Imagine a Harvard fellow calling for limiting Jewish births

by on February 22, 2010 34
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Electronic Intifada:

A fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Martin Kramer, has called for "the West" to take measures to curb the births of Palestinians, a proposal that appears to meet the international legal definition of a call for genocide.

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Israel Lobby, Israel/Palestine

{ 34 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. potsherd says:
    February 22, 2010 at 3:53 pm

    It gives new meaning to those IDF tshirts with the crosshairs on the belly of the pregnant woman.

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  3. Eva Smagacz says:
    February 22, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    I propose Operation Cast Lead computer game, where paid participants can gain control of unmanned drones that can fire on Gaza civilians. Extra points or extra rounds of ammunition can be awarded for scoring targets at the procreative stage. If successful, the game can be licenced to operate in Kashmir, Chechnya, Tibet, Kurdistan……….

    • Chaos4700 says:
      February 22, 2010 at 4:41 pm

      I wouldn’t necessarily joke about that. There is already a mountain of incredibly tasteless games in the United States where hot-blooded white American males can shoot “Muslim-dressed” bad guys in war scarred Middle Eastern terrains to their heart’s content.

    • slowereastside says:
      February 22, 2010 at 9:08 pm

      Dude, you didn’t d/l the demo? It’s called Drone Wars: Af-Pak. Check it out!

    • Psychopathic god says:
      February 23, 2010 at 3:23 am

      I think you think you were posting fantasy, Eva, but Israel is preparing to play computer Cast Lead in real time over the skies of Iran,

      Israel unveils new drone fleet that can reach Iran
      Email this Story

      Feb 21, 3:54 PM (ET)

      By TIA GOLDENBERG

      TEL NOF AIR FORCE BASE, Israel (AP) – Israel’s air force on Sunday introduced a fleet of huge pilotless planes that can remain in the air for a full day and could fly as far as the Persian Gulf, putting rival Iran within its range.

      The Heron TP drones have a wingspan of 86 feet (26 meters), making them the size of Boeing 737 passenger jets and the largest unmanned aircraft in Israel’s military. The planes can fly at least 20 consecutive hours and are primarily used for surveillance and carrying diverse payloads.

      At the fleet’s inauguration ceremony at a sprawling air base in central Israel, the drone dwarfed an F-15 fighter jet parked beside it. The unmanned plane resembles its predecessor, the Heron, but can fly higher, reaching an altitude of more than 40,000 feet (12,000 meters), and remain in the air longer.

      “With the inauguration of the Heron TP, we are realizing the air force’s dream,” said Brig. Gen. Amikam Norkin, commander of the base that will operate the drones. “The Heron TP is a technological and operational breakthrough.”

      http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100221/D9E0PR5G0.html

  4. Chaos4700 says:
    February 22, 2010 at 4:44 pm

    Martin Kramer has pretty much just guaranteed himself an appointment to the State Department, or the Departments of Defense, Justice or Homeland Security, should he feel inclined to take it.

  5. Avi says:
    February 22, 2010 at 4:46 pm

    Here’s a photo of Martin Kramer.

    link to observer.com

    Just so you know what a modern day Nazi equivalent looks like.

  6. marc b. says:
    February 22, 2010 at 4:51 pm

    This is the same ‘Kramer’ nitwit that Yonira or Wondering Jew claimed had ‘demolished’ Stephen Walt’s analysis of Tony Blair’s testimony at the Chilcot inquiry. Or so he said on his blog. His catch phrase (‘superfluous young men’) reminds me of the Nazi term ‘useless gobblers’, used to describe the German ‘problem’ of superfluous populations threatening Germany’s well-being.

    I usually find any attempt to make an analogy between Zionism and Nazism to be wildly erroneous. Yet Kramer has done a very good job of reducing that analogy to a personal level. He really is just as vile and disgusting as the German and American eugenicists of the early 20th century.

  7. sky7i says:
    February 22, 2010 at 5:26 pm

    Kramer appeared to be equating any humanitarian assistance at all with inducement for Palestinians to reproduce.

    In other words, don’t feed the babies or pregnant moms. Absolutely merciless. How can people get away with treating him as mainstream? Who are the right people at Harvard to write to?

  8. Oscar says:
    February 22, 2010 at 5:58 pm

    Appalling stuff:

    He added, “Israel’s present sanctions on Gaza have a political aim — undermine the Hamas regime — but if they also break Gaza’s runaway population growth, and there is some evidence that they have, that might begin to crack the culture of martyrdom which demands a constant supply of superfluous young men.” This, he claimed, would be treating the issue of Islamic radicalization “at its root.”

    [Emphasis added.]

    Good God, man, where the hell do these privileged and over-educated neo-cons get their hateful worldview? What kind of environment applauds this statement? This guy oozes hateful supremacy — making his point with such conviction. Superfluous young men? And the progressives demonized David Duke?? To paraphrase the famous quote from Reuters, one man’s racist is another man’s intellectual thought-leader.

  9. Larry says:
    February 22, 2010 at 6:04 pm

    If Martin Kramer keeps this up, he will be rewarded with a regular New York Times column. A nice book end for David Brooks.

  10. VR says:
    February 22, 2010 at 7:16 pm

    “…a constant supply of superfluous young men.” This is the language of genocide

    • Oscar says:
      February 22, 2010 at 7:33 pm

      email sent to Kramer:

      http://mondoweiss.net/2010/02/imagine-a-harvard-fellow-calling-for-limiting-jewish-births.html/comment-page-1#comment-151736

      Is it true you said the following, and actually put it up on your website under a posting called “Superfluous Young Men?”:

      [Kramer] added, “Israel’s present sanctions on Gaza have a political aim — undermine the Hamas regime — but if they also break Gaza’s runaway population growth, and there is some evidence that they have, that might begin to crack the culture of martyrdom which demands a constant supply of superfluous young men.” This, he claimed, would be treating the issue of Islamic radicalization “at its root.”

      Good God, man, where the hell do you get such a hateful worldview? What kind of environment applauds this statement?

      Superfluous young men? Tell me how you differ from David Duke, except for the fact that the Harvard brand name homogenizes your call for eugenics in Palestine? Appalling that Weatherhead sanctions this hateful, bigoted racism.

      • Brewer says:
        February 22, 2010 at 7:56 pm

        Please post the reply if there is one.

        • Oscar says:
          February 22, 2010 at 8:28 pm

          Naturally, he calls the criticism a smear by Israel-haters who want to see Israel “wiped off the map.” From his fresh Twitter posting:

          Ali Abunimah’s Electronic Intifada, a death-to-Israel website, says that in my Herzliya Conference speech, which I posted two weeks ago, I “called for ‘the West’ to take measures to curb the births of Palestinians, a proposal that appears to meet the international legal definition of a call for genocide.” According to the site, “Kramer proposed that the number of Palestinian children born in the Gaza Strip should be deliberately curbed, and alleged that this would ‘happen faster if the West stops providing pro-natal subsidies to Palestinians with refugee status.’” The usual suspects, Philip Weiss and M.J. Rosenberg, have jumped on the bandwagon. Being accused of advocating genocide by people who daily call for Israel to be wiped off the map of the Middle East is rich.

          link to 3.ly

  11. Aref says:
    February 22, 2010 at 8:28 pm

    Here’s the link to Kramer’s site link to martinkramer.org
    He claims smear on the part of e.i. However, reading his quote confirms the call for limiting the Palestinian population growth in Gaza. Too bad for Kramer: some 70 years ago in Germany would have been the perfect time and place for his ideas.

  12. aparisian says:
    February 22, 2010 at 8:32 pm

    Maybe he should call the US congress who will vote a bill and send some US tax dollars to IDF who can start the sterilisation process.

  13. yonira says:
    February 22, 2010 at 9:47 pm

    He gave a shout out to the usual suspects here:

    link to martinkramer.org

    • Chaos4700 says:
      February 22, 2010 at 11:27 pm

      Quote:

      Now eventually, this will happen among the Palestinians too, but it will happen faster if the West stops providing pro-natal subsidies for Palestinians with refugee status. Those subsidies are one reason why, in the ten years from 1997 to 2007, Gaza’s population grew by an astonishing 40 percent. At that rate, Gaza’s population will double by 2030, to three million. Israel’s present sanctions on Gaza have a political aim—undermine the Hamas regime—but if they also break Gaza’s runaway population growth—and there is some evidence that they have—that might begin to crack the culture of martyrdom which demands a constant supply of superfluous young men.

      And his “rebuttal,”

      I didn’t propose that Israel take a single additional measure beyond the sanctions it now imposes with the political aim of undermining Hamas.

      So, blockading food and medical supplies, bombing hospitals and schools, massacring police officers, spraying white phosphorous over refugee camps, shelling the Gazan shore and fishing boats with naval destroyers… oh, yes, Kramer really set the record straight on that one.

      You actually don’t read anything, do you?

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  15. sky7i says:
    February 23, 2010 at 5:14 pm

    Someone named Ian G. Anderson posted a great reply to Kramer on his Facebook page, which Kramer then deleted as he does with posts that get under his skin:
    —
    Your thoughts are genocidal for a simple reason: you advocate for a reduction in the Palestinian birthrate for the inaccurate reason that a mere surfeit of young men has resulted in their opposition to Israel, rather than a cogent and valid opposition to Israel’s oppressive policies (the destructive economic sanctions which, you generously note, you are not advocating increasing). Rather than attempt to understand the Palestinian’s grievances, you write them off as simply overcrowded and I suppose bored, as though extremism springs up from the aether. This is a fascist way of thinking, because you ascribe an unrealistic threat to the regional hegemon to that threat’s ethnicity. “You must stop breeding, because overpopulation is a periodic inconvenience to our economic dominance and expansion-minded extremist settlers.”

    Your position is disgusting, euphemistic racism, but it is exactly what I have come to expect from Israel and its supporters–after all, 55% of Jewish Israelis support the encouragement of Arab emigration from Israel, 78% oppose allowing Arabs political representation, and 74% of Jewish Israeli youths feel that Arabs are “unclean.” (Source: link to haaretz.com
    ) 90-95% supported the disproportionate crackdown of Operation Cast Lead, which resulted in 1,400 dead and a gutted infrastructure (economic and otherwise), which combined with the ongoing blockade and sanctions, have resulted in the sort of desperation one might expect in any ghetto. According to the Nation, “According to the Palestinian Chamber of Commerce, the de facto unemployment rate is closer to 65 percent. At least 75 percent of Gaza’s 1.5 million people now require humanitarian aid to meet their basic food needs, compared with around 30 percent ten years ago. The UN further reports that the number of Gazans living in abject poverty–meaning those who are totally unable to feed their families–has tripled to 300,000, or approximately 20 percent of the population.” But I’m sure anyone angry about this are just “superfluous young men” right?

    You presume, arrogantly and without support, that overpopulation is an indication of success. Are you at all familiar with the behavior of impoverished peoples?

    In addition to being racist, you are incorrect. Palestinian opposition to Israel, even extremist opposition, is not motivated by religion or demographics, but revenge. Compare this to Israelis, which are motivated by a hagiographic and mythological connection to a land which was never rightfully theirs, and which they took by force. One group is motivated by history, the other by self-interest and religion.

    The demographic problem is not young Palestinians, but rather young radical Israelis.

    These are the real anti-Semites. Israel has long used its Jewish identity as a crutch, an excuse, and a scapegoat. Worldwide anti-Semitic incidents rose sharply in 2009 due to revelations of Israel’s brutality and deliberate targeting of civilians and their homes in the Cast Lead invasion (an invasion, I will note, which was precipitated by Israel, which broke the 2008 ceasefire–a ceasefire in which the number of Qassam rockets fired into Israel dwindled almost to nothing), no doubt exacerbated by Israel’s repeat accusations of anti-Semitism toward anyone making even constructive criticism of its actions. Were I a Jew, I would be furious at the Israeli government for using my identity as an excuse to commit genocide, and endangering me in the process.

    The Electronic Intifada is not a “death-to-Israel website.”

    Honestly, you sound more like a schoolyard bully than a professor. Shame on you.

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