Cinnamon Stillwell Ping
FReepMail me if you want on, or off this low-volume Ping list.
Posted on 01/20/2009 12:58:18 PM PST by SmithL
Hamas's Academic Cheerleaders [incl. Hamid Dabashi, Rashid Khalidi, Fawaz Gerges, Joseph Massad, Muqtedar Khan, Mark LeVine, et al.]
If further proof was needed that the field of Middle East studies is marred by a politicized, morally vacuous approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, the reaction of many of its leading lights to the current war in Gaza should suffice.
According to these self-appointed arbiters of international law, Israel's military campaign against Hamas following the firing of over 6,000 rockets at Israeli civilian targets since 2005 is unjustified. Hamas, they tell us, is not a terrorist organization bent on Israel's destruction, but rather a national liberation movement that seeks only the noble founding of a Palestinian state. Either that or its leaders, all evidence to the contrary, can be negotiated with and cajoled into moderation. They insist Israel recognize that Hamas was democratically elected in 2006, even as they deny any responsibility on the part of Gazans for electing a terrorist government.
Simultaneously, they falsely accuse Israel of being a racist, colonialist, apartheid state seeking not to defend its citizens against indiscriminate attacks, but to exert hegemony over the entire region. Israelis are blamed for the breakdown of all prior attempts at negotiation, while Hamas is let off the hook for its continued aggression, violence against fellow Palestinians, media manipulation, use of human shields, and of schools, hospitals, UN offices, and mosques as bases from which to launch attacks.
In other words, the same tired narrative of Israeli oppression and Palestinian victimhood dominant in past years has simply been applied to the present scenario.
What follows are pearls of wisdom from the academic Middle East studies establishment.
On the nature of Hamas:
"…Hamas is the poor and impoverished representative of a poor and impoverished people. The obscenity of first demonizing Hamas and then blaming it for
(Excerpt) Read more at campus-watch.org ...
The political naivete of
a Jew is legendary and incredible: he does not understand the simple
rule that he should never make concessions to anybody, who does not want
to make concessions to him.
Zeev Jabotinsky, Ethics of an Iron Wall
Ping
My first read is saw self-appointed armpits, which works.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.