow this. The biggest variable is our relationship afterward - most correspondence is business-like discussion of courses, and in one case I still maintain a correspondence on various matters. At the other extreme, I made the bad mistake of becoming too flippant with a teacher of mine on a number of occasions, and due to this and other matters, we are no longer on speaking terms.

I would like to make the following suggestions to both students and teachers when writing e-mails. Students first:

1. Don't ask questions unless they are very important and can't wait until the next class.
2. Your professor is not your bosom buddy. He/She deserves appropriate respect even if he/she appears to be overly friendly.
3. Consolidate requests into one e-mail rather than spreading them out over several e-mails. It makes things easier.

Now for the teachers:

1. At the beginning of the course, you should state your "e-mail policy". This should include: type of questions and their frequency, the length of time it will take for you to respond (if you intend to), whether students can send papers via e-mail etc.
2. Corollary: Since students rarely get it the first time, and since many don't show up, repeat the "e-mail policy" statement throughout the course.
3. Give students the benefit of the doubt if they don't show the proper deference the first time around (If you hold by such things).

I hope this will help. AIWAC

The Full Monty

Much discussion has been caused by a recent article in the London Review of Books (available here with footnotes, batteries not included), which attacks the evil Israel Lobby, and regurgitates virtually every anti-Israel canard currently on the market, accepting them hook, line and sinker. This article is the most extensive and thorough piece of anti-Israel propaganda now available online, one so full of BS that it would take a week with a full team of experts to completely rebut it. On the other hand, the article also presents an opportunity. Its very thoroughness presents Israel's defenders with a chance to come face to face with the entire laundry-list of charges and rip them to shreds.

Where would one start though? How's about the regurgitated libel that Israel massacred hundreds of Egyptian POW's in '67. This charge was originally brought by James Bamford who allegged that Israel bombed the USS Liberty to cover up the crime. It was rebutted years ago by Dr. Michael Oren in the New Republic, who showed that Bamford's "evidence" was no such thing. The authors merely bring Bamford's evidence, blissfully unaware of the rebuttal.

What about the contention that the only argument regarding the Palestinian Refugee Problem is not whether it what ethnic cleansing - they claim it was - but rather, it is whether it was born by war or design? This statement is a repetition of our good friend Norman Finkelstein's claim that there is a consensus that the Paslestinian Refugee Problem was caused by Israel 'ethnically cleansing' them. [He claims to rely on 'leading scholars' such as Morris, Kimmerling and Pappe. Kimmerling is a sociologist, not an historian, and is known for his anti-Israel views. Pappe is about as objective and reliable as, well, Norman Finkelstein. Pappe is hardly a 'leading scholar' nowadays. Not only has his reputation been tarnished over the Tantura affair, his 'History of Modern Palestine' was destroyed for stupid and elementary factual errors. Even scholars sympathetic to his viewpoint such as Stephen Howe and Charles Smith, had to point out such blunders as the claim that Deir Yassin is near Haifa (it's near Jerusalem).]

The only 'concensus' exists in the fertile minds of Finkelstein, Walt & Co. Many prominent historians of the relevant period - Joseph Heller, Yoav Gelber, Anita Shapira, Mordechai Bar-On, Efraim Karsh and others have disputed many of Morris' arguments, especially when it comes to his belief that 'transfer' was a central part of Zionist thinking during 1937-1948. Prof. Alon Kadish and Prof. Avraham Sela (Hebrew University) recently disputed Morris' claim of a massacre and premeditated expulsion in Lydda in the Middle East Journal. Of course, since most of this debate takes place in Hebrew-Language and 'Zionist' journals such as Zion and Cathedra, or by evil 'Zionists', we can forgive these 'Israel Experts' from failing to actually read what non-fringe historians say. BTW, I actually read Morris' revised book, not just his much-publicized interviews, and nowhere did I find a statement that an 'ethnic cleansing' had taken place.

I hope this helps contribute to the thorough demolition of these libels. Readers are invited to add more in the Comments Box or in other forums.

The Israel Shahak Fan Club Redux

We have had opportunity on this blog to make mention of one Israel Shahak, Jewish anti-semite, and his band of followers from the looney left. Now it turns out that the distinguished Middle East Policy Council openly endorses Shahak's views on Zionism and Israel, apparently unaware of the man's openly hateful and distorted views of Judaism.

Those who read this blog are invited to write this organization and protest this inadvertant support for a hate-mongerer.

An Attempt at a Fisking of an Anti-Zionist

A recent self-righteous and rather childish rant in favor of "debating Zionism" has prompted me to make my first attempt at a fisking. Here goes:

The debate over Zionism going on in Jewish communities is as old as Zionism itself. It did not end after the Holocaust, and it did not end conclusively with the founding of the State of Israel.

So far as I know, it was settled, and the majority of Jews accepted the existence of Israel. The mere existence of a debate does not mean that both sides are equally legitamate, accepted or relevant. There are still people who argue in favor of the South's right to secede in the Civil War. The fact that there were still a few insignificant minority voices such as the ACJ is irrelevant. Moreover, I would like to see some evidence for this sweeping statement.

The champions of Zionism among Jews seem to have become a majority only after the 1967 war, but even then there was a significant minority of non-Zionists in any Jewish society.

Surely someone who participated in a debate knows that one needs to present evidence for their claims. Rather than do so, Baram simply claims that "it seems" this was the case. As such, there's nothing to refute.

However, it seems that the more powerful the Zionism trend has become among Jews, the more hysterical its supporters have turned. They engage in constant stable-cleaning, sniffing for dissidents behind every curtain, finding non-Zionists under each cupboard.

Once again, "it seems" that this is the case, and there's no need for evidence. If Baram had done any historical research at all, she would have known that arguments between Zionists and anti-Zionists were no less heated prior to 1967 (and the anti-Zionists gave as good as they got). One need only read Rory Miller's study on Jewish anti-Zionists in Britain during 1945-48, and the Zionists' fight aginst them, to know this. As they say, a little learning...

...Reading the responses of Emanuele Ottolenghi ("Jews against Israel," February 22) and Melanie Phillips (in her infamous blog) to the recent debate over Zionism held in Cambridge in which Brian Klug, Richard Kuper and myself argued for alternatives to Zionism, one would think that Israel was not a nuclear regional superpower possessing the fourth most powerful army in the world, but a shaky sanctuary where Jews are annihilated by the thousands every day.

Let's see, on the one hand "we" argue against the very raison d'etre of the State, and then we wonder why our opponents are jumpy (I wonder if they would feel the same way if people who debated "alternatives" to Palestinian nationalism countered that "one would think that the Palestinians aren't the darlings of the international community, and coddled at every turn"). Then we throw in an utterly irrelevant remark about the strength of the country's military, as if that has anything to do with the diplomatic attempts to dismantle it. Surely Baram knows the difference between apples and oranges.

BUT ARE WE really not strong enough to have such a debate? Abraham Leon's book arguing against Zionism was smuggled out of Auschwitz; Algerian dissident Abraham Sarfati held on to his non-Zionist criticism even after years of imprisonment in Algiers for his opposition to the local regime. Zionism is not an obvious response to suffering or to persecution. If those people, true Jewish heroes, kept on debating the subject while exposed to the most horrible perils, so, surely, can we.

Once again, so you get the point, the existence of a debate does not make it ipso facto legitamite. One must prove such a point. Appeals to authority (so and so debated Zionism) do not convince. The second point is even more laughable. Zionism was an obvious response to persecution - it remains an historic fact that many Jews became Zionists because of it, even prior to the Holocaust. Hovevei Zion was a reaction to persecution. Once again, however, this would require knowing history.

...One can only wonder what really poses a danger to fellow Jews - Brian Klug's suggestion that Jewish existence not center around Israel (he never said "There's no place in this world for nationalism")? Richard Kuper's revulsion over Israel's behavior in the West Bank? My own claim that Israel should belong to all its citizens? Or maybe, as one dead prime minister might tell us, were he able, it is those who wildly incite against anybody who dares divert from the party line.

Wow. Baram really pulls out all the stops on this one. First there's the support for nationalism for everyone except Jews. Then there's the "revulsion" over the West Bank, which does not have a bearing on the argument itself, which is about Zionism in general. We also get the obligatory support for a "state of all its citizens" without any explanation as to what that means. The icing on the cake is of course the not-so subtle "Rabin-murderer" smear that still has not gotten old.

FYI, Ms. Baram, Rabin, for all his faults, was a convinced Zionist to the end of his days, and he must now be rolling in his grave seeing you abuse his murder to render yourself immune to criticism so you can smear the country. It's very sad that this is the current level of intelligent debate at Cambridge...

Karsh VS. Pappe

Efraim Karsh demolishes Ilan Pappe's new book, while (justifiably, IMHO) blasting Cambridge University Press for having published such a poor work. Read the whole thing.

PS Check out Benny Morris' demolition as well. AIWAC

East VS. West

Once again, Ben-Dror Yemini hits the nail on the head with a no-holds-barred op-ed on the cartoon riots. Put simply: Edwards Said and his acolytes have prevented any and all criticism of the Middle East, and that region is still stuck in self-denial, believing, as always, that nothing is their fault. Recommended.

Back to Israel = South Africa

The Guardian (where else?) has now come out with a long article on why Israel is equivalent to Apartheid South Africa. (Hat Tip: Augean Stables)

Six years ago, I would have been shocked to hear of this sort of thing. Nowadays, such items are about as routine as reports of traffic accidents. This is a very sad testament both to the amount of anti-Israel propoganda that has been disseminated and its acceptance as legitamite within too many "enlightened" circles. This is not good at all. AIWAC

Israel Shahak's Heir

Steven Plaut has the goods on Yigal Elam, a man with a self-loathing so severe that he makes Norman Finkelstein look relatively tame. No words exist in any language that can describe my utter contempt and disgust at people such as Elam. To say that people like him are like something from under a rock is an insult to reptiles and insects everywhere.

Zionist Historians and Zionist History

The phenomenon of the "New Historians" has pretty much played itself out (for Israel's first decade, that is, they're just getting started on the next). Everything that could have been said has been said, and it is unlikely that either side will be swayed one way or the other at this point. However, even if the arguments have been done to death, the question of how to rewrite Israel's history, especially for the high school cirriculum, in such a way that it incorporates new revelations on the one hand, and maitains a pro-Zionist (or at least not anti-Zionist) outlook on the other, is a challenge that requires immediate attention. We are, first and foremost, a people rooted in history and common identity. If we can not answer the mal'izim in a way that will convince the uninitiated that Zionism and Israel is just, even if it does make bad mistakes, then the whole structure is in danger of collapse.

Consider, for instance, a scathing critique of Efraim Herzog's book, recently republished, on the Arab-Israel wars in Ha'Aretz (where else?) by a left-wing Zionist historian, Professor Yehiam Weitz. Weitz decries the outdated nature of the text and its ignorance of recent research that shows Israel in a somewhat more negative light (whether the research is ipso facto correct just because of its recentness is another matter...). Indeed, the recent attempts to come out with albums and books simplisticly reaffirming old values seem to yours truly to be an act of desperation to stem an ever-flowing tide towards anti-Zionism as well as a radical critique of everything we hold dear.

Nevertheless, Weitz's complaint can serve no purpose if it is not matched by an equally determined effort on the part of those historians and scholars not bitten by the anti-everything bug to produce a history that is capable of swallowing the grains of truth in anti-Zionist claims and putting them in context, and spitting out the rest. To do nothing but complain about those who make a genuine, if insufficient effort to reaffirm our core values is to prefer cursing the darkness to lighting a candle. It will achieve nothing.

To write a "new Zionist" history that deals with the good and the bad is by no means impossible. Prof. Yoav Gelber and Prof. Joseph Heller, to name just two scholars, have both come out with studies on controversial topics that deal with, and dispose of, revisionist claims. This effort must now increase tenfold - the "critical scholars" have a lead in terms of the sheer amount of revisionist and critical works published under various auspices. Time is of the essence.