Decision ‘08

In Case You Missed It

John Fund of the Wall Street Journal blasted Yale yesterday for its plan to hire one Juan Cole:

Yale faces a new challenge. In the next few days the university may hire Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan, to fill a new spot as a professor of contemporary Middle East studies.

Mr. Cole’s appointment would be problematic on several fronts. First, his scholarship is largely on the 19th-century Middle East, not on contemporary issues. “He has since abandoned scholarship in favor of blog commentary,” says Michael Rubin, a Yale graduate and editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Mr. Cole’s postings at his blog, Informed Comment, appear to be a far cry from scholarship. They feature highly polemical writing and dubious conspiracy theories.

In justifying all the time he spends on his blog, Mr. Cole told the Yale Herald that “when you become a public intellectual, it has the effect of dragging you into a lot of mud.” Mr. Cole has done his share of splattering. He calls Israel “the most dangerous regime in the Middle East.” That ties in with his recurring theme that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee effectively controls Congress and much of U.S. foreign policy. In an article titled “Dual Loyalties,” he wrote, “I simply think that we deserve to have American public servants who are centrally commited [sic] to the interests of the United States, rather than to the interests of a foreign political party,” namely Israel’s right-wing Likud, which was the ruling party until Ariel Sharon formed the centrist Kadima Party. Mr. Cole claims that “pro-Likud intellectuals” routinely “use the Pentagon as Israel’s Gurkha regiment, fighting elective wars on behalf of Tel Aviv.” …Mr. Cole says that he is often unfairly attacked for being anti-Semitic, when in reality he claims he is only critical of Israeli policy. But Michael Oren, a visiting fellow at Yale, notes that in February 2003 Mr. Cole wrote on his blog that “Apparently [President Bush] has fallen for a line from the neo-cons in his administration that they can deliver the Jewish vote to him in 2004 if only he kisses Sharon’s ass.” Mr. Oren says “clearly that’s anti-Semitism; that’s not a criticism of Israeli policy.” (Exit polls showed that 74% of the Jewish vote went to John Kerry.)

Mr. Cole appears to be the only prominent academic in America to have embraced “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” a highly controversial paper by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard. Mr. Cole told the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday that the paper argues the “virtually axiomatic” point held by the rest of the world that a “powerful pro-Israel lobby exists.” The result is that “U.S. policy toward the Middle East has been dangerously skewed.”

But the paper has been roundly attacked for sloppy generalizations. The two authors claim that “neither strategic nor moral arguments can account for America’s support for Israel.” Even Noam Chomsky, a far-left critic of Israel, wrote that we “have to ask how convincing their thesis is. Not very, in my opinion.” But Mr. Cole praises the two professors for seeking “to end the taboo [on discussions of the “Israel lobby”], enforced by knee-jerk accusations of anti-Semitism.”

Cole responds here (amusingly referring to himself in the third person in the post title):

John Fund of the Wall Street Journal editorial page has published a large number of falsehoods about me.

The most egregious is this:

‘ He calls Israel “the most dangerous regime in the Middle East.” ‘

This a lie. I never said that. Try googling it. (All that comes up is the circular allegation I said it, never sourced. It never comes up on my site, because I did not say it, or say or imply anything like it.)

I did say that then-Israeli policies of assassinating people like Sheikh Yassin were dangerous to US interests in the Middle East. Since those policies also inspired such sympathy with Hamas that they went on to win the recent elections, the policies were dangerous to Israeli interests, too.

I presume Mr. Fund will apologize for libelling me and smearing me in an apparent attempt to interfere with my professional life.

That he can’t get something so basic right, of course, says it all about the rest of his screed, during which he also accuses me of being a racist bigot for complaining about the then influence of Ariel Sharon and the Likud line on Bush administration policy toward the Middle East.

Well, you decide, of course…but I do have one question: does Yale wish to hire a Middle East scholar who published allegations that 9/11 was partially a response to the ‘massacre’ at Jenin, a dubious event that took place 7 months AFTER the bombing of the WTC and the Pentagon? One who, when confronted with this obviously ridiculous (and physically impossible) notion, attempted to destroy the evidence rather than fess up and apologize? Yale can hire whomever they want, but this would give me pause…

UPDATE 8:51 a.m.: Did Juan Cole say what Fund said he did, or is he right that it’s a lie? This appears to be the original quote the allegation was based on:

The most dangerous regime to United States interests in the Middle East is that of Ariel Sharon, not because he fights terrorists, but because he is stealing the land of another people and is brutalizing them in the process – and those are people with whom the rest of the Middle East and the Muslim world sympathizes. A US counter-insurgency fight against Muslim radical extremists requires winning hearts and minds, which is impossible as long as Sharon behaves the way he did Monday, since everyone in the region knows that the US coddles the Israeli Right. Israel once had a proper prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, who knew how to make peace and how to be a good partner for America. Sharon is not good enough to shine his shoes.

The verdict? Advantage…Cole. Although Cole sugarcoats his quote somewhat, Fund, it appears to me, takes it out of context by equating “Israel” and “Sharon”. One is general, the other specific, and in this case, specificity would be more credible…

2 Responses to “In Case You Missed It”

1 Carol Johnson Says:
April 25th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Not sure where to put this comment, since it is off-topic. A letter that I sent to SOTH Dennis Hastert (who just happens to be my district rep in congress)

Dear Mr Hastert,

President Bush has decided to temporarily halt deposits to the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve to make more oil available for consumer needs and relieve pressure on pump prices, a senior administration official said Tuesday.

NOW it is time for congress to do their part and at the very least, put a temporary hold on Gasoline taxes!!! I don’t think I need to tell you that these prices are severely hampering the ability of businesses to expand and prosper when oil prices are so high. One of the things that congress can do immediately is either reduce or suspend all or part of the gasoline taxes. At least that will constitute a beginning. Alternative fuels and or alternative sources of energy are years down the road. We didn’t get into this situation overnight and we won’t get out of it simply by investigating the oil companies.

Once again, our President has taken the lead in proposing a solution to this crisis. I would like to urge the speaker to take the initiative in some form of congressional response other than reactive. A moratorium on gas taxes until fall would help…if not all then at least a tax cut to help businesses from stifling. To maintain high costs for businesses is not responsible. As you must be aware, the higher fuel costs affect everything (including the costs of food, clothes, and indeed all consumer goods) so therefore a reduction in the costs of doing business would benefit the individual consumer by indirect means by not driving up the costs of buying everything.

People like to compare the cost of fuel per gallon with the cost of milk per gallon. Well, the last time I checked no one has ever put milk in their car to drive it around. But the “cost” of milk is very much influenced by the cost of getting it to the market. In that instance it may not be such a far-fetched comparison after all!

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, look at what can be accomplished by congress besides launching yet another long and possibly fruitless investigation! Propose a moratorium on gas taxes now!

Thank you for your time.

Carol Johnson
2 jpe Says:
April 25th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Cole often strikes me as pompous ass, and Fund is a serial liar (and pompous ass). I wish Fox would resuscitate Celeb Boxing for these two. Oh, but they’d both have to be ritually sacrificed at the end. That’d rule.