| Public diplomacy ABCs. The new Hoover Institution book A Practical Guide to Winning the War on Terrorism is available in its entirety on the web. Here is the table of contents (if their server is up), and here is my article: “Déjà Vu: The ABCs of Public Diplomacy in the Middle East.” It’s a long view of the lessons of influencing Muslim public opinion, from Napoleon through the world wars and the Cold War, up to the present day. I conclude with some explicit dos and don’ts. I seek to enlighten, influence, and, in some parts, amuse. Tue, Aug 31 2004 7:05 am |
| Cole for president! It’s official: Juan Cole.com, professor, blogger, (left-wing) media darling, major academic theorist (specialization: conspiracies), and a growing presence on my website, is one of two candidates for president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA). He’s running against Fred Donner, University of Chicago specialist in medieval Islamic history, who’s equally big on conspiracies. (But he’s not a dot.com, which gives Cole a tremendous advantage.) This is almost too rich. MESA members! You can vote now, but the deadline isn’t until the end of October, so I urge you to hold off. Wait until you’ve heard and read more—and there will be more. (Candidates’ bios at the main link.) Mon, Aug 30 2004 10:31 am |
| To protect Israel? In October 2002, James Bennet of the New York Times wrote a story on Israeli views of a possible Iraq war. “Even as Mr. Bush has sought in recent days to play up the imminence and potency of the Iraqi threat, some of Israel’s top security officials have played both down.” Days later, Barbara Demick filed a similar story for the LA Times. “Several high-ranking Israeli military officers have voiced doubts about American and British assessments of the threat posed by Iraq and in particular how quickly Iraq could develop nuclear weapons,” she wrote. “Israeli military specialists have been debating for several years whether Iraq or Iran poses more of a threat. Most specialists believe it is Iran.” Sharon gave an order to official Israel to pipe down, and not undercut the president. Worth remembering. Mon, Aug 30 2004 6:15 am |
| Gandhi in Ramallah. With Gandhi’s grandson, Dr. Arun Gandhi, urging the Palestinians to adopt nonviolence, I recall the brilliant 1983 essay on Gandhi by the late Richard Grenier. “Both Indian leaders and the Indian people ignored Gandhi’s precepts,” he wrote. “They ignored him on sexual abstinence. They ignored his modifications of the caste system. They ignored him on the evils of modern industry, the radio, the telephone…. They ignored him, above all, in ahimsa, nonviolence. There was always a small number of exalted satyagrahi who, martyrs, would march into the constables’ truncheons, but what alarmed the British were the explosions of violence that accompanied all this alleged nonviolence.” Lesson: do violence, talk nonviolence. Well, the Palestinians don’t need a Gandhi to teach them that. Sun, Aug 29 2004 5:37 pm |
| All but Jewish. The upside of the Pentagon-Israel “espionage” media-fest is how it serves as bait for conspiracy theorists, crackpots on left and right, and closet antisemites. The case of the purported Israeli mole in the Pentagon is likely to join the cases of the purported Israeli interrogator at Abu Ghraib and the purported Israeli operatives in Iraqi Kurdistan. But on the way, a few more people will show their colors, and that’s always useful. Read Juan Cole for starters. He’s sounding more like Bobby Fischer each day. One example: “[Alleged mole Larry] Franklin has a strong Brooklyn accent and says he is ‘from the projects.’ I was told by someone at the Pentagon that he is not Jewish, despite his strong association with the predominantly Jewish neoconservatives.” They only admit their own kind, but Franklin can pass. Sun, Aug 29 2004 2:51 pm |
| NPR’d again. My forebodings about the “Middle East and the West” series at National Public Radio have been borne out, now that I’ve heard parts 3 thru 6. (See earlier posting on the first three parts.) It’s the narrative of Arab nationalism as retold by Rashid Khalidi, Zach Lockman, and Roger Owen, who pop up repeatedly, and who blame America ad nauseum. The United States should have sided with revolutionary nationalism, and it would have prospered. No mention that the Soviets did just that and failed miserably. No mention of the greatest U.S. success: turning Egypt. And no alternative views—just the gauntlet of MESAns. Lazy work from NPR’s Mike Shuster, who’s done a job reminiscent of Pacifica, where he started. (Listen at main link.) Fri, Aug 27 2004 2:05 pm |
| Stumped. I’d like to add a feature to this website, and need someone who knows how to make small adjustments in two existing .xsl and .css files. If that’s you, and if you can donate a bit of time, please send me an email from here (scroll down), or leave your email as a comment to this posting. Fri, Aug 27 2004 5:40 am |
| Dial 911-COLE. Juan Cole.com is puffed in a Detroit paper. His beginnings: “Because I was familiar with the terrain from which al Qaeda developed, people would ask [me] questions…. My answers were thought well of by my colleagues.” No doubt. So spoke Cole, two weeks after 9/11: “I’ve spent 30 years now studying Islam and this scenario does not sound to me like Islamic fundamentalism. I mean maybe it sounds a little bit like the Applegate people (a group in California who believed they were ascending UFOs for outer space) but it doesn’t sound to me like it has anything to do with Islam.” A year later, he still described Al-Qaeda as “an odd assortment of crackpots, petty thieves, obsessed graduate students, would-be mercenaries, and eccentric millionnaires.” Familiar terrain indeed. Thu, Aug 26 2004 7:01 am |
| Feeding time. I’ve done some upgrading of the news feeds (at link, scroll down). The wire service feeds have been consolidated. Under “Mideast” you’ll find several new entries. And for audiophiles, look under “Mideast” and “Iraq” for audio feeds from National Public Radio. (NPR doesn’t advertise these feeds yet, so they must be new.) One criterion for inclusion is that a feed be devoted entirely to the Middle East or part thereof—no general world news feeds. And I run the short summaries—often it’s enough to skim them to get the picture. This just may be the most comprehensive selection of Mideast-related news feeds (49 of ’em) on any single web page. Bookmark today. Thu, Aug 26 2004 4:51 am |
| Tariq’s dad. I’ll let others comment on the State Department’s decision to pull Tariq Ramadan’s U.S. visa. Fifty-one years ago, the U.S. embassy in Cairo pushed to admit his dad, Said Ramadan. Said was the son-in-law of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1953, he was in Egypt (he fled the next year, ultimately to Geneva, where Tariq was born). A “Colloquium on Islamic Culture” was to meet at Princeton, and a Muslim Brother invitee asked the U.S. embassy if Said could attend too. After the colloquium, they planned to “visit Muslim leaders and university faculty members” across America. Amb. Jefferson Caffery urged that the request “be considered carefully in light of the possible effects of offending” the Brotherhood. His dispatch is here. Did Said Ramadan get a visa? The answer may be in Princeton’s archives. Wed, Aug 25 2004 3:40 am |
| Pakistani honors. John Esposito’s medal (see right below) will look a lot like this, but not exactly, because he is getting the Hilal (crescent), and this is just the Sitara (star), which is lower. And here, if you are interested, is this year’s full honors list. One honor stands out: Mr. Ghouse Akbar is getting a Sitara-i-Imtiaz, for being Pakistan’s “highest taxpayer.” He’s the Pakistani franchisee for McDonald’s. No doubt it’s a great honor (though maybe he should get another accountant). But McDonald’s is at least as important to mutual understanding as the work of Professor Esposito (remember Tom Friedman’s theory, “no two countries that both have a McDonald’s have ever fought a war since they each got their McDonald’s”). So why not bump Mr. Akbar up to one of the Hilals? Tue, Aug 24 2004 4:41 pm |
| Hilal to Esposito. Congrats to Professor John L. Esposito, an occasional object of scrutiny on this site. The Pakistani government has awarded him the Hilal-i-Quaid-i-Azam award. This is Pakistan’s highest civil award, named after Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the country’s founder and first president. (Another recipient this year: Sen. John Warner.) Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf will confer the honor on Esposito in a March ceremony. The medal “comprises nine white enameled rays, each ray being divided into three parts. The nine white enameled rays are divided by narrow green enameled panels. Superimposed in the center is the effigy of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. This in turn is surrounded by a black enameled ring with the name of the order.” Tue, Aug 24 2004 7:05 am |
| Almog summarized. Far-left columnist Akiva Eldar, writing in Haaretz, has summarized Maj. Gen. Doron Almog’s article on Egypt and Gaza, which I ran in the summer Middle East Quarterly. This is vintage Eldar: a factual summary, prefaced by smart-aleck comments that position himself and his subject. (In this case, the preface bashes Daniel Pipes, the journal’s publisher.) Never mind: thanks to Eldar, Israeli policymakers will read Almog—as well they should. Tue, Aug 24 2004 5:00 am |
| Sunnis=Protestants? Professor Juan Cole.com misleads his readers with a long-discredited analogy. “Sunni Islam most resembles, it seems to me, Protestant Christianity in its authority structures.” It’s an archaic comparison, laid to rest (I had thought) by Bernard Lewis: “Some, in trying to explain the difference between Sunnis and Shi’a to Western audiences, have described them as the equivalents of Protestants and Catholics…. The absurdity of the comparison is shown by a very simple test. If the Shi’a and Sunnis are Protestants and Catholics, then which are the Protestants and which are the Catholics? The impossibility of answering this question will at once demonstrate the falsity of the comparison.” Serious scholars should discourage misleading analogies, not promote them. Mon, Aug 23 2004 8:57 am |
| Arab decline. Hashem Saleh is a Syrian thinker living in Paris. A couple of weeks ago, he published this article (in Arabic) in the London-based daily Al-Sharq al-awsat, pondering the reasons for the stagnation of the Arab-Muslim world. The author opens with a quote from me, taken from this article I wrote on the same theme a few years ago. (He introduces me with a high compliment.) Saleh denounces the Islamist quest for solutions in an idealized past. It’s an interesting discussion, but it’s depressing to think that just these kinds of articles were being written a century ago. Update: The Blogger Across the Bay follows up on this posting. Mon, Aug 23 2004 4:39 am |
| Comments. Since I began to fill the Sandbox back in February, people have written to suggest that I implement the comments feature here. (It is implemented at Sandstorm.) So I have done so effective today, and retroactively to Thursday. Try it out. Sun, Aug 22 2004 6:05 pm |
| Wrong lesson? In June, I pointed to the upcoming article by Francis Fukuyama in The National Interest. Today it’s the subject of a piece in the New York Times, under the title “War Heats Up in the Neoconservative Fold.” I’ve never been a believer in democracy promotion in the Arab world (to the chagrin of friends, when I argued against it in fall 2002). So I’m glad Fukuyama has come around. And I agree with him: the Arabs aren’t dangerous enough to warrant the full-court-press for democracy applied to Germany and Japan. But I don’t like his notion of building a policy on carrots and consensus. Cut back on the nation-building, but why give up the quick, unilateral interventions? The U.S. does them well, it has the tools, and it gets results. Sun, Aug 22 2004 3:31 pm |
| Noble illusion. Norman Podhoretz defends the democracy vision for the Middle East: “We backers of the Bush Doctrine wondered… why the political configuration of the Middle East should be eternally immune from the democratizing forces that had been sweeping the rest of the world…. Why not the Islamic world? The realist answer was that things were different there. To which our answer was that things were different everywhere.” The Middle East can’t be an exception: that’s the article of faith of the neo-conservatives and the professors of Middle Eastern studies. It derives from the same missionary idealism that has always infected the American approach to the Middle East. It’s America’s noble illusion, and it’s fading fast—until next time. Sun, Aug 22 2004 2:43 pm |
| Anachronism. I’ve listened to the first three parts of the NPR series on the Middle East and the West. Yes, there is a slant: the emphases and terminology have a whiff of Arab nationalism about them. Parts 1 thru 3 take the story from the Crusades to World War I, i.e. before the emergence of an Arab national identity. Yet the narrator makes anachronistic use of the term “Arabs” to describe the armies of Saladin, the inhabitants of Egypt, and many others who never would have thought of themselves as Arabs. This is typical nationalist backward projection, and its effect is to downplay the strong Muslim self-identification on which state and society rested. Given the array of historians interviewed for this project, it’s a stunning error. Or perhaps it’s quite intentional, which would be worse. Fri, Aug 20 2004 5:48 pm |
| NPR’s version. National Public Radio is in the midst of a six-part series on the Middle East and the West. Listen to the audio at this site. Fri, Aug 20 2004 11:31 am |
| Over-cooked. Here’s a fresh report on the December 2003 convention of the Modern Language Association. Prof. miriam cooke (see right below) spoke on “Contesting Campus Watch” and its list of offending academics. “It’s a true badge of distinction, she says dryly, to find oneself on that list, and most of the audience members nod vigorously and grin. One woman raises her hand and asks how one might get on the list; she seems to want an email address or a convenient sign-up sheet. ‘Do something outrageous, it isn’t very hard,’ replies Cooke.” Odd… Campus Watch had dropped its list over a year earlier, in September 2002. Yet cooke has delivered her lecture two more times in the past seven months, at her own university. MLA, Duke… how cozy. If cooke means it, she should publish. Fri, Aug 20 2004 5:29 am |
| case dismissed. in academe, truth can be stranger than david lodge’s fiction. for example, miriam cooke, professor of arabic literature and culture at duke university, spells her entire name in lower case letters. i would think it troublesome enough to go through life saying “that’s cooke with an e.” why anyone would assume the additional burden of insisting on lower case is beyond my ken, but i imagine it’s a great attention-grabber and conversational ice-breaker, so maybe i’ve missed the point. (it’s also cheaper than a vanity license plate, which costs thirty bucks in north carolina and has to be all upper case.) In Any Event, Sandbox Intends To Fully Respect Professor cooke’s Right To Lower Case. Thu, Aug 19 2004 5:20 am |
|
| Terroroloy. The leaders of Middle Eastern studies disdain “terrorology,” but other academics don’t, and the Department of Homeland Security is finding plenty of partners. The article at the link is a quick survey of the many initiatives, with additional interesting links. Wed, Aug 18 2004 10:12 am |
| Iraqi Shiites. Professor Juan Cole.com recommends readings on Iraq. In the Shiite department, I was surprised that he omitted the most interesting book on the subject: Faleh A. Jabar’s The Shiite Movement in Iraq. As one reviewer wrote, “Jabar’s book is invaluable for delineating the currents underlying a body politic whose views are not expressed through car bombs and mortars in Baghdad or insurgency in Karbala.” Jabar underestimated Muqtada al-Sadr, but this book is still the best guide to the complex modern history of Iraq’s Shiites. Here is more on the book, and here is more on the author (who spent much of the past year at the U.S. Institute of Peace). Wed, Aug 18 2004 9:48 am |
| Tunnels to Gaza. Maj. Gen. Doron Almog was head of Israeli southern command from 2000 to 2003. After I met him last fall, he provided me with a fascinating article on smuggling from Egypt into Gaza and Israel, and its implications for Israel’s disengagement plan. I ran it in the summer Middle East Quarterly, my last issue as editor, and now it’s on the web. Wed, Aug 18 2004 2:53 am |
| Sadr watch. Jeffrey White, a former Defense Department intel analyst, has done an excellent two-part appraisal of the Muqtada al-Sadr rebellion, published by The Washington Institute today. Here is part one, and here is part two. White is not optimistic, but he ends here: “The coalition and its Iraqi allies need to finish the job. This task is far broader than wresting control of the Imam Ali Mosque from his forces. It will entail breaking his hold on Sadr City and eliminating, or at least significantly curtailing, the Mahdi Army and his political organization….The burden of carrying out such a campaign, even if Iraqi forces are given a lead role, will revert to coalition forces.” Tue, Aug 17 2004 4:48 pm |
| The Oracole. A participant in a Washington Post Internet chat asked blogger-professor Juan Cole this question: “If the US were to pull out of Iraq today, what would happen? What would Iraq look like in five years?” Cole’s answer: “If the U.S. abruptly withdrew, it would probably mean chaos. On the other hand, if the U.S. doesn’t withdraw, that might mean chaos, too. I’d say there is a 50/50 chance of the Iraqis tossing the U.S. out of their country within the next two years.” He has spoken. Tue, Aug 17 2004 6:01 am |
| De-Saidification. Christopher Hitchens has reviewed a posthumous volume of Edward Said’s last political columns. It is a harsh verdict, presumably more credible than mine because Hitchens and Said had a famous friendship, and because Hitchens is no great friend of Israel. But the same themes are present in my Ivory Towers on Sand, particularly Said’s myopia over radical Islam and his early lionization of Yasir Arafat. Hitchens should have said some of this earlier, but at least he didn’t wait for Said to decamp before he broke with him (over Iraq). Who’s next? Tue, Aug 17 2004 6:00 am |
| Fresh news. If you’re a new visitor to this site, this is just a heads-up that it also includes a remarkable range of major media news feeds on the Middle East. Just follow the link and scroll down. Example: under Israel and Palestinians, you will find not only feeds from the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, but also from the English edition of Maariv and the Palestinian Authority’s information service. (These last two don’t even offer feeds. How do I do it? Trade secret.) Mon, Aug 16 2004 12:26 pm |
| Real world. I recently met Orde Kittrie, a State Department lawyer sent out to Iraq last January to find judges who were not corrupted by Saddam’s system—a daunting task. Over his career, he also had interesting missions to Russia and Pakistan. Kittrie has left Washington to join the Arizona State University law faculty, and the Arizona Republic has welcomed him with an article on his background and his move (and how he found those judges). People like Kittrie, with real experience in Iraq, are going to be filtering into academe over the next few years, as students and professors. Faculty lounge pundits, beware. Mon, Aug 16 2004 12:10 pm |
| Hizbullah behaves? Daniel Sobelman, formerly of Haaretz, has published a study of the Israel-Lebanon border. Conclusion: when Hizbullah shoots, it’s only reacting to Israeli overflights and incursions. For two weeks running, Sobelman’s former colleagues at the paper have hailed his findings: first Amos Harel, today Reuven Pedatzur. (Sobelman’s original study isn’t up yet; I’ll link when it is.) I don’t doubt Sobelman’s findings, but now we need a thorough study of Hizbullah’s massive covert campaign in the West Bank and Gaza. Iran’s proxy is now running a battery of Palestinian sub-proxies. (As for Pedatzur’s final flourish—Hizbullah “is Israel’s creation” and “Hamas was also established under Israel’s aegis”—it’s the Israeli version of the claim that the U.S. created Saddam and Osama. Trite.) Mon, Aug 16 2004 9:15 am |
| Oily food. I’m having an exchange with blogger Abu Aardvark at his site. Subject: New York Times, Judith Miller, and oil-for-food reporting. Sun, Aug 15 2004 11:03 am |
| Islamic blues. A piece in the San Francisco Chronicle runs with the thesis that American blues music has its origins in the Arab-Islamic musical tradition, via West Africa and the Maghrib. Is the connection real, or is this another case of Islamocentrism? I’m certainly not competent to judge, and even the experts are divided, but the debate is interesting. Be sure to try the audio demonstration (click on MPEG Audio). Sun, Aug 15 2004 9:15 am |
| Title VI and Tripoli. Mansour El-Kikhia, a political scientist at the U. of Texas San Antonio, has written a column against HR3077, the Title VI reform bill. El-Kikhia repeats the usual canards, but he breaks new ground in this sentence: “Title VI programs (which ensure that public funds are not used to promote racial discrimination) at all federally funded institutions [would] be tightly monitored and controlled.” El-Kikhia has confused Title VI of the Higher Education Act (the subject of HR3077) with the famous Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. It’s a bit like mistaking Tripoli in Libya (El-Khikhia’s native country) for Tripoli in Lebanon. Only someone ignorant of the Arab world could do that. And only someone ignorant of HR3077 could have written El-Kikhia’s column. Sun, Aug 15 2004 4:00 am |
| Riyality check (2). The Saudi embassy seeks an apology from the New York Sun, for a Daniel Pipes column claiming that a Saudi-directed p.r. firm is pushing free speakers on universities and paying the freight. “Neither the government of Saudi Arabia nor any public relations firm compensates these individuals for their activities. These esteemed experts on Middle East issues speak their own minds and on their own behalf.” So Charles Lipson, a professor at the University of Chicago, has gone on the record, documenting in detail the approach made to him by a Chicago p.r. firm. Bottom line: he was told that “the P.R. firms would be paying all expenses, including travel and any associated honoraria, and that my speakers program would not have to pay anything at all.” Sat, Aug 14 2004 6:15 am |
| Kingdom of Osama. As a counter to Khaled Abou El Fadl’s view of the forthcoming movie Kingdom of Heaven (see right below), check out the opinon of Jonathan Riley-Smith, a Cambridge historian and Britain’s leading authority on the Crusades. He says the plot “depicts the Muslims as sophisticated and civilised, and the Crusaders are all brutes and barbarians.” Riley-Smith’s verdict: “It’s Osama bin Laden’s version of history. It will fuel the Islamic fundamentalists.” Sat, Aug 14 2004 6:13 am |
| Nice work. Khaled Abou El Fadl, the UCLA professor of Islamic law, doesn’t like the script of Kingdom of Heaven, the $130-million Crusades movie scheduled for release next year (Ridley Scott for 20th Century Fox). “I believe this movie teaches people to hate Muslims,” Abou El Fadl tells the New York Times. “There is a stereotype of the Muslim as constantly stupid, retarded, backward, unable to think in complex forms… it really misrepresents history on many levels.” Abou El Fadl might have more credibility on matters of film, had he not just surfaced as the “Islamic Technical Advisor” of the television drama series The Grid. You’re left wondering whether he isn’t jostling to position himself as Hollywood’s ultimate arbiter on what’s fair to Muslims. Very nice work if you can get it. Fri, Aug 13 2004 5:57 am |
| Oh, list me! Here’s another lesson in self-promotion for all aspiring assistant profs, from one of your number, Mark LeVine (see right below). In an article in Tikkun last year, he told of how he heard “ominous words” on and off the UC Irvine campus, “that I was making enemies,” and that “I’d better be careful.” Then this: “I was subsequently added to the now (in)famous Campus Watch website, where I and my mentors and colleagues…are being targeted for intimidation.” Wait a minute, LeVine… You wrote to Campus Watch asking to be listed, as part of a “list me” protest. Campus Watch didn’t target you; you volunteered your name for the site. Why? Learn the answer in this (genuine) parody. Fri, Aug 13 2004 4:27 am |
| Emerging leader. Okay, by popular demand, here is a link to the self-promotional bio of Mark LeVine (see entry right below). Don’t miss it. The best passage: “He has interviewed senior international political figures, reported from Beirut’s green line, taught Qur’an to Muslim Brothers, performed from Woodstock to Paris to Damascus Gate, lived next door to Hamas mosques, stood against bulldozers, dodged terrorist bombs, and uncovered damning files in dusty archives.” The Indiana Jones of Middle Eastern studies. Indiana LeVine. (This too: “LeVine trusts no one.” An X-Filer!) And because some daft intern at the 9/11 Commission stuck in a footnote referring to him (he even gives the page number in the op-ed cited below), there will be no end to it. Here he is on the NewsHour. A star is born. Thu, Aug 12 2004 3:34 am |
| Parody prof. I was thinking of writing a parody op-ed by a typical professor of Middle Eastern studies. He would call on the United States to “declare a truce with radical Islam” and “admit US responsibility for the harm decades of support for dictatorship, corruption and war have caused ordinary Muslims.” He would propose that Washington “suspend all military and diplomatic agreements and aid…for Israel as well as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other ‘allies’ and ‘partners’.” And he would end up calling on the EU to “lead the way,” in the hope that “Kerry might listen.” I was thinking of writing such a parody, but UC Irvine Mideast professor Mark LeVine beat me to it. Only one problem: his op-ed is real. Wed, Aug 11 2004 3:00 am |
| Riyality check. Want a free lecturer on Saudi Arabia on your campus? Say, Samer Shehata, the rising star at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies? No problem! You just have to plug into the right Saudi-employed public relations firm. Daniel Pipes in today’s New York Sun tells the story, with documentation from a professor at a leading research university who was offered speakers by the p.r. firm. Don’t worry, you won’t have to cover any of Professor Shehata’s expenses or pay him an honorarium. The Saudis will pick up the tab! Tue, Aug 10 2004 9:45 am |
| Laqueur’s latest. I admire this new article on terrorism by that splendid generalist, Walter Laqueur (in Policy Review). Tue, Aug 10 2004 9:43 am |
| Get no respect. Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies will celebrate its 50th anniversary in October, and one alumnus, Daniel Pipes, says it should occasion introspection. He quotes from my Ivory Towers on Sand: “Harvard tolerated its Middle East center (it brought in money), but never respected it.” And Pipes shows why: Middle Eastern studies have brought too much embarrassment and scandal to Harvard. On top of that, Harvard’s disciplinary departments have always seen Middle Eastern studies as a wasteland. Last year, a Mideast prof complained that faculty development was “being reined in by academic departments.” So it’s been since day one. Half a century has passed, but celebration would be premature. Tue, Aug 10 2004 4:49 am |
| The Arabists. In 1997 there were nine teachers of Arabic at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI). This year there are 32. In 1999 there were 114 students in the Arabic classes at FSI. Today there are 273. Those statistics come from a June speech by Amb. W. Robert Pearson, director general of the Foreign Service and head of human resources at the State Department. The late Amb. Hume Horan (on whose passing, see down below) once described Arabists like himself as “the Pekinese orchids begot by an American superpower.” At this rate, Arabists at Foggy Bottom soon will be as plentiful as daisies. But will they be as good as Horan? Tue, Aug 10 2004 4:45 am |
| Chalabi interview. The summer Middle East Quarterly was my last as editor. We’ve just posted one item from the issue: an interview with Ahmad Chalabi (conducted by my successor, Michael Rubin). Is any journal more timely? Tue, Aug 10 2004 4:21 am |
| Columbia’s shame. My reportage on the funding of the Edward Said Chair at Columbia began in earnest almost a year ago in a Sandstorm entry, and has continued here in the Sandbox. For the sake of convenience, I’ve now appended all the relevant Sandbox postings to that original entry, creating a full narrative. You’ll find my continuing critique of Columbia’s policy, and information on the various donors. Mon, Aug 9 2004 6:23 am |
| Why Columbia should. Harvard is returning $2.5 million to the United Arab Emirates, donated earlier to establish an Islamic studies chair. The UAE also gave $200,000 toward the new Edward Said Chair at Columbia. So will Columbia return its gift? “Why would we?” a Columbia spokesperson says. “Our gift differs in both the source and the purpose from the Harvard gift.” Nonsense. If anything, Columbia has a greater obligation to return UAE money. (1) Columbia initially concealed the gift. (2) The chair it helped to create has adequate funding from other sources. (3) It’s disgraceful that a chair named after a University Professor (Columbia’s elect) be funded even partly by the ruler of a country defined as “not free.” Mon, Aug 9 2004 3:10 am |
| Abdullah vs. Arafat. My colleague Asher Susser has an acute analysis of the dressing down of Yasir Arafat by Jordan’s King Abdullah: “In the Arabic political lexicon, this is known as muzayada (outbidding), of which the Jordanians, more often than not, were the traditional victims. Now Abdullah is giving Arafat a dose of his own medicine on the question of loyalty to the cause of Palestine.” Sun, Aug 8 2004 11:05 am |
| Neglected profs. Brannon Wheeler, professor of Islamic studies at the University of Washington, has a complaint about the 9/11 Commision: “It is astounding to me that the commission does not seem to have consulted any of the scholars of contemporary Islamic studies in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world in its attempt to explain Islam, Muslim religious activism or bin Laden.” First, that’s not entirely true: Gilles Kepel and Mamoun Fandy testified before the Commission. Second, American scholars before 9/11 were a part of the problem, contributing to the general complacency. What astonishes me is that the Commission report doesn’t mention that fact. But at least the Commissioners had the good sense not to give failed academics a platform for rehabilitation. Sun, Aug 8 2004 7:00 am |
| Deep Esposito. Georgetown’s John Esposito criticizes the 9/11 Commission report as “lacking depth and nuance.” The Commission’s naming the enemy “Islamist terrorism,” says he, is “useful only as long as one distinguishes within Islamism—which has both mainstream (adherents) and extremists. Unless that distinction is made, the analysis is too facile.” You want facile analysis? This was Esposito’s pre-9/11 assessment: “Focusing on Osama bin Laden risks catapulting one of many sources of terrorism to center stage, distorting both the diverse international sources (state and nonstate, non-Muslim and Muslim) of terrorism as well as the significance of a single individual.” Too bad the Commission didn’t look into the role of academe—and Esposito—in making Washington complacent. Sun, Aug 8 2004 6:59 am |
| Who’s in practice? The San Francisco Chronicle profiles Stanley Kurtz, a fellow critic of Title VI. But it’s not Title VI that interests the Chronicle; it’s Kurtz’s role as a leading opponent of same-sex marriage. I haven’t thought through the issue. I have thought through one argument made against Kurtz: he’s a think-tanker, not an academic. Kurtz did a Harvard Ph.D. (in social anthropology) and Columbia published it, to critical acclaim. He knows the drill. But when profs begin to lose an argument, they fall back on academic rank. “He’s not a practicing anthropologist,” huffs the head of one university department. What is a practicing anthropologist anyway? Don’t want to go there? Then deal with Kurtz’s ideas on their merits. Sun, Aug 8 2004 5:05 am |
| Kramerize that syllabus. Over at Sandstorm, I recommend my online articles that are suitable for classroom use. Fri, Aug 6 2004 8:05 pm |
| Said’s silence. British Museum director Neil MacGregor has quoted the late Edward Said to justify the museum’s retention of the Elgin Marbles, the Rosetta Stone, and the Benin Bronzes. Said once wrote that “we need to concentrate on the slow working together of cultures that overlap, borrow from each other and live together.” Why, that’s precisely the mission of the British Museum, writes MacGregor, who calls it “a collection held in trust for the world.” Interesting, too, that on Said’s last visit to London, his friends feted him at the British Museum. I don’t recall that Said ever supported repatriation of museum treasures. That silence was tacit recognition of the occasional merit of imperial theft. Rest easy, museum directors: Orientalism can be sold safely in your shops. Fri, Aug 6 2004 6:25 am |
| Child sacrifice. Follow-up to entry right below: When Randa Birri, the wife of Lebanon’s speaker of parliament Nabih Berri, met with Lebanese youth from abroad, she sang the praises of the “martyr” Bilal Fahs. He was the first suicide bomber sent against Israel by the Shiite Amal movement, headed by her husband. It was 1984; Fahs was 17. According to the press report, she told her foreign guests that Fahs killed a number of Israeli soldiers. No he didn’t; he killed only himself. He was sent on a hasty mission, so Nabih Berri could prove that young men would “martyr” themselves for Amal as they did for Hizbullah. I tell the story here. Thu, Aug 5 2004 12:21 pm |
| Summer fun. The Lebanese foreign ministry runs a summer program for 250 young foreigners of Lebanese origin. One bus trip took them to the Israeli border. “You could see the hate,” admitted a Canadian. “People were giving the finger [to Israel] even though there weren’t even any soldiers. Our tour guide said, ‘This is Palestine, not Israel.'” Hosts on this leg: the Shiite Amal movement. In Sidon, the wife of the speaker of Lebanon’s parliament told the young tourists about Amal’s first suicide bomber: “He chose to use his body as a weapon, to defend a people who had no weapons. I’m sure that he is smiling now because his martyrdom has cleared the South that welcomes you today.” A young Brazilian was “troubled” by the suicide celebration. “In Palestine maybe it would be OK, but here, I don’t know.” Thu, Aug 5 2004 3:45 am |
| Clio abuse. If historians could have their doctorates suspended, there would be a strong case against Juan Cole, for his take on the impact of nationalism on Christians in the Middle East (see right below). For historical precision, one must turn to the late Elie Kedourie. Christians and Jews, he wrote, “were considered Iraqis first—that is, as far as their duties went. When it came to their rights, they were still the second-class subject of Ottoman times—but they had, in the meanwhile, lost all the advantages of the Ottoman arrangement: communal standing and self-government.” Precisely. (From Kedourie’s essay “Minorities.” At the link: an article on Iraq’s Christians, which I ran in the Middle East Quarterly.) Wed, Aug 4 2004 8:41 am |
| Cole turkey. Juan Cole outdoes himself today, with this observation (following the attacks on Iraqi Christians): “Even medieval Islamic law recognized the right of Christians, Jews and other monotheists to practice their religion and enjoy rights to their lives and property. This relative tolerance has often been enhanced in the twentieth century by the rise of nationalism, wherein Arab Christians sometimes are privileged as symbols of national authenticity, because Christianity predated Islam in the nation’s history.” Enhanced? Privileged? Iraqi nationalists perpetrated massacres against Iraq’s Christians in 1933, and against its Jews (who also predate Islam in Iraq’s history) in 1941. Islamists today are just continuing the work. Cole…incredible. Tue, Aug 3 2004 10:52 am |
| Pork panacea. This one is for the political scientists. There is a high correlation among conflict, terror, and low pork consumption. Therefore… Tue, Aug 3 2004 10:03 am |
| Watch out. Over at Campus Watch, they’re looking for a new director. Deadline for applications: Monday, August 9. Details. Tue, Aug 3 2004 9:21 am |
| Satloff’s back. Robert Satloff is back from two years in Morocco, and has resumed his position as executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. While he was in Rabat, he was careful not to comment on Moroccan affairs. On Thursday, back in Washington, he said some interesting things about the state of play in Morocco, and also about U.S. public diplomacy in light of his personal experience. Worth reading. Tue, Aug 3 2004 4:30 am |
| Schacht’s library. Joseph Schacht, scholar of Islamic law (see two entries below), built a vast personal library. On his many travels, he carried a card catalogue of his collection, as an aid to purchasing new books. A Malaysian university acquired his library after his death; here’s a detailed librarian’s report, relating that “usage is minimal.” What a pity. The same librarian also says that Schacht “was born a Jew.” This is a fairly widespread mistake in Muslim countries, perhaps since Schacht followed Ignaz Goldziher (a Jew) in calling Muslim oral tradition into question. And who but a Jew would do that? Tue, Aug 3 2004 4:22 am |
| More Schacht. Have you finished reading Bernard Lewis on Joseph Schacht (right below)? A student of Schacht’s, the late Jeanette Wakin, offered another appraisal of her mentor ten years ago, on the 25th anniversary of his death. Harvard Law School published it last year, and the biographical first half of it can be downloaded here. (Harvard: Where’s the rest of it?) Wakin provided many personal details that could not have been included in a contemporary obit, especially on Schacht’s post-war years in Leiden and New York. (Note: this is a large file, over six megabytes. Downloading will take a few minutes.) Tue, Aug 3 2004 4:19 am |
| Joseph Schacht. Today, August 1, marks exactly 35 years to the death of Joseph Schacht, perhaps the last truly great scholar of Islamic law. Born in Germany, he left after the Nazi rise (for moral reasons—he was not Jewish), taught at the Egyptian (now Cairo) University (where he lectured entirely in Arabic), joined the British war effort (preparing broadcasts in Arabic and Persian), and came to America, where he spent his last ten years at Columbia. He defined the field of Islamic law as it is today. Bernard Lewis wrote a major obituary of Schacht, and I have arranged to post it here. The likes of Schacht haven’t been seen since, and may never be seen again. Sun, Aug 1 2004 5:15 am |
Category: Sandbox
Sandbox: July 2004
| Post-post-Zionism. Yoav Gelber, Haifa University historian, is doing the most systematic work in debunking the theses of Israel’s post-Zionists debunkers. Ha’aretz runs a review of Gelber’s 600-page study of 1948, by the distinguished Hebrew University historian Yehoshua Porath. Porath points out that the question of why the Palestinians fled “is not important.” The real question is why Israel did not let them come back. “Preventing their return created the necessary conditions for the national existence of the new state,” writes Porath. “This is what the Arabs could not accept, and have not accepted to this day. That is the main source, if not the only one, of the continuing conflict.” Fri, Jul 30 2004 8:53 am |
| How to win. The Hoover Institution has published a new book, A Practical Guide to Winning the War on Terrorism, edited by Adam Garfinkle. It’s all about the “hearts and minds” end of the war. I’ve got an essay there, and so do the following people: Lisa Anderson, Stephen Philip Cohen, Michele Durocher Dunne, Dale Eickelman, Graham Fuller, Gregory Gause, Prince Hassan bin Talal, Muqtedar Khan, Daoud Kuttab, Ellen Laipson, Olivier Roy, William Rugh, Robert Satloff, and Amir Taheri. Judging from the line-up, I’m in the minority—again. Fri, Jul 30 2004 8:01 am |
| Grade: incomplete. During my latest travels, many people asked me about the fate of HR3077, the Title VI reform to which I devoted so much attention this past year. Title VI is part of the much larger Higher Education Act, which is up for reauthorization. But there’s so much partisanship over college affordability that the Higher Education Act won’t be reauthorized on time, in the current session of Congress. (That’s a first in the history of act, which dates back to 1965.) The current provisions will be extended, and the reauthorization process will begin anew. By the way, I’ve checked: the people in Congress who wrote and introduced HR3077 are still squarely behind it. Thu, Jul 29 2004 10:21 am |
| Pryce-Jones on Kedourie. David Pryce-Jones wrote interesting things about the late Elie Kedourie in his introduction to the reissue of Kedourie’s classic collection, The Chatham House Version and Other Middle Eastern Studies. So I ran the Pryce-Jones introduction in the spring Middle East Quarterly, and now it’s on the journal’s website. Wed, Jul 28 2004 3:48 pm |
| What about Columbia? Harvard University’s Divinity School has decided to return that $2.5 million gift for an Islamic studies chair to the donor: the United Arab Emirates. Bottom line: the UAE is just too toxic to warrant the kind of legitimation Harvard confers. Remember: the UAE also contributed a quarter of a million dollars toward the Edward Said Chair at Columbia, a fact concealed by Columbia until last spring. Maybe now’s the time for Columbia to consider returning that UAE gift. Or are Columbia’s standards not quite up to Harvard’s? Wed, Jul 28 2004 2:43 pm |
| Beinin, Israeli? Something called the Olga Document has been circulated by far-left Israeli “activists and intellectuals.” Israel is living a “benighted colonial reality” and should end the occupation, cease defining itself as a Jewish state, and recognize the Palestinian “right of return.” “We seek to start off a genuine public discussion about the Israeli blind alley in which we live.” And so on. Wait, did I say Israeli? Why, there’s the name of Stanford’s Joel Beinin among the signatories. He’s not an Israeli, nor does he live in Israel. After spending three years in the country over 30 years ago, he abandoned it for the comforts of American academe. I abhor the Olga Document, but at least it’s the work of people who live the reality. If Beinin’s name is on the list, maybe it includes other wannabes as well. Tue, Jul 27 2004 12:29 am |
| RSS discontinued. I’ve discontinued the RSS feed of Sandbox. It had to be maintained manually, and it was too much trouble. If you did use it, I’d like to hear from you: I’ll reconsider if I hear from enough RSS fans. Just drop me a line from the homepage (scroll down to the comments box). Sun, Jul 25 2004 10:00 pm |
| Horan, Amman, 1970. A few years ago, the late Hume Horan (see entries right below) gave an interview about his service in Amman, Jordan during the September 1970 showdown between King Hussein and Yasir Arafat. “The King’s victory,” he said, “showed that it was not the size of the dog in the fight, so much as the size of the fight in the dog. King Hussein was a fighter, and we all knew–his army knew–that if he went, it would be feet first. He was a fighter, and [U.S. ambassador L.] Dean Brown was right there with him. They worked together like a pairs skating team. The King’s victorious leadership helped us to shelve some contingency planning of a sort that you can imagine.” Horan knew how to tell a story. Read this one. Sun, Jul 25 2004 11:18 am |
| Horan on Koran. Robert Kaplan’s book The Arabists also told the story of Hume Horan (see entries right below), and an early version of the book treatment appeared here, in The Atlantic. Kaplan quoted Horan on the Koran: “Another problem is that Arabic is so beautiful to listen to. So you find yourself putting up with all kinds of crap from these people because of the crystalline way their language lays itself out in space. Just look at the Koran. The English translations are incompetent, I know. The first chapters should really be footnotes at the end: nothing but laundry lists, supplemental legislation–Leviticus. ‘The Chapter of the Cow’–bah how dull! But later on, bang, the revelations come at you with a muzzle velocity of three thousand feet per second that just knocks you flat on your can.” Sun, Jul 25 2004 11:16 am |
| WP on Horan. Here’s the Washington Post obit on Hume Horan (see previous entry; registration required). It mentions that he did his undergraduate and master’s degrees at Harvard, the latter at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (1963). Doesn’t name his mentor: H.A.R. Gibb. Sun, Jul 25 2004 11:15 am |
| One good man. Hume Horan, an extraordinary State Department Arabist, has died from cancer at the age of 69. Horan was an exception to the rule. He had a profound understanding of the Arab world (and excellent Arabic), but was never warped by romantic sympathy. He spent almost 30 years in the Foreign Service, serving as ambassador to five countries, including Saudi Arabia and Sudan. I published one of his pieces in the Middle East Quarterly, entitled “Those Young Arab Muslims and Us,” and it repays reading. Horan came out of retirement to spend six months in Iraq last year, helping out with the tribes. Sat, July 24 2004 8:10 pm |
| Fisk gets D. Last week, Robert Fisk had a piece in The Independent on murders of Iraqi professors. The identity of the perps, he writes, is a mystery, but “disgruntled students they are not.” We are then treated to far-out theories propounded by some faculty. Kuwait is responsible, or maybe Israel. When Orly Halpern reported just this story in The Globe and Mail last month, academic administrators and students gave her an entirely different explanation: the killings are revenge for bad grades. (The sciences dean at Baghdad U., she wrote, “keeps all the threatening letters sent to lecturers in his college. The pile is high and a number of them have bullets taped to them.”) So Halpern reported facts; Fisk, as usual, reported conspiracy theories. Wed, Jul 21 2004 10:15 pm |
| Cole-cocked. Juan Cole comments on the 9/11 Commission’s finding that most of the Saudi hijackers passed through Iran before the operation. Cole then invokes his presumed expertise on Islamic sectarianism to discount any possible implications of the fact. And whose interest is served by a possible Iran connection? Cole: the “Likud lobby,” which “wants the Tehran regime overthrown in part because it stands in the way of an Israeli annexation of southern Lebanon, with the Litani river as the long-sought prize.” Sic. Presumably the Nile and the Euphrates will follow. Cole is quick to jump on pundits who lack his self-advertised expertise on Islam, Iran, or the Arabs. Cole knows absolutely zero about Israel, yet that doesn’t stop him. Wed, Jul 21 2004 11:01 am |
| AMIA anniversary. I’m still on the move, with little spare time and choppy internet access. But I wanted to mention the tenth anniversary, this past Sunday, of the 1994 bombing of the Jewish communal (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people died and hundreds were maimed and wounded. The official investigation into the attack has failed almost completely. Back in 1994, I wrote an article entitled “The Jihad Against the Jews,” putting the attack in context. I was convinced then, and remain convinced today, that Hizbullah did it. (Also see my remarks in the documentary film by Dutch filmmaker Ton Vriens, “To Live With Terror.”) Tue, Jul 20 2004 10:00 pm |
| Back shortly. No, I haven’t given up. I am on the road, with assorted adventures, including a restful night’s sleep on a bench at JFK airport. (Here’s a tip: the Ramada Plaza near the airport doesn’t always honor vouchers from American Airlines…) I’ll be back with interesting items shortly. Sun, Jul 18 2004 4:50 pm |
| Qaradawi win or lose? A Muslim analyst in Britain claims that the spat over Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi in London has been a boost to UK Muslims. That may be, but it’s done Qaradawi no good. As he himself noted on his arrival, he’s been coming to London for thirty years without incident. Qaradawi already knew that his support for suicide bombings had made him toxic. The London visit got people to read his other fatwas, which made him the bugbear of gay activists and feminists. The real prize is that U.S. visa, and I hear he’s really sore at not having one. The last time I saw him in Qatar, he shared a podium with Martin Indyk (and Richard Haass). He probably thought he was getting closer, but I’d estimate the visa is more remote than ever. Tue, Jul 13 2004 10:16 am |
| Qaradawi non-quote. I abhor the views of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi (see posts from last week), but I’m not happy with what the London Telegraph did to him this morning. It attributed to Qaradawi an accusatory view of rape victims: “To be absolved from guilt, the raped woman must have shown some sort of good conduct.” These words actually belong to someone else, a consultant to the website Islamonline. Even if Qaradawi is ostensible head of the committee that oversees this website, a Muslim jurist can only be deemed responsible for his own fatwas. Does Qaradawi share this view of rape victims? Someone should pop that question to him while he’s in London, or dig the answer out of his past fatwas. Today’s Telegraph article establishes nothing. Sun, Jul 11 2004 9:35 am |
| Debt to Hassoun. Juan Cole is now “reluctant” to comment on Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, the Lebanese-American who was “kidnapped” in Iraq and then turned up in Beirut, safe and sound. Earlier, Cole had used Hassoun as a peg for a paean to the contribution of Arab Americans (Danny Thomas, Dr. DeBakey, etc.) “All Americans owe [Hassoun] and his family a debt of gratitude that cannot be repaid,” Cole announced. “The next time any American looks askance at someone for having an Arabic accent or appearing Arab, they should remember Cpl. Hassoun. I only hope he can escape his captors so that we can remember his further exploits.” Well, he’s “escaped,” and his exploits are lookin’ questionable. Keyboard-happy Cole owes Arab Americans an apology, for turning a complete nobody into their paragon. Sun, Jul 11 2004 6:33 am |
| Read Polish? If you do, mam coś dla ciebie: a Polish translation of my classic article, “Islam vs. Democracy.” Thanks to Bartosz Kumanek for the translation, and to the website http://www.Arabia.pl. Sun, Jul 11 2004 6:26 am |
| Khalidi’s secret life? Two researchers at the Middle East Forum reveal something Rashid Khalidi may have forgotten: he was “a director of the [PLO-run] Palestinian press agency,” WAFA, in Beirut in 1982. At least that’s how Tom Friedman described him at the time. Khalidi denies it: he says he was teaching a full load at the American University of Beirut, and had no time for anything else. “I often spoke to journalists in Beirut, who usually cited me without attribution as a well-informed Palestinian source. If some misidentified me at the time, I am not aware of it.” Now if someone misidentified me in the New York Times—Tom Friedman, no less—I sure would be aware of it. So now I’m really curious: just what was Khalidi up to in Beirut in those years? If you know something I should know, drop me a line. Fri, Jul 09 2004 9:40 am |
| Qaradawi and hijab. One of the highlights of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s visit to London will be his address Monday to a conference of the Assembly for the Protection of the Hijab, meeting in London’s City Hall. It’s all in defense of the absolute right of Muslim women to wear the hijab. So it’s worth noting that Qaradawi does allow a pious woman to mix with unbelievers sans hijab, on one condition. She must be carrying out a suicide bombing against Israeli Jews. Qaradawi’s fatwa: “When necessary, she may take off her Hijab in order to carry out the operation, for she is going to die in the Cause of Allah and not to show off her beauty or uncover her hair. I don’t see any problem in her taking off Hijab in this case.” Glad that’s cleared up. Fri, Jul 09 2004 9:18 am |
| Qaradawi and Tamimi. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi doesn’t speak English, and his translator during his London visit is one Dr. Azzam Tamimi, a Palestinian Hamas activist with his own unsavory record of extremist statements. Read what I wrote about him almost two years ago. Fri, Jul 09 2004 9:15 am |
| The real Qaradawi. I am trying to set blogger Abu Aardvark straight on Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. I do it by highlighting some of Qaradawi’s most appalling legal edicts (fatwas), on such subjects as democracy, women suicide bombers, and “intellectual apostasy.” Dash over there and have a look. Fri, Jul 09 2004 5:00 am |
| Chalabi in Iran. Even if you’re a Chalabi admirer, you gotta smile at this cartoon by Tom Toles. (Published a few weeks ago, and somehow eluded me. Apologies if you’ve seen it.) Thu, Jul 08 2004 2:33 pm |
| Qaradawi and gays. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, now visiting London (see right below) should be anathema to anyone appalled by suicide bombings against innocent Israelis. But Qaradawi may also be reviled for other reasons. Peter Tatchell, the UK’s leading gay rights campaigner, claims that Qaradawi has advocated the execution of homosexuals and should be banned from the country. “He should be treated as a political pariah.” Actually, Qaradawi hasn’t made up his mind about the punishment. “Should it be the same as the punishment for fornication,” he ruminates, “or should both the active and passive participants be put to death? While such punishments may seem cruel, they have been suggested to maintain the purity of the Islamic society and to keep it clean of perverted elements.” Thu, Jul 08 2004 5:00 am |
| Qaradawi in Londonistan. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi has arrived in London for conferences, and some Brits are on to him. The Qatar-based tele-Islamist is a staunch promoter of suicide bombings in Israel, which is why he’s banned from the United States. The British media and MPs from both benches are urging that Tony Blair expel him as an undesirable. The government says all his speeches will be monitored. “For over a third of a century I have been visiting London,” Qaradawi complains. “London is an open city, so why is there this row when I visit London today?” Well, a third of a century ago, he wasn’t a cheerleader for terrorism. Anyway, this is just a preface to a reminder that I once had a back-and-forth with the great sheikh in Qatar—over suicide bombings. Thu, Jul 08 2004 4:14 am |
| More than one way. So advocacy groups get all lathered because HR3077 would mandate the Department of Education to do a national study of “foreign heritage language communities” (e.g., Arab-Americans). They think it’s a neocon cover for domestic espionage. (One association claims it would “erode the boundary between research and surveillance.”) But it’s really the idea of a New Jersey Democrat, Rep. Rush Holt, who wants to remedy the foreign language shortfall in government. So when HR3077 is delayed along with the Higher Education Act, Rush attaches his proposed study to the 2005 Intelligence Authorization Bill. Since it’s been moved from education to intelligence, guess who would be mandated to do the study? The CIA. And get this: No one has noticed. Ah, to be a Dem. Wed, Jul 07 2004 6:10 pm |
| Exhibit A. The suspended commander of Abu Ghraib, Brig-Gen. Janis Karpinski, now claims she met an interrogator at the prison who told her: “I’m from Israel.” For Juan Cole, “Karpinski’s statement nails it down,” and he goes into another one of his anti-Israel seizures, laying Abu Ghraib, 9/11 and you-name-it at the feet of “the Likud.” Well, it nails nothing down. When it comes to the Qaeda-Saddam connection, Cole has demanded “the sort of evidence that would stand up in court.” But to nail Israel, this scrap is good enough. “In good journalism,” Cole once huffed, “you don’t go to print with a single uncorroborated source.” That’s right, but Cole’s weblog of innuendo regularly does just that. The guy seems bent on confirming all my claims about Middle Eastern studies. He’s becoming Exhibit A. Mon, Jul 05 2004 3:51 pm |
| Justice in Baghdad. All the Mideast “experts” in the Bay area are lined up by the San Francisco Chronicle to warn that putting Saddam Hussein on trial in Iraq could backfire. It’s going to create more sympathy for him, and it would have been better to send him off to The Hague like Milosevic—that’s the view of Berkeley’s Nezar AlSayyad, head of that university’s Middle East center. So for AlSayyad and the others, here is an article from the Chronicle two years ago, on Serb reactions to the trial of Milosevic at The Hague. The proceedings set off a tremendous wave of sympathy for Milosevic, reported the paper, and it left Serb liberals infuriated at the prosecution. If public opinion is the issue, the Milosevic trial is no model. The Iraqis have to exorcise this jinn themselves. Sat, Jul 03 2004 6:35 am |
| Said recycled. Tony Judt has written the introduction to another recycling of Edward Said’s political essays, and The Nation has published it. Only the last sentence tells a truth: “[Said] is irreplaceable.” He is, and no combination of Tony Judts can fill the void. More evidence is Judt’s own essay, which is boring and repetitive: Said’s acolytes obviously grew lazy while he did the thinking for them. Judt is stupified by America. It is, he writes, “the one place where official Israeli propaganda has succeeded beyond measure, and where Palestinian propaganda has utterly failed.” Let me help him out: you cannot build a culture on refusal, hatred, and martyrdom, and earn sympathy from America. Until this fact registers with Palestinians, no amount of Judts will make a jot of difference. Fri, Jul 02 2004 4:54 am |
| Line in sand. I’ve been editing an issue (my last) of the Middle East Quarterly, which includes an article on cross-border smuggling and infiltration from Egypt into Gaza and Israel. In my search for appropriate illustrations, I came across this fascinating satellite photo. Caption: “The border between Israel and Egypt clearly separates different land management systems which are visible even from the satellite.” Thu, Jul 01 2004 6:22 pm |
| Saddam on trial. Elie Kedourie advises us from beyond the grave on Saddam’s day in court. Thu, Jul 01 2004 12:14 pm |
| Whirldwind tour. Paul Hollander once wrote a wonderful book, Political Pilgrims, about how intellectuals would go off to Soviet Russia or China or Cuba, meet a thin crust of smooth-talkers, and then make sweeping and inane generalizations about the sunny side of despotism. If someone ever does a comparable book on the Middle East, it should include this press junket of a dozen American newspaper editors to Beirut and Damascus. A date at the palace with the charming Bashar al-Assad, a tête à tête with that “gentle” Shiite Santa, Ayatollah Fadlallah, meetings with a few in-house dissidents. Bottom line: hey, “the Arabs” are even more pro-American than Europeans! (At least they like our culture.) If only we would dump our policies, they’d be in our pockets. Thu, Jul 01 2004 5:00 am |
Sandbox: June 2004
| Saddam to justice. To mark Saddam Hussein’s handover to Iraqi authorities, I post one of my reviews. In 1991, Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi published a subtle biography of Saddam. Iraq’s dictator, they argued, “did not set the rules of the game in this cruel system.” The survival of Iraq required a strongman; he won the game because he was the “most savage and able player, bringing its brutal methods to awesome perfection.” But Saddam was cautious, and showed a “readiness to lose face whenever his survival so required.” Unfortunately for him, he failed to understand the signals sent from Washington. The authors warned that any successor “will continue to confront dissent and disaster at every turn, and will be constantly preoccupied with his personal survival.” Wed, Jun 30 2004 9:53 am |
| Rashid elides again. Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor at Columbia, went to UCLA to promote his latest tract, Resurrecting Empire. He has many friends who are Iraq experts, he told his audience. Without exception they all loathed the former regime. But they were all also deeply worried about the prolonged postwar problems that would follow an American invasion. Alas, Washington ignored them. What Khalidi omits is that not a single one of these Iraq experts opposed the war. Not a single one translated deep worry into the kind of antiwar position taken by Khalidi, who’s not an Iraq expert at all. Even now, there isn’t one academic Iraq expert who’ll tell you the war should never have been fought (and I follow them all). But don’t expect Khalidi to admit it. Wed, Jun 30 2004 2:39 am |
| National Language Conference. The Defense Department has announced the initial findings of the National Language Conference held last week. The academics want new programs, so their lobbyists showed up in droves, even though the conference was co-sponsored by Defense. Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association: “The language future of the US just became a lot brighter as a result of the light shed at the National Language Conference.” Translation: I smell money. But the MLA president has written an op-ed against HR3077 reeking of anti-government paranoia. Some of the language mandarins are double-talking, and Congress should be wary of authorizing new programs that aren’t loaded with supervisory safeguards. Wed, Jun 30 2004 2:37 am |
| Another democracy speech. President Bush delivered this one today on the shores of the Bosphorus. Some in the West, he said, were guilty of “excusing tyranny in the region, hoping to purchase stability at the price of liberty.” No more. With the “achievement of democracy in the broader Middle East…millions who now live in oppression and want will finally have a chance to provide for their families and lead hopeful lives. Nations in the region will have greater stability because governments will have greater legitimacy.” I doubt these speechs bring democracy closer. I know they help to delegitimize the existing order, and divide the US from Arab regimes. And here’s the paradox: weren’t those the goals of the 9/11 terrorists? Tue, Jun 29 2004 9:46 am |
| Museum madness. As promised: Alex Joffe’s article from the current Middle East Quarterly. It’s a searing critique of the conduct of archaeologists and art historians during the Iraq war. Tue, Jun 29 2004 8:35 am |
| Canary in Cole mine. Juan Cole bids farewell to Paul Bremer, whom he describes as a “congenital screw-up.” Last August, when things weren’t going all that badly in Iraq, Cole had a different take. He pronounced Bremer a “product of American Middle Eastern studies” and a “State Department Persianist”—top credentials in Cole’s book. But this was completely fanciful. Bremer wasn’t a product of American Middle Eastern studies. (He majored in history at Yale and earned an MBA at Harvard.) And he was never a Persianist. (His official bio lists his languages as French, Dutch, and Norwegian.) I think that’s when I stopped reading Cole’s weblog for factual information. Tue, Jun 29 2004 4:38 am |
| Orientalism revisited. Ahmad al-Baghdadi, Kuwait University professor of political science, has written a remarkable piece in high praise of Western orientalist scholarship. (Reminder: Baghdadi, an outspoken critic of fundamentalism, was sentenced in 1999 to a month in prison on charges of insulting Islam. The emir pardoned him after two weeks.) Baghdadi writes that had it not been for Western orientalists, “we would never have known much of the heritage in which we take pride—and without making any effort to discover it. Nay, it has come to us readymade, on a silver platter, thanks to the efforts of those orientalists.” Baghdadi also laments orientalism’s “decline,” especially in America. He’s right, of course, and not only is the West poorer for it. So are the Arabs. Tue, Jun 29 2004 3:02 am |
| Strange indeed. Francis Fukuyama’s upcoming article in The National Interest appears in an op-ed précis. He’s (rightly) struck by the strange enthusiasm of neoconservatives for democratizing the Middle East, “because these same neoconservatives had spent much of the past generation warning about the dangers of ambitious social engineering.” The idea that culture matters is “usually taken to be a conservative insight.” But it does matter, and “I have never believed that democracies can be created anywhere and everywhere through simple political will.” Fukuyama’s conclusion: yes, promote democracy, but be more realistic and cautious about social engineering projects in places the US “doesn’t understand very well.” For a change, I agree with him. Tue, Jun 29 2004 3:01 am |
| What, no blood libel? The Yemen Times runs an op-ed citing the influence of the Jews in America. “An invincible virus,” the Zionist lobby, has a “tight grip” on America’s “decision-making arteries. The lobby is always working in the dark shadows with no known leadership…. The key players in the Bush administration are mainly Jews who have shed their Jewish names to adopt new Christian names like George and Johnson.” Meanwhile, a Yemeni official has accused the country’s Jews (they number a few hundred) of backing an extremist Shiite uprising that’s kept government troops at bay. How? They sabotaged the water network supplying the security forces…. Mon, Jun 28 2004 7:51 am |
| Refocus Title VI. Last week, the University of Maryland hosted the National Language Conference, co-sponsored by the Defense Department and the Center for the Advanced Study of Language. The briefing document is sobering. The statistics on enrollments and proficiency show that the US is woefully unprepared to meet basic needs, especially in the Middle East. One measure proposed in the briefing is a “reemphasized mandate for Title VI of the Higher Education Act to focus on languages critical to the current security needs of the nation.” I’ve already written about how the profs undercut the language mission of Title VI. Congress knows what it must do. Mon, Jun 28 2004 6:18 am |
| Harvard and empire. Read the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa oration of pro-empire historian Niall Ferguson, who’s joining the Harvard faculty in the fall. He quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1837 oration. “Ask not,” said Emerson, “what is doing in… Arabia,” but embrace “the ballad in the street.” (Emerson meant the American street, not the Arab one.) Ferguson’s retort: “Wrong. What is doing in Arabia is a thousand times more important than the latest ballad.” So he badgers this year’s grads: “What do you propose to do with your knowledge—and your power—in relation to Africa, to Asia, and to the rest of the world?” Good question, but Ferguson should pose it even more urgently at the faculty club. See right below. Mon, Jun 28 2004 3:36 am |
| Harvard, the model. A news report on the reconstruction of Iraqi universities reveals this: “Ahmed al-Rahim, a teacher of Arabic language and literature at Harvard University, said he tried to organize members from several different academic departments at Harvard to help the Iraqis rebuild their educational system. However, al-Rahim found resistance, especially from individuals in the Middle Eastern studies department, because of their hatred for the Bush administration.” Need I comment? Sat, Jun 26 2004 5:20 am |
| Fallback time. Here’s a smart piece in the Israeli press, co-authored by a former spokesman of the Defense Ministry, on why it makes sense for the US to give up the myth of an “Iraqi nation” and promote Iraq’s division into two or three separate states. Washington has “remained wedded to the conventional wisdom of maintaining a united Iraq, despite the fact that it is clearly the crux of the problem, not the solution…. The idea of an instantly created democratic Iraq is a desert mirage. However the gradual evolution of separate democratic states, each dominated by a single ethnic group is not.” I suggested something similar way back in September 2002, and others have done it since the war. It’s the fallback plan—and its time has come. Fri, Jun 25 2004 5:57 am |
| Abdullah and Sy. Yesterday the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet revealed the source for Seymour Hersh’s story on Israel running ops out of Iraqi Kurdistan: Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s (Islamist) foreign minister. The Israeli press reports that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last year decided not to open a Kurdish channel, in deference to the Turks. So Gul was just firing a warning shot across Israel’s bow, and used Hersh as his cannon. The Islamists in Ankara want to set back Israeli-Turkish ties, and Israel wants desperately to keep them stable. So (alas) the Israel-in-Kurdistan story is probably a fable. Too bad. I liked the idea. Fri, Jun 25 2004 5:06 am |
| Sheikh Charles. Yesterday the Sultan of Brunei was in London, to bestow the Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah International Prize on the Prince of Wales. The prize jury wanted to honor his promotion of understanding between the Islamic and Western worlds. Press reports note that he’s the first Westerner to get the prize since its inauguration in 1992, but they don’t name the past recipients. Turns out most of them have been the old guard of the Muslim Brotherhood. The leader of the Syrian Brotherhood, the late Sheikh Abu Ghudda, got the prize. So did suicide-bombing apologist Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Prince Charles has entered the Islamist pantheon. Fri, Jun 25 2004 2:57 am |
| Elie Kedourie. For his fans, I’ve posted the entry on him that I wrote for the Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing. Thu, Jun 24 2004 7:45 pm |
| Islamic spelling. One Iftikhar Ahmad, from something called the London School of Islamics, has an article hailing Islam as the be-all and end-all of civilization. Muslims gave the West its scientific knowledge and contributed to its Renaissance. Western and Islamic values are “almost identical,” and in the near future half of the “native population” in America may “revert” to Islam (?). But my favorite sentence (for its spelling) is this one: “Bernard Shah once said that the future religion of the West would be Islam and only Islam.” Thu, Jun 24 2004 5:55 am |
| EWS. I’ve started reading Rashid Khalidi’s Resurrecting Empire, his indictment of US policy in the Middle East. The dedication reads: “To EWS.” Abbreviated dedications are usually private affairs between the author and the dedicatee. (T.E. Lawrence dedicated Seven Pillars of Wisdom “To S.A.,” whose identity remains a mystery to this day.) But Khalidi, at the very end of his acknowledgements, on the last line of the last page of the book, reveals that it’s dedicated to the memory of Edward (W.) Said. So why didn’t he say so right up front? Possibility: he (or his publisher) figured that an up-front dedication to Said would put readers off, especially since Khalidi is already identified as the Edward Said Professor. The result: a stealth dedication. Wed, Jun 23 2004 5:21 am |
| If only. Seymour Hersh’s latest, on Israeli training of Kurds in northern Iraq, has this interesting assessment by a top German security official: “Iran does not want an Israeli land-based aircraft carrier on its border.” Well, let’s not forget that Iran has put thousands of long-range (70-kilometer) rockets in the hands of Hizbullah on Israel’s northern border. And Iran is busy financing terror groups in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel proper. (The Karine-A arms ship was just the beginning.) Iran has been running ops against Israel relentlessly, and the world has gotten used to it. So I hope there’s some truth to the Hersh article—but as usual, you never know. Wed, Jun 23 2004 5:05 am |
| Antonius Lectures. I am at a conference. In lieu of an original posting, here is a past review I’ve just now added to my web archive. It treats a published collection of the Antonius Lectures, which are held each June at St. Antony’s College, Oxford. In the latter part of the review, I say something about George Antonius, Oxford, and the late Albert Hourani, who instituted the lecture series. Tue, Jun 22 2004 12:40 pm |
| Lessons of history. Martin Peretz: “Alas, we Americans do not naturally look to history for cautionary lessons about the future. Had we done that, our post-Saddam expectations would have been different. But we didn’t, and so we couldn’t anticipate that the various peoples of Iraq…would not take our good intentions for granted.” In fact, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy did publish a pre-war book on cautionary lessons. “If the US chooses to impose its own mission civilisatrice on Iraq,” wrote my colleague Ofra Bengio, “it will likely arouse even greater antagonism than the British did…. Even if they arrive wearing the mantles of liberators, US forces may well be seen as nothing but conquerors…. Washington should be modest in its goals and realistic in its expectations.” Mon, Jun 21 2004 6:19 am |
| In the Cole mine. Juan Cole, in an interview, claims that the neocons (he names the usual suspects) “have imbibed this kind of Israeli racism towards Arabs, that Arabs only respect force, that you can get them to inform on each other because of all the internal clan feuds… Israeli racism towards the Arabs is not a good guide to dealing with a society like Iraq.” Using brute force… playing off clan feuds… informants… gee, isn’t that how Saddam dealt with Iraqi society? (And with much success, alas.) Well, maybe he too learned it from the Israelis. Sun, Jun 20 2004 4:55 am |
| Israel’s predictable victory. Charles Krauthammer declares that Israel has defeated the intifada, and this is why: “Israelis were never demoralized. They kept living their lives, the young people in particular returning to cafes and discos and buses just hours after a horrific bombing. Israelis turned out to be a lot tougher and braver than the Palestinians had imagined.” Or than Krauthammer imagined. He wrote an article in June 2000 called “The Collapse of Zionism” (Weekly Standard) announcing that Israelis “are tired of the price of Jewish power,…. of the hard life of sustaining the Zionist vision.” That got my blood up. My published riposte: “Israelis will continue to fight for their lives, their homes, their families and countrymen, their new prosperity, and their freedoms.” There was never a doubt. Sat, Jun 19 2004 7:36 pm |
| Pompous Oxford Don Watch. The Nation also sets up Avi Shlaim (right below) with a leading question about the Campus Watch website run by Daniel Pipes. Shlaim obliges: it is “sinister and deplorable.” “What defines a university,” he intones, “is complete freedom of expression, and the people behind Campus Watch are responsible for a direct assault on this basic and fundamental academic right.” I answer: complete press freedom is a basic and fundamental right. Is criticism of the New York Times (say, for its WMD coverage) a sinister, deplorable, and direct assault on press freedom? Campus Watch has operated entirely within the range of fair criticism. Reading Commissar Shlaim, it occurs to me that maybe the UK needs one too. Sat, Jun 19 2004 4:11 am |
| Who’s the dupe? Avi Shlaim, a Middle East historian who plies his trade (after a fashion) at Oxford, is interviewed in The Nation. The neocons, he claims, “wanted to eliminate the Iranian threat to Israel.” So Iran used Ahmad Chalabi to pass them bogus info on Iraqi WMD, and “manipulated the neocons into attacking Iraq” instead of Iran! Not only do the Iranians get a Shiite Iraq, but the Americans are too quagmired to take down Iran and its nuclear program. “If true,” hums Shlaim, “this is one of the greatest intelligence coups of modern times.” And if not true? Then it’s one of the nuttiest notions of modern times—and Avi Shlaim bought into it. Sat, Jun 19 2004 4:10 am |
| Watch wallets. The Council on Foreign Relations report on terrorist financing concludes: “At the dawn of the Cold War, the U.S. government and U.S. nongovernmental organizations committed substantial public and philanthropic resources to endow Soviet studies programs across the United States. The purpose of these efforts was to increase the level of understanding in this country of the profound strategic threat posed to the United States by Soviet Communism. A similar undertaking is now needed to understand adequately the threat posed to the United States by radical Islamic militancy, along with its causes.” To Washington and the foundations, I say: watch your wallets. The Mideast studies crowd will pocket your money. But their priorities lie elsewhere. Fri, Jun 18 2004 12:26 pm |
| No good deed. Fouad Ajami, Tom Friedman, Kenneth Pollack, and Leon Wieseltier are filled with remorse over Iraq at The New Republic. Well, that’s what you get for allowing yourself to be optimistic about Arab politics: crushing disappointment. The war was a splendid success as a punitive expedition. It’s a pity it was turned into a crusade of political correctness, meant to prove the universal appeal of democracy and America’s equal love for all peoples. How this virus crossed species—from liberals to neocons—needs more study. But the meaning of the aftermath is already clear: fear and awe of America—our best defense—have dissipated, and contempt has returned. Fri, Jun 18 2004 9:15 am |
| Good money after bad? The New York Times points to the deficit of Arabic-speakers in government, and notes how Title VI produced thousands of Russian speakers during the Cold War. So (adds the article), why not fund a Title VI-type program for Middle East languages? Congressional Democrats, led by Rush Holt (NJ) have proposed one: the National Security Language Act. I’ll say more on this shortly. For now, I note this: Title VI didn’t just support Russian. It’s been funding the study of Arabic for just as long. If there’s a shortfall now, it’s because Title VI failed in the Middle East area. So what’s to keep another program, entrusted to the very same people, from failing again? Thu, Jun 17 2004 7:18 am |
| Third World critique. Another review/critique of my Ivory Towers on Sand, this one by Pinar Bilgin in Third World Quarterly. The title of the piece: “Is the ‘Orientalist’ Past the Future of Middle East Studies?” No comment yet—I’ll digest it and add it to the corpus of critiques to be countered in one blow in future. Wed, Jun 16 2004 1:00 pm |
| Historians of Egypt. Exactly 25 years ago, I was a doctoral student working in Cairo, at the American Research Center in Egypt. While there, I scored my greatest coup in prying open an archive—the royal archives for the period 1922-52—and I published a report about it. Unfortunately, grad students who tried to gain access right after me didn’t succeed. In a fit of nostalgia (25 years ago, I was 25), I post that report, and ask historians of Egypt: have any of you had access to this archive over the past quarter-century? (Also see this recent account of the state of Egypt’s archives. Still a mess, and still largely closed to researchers.) Wed, Jun 16 2004 7:59 am |
| Orientalism heads-down. I’ve got high expectations of Irwin (right below). But I haven’t forgotten Zachary Lockman’s forthcoming entry: Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism. (“Beginning with ancient Greek and Roman conceptions of the world, the book goes on to discuss European ideas about Islam from its emergence in the seventh century…to the age of European imperialism….and controversies that have shaped Middle East studies in the United States over the past half century.”) From Cambridge University Press in the fall. Here’s a piece by Lockman adapted from the book, and largely devoted to debunking me. I’m flattered. Tue, Jun 15 2004 9:52 am |
| Taste of Irwin. In anticipation of Irwin’s history of orientalism (right below), here is a highly original lecture by him, published a few years ago, on how orientalists ended up emulating their Arabic sources. You cannot produce such insights without a commanding control of Western cultural and Arabic literary history. Tue, Jun 15 2004 9:49 am |
| Orientalism heads-up. Robert Irwin, the brilliant polymath who’s done splendid histories of the Alhambra and the Arabian Nights, has finished a two-volume history of Orientalism. Volume 1: Orientalists and Their Enemies. (“Irwin seeks to present Orientalism and Orientalists as living, breathing human beings, bringing the discipline into the new century with personal and anecdotal knowledge as well as sound historical research.”) Volume 2: The Art of Orientalism. (“Irwin will discuss the impact on Western art and literature of Oriental material.”) Publisher: Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin, first half of next year. Reminder: Irwin once called Said’s Orientalism a “fantasy history.” Tue, Jun 15 2004 2:58 am |
| Erdogan’s Islam. Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan got worked up on Saturday in Chicago, where he shared a platform with Bernard Lewis and Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-Calif.). When Lewis mentioned “Islamic terrorism,” Erdogan bristled: “‘Islam,’ in front of the word ‘terror,’ ascribes Islam to terror….You cannot say Islamic terrorism.” And when Harman mentioned “moderate Islam,” Erdogan complained again. “If you say ‘moderate Islam,’ then an alternative is created, and that is ‘immoderate Islam.’ I cannot accept such a concept as a Muslim.” So Islam cannot be reconciled with terrorism or extremism. Glad to hear him say so—even if it’s utter nonsense. Mon, Jun 14 2004 3:31 pm |
| Read Spanish? I’ve just posted another valuable review of my edited volume, The Jewish Discovery of Islam, this one by Mercedes García-Arenal, from the Spanish academic journal Al-Qantara. Mon, Jun 14 2004 9:35 am |
| The Massad question. Here’s a nice synopsis of the stump lecture delivered by Columbia’s Joseph Massad, on “The Persistence of the Palestinian Question.” Massad poses as an expert on modern Jewish history, the mystery of which he has miraculously penetrated (and without even knowing Hebrew!): Zionists are antisemites, and they have turned the Palestinians into Jews! Conclusion: Israel should be de-Europeanized, and Israeli Jews should be assimilated into the region. (Unlike me, Massad would get to remain Europeanized. He’s written self-importantly about how he and Edward Said would “argue about Chopin and John Field.”) Here’s my idea: Massad should be de-Columbia-nized when he comes up for tenure. Mon, Jun 14 2004 4:49 am |
| Read German? A couple of years ago, Peter Heine, professor of Islamic studies at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, published an important essay on my edited volume, The Jewish Discovery of Islam. He’s been kind enough to allow me to post it here. Sun, Jun 13 2004 9:06 am |
| Florida boom. Here’s an article from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel on the growth of Middle East studies programs in Florida universities. (Latest: the Middle East is now a major at Florida State University.) The article also notes the relevant controversies (HR3077, Campus Watch). Florida’s universities have a few assets in the field, but no one institution is even close to achieving critical mass. Bottom line: there’s no reason right now for anyone outside Florida to consider these programs. But it will be interesting to see who pulls ahead—and with what sort of vision. Sun, Jun 13 2004 5:01 am |
| Terrorology. Kevin Toolis is the “terrorism correspondent” of the New Statesman. How do you get that title? Spend ten years writing a book on the IRA, then make a quick visit to the Middle East, and—presto. Toolis now denounces academics specializing in terrorism: they’re adjuncts of state counter-terrorism. Why this should vitiate their findings is unclear. But what’s the alternative? Mideast academics have refused to do any systematic work on terrorism. They only do “context.” (I call this “grievance studies.”) People from every discipline have rushed to fill the vacuum, and some of them are not bad. (Even Toolis admits that “Israeli research into groups such as Hamas can be extremely insightful.”) Terrorism studies—here to stay, by default. Fri, Jun 11 2004 6:27 am |
| Whose decision? Mark Geller, director of the Institute of Jewish Studies, University College London, writes of Iraq’s old regime: “Any scholar of any nationality was permitted to work in the Iraqi museums, provided that he could show a baptismal certificate. Only Jews were prohibited from working there.” So will it change? Geller: “During this past summer, Dr. Donny George of the Iraq Museum appeared in London at an international conference, and one of my colleagues from the USA went up to him and asked him directly when Jews will be able to work in the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. He simply shrugged his shoulders and replied, ‘it’s not my decision’.” Note: The State Department and the Coalition Provisional Authority are putting $1.4 million into upgrading the museum and its security. Thu, Jun 10 2004 6:09 am |
| Culture matters? Journalist Ann Marlowe has a shallow piece at Salon.com on Raphael Patai’s The Arab Mind. I’ve called the book archaic, but it’s too easy a target, and Marlowe says nothing about it that hasn’t been said sometime over the last 30 years. What she should have done was check out Seymour Hersh’s claim that Patai’s book is the “bible” of neocons. (His source: “an academic told me.”) Patai’s book is about difference—why the Arabs are not like “us.” The neoconservative vision is about sameness—why the Arabs, beginning with Iraqis, are just like “us,” or at least like the Germans and Japanese, who went from dictatorship to democracy in under a generation. It’s not Patai’s ideas that are being tested in Iraq. It’s the idea that culture doesn’t matter. We shall see. Wed, Jun 9 2004 3:04 pm |
| Two minds in one. Ian Buruma’s essay in The New Yorker is subtitled “The Two Minds of Bernard Lewis.” The author compares the skeptical caution of Lewis’s earlier writings with his optimistic advocacy over Iraq and democratization. “Why did Bernard Lewis ignore his own counsel that the West should proceed with caution in the Middle East, that democracy cannot be a quick fix, and that our proposed solutions, however good, are ‘discredited by the very fact of our having suggested them’?” The answer is more complex than Buruma allows, but here’s a clue: “The crucial thing to know about Lewis is that he is a traditional European liberal” (R. Stephen Humphreys). That’s the most accurate single truth ever written about Bernard Lewis. Knowing it answers a great many questions. Wed, Jun 9 2004 5:56 am |
| Where’s the apology? As long as I’m on the subject of John Burns and the New York Times (right below): On April 12, 2003, he wrote that 50,000 artifacts had been looted from the Iraq Museum. Museum officials told him “nothing remained.” On April 13, the figure grew to “at least 170,000 artifacts carried away by looters.” (Actual losses? Some 15,000 artifacts, or 3% of total museum holdings.) Burns, later: “When we got to the museum we were disposed to believe the worst. We were tremendously distraught, and passion got the better of us.” (The “we” splits responsibility with other journalists.) Later reporting revised the estimates downwards. But I keep turning to page A-10 of the Times, in search of the official mea culpa. Not yet. Tue, Jun 8 2004 3:02 pm |
| Burned by Burns. Oh, and the New York Times also got it wrong about Iraq’s National Library (see right below). This, from Times correspondent John Burns on April 17, 2003: “By tonight, virtually nothing was left of the library and its tens of thousands of old manuscripts and books, and of archives like Iraqi newspapers tracing the country’s turbulent history from the era of Ottoman rule through to Mr. Hussein.” In fact, the books and manuscripts survived, and so did the bound volumes of the newspapers. Tue, Jun 8 2004 3:01 pm |
| Books didn’t burn. On the liberation of Baghdad, a fire broke out in Iraq’s National Library, and accusations flew. But according to the latest report by a Library of Congress mission headed by Mary-Jane Deeb, the library’s losses weren’t bad. The fire was limited in scope. Rare books and manuscripts, and archival records of the pre-Baath monarchy, had been moved for safekeeping elsewhere, or were unharmed in the stacks. Someone did deliberately set fire to archival records of Saddam’s regime, kept also in the library, and also scattered some books and papers, to give the impression of looting. And who misled us on the damage? Robert Fisk. “The old royal archives of Iraq were turned to ashes in 3,000 degrees of heat,” he wrote at the time. Wrong again. Tue, Jun 8 2004 12:51 pm |
| Index librorum prohibitorum. Seymour Hersh has called Raphael Patai’s book The Arab Mind the inspiration for torture at Abu Ghraib. I’ve got doubts, and I’m not alone. Now Columbia prof Manning Marable, star of African-American studies, weighs in. He demands an executive ban on the use of the book in government, and “a Congressional investigation into the nature of the curricula being used to ‘educate’ those interacting with Arab and Islamic cultures.” Would such a probe stop at West Point and the Army War College? What about government-funded Title VI centers for the Middle East, such as Columbia’s? Their grads will also interact with those cultures. You see, the real danger to the integrity of curriculum isn’t HR3077. It’s thought-control profs, who are book banners at heart. Tue, Jun 8 2004 8:30 am |
| Mass deception. Post-colonial feminist art historian Zainab Bahrani of Columbia University has been appointed deputy senior advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Culture, to work with the Coalition Provisional Authority. “Her objective,” says a State Department announcement, “will be to continue the reconstruction at the National Museum and National Library.” Bahrani, who was born in Iraq, was one of the prime exaggerators of the museum’s losses to looting. “Blame must be placed with the Bush Administration for a catastrophic destruction of culture unparalleled in modern history,” she charged last year. “The destruction that the US military has allowed to occur in Iraq has no parallel.” I’ll give Bahrani a parallel: exaggerations about looting losses and WMD. It’s the same mechanism at work. Mon, Jun 7 2004 9:01 am |
| America’s role. In my book Ivory Towers on Sand, I wrote that an American approach to the Middle East must rest on “the idea that the United States plays an essentially beneficent role in the world.” My critics ridiculed this as patently absurd. Kramer “does not bother to tell readers why they should accept this vision of the US role in the world as true,” writes NYU’s Zachary Lockman, “nor does he even acknowledge that it may be something other than self-evidently true. The assertion nonetheless undermines his avowed epistemological stance and graphically demonstrates that it is untenable.” I mark 60 years to D-Day by reiterating my epistemologically untenable assertion. In living memory, the US saved the world from two totalitarianisms. That’s self-evidently true. Sun, Jun 6 2004 3:49 am |
| Broader Middle East. The revised US reform plan for the Middle East, which President Bush will present at the upcoming G-8 summit, has been scaled down, toned down, and retrofitted with a promise to work harder on Israeli-Palestinian peace. The plan’s name: “Partnership for Progress and a Common Future with the Region of the Broader Middle East and North Africa.” Whew. (Originally, it was the “Greater Middle East Initiative.” But Europeans objected to “greater” as reminiscent of “Greater Germany” or “Greater Serbia,” while Arabs thought “initiative” sounded like a diktat.) It’s supposed to open a new chapter in the history of the Middle East. It already has the trappings of a footnote. Fri, Jun 4 2004 8:36 am |
| My successor. I’m delighted to report that I’ll be succeeded as editor of the Middle East Quarterly by Michael Rubin. He’s an excellent choice, and I look forward to working with him (I’ll be joining Patrick Clawson as a senior editor). Rubin is currently a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He’s a Yale Ph.D. in Middle Eastern history, and recently served as a political advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad and as staff advisor on Iran and Iraq in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Rubin on his appointment: “As editor, I intend to carry on the Quarterly‘s tradition of questioning conventional wisdom and challenging general readers, policymakers, and academics to rethink their premises.” Thu, Jun 3 2004 10:58 am |
| Dragomans. Apropos the shortfall in translators and interpreters of Arabic (last two entries below), listen to Bernard Lewis (NPR interview) explain the role of dragomans, the Ottoman court interpreters who made communication possible between the Ottomans and the European powers. Dragomans eventually gained a reputation for unreliability, leading the governments of Europe to train their own interpreters. As Lewis wryly notes, this practice has yet to cross the Atlantic. Thu, Jun 3 2004 4:52 am |
| Beginning Arabic. “America will need a generation of Arab[ic] linguists.” President Bush said so yesterday (see immediately below). And where does America get them now? Well, the Defense Department pays $657 million to the Titan Corporation, to provide “skilled contract linguists” to US military forces. According to this report (main link), the results have been mixed. Demand is exceeding supply, and incompetent interpreters are missing signals in Iraq. Under Title VI, the US government has subsidized Arabic study in universities for 45 years, and it hasn’t reaped a benefit. Now’s the time to expand and renegotiate the Title VI contract, beginning with HR3077. Thu, Jun 3 2004 4:40 am |
| Experts needed. President Bush in his Air Force Academy speech today: “Overcoming terrorism, and bringing greater freedom to the nations of the Middle East, is the work of decades. To prevail,… America will need a generation of Arab linguists, and experts on Middle Eastern history and culture. America will need improved intelligence capabilities to track threats and expose the plans of unseen enemies.” Unfortunately, the government-subsidized academic apparatus that produces such experts and linguists doesn’t want the mission, and even discourages students from accepting it. If Bush is serious, I urge him to throw his weight behind HR3077. Wed, Jun 2 2004 6:02 pm |
| Don’t know history. Rashid Khalidi, keen to emphasize his vocation as historian, complains: “Americans don’t pay attention to history. Why? Because Americans came here to begin with to escape the past. Americans have had the good fortune to live on the largest island on Earth.” He sounds like Bernard Lewis (in The Crisis of Islam) : “In current American usage, the phrase ‘that’s history’ is commonly used to dismiss something as unimportant…. the general level of historical knowledge in American society is abysmally low.” There’s no argument here. The debate begins over which history shapes the present. When do we begin? Which history are we doomed to repeat if we fail to learn it? The moment historians answer, they become advocates. Wed, Jun 2 2004 10:32 am |
| Lie of the century. There’s a conference in Amman on recovering stolen Iraqi treasures, and the head of the Jordanian Customs Department, one Mahmoud Qteishat, begins by calling the looting of Iraqi artifacts “the greatest crime of the century.” Qteishat is just echoing Donny George, the Baathist holdover, also attending the conference, who (incredibly) still speaks for Iraqi archaeology. Just click here and see how often George, a relentless propagandist, throws out the “crime of the century” line. It’s moral cretinism and an insult to our intelligence. These hacks should be sent off to excavate some mass graves, to get some real crime under their fingernails. (More on this miasma: Alex Joffe, “Museum Madness in Baghdad,” current Middle East Quarterly, coming soon to the web.) Tue, Jun 1 2004 6:25 pm |
| “Trust us.” The New York Sun reports that Columbia University is looking to raise money for a chair in Israel studies. Provost Alan Brinkley says “we have not yet done any formal fundraising for such a chair, have not set a financial target for it,and have not considered where it might sit if it were to be created.” But he says that Columbia “would welcome” a chair. My sources say it’s gone a bit beyond that already. No comment at this time, except to recall this cautionary tale I told about Berkeley back in February. Tue, Jun 1 2004 5:37 pm |
| Across the Bay. Here’s a new weblog on the Middle East, still a bit rough around the edges but with some interesting commentary on where academics and pundits are positioning themselves over Iraq. It’s the work of one Tony Badran, said to be a Lebanese doctoral student at New York University. He takes a special interest in the foibles of Juan Cole. Tue, Jun 1 2004 2:56 pm |
| Islam in America. The Middle East Quarterly posts two more articles from the spring issue, my next-to-last as editor. One, by Jonathan Dowd-Gailey, takes a hard look at the Muslim Students’ Association. The other, by Daniel Pipes, takes a hard look at UCLA professor Khaled Abou El Fadl. Both authors make the same argument: let’s raise the bar high in our definition of “moderation,” post-9/11. Tue, Jun 1 2004 12:42 pm |
Martin Kramer on the Middle East 
You must be logged in to post a comment.