Tag: Rashid Khalidi

The rise and fall of the third-rate

On By Martin Kramer

The Jerusalem Post runs an article today about the new Middle East center at Brandeis University, with a choice quote on Middle Eastern studies from university president Jehuda Reinharz: “My problem is not the anti-Zionism or even that many of them are anti-American, but that they are third-rate. The quality of the people [in Middle Eastern studies] is unlike any of the qualities we expect in any other field.” The head of the new center, Shai Feldman, says that it will “provide objective which means credible scholarship on the region,” something which “does not exist in other places.”

The same article gives a word to Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University’s Edward Said Professor. He denounces what he calls “organized and systematic attacks on the entire field,” part of “an unending witch hunt against people who can be portrayed as ‘extreme’ through selective and out-of-context quotations, innuendo and outright falsification.” In the end, “the only people left in the field will be discredited Uncle Toms and people who never say anything of consequence.”

I wonder who Khalidi means when he speaks of “Uncle Toms.” Would that be Khalil Shikaki, the Ramallah-based analyst and pollster, or Abdel Monem Said Aly, head of Egypt’s Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies? They’ll be the first visiting senior fellows at the new Brandeis center. (I’ll join them, Kanan Makiya, and many others, at the new center’s inauguration in April.)

Or maybe he means Arab scholars who appear on the podium of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy which would include Malik Mufti, who heads Middle Eastern studies at Tufts, and Ibrahim Karawan, who directs the center at the University of Utah. Khalidi once denounced such Arabs (in Arabic) on Al-Jazeera, for collaborating with this “most important Zionist propaganda tool in the United States,” “this Israeli institute in Washington.” (That statement is both false and yes extreme.)

The truth is that when it comes to witch hunts, Khalidi’s crowd are the masters. They’ve been doing it for a quarter of a century, zeroing in on scholars suspected of “Zionist” leanings and denouncing Arab “Uncle Toms,” in a systematic campaign meant to purge all dissenters from the field. Their mistake at Columbia arose from hubris. Having purged the ranks of the faculty and the grad students, they thought they could intimidate the undergrads too. Big mistake: the undergrads are the most diverse part of any campus, they’re the most resistant to thought control, and they rebelled from below.

Khalidi, who is a chaired professor, the head of a Title VI-funded Middle East center (half a million taxpayer dollars annually), and a former president of the Middle East Studies Association, personifies the discredited establishment. Now it’s in decline, its image tarnished by shoddy advocacy “scholarship,” and no amount of Khalidian obfuscation can stop the slide. (He may even accelerate it.) Brandeis is the first challenger. There will be many more.

Saving Private Massad

On By Martin Kramer

Fiascos at Columbia University follow one another in a dizzying succession. This week’s episode opens tonight at the Law School, where four academics will solemnly consider a burning question. No, it’s not how to jump-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, which is the present mission of armies of diplomats and statesmen. It’s this: “Is the two-state solution still the best hope for Palestinians and Israelis, or is time to begin working toward a one-state option?” On Morningside Heights, some people ponder this over their cornflakes.

The correct answer, in case you were wondering, is that the right time isn’t now or ever. The binational “one-state option” is a thin euphemism for the elimination of Israel and its total replacement by Palestine, which would invite “back” several million Palestinians eager to realize their “right of return.” Those few Israelis who have heard of the idea shrug it off as a joke, and no responsible Palestinian faction advocates it, because it defies common sense and popular will on both sides. It’s a bit of secular messianism, which if it were ever made operational would produce a few more generations of blood and fire. It properly belongs on the same shelf of “solutions” as the “transfer” of Palestinians across the Jordan River or the Hamas vision of a Jew-free Islamic state. It’s crackpot.

So the idea would consign millions of people to endless bloodshed. Is that a reason for intellectuals not to champion it? In Edward Said’s declining years, when he took on the aura of a prophet, he veered toward the “one-state solution.” Unfortunately, he never really thought through its implications for the Jews. “The Jews are a minority everywhere,” he told an Israeli interviewer. “They are a minority in America. They can certainly be a minority in Israel.” When the interviewer asked him whether a Jewish minority would be treated fairly, given the region’s past history, Said offered this bit of rigorous thought:

I worry about that. The history of minorities in the Middle East has not been as bad as in Europe, but I wonder what would happen. It worries me a great deal. The question of what is going to be the fate of the Jews is very difficult for me. I really don’t know. It worries me.

It worried him? He wondered what would happen? How many Israeli Jews would sign on to that? Said never managed to persuade even his one Israeli soulmate, Daniel Barenboim, that his messianic fantasy was workable.

But academe has never lacked for people willing to follow Edward Said off a cliff, and assorted acolytes have since cogitated, speculated, and elaborated upon his half-baked idea. Palestinian intellectuals living abroad have flocked to it because it makes their impassioned hope for the demolition of Israel look fashionably progressive: The Israeli Jews don’t have to leave, they can live comfortably as a minority among us. (I have the uneasy feeling that they don’t worry as much as Said did about whether that would really work.) A handful of Jewish and Israeli intellectuals have also taken up the idea, because… well, go figure. It gets them written up in the Haaretz Friday supplement, for a weekend of fame.

The mission of this cult is to establish that the “one-state option” wasn’t simply the hallucination of the Morningside messiah, but that it’s a genuine program (unlike, say, “transfer” or an Islamic republic), deserving of inclusion on any panel devoted to “alternative proposals for Middle East peace.” That’s the sub-title of tonight’s Columbia panel, and to judge from its co-sponsors, the cult members have achieved their initial goal. The prime mover behind the panel is Qanun, a group of Arab students at the Law School, but co-sponsors include the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA; Lisa Anderson, dean), the Middle East Institute (Rashid Khalidi, director), and the office of the chaplain. That’s the backing of social science and God right there.

But there’s another goal, more immediate in the Columbia context, and I think it’s this: to save the besieged Joseph Massad, assistant professor in the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, and the prime target of Columbia’s investigation into faculty abuse of students over Israel.

Since coming to Columbia, Massad has modeled himself on Said. But the result has been a crude parody of Said: Massad’s extremism is unmitigated by finesse or nuance. He once denounced Israel as racist twenty-two times in a single mind-numbing op-ed. His forthcoming book, for which he hopes to get tenure, is an attempt to redefine Zionism as “an anti-Semitic project.” He has compared Ariel Sharon to Goebbels. He has written that Christian fundamentalist supporters of Israel are “the most powerful anti-Semitic group worldwide.” (All references here.) The student charges against him are plausible precisely because he reads like a man who has lost all control of his rage.

When Said was around, he could shelter Massad and see to his needs under one roof—a Columbia doctorate, publication by the university press, and a first appointment in a Columbia department. Were Said still around, he would have quashed the present controversy with one sharply-worded essay in the Ahram Weekly, sending everyone at Columbia scurrying back into their burrows. But Said is gone, the students and some faculty have gotten their courage back, and it’s now a level played field. So how is Massad to be saved?

By including him, as the announcement of tonight’s panel does, among a group of “eminent” scholars in an event co-sponsored by reasonable people. By framing the event in a way that seems to locate Israel’s elimination within the field of mainstream debate. By positioning him alongside an Israeli of comparable extremism (Haifa University’s Ilan Pappe, en route to participate in “Israel Apartheid Week” in Toronto). And by putting him up there with Rashid Khalidi, who will say that Massad’s vision could become the only option if Israel doesn’t concede, concede, concede. (The Princeton medievalist Mark Cohen also appears on the panel. He’s window-dressing.)

So SIPA and the Middle East Institute have affixed their names to an exercise in quasi-academic extremism, which legitimizes the case for dismantling Israel and throws a lifeline to the professor who champions it. There’s no surprise in any of this: it’s Columbia. What did surprise me was the news that Columbia wants to raise millions of dollars for a chair and a visiting professorship in Israel studies.

My question to Columbia’s President Lee Bollinger is this: do you mean the two-state-solution Israel, or the one-state-solution Israel/Palestine? And if it’s the latter, or something in between, are you going to use that money to sponsor events like this evening’s timely discussion? Or bring over more Israelis in Maestro Barenboim’s wake, to pay tribute to “my dear Edward” in the Said Memorial Lecture? Or bring Joseph Massad and Ilan Pappe together to co-teach Massad’s course on “Palestinian and Israeli Politics and Society”? (You know, the one with the blunt disclaimer: “The purpose of the course is not to provide a ‘balanced’ coverage of the views of both sides.”) Or develop new trendy courses like the one being offered this semester by another Said acolyte (an Israeli Arab) on “Cultures of Colonialism: Palestine/Israel”?

Sorry to ask all these pesky questions, but like Edward Said, I tend worry a great deal about the Jews.

Morning-after update: Here’s a report on the panel proceedings from the Columbia Spectator. Only one of the four panelists (Cohen) is reported to have supported a two-state solution, and he spoke off-topic. The Spectator: “Khalidi and Massad agreed with Pappe’s assessment that a two-state solution is a ‘utopian vision’.” A two-state solution is utopian! If the report is true, then Khalidi has abandoned his past position in favor of Said’s folly. Otherwise, everyone was perfectly true to form: “The panelists attacked Israeli racism as the root of conflict.” Of course. It’s Columbia.

Further update: Mark Cohen corrects the Spectator: “I in no way and in no words associated myself with that view [‘the reality is defined by Israeli racism’], which was most vociferously presented by Professor Massad.” Glad to learn it.

Dr. Rashid and Mr. Khalidi

On By Martin Kramer

On December 11, Al-Jazeera’s program “From Washington” held a discussion on Middle Eastern studies in the United States. Chief guest: Professor Rashid Khalidi, the newly-seated incumbent of the Edward Said Chair in Arab Studies at Columbia University, and director of that university’s (government-subsidized) Middle East Institute. He said little that was original or surprising—until the end, when he blew a gasket and uttered the sort of thing he would only dare to say in Arabic.

It happened like this. At one point in the discussion, Khalidi criticized think tanks “that don’t want true dialogue with people whose views differ from their own, but who want to force their opinions on American citizens and the world.” He mentioned, by way of example, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which he labelled “the fiercest of the enemies of the Arabs and the Muslims.”

The moderator, Hafiz al-Mirazi, played devil’s advocate. Hadn’t the Institute often hosted Arabs and others holding diverse views? It had provided a podium for Nabil Amr, Palestinian information minister, as well as Egyptian presidential adviser Osama al-Baz. Just recently, Washington Institute mainstay David Makovsky had written a joint op-ed with an Egyptian writer from Al-Ahram (the reference was to Dr. Hala Mustafa, a visiting fellow), on democracy promotion in the Arab world.

At this point, Khalidi boiled over:

By God, I say that the participation of the sons or daughters of the Arabs in the plans and affairs of this institute is a huge error, this Israeli institute in Washington, an institute founded by AIPAC, the Zionist lobby, and that hosts tens of Israelis every year. The presence of an Arab or two each year can’t disguise the nature of this institute as the most important center of Zionist interests in Washington for at least a decade. I very much regret the participation of Arab officials and non-officials and academics in the activities of this institute, because in fact if you look at the output of this institute, it’s directed against the Palestinians, against the Arabs, and against the Muslims in general. Its products describe the Palestinians as terrorists, and in fact its basic function is to spread lies and falsehoods about the Arab world, of course under an academic, scholarly veneer. Basically, this is the most important Zionist propaganda tool in the United States.

This is the intimidating language of Arab boycott, aimed against an institution with entirely American credentials. The Washington Institute is directed by Ambassador Dennis Ross, who was the chief Middle East peace negotiator in the presidential administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He has always been a model of balance (unlike Khalidi, whose forays into politics have always been to advise Yasir Arafat). The Washington Institute is run by Americans, and accepts funds only from American sources. (Contrast with the donors of Khalidi’s chair, whose precise identities Columbia still refuses to reveal.)

And it is outrageous for Khalidi to denounce the Arabs who have come to The Washington Institute as blundering dupes. I was there in the fall, when the Institute brought to Washington a group of Palestinian Fatah activists associated with the Tanzim (an invitation for which Ross took a lot of flak). While in Washington, these Palestinians said things that could hardly be squared with “Zionist propaganda.” Who is Khalidi to tell them they made a “huge error”? For its annual fall conference, the Institute flew in three members of Iraq’s Governing Council, whose country would still be under Saddam’s iron rule if Khalidi had had his way. Who is he to tell them they made a “huge error”? The year before last, my stay coincided with that of Ali Salem, the Egyptian playwright who has faced down Egypt’s entire literary establishment, and who once was detained for his collaboration with democracy activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim. Who in the world is Khalidi to tell him that he made a “huge error”? I doubt these steel-belted Arabs would ever allow themselves to be intimidated by a pampered prof enjoying the full Columbia treatment.

I note that Khalidi has never made a comparable statement in English, probably for this reason: it would damage his reputation as a bridge-building moderate. To maintain that image, he’s even shared podiums with members of The Washington Institute (to wit, David Makovsky). But Khalidi in Arabic, on Al-Jazeera, is someone else altogether. There he is the bridge-burner, the zealot who would warn other Arabs away from The Washington Institute because it is “Israeli,” and a “Zionist propaganda tool.” Behold, Arab-style McCarthyism.

Khalidi’s crude outburst won’t stop the caravan, but it does put yet another question mark alongside his name. I have never called him an apologist for terrorism, and I respect some of his historical scholarship. But I once heard him speak to a predominantly Arab audience, and it alarmed me. This latest statement confirms something I’ve suspected ever since: he isn’t all he appears to be. Caveat emptor—buyer beware. (Too late for Columbia, but not for the rest of us.)

And speaking of Columbia, what has Khalidi done to promote what he calls “true dialogue” since his September enthronement in the Edward Said Chair? Two Israelis—academic post-Zionists—spoke at his institute this past semester. He and they would have nodded in agreement over Israel’s alleged misdeeds. I don’t think that’s good enough, and it leaves me wondering (again) why his institute gets what The Washington Institute doesn’t get: a $400,000-a-year Title VI handout from the American taxpayer. It’s a dubious mechanism that puts such a hefty subsidy at the disposal of an Arab boycotter. It really should be fixed.