I remember AP week at Hunter High School in New York all too well. The SATs were pro forma. The Advanced Placements were this realer chance to prove—to yourself, to the kids surrounding you, to the college that had already accepted you—what you were definitely going to become in your near adult future. The tests were given in school, and the jokes about the Chinese kids suddenly showing themselves to be even more numerous than we’d imagined were funny. You bet, extrapolate a census from one of those testing rooms and you’d likely have concluded that Chinese- and Korean-Americans ruled New York City—them, but also, of course, us. And yet when it came to tests and grades the Jew jokes were fewer—we were the jokers, that was part of it—we were more visible on stage and at parties, having more mixed sex, from Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights.
Being set apart in a castle on the Upper East Side of course had most of us conceiving of ourselves as an elect minority. Jewish or not, being elite was always tied up with being Jewish. (How many “honorary Jews” have I known?) I thought about the APs last week after a friend sent me a link to a an article in The Forward about a Facebook group recently created by two identifying Jewish high school students, one hailing from the city, the other, Long Island. The group—directly named: “Protest the 2010 AP English Literature and Composition Free Response Question”—was an immediate response to a quote on the test attributed to the late Edward Said, who’d been identified as a “Palestinian American literary theorist and cultural critic.” In turn, the Forward writes that Ayelet Pearl—the 17 year-old Bronx Science student who initiated the protest by affixing a castigating note to the top of her completed response—“froze when she encountered the Said text.”
And I believe this. Were this just another American Zionist plea to keep Said—poor Said, posthumously murdered, buried, raised, and over again—out of it, I’d have forwarded the link to two likeminded friends, bookmarked it, repulsed, and moved on. But this protest doesn’t come from a professional Zionist’s core—5 on her AP or not, Pearl’s vocabulary’s limited, and forming. She hasn’t yet been assigned Said in an Intro course taught by an English professor she’ll learn to see as Satan (and then, as the Golem); she hasn’t yet been taught by attractive upperclassmen Hillellers to hate the very name. Said’s finally incidental. Instead, as Alyssa Blumenthal, Pearl’s almost identically-profiled protest partner insisted on for the Forward, and then in an email to me: their problem wasn’t with the quote itself but with the accompanying identification of its author. Which means that “the political situation” isn’t, like she says, the focus of the issue at hand; she’s not even in the orthodox tradition of eliminating anything resembling a Palestinian perspective from the public sphere. No, what she’s rejecting is that one unchangeably and automatically offensive word.
I don’t want to, but I believe this, too. Being elite like this necessitates feeling embattled. But more, and it’s true: at 17, the very mention of a word formed from “Palestine” registered as just flat wrong, like using “Indian” for “Native American” or claiming Columbus was first. You almost a priori knew that Palestinians didn’t exist, then. Your Zionism, default. Now add to this the word appearing on the AP. The Ivy League, magnet schools, standardized testing (especially this last, which came of age with, has no history without, American Jews): birthright is a beautiful, virtual given, but at 17, these were my actual territories, what I was to live on. A sort of parallel promised land (I don’t know which is the bizarro), made in but also making the other’s image, less filled with physical enemies, but still similarly surrounded on all sides. Growing up in this the word “Palestinian” literally makes no sense.
So I do, I get this almost understandable reflex to expel an invading alien word—entering “subconsciously,” says Pearl—from a memory that knows nothing but Jews as jokers and victors. Half-apologizing, half-remembering, I say I had “no politics” in high school. Nearly riffing on the same, both students justify their protest to the Forward by alluding to the inappropriate “political implications” of identifying Said the way the AP did (The College Board stated, in defense and in cahoots, that there was no “political subject matter” in its test). This, I think, makes them fit for a school of American Zionism which deems any pro-Palestinian perspective “political,” only to almost miraculously expel the thing deemed “political”—here, not a view, nor even a voice, but a word—on the grounds of its being unfit for children and conversation, systems of evaluation. (Is it too obvious to point out that identifying Elie Wiesel as a “Jewish American holocaust survivor” on the AP could never be “political”?) There is in this something like Blumenthal and Pearl’s right, as American Jews, as New York American Jews, as smart New York American Jews, not to be faced with anything—their words—politicizing. In the spirit of keeping it so—and I’m going to have to show her this, I’m realizing—Blumenthal told me point blank that she’d have preferred the quote to “remain completely out of context”: a wish for purity, I couldn’t express it better.
Which does remind me of that parallel world, waiting for us when we’re ready, over there. Of the billboards, for example, enclosing Silwan’s “City of David” dig, which give a sort of panorama of an imminent totally-different-looking future exclusively populated by fit, golfing Ashkenazim, the rest, the Palestinians, written out—or rather, if you were born Jewish in the late 80s and early 90s in America, i.e., into a ready-made world, kept in but blessedly unidentified.
And most average American kids go about their daily business, their awareness of Jewish people being “They know how to make money,” and their awareness of Arabs being either “Sand N*s or “Islamofascists.”
let’s hope not.
Look at the responses on the Facebook group mentioned!
I’d say the kids are all right!
link to facebook.com
These school girls are NUTS. They think anti-zionism is a crime equivalent to anti-semitism – which they accuse Said of but can’t support with any factual information. They make reference to the “clear political implications” of using the word Palestinian, ie Palestinians exist. I wonder how they feel about Israel’s demented and unique insistence that the Palestinians must recognise Israel’s “right to exist” as a jewish state.
The info text for the facebook page:
“IMPORTANT:
We are not advocating that the scores for this test – or for this essay even – be discounted. The purpose of this group is to show College Board that using politically incendiary quotes and speakers on an AP test is inappropriate (the proper setting for political discussions in education would be in the appropriate classrooms where students can openly discuss – and agree with or refute – the issue). Many argue that the College Board did not have any ulterior motive (some have argued that they specifically go out of their way to avoid controversy), then it is important to show that this quote did have implications. Others believe that using such an inherently political quote was indicative of a bias.
Please do not join this group just to write something like “this group is stupid,” especially if you do not understand it’s purpose. Thanks to everyone who has been able to discuss this in a mature and respectful way.
The prompt on this year’s AP English Literature and Composition test presented a quote by the highly controversial Anti-Israel professor Edward Said: “Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and its native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted.”
Said is an Anti-Semite; he is Anti-Israel; and an Anti-Zionist.
With the exam’s reference to him as a “Palestinian American,” there are clear political implications of this quote that – when looked at in context of who Said is – can clearly be seen as more than subtle Anti-Israel propaganda.
In no other 3rd question FRQ available on the College Board website is there any reference to the nationality of the speaker. In the occasional questions where nationalities are referred to, it is to put the work in context.
In 2002, Said wrote “Palestinian hospitals, schools, refugee camps and civilian residences have been at the receiving end of a merciless, criminal assault by Israeli troops…”
He refers to Israel as “…an illegal occupying power [that] has been for 34 years,” a “Zionist project.” He also calls American Jews who rally in support of Israel ” our Zionist enemies.”
He has claimed that “”Israel’s occupation increased in severity and outright cruelty [after 1967], more than rivaling all other military occupations in modern history.”
Israel, according to Said, is responsible for “horrendous amount of damage … uncountable war crimes … [and] the sheer sadistic systematic humiliation of every single Palestinian, man, woman, child.”
According to Said, “There’s a great difference between acknowledging Jewish oppression and using that as a cover for the oppression of another people.”
In no way is a quote by a man who was once a member of the PlO’s Palestinian National Council appropriate for an AP exam. Many of the claims he made about his life in his autobiography have been proven to be false.
This was not a mistake on the part of the College Board; it was not a naive use of a quote that has unintentional implications. The College Board has a separate country code for the “Palestinian Territories.” There is a clear political agenda here, and it is unfair, inappropriate, and wrong to promote this agenda to vulnerable students who are often subconsciously influenced by such messages.
It may seem like a small issue, but it is reflective of what is going on today in the world of education, where there is an almost inherent Anti-Israel bias. Raising a question about this essay prompt can perhaps help draw attention to this greater issue.
So do something about it. I started off my essay by explaining that it was entirely inappropriate to use such a political quote on an AP test. But we have to do more.
Write a letter:
AP Services
P.O. Box 6671
Princeton, NJ 08541-6671
Email:
apexams@info.collegeboard.org
or
link to apcentral.collegeboard.com
Or call:
(609) 771-7300 or (888) 225-5427
Feel free to use the text above in any letters or emails you write to the College Board in protest.
We will try and start a petition. We need to do everything we can to show the College Board that we won’t stand for this.
There is enough Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism in the world today without this disgraceful essay prompt.
Do what you can. Stand up and support Israel!”
The satire on there is hilarious for some reason:
“I too abhor the fact that palestinians exist even in text form, perhaps white phosporous might be of us to expunge this fact of life.”
“As an Israeli, I protest the AP question because not only is it racist, but I also believe that Palestinians are incapable of producing intellectuals because they aren’t people”
“Are you seriously trying to claim that because the tribes of Israel lived in the Levant thousands of years ago, that establishes legitimacy for the existence of the State of Israel? That’s utterly preposterous. That’s like when Italy claimed it had a right to rule the Mediterranean basin during World War II, simply because the Roman Empire had ruled those regions. When you make preposterous claims, bad things happen. Israel is going to reap the whirlwind it sows.”
thanks for reminding me to look judy, i just got lost over there. it’s a goldmine.
” their awareness of Jewish people being “They know how to make money,”
And they are incredibly hot-hot-hot! You forgot that part. I don’t claim it’s true, but fending off the constant propositions can be debilitating.
The students picked a good target. The testing establishment ties itself in pretzel knots of political correctness, trying in vain to placate every interest group.
I don’t get your point.
You regard Said as insightful, worthy of your commentary, not subject to criticism, write about him. Its your right.
Then with all due respect, STFU.
“I don’t get your point.”
You’re trolling.
What is his point? What do you derive from the post?
“you’re trolling” (how democratic)
His point is that there are privileged young people with a vast sense of entitlement who are offended by the very mention of the word “Palestinian”. If you want to argue with him, you could try claiming that there really aren’t that many people like this or that they don’t represent the views of anyone with any influence on America’s I/P policy or something like that.
“How democratic”. Actually, Richard, your constant negative reaction to virtually every post that appears here, with no attempt at meeting it halfway or even one quarter of the way, saying you agree on one point and disagree on another–well, that’s the behavior of an attention-seeking troll.
I was wondering while reading it, if and what Richard would comment. So I found it interesting that he didn’t understand.
Good point: If you want to argue with him, you could try claiming that there really aren’t that many people like this or that they don’t represent the views of anyone with any influence on America’s I/P policy or something like that.
But I think maybe he really didn’t understand. Too literate, pensive?
“I don’t get your point.”
A special day, a day to mark; Richard Witty tells the truth!
Richard, it’s going to be fun watching you fall apart. Normally I would turn away from such a sad spectacle, but you insist on shoving the excruciating process right in front of our faces.
lol – too true!
A special day, a day to mark; Richard Witty tells the truth!
you are so funny Mooser.
This is perplexing. What are we supposed to make of these kids? My first impression was that they are petulant, self-entitled whiners.
However, let’s remember that they are kids. How many of us knew much about the world at 17? We all grew up in bubbles of great or lesser permeability, and it’s not their fault they learned their first formative social and political values in a culture where this kind of attitude is acceptable.
The values, attitudes, and belief systems canonized by formal institutions are promulgated by individuals whose values are influenced by informal institutions, so the former are not the only ones that need to be examined within the context of Peter Beinart’s call for change.
“How many of us knew much about the world at 17?”
As I remember, the most salient thought in my mind when I was seventeen was that I would be drafted at eighteen, forced to fight in Viet Nam, and die under the idiotic orders of an insane Southern Lieutenant.
Or be killed by “friendly fire”.
And die a virgin.
This had a big effect on my subsequent political beliefs.
southern America, not South Viet Nam.
The possibility of dying a virgin weighed heavily on me when in the service of the empire.
homingpigeon, it used to bother me back then, but I’ve come to accept my fate. It’ll be quite a treat for the doctors at the autopsy, anyway. “My God, he’s intact!”
MJ Rosenberg write a rather funny article on the issue and quotes his son at age 14, writing a letter from jewish summer camp on some other kids, very pro-Israel:
“there is nothing worse than fascist children.”
‘Zionist Children Losing Their Minds!’
link to tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com
arg … greater or lesser permeability …
The word “exile” is not in exile. The word “Palestine” (like so many of the people of Palestine) is (in some circles) in “exile”. Put there by Zionists. Must not be spoken approvingly. The approving use of this dreadful word on the test, even merely in passing, as it was used, was an assault on the student’s delicate identify, delicate sense of “political correctness”. How was I supposed to write an essay when I was in shock? Ohh, the horror!
Poor kids.
Grown-ups (are we really?) have some choice, some discretion, some ability to weigh this and that. Kids are in identity-never-land, and some of them’ve been told to go into anaphylactic shock upon hearing APPROVING mention of the word “Palestinian” (bringing the WORD in from exile, so to speak).
Parents should be called in for a talk with the principal. This is serious metal illness. This kid could not survive in college if she cannot write a short essay on a simple topic merely because the “P” word had been uttered.
“This is serious metal illness.”
The evidence is gathering in ever greater amounts: ziocaine is a self-created chemical messenger which causes the physiological changes we see in Zionist-supporters.
However, I am still open to the idea, if data supports it, that the syndrome is triggered by lead-poisoning or other types of environmental pollutants.
If epidemiological studies and clinical testing reveal that the Ziocaine Syndrome is actually caused by heavy (or even middle-weight) metals poisoning or some other pollutant I will immediately, upon peer review (I’ll read the study in the bathroom) change the direction of my research to conform with the new information. That’s the way it goes, in science! We are all committed to finding the cure.
A true scholar never rest on his laurels.
surely with the readily observable effect of digital-transmission the inculcation vector could not be molecular, unless some catalytic reaction previously unknown to science is precipitating this. I’m just glad I choose a Blogadon habit.
I never rest on my laurels when I can fall on my face.
A general remark: one thing that the general reader gets from this blog– and it is not necessarily Phil’s fault– is how incredibly entitled the Jewish community is in this country. I know that it is the purpose of this piece to point out how self-important and entitled the students are in this case, but the fact is that both this writer and the students involved come off as arrogant and self-important.
I guess we are to assume that the author of this piece of crap is a teacher at Hunter. What is wrong with the AP has nothing to do with the contents of the test, which, as an educator, I know is mostly a futile exercise in rote learning. And that would be the case whether they put a quote by Said on it or not.
The real problem with it is that it ignores the manner in which these tests are the main way in which the Northeastern and private schools lock in their students to the elite colleges and universities. Without the AP tests, there would be much more geographic diversity in the elite schools in this country. It is mainly the high schools in the Northeast that teach towards these tests, and wealthy privately educated and magnet-school students get obsessed with them because they correctly perceive that this is the way that they get into the elite universities in the country. If the rest of us really want to strike a blow against elitism in this country, we would demand that they abolish these idiotic tests.
So the real significance of Said being on the essay section of the AP English, rather than Philip Roth or Bernard Malamud, is the loss of control which the elite populations living in the Northeast perceive themselves as having undergone. But, in reality, it is just cosmetic. The contents of the AP English exam have very little to do with how literature is taught at the university level, where historical context has become everything and literary tropes have become secondary. Even so, colleges give credit for these insipid timed tests, and I suspect that without an educational revolt against the unfairness of these tests– especially the fact that students in Indiana or Missouri or southern Illinois can’t take them because the classes are not even offered–nothing fundamentally will change.
I was equally perplexed by the piece. As I read through it, I was expecting some punchline that would show some breakthrough of the elitist bubble of privilege the writer might have, a sense of self-awareness or moral introspection. The piece had no redemptive qualities, and had an almost Witty-esque go-nowhere feel to it.
What is Josh Cohen going to do about the situation? And also, there’s no context to the piece. Who is Josh Cohen, and why should we care about his negative reaction to the word “Palestinian?” There’s a thin line between elitism and racial superiority.
“I was equally perplexed by the piece.”
Yeah, obviously you were, if you think Josh Cohen is defending the attitude he describes. Comparing this to Witty is bizarre.
The point of the piece is simply to describe the privilege bubble–to explain that it isn’t just Edward Said’s politics, but the simple mentioning of the word “Palestinian” which is offensive to some people.
The comparison to Witty wasn’t one of attitude or politics, it was merely that the piece “had an almost Witty-esque go-nowhere feel to it.” I happen to agree. I didn’t even finish the piece initially. I went back and read it in its entirety now just for the sake of having read it completely before commenting here.
Apologies, Donald, if my comment “perplexed” you.
To clarify, it’s quite apparent that Josh Cohen is not defending the attitude, otherwise, he wouldn’t have written the piece.
My disappointment in the article is that it doesn’t say anything new, or meaningful. We know all about the Upper West Side privilege bubble. We know there’s an automatically allergy to all things Palestinian among even the young teenaged Jewish American population.
Josh says: “I don’t want to, but I believe this, too. Being elite like this necessitates feeling embattled.” Does it? Embattled by whom?
Maybe I’m being too idealistic, but I would have preferred to have Josh Cohen take this situation to tell us he experienced an epiphany like Phil Weiss — a sense of life-changing self-awareness that necessitates immediate action and burning your AIPAC draft card.
With everything happening at lightning speed in the game-changing, supercharged atmosphere of the Israel/Palestinian dialogue, Josh’s musings seemed two years too late to be meaningful. Reasonable minds can disagree.
Dan K – exactly my reaction to it. It’s one of the few times on Mondoweiss that I stopped reading a post in the middle. I came back to it hours later and felt a buzzkill when I read the concluding paragraph about the parallel world that awaits the writer. The piece had more self-obsession than self-awareness. Phil’s written dozens of such columns on Mondo that are far more articulate, meaningful and insightful. No nutritional value here.
Tastes vary, but I want to read pieces by people that describe situations without necessarily describing some life-changing epiphany that happened to them. Anyway, people often change their minds gradually on a topic. I don’t object to pieces with life-changing epiphanies in them, but not every piece has to have one. As for two years too late, that doesn’t really make much sense. Yeah, we’ve got some exciting stuff happening in the blogosphere, but whether this will translate into real policy changes remains to be seen and in the meantime, people who think like those Upper West Side types still have a lot of influence on I/P policy.
As for the Witty comparison, Witty’s style is usually a bizarre mix of atrocity denialism, tribalism and incoherent peace rhetoric. The denialism is the point and the rest is camouflage. (In rare cases Witty says something worth reading, but I’m talking about the norm.) Cohen is describing the foggy state of mind that produces people who, if anything, are to Witty’s right.
Touche, Donald. Apologies to Josh Cohen for the Witty-esque analogy.
What of my comments did you not understand historically?
We know all about the Upper West Side privilege bubble. We know there’s an automatically allergy to all things Palestinian among even the young teenaged Jewish American population.
hmm, from my little perch here on the west coast i know neither. well, i knew at least one of the upper sides was privilege but i didn’t know to the extent the author described. (Jewish or not, being elite was always tied up with being Jewish. ). btw, josh said upper east side, you say upper west. which is it?
Maybe I’m being too idealistic, but I would have preferred to have Josh Cohen take this situation to tell us he experienced an epiphany
how witty-esque of you. as i recall that just happens to be quite similiar to witty’s response to phil’s post on this same issue.
“I went back and read it in its entirety now just for the sake of having read it completely before commenting here.”
Quel nouvelle!idea! I’ll have to try that. Does it really help?
“hmm, from my little perch here on the west coast i know neither. ”
Sorry for my part for talking about “Upper West Side” so casually–I don’t really know what the situation is in private schools on either side of Central Park.
More generally, that’s what I’m wondering. How many people are we talking about? According to Beinart, the split in the American Jewish community is between the old AIPAC’ers and the younger liberal idealists, so you’d think the young are mostly with him.
I don’t know, but then I’m not real clear on the situation among American Christians either. The majority of evangelicals I’ve been around when the subject came up were Zionist, though in varying degrees, with the most extreme being almost as far right as any who has ever posted here.
“What of my comments did you not understand historically?”
Witty, you must admit your comments are at least very interesting historically. They revise the usual comment history; you write first, last and always, but never think.
mooser, yer killin me!~ but witty is fairing much worse!
donald, the blockquote i used was from oscar’s 10:21 am post. he said the article didn’t say anything new or meaningful. i think josh’s post typifies an element possibly centralized in nyc, long island and the bronx and his speaking from personal experience had meaning for me.
According to Beinart, the split in the American Jewish community is between the old AIPAC’ers and the younger liberal idealists, so you’d think the young are mostly with him.
i don’t know how old josh is but it seems josh is saying when he was 17 growing up in this environment his perceptions coincided w/the girls in the article. i think beinart is referencing as stage in which kids start getting out in the world and maturing politically, college etc. i was already political when i was 17 as a result of vietnam. i think the draft flung our generation into a maturity american kids can avoid today. anyway, i don’t think josh’s piece conflicts w/beinart.
i agree w/you about describe situations without necessarily describing some life-changing epiphany that happened to them. in the context of this piece it doesn’t matter to me how or when that moment epiphany came about (and perhaps josh doesn’t know either) what matters is he can look back and relate to this mentality in a way i can’t and tell us something about it. i particularly like:
Blumenthal told me point blank that she’d have preferred the quote to “remain completely out of context”: a wish for purity, I couldn’t express it better.
Which does remind me of that parallel world, waiting for us when we’re ready, over there.
mooser, by “understand historically” maybe witty is referencing being exiled from his old neighborhood.
couldn’t “understand historically” simply allude to his past comments in an admittedly slightly clumsy way. But wouldn’t that be a rather grandiose coinage for four years? (if I remember correctly Phil’s own Mondoweiss started in 2006.) On the other hand wouldn’t that be somehow very Wittiesque?
THUS: historically = “during the last years”.
I enjoyed your Wittiesque comments somewhere else. Close to perfect.
James, any guy who can watch his son go off to be cornholed by the haredim has got a much thicker skin then I’ll ever puncture.
Of course, Witty is paying for that by losing his mind, but I don’t think he will notice that either, so it’s all good.
“mooser, by “understand historically” maybe witty is referencing being exiled from his old neighborhood.”
Yup, he had to leave with only the pimples on his back.
“Cohen is describing the foggy state of mind that produces people who, if anything, are to Witty’s right.”
I beg to differ Donald. This might be true in all matters not relating to Israel, but when it comes to Israel, Witty’s Zionism is as far to the right as it gets.
“A general remark: one thing that the general reader gets from this blog– and it is not necessarily Phil’s fault– is how incredibly entitled the Jewish community is in this country.”
Sure, Phil and Josh Cohen and Alex Kane and all them, they’re entitled, but what about me? Nobody’s entitled me a goddam thing, and everything I once had is entailed! Even I self-hate myself, sometimes, especially after I’ve self-determined myself, which no nice Jewish boy would do.
>> Sure, Phil and Josh Cohen and Alex Kane and all them, they’re entitled, but what about me? Nobody’s entitled me a goddam thing, and everything I once had is entailed! Even I self-hate myself, sometimes, especially after I’ve self-determined myself, which no nice Jewish boy would do.
Sounds like you could use a nice, soothing long-term exile to help you unwind and to restabilize whatever has destabilized you. :-)
Are you kidding? I’m already a one-man diaspora!
“I’m already a one-man diaspora!”
And to think that you could be a one-man hasbara! Just like Witty!…Lucky escape, Mooser!!
it’s nakba denial and very sad. the good news is it isn’t criminalized! tree posted the exact AP question in it’s entirety on the other post here on this topic and i urge everyone to check it out. there is a comment there (#92) that reflects my suspicions.
Too right! I also reject most theories of geometry because I resent the Greek marauders of yore.
What other post, annie?
follow the link and scroll up potsherd, on may 13th when the story first broke phil wrote an (excellent) post about this.
Thanks, missed that then.
potshed, if you read the original thread it may give you insight on what my earlier comment meant
by “understand historically” maybe witty is referencing being exiled from his old neighborhood.
there is rather a funny exchange in there between witty and mooser.
What is far more stunning is that these kids live in NYC, or its burbs.
Their teachers never took them to the UN? They never sat in on one General Assembly session? They weren’t made to read the list of UN members and permanent missions? Like the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations?
They’re uneducated.
They’re not. They’re militant ideologues who know exactly what they’re doing.
They’re not uneducated. They’re indoctrinated. These kids are taking the final exam for their advance placement English class, for heaven’s sake.
If the question had been about a topic written by a lesbian author, would hetero students be permitted to freeze and throw a hussy fit?
They’re uneducated to the extent that they are unaware of the lies they have been fed their entire lives (going on 17 years?). They are uneducated in the sense that they live in a bubble, not just a bubble of limited academic knowledge, but also a bubble of limited experiences. Thus, they are ignorant of their own folly and high on their own arrogance and privileged status.
Ignorant, yes. And indoctrinated.
Has anyone read the Facebook group these kids have started for their “cause”? Most of the comments are cheeringly unsympathetic.
Here’s a link to the page :
link to facebook.com
And some choice comments:
“incendiary, like white phosphorus exploding over a UN school”,
” I too abhor the fact that palestinians exist even in text form, perhaps white phosporous might be of us to expunge this fact of life.”
and my personal favourite
” HELP! PROCTOR! ZHERE IS EIN PALESTINIAN UNTERMENSCH IN MEIN TEST!”
lol!!!! what a relief
It’s not just this generation of peeves, there’s plenty of these kinds of Jews many of them posing as ersatz J-Street types everywhere. They grew up in a glossy shetl, and don’t know nothing but Jewishness. Matt Yglesias (29) the neo-liberal chickenhawk blogger is just like those two girls. Whenever he cites an authority on some subject – they’re always Jews. If he wants to set up a debate on some pressing issue of the day – it’s always between Jew #1 and Jew #2. To him, this is the way it is. He grew up this way. And, has no idea how suffocatingly comical this is.
Josh Cohen is basically saying that these privileged kids were outraged because Palestine, Palestinians and the late Edward Said were invading their safe bubble.
At the same time, the outrage was over the perceived legitimization of Palestinians in mainstream American culture. That, I believe, is of greater concern in their view. Their camp, Zionism and by association American Jews, has had complete control of the Israel-Palestine narrative in the US for decades. This, they view, as loss of control. Watch this to see how that loss of control manifests itself in speech, from the perspective of white Christian Americans (not all, just the racist ones).
These kids would lose their mind if they watched TV in Israel and noticed the Arabic and Hebrew subtitles many channels provide, as Arabic – with Hebrew being the primary official language – is an official language.
Of course, what constitutes an invasion of the bubble in which Israeli Jews live, differs from that of America’s Jews. If these kids in NY were outraged over the mere mention of a Palestinian name, Israeli Jews would be outraged if Arabic literature or poetry were included by the Ministry of Education as part of the required curriculum, however. They do not mind learning conversational Arabic for the purpose of joining special IOF units after highschool. That way, they are learning the language of the enemy so that they can defeat it.
That way, they are learning the language of the enemy so that they can defeat it.
Zionism doesn’t do coexistence. It’s why it’s destined to fail. You can’t win forever. Especially if the demographics are against you. And you try to run a first world economy in a ghetto where your main customers in the world outside are slowly turning against you on behavioural grounds including white phosphorous.
This post shows us what happens when white liberal guilt is combined with Jewish guilt. It leads to nonsense and awful, awful writing. Now Jews are a bunch of rich racist Upper East Side jokers. For Chanukah, I’m getting Josh Cohen a sign to wear that says, “Kick me! Pretty please? I really, really deserve it.”
“This post shows us what happens when white liberal guilt is combined with Jewish guilt.”
You are so right, hophmi! It is definitely time for Jewish Americans to declare they want none of the guilt caused by Zionism. I agree with you, there is no reason to wear that “Kick Me” sign. There is no reason why American Jews, especially the young ones, can’t go off in a new, guilt-free direction.
White guilt, of course, I know nothing about, I’m Jewish.
And when white liberal guilt is combined with European guilt, you get an ethnocentric bully state in the Levant
There may have been some sense of ‘go-nowhere’ about this essay but to me that was not a fault, but rather elegant, because Josh Cohen is telling a story not about ‘where we go from our bubble’ but about ‘what’s coming to join us’ – ie we can’t for ever avoid names and terms like ‘Said’ and ‘Palestinian’ and what comes with them. He knows it. The students pretend that they don’t.
From my old English perch I don’t spy Upper Easts and Lower Wests very distinctly but the predicament there is only an extreme version of the situation in the whole Western world, where the Palestinians have been so thoroughly and miserably misrepresented.
That said, I suppose that only something special could produce the absurd, contrived posturing of the students. Isn’t it a sort of negative bubble, where our own experience is supposed to make sense only in the light of events thousands of miles away which are more imagined than experienced. This is far more dangerous than a real bubble, often inhabited by teenagers, which is just a way of establishing a secure background from which to venture out into the big world.
Wish I could respond to most of the above; having just finished
Peter Beinart’s article, I’ll settle for one little addition. Beinart
writes:
This obsession with victimhood lies at the heart of why Zionism is
dying among America’s secular Jewish young. It simply bears no
relationship to their lived experience, or what they have seen of
Israel’s. Yes, Israel faces threats from Hezbollah and Hamas. Yes,
Israelis understandably worry about a nuclear Iran. But the dilemmas
you face when you possess dozens or hundreds of nuclear weapons, and
your adversary, however despicable, may acquire one, are not the
dilemmas of the Warsaw Ghetto. The year 2010 is not, as Benjamin
Netanyahu has claimed, 1938. The drama of Jewish victimhood—a drama
that feels natural to many Jews who lived through 1938, 1948, or even
1967—strikes most of today’s young American Jews as farce.
In the absence of any originally felt victimhood, the students
staging this Facebook protest are trying to manufacture a new sort of victimhood for themselves, one with the hopes of keeping American Zionism kicking, I think.