BY: LUCIANA COELHO – From Folha de São Paulo – One of the Brazilian main newspapers – From USA – READ IN PORTUGUESE HERE
TRANSLATED: VINÍCIUS WERNECK (me!)
Rashid Khalidi
Last year, on March, while I was visiting New York, my friend Gustavo Chacra carried me to watch with him, a master’s class that he was doing in Columbia. The professor was Rashid Khalidi.
The classroom was full, most of the students were younger than us. The class was about Middle East History and would be about the populational equilibrium and the politic power on that region (how first the jews and later the palestinians used the demographic boom trying to redistribute cards). He talked during one hour and a half, without taking sides. No one left the chair, no one chatted, no one slept, no one even wrote.
It was one of the most sensational classes of all my life.
Khalidi class was that kind of unique experience. You don`t want to loose even a word from the guy, who writes numbers frenetically on the board and answers each question with a pertinence and a logic so fluidlike, that becomes almost easy to understand one of the politically most complex region on the planet.
Well… Rashid works in Columbia, under the Arabic Studies Edward Said’s place. He is also director of the Middle East Institute in the University and he is palestinian. The fact he is being compared with terrorists and neonazists by McCain’s campaings is, at least, surrealistic.
The thing exploded today, when McCain went crying out because “Los Angeles Times”, who declared support to Obama, had a video that shows the democrat in a party on 2003, with Khalidi and didn’t show it up. (LA Times says the video has the condition to not be made public).
“The Los Angeles Times refuses to make that videotape public. I’m not in the business about talking about media bias, but what if there was a tape with John McCain with a neo-Nazi outfit being held by some media outlet. I think the treatment of the issue would be slightly different.”, said McCain.
After that, Fox News showed an interview with McCain saying… “This people, Ayers and Khalidi, made terrorists acts”
Ahm?! Even Fox News was constrained to clarify that the professor never killed someone.. anyway, they questioned his history.
I went wordless. I`m just going to past down here Khalidis`s biography:
Oh, yes… ABC says Internacional Republican Institute, where McCain already was director, already financed Khalidi’s projects.
Education
D.Phil. – Oxford University 1974
B.A. – Yale University 1970
Current Departmental Service
Personnel Committee
Interests and Research
Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies, specializes in Middle Eastern history.
Affiliations
Member, Search Committee for Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs
Member, Executive Committee, Middle East Institute
Editor, Journal of Palestine Studies
Member, Conseil Scientifique, Ramses2, Maison Méditerranéenne des Sciences de l’Homme, Aix-en-Provence
Member, Council on Foreign Relations
Member, Board of Trustees, al-Quds University, Jerusalem
Member, Board of Trustees, Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy
Member, Advisory Board, Bruno Kreisky Forum, Vienna
Member, Advisory Board, Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East.
Member, Editorial Board, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa & the Middle East.
Manuscript reader, University of California Press; Cambridge University Press; University of Chicago Press; Columbia University Press; Harvard University Press; University of Indiana Press; Penn State University Press; Princeton University Press; University of Utah Press
MY SIMPLE OPINION – BY VINÍCIUS WERNECK
I’s really sad to bring Joseph McCarthy back to America. This kind of arguments, calling people terrorists or neonazis, are completely the opposite of the world liberty. Why someone has not the right to think palestinians are suffering a lot now and they need help… Now I’m going to talk straight… do you know the biggest part of the intelectuals in world looking to palestinian question, thinks they are the victims and the jews are the bad guys right now? I’m NOT asking you to agree with this… I’m just asking you to understand that multiple opinions are great and welcome. Terrorism is bad, is cruel, is horrible… i’t makes me cry… but also what the israeli make with the palestinians these years is not right. And yes, it was with US help. I already told you that I like a lot US, for all the time I stayed there. But I can’t say I agree with everything you agree. And I think liberty – and this world is important for you, guys – is also understanding people can think different and stay friends.
[...] A lecture by Rashid Khalidi BY: LUCIANA COELHO – From Folha de São Paulo – One of the Brazilian main newspapers – From USA – READ IN PORTUGUESE HERE TRANSLATED: VINÍCIUS WERNECK (me!) Rashid Khalidi Last year, on March, while I was visiting New York, my friend Gustavo Chacra carried me to watch with him, a master’s class that he was doing in Columbia. The professor was Rashid Khalidi. The classroom was full, most of the students were younger than us. The class was about Middle East History and would be about the populational equilibrium and the politic power on that region (how first the jews and later the palestinians used the demographic boom trying to redistribute cards). He talked during one hour and a half, without taking sides. No one left the chair, no one chatted, no one slept, no one even wrote. It was one of the most sensational classes of all my life. Khalidi class was that kind of unique experience. You don`t want to loose even a word from the guy, who writes numbers frenetically on the board and answers each question with a pertinence and a logic so fluidlike, that becomes almost easy to understand one of the politically most complex region on the planet. Well… [...] [...]
[...] A lecture by Rashid Khalidi …out because "Los Angeles Times", who declared support to Obama, had a video that shows the democrat in a party on 2003, with Khalidi and didn… [...]
[...] A lecture by Rashid Khalidi BY: LUCIANA COELHO – From Folha de São Paulo – One of the Brazilian main newspapers – From USA – READ IN PORTUGUESE HERE TRANSLATED: VINÍCIUS WERNECK (me!) Rashid Khalidi Last year, on March, while I was visiting New York, my friend Gustavo Chacra carried me to watch with him, a master’s class that he was doing in Columbia. The professor was Rashid Khalidi. The classroom was full, most of the students were younger than us. The class was about Middle East History and would be about the populational equilibrium and the politic power on that region (how first the jews and later the palestinians used the demographic boom trying to redistribute cards). He talked during one hour and a half, without taking sides. No one left the chair, no one chatted, no one slept, no one even wrote. It was one of the most sensational classes of all my life. Khalidi class was that kind of unique experience. You don`t want to loose even a word from the guy, who writes numbers frenetically on the board and answers each question with a pertinence and a logic so fluidlike, that becomes almost easy to understand one of the politically most complex region on the planet. Well… [...] [...]
Hello,
i’m stopping by at random. i understand this is one of your older posts, but it is a most relevant one.
U.S. politics aside… the question is “What does the future of Isreal and the Middle-East look like according to Mr. Khalidi?” History is only so important – it teaches us, but how has it shaped us?
Was it (is it) not reasonable to know with certainty what a presidential candidate envisions? When the words say one thing and the history and associations imply something very different, what questions are to be asked?
Did you walk away from the Khalidi lecture more or less inclined to sympathize with the Palestians? Are you confident that you have the whole story? i could throw a perspective at you that is entirely sympathetic to the Jewish side simply based on an accurate rendering of hand-picked historical events.
The issue at hand is “Right of Return”. If you were an Isreali, is that what you’d want?
Hi!
Thanks for being here and for spending your time commenting the post!
This post is a translation, as said next to the title. But I can give my opinion…
I understands your questions and the right everyone have to ask about the ideals and the history of a candidate. If someone wants to be in politics, he needs to know lots of his private life will no longer be private. Questions should really be asked.
I also agree that if you pick some of the events you can give me a nice picture against palestinians. But this is not the question. I would never say one side has the reason and the other doesn`t, simply because I think this doesn’t exist! Always, in a dispute, both sides are responsible. But reading and studing this question, some things are facts! Palestinians are suffering a holocaust there. And if I were an Israeli, I would not agree with that. I’m a Brazilian, and I don’t agree with a couple of things we do here! This is a matter of principle. I can’t agree with violence, and state violence is even worst. I have brazilian friends who went to palestine to a couple of days, and they described horror scenes…
And I can`t actually understand this Right of Return… Imagine: where you live in US, there were the natives 5 centuries ago… Imagine if they come back tomorrow and ask you to live your house? This is wrong, yeah? Yes! Imagine now another situation…
The Jews lived there for thousand years, yeah? YES! No one had the right to run then away! But this happened! It was wrong but it happened. Years and years later, poor people, agricultural society, started cultivating that land… No one was living there. And they worked on that land for centuries! The romans started taking out the Jews… NOT the palestinians who lived there when the Jews started comming back. So, I can’t see Right of Return, because they left that land almost 2 thousand years ago, and the ones they had to take out that land were not the ones who took the Jews out.
This is a very difficult point to discuss. This really touches people. But I think the way things are working now, is not the better. I really admire Mahatma Gandhi and I think we should “fight” the non-violance “battle”…
You are welcome to comment back!
Warm wishes,
V.W.
In the time just prior to 1948, the land of “Palestine” was occupied by the British. The were overseeing and keeping the peace in that land for many years. There were Jews, Muslims and Christians all living in the land.
After WWII the British petitioned the U.N. to give over sovereign rule to a small portion of the Palestinian land for a Jewish state and call it “Isreal”. Surely, you can understand the sentiment of that act after the treatment of the Jews by both the Germans and the Russians. The surrounding neighbors of the Palestinian land; Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, et al. thought this was a very bad idea.
So much so that they joined forces to attack “Isreal” were it to be formed. This coalition of Muslim countries advised the muslims living in Palestine to vacate the premises or else risk getting caught up in the carnage of clearing the land of Jews “from the river to the sea”.
Those who left chose sides…and chose poorly. The U.N. and U.S. sanctioned government of Isreal routed the invaders and in the process took more land to ensure greater security (the spoils of war). The muslim population that left the area were not permitted to return. They were considered enemies of the Jewish state. The muslims that stayed were not only allowed to stay, but were given full citizenship in the new Isreal.
The “Palestinians” living in the desert and in West Jerusalem are suffering not so much at the hands of the Jews, but at the hands of their own leaders. The U.S. and its allies have given billions of dollars to the PLO and its representatives over the past 60 years for infrastructure and investment in the areas they currently occupy only to have it stolen and squandered by these “leaders” (Arafat et al).
They have been kept poor and destitute for political purposes by their own people so that the conflict continues until they get their way!!
People like yourself are well meaning but easily led astray by images and propaganda. Why do you think the Palestinians continue to reject a two state solution? Listen the the speaches given by their own leaders (both political and religious), the only solution for them is the obliteration of Isreal. Don’t be decieved!
There’s plenty of motive throughout the muslim world for the destruction of Isreal. Given the opportunity they will try.
Ask yourself this: Why are the leaders and voices of the people of countries that hate the U.S. (even before Bush) and Isreal love Obama so much?
When the world loves or hates you it should give you pause.
[...] gathered enough from his blog on a lecture by Rashi Khalidi at Columbia U. to have a dialogue with http://viniciuswerneck.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/a-lecture-by-rashid-khalidi/ about the Palestinian v. Israel [...]