Credit Where It’s Due: President Trump

The convoy of released Israeli hostages
heads toward Jerusalem

To say that Curmie has been unimpressed with the Trump presidency is to err more on the side of understatement than of hyperbole.  47 has proven to be even worse than 45.  With the exception of a more robust stock market (where most of Curmie’s retirement nest egg resides) than was expected after the various silly tariffs were applied, removed, and re-applied willy-willy, Curmie can’t think of a single thing this administration has done that benefits the population at large.

There’s the authoritarianism; the reverse Robin Hood economic policies; the assaults on the 1^st, 4^th, 5^th, and 14^th Amendments; the appointments of incompetent (we hope they’re only that) loyalists to head government agencies; the multiple violations of US and international law; and of course the delirious ramblings of a POTUS who now claims that President Biden (who wasn’t in office yet) ordered 274 FBI agents to infiltrate the crowd on January 6.

Trump’s non-stop stream of commentary generally comes in one of three flavors: dementia, narcissism, and lies.  The idea that he would be telling the truth about anything he claimed to have accomplished was contrary to all expectations.  Curmie explicitly doubted Dear Leader’s claim that he had negotiated an agreement between Israel and Hamas that would lead to the release of the remaining Israeli hostages. 

But whether the appropriate analog is the boy who cried wolf or a stopped clock (Curmie leans towards the former), that boast turns out to have been true, as all living hostages have been released (Curmie wasn’t going to write about this until it actually happened), and there’s a plan in place to return the remains of those who perished in captivity.

This is all good news, of course, and President Trump deserves a healthy share of the credit, not least for convincing Hamas that he was sufficiently personally invested in the deal that he would be willing and able to force Prime Minister Netanyahu to adhere to his promises.  That’s a substantial risk for Hamas, especially since only a few weeks ago Trump was talking about pretty much annihilating the West Bank and rebuilding it as a high-end resort destination.

Of course, two things should be noted.  First, whereas Curmie meant (and still means) what he said in that earlier post linked above, that if Trump could “indeed get buy-in from both Likud and Hamas, that would be a major achievement,” what has happened today is little more than a cease-fire and a prisoner exchange, with vague promises about the future that deliberately avoid the thorniest issues—a two-state solution, for example.  There will be pressure for Hamas to disarm and perhaps even to relinquish control in Gaza.  The extent to which Hamas will be receptive to those demands remains to be seen.  There is, to be sure, a long and difficult road ahead.

And let Curmie emphasize the notion of prisoner exchange: as part of the agreement, Israel released nearly 2000 (!) Palestinians rounded up in Gaza, the overwhelming majority of whom were held without trial.  (That sounds to Curmie rather like being a hostage.)  One of those released, Kamal Abu Shanab, a member of Fatah (N.B., not Hamas), claims he underwent an “indescribable journey of suffering — hunger, unfair treatment, oppression, torture and curses — more than anything you could imagine,” and that he lost 139 pounds while in captivity.  Curmie isn’t naïve enough to believe everything he’s told, but he’s also not ready to dismiss those claims out of hand.  More to the point, Curmie was blissfully unaware of the sheer number of such detainees; perhaps you were, too, Gentle Reader.  It certainly says something about American journalism that we didn’t hear more about this part of the equation.

The other point to be made here is that President Trump was not alone in bringing about this agreement.  Leaders from Norway, Italy, Egypt, Türkiye, and Qatar were certainly involved; one suspects that others were, as well.  Nor should we forget that whereas recent events represent significant progress, the release of 20 living Israeli hostages pales in comparison to the vastly greater number released in deals brokered by President Biden and others.  This is the final but not largest chapter of this part of the tale.

Further pressure was no doubt applied by the flotilla of relief vessels which attempted to run the Israeli blockage and deliver food and medicine to Gaza.  The fact that Greta Thunberg was one of those detained (and, she says, abused) by Israeli forces moved the story into higher priority for the international press.

The prospects aren’t great for a lasting settlement.  There is too much animosity, too much destruction, too much history, to be overly optimistic.  More significantly, the remaining issues—the political future of the West Bank, the degree to which Hamas disarms, deciding who bears the cost of rebuilding Gaza into a habitable locale—are even more daunting than achieving what has come to pass in the last few days.

But there is, at least and at last, a little hope.  The resolve of all concerned will be tested, and to say there are a lot of bumps in the road ahead is self-evident.  But we’re in a better place than we were a fortnight ago, and—against Curmie’s expectations—Donald Trump is a major reason, if not the major reason, why that’s true.  If he’d stop whining about how he deserves a Nobel Prize for largely illusory accomplishments, he might even deserve one for an actual success. 

He’s still an awful President, but credit where it’s due.

This But That: Musings on Israel and Palestine

Curmie’s personal Facebook page lists his political affiliation as “Contrarian,” or at least it used to do so; that piece of information seems to have vanished, and there are more important things to do than investigate further.  That self-description holds, whether it’s visible to others or not. 

I was never in my adult life more conservative than when living in the small Iowa town that hosts the largest Democratic caucus in the state; whereas there were significant right-wing voices among my colleagues on the faculty of the small college where I taught, they were definitely in the minority.  

Nor have I ever been more liberal than when living in an East Texas Congressional district that elected and kept re-electing Louie Gohmert, often by landslide margins. (He’d still be my Congresscritter except for an ill-fated run for Texas Attorney General).

What this suggests is that when surrounded by largely one-sided rhetoric, Curmie tends to see the flaws in that perspective magnified relative to its strengths.  Whether that’s an admirable exercise in critical thinking or merely a stubborn petulance at being told what to believe sort of doesn’t matter.  It is what it is.

Curmie is also, of course, trained in theatre, and has taught over two dozen sections of acting classes, most of them grounded in the Stanislavsky system of beginning with a character’s objective.  This approach is especially useful in playing antagonists or even villains: they aren’t evil (necessarily, at least), they just see the world a little differently.  The world is a complicated place, and pretending that it is otherwise leads to potentially dangerous oversimplification.

Context matters, in other words.  Always.  That doesn’t mean that context is all that matters, or that every rationale for an action (or inaction) is legitimate—logically, legally, morally, or ethically.  Nor does it mean that just because we agree with a perspective with respect to Issue X, we are unable to disagree about Issue Y.  It is possible, for example, to say that the Biden presidency has been largely unsuccessful and still think it’s better than any of the alternatives currently presenting themselves.  It’s possible to acknowledge that there is considerable corruption in Ukraine and still support them in their struggle against Russian aggression.  And so on.

It is also possible to grant that allegations that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians shares some similarities with apartheid have some merit (the fact that these screeds are generally overblown does not mean they’re entirely fabricated) while also condemning without the slightest hesitancy or reservation the recent attacks by Hamas against Israeli citizens (and those from other countries, including the US).  Rape, murder, and kidnapping of non-combatants, of children and the elderly, cannot be countenanced under any circumstances whatsoever.  Curmie won’t go into details here, Gentle Reader.  You’ve probably been following this story as closely as he has, and there comes a point at which the sheer horror of the situation defies description.

And then, of course, there was the reaction, or, rather, series of reactions.  The Israeli military launched a massive bombing attack on Gaza, dropping nearly as many bombs on that small area in less than a week as the US employed in the entirety of Operation Desert Storm.  They cut off electricity to the region.  They imposed a mass and immediate migration. 

The Israelis (both here and throughout this essay, Curmie uses this term to refer to the Israeli government, not the citizenry) claim with no little justification to be defending their territory and their citizenry.  Also (of course) they claimed to be attacking Hamas installations rather than Gaza in general.  That said, there has been no little death and destruction suffered by people who had no part in the attacks in Israel.  Are the Israelis the “good guys” here?  No.  They’re the less despicable guys. 

Another response, of a different kind, was that of both the international left and a bunch of unthinking post-adolescents.  Blaming the situation wholly on Israel is profoundly stupid, yet so many individuals and organizations have effectively become spokespeople for terrorism.  This is not, of course, a unanimous response of the left any more than suggesting that all Jews want Gaza obliterated.  As a friend of Curmie, a man well to Curmie’s left politically, posted on Facebook, “When the topic turns to Israel, I step away from the Left.”

One of the biggest sources of headlines comes from Harvard, where some 30+ student organizations signed off on a proclamation declaring Israel to be “entirely responsible” for the Hamas attack.  Making the obvious point that the Hamas attack “did not occur in a vacuum,” the statement then proclaims that “The apartheid regime is the only one to blame.”  Uh… no.

But here’s the thing: many members of those student organizations didn’t even know that such a statement was even being considered until after it had been signed in their name.  “We didn’t read or understand what we were signing” is a pretty lame excuse for an Ivy League student; “We didn’t even know it was happening,” on the other hand, is legitimate.

Some brief observations:

1. Sometimes things that appear simple are actually complex.  There’s a good and—from Curmie’s perspective, at least—balanced discussion of some of this over at TheConversation.com.

2. Does the mere presence of non-Muslim visitors at the Al-Aqsa Mosque constitute a “desecration”?  Curmie’s definition of the term would require a higher threshold, but he’s an agnostic of Christian heritage, so what does he know?

3. Policies of the Netanyahu regime in particular no doubt had a triggering effect, indirectly precipitating the Hamas attack. 

4.Sometimes things that appear complex are actually simple.  There is no excuse, none, for what Hamas did.  Context is one thing; excuses are another.

5.There’s a difference between collateral damage and specifically targeting civilians.  That does provide context (there’s that word again), but there’s also a point at which knowing in advance that the collateral damage will be catastrophic becomes relevant.

6. It is virtually certain that Hamas takes shelter among innocent civilians, so any attack on Gaza will have civilian casualties.  Both sides know this.  Neither seems much to care.

7. Hamas’s energy, indeed its very existence, is defined negatively.  It is focused exclusively on the elimination of Israel (and perhaps of Jews in general), not on improving the lives of Palestinians.  This is one of the few points on which Curmie will brook no denial.

8. Silence is not always complicity.  Taking some time to organize ours thoughts—for those of us privileged enough to not be directly affected, at least—would seem a better option than saying something you’ll regret.  Not having words is not a moral or ethical failing. 

9.The same people who (rightly) argued that criticism of Barack Obama wasn’t inherently racist or of Hilary Clinton inherently sexist are now suggesting that criticism of the Israeli government is, in fact, inherently anti-Semitic.  It isn’t.  Nor is criticism of Hamas inherently Islamophobic. 

10. Lots of people in Israel don’t support their government’s policies with respect to Palestine; lots of people in Gaza don’t support brutality against Jews.

11. Kids in Gaza are just as innocent as those in Israel.

12. You can be a member of a group without supporting everything that group does.  No elected officials in a real democracy are ever supported by all their constituents, or even without reservations by their supporters.  Any American who can’t or won’t acknowledge the failures of the candidate they voted for in a recent election is not worthy of consideration.  Anyone who merely parrots the party line—any party line—is unworthy of consideration. 

13. It is not merely illogical but unethical to blame (or praise, for that matter) all members of a group for something the majority or the power-mongers do.  American citizens aren’t responsible for what our military does just because a slight majority of voters (as opposed to citizens) elected the Commander-in-Chief.  The same logic applies both to Israeli citizens and to residents of Gaza.

14. Simply being a member of a group—a local chapter of Amnesty International or the Nepali Student Association, for example—which has hitherto not done anything stupid regarding Israel and Gaza should not lead to doxing.  People who make decisions are responsible for those decisions; people who don’t even know a decision is being made are not. 

15. We can count on some self-important CEO (the usual apologies for redundancy) to engage in preening twatwaffledom in any circumstance.  No one should accept a job with a boss who engages so freely and publicly in proclaiming guilt by association.  Curmie is looking at you, Bill Ackman.

16. We are placed in the unfortunate situation of having to believe news reports, which, given the sloth of most journalists and editors, are often misleading if not outright prevarications.  Skepticism is definitely in order.

17. To the extent that such poor journalism is the result of bias rather than garden variety incompetence, it tends to backfire.  The truth has a nasty way of finding its way to the light, and uncovering false allegations (e.g., of an Israeli attack on a Gaza hospital) tends to discredit subsequent, accurate, reporting from the same source.

18. The only hope for the situation not getting worse is the release of the hostages.  We can be shocked by Israel’s response, but we cannot reasonably condemn it out of hand.  Horrific and appropriate are not always contradictory terms.

19. Should this release occur and the assault on Gaza continue, the Israeli government bears the responsibility for the continued carnage.

20. Curmie doubts that the release mentioned in #19 is likely to happen.  Alas.

21. It is possible to support Palestinians and still condemn Hamas’s slaughter of innocent people.  How do I know?  The guy I see in the mirror does both.

Roger Waters, Pink, Nazis, and Freedom of Speech

There are lots of more important issues than Curmie’s topic du jour: the fact that we have even contemplated not raising the debt ceiling; Texas’s attempting to wrest the title of Most Embarrassing State from Florida (Tennessee is still in Honorable Mention territory despite their best efforts); further incursions on freedom of expression from authoritarians on the left, the right, and the simply megalomaniacal; well, you get the picture. 

A disturbing but not illegal image.

Curmie may or may not address one or more of these issues in the days ahead, but for now, let’s talk about former Pink Floyd composer-bassist-frontman Roger Waters, who ran afoul of German police for wearing a “Nazi-style uniform” (that’s The Guardian’s term) at a recent concert in Berlin. 

Germany, for understandable reasons, is more than a little sensitive about anything suggestive of Nazism. They take their restrictions too far, in Curmie’s opinion, but what is, is. Any display of Nazi regalia is verboten; an exception is made “for educational purposes and in artistic contexts.” 

OK, but this isn’t Nazi regalia. It is clearly intended to be evocative, but there’s a difference between a swastika and the crossed hammers of the fictive world of “The Wall.” The latter, Waters’s creation, ranks alongside The Who’s “Tommy” as the greatest concept albums of the rock era, and is the best-selling double album of all time (yes, beating the Beatles’ White Album for that honor). 

The 1982 film version featuring Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof as Pink, the lead, makes the plotline clearer than the album might. The song at the center of the controversy, ”In the Flesh,” appears in “The Wall” as a hallucination: in a fit of despair, Pink imagines himself as a Nazi-like demagogue. When the nightmarish visions subside, Pink screams “Stop!”, suggesting that not only does he recognize what has just transpired as an illusion, but that he wants no part of it. He continues that he wants “to go home / Take off this uniform / And leave the show / But I'm waiting in this cell / Because I have to know / Have I been guilty all this time?” This is not in the same area code as a rallying cry for Nazism. 

Officials in Frankfurt attempted to shut down Waters’s show there before it happened, accusing the singer-songwriter of being “one of the most widely known antisemites in the world.” They failed; Waters would have us believe that the decision was based primarily on the recognition that the Pink persona was a “scathing critique” of the Nazis. Taken out of the context of the entirety of “The Wall’s” plotline, this isn’t abundantly clear, but the court did determine that the performance “did not glorify or relativise the crimes of the Nazis or identify with Nazi racist ideology.” 

Even more importantly in Curmie’s mind, though perhaps not in the German authorities’, was the determination that the performance, in character, of a song from one of the seminal albums of the past half-century, must be “viewed as a work of art,” and therefore exempted from sanction, despite its “symbolism manifestly based on that of the National Socialist regime.” 

Of course, there are ethical concerns that extend past mere legalities. Waters has indeed, for many years, been accused of anti-Semitism, largely because of his pro-Palestinian stance. This allegation has historically been based on a conflation of Judaism and the Israeli government. It is perfectly possible to oppose the latter without bearing any animosity toward the former, and there is little to indicate that Waters is incapable of making the distinction. 

Still, there is a segment in the show that highlights the names of those killed by government authorities, thereby linking Anne Frank with Shireen Abu Akleh, described by the Guardian as “the Palestinian-American journalist who is believed to have been shot dead by an Israeli sniper in May 2022.” 

Israel’s UN Ambassador, Danny Danon, is correct that the linkage between Frank and “a journalist shot while in an active combat zone” is more than a little strained, but labeling Waters “disgracefully one of the biggest Jew haters of our time” is equally overblown. He’s a government official, so his willingness to ascribe a criticism of his government as inherently antisemitic is self-serving at best, and borders on proving Waters’s point about Israeli authoritarianism. Surely every American voter has complained in speech or print about some action of the current President or his predecessor; that doesn’t make us all unpatriotic. Neither does criticizing the Pope or an Ayatollah makes one anti-Catholic or anti-Islam. 

Waters does support the BDM (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against Israel within the context of an “anti-war, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, anti-establishment movement.” Again, criticizing the Israeli state isn’t inherently antisemitic. 

That said, an article on the Hot Air website declares that “Waters is secure in the belief that a Jewish ‘cabal’ runs the world. Conservative Jewish donor Sheldon Anderson (sic.), for instance, is a ‘fascist’ ‘puppet master’ who is ‘filling the coffers and pulling all the strings.’” (It is difficult to determine the sincerity of Waters’s subsequent apology for the remarks about Adelson in particular.) 

Waters is performing back in his native England now, and there’s apparently a fair amount of opposition to that series of concerts, as well. Jewish groups like the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the National Jewish Assembly, and the Campaign Against Antisemitism have, respectively, labeled Waters’s appearances as political rallies rather than concerts, called upon the government to condemn Waters, and launched a petition to stop venues from hosting his performances, both live and filmed. 

If Waters seeks to avoid controversy, he’s going about it all wrong. Certainly, opening his UK tour with a ten-minute screed about his mistreatment in Germany, a condemnation of the British newspapers The Telegraph and The Times, and challenging his doubters with “If you’re one of those ‘I love Pink Floyd but I can’t stand Roger’s politics’ people, you might do well to fuck off to the bar” is unlikely to tamp down any controversy. 

Waters is no stranger to the kind of whirlwind that now surrounds him, and those of a cynical disposition might suggest he likes it that way. It is not a criticism of Waters to note that the facts that he’s still performing the 44-year-old “In the Flesh” and that he hasn’t had a hit as a solo artist in over 30 years suggests that he’s living on past glory. In the spirit of “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” then all this kerfuffle may well work to Waters’s advantage. 

Curmie grew up in the United States, where there’s a First Amendment that would (or at least should) guarantee Waters’s legal right to perform even potentially offensive material. Those rights are, as Curmie has suggested many times, currently under attack from both the left and the right, but to some extent it has been ever thus. 

I was just beginning to follow the news even a little when the Selma to Montgomery march took place in 1966; the first presidential election in which I took anything approaching an active interest was marred by the events at the Democratic convention in Chicago in 1968; I have long regarded Kent State in 1970 as a life-changing moment. None of these historical moments are shining examples of adherence to First Amendment principles. 

More recently, there have been abuses by police and protesters alike surrounding the invasion of Iraq, the tearing down of statues of Confederate leaders, the death of George Floyd, the Dobbs decision, and a host of other instances in which citizens responded negatively to something that was happening. 

No, these demonstrations were not without incident, but the spirit of peaceful protest remains, and Curmie will always regard the guarantees of the First Amendment as the most powerful beacon of American exceptionalism. 

Roger Waters, whatever we think of his music or his politics, would be on more solid legal footing on this side of the Atlantic. He should still be safe in Europe, but it’s important to note that some 52 anti-monarchists were arrested in his homeland for peacefully protesting the coronation of Charles III. 

Curmie also calls to mind a moment in his own life from 30-ish years ago. My cousin was coaching his son’s little league team. The players were just old enough to have an umpire call balls and strikes. I happened to be behind the bench when one of my cousin’s players was called out on strikes on a pitch I, too, thought was several inches high. The boy started to complain; my cousin pulled him aside and said that with two strikes, if it’s close enough that an umpire even might call it a strike, swing. The kid nodded, and rapped a double his next time up on a pitch that was a good six inches outside. 

Roger Waters might be right that what’s being thrown at him isn’t even close to the strike zone, but he needs to be aware that there’s always going to be an umpire (like this guy) who’s going to call you out just because. But coming out swinging isn’t exactly the answer, either. The best course of action would seem to be avoiding picking up two strikes. 

Controversy sells tickets, but there’s always a risk involved. Your call, Roger.

The Kushner Crisis, or "Jeffrey Wiesenfeld Knows So Little about the Way Universities Operate, He Should Be a State Legislator"

I confess that I am not a huge fan of Tony Kushner. While I like Angels in America well enough, for example, I don’t think it’s a masterpiece, and I sure as hell don’t think there’s seven hours of material there. The one time I’ve ever been in the same room with Mr. Kushner, he gave one of the most excruciatingly pompous conference keynote speeches I’ve ever heard. His insularity, profound ignorance of the world inhabited by his audience, and simplistic reasoning were matched only by his arrogance. There were those, a majority, in fact, who lapped it up, of course. (“Ooh, it’s Tony Kushner!!!”) I wasn’t among them.

So, if I were a member of a faculty committee charged with recommending potential honorary degree recipients, I might express some doubts about Mr. Kushner, despite his obvious credentials: two Drama Desk awards, two Tonys, an Emmy, an Olivier, and a Pulitzer, among other accolades. Would I vote against him? Probably not. And I certainly wouldn’t vote against him if my only reason to do so were that he is too critical of a foreign government. Nor if the basis for my reticence were that I read some unflattering things about him on the personal website of… well, frankly, anyone. Nor if I were, say, a trustee, and my function in the process was to issue a pro forma acceptance of the committee’s recommendation unless a). there was a thorough investigation of the allegations against a proposed honoree, and b). those charges were found both credible and relevant.

Needless to say, I wouldn’t be writing this unless someone—in this case the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York—did something remarkably stupid. According to Patrick Healy of the New York Times, trustee Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld “objected to John Jay College’s submission of Mr. Kushner for an honorary degree. Mr. Wiesenfeld described viewpoints and comments, which he ascribed to Mr. Kushner, that he had found on the Web site of Norman Finkelstein, a political scientist and critic of Israel.” Be it noted: Wiesenfeld, a presumed guardian of the standards of a highly respected university seems to have formed an opinion of an internationally famous writer based solely on material found on one personal website, run by someone who truly is anti-Israel and appears to be scrambling to find something akin to support from high-profile personalities, regardless of how far out of context he must place their remarks to get his desired effect. Suddenly, my students who think Wikipedia is a legitimate source don’t look so bad by comparison.

Anyway, Finkelstein reported, in late April and again in early May, 2006, on the (unsuccessful) attempt of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) to block Mr. Kushner from receiving an honorary degree from Brandeis University, unquestionably the nation’s most prominent Jewish institution of higher learning.

The ZOA’s allegations include a number of statements attributed to Mr. Kushner, the overwhelming majority of which fall into one of two categories: a). the kind of single-sentence (or less) snippet that screams that it’s being taken out of context, (e.g., describing “American Jews who support Israel as ‘repulsive’”… gee, you think he might have been referring to American Jews who support Israel uncritically?), and b). statements which are utterly innocuous except to a true believer (“Israel is a foreign country. I am no more represented by Israel than I am by Italy,” a comment whose inclusion on the ZOA’s enumeration of the allegedly outrageous suggests that they believe that American Jews ought inherently to owe allegiance to Israel). [Note: the link on Mr. Finkelstein’s page to the ZOA’s statement no longer works, and it is difficult to determine when he is and is not citing their document directly. It may be that it was Finkelstein, not the ZOA, provided that quotation. But since apparently Mr. Wiesenfeld got his information from Finkelstein’s page rather than from the ZOA, the point becomes moot.]

Other alleged atrocities committed by Mr. Kushner include writing a terrible screenplay to “Munich.” Well, I gotta give them that one; it was an awful film (more attributable to heavy-handed directing by Steven Spielberg and a downright awful performance by Eric Bana in the lead than to Kushner, but still…). But, really? Criticizing a movie because some guy from Mossad doesn’t think it’s accurate? Wow.

It is certainly true that the ZOA doesn’t like Mr. Kushner very much: they’re about the only folks out there who don’t think the CUNY trustees made an enormous mistake. ZOA president Morton A. Klein endorsed their action, claiming that the playwright “drips vitriol about [Israel] and its supporters” and sniffing that Israel “is the only country in the Middle East in which he would be free to live openly as a homosexual.” The statement is, in other words, utterly predictable, up to and including a signal that the real problem with Mr. Kushner has more to do with his sexual orientation than with his views on Middle Eastern politics.

Mr. Kushner, in turn, gets more than a little testy, accusing Wiesenfeld of slander, and launching into an extended exegesis of his real political positions, which “do not resemble Mr. Wiesenfeld’s account.” He goes on to articulate what strikes me as a reasonable and nuanced position—the argument of a grown-up, in other words. I don’t agree with everything Mr. Kushner says. And it is conceivable that Wiesenfeld’s characterization of Kushner’s ideology is more accurate than the latter would like to let on… which brings us to the crux of this discussion:

SO FREAKING WHAT???

It doesn’t matter. Or, rather, it shouldn’t. Even if Mr. Kushner were as anti-Israel as Mr. Wiesenfeld claims, that’s irrelevant to whether he ought to get an honorary degree or not. A university, especially a public one, ought to be a site for intellectual pluralism, and there is nothing in Kushner’s statements, even when intentionally taken out of context, that moves him into an ideological fringe. It’s OK to disagree about stuff. Really. Moreover, the function of the trustees isn’t to micromanage university affairs, certainly not at a point in time when an honor has to be rescinded rather than simply not awarded. Are we really going to determine who is and who is not to receive honorary degrees based on the political agenda of a single egomaniacal fatcat?

Because it’s Wiesenfeld’s extremism, not Kushner’s, that’s at play here. He has the absolute right, as an individual, to use his wealth and power to support the ZOA, the state of Israel, and whomever else he likes. But as a trustee of a public university, his obligation is to act in the best interests of the school, not to withhold honors from dramatists who aren’t Jewish enough.

I’ve been following the excellent coverage of George Hunka on this story—both his initial piece and his follow-up. He makes the excellent point that:

It is not a case of censorship or suppression…. It is not a litmus test for the correct view of Israeli-Palestinian relations, or the influence of a specifically pro-Israel bent in some New York institutions (though many will think that it is, missing the forest for the trees). Nor is it an attempt to render Kushner, his work and opinions invisible…. It is, however, indicative of the degree to which wealthy individuals placed in positions of power in higher learning are able to direct the course of an educational institution’s internal academic affairs.

Hunka links to articles suggesting that this isn’t the first time Wiesenfeld has insinuated himself into CUNY’s internal affairs. That doesn’t make him unique, of course. This is a problem we will face as long as universities seek trustees (regents, councilors, whatever) whose principal attribute is wealth. (Ever notice how seldom such people actually know anything about education?) Wealth begets arrogance, and arrogance begets stupidity. Not always, of course, perhaps not even usually, but too often.

The reaction to the CUNY trustees’ failure to, well, hold the university in trust has been swift and significant. There’s a Facebook page and a petition site. At least three previous honorary degree recipients, Barbara Ehrenreich, Ellen Schrecker, and Michael Cunningham, have renounced their own awards in the wake of Kushner’s exclusion. Ben Brantley of the New York Times describes the “extraordinary, active empathy that pervades every one of [Kushner’s] plays,” and professes himself “deeply saddened” by the board’s decision. A scathing New York Times editorial by Peter Catapano invokes CUNY’s less than savory historical record with respect to free speech, and calls attention to former New York mayor Ed Koch’s “irate missive”:

I can’t think of a dumber academic action. What does Kushner receiving an award have to do with criticism of the State of Israel? I am a well-known supporter of that nation. What if I were denied an honorary degree because of my strong support for that state? That would make as much sense as denying Mr. Kushner a degree.

Mr. Wiesenfeld and the trustees who followed his request should immediately reverse their action and urge Mr. Kushner to forgive them. I consider Mr. Wiesenfeld’s action so outrageous as to be an abuse of power on his part requiring his resignation or removal from the Board of Trustees.

In other words, the CUNY trustees generated their own personal tempest by being remarkably bone-headed. Every one of them should be embarrassed, even those who voted for Mr. Kushner but, apparently more concerned with getting out of their meeting on time than with fulfilling their obligations, said nothing to counter Mr. Wiesenfeld’s tirade, and didn’t even bother to delay their vote until his allegations could be considered critically. No, 17 out of 17 CUNY trustees should be ashamed. As Stephen M. Walt aptly writes,

in this case the CUNY board blew it big-time, both because Weisenfeld's accusations were off-base but also because they would not have been grounds for denying Kushner an honorary degree even if they had been true. And meekly caving as they did is contrary to the principles of intellectual freedom that universities are supposed to defend. The end result is that this incident will get a lot more attention than awarding the degree would have garnered (Kushner already has several), and the board's shameful lack of vertebrae has been publicly exposed.

Apparently, now, there is some cause to hope the worst of the damage might be mitigated if not averted. The firestorm of criticism this incident has generated has apparently had an effect. The New York Times’s Winnie Hu reports that Benno C. Schmidt Jr., chairman of the CUNY board, is now getting cold feet. Whether he believes his own rhetoric or not (it’s hard to tell with cowards), Schmidt is now talking about “a mistake of principle, and not merely of policy”; he has called a meeting on Monday of the board’s executive committee, which can reconsider board decisions “detrimental to the university.” It is widely assumed that Mr. Kushner will indeed be offered an honorary degree. Mr. Kushner, meanwhile, also seems to be reconsidering his own petulant response (not wanting the honor even if the board changed its mind). One suspects that on June 3, John Jay’s graduation day, Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Kushner will be joining hands and singing “Kumbaya.”

So nothing will have changed. Nothing, that is, but adding to growing perception that university boards of trustees are populated largely by intellectually and ethically suspect bullies and cowards. Nothing but inflicting lasting damage on one of the nation’s premiere institutions of higher education. Nothing but engendering further suspicion that American universities are centers of intolerance rather than debate. Nothing but fostering a nagging doubt whether decisions made by the rich and powerful have any grounding whatsoever in evidence or ethics. Alas, I fear that all those nothings add up to a something.

The Peacemaker Who Wasn't

I read recently of the assassination (I presume that is the correct term) of Juliano Mer Khamis, described by the AP’s Mohammed Ballas as an “Israeli-Arab actor” who “ran a drama school and a community theater” in the West Bank.

To hear Ballas tell it, Mr. Mer Khamis was quite a guy. The article makes a big deal out of his Israeli Jewish mother and Arab father, and describes his vision of his company, the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, as “a way of restoring normalcy to the town's youth and opening their minds to the world beyond the harshness of their immediate surroundings.” He also must have been courageous, as “[The] theater drew criticism and vandalism from some Palestinians who were suspicious of Mer Khamis, an Israeli citizen, and saw the theater as a threat to their traditions.” Did we mention his Mom was Jewish? And Israeli?

Trouble is, I remembered the name, and I remembered, too, what my investigation of another puff piece on Mer Khamis and the Freedom Theatre revealed a few years ago. The article in question was on on Aljazeera’s website. I link here to a blog piece I wrote on the subject nearly five years ago (N.B., the internal links from that post no longer work). Turns out that the Freedom Theatre was pretty damned proud of having turned out alumni who engaged in armed insurrection, and at least one of whom, a suicide bomber, richly merited description as a terrorist.

Importantly, what I’m talking about here isn’t what the company’s detractors said, or what the theatre admitted sometimes happens. It’s what they included—and still include—on their own website and in their publicity campaigns. The Freedom Theatre, says Mer Khamis on a slickly produced video promotion from last fall, “is a venue to join the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation.” We see a young boy declare that “freedom to me is the occupation ending and the army leaving.” Shortly thereafter, Mer Khamis quotes a former student, a leader of the Al Aksa Brigade, as not wanting to fight any more in the absence of “real, honest leadership: liberation leadership. We have to build up this leadership from scratch. And to do this, the best way is to start an artistic venue.”

The Freedom Theatre, in other words, is a propaganda outlet, nothing more and nothing less. Their cause may be good—I’ve certainly been critical of some of the Israeli government’s activities with respect to the Palestinians—but Juliano Mer Khamis and his mother alike were political activists first and theatre artists second.

Of course, some of the most significant plays ever produced—from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to the works of Václav Havel and Athol Fugard—were important as much for their political message as for their artistic merit per se. But if the balance tips too far towards efficacy over aesthetics, we find ourselves at socialist realism or the Cultural Revolution. Remember, too, that the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia which ultimately brought Havel himself to the presidency earned that sobriquet in part because of its non-violence. That, to be polite, does not seem to be the goal of the Freedom Theatre. There is a difference between speaking truth to power and throwing bombs at it.

Juliano Mer Khamis should be mourned. He will be missed by many, apparently, including a pregnant wife and two children. But if his murder was politically motivated, as seems to be the current thinking, he was neither an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire nor a pacifist ultimately overwhelmed by the maelstrom of violence swirling around him. He was a combatant as surely as if he were manning a submachine gun himself. Those who agree with his politics and his tactics should be honest about the source of their admiration. He was what he was, and it wasn’t a peace-maker.

Piracy is a bad idea.

Whereas the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico remains the dominant news story of the past week or so, events in the waters off the Gaza strip also command attention. There have been two separate rounds of Israeli attempts to thwart relief ships attempting to break the blockade on marine access to Gaza and deliver everything from medicine to toys to cement. The second round, involving the ship the Rachel Corrie, went more or less “as planned”—both sides emerge with some dignity, and it’s even possible that the relief materials will find their way to the suffering people of Gaza. Let’s consider that first encounter, however.

OK: background, caveats, and common ground. Can we all stipulate a few things?

1). The Israeli government has reason to be nervous that Hamas is in charge in Gaza.

2). Hamas is the democratically elected government of that region. (Remember, they defeated Yasser Arafat’s Fatah party, so it’s not like there’s a lot of pro-Israeli sentiment in the area.)

3). Uncritical acceptance of the testimony of absolutely anyone associated with these events is folly.

4). As Jon Stewart put it, 

Whatever you may think of the respective leaderships, the Israelis or Hamas, whatever gods you pray to or whatever direction you may pray to them in, if you can’t even look at Gaza and agree that there is suffering there that needs to be alleviated, no matter who’s to blame for it, then your heart is so dead that tourists flock there to float their backs in it. 

(This in response to Charles Krauthammer’s commentary—described aptly by Stewart as “the stupidest f*ing thing anyone has ever said about the Middle East, ever”—that there is no humanitarian crisis being addressed by the flotilla: “there’s no one starving in Gaza.”)

5). No matter how sensible some parts of the blockade may be, you just look silly if you’re spending your time stopping shipments of wheelchairs and Pokemon toys. Indeed, the list of what is banned and what isn’t would strike most observers as more than a little arbitrary. Edmund Sanders of the Los Angeles Times, citing Gisha, an Israeli advocacy group which opposes the blockade, writes that “Cinnamon is allowed, but coriander is banned…. Oil is OK, but not vinegar. Canned fruit is prohibited, but not canned vegetables.” Perhaps there is some internal consistency here which I am too dim-witted to comprehend?

6). If you’re trying to run a military blockade, there’s likely to be trouble.

7). The people on the boats that comprised the flotilla included some pro-Hamas and/or anti-Israeli agitators.

8). The people on the boats that comprised the flotilla included some humanitarians who didn’t give a damn about who had done what to whom, only that people needed help.

9). The headline-making events of recent days occurred in international waters when Israeli commandos attempted to board the ships of the relief flotilla.

10). The loss of nine lives, however risky the behavior of the victims may have been, is indeed tragic. Even the Aristolelian in me is satisfied, as what transpired was completely within the realm of human agency—no “Act of God,” here.

N.B. I have tried, in the above descriptions, to avoid loaded language (with the exceptions of agreeing that Krauthammer’s comments were stupid even by his standards and questioning the rationale behind what is quarantined and what isn’t). I realize, however, that words like “humanitarians” and “victims” aren’t necessarily neutral.

Let me stipulate further that I think the blockade is more of a bad idea than a good one, in terms of both policy and politics. In policy terms, it aggravates an already bad situation. Isolation imposed from the outside—whether we’re talking about North Korea or Cuba or apartheid-era South Africa—tends to affect the have-nots more than the haves. Applying sanctions might make us feel good that we’re doing something, but such a strategy seldom succeeds in effecting the kind of change in policy positions it sets out to accomplish. What does happen, however, is that the general population suffers even more than they had previously.

Which brings us to the political realm… when Hamas first came to power, I wrote in my old blog that it was “put up or shut up time for them.” They were faced with two choices if they wanted to retain control: govern (and govern well) or renounce the allegedly democratic principles which brought them to power. Or so I thought at the time. I overlooked the possibility of an Israeli initiative which would allow Hamas to pass the blame—legitimately, or with at least a claim to legitimacy—to the very government they so vehemently oppose. One of the central claims of Hamas is that Israel is an oppressive regime relative to Palestinians; legitimizing those claims doesn’t strike me as a particularly shrewd political strategy on the part of the Israeli government.

Any problem in Gaza, especially in terms of infrastructure and social services, now can reasonably be ascribed to the effects of the blockade rather than to Hamas’s own failures to provide for their constituents. (I am reminded of one of my favorite plays, Largo Desolato by Václav Havel, who knew something of political repression: in that play the dissident intellectual protagonist is broken by the removal of the threat of being sent to the Czech equivalent of the Gulag.) So no, I don’t think the blockade is a good idea. But I do understand the rationale for it and the fact that similar policies have been adopted by other governments, including our own, on many occasions. In other words, reasonable people can disagree about the blockade per se.

And, as suggested by #3 above, we’re not likely to get a lot of clarity from either eye-witness testimony or heavily-edited videotape on many of the details of what, exactly, happened Monday, especially on the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, on which nine passengers were killed, allegedly for attacking Israeli commandos. The passengers were or weren’t armed, the soldiers did or did not start firing before even reaching the deck of the ship, and so on. Moreover, while it is possible that all those killed were actively confronting the Israeli soldiers, history suggests otherwise. Remember Kent State, where one of the victims was an ROTC cadet walking to class over 100 yards from the nearest National Guardsman? Not exactly an aggressive anti-war protester there.

But let’s accept, for the sake of argument, the essence of the Israeli government’s argument. The soldiers boarded the ship, were attacked by the passengers, and defended themselves with lethal force. All the dead were among those employing knives, projectiles, or whatever else, to prevent the IDF forces from taking control of the ship. Even with that spin, we are left with one very central question: SO FREAKING WHAT?

No one disputes that these events took place not in Israeli waters but in the open sea. What happened, then, is that armed men attempted to seize control of a legal vessel in international waters. Maybe the vocabulary changed when I wasn’t paying attention, but I seem to remember a term for that: piracy. Then, having shot up the joint when the passengers resisted, they claimed they were attacked. As MJ Rosenberg writes, “This is like a carjacker complaining to the police that the driver bashed him with a crowbar that was under the seat. Neither carjackers nor hijackers should expect their victims to acquiesce peacefully.” Note: had these events occurred in Israeli waters, they wouldn’t have been any more intelligent or less tragic, but they might at least have been construed as legal.

One of the dead turns out to be a young man with joint Turkish and American citizenship, Furkan Dogan, who was shot five times, four in the head. I can’t improve on James Wolcott’s commentary: “I'm not a trained commando, unlike so many others with blogs to their names, but four shots to the head strikes me as possibly a trifle de trop.”

The worst case scenario in real terms for Israel involves additional tension in its relationship with the US (its principal ally) and with Turkey (the closest thing it had to an ally in the region). Israel’s armed forces and the government that commands them are portrayed as trigger-happy ghouls. The policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu (in particular) with respect to Gaza stand to be condemned by the international community writ large rather than simply by those states already opposed to Israel. That Israel is often unjustly isolated internationally is no doubt true; that in this instance they deserve to be ostracized is, to me, equally undeniable.

I disagree—around the edges, at least—with Rosenberg, who says, 

the intention of the activists on board the ships was to break the Israeli blockade. Delivering the embargoed goods was incidental. In other words, the activists were like the civil rights demonstrators who sat down at segregated lunch counters throughout the South and refused to leave until they were served. Their goal was not really to get breakfast. It was to end segregation.

I think breaking (if by “breaking” we mean “ending” as opposed to “circumventing”) the blockade may indeed be the principal medium-term objective, but that doesn’t minimize the shorter-term intention of making sure relief aid does in fact reach its intended recipients, or indeed the longer-term goal of achieving both autonomy and some reasonable standard of living for the Palestinian people.

Even the best case scenario for the Israelis is a PR disaster, made worse rather than better by the excuse-making of Netanyahu and his minions in the media, especially in this country: because the arguments are so palpably fallacious. Look, mistakes happen. Sometimes they’re completely honest mistakes (that umpire’s call that cost a pitcher a perfect game, for example), sometimes they’re less innocent (e.g., the intervention of a school principal into the artistic qualities of a mural championing environmental issues) but reasonable people forgive human frailty in all its manifestations, even in situations like this, in which lives were lost. Provided, that is, that there’s an apology issued with some hint of actual remorse: someone was sorry for what s/he’d done, not just for being caught. This is why everyone is angry at BP right now: no rational person believes Tony Hayward or his minions give a crap about anything but their corporate profits.

But Netanyahu does Hayward one better: he doesn’t even bother with the insincere contrition; he actually defends the screw-up. And let’s be clear: the best case scenario from the Israeli perspective is that they sent out commando teams carrying military-grade weaponry, but provided the soldiers with neither the tactics nor the provisions to employ non-lethal force. Indeed, they apparently never even considered the possibility that people willing to run a blockade might be willing to resist an assault against them. In other words, this was not merely a public relations and political disaster, it was a catastrophe in military terms.

I find it curious (but not, alas, surprising), then, that so many in this country are willing to defend what to me is at best a variation on Kent State: an over-reaction perpetrated by under-trained kids with assault rifles. I know of literally no one in this country who defends everything our own government does—go ahead, name someone who endorses warrantless wiretaps, the bank bailout, Obama’s healthcare bill, and the federal government’s response to both Hurricane Katrina and the BP disaster. But there is a bizarre little alliance of many Republicans (especially but not exclusively the Religious Right) and some American Jews who are prepared to defend any action of the Israeli government, whichever party happens to be in charge there. 

Witness Shmuel Rosner, writing in Slate: “The soldiers were surprised by a mob; they saw their friends being lynched; they acted as any soldier would have and should have acted. To save their fellow soldiers, they opened fire.” Lynched?!? Give me a damned break. The guys with the assault rifles who attacked the ship were being “lynched” by civilians armed with… uh… jack-knives and hammers? Curiously enough, the victims of this “lynching” sustained two “moderate” injuries; the alleged perpetrators: nine dead and multiple injuries. Somewhere, perhaps, there is a parallel universe in which Mr. Rosner’s argument is coherent. I pray I never visit there.

But amidst the nattering and the silly condemnations of President Obama—not for an egregiously tepid response but for the temerity to suggest that the slaughter of civilians (including an American) is a “tragedy”—there is at least one voice of reason… Dennis Kucinich. I urge you to read his letter to President Obama in its entirety, but here’s the most important section: 

It is not acceptable to repeatedly violate international law. It is not acceptable to shoot and kill innocent civilians. It is not acceptable to commit an act of aggression against another U.S. ally. It is not acceptable to continue a blockade which denies humanitarian relief. It is not acceptable to heighten tensions in a region while the United States continues to put so much blood and treasure on the line.

Now, why is it that someone as ethically clear-headed, rhetorically skilled, and passionately humanitarian as Kucinich can’t attract votes even from Democrats at the national level? Oh, yeah, that’s right—he’s kind of funny-looking.