Hello everybody, I've been published at Frontpagemagazine.com. I am interning at the Middle East Forum, a right-leaning think tank, and I wrote a piece for them on an event on Georgetown University.
Here's the link:
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/28/voice-of-hate/
Peace out. And sorry for the delay since my last update - there has been a mix of laziness, Arabic class, Arabic homework, and the World Cup. I promise to write more in the future.
M'asalameh.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
"Judaizing" Jerusalem
I wish I had the time to sit down and do a thorough job of translating the Arabic Wikipedia entry on Jerusalem. It is one of the most venomous, untruthful things I have ever had the misfortune to read - if this was written in English, there is no way it would be acceptable. I sat down and slogged through this dreck last night - why, I don't know. I was reading various Wikipedia articles in English on Middle East history and it just occurred to me on a whim to check it out. I suspected that it would be ridiculously inept and nonsensical, with a twist of hate, and I was correct. Specifically, the Jewish claim to Jerusalem is referred to as a "historians' false claims" and there is an entire section on why Jews have no claim over Jerusalem and, to extrapolate, Israel, and another section on the "Judaization" (sp?) of Jerusalem. Furthermore, the Jebusites, a historical people about whom nothing is known except they lived in Jerusalem before the Hebrews arrived, were "Palestinian Arabs". The article claims that the Jebusites came from the Arabian Peninsula. Again, NOTHING is known about the Jebusites outside of the Old Testament. Furthermore, the name Palestine originated from the Romans, who wanted to humiliate the Jews of Judea by naming their territory after the hated Philistines (Palestine is Filistin in Arabic). There were no such thing as Palestinian Arabs thousands of years before the birth of Jesus. This "idea" that the Jebusites were actually Palestinian Arabs arrived ex nihilo as a post-facto way of attempting to delegitimize the state of Israel. After all, if Jerusalem and the land of Israel came under Jewish control through the demise of Palestinian Arabs, then obviously the Jewish presence in the area has never been legitimate and Palestinian Arabs have been the rightful owner for thousands of years. This is sheer rubbish - but, alas, sheer rubbish is the only tool at the hands of the blind hater of Israel. For an epic dismantlement of this "Palestinian Jebusite" claim, see this post by the astute Tony Badran.
Oh, and furthermore, the Hebrews were unable to conquer the city outright, so they resorted to their "well known cunning and deceit" to usurp the Jebusites of Jerusalem or "Jebus". In other words, the Juden have always been cunning and devious - since the time of King David and even before.
Suffice to say: if this is the general idea that Arabs, and specifically the Palestinians, have of the Jewish people and its claims to the land of Israel, then their hatred is really no surprise. These crazy ideas, these ahistorical fantasies, represent the outlook of millions of people in the region (and their useful idiots here and in Europe). If ancient Jewish history is delegitimized, let alone modern Jewish history since the establishment of the State of Israel, then there is absolutely no chance for a meaningful peace in the Middle East.
Oh, and furthermore, the Hebrews were unable to conquer the city outright, so they resorted to their "well known cunning and deceit" to usurp the Jebusites of Jerusalem or "Jebus". In other words, the Juden have always been cunning and devious - since the time of King David and even before.
Suffice to say: if this is the general idea that Arabs, and specifically the Palestinians, have of the Jewish people and its claims to the land of Israel, then their hatred is really no surprise. These crazy ideas, these ahistorical fantasies, represent the outlook of millions of people in the region (and their useful idiots here and in Europe). If ancient Jewish history is delegitimized, let alone modern Jewish history since the establishment of the State of Israel, then there is absolutely no chance for a meaningful peace in the Middle East.
Ahlan Wasahlan!
Welcome one and all to my new blog, Al-Merkaz, which means "The Center" in Arabic. I find the title to be appropriate for the intended purpose of the blog - namely, as a compendium for news, history, and analysis on the Middle East. The region, to me, is endlessly fascinating and endlessly obfuscated, particularly since the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism, called by one scholar as the beginning of "McCarthyism" in Middle East Studies. As one interested in the history of the region, and of its current trends and pathologies, I find it regrettable that this had to occur.
The region has to be open to multiple interpretations and analyses - the Saidian framework accepts but one - namely, any and all scholarship by any Westerner concerning the Middle East, at least before his seminal work, is necessarily racist, colonialist, and imperialist, and therefore should be ignored by any true student of the region. In other words, let's wipe the slate clean and start at Year Zero. To be on point, one must first accept the Saidian lens and only through that lens can one see the truth - without them, after all, you are just a blind supporter of Western imperialism. Actually, it is the Saidian lens through which our vision is blurred. In Orientalism and its sequel, Covering Islam, Said never suggests how exactly the region should be covered. The coverage just sucks, and it needs to change - Said wrote that it was not his intention to give any suggestions, only to criticize. And criticize he did, and criticize his proteges still do - and funnel all of their considerable wrath toward the United States and to Israel. All of the negativity that we have seen in the Arab world is merely the fault of Western colonialism and its outpost, the Zionist state. This is the analysis that are we supposed to applaud with uplifted hearts, and we are to shut our minds, ears, and eyes from any objective truth that might happen to belie it. This is the oversimplified, idiotic version of history that is now so prevalent - and is indicative of the whole post-modern mumbo jumbo that is threatening the very edifice upon which true scholarship stands.
Nearly all undergraduates in the social sciences and/or liberal arts have had some sort of exposure to the work of Edward Said. These very same undergraduates are told to sneer at the work and legacy of the uber-Orientalist (read: racist bastard), Bernard Lewis, and yet have never read a jot or tittle of his work. I know that this was my experience in undergrad. We read Covering Islam, which was terrible, oversimplified, and hypocritical on its face. When I mentioned Bernard Lewis to my professor, his lips curled into a contemptuous smirk. We read Samuel Huntingon's essay "The Clash of Civilizations" only to mock and ridicule it the next day in class. The major complaint by Edward Said in Covering Islam, the work that is really laughable here, is that the West oversimplifies Islam, and talks about "Islam" and judges it without realizing that Islam is not a monolithic block but rather a religion with various interpretations, nuances, etc. Of course, Islam is not monolithic - but neither is the West. So Said can lash out with his poison about how the West perceives Islam, but he can bash the West as one, monolithic, imperialist bloc all he wants. Nothing hypocritical about this, of course.
Edward Said is all too visible because he was actually an expert in the field of comparative literature, and particularly the work of Jane Austen. I am not familiar with his work in this field. However, he has made his major imprint on the fields of Middle Eastern Studies, history, and even philosophy. He is read in a wide-range of studies. His thought has become the thought of modern academia - namely, blame whitey for all the ills of mankind. Analyze the West as a monolithic bloc with a scalpel, but do not feel free to analyze the societies of Arabs, Africans, or Asians, because they are so complex that they cannot really be defined, let alone analyzed. And all of history begins with European colonialism, and all violence stems from their rapacity - forget the slave trade in Africa or the conquest of the Muslim dynasties. Of course the West has done some terrible things - but Westerners are not the only actors in history. This has, of course, extended to the here and now - in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israelis act (evilly, of course) and Palestinians react. This idiotic notion of history has come to poison our outlook on the world, and the way things actually are.
Sorry for the Two-Minute Hate. Had to get it out of my system. Needless to say, I will blog about more interesting stuff in the future.
The region has to be open to multiple interpretations and analyses - the Saidian framework accepts but one - namely, any and all scholarship by any Westerner concerning the Middle East, at least before his seminal work, is necessarily racist, colonialist, and imperialist, and therefore should be ignored by any true student of the region. In other words, let's wipe the slate clean and start at Year Zero. To be on point, one must first accept the Saidian lens and only through that lens can one see the truth - without them, after all, you are just a blind supporter of Western imperialism. Actually, it is the Saidian lens through which our vision is blurred. In Orientalism and its sequel, Covering Islam, Said never suggests how exactly the region should be covered. The coverage just sucks, and it needs to change - Said wrote that it was not his intention to give any suggestions, only to criticize. And criticize he did, and criticize his proteges still do - and funnel all of their considerable wrath toward the United States and to Israel. All of the negativity that we have seen in the Arab world is merely the fault of Western colonialism and its outpost, the Zionist state. This is the analysis that are we supposed to applaud with uplifted hearts, and we are to shut our minds, ears, and eyes from any objective truth that might happen to belie it. This is the oversimplified, idiotic version of history that is now so prevalent - and is indicative of the whole post-modern mumbo jumbo that is threatening the very edifice upon which true scholarship stands.
Nearly all undergraduates in the social sciences and/or liberal arts have had some sort of exposure to the work of Edward Said. These very same undergraduates are told to sneer at the work and legacy of the uber-Orientalist (read: racist bastard), Bernard Lewis, and yet have never read a jot or tittle of his work. I know that this was my experience in undergrad. We read Covering Islam, which was terrible, oversimplified, and hypocritical on its face. When I mentioned Bernard Lewis to my professor, his lips curled into a contemptuous smirk. We read Samuel Huntingon's essay "The Clash of Civilizations" only to mock and ridicule it the next day in class. The major complaint by Edward Said in Covering Islam, the work that is really laughable here, is that the West oversimplifies Islam, and talks about "Islam" and judges it without realizing that Islam is not a monolithic block but rather a religion with various interpretations, nuances, etc. Of course, Islam is not monolithic - but neither is the West. So Said can lash out with his poison about how the West perceives Islam, but he can bash the West as one, monolithic, imperialist bloc all he wants. Nothing hypocritical about this, of course.
Edward Said is all too visible because he was actually an expert in the field of comparative literature, and particularly the work of Jane Austen. I am not familiar with his work in this field. However, he has made his major imprint on the fields of Middle Eastern Studies, history, and even philosophy. He is read in a wide-range of studies. His thought has become the thought of modern academia - namely, blame whitey for all the ills of mankind. Analyze the West as a monolithic bloc with a scalpel, but do not feel free to analyze the societies of Arabs, Africans, or Asians, because they are so complex that they cannot really be defined, let alone analyzed. And all of history begins with European colonialism, and all violence stems from their rapacity - forget the slave trade in Africa or the conquest of the Muslim dynasties. Of course the West has done some terrible things - but Westerners are not the only actors in history. This has, of course, extended to the here and now - in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israelis act (evilly, of course) and Palestinians react. This idiotic notion of history has come to poison our outlook on the world, and the way things actually are.
Sorry for the Two-Minute Hate. Had to get it out of my system. Needless to say, I will blog about more interesting stuff in the future.
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