Monthly Archives: August 2007

The Problem with ‘My Problem with Jimmy Carter’s Book’

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Books You Should Read, Journalism and Media, Palestine

Middle East Quarterly, published by Daniel Pipes’ organization Middle East Forum, contains an article titled “My Problem with Jimmy Carter’s Book”, by Kenneth Stein, the first executive director of the Carter Center in Atlanta from 1983 to 1986, and currently a professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History at Emory University. Stein, it will be remembered, resigned from his affiliation with the Carter Center, where he was a Middle East Fellow for over two decades, in protest over former President Jimmy Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Touring the country explaining his objections to his former boss’s perspective on the Israeli Palestinian conflict, Stein has refrained from tarring Carter with the label “Jew-hater” (this from the ever-subtle David Horowitz), or claiming that Carter’s criticisms of Israeli policy stem from Carter having “enriched[ed] himself with dirty money”–dirty Arab oil money, specifically–from Shaykh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, “an unredeemable anti-Semite and all-around bigot” (this from the extraordinary Alan Dershowitz in an article) It should be noted, since Dershowitz does not, that much of the alleged dirty money that flowed through the Carter Center would have supported—and in the early years, been managed and disbursed by–Professor Stein. Continue reading The Problem with ‘My Problem with Jimmy Carter’s Book’ →

Famous General Supports Iraq War

Film and Video, Iraq War, Luke R. E. Publican

America has a number of famous generals who now serve as icons of our legendary military prowess. General Washington beat the red pants off of Lord Cornwallis. General William Tecumseh Sherman put the heat on those good old southern white boys down in Georgia. General Custer died with his boots on, as did all the men he led into battle. Then there were the heroes of World War II, the most cinematic being General George C. Scott, I mean General George S. Patton. It turns out that General Patton, like all superheroes, has risen from the grave and returned to tell it like it should be (since “like it is” is not going so well) in the War on Terror and Iraq. If you would like his revamped take, then all you need to do is go to YouTube and see him read the Patriot Riot Act, courtesy of a 21st century impersonator and vintage 20th Century Fox (no relation to Fox News this time) footage.

If you are disappointed that the footage here is from the movie, then rest assured that General Patton has indeed been seen, though not as many times as Elvis. Just ask Don Imus.

Luke R. Publican

Apocalypse Watch: And It’s Gog Awful

Apocalypse Watch, Islam and Christianity, Islam in America

Thus says the Lord GOD: It shall happen in that day, that things shall come into your mind, and you shall devise an evil device: and you shall say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to those who are at rest, who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates; to take the spoil and to take the prey; to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and against the people who are gathered out of the nations, who have gotten cattle and goods, who dwell in the middle of the earth. Ezekiel 38:10-12

Application of biblical prophecy to contemporary events is no doubt as old as the prophets themselves. The extraordinary literary success of the near-sited Left Behind series should not be taken lightly. There are many fundamentally sounding Christian apocalypticists out there and more coming online all the time, thanks to the freedom of website development. One site I recently came across is by a man named Ken Power, who describes himself as follows: Continue reading Apocalypse Watch: And It’s Gog Awful →

The Land and the Book #1: Looking for an Omnibus?

Bible and Holy Land, Islam and Christianity, Lebanon, Travel


Jaffa from Thomson’s “The Land and the Book”

Almost 150 years ago one of the most popular travel accounts of the Holy Land was penned by an American missionary named William M. Thomson. Born in Ohio, my own home state, the 28-year old Thomson and his young bride arrived in Lebanon in 1834 as Protestant missionaries. This was a mere 15 or so years after the first American missionaries had made the Holy Land a mission field. At once an entertaining travel account and Sunday School commentary on the places and people of the Bible, this may have been one the most widely read books ever written by a Protestant missionary.

Reading Thomson is like reading one of the early English novels. The language is less familiar, although still thoroughly Yankee and the devotional tone has long since disappeared for a readership buying out The Da Vinci Code as soon as it hit the bookstores. The biblical exegesis, literalist yet frankly pragmatic at times, is intertwined with astute and at times humorous accounts of the people Thomson met along the way. But the style is not at all dry or discouragingly didactic. From the start Thomson engages in a dialogue with the reader, making the text (which stretches over 700 pages in the 1901 version) a rhetorical trip in itself.

Here is one of the forgotten books of a couple generations back. Easily dismissed as an Orientalist book, in the sense propounded and confounded by Edward Said, it is nevertheless a very good read. With this post I begin a series to sample the anecdotes and local color presented by Rev. Thomson. The times have indeed changed, but such textual forays into the night reading of a previous generation of Americans are well worth the effort. Let’s begin with the author’s own invitation. Continue reading The Land and the Book #1: Looking for an Omnibus? →

When in Paris, Don’t Drink the Wine

Islam and Christianity, Islam in Europe, Travel

There are numerous travel accounts by European and American writers who spent time in the Middle East. Many of them comment on Islam, whether as missionaries condemning a rival religion or admirers of what they often saw as a vibrant faith in the everyday life of people. But few people are aware of the writings by Muslim visitors to Europe. I am talking about real individuals, not the fictional characters like those in Montesquieu’s The Persian Letters. One of these travelers was the Moroccan Ahmad ibn Qasim al-Hajari, a translator for the sultan, who visited Paris in 1612. As translated by Nabil Matar, Ahmad provides a lively account of what he saw and the debates engaged in.

One of these revolved around the issue of drinking wine, a Christian custom that his French guests thought a kind of sacred duty. The visiting Moroccan set out to disabuse them of such a notion:

“One day before sunset, I walked to the judge’s house to attend to some formalities. The judge said, ‘Would you like to have dinner with us?’

‘I am not permitted to eat some of your foods,’ I replied. Continue reading When in Paris, Don’t Drink the Wine →

Soccer Diplomacy

Iraq War, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue

Forget the World Cup head butt, football (soccer for those who think “football” is a foreign word for the world’s most popular sport) may now be one of the only bright spots in war-torn Iraq’s immediate future. In case you have not heard, the Iraqi National Team won the Asia Cup. They did it with Shi’a, Sunni and Kurd and without the threat of torture for a missed goal. Their star, Younis Mahmoud, scored the winning goal against Saudi Arabia. Soon after ordinary Iraqis took the streets with guns, but shot into the air in celebration rather than at each other. At least for one day. Simon Apter has a nice article about this in The Nation.

Iraq’s success in soccer is, perhaps, one of the few concrete triumphs to have come out of the quagmire. Call it a beneficent side effect. The WMDs were, indeed, not there, but the bastinado was, awaiting whomever Uday capriciously felt had embarrassed the country with a sub-par performance. Running possibly the only Ministry of Sport complete with a torture chamber and jail, Uday made Bob Knight look like Francis of Assisi. Continue reading Soccer Diplomacy →