POLITICS JULY 5, 2011
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Developments at Yale University in recent weeks concerning the scholarly study of anti-Semitism have aroused broad attention. In early June, Yale’s Provost Peter Salovey accepted the recommendations of a faculty committee to close the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA). On June 19, however, following an outcry over the news, Salovey announced that a new center, the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism (YPSA) would be established. The university’s Whitney Humanities has agreed to sponsor it, and Professor Maurice Samuels, whose scholarship focuses on the presentation of Jews in French literature, will convene this reconstituted center.
For those of us who are familiar with YIISA and valued its engagement with scholarship about anti-Semitism not only in Europe but around the world, the decision to close YIISA was disturbing. We hope that the reconstituted program at Yale will incorporate the research concerns and ferment that YIISA fostered and place these at times unpopular efforts on a sound scholarly foundation befitting a great university. The stakes, for the study of anti-Semitism and the credibility of the academy more broadly, could not be higher.
IT WAS A gamble when Charles Small, YIISA’s director, established the center in 2007. He did so armed with a doctorate in philosophy from Oxford, engagement in social theory, experience in policy discussions in Canada, Europe, Israel, and the US, outside funding, and support from some Yale faculty and administrators. YIISA was to be a research center devoted to examining the history and nature of contemporary anti-Semitism—that is, not only the much examined anti-Semitism of the Nazi era but also Jew-hatred in the Middle East, including Iran, and in Islamist ideology and politics as well. Small was aware that there was a hard road to travel because the area specialists who read Arabic or, in the case of Iran, Farsi were almost universally opposed to even posing the question of anti-Semitism in the Middle East. Or, if they posed it, they had a ready answer to its causes—namely, Zionism and then the existence and policies of the state of Israel.
But, before getting into that issue, let’s assess the stated reasons Yale decided to close YIISA down. Officials cited a lack of scholarly accomplishment. I am not in a position to fully assess the week-to-week functioning of YIISA or its ability to combine the policy focus that accompanies the examination of global anti-Semitism with the conventional scholarly mission of a university, but I found Yale’s justification for the closure odd. After all, Charles Small invited an impressive group of scholars from outside Yale to speak at YIISA. They included the political theorist Michael Walzer; historians Deborah Lipstadt, Benny Morris, Robert Wistrich, Moishe Postone, Paul Lawrence Rose, and myself; political scientists Bassam Tibi, Jytte Klausen, and Dina Porat; and the philosopher, Elkanan Yakira. One can take issue with what these scholars have written, but this group represents considerable scholarly accomplishment, and YIISA’s invitation to them certainly contributed to scholarly discussion at Yale. What’s more, YIISA was a home for doctoral students writing dissertations. Presumably, the year they spent at the center was important for the completion of scholarship on the subject.
The faculty’s report also mentioned a lack of scholarly published papers that emerged from YIISA. This strikes me as another peculiar criticism for several reasons. It is not unusual for various centers on campuses to invite speakers who present works in progress or sometimes already published work. And, while the great majority of on-campus talks are not published in scholarly form, YIISA made many texts from lectures available on its website.
Which brings me back to the criticisms of YIISA’s focus on anti-Semitism in the Middle East and Islamist ideology, and how these fit into the question of whether the center was sufficiently “scholarly.” The focus on this sort of anti-Semitism meant that, from the start, YIISA was sailing against the prevailing winds in the academy. Once Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatened to wipe Israel off the map while Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, the Jewish community and Israel’s non-Jewish supporters in the United States reacted with understandable alarm. This magazine and some of the editors of The Washington Post have also focused on the threat from Iran. But it is a fair statement to say that, in recent years, however unpleasant American scholars think Iran may be, it is the policies of Israel that have been the primary target of much academic opinion.
Unfortunately, this points to the fact that scholars who combine deep knowledge of Islam and the history of the modern Middle East, such as Bernard Lewis, Fouad Ajami, and Martin Kramer, have not been able to produce a successor generation who can swim against the current, get academic positions, gain tenure, and support research into these matters. Or, if such scholars are present, they have, as far as I know, not addressed these issues in the past decade or so. There has been, to use Paul Berman’s apt phrase, a “flight of the intellectuals” away from engagement with the issues posed by Islamist ideology and politics, including its oft-declared hatred of the Jews. Indeed, rather than engendering thoughtful discussion, posing the issue of Arab, Iranian, or Islamist anti-Semitism, quickly leads to accusations of “anti-Arab racism” and “Islamophobia.”
So, then, a great deal of criticism was pointed at an August 2010 conference at YIISA on “Global Anti-Semitism,” in which I participated. The PLO’s representative in Washington publicly denounced the event as hostile to the Arab and Islamic world. But that could not be further from the truth.
While there, I spoke on a panel with several other people, including Menahem Milson, the director of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). As many readers of TNR know, MEMRI does a remarkable job of translating Arabic and Farsi texts into English and posting them on its website. It also monitors TV broadcasts from the Middle East and Iran. In his presentation on our panel, Milson showed the most revolting and appalling anti-Semitic propaganda that I have seen since I did research for my recent books on Nazi propaganda. The selections came from Al Manar, Hezbollah’s TV channel, as well as from Arab TV programs in Egypt. They included depictions of the blood libel (that is, Jews killing young children to use their blood to back matzoh on Passover); “teachers” informing young children that Jews were descended from “apes and pigs;” and a litany of Holocaust denials and updated versions of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Hardened as I am by many years of research on Nazism and the Holocaust, I too was taken aback by one clip in particular. MEMRI entitled it “Egyptian Cleric Amin Al-Ansari Justifies the Holocaust, Airs Footage, and Declares: ‘This Is What We Hope Will Happen But, Allah Willing, at the Hand of the Muslims.’” It was broadcast on Al Rahma TV in Egypt on January 26, 2009, meaning it was during the Mubarek era when political repression of Islamists coincided with tolerance for expression of their views in the media. (You can view it here.) The clip shows now familiar documentary film of Jewish corpses in May 1945. Al Ansari, far from denying the Holocaust or reducing numbers, expressed glee, yes, enthusiasm about the murder of the Jews and said, “This is what we hope will happen, but Allah willing, at the hand of the Muslims.” In short, it was a celebration of the Holocaust and a desire that it be repeated.
It is also horrendously upsetting to see. One reaction is to turn away and to express anger at the messenger, in this case, Milson, and Charles Small for inviting him and giving him a platform. For those convinced that Israel and its policies are the fault of all or most of what has gone wrong in the Middle East, the temptation is to refrain from looking at such hatred straight in the eye or to denounce its presentation as a form of Israeli propaganda. One result is to rhetorically shoot the messenger, deny his scholarly contribution, and describe such work as “politicization.” But, in fact, finding and transcribing such documents is very serious scholarly research—by Yale’s standard or any other university’s.
THE RECENT DEVELOPMENTS at Yale roughly coincided in time with the remarkable announcement on June 9 from the main organization of German book publishers, the Deutschen Buchhandel, that it was awarding its most prestigious honor, the “Peace Prize,” for 2011 to Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal. The award is as powerful an honor as the literary and intellectual establishment in Germany can bestow, combining the clout of a Pulitzer and National Book Award. As Fouad Ajami explained this past January in his excellent review of Sansal’s The German Mujahid for TNR’s The Book, Sansal is the first novelist living and working in North Africa who has written about the Holocaust and about the connections between Nazism and Islamism. Despite death threats and banning of some of his works in Algeria, Sansal continues to speak out and write in support of liberal democracy, for an honest reckoning in the region with Jew-hatred and illiberalism, and against both military dictatorship and Islamist fanaticism in his own country. Of Sansal, the prize committee wrote, “[W]ith his determined plea for freedom of expression and for public dialogue in a democratic society, Sansal has opposed every form of doctrinaire blinders, terror and political despotism. In so doing, he turns his gaze not only to his homeland but to the whole world.”
The award to Sansal expresses a determination among some German intellectuals to foster an honest reckoning with anti-Semitism in the Middle East and Islamism—its historical origins and its impact on the world today. Similarly, there are initial signs that Yale’s reconstituted Program for the Study of Antisemitism possesses a similar determination and will continue to pursue the study of these issues. But, as the Yale faculty and faculty at other research universities reflect on what to do next in this field, questions about scholarly double standards deserve examination.
First, continuation of the current situation of great interest in some forms of racism and anti-Semitism but less interest in others amounts to establishment of a tacit double standard. Yale’s historians have made significant contributions to the history of white racism, slavery, and its aftermath, efforts that continue at the Gilder-Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition under David Blight’s able leadership. Furthermore, American historians have made major contributions to scholarship on Nazism and the Holocaust. Indeed, the standard applied to scholarly examination of white racism directed at people of color (provided that these racist views come from white Americans and Europeans, but not, for example, from the government of Sudan) has been harsh and unforgiving. Similarly, the moral rejection and scholarly denunciation of anti-Semitism when it comes from Europe has been equally critical. Yet another standard, one accompanied with excuses, apologia, denials, avoidance, and “contextualization,” surrounds examination of Jew-hatred when its source is Islamist, Arabic, or Iranian. Though the verbal rejection of Jew-hatred exists, the willingness to actually write its history has been done primarily by historians of Nazism, as well as some excellent Israeli historians who work on the Arab world or on Iran. The result is that the advancement of knowledge—the primary purpose of a research university—is being slowed above all for political reasons.
Nothing a university does is more important, and often less popular, than advancing knowledge about difficult and serious issues. It is the fundamental moral justification for academic freedom and life tenure for professors. The same standard that has applied to the study of slavery, white racism, and Nazism and the Holocaust should be applied to the study of anti-Semitism as it has emerged from elements of the mix of communism, Islamism, and Arab radicalism of the last half-century. One hopes that Yale’s decision to close YIISA and form a new center will rest on this standard, and that reconstituted initiative will seize the opportunity to support significant advances in scholarship regarding these important issues.
The decision by German publishers to bestow their most prestigious award on Sansal is just one powerful signal, among others, that global anti-Semitism and interest in understanding and ending it is alive and well. It’s an important development for my fellow scholars, at Yale, across the country, and around the world to ponder.
Jeffrey Herf teaches modern European history at the University of Maryland, College Park. His most recent book is Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World.
30 comments
It was really shocking to learn that YIISA was one of the few University programs that studied the history antisemitism as well as contemporary Jew hatred. Every important institution of higher learning should devote itself to its study if for no other reason than that successful Jew hatred manifests itself in illiberal cultures. In such social climates universities will not fail to fall victim to the repercussions of such hatred. As far as the cancellation of YIISA, I would guess that, and I have been following many of its lectures, it was its easy accessibility on the internet that alarmed the enemies of the Jewish people like the "The PLO’s representative in Washington" who " publicly denounced the event as hostile to the Arab and Islamic world." But that would be like saying that a conference on German antisemitism in 1938 was hostile to Germany. It would certainly be hostile to German antisemites that is to say to the German Nazis, but that is not the same thing as being hostile to Germany. Same here the study of antisemitism in the Muslims world is hostile to Muslim and Arab antisemites, but is it hostile to the Arab or Muslims world? This could only be so if one judges that the Arab and Muslims world are antisemitic cultures and religions. This is not what the conference lecturers said. You can find a list of programs and contributors here: http://www.yale.edu/yiisa/crisisofmodernityconf82010.htm
- arnon
July 5, 2011 at 12:51am
I read several other pieces on this topic today, in Slate for example; but this one really sums it up succinctly. I don't know why the topic of Middle Eastern antisemitism is anathema but even mentioning it, in my experience, elicits howls of denial and outrage. The fact that antisemitism may have - probably did play a role in fomenting violence against Jews in the Middle East and subsequently, against Israel, and therefore has played a role in creating the very problems we are still trying to solve - for example, the Palestinian refugee issue - because attacks on and wars against Jews and Israel most certainly helped create the problem - somehow is unmentionable. This includes both Nazi and other European propaganda and its impact on the Middle East as well as native Christian and Islamic treatment of Jews per se. I can understand aversion to such discussions on the part of Nazis, neoNazis, Islamists, "activists" and so forth - members of Hezbollah for example or the PFLP; British Arabists - but of course; I can understand the role of religion being underplayed by Communists et.al., because their core discussion is centered on material and power imbalances and thus they tend to underestimate other factors, I think, such as religion or bigotry when it comes to the causes of violence and war; but I do not understand it on the part of Yale University. There is no excuse, period.
- Sophia
July 5, 2011 at 2:13am
Jeffrey Herf asks some good questions, but fails to answer the question why "...Professor Maurice Samuels, whose scholarship focuses on the presentation of Jews in French literature, will convene this reconstituted center. ..." From what I have read, Yale wanted to get rid of Charles Small, and the appointment of Samuels means a re-focus to historic, not current, antisemitism. Yale is a very complex institution, so I would hope someone looks at this story, and follows the money... Yale's decision does not really surprise me because America's elite colleges and universities have always had 'gentleman's - and ladies' - agreements'. I still remember the day I was hauled into the Dean's office in 1972 and grilled over what I had said about unofficial quotas for Jewish students at an alumni meeting in my hometown. Double standards have been incubating for decades, mutated by the astounding political correctness for anything-Islam...
- K2K
July 5, 2011 at 10:05am
What is truly loathsome about YALE's behavior, is that it used "academic standards" as an excuse to get rid of what is in fact a political problem. It's obvious that they succumbed to Arab and Muslim pressure here as they had when they decided not to allow the publication of a book dealing with cartoons critical of Islamicist terrorism.
- arnon
July 5, 2011 at 10:28am
Here is more background on the subject: http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/71539/no-haven/
- arnon
July 5, 2011 at 11:22am
Part of the problem is a two-fold whammy affecting ideology on the Left, which has a short memory about right wing antisemitism apparently but also, was polarized against Israel during the Cold War - and also, the Soviet Union victimized Jews internally; so many leftists have inherited this: A: view of Arabs as oppressed; this grew out of the French war with Algeria as much as anything else. Israel has borne the colonialist/imperialist burden but Israel is not a colony - however, Algeria was, the British Empire and other imperial powers including the Ottomans most certainly did colonize and oppress people. Somehow though Israel has inherited their mantle, become the universal scapegoat not only for colonialism/imperialism but also apartheid - despite the fact that Jews as a people are among the oldest Middle Eastern indogenes and have been victims of Empire from ancient days to the Brits. I wonder why the British in particular don't see the irony here? This applies also to the fact that one of the first fighters against apartheid was Israeli, and all Israeli citizens are equal at least in theory, as in other Western democracies. Incidentally, North African and other Arab Jews were victimized by the Arabs - for example the great musician Cheik Raymond was murdered as "an example" to other Algerian and/or French Jews during the war with France. Now there very few Jews anywhere in the Arab world. The "West Bank" and "East Jerusalem" were deliberately and totally "ethnically cleansed" by Jordan in 1948/9 and all their property seized yet Israel is accused of land theft and ethnic cleansing. This is rather amazing, especially in view of the fact that Britain pretty much "stole" the entire Ottoman Empire...including Jordan, which was the major part of the Jewish National Home created by the League of Nations. Of course despite all the benefits that accrued to the Arab world due to the destruction of the Ottoman Empire by the British, the Jews are the aggressors, the oppressors and the thieves. B. Jews have become Nazis. Weirdly, thanks to the head games played by people who riff on the idea that antisemitism = anti-Arabism, Israelis, since they aren't all dead like they were supposed to be in 1948, 67, 73, etc, must be Nazis. So the hate of Nazis for Jews has morphed in Nazis being Jews. This has been reinforced by the Western press as well as in the Middle East. One ridiculous assertion: since the Jews were victimized by the Nazis they should "know better," equally, Gaza = Warsaw; the Palestinian Arab population boom = "genocide." If ever there was a need for a study of antisemitism, it's now because it's gotten that much more complex and strange and just as irrational as ever.
- Sophia
July 5, 2011 at 1:23pm
Apologies for typos, missing words etc. Sigh:)
- Sophia
July 5, 2011 at 1:25pm
Jeffrey Herf describes the kind of academics who vigorously denounce European anti-semitism, but approach contemporary Islamic anti-semitism with "excuses, apologia, denials, avoidance, and “contextualization” ". One cannot help being reminded of what might be termed the National Lawyers' Guild approach to civil liberties: thunderous denunciations of the police-state practises in Franco's Spain, Pinochet's Chile, and the Generals' junta in Argentina, together with an approach to the same practises in the USSR, Peoples' China, Peoples' Vietnam, and Peoples' Cuba rich in "excuses, apologia, denials, avoidance, and “contextualization” ". Perhaps it is no surprise that the same kind of mind-set repeats the same tricks one generation after another, and about one subject after another.
- jgallant
July 5, 2011 at 4:03pm
There is, indeed, a reluctance in Academia and in its natural daughter, the media, to start an investigation into Muslim antisemitism. Maybe because it clashes with the fashionable "narratives" of Arab victimhood at the hands of the European man, a narrative that in its turn, has been twisted out of any historical veracity into another narrative, of Israel as a classical colonizing enterprise. You temper with the premises of such narratives and what have you got? This is an article by the Jewish-Algerian philosopher Albert Memmi who wrote about Arab antisemitism in 1975. It's worth a read: http://www.sullivan-county.com/x/aj1.htm "As to the pre-colonial period, the collective memory of Tunisian Jewry leaves no doubt. It is enough to cite a few narratives and tales relating to that period: it was a gloomy one. The Jewish communities lived in the shadow of history, under arbitrary rule and the fear of all-powerful monarchs whose decisions could not be rescinded or even questioned. It can be said that everybody was governed by these absolute rulers: the sultans, beys and deys. But the Jews were at the mercy not only of the monarch but also of the man in the street. My grandfather still wore the obligatory and discriminatory Jewish garb, and in his time every Jew might expect to be hit on the head by any Moslem whom he happened to pass. This pleasant ritual even had a name - the chtaka; and with it went a sacramental formula which I have forgotten. A French orientalist once replied to me at a meeting: "In Islamic lands the Christians were no better off!" This is true - so what? This is a double-edged argument: it signifies, in effect, that no member of a minority lived in peace and dignity in countries with an Arab majority! Yet there was a marked difference all the same: the Christians were, as a rule, foreigners and as such protected by their mother-countries. If a Barbary pirate or an emir wanted to enslave a missionary, he had to take into account the government of the missionary's land of origin - perhaps even the Vatican or the Order of the Knights of Malta. But no one came to the rescue of the Jews, because the Jews were natives and therefore victims of the will of "their" rulers. Never, I repeat, never - with the possible exception of two or three very specific intervals such as the Andalusian, and not even then - did the Jews in Arab lands live in other than a humiliated state, vulnerable and periodically mistreated and murdered, so that they should clearly remember their place."
- noga1
July 5, 2011 at 4:11pm
Well - there were and are Christian natives too Noga!
- Sophia
July 5, 2011 at 4:46pm
Anyway, the issues of racism and oppression are real, European colonialism/imperialism was real and has had devastating consequences; but that shouldn't obviate investigation into antisemitism. Also, Israel is not an excuse for antisemitism that long predated Israel. Finally, the issue of Eastern imperialism including the Arab conquest of Africa, Persia, etc, is rarely confronted on the same terms as Western colonialism/imperialism; we decry the forced conversion of people in the New World by Spanish missionaries; what about it in the East? Did everybody convert to Islam by choice? Were there no armies?
- Sophia
July 5, 2011 at 4:50pm
Somehow, just about all these comments seem right on. I think Herf's exposition was excellent, in spite of its keeping far from an aggressive or accusatory tone. He makes it easy to read between the lines, and perhaps maximally easy for a Yale person to read without getting too defensive. I think it's hard to be as open-minded and optimistic as he seems to be, about the future of the new incarnation. But maybe much depends on the character of the professor who'll be running it, on his spine, integrity and understanding. Holding my breath here.
- yerubal
July 5, 2011 at 7:06pm
"Well - there were and are Christian natives too Noga!" You don't say. And are you also disputing with Albert Memmi that "no one came to the rescue of the Jews"? Maybe you know better. I would compare the Christian minorities in Arab countries to the Muslim minorities in Western countries. You are not completely alone if your persecutors have to account to 1.2 billion of your co-religionists. Just look at the Muhammad cartoons riots and their effect on the media and book publishers.
- noga1
July 5, 2011 at 7:25pm
Just an aside - on July 4, Turner Classic Movies broadcast the film musical "1776". Then they suddenly had a segue commentary about how various minorities had been stereotyped throughout American film history, but that only the "Arab, or Turk" had never been redefined. Always 'the OTHER', and shades of evil. (I immediately thought of a few exceptions like "Wind and the Lion", "Lawrence of Arabia", and "Hidalgo") The commentator omitted mention of Jews. This was meant as an intro to the next film, Elia Kazan's 1963 "America, America", a story of Anatolian Greek emigration from Turkey circa 1900. I watched the first 30 minutes or so out of curiousity. The Ottoman Turks were depicted as the evil, corrupt occupiers of Anatolia for almost 500 years. The film starts with pogroms against the indigenous Armenians. The hero, young Greek man, helps the Armenians in his village escape being burned alive in their church, and someone makes the point: "After they finish with the Armenians, they will come for the Greeks", which ultimately DID happen in the name of Turkish secular nationalism under Ataturk in the early 1920's. The Kurds and the Berbers are original inhabitants of now Muslim lands who continue to be persecuted as "the other" even though they are usually muslim. Perhaps Yale should have redefined YIISA's mission to research ALL manifestations of Muslim intolerance for minorities, whether ethnic or religious. Jews would share the stage with various Christian sects, Kurds, Berbers, Baluchis, Alevis, Ismailis, Yazidis, etcetera, etcetera. Maybe even include intolerance for palestinians in other Arab countries, and intolerance for Asian muslims in the Arab states.
- K2K
July 6, 2011 at 8:28am
"A Jew is hiding behind that rock!" Is the guide line for anti- Semitism in the Arab world and Iran. The Arab world and Persia (today's Iran) cleansed themselves of any Jewish communities, some at least a thousand years older that the time Arabs came out of Arabia. The 1948 effort to destroy The Jewish State of Israel has the same reason and was repeated in 1956, 1967, 1973 and holding. The refusal of Abbas to recognize the Jewish state of Israel has the same reason: "A Jew is hiding behind that rock." Hamas, son of The Muslim Brotherhood has a charter that aims for the destruction of the Jewish state and replacing it with a Muslim state. Finally anti- Semitism is a road map: Mohammed made agreements with the Jews he later slaughtered after he finished his conquest of Arabia. Any agreements with the Jews are only temporary as a necessary step before the final assault to destroy the Jewish state as explained by Arafat himself after Oslo justifying his agreements with the Jews in a mosque in South Africa. The Muslim in the mosque immediately understood and calmed down.
- Poupic
July 6, 2011 at 8:51am
Good essay. Noga, thanks for the link. Maybe this is naive but here goes. About heavy handed treatment within Arab nations of native Jewish populations... and the accusation of kicking out Jews in West Bank, I wonder if some writers and historians on this subject could approach some younger Arab historians and see if they would be willing to collaborate on looking at the subject. I'm not talking about kumbiya but in the spirit of the times, there may be Arabs (and Muslims) feeling the freedom of power to take a second look, not demonizing but also far from romanticizing the past, especially as it has to do with Jewish-Islamic relations.
- sollyman2
July 6, 2011 at 8:53am
From the Memmi essay Noga pointed to - this seems so pertinent to Herf's article, the subject, and too the times. He's explaining the lack of attention paid to the subjugation of Jewish populations in Arab countries. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "The third argument is the doing of contemporary historians, among whom, curiously enough, are certain Western Jews. Having undergone the dreadful Nazi slaughter, they could not imagine a similar thing happening elsewhere. However, if we except the massacres of the twentieth century (the pogroms in Russia after Kishinev and later by Stalin, as well as the Nazi crematoria), the total number of Jewish victims from Christian pogroms over the centuries probably does not exceed the total of the victims of the smaller and larger periodic pogroms perpetrated in Arab lands under Islam over the past millennium. Jewish history has so far been written by Western Jews; there has been no great Oriental Jewish historian. This is why only the "Western" aspects of Jewish suffering are widely known. One is reminded of the absurd distinction drawn by Jules Isaac, usually better inspired, between "true" and "false" anti-Semitism, "true" anti-Semitism being the result of Christianity. The truth is that it is not only Christianity that creates anti-Semitism, but the fact that the Jew is a member of a minority - in Christendom or in Islam. In making of anti-Semitism a Christian creation, Isaac, I regret to say, has minimized the tragedy of the Jews from Arab lands and helped to confuse people." ----------------------------------------- I remember coming back from Israel in 1978 and finding myself in two perpetual arguments; one with American Jews who romanticized the place and seemed blind to how short-sighted a vision the nation had in its settlement of "Judea and Samaria." The other with left wing American Jews who totally romanticized Yiddish culture and saw Zionism as something machismo, ugly, and outside the more gentle Jewish tradition - a tradition which was never totally gentle and a view of Zionism that lacked that movements larger imagination and poetry. Personally, I feel Netanyahu is a travesty for Israel and his administration deserving of the contempt it seems to inspire, almost baiting the world to despise their nation. But - perhaps badly using Winston Churchill, the situation between Israel and its neighbors, reminds me of his saying "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." But that's another discussion.
- sollyman2
July 6, 2011 at 9:21am
sollyman2: I wouldn't be too be too hopeful about such collaboration in research. I have been visiting Arab blogs (English-written) and they appear invariably to have a very different concept of tolerance than a Western one. Here is one example of an Egyptian blogger with a keen interest in history: http://ashraf62.wordpress.com/ As for Jews in Ottoman rule, here is another source: http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2007/07/jews-under-the-ottomans/#more
- noga1
July 6, 2011 at 9:34am
"Personally, I feel Netanyahu is a travesty for Israel and his administration deserving of the contempt it seems to inspire," I thought Netanyahu has done a great job in the way he has been handling the flotilla kerfuffle. Anyway if I'm not living in Israel and not taking on the burdens of that life and its costs, I don't feel comfortable speaking in such contemptuous terms about its elected leaders. What Solyman said about "American Jews who totally romanticized Yiddish culture and saw Zionism as something machismo, ugly, and outside the more gentle Jewish tradition" would seem to be the guiding sentiment. Netanyahy, like Begin before him, is somehow perceived as somehow illegitimate, not the expression of "real" Zionists. Much of Netanyahu's support base comes from Israelis who are descended from those Jews who fled Arab and Muslim lands. Unlike the traditional Labour power base which used to be mainly the Ashkenazi, socialist-minded elites. This is a problem for many American Jews, though it remains for the most part mute and unspoken.
- noga1
July 6, 2011 at 9:48am
Noga writes: "I thought Netanyahu has done a great job in the way he has been handling the flotilla kerfuffle." It's precisely because Netanyahu is wasting a huge amount of resources (including calling in favors) on "kerfuffles" like the flotilla makes me thinks he is a travesty. What a joke that whole flotilla thing is, especially Israel creating bogeymen where there are none. It makes me think of Ralph Steadman's somewhat hideous drawings of Israeli soldiers hiding in baby carriages, petrified of everything. Netanyahu is the frog in a slow boil, oblivious to what surrounds him. Okay, not oblivious, but lost in a highly restrictive vision. And he takes the rest of his country along for the ride. The only thing that saves him is the ineptness and rottenness of many of Israel's enemies, and the momentary confusion of others - including the Israel public which puts the maxim "all politics is local" on steroids. But as Amir Oren wrote yesterday (http://bit.ly/m6aPfX), whether Obama or Romney wins the next White House, the behavior of the current Israeli administration (if continued) will screw them whoever is in power. They are untrustworthy, unyielding, and perhaps worse, totally unimaginative save for their self-righteousness that keeps coming up with excuses for their neglect of long term strategy. I have no faith in the left in this country, but there are plenty of centrists and leftists in Israel who are seriously worried about the abysmal state of Israel's leadership. Personally, I wish this magazine were a more disciplined vessel for such voices.
- sollyman2
July 6, 2011 at 1:43pm
Well, sollyman, i disagree with more or less everything you have to say, either about the flotilla, Netahnyahu or the Israeli public. But I know better than to engage in conversation with someone suffering from Netanyahu derangement syndrome. I will say only this, to counter your last point: It doesn't matter whether it is Netanyahu, Livni or Barak elected as Israel's PM, the constraints, principles, and reasons that dictate Netanyahu's decisions will remain the same. You will not see any halt to construction in the "settlements" in Jerusalem, there will be no let up in the blockade on Gaza until Hamas stops its qassams and returns Gilad Shalit, there will be no softening of Israel's insistence on defensible borders and Palestinian renunciation of RoR.
- noga1
July 6, 2011 at 2:44pm
"I have no faith in the left in this country, but there are plenty of centrists and leftists in Israel who are seriously worried about the abysmal state of Israel's leadership." I second that.
- arnon
July 6, 2011 at 2:57pm
The story of the YIISA downfall is fleshed out a great deal in a helpful way in James Kirchick's July 5 article in Tablet: http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/71539/no-haven/ .
- yerubal
July 6, 2011 at 3:36pm
anyone who believes there are "...plenty of centrists and leftists in Israel ..." really needs to seriously study current demographics. The Jews expelled from muslim countries and their descendants, the immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and the orthodox, um, Religious Zionists are now a majority of the Jewish population. Likud now represents the center. I agree with everything that noga wrote since 9:48 am today. Plus, the 2011 flotilla has been a pivotal diplomatic event, absolutely fascinating, and worth every minute that Netanyahu has devoted to it. "Israel, Greece, Turkey join hands to stall Gaza flotilla." a DEBKA report posted at basman's cousin Ted's very rightwing blog, which I visit in order to access posts like this, to follow the Israeli natural gas and shale oil boom, and to try to understand the Israeli far right (who seem to think Netanyahu is a leftist wimp) http://www.israpundit.com/archives/37437
- K2K
July 6, 2011 at 7:48pm
I'm not sure you are right about the center in Israel being around Likkud, K2K. I would put the center around Kadima, with Netanyahu being the preferred leader. Israeli society is ready to give up settlements for an appropriate price but not those in and around Jerusalem or along the "thickened" Green Line. That's more or less the consensus. The rest, as they say, is commentary ... But you are correct that the Left is Israel has become quite weak; a consequence of that weakness is that whatever is left of the Left has become for the most part more extreme. Not a good condition for any society. Here is an example: http://972mag.com/slavoj-zizek-in-tel-aviv-antisemitism-is-alive-and-kicking-in-europe/ "Many seem to have come with the expectation to hear Zizek rip into Israel and use his wry wit and charisma in such a bourgeoises Tel Aviv setting to endorse the BDS Movement. Indeed when Udi Aloni introduced Zizek, he identified himself as an activist on behalf of BDS and said he chose the bookstore as a venue in order to not cooperate with any formal Israeli institution." Imagine the extremism of a Left that its adherents feel disappointed when an anti-Israel radical philosopher disappoints their expectations with his attempted restraint of his own radicalism. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iRebvOLNaQ
- noga1
July 6, 2011 at 8:56pm
Let's try again: Here is an example: http://972mag.com/slavoj-zizek-in-tel-aviv-antisemitism-is-alive-and-kicking-in-europe/ "Many seem to have come with the expectation to hear Zizek rip into Israel and use his wry wit and charisma in such a bourgeoises Tel Aviv setting to endorse the BDS Movement. Indeed when Udi Aloni introduced Zizek, he identified himself as an activist on behalf of BDS and said he chose the bookstore as a venue in order to not cooperate with any formal Israeli institution." Imagine the extremism of a Left that its adherents feel disappointed when an anti-Israel radical philosopher disappoints their expectations with his attempted restraint of his own radicalism. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iRebvOLNaQ
- noga1
July 6, 2011 at 9:01pm
Noga, thanks again for great leads. Appreciate it. Guess my read on Israel is different. Admittedly it is a "read" because I have not been back for decades - though I have a few very close Israeli friends from all ends of political spectrum. Anyway, thanks again.
- sollyman2
July 7, 2011 at 9:56am
noga - you may be correct in Kadima being "the center", but as long as Netanyahu holds Likud together, I still see Kadima's prospects dimming without Sharon. And, Israeli demographics definitely trend away from even what remains of Labor's 'left'. What I try to do here is temper the Netanyahu-bashing that infects so much of American liberal (or progressive) opinion. The pundits and the TNR commenters attack Netanyahu personally, and for forming his coalition with Beitenu, Shas, and the ultra-religious parties instead of a coalition with Livni's Kadima. But, the evidence shows it was and still is Livni's problem of her own making. Also, the demographics really do favor Netanyahu's current coalition. I am no longer so sure Israel "is ready to give up settlements for an appropriate price but not those in and around Jerusalem or along the "thickened" Green Line." With the increased uncertainty over Egypt and Jordan, let alone Lebanon and Syria, I am no longer certain Israel would give up Ariel, or the Jewish homes in geographically strategic places, including the Golan Heights. Giving the Golan back to Syria in exchange for a peace treaty remains one of the cornerstones of American/EU conventional 'wisdom' a la "we all know what a final peace will look like". (BTW, the Druse who are Israeli citizens vote to the right. The Druse on the Golan, which was formally annexed like all of Jerusalem, still have the option of Israeli citizenship - I read somewhere they have mostkly NOT accepted the offer out of fear that the Golan would return to Syria and then the Baathists would kill them for being 'traitors'. The Druse of the Golan are the ultimate fence sitters, for good reason. There is now a legal brief submitted to the UN. Excerpt from "‘Palestine’ In The Land Of Israel?" Jerold S. Auerbach Posted Jun 29 2011 "...according to a recent letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Signed by an array of lawyers, law professors and international law experts, it asks him to block the forthcoming resolution, promoted by the Palestinian Authority, for recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1949 Armistice lines. The letter was drafted by lawyers affiliated with the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel, a non-profit organization founded in 2004 to find “fair and equitable solutions” for Israelis then about to be evacuated from Gaza. Among its distinguished signers were Alan Baker, former legal adviser for the Israeli Foreign Ministry and ambassador to Canada, and Meir Rosenne, another former legal adviser for the Foreign Ministry and ambassador to the United States. They claim that UN recognition would be “contrary to international law, UN resolutions and existing agreements.” Their letter, in effect a legal brief, argues that such a resolution would contravene UN Security Council Resolutions adopted after the Six-Day and Yom Kippur wars. It would be “in stark violation” of existing agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. Indeed, “the legal basis for the establishment of the State of Israel,” they indicate, goes back to 1922 when the League of Nations affirmed “the establishment of a national home for the Jewish People in the historical area of the Land of Israel.” Empowered to enact international law for the new postwar world order, the League conferred on Great Britain a Mandate for Palestine. “Palestine” was defined as the land east and west of the Jordan River, now comprising Jordan, the West Bank and Israel. But in what became the first partition of Palestine, now long forgotten or ignored (even by Israeli government officials), the British government lopped off all the land east of the Jordan River, three-quarters of the designated Mandatory territory, and bestowed it upon Abdullah, son of the Sharif of Mecca, for his own kingdom of Trans-Jordan. The entire remainder, west of the Jordan to the Mediterranean, was redefined as “Palestine” and designated for the “Jewish National Home,” a phrase borrowed from Lord Balfour’s famous letter of November 2, 1917. But the League went beyond that vague and indeterminate assurance. Article 6 of the Palestine Mandate explicitly protected “close settlement by Jews” in the shrunken land to be called Palestine. That guarantee remains the international legal foundation for Jewish settlements built ever since the Six-Day War returned Israel to its ancient Jewish homeland. It has never been rescinded. As signers of the Legal Forum letter indicate, any General Assembly attempt to create a Palestinian state in that territory would violate an array of international guarantees. Among them, most crucially, is Article 80 of the UN Charter. It explicitly protected the rights of “any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which members of the United Nations may respectively be parties.” Drafted by Jewish representatives (including Prime Minister Netanyahu’s father), Article 80 became known as “the Palestine clause.” It preserved, under international law, the rights of the Jewish people to “close settlement” in all the land west of the Jordan River, even after the British Mandate had expired and the League of Nations had ceased to exist. ..." http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/48830/ also quoted at: http://www.israpundit.com/archives/37442/comment-page-1#comment-114615 if you want to read comments by very religious Zionists Not that I meant to get off-topic, but I do still think maybe Yale needs to re-focus on the contemporary rights of all minorities in Muslim nations, broaden the scope so that it is not solely about Jews. Instead, it looks like the new YIISA will retreat into historical, pre-1945, western antisemitism. Just what we need, another conference on the Dreyfuss Affair...
- K2K
July 7, 2011 at 10:26am
I wasn't speaking about the Golan Heights, K2K. My belief is that if push came to shove, Israelis would much rather give away the West Bank. The main obstacle is the hard-core, religious settlers.
- noga1
July 7, 2011 at 5:46pm
Disagree that Likud is the center! My goodness. Who've you guys been talking to? Now - I will say this: a lot of people are alarmed by the situation - even Egypt appears to be up for grabs now, and there is great distrust of the surrounding nations (with reason). That doesn't mean averages Israelis are on the far right. Also, there's a difference between left and right here and left and right overseas - the US far right is FAR RIGHT to the point that New Hampshire has shamefully defunded Planned Parenthood so poor people can't even get pills for birth control and bladder infections. This is FAR RIGHT.
- Sophia
July 11, 2011 at 7:59pm