Steve Walt ends a column on Martin Kramer’s idea of limiting Palestinian births with the million-dollar question, which he does not answer: what’s an Israeli-American wingnut doing at Harvard? Why is he so well connected?
[M]any Israelis and most American Jews would undoubtedly find Kramer’s views offensive. At the same, however, he is hardly an isolated extremist, or some messianic settler sitting in a trailer in an illegal outpost in the West Bank. On the contrary, he is an especially well-connected individual, with appointments at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and of course Harvard. Moreover, he is not the only Israeli who has expressed such hateful views about the Palestinians. Of course, one can find equally hateful sentiments about Israeli Jews coming from Palestinians and Arabs. But the key difference is that they don’t hold appointments at prestigious institutions like Harvard.
Kramer reminds me of Charles Jacobs, the extremist at the head of the David Project who nonetheless exerted tremendous influence over Columbia University a few years ago. Kramer also reminds me of former ambassador Dore Gold, the neoconservative Netanyahu aide who runs a thinktank in Jerusalem, was raised in CT, seems to be coordinating attacks on the Goldstone Report, and has long been a $96,000-a-year scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. What are these men doing in influential American institutions? They are there because powerful backers want them there; because neoconservatism with its hostility toward the Arab world remains a strong and largely-unchallenged current in Jewish life, even among liberals at the Forward– and therefore in the life of the U.S. establishment.
There shouldn’t be any surprise that Martin Kramer is welcome at Harvard. The university has a long history of racism and discrimination, as do the vast majority of American universities.
Some examples of bigots welcomed on campus:
- Alan Dershowitz (pro-Israeli bigot, Harvard);
- Henry Kissinger (war criminal, darling of Harvard and many other schools);
- Shaul Mofaz (Israeli war criminal, welcomed at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Govt);
- Hector Gramajo (Guatemalan war criminal, welcomed at Harvard);
- Samuel Huntington (renowned bigot long embedded in Harvard);
- Richard Hernstein (late racist psychologist at Harvard, co-author of “The Bell Curve”);
By contrast, humanitarians and critics of Israeli atrocities face many obstacles:
- Juan Cole (critic of Israeli policy, denied a post at Yale after pressure from Israel lobby);
- Norman Finkelstein (exhaustive researcher of Israeli war crimes, denied tenure at DePaul after a libelous campaign by Dershowitz);
- Joseph Massad (noted scholar, nearly hounded out of Columbia);
- Rashid Khalidi (renowned scholar, holder of the Edward Said Chair at Columbia, threatened repeatedly at Columbia);
- Richard Falk (emeritus professor at Princeton and noted advocate of Palestinian rights, needed a security detail after receiving death threats at Princeton).
The list goes on and on and on.
Fifty years ago, Harvard practiced a different kind of bigotry — anti-Semitism. Then, Noam Chomsky left a position as a Fellow of Harvard College for his post at M.I.T. because he knew that Harvard did not grant tenure to Jews. Even at M.I.T., Chomsky felt himself sufficiently insecure that he and his wife, Carol, decided that she should get a graduate degree in the event that he would be unable to earn an income. Today, Harvard has turned against Arabs and Muslims and their issues, as have most American univesities.
While Norman Finkelstein was a grad student at Princeton, he showed a copy of his thesis on Zionism to Chomsky. Chomsky warned him that he was taking positions that would get blacklisted in American academia.
The great historian of the Holocaust, Raul Hilberg, was villified when he dared to challenge the developing orthodoxy of Holocaust scholarship.
The more elite the institution, the more hostile it is to views that challenge the power that is represented in the institution. Poorer schools just don’t have that much power in their classrooms and halls, which goes some way to explaining why a great deal of pathbreaking research is done by scholars at lesser-known schools, after which those scholars are bought up by the wealthier prestige schools. This is by no means limited to critics of Israel. Economists Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis were denied tenure at Harvard, despite the unanimous support of the Economics Department, because they were left-leaning and the Harvard administration did not want ‘their kind’ at God’s Wealthiest and therefore Greatest University.
The leading universities can be and often are home to great work. But they, unlike their lesser counterparts, also serve the role of Indoctrinating the Future Elite and Powerful in the American Articles of Faith, one of which — today — is that Israel Can Do No Wrong. The real question is, “Could Israel attack Iran, say, killing thousands or tens of thousands of civilians (perhaps even with nuclear weapons) and still get a pass by the US and the leading nations of western Europe.” The answer is not obviously “no.”
Interesting post, hugh–it deserves front page status.
The point that always mystifies me is all of the discussion of the situation, which is rooted in the systemic and corrupt heart of American power brokering, an elite, and yet all we get is an explication of the condition. Is there anyone for substantive systemic change? Or, do you propose loyalty to a new elite? So that you can go from peril to peril?
AMERICA
There appear to be two sides to this “system”, especially with guys like this. sure, Harvard (and the whole American Governing Elite, the oligarchy, whatever it is) ACCEPT these guys, but ask WHO PROPOSES them.
Israel’s practice for as long as I can remember has been to TEST AMERICA by taking flabbergastingly awful action, or saying such things, and waiting to see if they get away with it. It always reminds me of children trying to see if they can “get away” with things their parentws have (previously) forbidden. I think Arafat noticed this and referred to Israel as America’s spoiled child (more or less).
Where Israel may be doing a lot of long range planning to do dreadful things, it keeps taking small steps toward such steps to see whether it gets slapped down or (as so often) gets away with it.
Maybe the Palestinians had something when they accused Israel of poisoning their children, or whatever.
Meanwhile, the US seems to be conducting experiments of its own (as part of a US-Israeli program of extermination of Arabs?) — see Huge rise in birth defects in Falluja
I don’t know how Kramer got into Harvard, but who goes to Harvard as a student, i.e.,
what material does Harvard work to condition?
A harvard education on average costs over $47,000 a year. Harvard’s war chest is over $35 billion.
Generally, how much tutition costs is determined by a percentage of the applicant’s declared parental income.
At least that’s what I read.
I also read that that the teaching cadre is top-of-the-line, yet also that the majority of students are not academic types who take advantage of this. And that most students
have been pushed by their parents and environment all there lives to succeed in college.
And we all know about legacy affirmative action.
And I read that the applicant personal interviews ususally take at most an hour and the standard list of questions is given my rote memory yet whimsical as often no notes are taken by the interviewer (one exception, where both the interviewer and applicant were oriental).
As to tenure for cadre, it appears as everywhere in the ivory towers, that is the goal, with teachers steered to tiny niche research if they don’t seem to evidence during the seven year trial period whatever values the entrenched hold dear–or they are never given tenure. A common observation is what is dear are the values of corporate interests. OTH, I heard Harvard doesn’t care about that, nor about donations from
the rich graduate classes. This is said to be because Harvard has a steady supply of funds, way more than it uses annually for expenses, simply form the interests it earns
in the stock market from investing its $35 billion.
Now, let’s do journalism: How do the MSM’s biased reporters and opinion writers get to enter and stay up on the roof…
PS, the median family income in the USA is about the same as Harvard tuition.
And Americans making $20,000 to $150,000, or even $250,000– all think of themselves as “middle class.” There’s no self-esteem in being “working class” or being
“rich.” Neither losers or greed meisters and petty materialists are we, we Americans.
All the politicians figured this out long ago. Hence they all say they work for the “middle class”
and middle class values.
Does Martin Kramer represent middle class values?
Look at the endowment of Harvard for 2009. It was near 26 billion. That money they count on annually, will provide new centers for growth -with donors names proudly displayed above – and will give wealthy patrons the ability to select heads of boards and institutions.
Enough money in any institution, and they’ll put your man on a soapbox. Even if it is a racist Jew peddling Arab hatred.
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This reminds me of Enron. A group of people who can grasp the reins of power, only to drive it long enough for their own self interests. If it crashes into the ground, do they pay, or just move on?
If you are talking about big bankers, they don’t move on; they just get bailed out by the miserable masses and
think of new ways to get around the paltry window dressing attempts to cure the basic
problem.
Frankly, Harvard has lost its way. It was set up to educate the English Christians and Indians, and now its Muslim, Jewish Arab, Hindu, Persian and Hispanic faculty have it meddling in every Muslim, Jewish Arab, Hindu, Persian and Hispanic dispute around the world.
It was Zionist Jew Henry Kissinger, who in 1974 conceived the idea of the food genocide to control world population – less people to consume world resources – more for the rich nations (elites) to exploit the sources of the world to satisfy their greed. On December 10, 1974 the US National Security Council under Henry Kissinger prepared a classified study ‘National Security Study Memorandum 200 – which falsely claimed that the worldwide population growth poses a great threat to US national security interests. Later a similar false claim was made against Saddam Hussein’s regime and now it’s the turn of Islamist regimes in Tehran and Khartoum, who are targetted with simialr false threats to US national security interests (read Israeli interests).
By 1979 depopulation was the top priority of US national security policy, as outlined in the national security paper global 2000 written by Rockefeller contractors Henry Kissinger, Z. Brzezinski, Gen. Alexander Haig, and Ed Muskie for President Carter.
Zionists’ plan for World Depopulation
link to rehmat1.wordpress.com
RE: Martin Kramer’s idea of limiting Palestinian births
MY COMMENT: Bernard Lewis of Princeton has been hinting at the same idea for years. I heard him do so at an event carried by C-Span ‘Book TV’ about two or three years ago. He even had a woman with him sit in the audience and ask him a ‘friendly question’ broaching the subject of UNWRA’s support for Palestinian refugees having kept them from being assimilated into other countries.
P.S. He is the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Moreover, he is not the only Israeli who has expressed such hateful views about the Palestinians. Of course, one can find equally hateful sentiments about Israeli Jews coming from Palestinians and Arabs. But the key difference is that they don’t hold appointments at prestigious institutions like Harvard.
The key difference is that the hateful sentiments emanating from the Palestinians and Arabs are a response to violence perpetrated against them, while the hateful sentiments emanating from the Israelis are ideological.
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