Category: Sandbox

ABC: Anything But Cole

On By Martin Kramer

Juan Cole is running two campaigns on his blog. One is against Israel—business as usual for Cole. The other is promoting his blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards competition (Middle East category), where there are ten finalists (I am one).

Yesterday, Cole called on his readers to turn out and vote for him. His pitch? “The ‘Middle East’ category is dominated by Neocons. Where are Marc Lynch (Abu Aardvark), Helena Cobban, Angry Arab, Raed in the Middle, etc., etc. I think the initial nomination voting must have been orchestrated.” In other words: a neocon conspiracy! It’s even subverted the 2008 Weblog Awards!

So Cole, having raised the specter of the neocons, riled up his supporters, and his vote count rose considerably, putting him in the lead. But at that point, he must have realized that it was unseemly for him to have dismissed the procedures of an award he might even win. (Hey, with all those neocon blogs splitting the neocon vote, he could emerge on top! They’ve screwed up, like in Iraq!) No problem. Just cut out the offending passage, as though it never existed.

I’m a collector of Cole’s retro-editing of blog posts. He’ll write something erroneous or outrageous, and then excise it from the record, without so much as a strikeout. In one instance, he made a crude insinuation against me, then deleted it. In another, he wrote that 9/11 was “in response to the Israeli attack on the Jenin refugee camp,” which he deleted when it turned out that, uh, Israel’s Jenin operation took place seven months after 9/11. He even once explained his “policy” on retro-editing—and then deleted that.

Anyway, below is Cole’s original blog post of yesterday, which I retrieved from the Google cache not long before it disappeared from there as well. The prospect that Cole might win this award, in the midst of his wildly biased and hate-filled blogging on Gaza, is one I find repulsive. That the award should go to someone who retro-doctors his blog is likewise repulsive. So I urge readers to vote in the Middle East category, inspired by the principle of ABC—Anything But Cole. Vote for my blog (bit of a long shot), or Michael Totten’s (a fine blog, which won last year), or Israellycool (which isn’t far behind Cole), or any other sane blog. And you can vote once every 24 hours through January 13. Match Cole’s orchestration with your own. Click here to vote.

Here is the expurgated “updated” revision of the same post, at the same url as the original.

Addendum: This very day, Cole commits some egregious errors of chronology and fact. And he has retro-edited them out once more. I explain here.

“Stop Juan Cole”: That’s the title of this post by Michael Totten, ridiculing Cole’s “asinine conspiracy theories.” Read it all.

Cole spills wine at Cana

On By Martin Kramer

Juan Cole today opens a dramatic post with the following passage, in response to the deaths yesterday, from Israeli fire, of several dozen Palestinian civilians sheltering at an UNRWA school in Gaza:

In 1996, Israeli jets bombed a UN building where civilians had taken refuge at Cana/Qana in south Lebanon, killing 102 persons; in the place where Jesus is said to have made water into wine, Israeli bombs wrought a different sort of transformation. In the distant, picturesque port of Hamburg, a young graduate student studying traditional architecture of Aleppo saw footage like this on the news (graphic). He was consumed with anguish and the desire for revenge. He immediately wrote out a martyrdom will, pledging to die avenging the innocent victims, killed with airplanes and bombs that were a free gift from the United States. His name was Muhammad Atta. Five years later he piloted American Airlines 11 into the World Trade Center….

You wonder if someone somewhere is writing out a will today.

The post goes on to argue that America will pay the price of Israel’s “bloody-mindedness,” as it did on 9/11.

Actually, Atta’s will was dated April 11, 1996—one week before the Qana tragedy, on April 18. We don’t know for certain why he made it, but it cannot be because he witnessed any footage from Qana, which was still in the future. And Cole apparently never read the will. It contains no pledge to die while avenging anyone. The will deals with disposition of Atta’s body and possessions in the event of his death. It’s not a “martyrdom will,” but a standardized one, provided by Atta’s Hamburg mosque. (You can read the full text here.)

This is not Cole’s first problem with 9/11 chronology and facts. For an earlier instance, go here.

Update: In the wake of this post, Cole has partly retro-edited his own post (without indicating so). Just for the record, below is the original.

Is this the best Mideast blog or what?

On By Martin Kramer

Voting for the 2008 Weblog Awards has just commenced, and this blog is a finalist. If you’ve followed this blog for all these many years, here is an opportunity give a vote of confidence. And if you’ve had enough of Juan Cole (another finalist), this is your chance to register your protest vote! Take a couple of seconds, click here, and select “Martin Kramer on the Middle East” (or another blog—it’s a free country). You can vote once every 24 hours through January 13, so make it a habit. Many thanks!