The new head of the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, one of the finest cultural center dedicated to the Arab world in the world, is Dominique Baudis, a prominent figure of France’s pro-Israel movement. The IMA is financed mostly by France but also by several Gulf states — and I hope they act soon to stop rewarding people who have fought against Arab causes. French-Moroccan blogger Ibn Kafka has more.
[Via Angry Arab]
Are you claiming that Zionists fight against Arab causes? How can that be? Zionists have fought for Arab causes for nearly a century now: to free Arabs from the Ottoman yoke, to defeat oppressive dictators, to keep Israel’s own Arab citizenry free from the attacks leveled upon them by Israel’s enemies, to help rebuild Kuwait after the Iraqi occupation, to supply new health-care solutions to Arab peoples…the list goes on and on. Why would you think anything different?
OMGGG LEVEL 6 ZIONIST INFILTRATION IN EUROPA SECTOR! BLOGGGGGERS: DIVERT ENERGY TO REAR SHIELDS!!!
I’m a big fan of the IMA – what impact do you think it will have?
Sasa, the http://saroujah.blogspot.com“ rel=”nofollow”>Syria News Wire
To the juvenile commentators above: you could argue that other colonists than the Zionists also provided “security” to native populations, but that doesn’t discount the fact that they oppressed the shit out of them.
Read a book or two on colonialism before you start pounding your keyboards. You certainly seem to have plenty of time to spare in your sorry lives, so you may as well use it to advantage.
[…] عن العروبي، عن ابن كاÙ�كا: […]
Issandr, je ne peut pas lire Francais bien, peut-etre vous pouvez, uh, linker a quelque-chose en Anglais aussi? (Or I could just look it up online myself, of course.)
Are you saying that anyone pro-Israel cannot run this institute? Or just this particular guy? Does believing Israel is a legitimate state that deserves to exist disqualify you from such posts, or suggest automatically that you hate Arabs or somehow want to see harm come to them? Seriously.
According to Angry Arab’s post (I skipped over the French cos it would take me ten minutes to get through it): “Needless to say, no Arab representative at the Institute’s governing council opposed this appointment.” If it’s okay by them, what’s the problem? I guess it’s odd a white guy might run this institute, but from a quick search it seems he’s written books on the Middle East and was a reporter in Lebanon, and presumably is not unqualified and very interested. So is the beef simply that he is pro-Israel?
I went to an IMA exhibit a few weeks ago when I was in Paris. The one about Venice and the Middle East. It was overall very interesting and well done, though in a few spots they sort of blamed the Europeans for problems that couldn’t have been European alone. For example, they suggested the Venetians just kind of became xenophobic, Orientalist, anti-Muslim schmucks, but nowhere did they mention that the Ottoman Empire was at the same time not exactly friendly to Europe and the same thing was probably happening in Istanbul. The exhibit didn’t suggest it takes two to tango. But that was just a small thing that didn’t really detract from the overall exhibit. I think it’s coming to London and NYC soon, and I believe, for reasons I don’t recall, the Economist said the show’ll probably get better in the latter venues.
The point of which escapes me.
Solomon2… reading your comment I almost thought you were satirizing some of the more vehement pro-Israeli folks.
I should add I fully understand that, for example, my curiosity would be at least piqued if they named a pro-Palestinian activist as head of Paris’ (excellent) Holocaust Memorial, or the Museum of Jewish History there. But I also can’t imagine they would do something like that if the guy seemed like the sort to do a bad job.
Dan, from the point of view of someone who is pro-Palestinian, giving the IMA over to someone who is pro-Israeli and part of a network of people who defend Israel’s image in France raises some serious concerns. I would like to see the IMA used to advocate for Palestinian rights and the end of the occupation — this makes sense because this is a major concern in the Arab world. I also think that giving him the job unnecessarily rewards his past positions on the I-P conflict, at a time when I think Arab countries (as they are obviously not doing) should isolate and boycott Israel. Last summer’s Lebanon war made me an anti-normalizer, and I have no compunction in saying that a pro-Israel activist should have no role in a place like the IMA and that its Arab backers should object.
Personally, I don’t understand why everything has to be pro-pal and pro-israel. It’s fairly simplistic to look at arguments about the middle east in this manner. Second, it’s also inaccurate to look at the Middle East and its problems through the eyes of th Pal-Israeli conflict. There are so many more interesting aspects to Arab culture and history than the P-I conflict. Therefore, why make everything about the P-I? Why taint the world’s view that everything in the Middle East is about this conflict? it’s simply not. What people should know about the middle east is that not everyone thinks about this issue all the time…nor should they. They have their own local issues, whether they are family politics, village politics, tribal politics, religious politics, etc. Of course, the counter argument that will immediately be leveled at me is that I am a taking a “ZIONIST” position and trying to downplay the Palestinian’s position. well, i’m not. i’m just saying it’s a shame that people distort the diverse sets of experiences in the middle east to pursue their own activist-journalist agenda.
There’s a huge and substantive difference between a right-wing Israeli advocate being made head of the IMA and a pro-Palestine advocate being made head of a Holocaust organization…in that being pro-Palestine and dedicated to commemorating the Holocaust are not at all mutually contradictory ideals, but probably if anything the most morally coherant position to take.
Meanwhile, to direct representation of the Arab world in a Western country while being strongly allied with a viewpoint that most of the Arab world (and the rest of us) finds objectionable and racist at best is highly problematic. I don’t know anything about Baudis, but I know my history of Zionism: Zionism, as an ideology, has pretty much always held Arabs and Arab culture in contempt (not just Muslim and Christian Palestinians; Zionists also made concerted efforts to eradicate the culture of Arab Jews and “bring them up to the level” of their European compatriots).
How does one reconcile being tasked with representing Arabs while holding a viewpoint that denies Arabs civil and human rights?
Issandr, I get what you’re saying, and I appreciate it’s a principled stand (as opposed to a hateful one, I guess). But I think you’re wrong. Maybe about this one guy, specifically–I don’t know enough about him or the IMA to be able to say. But more generally, I think you’re wrong. I hope you don’t mind if I just leave it at that.
e.h — that’s funny (by which I mean, it’s not at all funny) you say that. I usually say being pro-Israel does *not* mean being anti-Arab, but the converse doesn’t ever seem to hold. Also, I find it telling that you assume, without knowing anything about this Baudis fellow (as you say), that he is “right wing”. So now all pro-Israeli people are right wing? I’m reeeeeeeeally pro Israeli. Am I right-wing? Tell me. Please, tell me about me, you expert you. But what do I know, I’m just a Zionist, my Israeli passport just must damage my capacity for reason so much that I can’t see the truth, that I am hateful and racist. Thank you for enlightening me. Now take your head out of the anti-Israeli sand for a few seconds and realize how incredibly biased what you’re saying is. Then do a few minutes reading and maybe you’ll realize you don’t know the half of it. — While I’m at it. This difference you’re mention between “Arab Jews” and “Zionists”. Are you Jewish, is this something you know about or did you read some vague reference to it on an Angry Arab post or in some brief Wikipedia-esque summary of Judaism? What you’re talking about, I can only imagine, is some bizarre warping of the divide between Ashkenazi Jews, ie European Jews, and Sephardic Jews, ie ‘Spanish’ Jews (or ‘Arab’ Jews, or basically Jews from around the Mediterranean rim and the Middle East). What you’re talking about must derive from the superior attitude Ashkenazim took towards Sephardim. It has nothing to do with Zionism. It has to do with European attitudes, with (for example) white Polish Jews seeing less-obviously-white Iraqi Jews and thinking what Europeans have always thought: “these people are beneath us.” It’s an internal Jewish matter that you seem to not know much about, but you’re warping it to suit your anti-Zionist viewpoint. It has nothing to do with anti-Arab sentiment. I personally know plenty of Sephardic Jews who are Israeli, proud, and by default Zionist. One of my close friends’ uncle’s got killed fleeing in Iraq in what must’ve been ’47 or ’48. Talk about dispossessed peoples. Zionism, as an ideology, has pretty much always held Arabs and Arab culture not “in contempt”, as you say, but as incidental–Zionism is not about Arabs, it’s about Jews regaining a homeland to escape persecution. All the hate and contempt spewing out of both sides is a consequence of war, not of anything inherent in Arab or Israeli culture. So as not to sully Issandr’s fine blog, I will now refrain from calling you a putz.
Well, I accidentally erased my own brilliant and exquisitely reasoned response before I could post it.
When I say Zionism is historically anti-Arab, I mean it boils down to this: There is a difference between the rhetoric of Zionism and the practices of Zionism and Zionists historically. Even so though, most Zionist leaders were fairly explicit that “returning Jews to their homeland” meant both dispossesing a critical number of Arabs from theirs (so that there could be a Jewish majority) and denying equal rights to Arabs who remained in their homeland (think about the almighty ruckus over the first Arab minister a short while ago, 50 years after the creation of the state, and then answer me this: can you ever envision a Palestinian being elected PRIME Minister of Israel? No? Well then they don’t have equal rights).
Meanwhile Zionism also is based in the historical experience of European Jews only, and assumes a telos that disregards completely the situation of Jews in Arab and Muslim countries, who did not face pogroms or the Holocaust. Jews in Arab countries and Turkey could have immigrated to Palestine at any point prior to 1918, since they were Ottoman citizens, and yet only minute amounts did. For example, most Egyptian Jews did not leave Egypt until Israeli aggressions like the expulsion of the Palestinians, the attack on Suez, and Israeli espionage in Egypt and Iraq made their situation untenable.
Those that did arrive in Israel were told to forget their Arab culture and forcibly assimilated into the dominant Ashkenazi culture, which was regarded as the only true Jewish culture. Zionism required this because Zionism assumes that a Morrocan Jew and a Polish Jew share a culture, whereas a Morrocan Jew and a Morrocan Muslim do not. That is the only way that there can be a singular and unique “Jewish nation.”
Case in point– why do you insist on calling them Sephardic Jews? The Jewish population of Iraq, for example, was the oldest Jewish population in the world– far older than 1492. They spoke Arabic as their primary language. Substantial native Arab Jewish communities were also found in Morroco and Yemen. In Egypt the native Jewish population were the Karaites. In the 500 years after the expulsion of Spain many Jews, yes, made there way into the Ottoman empire, and spoke a variety of languages. They were Arab Jews, just as there are Arab Muslims and Arab Christians.
Like I said, I don’t know France, French, or French politics, but I know that in America, “pro-Israel” almost always means “pro-Likudnik.” Thus, bombing Lebanon is “pro-Israel” whereas ending the occupation and granting full human and civil rights to Palestinians is not “pro Israel.” You’re absolutely right, it’s totally illogical and makes no sense, and yet that’s the way the term is usually meant, despite the actual harmful or benificial outcomes of those policies respectively for Israel and Israelis.
Why do you care whether or not I’m Jewish?
Your argument feels like a close cousin to those arguments that say the Palestinians are make-believe because no-one called themselves Palestinian before Israel came into being, thus the Palestinian national cause is a sham and blah blah blah. I’ll believe you if you believe them, deal?
I say “Sephardic” cos that’s the common term which has grown to mean “any Jew of the Middle East or North Africa.” It’s a word. It works. People say it, other people know what it means. I’m not the editor of the OED. By your logic, every person who uses the term Sephardic is some kind of racist denier of history? That friend I told you about, from Iraq, her family *had* lived in Iraq for God-knows how many centuries. By your definition, they’re not Sephardim. By their own definition of themselves, you know what they are? Israelis.
In America, where I am, I’m “pro-Israel” to an extreme (but never to a fault, naturally) and if I bothered to vote in Israeli elections, and maybe I should, I’m too lazy, but if I did, I doubt I would vote for Likud (and certainly never the parties to its right). I am not that full of myself–yet–to think my politics are unique.
I don’t care about your ethnic background. I believe I was asking rhetorically, perhaps pointing out that if you were Jewish you’d at least have some kind of innate grasp of what you’re talking about, whereas if you’re not and are very political, there’s some chance you ‘studied’ the history only to find points that bolstered your argument.
And lastly, yes, it is a pain to have lengthy and reasoned responses erased. I’m sorry. My responses tend to be lengthy–but rest assured, the longer they are, the less reasoned they’ll probably be.
Uh Dan, have you never heard of Mizrahi Jews? Those are the Middle Eastern Arab Jews. Ella Shohat writes about them. Read her work. Her own family is Iraqi Israeli. They call themselves Mizrahim.
My sense is that your insistence on calling all Arab Jews Sephardim seeks to deny the existence in the Middle East of Arab and Iranian Jewish COMMUNITIES, and not just individual stories of discrimination and horror.
You got me there. You are correct, Mizrahi Jews are “eastern” Jews, Iranian, Iraqi, etc. I believe, however, the term Sephardi is often taken to include Mizrahi. In fact I quoted my definition of Sephardi above from the New Oxford American Dictionary, 2nd Edition. Language is sloppy like that. There’s no political stratagem behind it.
Your sense is interesting. You sense I deny these communities when in my previous comment I talked about a friend of mine whose family historically was part of them? Were you under the impression I thought she and her family were alone in Baghdad? If that’s the impression I gave, apologies.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/mejews.html
Impression corrected.
I too sense something. I sense you (or e.h. above, if the person’s different) deny a common culture between a Polish Jew and a Morroccan Jew. Spake e.h.: “Zionism required this because Zionism assumes that a Moroccan Jew and a Polish Jew share a culture, whereas a Moroccan Jew and a Morrocan Muslim do not.”
Well that was news to me. I didn’t know the two were so exclusive. Oh snap, I just remembered, when I was little, my rabbi told me falafel was a Ukranian dish! What a bastard.
Seriously though, as I said in an above comment, these are internal Jewish matters that I feel were more to do with historic intra-cultural attitudes rather than with Zionism. I am not a professor. I have only my own background to judge against, but seeing as I’m Jewish and Israeli and haven’t come across the stuff you speak of, I can’t be so not in the know. Who am I going to believe, you or my own two eyes?
You want to reply, you’ll get the last word. I’m not replying anymore.
How is reading up on colonialism going to make us understand better? We still won’t agree with your assessment that Zionism is the epitonme of all that is evil. The US was a colony once, we hardly bitch about it at all. Colonialism is not the biggest evil on this earth. The individual acts of evil that people make a daily decision to perform are much worse. Blowing up college kids for instance or booksellers.
I would argue that the Israelis have been much kinder to the Palestinians than the Arabs are being to each other. Or than Saddam Hussein was to the Kurds or Iranians. Civil war can be much worse than colonialism. Much more deadly and devisive. You can argue also that some colonial powers left the formerly occupied peoples much better off. Hong Kong for instance. The British former colonies are doing much better than the French. I blame the French for the Katrina disaster in New Orleans.
Well, if we don’t agree that invading another country and occupying it is bad, then we’re not going to have much to talk about. YOU may not think its so bad, but I assure you that most colonized people do. YOU may not think that the colonization of North America matters much, but I assure you that those who were genocided in the process do.
My last comment then: I didn’t meant to get quite so bogged down in the linguistics or semantics, Dan, I was merely pointing to one of the many ways that Zionist rhetoric makes Arabs disappear.
These may be “internal Jewish matters that … were more to do with historic intra-cultural attitudes” but then again, so is Zionism. Zionism is also a product of a specific place– 19th century Germany, and has a historical record of use by European Jews that is real and occurred and is largely a matter of record, even if you are not aware of it and it’s appearances today may be different or muted.
People who remember the historic actions of Zionism against Arabs (and its continuing actions against Arabs) could reasonably object when a Zionist is appointed the head of the IMA, which is what this debate is all about.
Sunni-Shiite relations are an internal Muslim matter that have to do with historic intra-cultural attitudes, doesn’t stop everyone and their mom from commenting on them.
If you want more historic examples rather than linguistic, I suggest researching the Israeli Black Panthers of the ’70s (haPanterim haSchkorim) and the maabarot riots of the ’50s. Tom Segev, Sami Chetrit and Ella Shohat are all Israeli historians and academics who have covered the topic.
The US was a colony once, we hardly bitch about it at all.
Well, you did back in 1820, which is the proper timeframe for this.
…why won’t my posts show up, btw?
Solomon is a great comedian:
“Are you claiming that Zionists fight against Arab causes? How can that be? “
I laughed my head off.
Then I had to shed a tear.
Miss Carnivorous… what do you eat? Palestinians? or Goyim in general/
“We still won’t agree with your assessment that Zionism is the epitonme of all that is evil.”
So it’s the epitome of some evil but misses out on … what? Tardiness?
“I would argue that the Israelis have been much kinder to the Palestinians than the Arabs are being to each other.”
Of course you would, as any zionist does (as if you are all reciting your Hasbara instructions.)
So you would say that mutatis mutandis Zionists who sold their brethern to the Nazis because, after all, “a dead cow in Palestine is worth more than a live Jew in Europe” did mort e harm than Hitler? The Nazis were indeed “kinder” to them by being upfront, eh?
“I blame the French for the Katrina disaster in New Orleans.”
Oh, sorry, I thought you were a compos mentis zionist, not a loony..
The US was a colony once, we hardly bitch about it at all.
You are an idiot to compare British colonialism of the 13 colonies to European colonialism and it’s dark legacy in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Thanks for the link, Issandr, but I am not French at all – my only link to that country is that I’m francophone. Btw, if judges are at the firefront of the struggle in Egypt, in Morocco they debar lawyers – see http://www.blog.ma/obiterdicta/index.php?action=article&id_article=13539 .
Sorry – I meant “disbar”, of course.