Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Mazel tov to Juan Cole whose Informed Comment won the Brass Crescent Award for Best Non-Muslim Blog. The Brass Crescent competition acknowledges Muslim blogs. Juan has certainly done a great deal to improve the understanding of Islam and and the Muslim world in the blogosphere and beyond, especially through his dogged coverage of the Iraq war and U.S. Middle East policy.

Lisa Goldman won honorable mention in this category, which is a pity.

She recently wrote a Haaretz column about the police investigation of her trips to Lebanon to report there for Israeli TV. Lebanese journalists have been terribly angry at her reporting. The Daily Star attacked her use of a Canadian passport to enter the country and claimed that she endangered any Lebanese who had any contact with her or was interviewed by her during her stay. Nicholas Noe, publisher of the respected MideastWire news service, which is based in Beirut, wrote this to me:

…She put all of us at risk here, which was selfish and unethical… also her reporting was just plain bad, inaccurate etc - as were her subsequent denials, clarifications etc.

Although she does not seem to understand it, there is a war going on - and her government is very much involved as are people and groups here - which is why, perhaps, she is being prosecuted in her country. Indeed, if nothing else, she willfully put the state of Israel at risk.

On an even more basic level though, her risk-taking failed to produce good journalism. If it had, then maybe, maybe even the journalistic community here could at least think her effort was for a greater good. But it wasn’t. For some weak “reporting,” she endangered other peoples’ lives.

Unlike Nicholas, I do not approve of her prosecution by Israeli police. And I admit to not fully understanding all the arcane intricacies of internal Lebanese politics. I can see that she would’ve put people at risk of being seen as Israeli dupes if they participated in any way with her reporting. And such people, in a volatile political environment, could end up threatened or even dead. I can also see that if, God forbid, a militant group HAD kidnapped her we could’ve had another Alan Johnston situation. That indeed would’ve been horrible for Goldman, for Israel and for journalism.

I think the main point Nicholas raises which I agree with is the insipidness of her Lebanon reporting. If you’re going to take a risk, why not do so in a good cause? Say something important. Make some groundbreaking observations or analysis. She did none of this. She wasted whatever opportunity she had to be an Uri Avnery, a bold, iconoclastic journalistic presence challenging both Israeli and Arab political shibboleths. In fact, this was one of her arguments justifying the value of her reporting to the Israeli viewing public:

“Given that so many Israelis expressed pleasant surprise at seeing Beirut as a beautiful, cosmopolitan city rather than a war zone, it is obvious that we are not obtaining an accurate picture of life in Lebanon.”

You mean it took the intrepid Lisa Goldman to make Israelis realize that Beirut is a “beautiful, cosmopolitan city??” If so, then Israelis haven’t been let in a secret that the rest of the world has known for decades. But I doubt most Israelis are as insipid and ignorant about the region they live in as she implies that they are.

And for this she gets a Brass Crescent Honorable Mention and can brag that the Muslim blog world values her blogging?

Congratulations also to Raising Yousuf for winning a Brass Crescent Award in a separate category. Her blog, based in Gaza is always interesting.

Voting for this year’s Brass Crescent Awards ends on December 14th. These are awards bestowed by the Arab-Muslim blogsphere on the best of their own (though voting is open to all regardless of religion). There are some fine blogs nominated with whose authors I have communicated over the years including Akram’s Razor, Raising Yousouf and Aqoul. But the category that interests me most is the Best Non-Muslim Blog (”Which blog writen by a non-Muslim is most respectful of Islam and seeks genuine dialogue with Muslims?). Last year, On the Face won in this category. This blog, written by Israeli-Canadian Lisa Goldman, seems to have a following though I can’t for the life of me understand how any Muslim interested in the Israeli-Arab conflict could vote for it.

Goldman is the editor of Global Voices Israel section in which she regularly features the right-wing anti-Palestinian blogger, Aussie Dave. [Note: It appears that Goldman has not contributed a post to GV in a year--so she may no longer be the Israel section editor.] She doesn’t offer any Israeli Arab blogs, nor does she offer such wonderful progressive Israeli blogs as Yudit Ilany’s OCCUPIED or Robert Rosenberg’s Ariga.com, which was historically probably the first Israeli blog. That could be because Robert didn’t offer her a job at Haaretz when she applied for one. Though Robert pased away tragically last year, the site still continues written by a friend. My quarrel with her editing of this section is that she retains no sense of balance in who she features. Maybe she features bloggers who are her friends (mostly Anglo or American-Israelis like herself) or blogs she likes. But she clearly doesn’t go much out of her way to find blogs that offer a progressive perspective on the conflict. I should add that it’s possible she, or the site’s editorial management have embraced more diversity in her choices since I last reviewed her portion of the Global Voices site some time ago. I would hope so.

I also never understood why Tikun Olam, which regularly deals with the Israeli politics and society was rejected for the Israel section while other blogs are included though the blogger does not live in Israel (this is also true of other national sections). The Palestine and Lebanon GV editors have included links to my blog, but not the Israel editor. It’s a little strange if you ask me.

Goldman makes a big point at On the Face of how eager she is to dialogue with Arabs, but her efforts seem devoid of any political understanding of the conflict. The fact that Aussie Dave could be one of her most quoted blogs at Global Voices only confirms this. It’s as if for her dialogue existed for its own sake rather than to advance any particular social good. Perhaps if she were engaging in this work here in the States with African-Americans it might be one thing. But to try to speak with Arabs or Muslims without talking about politics and the terribly hard choices each side will have to make to find peace seems like ignoring the 800 pound elephant sitting in the room.

Also, useful to note that during the Lebanon war she blogged for the right-wing Pajamas Media and wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal none of which are especially known for their fondness for Muslims.

Which brings me to the point of this post. There are three excellent blogs I know which are nominated in this category: Juan Cole’s Informed Comment, Glenn Greenwald’s Unclaimed Territory, and Jews Sans Frontieres. I recommend voting for any of them. Anyone can vote–you don’t have to be a Muslim. This year, as opposed to last, this category is much more competitive and I believe a better choice will be made by voters.

Juan Cole to Jewish neocons: ‘J’Accuse!’ (photo: Harvard University Gazette)

M.J. Rosenberg just gave me a head’s up about Yale’s withdrawal of a faculty appointment to Juan Cole after a concerted campaign against him from Yale Jewish donors and other Jewish neocons. Both Jewish Week and The Nation report that Cole had been approved by several faculty committees before pro-Israel forces managed to muster a a concerted effort to stop him. Philip Weiss writing in The Nation says:

The controversy erupted this spring after two campus periodicals reported that Cole was under consideration by Yale for a joint appointment in sociology and history. In an article in the Yale Herald, Campus Watch, a pro-Israel group that monitors scholars’ statements about the Middle East, was quoted as saying that Cole lacked a “penetrating mind,” and suggesting that Yale was “in danger of sacrificing academic credibility in exchange for the attention” Cole would generate. Alex Joffe, then the director of Campus Watch, told me Cole “has a conspiratorial bent…he tends to see the Mossad and the Likud under his bed.” For its part, the Yale Daily News twice featured attacks on Cole by former Bush Administration aide Michael Rubin, a Yale PhD associated with Campus Watch and the American Enterprise Institute. In an op-ed Rubin wrote, “Early in his career, Cole did serious academic work on the 19th century Middle East…. He has since abandoned scholarship in favor of blog commentary.”

Highly-credentialed Mideast specialist Scott Johnson of Powerline led charge against Juan Cole

Israel’s treatment of Palestinians has always been important in Cole’s reading of the Middle East. Naturally, Israel is central to neocons, too. Michael Rubin accused Cole of missing the good news from Iraq and of being anti-Semitic. That charge was soon taken up in the Wall Street Journal and in the New York Sun. “Why would Yale ever want to hire a professor best known for disparaging the participation of prominent American Jews in government?” wrote two Sun co-authors. One of them, according to Scott Johnson, was a student of Alan Dershowitz’s at Harvard [ed. Mitchell Webber, a Yale graduate who is now a law student and a research assistant for Alan Dershowitz at Harvard Law School,]. The other is Johnson’s daughter, Eliana, then a Yale senior. After that article, Johnson, a Minneapolis lawyer and Dartmouth grad, wrote up the case on his blog, which describes itself as a friend of Israel, and attacked Cole as a “moonbat.”

Alex Joffe denies that a network went after Cole. “There wasn’t any organized opposition. It was a question of people becoming aware of it somehow and each getting in his two cents.” Asked about pot-stirrers, Johnson says, “I think if you look anywhere but Yale, you’d be making a mistake.”

Well, if this isn’t a network, neither are the professionals who exchange cards at New York parties. Joel Mowbray, a Washington Times columnist who has assailed the consideration of Cole, sent a letter to a dozen Yale donors, many of them Jewish, warning of Cole’s possible appointment. According to the Jewish Week, “Several faculty members said they had heard that at least four major Jewish donors…have contacted officials at the university urging that Cole’s appointment be denied.” Still, Johnson’s point is well taken. It must have been Yale insiders who got the news out to Cole’s enemies, as Cole’s appointment passed one after another of several institutional hurdles.

Jewish Week adds on this score:

Several faculty members said they had heard that at least four major Jewish donors, whose identity the faculty members did not know, have contacted officials at the university urging that Cole’s appointment be denied.

And while most faculty members contacted for this piece agree that it is highly improbable that outside pressure played a part in the tenure committee’s decision, the letters and the subsequent calls suggest a campaign to discredit Cole.

So here you have the hardline pro-Israel Campus Watch, Scott Johnson, author of Powerline one of the most widely read right-wing blogs, a student of Alan Dershowitz and daughter of a Scott Johnson writing in the New York Sun, Joel Mowbray of the Washington Times, and Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute orchestrating a right-wing pro-Israel campaign to deny Cole the job. And this is only what is publicly known because these people were the ones willing to use their names in voicing their opposition. Who knows whether groups like Charles Jacob’s DAVID Project or even Aipac were involved more surreptitiously. And one shouldn’t forget that while the groups can maintain plausible deniability regarding their own involvement that wouldn’t prevent such a behind the scenes effort by individuals affiliated with those groups.

To anyone idiotic enough to deny or besmirch Cole’s stellar academic credentials, Weiss reminds you of them:

Academics…say that Yale was drawn to Cole by top-rank scholarly achievement. He is president of the Middle East Studies Association, speaks Arabic and Persian, and has published several books on Egyptian and Shiite history. “We were impressed with Cole’s scholarly work, and a wide set of letters showed that he is also highly regarded by other scholars in the field,” says political science professor Frances Rosenbluth, a member of the Yale search committee that chose Cole. Zachary Lockman, an NYU Middle Eastern studies professor, says, “It’s fair to say he is probably among the leading historians of the modern Middle East in this country.” Joshua Landis, a professor at University of Oklahoma, describes Cole as “top notch.”

“He was the wunderkind of Middle East Studies in the 1980s and 1990s,” Landis says. “He can be strident on his blog, which is one reason it is the premier Middle East blog…. [But] Juan Cole has done something that no other Middle East academic has done since Bernard Lewis, who is 90 years old: He has become a household word. He has educated a nation. For the last thirty years every academic search for a professor of Middle East history at an Ivy League university has elicited the same complaint: ‘There are no longer any Bernard Lewises. Where do you find someone really big with expertise on many subjects who is at home in both the ivory tower and inside the Beltway?’ Today, Juan Cole is that academic.”

Of course, Cole is on the left, while Lewis is a neoconservative. And it is hard to separate Cole’s scholarly reputation from his Internet fame. Cole started his blog, Informed Comment, a few months after September 11. He quickly became the leading left blogger on terrorism and the Middle East, delivering every day, often by translating from Arabic newspapers.

And to those critics who claim Cole’s publications have been sidetracked by his blogging take a close look at his publication list.

The pro-Israel crowd has attacked the Columbia Middle East Studies program, attempted to deny Rashid Khalidi an appointment to Princeton. And now they’ve sent Juan Cole packing back to the University of Michigan. David Horowitz has tarred Joel Beinin of Stanford as a “campus supporter of terror.” Stephen Walt, co-author of The Israel Lobby, who just stepped down from his Harvard deanship accepts that his hopes for academic advancement are finished after crossing Aipac. Cole himself has resigned himself to the same fate:

“I knew when I began to speak out [at his blog, Informed Consent] that I wasn’t going to be hired. I knew my academic career was over. I knew that I can be in this place, be a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Michigan for the rest of my life. But I would never be a dean. I would never be a provost. I would never be in the Ivy League. I’m not surprised. I’m not upset. Actually, the bizarre thing is that Juan Cole was considered by Yale in the first place.”

And Cole added this telling addendum in a Jewish Week interview:

Cole, while refusing to comment on the tenure committee’s vote, told The Jewish Week he believes that “the concerted press campaign by neoconservatives against me, which was a form of lobbying the higher administration, was inappropriate and a threat to academic integrity.

“The articles published in the Yale Standard, the New York Sun, the Wall Street Journal, Slate, and the Washington Times, as part of what was clearly an orchestrated campaign, contained made-up quotes, inaccuracies, and false charges,” he said. “The idea that I am any sort of anti-Jewish racist because I think Israel would be better off without the occupied territories is bizarre, but I fear that a falsehood repeated often enough and in high enough places may begin to lose its air of absurdity.”

But the fact of the matter is that nothing that Cole says about this subject has not already been said two or three times over by scores of Israeli commentators in newspapers like Haaretz, Maariv and Yediot Achronot. The fact of the matter is that the Aipac crowd can’t muzzle dissent in Israel, but sure can (try to) do so here in the States and has rather remarkable record of success on that score.

While Jewish Week’s coverge of the story generally echoed Weiss’ in The Nation, I found this passage for the former publication slightly off kilter:

The reasons behind the rejection remain unknown; several calls to a Yale spokeswoman went unreturned.

But university insiders say that the uncharacteristic rebuff may have been influenced by several factors, central among them the political commentary Cole writes on his blog, “Informed Comment.”

Often favoring a pugilistic tone and consistently criticizing Israel’s policies in the West Bank, Cole has attracted a visibility that has made him a favorite target of several conservative commentators.

I’d maintain that “the reasons behind the rejection” are quite known and recounted clearly above and even in the Jewish Week article itself. Cole was certainly rejected for his views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It’s a goddamn shame. There’s a lesson to be learned here. If you’re a serious, ambitious academic you better watch your step. If you have views that run counter to Aipac’s you’ll have to learn to censor yourself unless you’re willing to draw the wrath of the Dershowitzes, American Enterprise Institutes and Aipacs of this world. As an NYU professor notes–whatever happened to the free exchange of ideas, academic freedom, etc.?

[Zachary] Lockman…finds the process fearful: “Since September 11 there has been a concerted effort by a small but well-funded group of people outside academia to monitor very carefully what all of us are saying, ready to jump on any sign of deviation from what they see as acceptable opinion. It’s an attack on academic freedom, and it’s not very healthy for our society.”

The pro-Israel crowd strikes again. And freewheeling academic discourse is the victim. We’re all the poorer for it.

The Yale faculty should be ashamed of what a group of its members did in this case. How could they allow non-academics in some cases, and non-Yale faculty in others set the tone for what should’ve been a purely intra-faculty decision? Furthermore, their actions have reinforced a hostility between academia and the blog world since academics who blog are increasingly seeing their blogging included in hiring, tenure review and promotion considerations, and often not in a favorable sense. If you teache and make a false step in your blog you’ll be made to pay. And in some cases, merely writing a blog counts against you since more hidebound academics look down their nose at blogs as mere dabbling since it is devoid of conventional oversight like peer review, formal sourcing, and the “rules of evidence” are considerably looser.

As someone who blogs about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I’ve commended the very few faculty who blog about this specific field (there are only two or three). I once asked Joel Migdal a specialist on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the University of Washington if he knew of professors in his field who blogged and whether he’d ever considered doing so. Joel looked at me a little like I’d come from outer space. The thought and the concept clearly had hardly entered his mind. I can’t say his reaction surprised me based on what I already knew. But now I can’t even say I blame (not the right word) him for his response. How can any faculty member with a progressive perspective on this conflict considering blogging? Unless you blog with a wholly pro-Israel agenda (by which I mean ‘rightist’) you’re likely to be made to pay.

The university community is not the only one impoverished by decisions like this one. The blog world itself is both diminished and assaulted when our blog peers are assaulted within their professional fields for the perfectly reasonable, though controversial things they may write. For those of us who wish to see the influence of blogs on society and intellectual life increase, we should be aghast at what happened to Juan Cole. And we should all be ashamed of what Scott Johnson at Powerline, who after all must have impeccable academic credentials in this field to have assaulted the qualifications of Cole, has done to a major intellectual figure in the field of Mideast studies.

Billmon has a terrific and bilious (in a good way) post that excoriates Yale for its treatment of Cole. It’s quite a tour de force of fabulous invective. Inside Higher Ed also covers this story.