David Duke, Harvard, and Israel
I heave a deep, gigantic *SIGH* at the latest insanity.
David Duke, that notorious white supremacist and anti-Semite who is a former leader of the rotten Ku Klux Klan, has just praised a recent Harvard report on Israel (the report is, naturally, hostile to the "Zionist entity"). Um, this is the kind of endorsement Harvard does NOT need! As Penraker pithily words it: "Now, when the country's greatest living bigot is excited about your work, it should give you pause. If it doesn't, there is something seriously wrong with you."
Well, this is all probably overstated. Harvard doesn't endorse David Duke, so the enthusiasm is one-sided. Still, isn't it rather troubling that someone as objectionable as Duke finds anything about a Harvard report to be praiseworthy in the slightest?
Look, I know -- everybody knows -- that Israel is not perfect and that the Palestinians have some real grievances. Read your history! But there is also a tendency in some elite circles to reduce a complicated situation into a two-pronged approach: (1) demonize Israel and depict it as a nest of rich and powerful vipers, while at the same time (2) pardon every crime committed against it by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc. and make excuses for terrorism. (I will NOT excuse terrorism. It is evil and wrong, and I don't care how many professors and pundits say otherwise.)
Anyway, here is a PDF version of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," the academic report in question, plus some thoughts from Roger L. Simon, who is always worth a look.
UPDATE 1: The report has been revised. The newest version is online at the London Review of Books. As usual for controversial publications, I humbly suggest that you read it for yourself. I tell you now that the report fails to adequately acknowledge some of the important historical events that shaped the entire Arab-Israeli conflict in the first place (such as the wars of 1967 and 1973).
I've been reading it and I can't help sighing repeatedly at statements like this one: "Given the neo-conservatives’ devotion to Israel, their obsession with Iraq, and their influence in the Bush administration, it isn’t surprising that many Americans suspected that the war was designed to further Israeli interests." (Do people seriously believe this? "Israel as Global Puppetmaster"?)
Or this: "It is not surprising that Israel and its American supporters want the US to deal with any and all threats to Israel’s security. If their efforts to shape US policy succeed, Israel’s enemies will be weakened or overthrown, Israel will get a free hand with the Palestinians, and the US will do most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding and paying." (The US is Israel's dumb poodle?)
UPDATE 2: Professors with brains are beginning to register their displeasure with the paper in question. Norman Geras has some interesting posts plus links. I rather like this British professor's assessment about "dangerous conspiratorial nonsense."
UPDATE 3: I am fed up with it All. From the weirdness about the Yale Taliban situation to this mess with Harvard publishing questionable "research" that feeds Zionist conspiracy theories, am I living in academia or in "Academistan"? When can I graduate???