Posted by Martin Kramer in Sandbox on October 15, 2010
In an interview in February 2003, Edward Said said this:
An outrageous Israeli, Martin Kramer, uses his Web site to attack everybody who says anything he doesn't like. For example, he has described Columbia as "the Bir Zeit [university] on the Hudson," because there are two Palestinians teaching here. Two Palestinians teaching in a faculty of 8,000 people! If you have two Palestinians, it makes you a kind of terrorist hideout. This is part of the atmosphere of intimidation that is McCarthyite.
Flash forward seven years later, to last week's formal inauguration of the new Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University. From itswebsite:
Founded in January 2010, the Center for Palestine Studies is the first such center to be established in an academic institution in the United States. Columbia University is currently the professional home to a unique concentration of distinguished scholars on Palestine and Palestinians, as well as to award-winning supporting faculty in a variety of disciplines.
So how did Columbia go so rapidly from "two Palestinians teaching in a faculty of 8,000 people!" to "a unique concentration of distinguished scholars on Palestine and the Palestinians"? Don't be shocked, but Edward Said was out to deceive in that 2003 interview. Obviously there were more than two Palestinians back then. But I didn't invent the nickname Bir Zeit-on-Hudson because of their number. It was meant to evoke precisely the atmosphere of intimidation--anti-Israel intimidation--that would later come to light in the "Columbia Unbecoming" affair.
No comments:
Post a Comment