Never Forget

The Widows of Gaza

Bad Character

I'm currently writing a paper on the historiography of Nablus. I wasn't completely sure of the direction I was going to take it until my professor suggested I look at old British and European travel journals. As a historian, I get some sort of perverse joy out of finding Orientalist gems like this from a Murray's Handbook for Travelers printed in 1859:

"The Muslem inhabitants (of Nablus) have a bad character and deserve it. They have long been notorious for fanaticism and turbulence ... Travellers, and especially ladies, in passing through the streets are exposed to the most wanton insolence."

Of course this Orientalist stuff is terrible and racist, but finding quotes like this makes for good history papers, thus the perverse excitement.

Abu Mazen

So now Abbas refuses to meet with Israel or hold peace talks without a total freeze on settlements. While I agree with the policy in principle, I'm pragmatic enough to realize that's impossible with Netanyahu at the helm. It should probably be dealt with at a later date, and it really pains me to say that because the settlements are such a severe problem. And now Abbas is going to dig in his heels so he doesn't make the mistake of betraying his own people like he did on the Goldstone report. He really miscalculated and backed himself into a corner after that fiasco in that now he has to politically overcompensate on terms for negotiation to avoid any further backlash. At the same time, what does he, the Palestinians, or the US expect from Netanyahu? A peace agreement? A settlement freeze? A Palestinian state? Yea right.

Health Care

I've become increasingly cynical about the American political system in the last couple years, especially vis-a-vis the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the US' role in it, but the health care debate has only crystallized the reasons I became so disenchanted. I am very much a supporter of the "public option" as they call it i.e. universal health care. But to watch the deaths and denial of treatment, the center of the issue, boil down to a ridiculous parliamentary procedure essentially dictated by the monetary interests of health insurance companies is sickening. It's the American people and their well-being versus the health care industry, who has control over the US legislature through campaign donations and lobbyists. Who do you think is going to win, honestly? And we all get to watch them haggle like idiots in their subcommittees and have it all boil down to one vote from Joe Lieberman, who as of now, is siding with the health insurance industry; of course he's been bought out. And this all takes place in plain view, while some of the truly ignorant people throw fits at town halls, apparently too stupid to realize they've been scared by corporations into fervently rallying for their own deaths. Needless to say, no members of congress will ever know what it's like to watch a loved one die because there were denied coverage due to a "preexisting condition" or lack of money or coverage. But they will leave people, their "constituents," to languish and die. It's all so absurd, how detached the core issues become from the process. I remember feeling the same way in 2003 during the invasion of Iraq- the US legislature had this formal vote giving the authorization to attack, causing the deaths of thousands of innocent people. The detachment isn't there in my mind- the connection is direct, as it should be for most people. When we think of their act of casting a vote in the Senate we should automatically connect their vote "Aye" with a dead Iraqi child laying in rubble caused by a US or insurgent bomb. When we hear them vote "no" we should all think of a child dying in front of their parents' eyes because they couldn't gain access to health care. The consequences of their procedure are very real. We need to combat this perception of detachment. In my view, the blood is on their hands as much as anyone else's.

You should be reading this:

"Mountain Against the Sea" by Salim Tamari

On the shoulders of giants......

Indeed.

Library Etiquitte

So I've started going to the library at the private college across town to do all my work. I went their library the other day to attend a lecture and couldn't believe how much nicer and quieter it was. For some reason, at ISU the students not only seem to think it's acceptable to talk loudly in the library, they now play music in their laptops while having meetings wherever they please. Since I started going to the other one my usual daily productivity has doubled. I did my undergrad at UW-Whitewater, not a top-tier institution by any means, but the students would never be as loud or ridiculous in the library as the students at ISU. If you talked at UWW someone would inevitably tell you to shut the hell up. Here you're stuck overhearing casual conversations about taking aderall, how the news sucks because they "just want to be entertained", and speeches about the unfairness of underage drinking laws- seriously, I heard all three of these conversation in the last week alone.
But the library at the private college is exceptional. The lighting doesn't feel like it's sucking your brains out, the rotunda is amazing, and the shelves are all this beautiful dark wood. Plus it's fun to go and see what it's like to have what I call in my head 'private school money,' which I do not. Today I was taking a piss there and thought to myself "I bet this is what the bathrooms at Columbia are like."

Hm

Arafat was related to Hajj Amin al-Husseini on his mother's side. Interesting piece of trivia, I didn't know that before.

The more I watch American news the more I miss the aesthetics and quality reporting of al Jazeera.

Cairo, A Divided City

On the socioeconomic disparity in Cairo. Watch the video here

"Most Arabs tend to view the Holocaust as a Zionist invention..."

This coming from a historian whose book on British Mandate Palestine dedicated all of two sentences to the bombing of the King David Hotel. He's an excellent author in that his writing style is captivating and entertaining, but far too selective as a historian.

intended

Homecoming

I tried to go to the library this morning but it's homecoming at my school so the town is hectic and there's no parking spots open anywhere. I've always disliked homecomings and school spirit and crap like that, especially at the college level. I mean, do we really still need 'school spirit'? It's always felt like a sort of micro-nationalism to me. I remember in high school my principal got really mad at my friends and me for not standing up for the school song during an assembly. She told me I "wasn't a real student". I would like to talk to her now.

A Lesson

If you print an article accusing young American Arabists of being Orientalist by throwing Occidentalist stereotypes at them WestBankMostafa will call you out. My initial comment (see reader comments under the article) was a little too harsh, but I still stand by it. I love the editor's response that they wanted to "gauge" their audience. Well, consider your audience gauged.

First Post

I'm setting the bar high here, but for my first post I want to feature what I consider to be one of the very best history articles I've read, written by my academic adviser and mentor, Issam Nassar. I would make more comments, but the quality of the article speaks for itself. Read "A Liminal Existence in Jerusalem: al-Baq`a 1949" here.