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...