Columbia (Joseph Massad), Yale (Juan Cole) and Princeton (Rashid Kahlidi) have had the honor of their Mideast studies faculty (and faculty candidates) being subjected to a pro-Israel smear campaign. Now, it appears Brandeis is suffering the same fate. But instead of the David Project
(behind the Columbia smear), Daniel Pipes is single-handedly taking on Brandeis with the help of some of its pro-Israel donors who’ve threatened a financial boycott.
It all started with Jimmy Carter (doesn’t it always), who spoke on campus several weeks ago. The Pipes-Dershowitz crowd was in high moral dudgeon because Carter refused a one on one debate with Dershowitz. (Last I checked, Dershowitz hadn’t invited Carter to debate him when the Big D’s last book was published either.) University president Jehudah Reinharz was tarred and feathered. Jewish Week reported as much as $5 million in donations was being withdrawn.
The president was even quoted in the student newspaper as being opposed to either Pipes or Norman Finkelstein speaking on campus because of the “inflammatory nature” of their views, saying they were “weapons of mass destruction.”
In its second report on the controversy, Jewish Week indicates that Reinharz has softened his views on at least one of the two speakers. I bet you can’t guess which one…yes, it’s Pipes. Instead of being described as the vapid ideologue he really is, Reinharz now lauds him as serious scholar. He even offers him the hospitality and imprimatur of the president’s office:
You have been a guest on this campus on more than one occasion and, I believe, have always been treated with the utmost respect. I trust that the student groups who organize these events will manage your return visit in the spring with dispatch, and you will be recognized by Brandeis as the scholar you are. I, and my Executive Assistant, Dr. John Hose hope to attend your talk. If time allows, perhaps we can continue our conversation in my office.
Anything to cool down pro-Israel donors and demagogues on the warpath.
Reinharz offers the prestige of his office to someone who levels the most despicable calumnies (which unfortunately describes most of what he writes) against two members of his own faculty:
What, precisely, are those scholarly resources available at Brandeis? Might [University administrator John] Hose be referring to the University’s leading specialist on “contemporary Islamic thought and practice”… Prof. Natana DeLong-Bas (NEJS), an apologist for Al-Qaeda whose depraved thinking was exposed in several recent articles (including “Natana DeLong-Bas: American Professor, Wahhabi Apologist” and “Sympathy for the Devil at Brandeis,” from frontpagemag.com)? Or is he referring to Khalil Shikaki, a Crown Center fellow who has been credibly accused of terrorist links and has a second-to-none record in getting it wrong in his chosen field of Palestinian public opinion?
There are links in this passage to various Campus Watch and Frontpagemagazine articles which I don’t have the heart to link to here. But you can find those links at Pipes’ site.
This is what Oxford University Press has to say about Prof. Delong-Bas in its profile accompanying her book, Wahabi Islam:
Natana J. DeLong-Bas is senior research assistant at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. She is the author of Notable Muslims: A Biographical Dictionary (2004) and co-author of Women in Muslim Family Law revised edition, with John L. Esposito (2001). She has served as editor for and contributor to The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (OUP, 2003), and contributor to The Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an (2004), and The Encyclopedia of the Islamic World (OUP, 2004). She is a frequent public speaker on Islam, Wahhabism, and Saudi Arabia.
In protesting the banning of her book on Wahabi Islam by Egyptian religious authorities (that’s right, the book was banned by Islamists), the provost of the American University in Cairo said this:
“The book essentially argues that Wahhabism has been hijacked by the jihadists…”
Based on what I have read of her work, I wouldn’t say I’d agree with all of her views on Wahabi Islam. But to call her an Al Qaeda symp is ridiculous. And talk about ‘depraved,’ what kind of depraved human being could call a fellow academic “depraved” based on the above biographical profile?
As for the Shikaki attack, it’s beyond laughable. Shikaki is Palestine’s leading demographer and pollster who holds a Columbia University PhD. He founded the Palestinian Center for Policy Survey Research. He regularly collaborates with Israeli pollsters to track Israeli and Palestinian attitudes toward the peace process. His research is avidly followed by researchers, journalists and political leaders in Israel and throughout the world. I regularly report on his polls here when Haaretz reports them. To accuse this man of “terrorist links” is far beyond the pale and only testifies to the desperation of Pipes’ witch hunt against those he views as dangers to Israel.
Let’s also keep in mind that Herr Pipes was the figure largely responsible for Tariq Ramadan being declared persona non grata by the Dept. of Homeland Security. Pipes accused Ramadan of supporting Islamic terror with equally flimsy evidence to that presented against the above Brandeis figures.
Returning to Reinharz’ change of heart about Pipes. The latter had been scheduled to speak on campus this spring. Reinharz’ first remarks on Pipes and Finkelstein seemed to indicate that the University would permit neither to speak though there has been a change of heart outlined above. As for Finkelstein, he doesn’t seem to have the proper papers for a Brandeis engagement. He’ll be sailing the waters outside of campus on the good ship St. Louis till Reinharz decides whether his kind may be permitted entry to Brandeis.
I should state here that I don’t share Norman Finkelstein’s views of Zionism. But if a creep like Daniel Pipes should deserve the honor of a Brandeis podium, Finkelstein deserves one no less. I’m with Prof. Gordon Fellman on this:
Fellman advocated following up Carter’s appearance by opening the school to a new range of speakers on the Middle East.
“We also need to hear Avigdor Lieberman” — an Israeli Knesset member who advocates stripping Israeli Arab citizens of their citizenship — said Fellman. “We also need to hear a right-wing Orthodox settler convinced that God commands Jews to live in the West Bank. We need to hear more from Israelis who reject the occupation and reject the violence. … We need to hear Palestinians who have lived under occupation tell their sides of the story. … We need to hear from the rejectionists on both sides, and we need to hear from the accommodationists on both sides.”
In contrast, I find this counter-view expressed by Brandeis American Jewish historian Jonathan Sarna to be profoundly infantilizing:
“We don’t want to be in the position that every crackpot can be given a forum,” he said.
“I think the faculty increasingly understands that just as we exercise a lot of quality control over faculty appointments, so, too, do we have an obligation to exercise quality control for speakers on campus,” explained Sarna. “Part of our job is to help students figure out what bad books are, and what good books are; what is a bad scholar, and what is a good scholar. … How we exercise that responsibility without in any way limiting free discourse is what this committee will tackle.”
Sarna strongly endorsed Pipes’ scholarly credentials and his qualifications to speak on campus but said he did not want to “prejudge” the case of Finkelstein.
It appears that Pipes is one of the “good scholars” and Finkelstein in all likelihood one of the “bad.”
The types of speakers Fellman lists above represent legitimate loci of opinion within Israeli society. What is wrong with a serious academic institution hearing from all sides of the debate? You’re not appointing these people to the faculty or offering honorary degrees. You’re merely asking them to come and address students for an hour or two. What is Sarna afraid of here? I fear that what he’s done is import to campus the mainstream Jewish community’s absolute fear of real debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He seems to be saying we can only have a debate that is carefully managed. You’ve got to strain it like baby food for an infant. Take out the bad bits and leave in the good.
Sarna continues:
“There are members of the Brandeis community who truly want everyone to be able to speak, like Hyde Park. I think a university with limited funds, limited resources, limited rooms, and with extremists who require security each time, must use its funds in a responsible way.”
Cop out…big time. This from a supposedly distinguished academic historian? What lameness. Who does he think he’s kidding?
What does this seemingly well-meaning man believe will happen when students eventually find out that they find out they’ve been lied to? How does he think they’ll react when they discover that the desert is not blooming, but that this was a metaphor for the acres of toxic waste dumped by Rahat Homav industries in open-air waste dumps in the Negev – a place where respitory problems abound and cancer is 65% greater than elsewhere? How does he think we can say it’s wrong for Mugabe to make 100s of thousands of people homeless, yet not bat an eyelid when ILA destroys Bedouin crops for the nth year running? How does he think they will react when they discover that an Arab Bedouin in the Negev must purchase their own historic land and then not receive the deeds for 25+ years, and have their homes demolished by the Police/IDF because some guy in US/Haifa has plans for your land? How will the students react when the discover that far from making the world a safer place for Jews, these totalitarian acts at corporate/govt behest with no regard for historic rights of other peoples have made life more dangerous than ever before.
How is it that it’s wrong to boycott certain right-wing academics such as the Haifa demographers, but it’s ok to have an Israeli Academic Monitor which witchunts Israelis of conscience? Why is it ok for Pipes’ Campus-Watch to demonise and smear academics in the USA, yet not ok for others to also take this stand?
Why should conscience be thought of as a left-wing’ attribute.
Mercy is ‘left’, maybe it is all we have left, but this is a metaphysical morality, and not a political placement.
Richard,
Pipes is acting in a bad fashion.
It is painful to watch him.
He is generalizing.
Muslims are not yet exclusively all Wahhabists or Khomeinists.
Terrible to realize that these two branches are merging via Palestine.
The real trouble that these two branches rule and oppress the people through a State Security System.
It is a mix of propaganda, extreme theology and police/intelligence brutality.
Hamas won the election by applying a cheap Iranian style populist propaganda, and holds to the rule by the dirty activity of its secret police, informants, assassins etc.
On the other end of the scale, most Jewish rabbis are equally guilty, and in denial.
The only solution is Enlightenment, and discarding theologies. All theologies. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim.
We can listen to Sam Harris to rebuild our hope.
Steven
I’m no fan of Hamas, but I’m afraid that this is way over the top, Steven.
I just got President Carter’s book out of the library. I doubt very much if I will discover that Jimmy Carter is an anti-Semite. He is a Libra like me. A peacemaker, and believes in Justice. He even has the great LIbra SMIILE. Thanks for Tikum Olam. We need somebody speaking on our behalf. Why Label people with being Liberals. We are the real intelligentsia–Yes, you may label us using that word.
How about a little love ye one another.
I love, You,
Jeanie xxx000
As a Brandeis alum I find this disheartening. When I was there, we managed to be able to handle a visit by Meir Kahane, who as I recall wasn’t the sole of moderation. We delicate undergrads survived (although I think it got rather interesting). The censoring of points of view by the University will be a lasting embarrassment.
There is a bit too much rhetoric here that seems to obscure a perfectly fine point. Let me explain.
Richard wrote,
…Mideast studies faculty (and faculty candidates) being subjected to a pro-Israel smear campaign…
This is not entirely fair. The smear campaign was not “pro-Israel”–at least, it was no more so than the pro-choice rhetoric is necessarily “pro-abortion”, as the anti-choicers like to label it. Some of the criticism offered at Columbia and at Brandeis was fairly legitimate. And both sides have been guilty of excesses in the debate. But one should not apply the “enemy of my enemy” principle in academic discourse–opposition to a particular academic or academic position need not come from ideological allies.
To be fair, Daniel Pipes is one of the worst. It is difficult to describe his position as “academic” because most of his data (if one can even refer to it as “data”) are misinterpreted and conclusions extremely biased. Views of Pipes’s critics are usually distorted by his supporters in an attempt to portray Pipes as some kind of heroic figure. Pipes is not a hero–he’s a coward.
Norman Finkelstein is another matter. To describe Finkelstein as a “Dershowitz gadfly” is not fair to either Dershowitz or Finkelstein. For one, Dershowitz is no Pipes. Pipes revolves in extreme conservative circles and relishes the attention he’s getting from the Cristian Right. Dershowitz, in contrast, is liberal. He is, in fact, far more liberal in his views than some of the self-proclaimed progressives who routinely want to muzzle free speech. But Dershowitz is a supporter of Israel (if not quite a “Zionist” in the more traditional sense), and he likes to provoke his opponents.
Finkelstein, on the other hand, is not merely an critic of Israel. Finkelstein is the personification of a Jew who gives comfort to anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers and other assorted rabble. Every time an anti-Semitic polemicist wants to justify the myth of Jewish evil by citing a Jew, he can usually find support in Finkelstein’s statements. This is quite disturbing. Finkelstein is no Pipes, but his academic credentials are not much better. Critics of both Finkelstein and Pipes usually have far more data to back up their arguments than either one of these two.
Having said this, I find it deeply disturbing that Brandeis would find any wisdom in denying speech rights to either Pipes or Finkelstein. It is yet more distirbing that, following criticism, the Brandeis administration found it wise to relent on Pipes, but to continue to have Finkelstein muzzled. This is not representative of any plausible interpretation of free speech.
Buck: I’m glad we agree on Pipes & on Brandeis’ response to the Carter speech. But you’re entirely too gentle on Dershowitz. A liberal? Howso? He was a liberal. In the late 1960s he even wrote an introduction to a book by an Israeli Arab & represented him in court. But I’d challenge you to find anything liberal in Dershowitz these days. He’s closer to neocon than he is to liberal in my book.
While I have no use for Finkelstein’s anti-Zionist rhetoric, I believe his research on Dershowitz’s plagiarism is sound. It is certainly unfair to say that Finkelstein’s research is poor merely because of the alleged use made of it by anti-Semites. And btw, the Holocaust is a phenomenon that is deeply misused by some Jews and I’m not entirely convinced that his critique of the Holocaust isn’t w/o some merit.
Why and how can so many warm and fuzzy people overlook the elephants in the room? In word and deed a major portion of the Islamic world is on a mission to “subdue or kill the infidel” – a misison acquiesced to and excused by the vast majority of the rest. The voices proclaiming the innocence and benevolence of “the silent majority” of Musims come almost exclusively from wishful thinking “infidels”. Any concerns an “infidel” might have with any non-Islamic movement surely must consider this full grown elephant in the room – these concerns are only “academic” issues vs the survival of freedom, liberties and indeed body, in a world threatened by the spread of Islam.
How many unsubstantiated gross overgeneralizations can someone pack into a single sentence? You’ve possibly come close to the record. I won’t pretend to try to convince you of the gross ignorance that characterizes your views since that would be next to impossible. Suffice to say that your views find no echo here.
For every instance of Muslim hate I can find an instance of either Jewish or Christian hate of Muslims. What does it prove? Nothing, except that human beings are better haters than peacemakers.