Total number of comments: 17 (since 2010-06-02 03:40:42)
university professor who has lived and done research in the West Bank of the O.T. Very interested in this blog; started reading it a few years back when the My Name is Rachel Corrie brouhaha occurred in New York city.
Very helpful and useful. Thanks much for translating and posting.
"Rather than being truly concerned for the well being of Palestinian women, Beinart is policing the Israel/Palestine debate and determining whose rights matter and when."
I think this is key, and I very much appreciate the point--using women's rights as a means for other ends is called exploitation.
It's occupied, and Israel was not ever supposed to transfer population into occupied territory.
Yes. The Gil Troy hit piece was obnoxious.
Well clearly the writers of the post were at Columbia and intimately involved in the political circus that an off campus group in alliance with a few students created for that institution. What they're seeing is how Nick Dirks is rewriting history now that he's a Chancellor to distort what happened at Columbia as he enters the current fray at UC.
Also, you're parsing his statement in ways that he may or may not intended, but in the context in which he spoke, it's clear that he's presenting himself in an entirely different light than his role at Columbia or his relationship to what went on there. That is, when he was at Columbia he clearly came down on the side of academic freedom, whereas now he's not.
Ah, but if she does speak, it will be to confess the error of her ways. That's how Dirks has positioned her, and that will be the role she'll play. Wait and see.
If Michael Walzer is jarred, well he might have to just get over it. Maybe he really is afraid for Jews in America, or maybe he's afraid that the monopoly his position has enjoyed in liberal American intellectual life has been broken. The difference matters.
I completely agree with this. There are plenty of Jewish people who have been stalwart allies to the Palestinians and are just as concerned as gentiles who oppose the US support for Israel. This is true in the US as well as Europe.
How do you explain the large percentage of Israelis who find "population transfer" acceptable? Also, why wouldn't the Palestinians be rebelling, including violently, if they don't have the same rights as Israeli Jews--i.e. the right to self-determination? I think you're confusing cause and effect--the violence toward Israelis civilians is an effect of the occupation.
Well put.
I agree. It's an incredibly stupid thing for the board of the "Estelle" to do this, believing that this will placate those who are calling them anti-Semitic. It will do the opposite. It always incites further not diminishes charges of anti-Semitism, when "pro-Palestinian" activists throw each other under the bus, when those activists are not anti-Semites. Ann Wright in no way, shape or form is an anti-Semite and to be complicit with those who practice guilt by association, to feed false charges of anti-Semitism is not just disgusting politics. It's also counter-productive. When you bow to opponents believing that you won't be targeted or tainted, because you've acquiesced (it's a version of the "battered woman syndrome"), the exact opposite occurs. You've emboldened your opposition and undermined yourself.
There's only one way of thinking about this kind of self-destructiveness on the part of the organizers of the Estelle--it's politically stupid.
Good question.
Abunimah's point is crucial. Some people and groups who have opposed an academic boycott of Israeli institutions have said virtually NOTHING over the years about Israel's denial of academic freedom to Palestinians. They have stood up for Palestinian academic or educational freedom, have not commented on the fact that Israel's occupation forecloses the possibilities of Palestinians even claiming "rights" to begin with, let alone academic freedom.
I disagree that this video represents the kind of "two sides" or the state of Israel and the Palestinians are political equivalents of each other. I suppose that's one way to read it, but I think that's tendentious. I read it about how Palestine has been claimed and conquered by many historical forces, and that the kind of heady nationalism founded on exclusive claims to the land has left a very bloody history.
After all, the PLO's original vision as well as Arab vision, going back to WWI, was of Palestine as composed of Muslims, Christians and Jews, since all three had been there for centuries.
Well put.
thanks for posting this excellent column. will show it to my students.
The fact is no matter what Abrams fantasizes that it's not going to happen, esp. now with what is going on in Jordan and the rest of the Arab world.