Category Archives: Arab-Israeli Conflict

A footnote in history

Arab-Israeli Conflict

By Clayton Swisher, Al-Jazeera, November 26, 2007

The decision by all Arab governments – including Saudi Arabia and Syria – to partake in the Annapolis meeting is a significant advance, and likely to form a footnote in history. Unfortunately, I believe that is as far as it will go.

There are three primary reasons why I do not believe the Annapolis meeting will succeed in establishing a Palestinian state by the end of the US president’s term in office.

The first is that this is not George Bush’s clearly stated objective. Whatever Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, may intend, it is the president who is in charge.

Little understanding

Bush’s beliefs are steadfast, and they reflect little understanding of Palestinian realities: On the one hand, Bush seeks mileage out of the false claim that he is the first US president to call for the creation of a Palestinian state, and he emphasises his plans to “lay the foundation” for the said state. Continue reading A footnote in history →

Dying to Win

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Books You Should Read, Osama Bin Laden, Terrorism Issue

By Robert A. Pape,
Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago
[Excerpt from Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism by Robert A. Pape (New York: Random House, 2005, pp. 1-2, 5-7).]

Suicide terrorism is rising around the world, but there is a great confusion as to why. Since many such attacks—including, of course, those of Septemper 11, 2001—have been perpetrated by Muslim terrorists professing religious motives, it might seem obvious that Islamic fundamentalism is the central cause. This presumption has fueled the belief that future 9/11’s can be avoided only by a wholesale transformation of Muslim societies, a core reason for broad public support in the United States for the recent conquest of Iraq.

However, the presumed connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism is misleading and may be encouraging domestic and foreign policies likely to worsen America’s situation and harm many Muslims needlessly. Continue reading Dying to Win →

What the Heck, I mean Hayek…

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Lebanon, Terrorism Issue, YouTube Watch

[Webshaykh’s note: With so much discredited foreign policy decision-making, perhaps we should go back to the Nancy Reagan doctrine and look at the ouija board. Give political anti-realism a chance…what the heck, Mr. Hayek… See it for yourself on Youtube.]

‘Clairvoyant’ sees new Lebanese president, more assassinations, Hizbullah ‘surprise’

Daily Star staff
Tuesday, October 30, 2007

BEIRUT: Reputed clairvoyant Michel Hayek predicted late on Sunday that “Lebanon will witness the election of a new president despite current problems.” He also ruled out the “imminent” threat of civil war. In an interview with George Salibi on New TV, Hayek foresaw “a few skirmishes and problems” in the country.

“There is no impending end to the string of assassinations,” he said, referring to the political murders that have plagued Lebanon since 2005.

Nicknamed “the Nostradamus of the Middle East,” Hayek is known for his yearly predictions for Lebanon, the Middle East and the world. Continue reading What the Heck, I mean Hayek… →

Tenure Crashers Gone Wrong

Anthropology/Sociology, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Archaeology and Antiquities

In a previous post I commented on the media-made controversy over the tenure case of anthropologist Nadia Abu El-Haj at Barnard College. In noting a pingback to my post on another blog, I discovered that those who would try to interrupt the tenure process at Barnard have gone even further into the wrong territory. The “Deny Abu El Haj Tenure Committee” has created a website using Prof. Abu El-Haj’s name (http://www.nadiaabuelhaj.com/) in order to attack her. The url has even been copyrighted. For a group that claims to be interested in restoring “honor” to Barnard, it appears any means justifies their tenure crashing end. I am not a lawyer (as my salary would well document), but this site seems a prime case for a libel suit. How can a group copyright a person’s name for a website and use that to attack? Forget the bulldozer, this is what the bull drops on the ground and it sure doesn’t smell like a fact.

Daniel Martin Varisco

Open Letter to a Democratic President

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Iraq War, Taliban, Terrorism Issue

by Richard W. Bulliet

January 21, 2009

Congratulations on your inauguration. May history remember your term in
office as the greatest political turn-around in American history.

Now to Iraq, the puzzle your predecessor has left for you to solve:

1. Compounding one botched war in Iraq with a second one in Iran would
sink your presidency before it starts. President Ahmadinejad of the
Islamic Republic of Iran will be up for reelection in seven months (August
2009). The Iranian people must be given an unfettered opportunity to
retire him to private life and elect someone of more liberal temperament.
His unpopularity in Iran already points in that direction. So, the United
States should do nothing that would enhance his prospects of reelection.
Diplomacy must replace saber rattling, and the “axis of evil” rhetoric
must be retired. Let us do what we can to give the Iranians a chance to
change leaders through their own electoral system.

2. Begin immediately the relocation of combat units to bases outside the
major cities of Iraq as a first step toward the withdrawal of ground
forces from the country. Announce that combat operations will henceforth
be restricted to fighting against those who attack American troops, supply
lines, or physical assets. Open negotiations with the Iraqi government
about the possibility of leaving a small number of combat units in the
country for a fixed and limited period to interdict the infiltration of
foreign fighters and — in joint operations with the Iraqi army — combat
groups that both the United States and the Iraqi government agree are
primarily composed of foreign terrorists. Continue reading Open Letter to a Democratic President →

Lebanon is Laid Waste

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Lebanon, Poetry

[The Cedars of Lebanon, steel engraving by J. D. Harding after C. Barry, 1835]

Lebanon is laid waste.
I need no bible-toting prophet to remind me
that someone’s long silent God gave the order
to saw through the last cedars.

The litany of woes crosses the Litani
but no bridge is left behind to burn,
just the kindling of ersatz-born leaflets that first say “Flee”
then demand “Stop,”
but really mean “Do not breathe, we own the air.” Continue reading Lebanon is Laid Waste →

Bulldozing the [Arti]Facts

Anthropology/Sociology, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Archaeology and Antiquities, Journalism and Media, Orientalism

As an individual in Academe who has already achieved the career-defining rite of pedagogical passage known as “tenure,” the issue of a fellow scholar potentially being denied tenure in a highly politicized media campaign becomes an issue of concern. I am not so puffed up to think that tenure status is ipso facto a mark of praiseworthy expertise. There are far too many examples out there of professors who are not any better for having been collegially granted a life sentence or who drop out of publishing and professional sight once they are “in.” Some use the bestowed honor to promote their own partisan views at the expense of teaching others by example to enhance critical thinking. But one thing that I do find sacred about the status is that it is necessarily judged in the local academic context. If one’s peers and administrative lords agree that a certain professor deserves tenure, then so be it. It is not as though a pope is being elected to shepherd the whole flock. Outside interference is indeed interference, especially when the deliberated judgments of a range of responsible individuals at a major college are being challenged.

One current case at Barnard College has hit the media, a rarity except when an outside group has a strong partisan bias. This is the case of Nadia Abu El-Haj, who teaches anthropology. Continue reading Bulldozing the [Arti]Facts →

Blame it on the Bossa Nova. Or the Israel Lobby. Whatever.

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Israel, Palestine

by Gregory Starrett

One Monday late last March, I got back to my office after five days away and found e-mails from six different mailing lists and individual colleagues discussing, or linking to discussions of, or linking to the text of a London Review of Books article by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, two prominent American political scientists, on how “The Israel Lobby” in the United States distorts U.S. foreign policy. Journalists, academics, former government officials, and others have been busily taking notice of the piece, looking for their names or the names of their friends and mentors, (or for those of their bete noirs and whipping boys), and dutifully proclaiming either that it’s about time someone outside the ranks of the Left finally noticed AIPAC’s shenanigans, or squawking about the article’s myriad inaccuracies, basic unfairness, and blatant anti-Semitism.

As far as I can tell, there are three difficulties with Mearsheimer and Walt’s work. Continue reading Blame it on the Bossa Nova. Or the Israel Lobby. Whatever. →