Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Below you will find a translation of Ben-Dror Yemini's latest piece, from the Hebrew, here. Before that, I highly recommend Elliot Abrams from the Washington Post today: What Carter Missed in the Middle East. It is a grade-A smack-down that concludes thus:
Most inaccurate of all, and most bizarre, is Carter's claim that "a total freeze of settlement expansion is the key" to a peace agreement. Not a halt to terrorism, not the building of Palestinian institutions, not the rule of law in the West Bank, not the end of Hamas rule in Gaza -- no, the sole "key" is Israeli settlements. Such a conclusion fits with Carter's general approach, in which there are no real Palestinians, just victims of Israel. The century of struggle between moderate and radical Palestinians, and the victories of terrorists from Haj Amin al-Husseini to Yasser Arafat, are forgotten; the Hamas coup in Gaza is unmentioned; indeed the words "Hamas" and "terrorism" do not appear in Carter's column. Instead of appealing for support for the serious and practical work of institution-building that the Palestinian Authority has begun, Carter fantasizes about a "nonviolent civil rights struggle" that bears no relationship to the terrorist violence that has plagued Palestinian society, and killed Israelis, for decades. Carter's portrait demonizes Israelis and, not coincidentally, it infantilizes Palestinians, who are accorded no real responsibility for their fate or future. If this is "the Elders' view of the Middle East," we and our friends in that region are fortunate that this group of former officials is no longer in power.
Do read it all. Here is Yemini:
Carter enemy of peace
Ben-Dror Yemini
Like all "peace activists", the former president engages in revilement against Israel, which feeds Palestinian rejectionism
Israel has become a permanent stop in the travels of the former president of USA Jimmy Carter. It transpires that his approach to Israel is special. Two weeks ago he visited in Israel, this time in a special delegation of the Elders - the Elders of the world's tribe. As soon as he returned to the United States, he published an anti-Israel article in the Washington Post. In this article, Carter mentions the Hanun family, "who were evicted from the house when they had lived in East Jerusalem for 65 years". Really? In fact, the building belonged to Jews who were banished from Jerusalem during the War of Independence. The Jewish ownership of the house is not in doubt, and goes back to the year 1875. A Star of David is etched on at least one of the old structures there. The Hanun family however were not there 65 years ago. They are refugee family from Haifa. (By the way, Haifa Arabs were not banished but left voluntarily) Together with several other families, they were housed in the building in 1956 by the Jordanian authorities. The owners of the property petitioned to realize their property rights. Carter's article mentions not a word of the background.
In Carter's state, Atlanta, thousands of residents have been evicted from their homes because they had no money for mortgage repayments. The rights of the Smith family, who were thrown onto the street in Atlanta, are far more well-based than the rights of the Hanun family. But Carter is not looking for justice; he is seeking to revile.
Criticism of the eviction of the Hanun family can well take the form of justified criticism. Even if the eviction was justified, from the legal aspect, there is room for political criticism. But this is on the condition that if Carter wishes to deprive Jews of property rights, he must clearly state that Palestinians have no right to reclaim abandoned property either. In fact, the property that was confiscated from Jews in Arab countries as a result of legislation, pressure, persecution, flight and banishment exceeds the value of the property that was confiscated as the result of the (self-imposed) exile and banishment of the Palestinians. But there is one difference: The Palestinians suffered (self-imposed) exile and banishment because of a declaration of a war of annihilation against the Jewish state that had barely come into existence. The Jews in Arab countries suffered a similar fate - of banishment and confiscation of property - even though they had not declared war on Arab countries. So whose rights are greater?
Did Carter ever tell the Palestinians of this fundamental truth? We know the answer. Like other "peace activists", he relates to the Arabs as a whole and the Palestinians in particular as if they were retarded children. They must not be told the truth. They must not be told that if they are to have rights, then both Jews and Arabs must have these rights as well. And if not, neither do Jews nor Arabs have any rights. He does not tell them that in those years, the 1940s, tens of millions of people suffered the harsh experience of population exchanges, and there is no reason why the Palestinians, and only them, should have "the right of return". He does not tell on that more Jews fled Arab countries than the number of Palestinians who fled or were exiled from Israel.
It is quite legitimate to criticize Israel with respect to the settlement enterprise. Such criticism is sometimes justified. But Carter, like thousands of other "peace activists", is not bringing peace nearer. Their demonization of Israel is strengthening the position of peace rejectionists. Appearing in the same newspaper after all - the Washington Post - Was Abu Mazen's position on May 29. He stubbornly insisted on demands, which quite clearly imply objection to the existence of Israel. Officially of course, he naturally agrees to a two-state solution, but on condition that one of the states is a Palestinian state and that the other is Palestinian as a result of the realization of the right of return. He received an amazing offer from (former Israel Prime Minister) Olmert, which included the evacuation of 97% of the territories, but rejected it outright. Did Carter issue an announcement condemning Abu Mazen? We all know the answer.
Carter published an Israel-bashing article; one of many. Instead of acting as a critical but honest broker, Carter is becoming part of the incitement campaign against the State of Israel. He has succeeded in achieving success in other regions. For some reason, when he broaches the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he loses his sense of fairness and balance. This does not contribute to the advancement of peace. This is Carter's contribution to strengthening Palestinian rejectionism and making the chances of peace ever more distant.
This is off-topic but have you ever written about racism in graduate schools?
Macon D of stuffwhitepeopledo recently stated “whenever white people congregate these days, high concentrations of racial homogeneity are just pure coincidence.” …
I am a graduate student at a major biological “research institution” in New York City. You wouldn’t know this is a graduate/research program if you stumbled on campus. This exclusive, highly maintained campus feels more like Sandals resort with all of the young upper-middle class white or white male/asian female couples roaming around hand-in-hand during the evenings. Groups of white or white-and-asian students roam with tennis rackets on their way to the on-campus court. Or they congregate in packs at the on-campus student lounge with a personal bartender. Or the white and asian students have parties in the hotel-like student lounge of the dorms.
Most of the groups of people you see dotted around campus are all-white or white-and-asian. The campus is mostly white with a substantial number of asians but has a serious dearth of black or latino students–and I almost never see the other black students.
You wouldn’t believe the amounts of implicit racism I’ve experienced here. Twice while coming on campus I’ve been stopped in a hostile and condescending manner by newly-hired guards who, having seen my ID, told me that I am ‘ok’ since I was a groundskeepers or a day worker for the animal facility whose staff is mostly black and latino.
Coming to my dorm, almost every six months someone gives me a hostile look in the foyer as if I’m some intruder. When I attend lectures, I meet the same hostility until I ask a serious academic question of the lecturer.
When someone new comes to my lab, they’ll automatically either intentionally ignore me or attempt to condescend to me. Scientific sales reps will intentionally ignore me and proceed to the white guys who are also just students. Believe it or not, this one white girl who rotated in the lab would speak to me in a passive-aggressive/patronizing manner. And almost everyone in the lab, despite my being there for years and attempting to form working relationships with them, never come to me casually or attempt to have conversations (work or otherwise) with me unless I initiate the conversation and never at the casual or intelligent level they have with each other.
I noticed the other two black guys, who are accomodationists (and overrepresented with respect to the real dearth of black students on campus), also attempt to have conversations with the white people in the lab but they are always the ones to initiate the conversation.
After five years of being here, the only thing I’ve learned is that white and asian people are the only people competent enough to be scientists.
A maintenance staff guy wrote an article in the student rag praising the university’s president in light of the great hall of European philosophers like Kant and Hume and the great European scientific tradition. Additionally, the sense of ownership and privilege among other students is just incredible.
I’m beginning to think that biomedical science is almost a white supremist enterprise by default. Science is supposed to be a collaborative endeavor with a free collegial exchange of information and support, but when people are constantly patronizing or condescending to you, such is a psychological assault informing you that you are inconsequential, “tolerated” or unwelcomed. I read a report somewhere that around half of black graduate science students drop out of their programs. If they meet the same kinds of hostility or implied white supremacy I meet, small wonder.
I’ve especially felt a sort of patronizing attitude right off the bat from many of the white female students on campus. White women, with the help of affirmative action, have made great gains in both scientific student bodies and faculty, but you would still be wont to find black faculty and only a little more lucky in locating black students in scientific graduate programs across the country. That aside, most of my interactions with white females on campus has been unnecessarily hostile and patronizing.
There are two other black male students who happen to be in my lab; they’re very sycophantic towards the white male students, which surprised me. They’re always kissing up, laughing nervously, you know that trying to court your attention laugh, around these other white males who are just graduate students like them. They prick up their minds and attempt to engage the se white guys with crisp, intelligent conversation. They’ll go to the white guys equally whenever they have a problem as if they are the fount of knowledge, (I’ve never seen them approach any of the white girls or the Indian guy when they have problems, but they will approach them for prick-up-your-mind ‘casual’ conversation, more than they give me [or each other]). When explicitly in the company of the white guys (which never seems to be together with each other), they intentionally ignore me or will attempt to condescend to me. It’s irritating to watch white guys no better than the average black guy get their egos stroked day after day by white girls and sycophantic blacks while they also slap themselves on the back. It’s not like they’re especially brilliant or that this science is just so difficult that only superiorly intelligent white supremists like James Watson can do it.
I don’t even want to get into the student listserve conversation I had to observe in the wake of James Watson’s comments back in 2007. Some of them practically endorsed the man with statements like “science is about objective data, not political correctness” or “what does giving a writing prize for his autobiography have to do with him making statements that any old man would make”?
I have not had one iota of belief in anything Jimmah Cahtah has had to say since her Iowa, 1975. And nothing he has said since then has even incrementally changed that.
Thread hijacking? Interesting but not appropriate for this post.