Mark A. Le Vine (UC Irvine History Professor)
It seems that the same web-bloid, FrontPageMag.com, that published the
so-called attack on me has now gone after Professor Joel Beinin of Stanford
University. In an article stupidly entitled “Stanford’s Islamist Threat” (last I
heard, Beinin hasn’t converted from Judaism), the article accused him of being
anti-Zionist, a supporter of terrorism and of “repeating the most twisted and
paranoid claims of Islamist regimes as though they were historical fact.” The
author, Alyssa A. Lappen, a poet and journalist whose claim to fame seems to be
writing in self-styled “pro-Israel” forums—I put this phrase in quotes because as
far as I’m concerned, they’re actually quite “anti-Israel” in the same way someone
who feeds an alcoholic drink after drink is hurting, not helping them in slightest
bit—like FrontPageMag and Campus Watch and has even written reviews on amazon.com
(last time I heard, a journalist writes for newspapers and magazines, not only or
primarily right-wing funded hack websites, but that’s another story), goes on to
slander and libel Beinin at least a hundred different ways.
Professor Beinin is much too well-established—and too well-ensconced
in his sabbatical in Cairo—to need to respond on his own. So having gotten a laugh
out of my reply to Spencer’s article he “nominated” me to be his designated
spokesperson, which I consider an honor, to say the least. The reason is should be
relevant to you, the reader, is that the attacks on him represent only one instance
of a wholesale attack on the best academics in the US who deal with the Middle East
and Islam. They are being attacked precisely because they have the knowledge and
ability to pierce through the axis of arrogance and ignorance that drives the
neoliberal neoconservative policies of the Bush Administration and help Americans
understand the real dynamics underlying the war on terror and “why they [supposedly]
hate us.” As important, while for Beinin or myself such attacks are merely an
annoyance or even amusing, for untenured or less well known professors, especially
those of Arab and/or Muslim decent, like Columbia University’s Joseph Massad, who
has been literally slandered by so-called “pro-Israel” groups (and Lappen
specifically), who have without any evidence accused him of being an anti-Semite and
the like.
Let’s look at just a few examples of the non-sense masquerading as
journalism in this article. Lappen accuses Beinin of being a “Trotskyite
anti-Zionist” and ultimately a Maoist while a student at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem. As he explained to me when I asked him about this, “Aside from never
having been a Trotskyist (though I was a Maoist), I became a Marxist as a member of
Hashomer Hatzair, years before I went to Israel. We were, we thought,
Marxist-Zionists.” He doesn’t know where Lappen got her information or time line
about his ideological development. More important, it seems clear that Lappen
doesn’t know that if it wasn’t for Marxist-Zionism, there’d be no Zionism, never
mind a state of Israel today. But to know that she’d actually have to know the
history of Zionism, the very idea of which seems to be an anathema to the Campus
Watch crowd.
Lappen also accuses Beinin of receiving Ford Foundation funds and of
teaching in Egypt, Israel, or France. Beinin explained that he’s never received
funding from Ford (but the director of the Cairo office and several others there are
friends), nor has he taught in any of these places, although he will teach in France
this April—wrong again, unless predicting 1 out of 4 future teaching assignments
counts for something. Most important, contrary to her accusations, Beinin explains
that “I never referred to anyone as a ‘martyr’ and certainly not suicide bombers.
I
did appear on al-Jazeera and probably did say that the impending US attack on Iraq
was an imperialist act. But more importantly, I thought, I said very insistently
that attacking Iraq was NOT a plot by a cabal of Jewish neo-cons to serve Israeli
interests, but rather something that served US imperial interests as the US government
saw them.” Perhaps for Lappen (can we imagine she speaks Arabic and actually viewed
the al-Jazeera appearance herself to check the accuracy of her information
before writing about it?) the very thought that the US could be “imperialist”
constitutes such an act of treason that the person saying must be a terrorist
supporter, or at least sympathizer. But as Beinin further explains: “I have never
said anything supportive of any Islamist regimes (Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan,
whatever). In fact, I’d be hard pressed to recall anything positive I’ve said about
any of the current regimes in the Middle East.” This is crucial, because in fact to
be equally critical of all the regimes of the Middle East—that means Israel, yes,
but also Jordan, Iran, Sudan and all the other dictatorial, terrorist governments
of
the region—is a very dangerous thing, precisely because it puts to the lie the
meaningless rhetorical support for “democracy” across the Arab world while
supporting anti-democratic policies by every single client state in the region.
Indeed, this is the most likely reason that the Department of Homeland Security and
State Department revoked the visa of Swiss Professor Tariq Ramadan, who previously
had repeatedly visited the US and lectured to the CIA! Anyone as moderate as him can
only be considered a true “radical” and therefore a major threat to the status quo
that the US wants to preserve at all costs.
The false accusations continue in almost sentence. Lappen accuses
Jewish Voice for Peace of being a “reported Palestinian Front.” Well, first of all,
who’s “reporting” it as such! In fact, the very use of the phrase “reported
Palestinian front” is a sign of intellectual laziness and ignorance and journalistic
malfeasance—an easy smear without any attempt to back up or even define the
accusation (who’s reporting this information and what is a “front” and which
particular group is the organization “fronting” for. The clear implication is a
terrorist group, otherwise, why bother mentioning it. But what the accusation really
means is that the very act of supporting Palestinian rights means one is by
definition a terrorist sympathizer).
The reality, as anyone that knows this wonderful group of people will
tell you, is that such accusations are simply a crock. In fact, some members define
themselves as Zionists. Most interestingly, Beinin has gone on record, in the Jewish
press no less, in support of a two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict (see Alexandra J. Wall, “Outspoken Stanford prof supports
2-state-solution,” Jewish Bulletin of Northern California, Mar. 15, 2002). And if
the mainstay of right-wing attacks on progressive professors is that accusation that
their teaching is filled with anti-Zionism and even anti-Semitic materials, Beinin
explains that “the very accusation that 19 out of 29 required readings in a course
of mine had a ‘distinctly anti-Israel outlook’ (what that means, who knows? Any
scholar, even a good Zionist Israeli, who writes anything that criticizes the
dominant Zionist narrative is automatically labeled ‘distinctly anti-Israel’) that
means that more than 1/3 of the required readings for the class come from a point
of
view that is not my own. How many teachers could say the
same?”.
History is a field of paramount important for understanding the world,
as readers of this website surely know. In this regard, Lappen argues that “in his
1998 book on the fate of the Egyptian Jewish community, The Dispersion of Egyptian
Jewry, Beinin ignores the 1730s riots that destroyed Cairo’s Jewish quarter, killing
5,000 to 10,000, at least half its population…” But if she had bothered to read the
book, she’d realize that it’s about Egyptian Jews after 1948—over two hundred years
after those events. Perhaps Lappen can explain to us the link between the
experiences of Egyptian Jews of the two periods that would merit their inclusion in
a discussion of the post-1948 fate of Egyptian Jewry.
Perhaps the most interesting of Lappen’s accusation against Beinin is
that he once was a Maoist. I’m too young to remember Paris of May 1968 or the slow
disintegration of the New Left, in both of which Maoism, I think, played a key role.
I think it also has something to do with the Black Panthers and velvet posters and
Leonard Bernstein, but if the truth be told this was all before my time, and I don’t
really know what it means to be a Maoist if you’re not actually a member of the
Chinese Communist Party circa 1965. Here’s how Beinin explains it, which I find
fascinating: “Theoretically (which is the part I was never too interested in) it
meant to support China’s line after the Sino-Soviet split of 1964. Practically
speaking (which is what I was interested in) those who said they were Maoists went
to work in industrial factories and other places where there were concentrations of
the working class in order to create unions, radicalize existing unions, and to try
to politicize workers. So after finishing my MA at Harvard I went to work in a
Chrysler auto plant outside Detroit and also did organizing in the Arab community
in
Dearborn, a good percentage of whom were also auto workers.”
I don’t think Beinin is still a Maoist; and actually it’s none of my
business what his political affiliations are or were. But I hope my son is as
committed to social justice when he’s 25 as Beinin was at that age. And if it means
Lappen’s successors go after him with the same fanaticism as Lappen and the Campus
Watch crew go after anyone who threatens George W. Bush’s quest for world
domination, I hope he has a good sense of humor. In dark times like these, it’s
sometimes the only defense against despair.
