Posted on 06/14/2024 12:24:49 PM PDT by Twotone
A Columbia Law Review article that argues Jews "capitalized on the Holocaust to create a powerful narrative that monopolizes victimhood" was subject to an atypical editing process that omitted "a large number of Jewish students," according to sources familiar with the process.
While prospective pieces are typically available for the Law Review's roughly 100 members to assess ahead of publication, the "Nakba" piece was handled behind closed doors by a group of roughly 30 student editors, according to Columbia Law School professor Joshua Mitts.
While that group edited the piece "over several months," Mitts said, other editors—including Jews—were unaware even of the piece’s existence until Saturday, just two days before its publication.
The piece—titled, "Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept"—was supposed to be published on the website of the student-edited Review on Monday, despite a request from the Review's board of directors to delay publication. At issue, the board explained in a letter to student editors obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, was the editing process behind it.
The board, which is led by Columbia law professor Gillian Metzger and includes Columbia Law School dean Gillian Lester, subsequently requested the piece "be delayed for a few days" to ensure "all student editors would have an opportunity" to read it. Initially, the group of student editors behind the piece agreed, according to the board's letter. Then, on Monday morning, they revealed plans to publish the piece immediately. In response, the board "temporarily suspended" the Review's website.
"The secrecy that surrounded this article's editing and substantiation review is unacceptable," the board wrote in its letter. "It is also unprecedented, in that every piece is either worked on by, or available on request to, all student editors during the editing process."
"Whatever the intent, such secrecy is a profound deviation from the norms of respect, trust, and collegiality on which the Review depends. It also invariably raises questions about the adequacy of the editing and substantiation processes to which the piece was subjected."
The ordeal comes as Columbia University leaders continue to grapple with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic demonstrations, even after the conclusion of the 2023-2024 school year.
Over the weekend, for example, a group of Columbia students formed yet another anti-Israel encampment on the school's main lawn, which coincided with the school's alumni reunions. Those who attended the festivities were greeted by a sign outside of the campus reading, "We're back, bitches." Another sign read, "I want your hands on Israel's neck."
The "Nakba" piece, written by Harvard University doctoral candidate Rabea Eghbariah, also included an array of inflammatory rhetoric toward Jews.
In one footnote, he wrote that Israel "capitalized on the Holocaust to create a powerful narrative that monopolizes victimhood to the state." In another passage, he argued that the Holocaust created an "ethnonationalist Jewish identity" that turned a "victimized group" into "victimizers."
"The rise of Nazism to power and its culmination in the Holocaust contributed to the creation of an exclusivist and ethnonationalist Jewish identity among European Jewry, ultimately popularizing the political project of Zionism," Eghbariah wrote.
"If Apartheid taught us about the dangers of racialism and the possibility of reconciliation, and the Holocaust taught us about the banality of evil and warned 'Never Again,' the Nakba can complicate our understanding of these lessons by reminding us that group victimhood is not a fixed category, and that a victimized group may easily become victimizers."
For Mitts, those passages reflect a "terrible article" that is "poorly researched" and "poor scholarship." While law reviews "publish bad scholarship all the time," he told the Free Beacon, doing so can reflect poorly on student editors, stressing the need to ensure all Review members are aware of prospective pieces well ahead of their publication.
"Typically we think of this as kind of an academic freedom issue, but excluding students from the deliberative process around the article is not a matter of academic freedom," Mitts said. "They prevented a supermajority of members from even knowing about the article's existence—prevented them from commenting or vetoing or raising concerns. And that group certainly includes a large number of Jewish students. And that's deeply concerning."
"That's ultimately what concerned the board, because this just wasn't proper process. It wasn't proper governance. It's as if there was a takeover of the Columbia Law Review by a minority. And that's just something that can't be tolerated."
Margaret Hassel, the law review’s 2023-2024 editor in chief and recent Columbia Law School graduate, did not respond to a request for comment. Columbia Law School did not respond to a request for comment.
Founded in 1901, the Columbia Law Review is run by students and governed by a board of directors, which typically consists of faculty members and prominent alumni.
The 2023-2024 board included former Columbia Law School dean David Schizer, Politico editor Peter Canellos, and federal judge Arun Subramanian, a Biden appointee. Their board terms ended on April 11, Schizer told the Free Beacon, adding that he learned of the "Nakba" piece earlier this week. Metzger, a veteran law professor, serves as chair of the current board.
While the board's decision to shut down the Review website prompted criticism—some of which was highlighted in Associated Press and New York Times articles that referred to the "Nakba" piece as merely critical of Israel—Mitts argued that board members responded insufficiently.
"I personally think these students involved should face much more substantial consequences, because this was such a gross departure," he said. "You just shouldn’t do something like this that excludes the perspectives of members of the Law Review in such a systematic and far reaching way. Also it’s deceptive, which in and of itself is usually grounds for termination."
Eghbariah, the author of the "Nakba" piece, is no stranger to inflammatory rhetoric toward Jews. Last month, he spoke at an alternative graduation at Harvard, which was meant to honor students who were prevented from graduating thanks to their participation in an unauthorized encampment. Eghbariah urged attendees to fight for "liberation."
"The student movement will not stop and will not rest," he said. "You understood that liberation is never granted but taken; that freedom is a daily practice and struggle; that there is value in speaking up here and now."
Cockroaches love the dark.
My favorite part of the article is where the author counters the conclusions of the report rather than the method by which it was created.
It’s not just “Jews capitalized...” The role of Jews trying to monopolize a “foundational victim” status is actually minor compared to what happened overall.
The combination of the Holocaust and D-Day are the foundational myths of the “Boomer Truth Regime” and the post-WW2 international system.
In foreign policy, whenever the Elites decide that an “aggression” is unacceptable, they define it as “another Hitler” and justify a war anywhere in the world.
Domestically, Western countries are “not allowed” any sort of self-assertion to preserve their identity or Heritage demographics. Any such effort for even minor limits on non-White and non-Christian immigration is absolutely forbidden because it will lead to Hitler and Auschwitz.
But but but ...
No one is above the law!
Substitute blacks for Jews and see what happens to the article.
The Moslem take on the Crusades did that 900 years ago and has weaponized it ever since
I didn’t read the paper but as reported it seems a very exaggerated and one-sided view. As a “legal argument” there are many factors to consider.
First there were always Jews living on that land. When the Turks controlled it there were many different ethnic and religious groups. Second, the Jews of Europe began migrating into the British Mandate since the end of WW1. The numbers were not very large each year but eventually it grew to about 600,000 total (on a land that now houses over 12 million people - so resources was never really a question). Jews and Jewish groups bought up a lot of land from Arabs and Turks and others to create their own settlements. There were a lot of cultural clashes between the Arabs and Jews including many massacres - mostly of Jews but also of Arabs and British - in the populated areas between WW1 and WW2. All the Arabs had to do was accept a division of land when Israel declared its independence - something the Jews perceived necessary to organize and defend themselves. Instead, the combined Arab armies of many countries moved in.
It should be noted that these Arab armies didn’t move in to liberate the Palestinians, they wanted that land for themselves. And the Arabs who were living there, most sensibly, decided to get out of the way - they weren’t going to be protected by the Arab armies or the Jews so they fled to safer areas outside of the territory Israel declared for itself. That is the “Nakhba”. How many people, and who is at fault for each of them, is a large question but it doesn’t fall solely on the shoulders of the Jews. I have no doubt there were some Jewish independence groups that committed crimes against some Arabs and/or forced them to leave. But this was in a climate of war and chaos that had been building up for the last several decades with all sides, including the British, involved in conflict prior to 1948. The Arabs had the luxury of being able to flee the conflict - the Jews were the targets of the conflict, they had no choice but to stand and fight.
Yes, the author is right that there was an enthnonationalist fervor but the Jews of Israel were not the only ones. The Baathists in Syria and the other Pan-Arabists and Pan-Islamists who invaded were also ethnonationalists. This Pan-Arabist ideology lived on all the way through the era of Saddam Hussein and Hafez Assad. Arafat himself was a Pan-Arabist. Contrast, Hamas and Hezbullah are Pan-Islamist. Two sides of the same coin the latter just want Islamic law to govern society.
Then of course, you have the “legal question” of all the Jews from Arab lands who were more or less forced out of their homes, dispossessed, lost wealth and assets under threat of violence and other discrimination. Many of them, some 750,000, went to Israel after 1948.
To discuss this topic devoid of context and full of omission is a disservice to a very complicated situation - and sort of pointless now 75 years later.
No where in the article is “Nakba” defined.
The Nakba (Arabic: النَّكْبَة an-Nakba, lit. ‘the catastrophe’) is the ethnic cleansingof Palestinians through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society and the suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations. The term is used to describe the events of the 1948 Palestine war as well as the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel. As a whole, it covers the fracturing of Palestinian society and the long-running rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba
“The board, which is led by Columbia law professor Gillian Metzger and includes Columbia Law School dean Gillian Lester.” Both these broads should be caned and then canned.
As for the author, he will never escape the present; he really should leave for a Muslim country where his anti-Semitism will be applauded.
Interesting and loaded term: “right of return”?
Who defined that right?
The palestinian savage Rabea Eghbariah is a Harvard University doctoral candidate!
Restore Harvard’s excellence and honor! Rid Harvard of all Third World savages!
“ The combination of the Holocaust and D-Day are the foundational myths of the “Boomer Truth Regime” and the post-WW2 international system.”
To be clear, you don’t believe the above? You are just pointing out that some whack jobs believe that statement ?
“ The combination of the Holocaust and D-Day are the foundational myths of the “Boomer Truth Regime” and the post-WW2 international system.”
To be clear, you don’t believe the above? You are just pointing out that some whack jobs believe that statement ?
No I absolutely believe it.
The entire post-WW2 security architecture is based on endless repetitions of D-Day to prevent another Holocaust. Combined with open borders / unlimited immigration to prove that we are not Hitler.
It combines the two elements that we see most clearly that form the “Boomer Truth Regime: open borders, and NeoCon wars.
I have not thought of things quite that way. Pretty brilliant, IMO.
“ The entire post-WW2 security architecture is based on endless repetitions of D-Day to prevent another Holocaust. Combined with open borders / unlimited immigration to prove that we are not Hitler.
It combines the two elements that we see most clearly that form the “Boomer Truth Regime: open borders, and NeoCon wars.”
That’s absolute rubbish .
Why anyone would want to twist the immense sacrifices made on DDay is just inexcusable .
Of to overlook the horrors of the Holocaust.
Really twisted thinking.
Chainmail wrote: “Interesting and loaded term: “right of return”? Who defined that right?”
The palestinians. Right of Return means everyone who fled Israel during the ‘the catastrophe’, ie, right after Israel became a state, all their descendents get to come back to the Israel they deserted and reclaim all the property they left behind. It basically would mean the end of Israel since it would be a complete takeover of the land, an invastion without a war.
It is not original to me. The first time I heard it expressed this way was from Jonathan Bowden, who was one of the theorists of the British National Party back when they had some success.
relevant section starts at the prompt
https://youtu.be/5y3a3vSTgPI?t=1701
” Why anyone would want to twist the immense sacrifices made on DDay is just inexcusable .
Of to overlook the horrors of the Holocaust.
Really twisted thinking. “
I’m not “overlooking” either.
I’m just pointing out how the port-WW2 containment politics have been set up based on those two events. We are not allowed to oppose overseas wars against “aggressors” or oppose non-White immigration... because Hitler.
(btw total D Day casualties were less than the Russian AVERAGE per day of the entire 4 years of WW2)
“ I’m just pointing out how the port-WW2 containment politics have been set up based on those two events. We are not allowed to oppose overseas wars against “aggressors” or oppose non-White immigration... because Hitler.
(btw total D Day casualties were less than the Russian AVERAGE per day of the entire 4 years of WW2)”
Completely false.
“Boomers”, anyone else with a basic knowledge of history knows the entire scope of history of WW1 and WW2 plus the insidious nature of communism.
I find it distasteful that you pick out DDay and deliberately downplay the sacrifices made that day.
A very strange filter to view the world through
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.