The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Reading Steven Salaita

    By A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 09/05/2014 - 12:38pm |

    I have followed Corey Robin online for about a year through email notices to his frequent blogs at his own site. He also contributes at Crooked Timber and has done so at many other places including The New York Times. For about a month he has been pushing hard on an issue of academic freedom which I have followed there but was un-aware was gaining the traction it has. It is even being covered internationally, at least in England and Israel. As my title indicates, it is the issue of the firing of Steven Salaita by the University of Illinois.
     I have found his analysis and arguments quite persuasive but should admit that I have not read much of the push back he has received in his comment section. That is primarily, I think, because those counter-views take a while to arrive and he often already has another entry up.  
     If it does become a topic of interest to anyone else who comes to it late in the game there is a chronological listing, newest first, of all related posts on his own blog. http://coreyrobin.com/tag/steven-salaita/
     Mondoweiss has an article here. http://mondoweiss.net/2014/09/catastrophe-university-illinois.html
      What brought my mind to the subject today is Robin's latest entry and an article at Counterpunch by Andrew Levine titled Israel's Fatal Over-Reach. In a long essay on what he sees as a significant change in the public's perception of Israel, and how and why he expects Israel's influence to recede a great deal, he makes a surprising reference to the Salaita case as a possible "tipping point". http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/09/05/israels-fatal-over-reach/

     

    Comments

    Thanks lulu, I've read a bit on the whole Salaita issue and understand the freedom of expression arguments and don't mean to understate genuine concerns.  But I'm really not too sure if Salaita is a tipping point. Kind of hard to reference him as a poster child for all that is wrong with American support for Israel, and certainly not as a rallying point for such a movement.  

    More for a discussion later, but lulu IMO the tipping point lots of these folks seem to always claim is around the corner has actually taken place this summer, but not because of Salatita.  The tipping point is reflected in the Administration's awkward approach to Israel, an unshakeable bond based upon nothing.  The Obama Administration has made, as you might argue more strenuously to be a structural thing, has made the political decision that it would be imprudent messing with aid to Israel at this point--and that's a really much larger discussion because the way much of it is set up (loan guarantees to buy things made here, etc.).  But on the other hand, rightly or wrongly, the Administration has also made the decision, and painfully clear to someone like me but I acknowledge it, that its support for Israel rests on a base made of feathers.

    Whatever one might think of the Gaza war, the Administration knew very well what it was doing when it kept repeating that "Israel has the right to defend itself, but. . ,"  and when it used words like "appalled" to describe Israel's conduct.  It rendered meaningless its right to defense mantra and, again I'm not arguing merits, but combined with Obama's Cairo speech in 2009 where he essentially rejected the zionist narrative and referred to the Holocaust as the sole basis for Israel's creation and existence, the tepid moral support by the Administration signals a change in American policy in the not so distant future.  At last, once again, relations with Israel is a bipartisan issue unlike, for example, relations with France or Germany.

    The change won't be reflected in the next election or maybe even the one after that.  But unlike previous spats since 1967 (before then relations were much different between the US and Israel), most notably Bush I and Yitzhak Shamir, the Administration has fostered that tipping point I think you're talking about.   Look to see what happens at the next Democratic National Convention and specifically watch the party platform fight on the I-P issue.

    Once again, I'm not arguing the merits, but I'm acknowledging something that has been bandied upon for quite sometime by many.  Circumstances can and will bring the two nations together and they will continue to cooperate on military and intelligence matters, but it is simply a lie at this point, and it makes me cringe honestly, whenever I hear someone in the Administration speak of the "unbreakable bond" between Israel and the United States.  The Administration has opened the door to test that statement, and I think that is what one would properly call the tipping point in relations between the two nations.

    I'm at the point where I am more and more convinced that the money that Israel gets from the United States does more harm than good for us and for them.  As an American supporter of Israel, I look to a government that cares for Palestinians and promotes their independence, but understands its historical and moral commitment to Israel that really is unbreakable.  And that's the kind of thing that the Administration has shown cannot be purchased with cash money.

    Edited to add that this really requires so much more fleshing out and I'm sorry if it seems kind of mushy, but I think it's just where I am.  Of course, things change right, so we could be seeing a much different world a year from now.  Consider for example, what will happen if ISIS fighters, if it really is as powerful as the Administration claim it is, take offensive action in Jordan.  The American battleship known as Israel (Haig's term I believe), will rescue America's close ally in Amman, and not as a favor to a US or to the Jordanians.  The Jordanian border will be Israel's tipping point and what happens after that would remain to be seen.  Anyway, this point I'm trying to make here is that things happen to change projections, and arguably more often than not.


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 09/06/2014 - 3:57pm

    At last, once again, relations with Israel is a bipartisan issue unlike, for example, relations with France or Germany.

    Do you mean to say it is a partisan issue, whereas relations with France and Germany are more bipartisan (or non-partisan)?


    by Verified Atheist on Sat, 09/06/2014 - 6:16pm

    Sorry and this is definitely something I've not fully thought through, but Israel, again rightly or wrongly, presents issues that going forward, I think, will become far more partisan, as compared to how things have been in the fast.  And I was thinking of aid, but perhaps it will also play out at some point with an American posture at the United Nations and in other international forums that becomes more in line with most of the international community.  Not sure if that helps, but I think that the signals from the Administration point to that kind of relationship.  And of course nothing happens overnight, etc.


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 09/06/2014 - 6:33pm

    I would point out that I wasn’t supporting the contention that Salaita’s situation is, or might be, a tipping point. Rather, I said calling it that was a surprise ending of that essay.
     I have found Salaita’s situation interesting in its own right and considered it in its own immediate sphere. In that immediate sphere of academia it seems that the weight of opinion strong enough to motivate a public stand one way or the other is just about all on the side that believes he was handled shabbily.  I think most academics I’ve read, with a few notable exceptions, make their case in his favor based on the merits of the actions taken by the university but don’t explore what pressures motivated those actions. That is where the pundits take over. Where the author of the Counterpunch piece stretches to see a tipping point, I see another straw.  I have no idea how strong a camel is.
     I agree that events down the line will more likely play out in a chaotic way rather than in a way that can be foreseen with any confidence. I might be back with more but I better click on this before my computer freezes up. cheers.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Sat, 09/06/2014 - 6:28pm

    I understand your point.  Look I sent three kids to a school where there is a tenured notable holocaust denier in one of the science departments, and I might not like it but, hey, academic freedom.  On the pressures, I would bet there's quite a bit, and perhaps even from the ADL or some other Jewish groups.  I would expect that.  Where you and I always seem to get tangled up is when that kind of pressure occurs and what it means, so I guess I will hold off there because it's not going to get us anywhere I suspect.  Cheers back.


    by Bruce Levine on Sat, 09/06/2014 - 6:39pm