Tag: academia

Targeted vituperation

Thanks to the often amusing Angry Arab for the link to a little light summertime reading, to whit to Norm Finkelstein’s latest rhetorical head butt to Alan Dershowitz.

Under the guise of taking apart Dershowitz’s political-legal analyses Finkelstein gets off some nice shots: his victim is a “notorious serial prevaricator� and “moral pervert� who “mounts his case from multiple angles, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, but always falsely.�

Aaah, the sweet art of the ad hominem academic slapdown.

Overall the piece is a lot of fun, and provides some nice ammo for after-dinner arguments. Finkelstein’s comments on civilian culpability and casualties, and the implications of blurring civilian/military distinctions are one high point. Another comes at the very end where, well, he answers the question raised in the title.

In the same vein (readable, consumer level stuff on international law) Philippe Sands’s Lawless World provides a good clear primer on the political/judicial terrain over which Finkelstein and Dershowitz are punching each other’s lights out.

Bernard Lewis: Armegeddon in two weeks

Darling of neo-cons Bernard Lewis, writing in the Wall Street Journal, pinpoints the precise date of the Iranian destruction of Israel and the end of times:

In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the cosmic struggle at the end of time — Gog and Magog, anti-Christ, Armageddon, and for Shiite Muslims, the long awaited return of the Hidden Imam, ending in the final victory of the forces of good over evil, however these may be defined. Mr. Ahmadinejad and his followers clearly believe that this time is now, and that the terminal struggle has already begun and is indeed well advanced. It may even have a date, indicated by several references by the Iranian president to giving his final answer to the U.S. about nuclear development by Aug. 22. This was at first reported as “by the end of August,” but Mr. Ahmadinejad’s statement was more precise.

What is the significance of Aug. 22? This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to “the farthest mosque,” usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind.

It really seems that while dealing with a complex and multi-dimensioned foreign policy issues, all the neo-cons want to do is what they did with Iraq: clutch at straws, invent bogeymen and fabricate lies. That Bernard Lewis, a man still appreciated even by his political enemies as a scholar of some note, has sunk to scare-mongering in lieu of policy advocacy is sad and scary.

Appeal from American University in Beirut

I am passing on this appeal from the AUB for donations to help the refugees from South Lebanon. Not that long ago I was walking through its beautiful campus…

Also take a look at this interview with John Waterbury, AUB’s dean, who says “We may be looking at a situation where we have to write off the last eight or nine years.”


An appeal from the American University of Beirut to its alumni, friends, faculty, staff and students

July 23, 2006

Facing the Challenge The American University of Beirut is once again at the forefront of efforts to care for those who are suffering in Lebanon. Along with other NGOs, the men and women affiliated with AUB and its hospital are providing critical services to those in need. We will do everything we can to take care of those who need our help. We have done it before. Our commitment to do so is just as strong today.

We expect, however, that the demand for AUB’s services will continue to grow as more and more families seek refuge in and around Beirut. Today, more than 500,000 men, women, and children have been displaced as a result of the conflict.

Continue reading Appeal from American University in Beirut

Beirut help needed to save archive

Arabist reader Zazou has passed on a call for help to save important academic archives in Beirut:

If you know anyone (preferably British) who is in Beirut, and who is about to be evacuated, would you please see if they are willing to help save a very valuable archive of Palestinian oral history?

– BACKGROUND

Diana Allan, an anthropologist at Harvard, has worked with Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, particularly Shatila, and collected precious oral testimonies of 1948 survivors. She has hundreds of hours of testimonies, comprising of 750 DVD’s. Needless to say, this is a major treasure for our community and, as far as we know, nobody has done this work as extensively and thoroughly as Diana has.

– SITUATION & NEED

We need to salvage this valuable archive by getting it out of Beirut asap, preferably with foreigners being evacuated. The evacuees are only allowed a small bag, but the British embassy has agreed to let this be carried and not count as part of someone’s baggage allowance, but conditional on having someone to carry it and take responsibility for it. It is 15 kg. So… if you know anyone (preferably British, otherwise they would need to be willing to carry it at the expense of their personal belongings) who is trustworthy and willing to take this… please let us know right away!!

– CONTACT

Please contact Diana at dallan AT fas.harvard.edu.

I also have a phone number in Ramallah for anyone who might help, just leave a comment or email issandr AT arabist.net

Norton on the war

Forget the talking heads on television going on about Syria and Iran at lengths, and listen instead to the real experts, such as Augustus Richard Norton. Harpers has an excellent interview with him in he makes excellent points, which I agree entirely with:

  • Iran didn’t “commission” the attack as some would have you believed. It is a Hizbullah initiative that “was tactically very smart, but strategically they were taking a real gamble.” Precisely my original views and the reason for my stupefaction (and anger) when Hizbullah carried out the attacks.
  • Olmert and his pals are not over-reacting because they’re not historic military officers in Israel. There is a military / strategic logic to the Israeli onslaught that goes beyond politics and whose aim is total dominance of its “near-abroad” (Norton says it has to do with Iran.) I can’t believe how often this one is repeated, apparently to excuse Israel’s actions (the perverse logic goes something like this: “Israel is a democracy, so its leaders have be politically savvy, so they can’t afford not to look tough, so they have to carry out war crimes, etc. Utter nonsense.)
  • The Israeli attack is completely disproportionate and is a form of collective punishment against civilians. I thought this was interesting as Norton is a Vietnam vet:

I’ve been talking to people in Lebanon and it appears that Israel has established a killing box in south Lebanon, what the U.S. called a “free fire zone” in Vietnam. You establish a zone, which you dominate from the air, and force out civilians—there are already hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who have been displaced. Then you presume anything still moving in that zone is the enemy. This is a recipe for lots of hapless civilians dying, as happened a few days ago when 16 southern Lebanese villagers were killed in automobiles while adhering to Israel’s order to flee their homes.

  • Hizbullah will emerge from this with its stature diminished. I’ve wondered about this, and a lot of pundits are saying that Hizbullah will emerge stronger. For my part I don’t see a solution to this where Hizbullah does not come out weaker, and the Lebanese will (rightly) want to have more say over its actions in the future. One should not confuse support for resistance with support for Hizbullah’s political leadership and continued “untouchable” status in Lebanon. Norton says:

Totally disarming Hezbollah is a fool’s errand. It’s too easy to hide weapons and there’s too great an incentive to keep them. Hezbollah is facing an interesting dilemma. The more it uses the rockets the more it creates a rationale to keep the time period open. Inside Lebanon there is going to be a readjustment of politics. Hezbollah will be diminished in stature, it won’t be able to maintain its privileged position after what has happened.

  • Outcome for Israel and the US will be negative. Two key quotes:

Israel has made a profound mistake.

I’ve been studying American foreign policy in the Middle East for 34 years and I can’t recall any U.S. president who has subordinated American interests to Israeli interests like this one. The administration is being naïve about how this is going to reverberate elsewhere, in places like Iraq.

There going to be hell to pay for this in the long run. I can already imagine Al Qaeda recruiters are working non-stop.

What’s missing from the interview, though, is discussion of Syria. I’ve commented on other blogs about this, so here are my two cents: Syria’s weak domestic position (created by Israeli/French/US pressure and its own idiocy and assassinations) makes it actually more difficult to really push for regime change there, as some are advocating. The weaker the Bashar Al Assad regime is, the more careful Israel and the US will be. The majority opinion in the leadership of both countries now is that the regime’s fall would either lead to Iraq-like chaos (which would compound Iraq’s own problems and naturally affect Lebanon) to relative stability under a new Islamist regime. I think enough Islamists have come to power recently for the taste of everybody in the region right now. So the Syrian regime is reinforced and can be more intransigeant in the current situation, since it is not paying much of a price and most probably won’t be challenged.

The caveat is, of course, that the advocates of Syrian regime change will win the argument over Syria and change everybody’s mind (or something will happen to make people change their mind.) In that case, don’t plan a trip to the Levant for the next 10-20 years.

AUB’s John Waterbury in diplomats’ target?

The Angry Arab reports that US diplomats are trying to punish American University in Beirut’s John Waterbury for having awarded a honorary degree to Robert Fisk:

I hear that John Waterbury, the president of American University of Beirut, is in big trouble with the US government. Apparently, the US embassy in Lebanon is most displeased that Robert Fisk was awarded an honorary doctorate from AUB. In his speech, Fisk gave a scathing indictment of US foreign policy. That did not sit well with the embassy, which is lobbying Washington, I am told, to punish Waterbury. They found a technical irregularity in one of the advertised posters, and will be using that to discredit Waterbury.

Waterbury is an important American academic who’s written many great books on, among others, Egypt and Morocco. If this turns into something, be ready to support him and defend academic freedom. After all, I don’t like another recipient of the same honor (Nasser Kharafi of the eponymous Kuwaiti mega-corporation), but don’t think Waterbury should be punished for it!

“Quantifying” democracy

Although I appreciate the intention of wanting to quantify something as abstract as democratization to be able to compare countries, in the end I find such arbitrary assignment of “scores” to countries for various criteria rather useless and uninformative. This is particularly the case with the scale used by the likes of Freedom House, which go from 0 to 2 (“not free,” “partly free,” “free”), which say very little. This is why this article in the pro-Isrearl think tank rag Middle East Quarterly completely misses the mark. It says that, according to its scaling system, in 1999 Morocco was the freest of Arab countries but in 2005 it’s beaten by Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen — I would only consider Egypt as possibly equally free as Morocco (or rather, unfree in different ways), and certainly Tunisia should never be anywhere near the top of the list. The main reason for the change in ranking is the drop in media and economic freedom over the last few years — even though Morocco still has more press freedom than many Arab countries, it gets ranked on that criteria at the same level as Libya! That’s just plain ridiculous.
Continue reading “Quantifying” democracy

Court forces US to grant visa to Ramadan

A judge has forced the US to grant Tariq Ramadan — who was barred from entering the US last year — a visa after the ACLU and others brought a lawsuit. Whether you like Ramadan and his crypto-Islamist beliefs or not, this is a good thing on principle, for as the judge in the case explained:

while the Executive may exclude an alien for almost any reason, it cannot do so solely because the Executive disagrees with the content of the alien’s speech and therefore wants to prevent the alien from sharing this speech with a willing American audience.

Via Moorishgirl.