Michelle Obama and John Kerry to Honor Anti-Semite and 9/11 Fan. By Samuel Tadros. The Weekly Standard, March 6, 2013.
Michelle Malkin Takes on State Department for Honoring Samira Ibrahim, Woman Who Praised 9/11. Fox News Insider, March 7, 2013.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Conservatism and the Racism Smear. By Peter Berkowitz.
The Flawed Case of Tying Conservatism to Racism. By Peter Berkowitz. Real Clear Politics, March 5, 2013.
College: Where Free Speech Goes to Die. By Bruce Thornton.
College: Where Free Speech Goes to Die. By Bruce Thornton. Real Clear Politics, March 4, 2013. Also find it here.
Barack Obama: A Parochial Leader for a Parochial Nation. By Fouad Ajami.
Barack Obama, a Parochial Leader for a Parochial Nation. By Fouad Ajami. Real Clear Politics, March 5, 2013.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Justice, Politics and the Poor. By Peter Wehner.
Justice, Politics and the Poor. By Peter Wehner. Commentary, March 5, 2013.
Republicans and Their Faulty Moral Arithmetic. By Arthur Brooks. Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2013.
Republicans and Their Faulty Moral Arithmetic. By Arthur Brooks. Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2013.
Palestinians Will Never Be Satisfied With a Small Independent State. By Giora Eiland.
Palestinians will never be satisfied with a small independent state; they want revenge. By Giora Eiland. Ynet News, March 4, 2013.
Eiland:
US President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are expected to visit the region together in late March to try and promote an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. It is amazing to see how American policy has not changed in 20 years. Each administration creates expectations regarding a solution to the conflict without reassessing it and asking the basic question: Why have the peace efforts failed so far?
It seems that the American approach is: There is a problem (the conflict), so there must be a solution. What’s the solution? Two states. Why hasn't the solution been implemented until now? Apparently because we haven’t put enough effort into it. What’s the conclusion? We have to try harder.
This conclusion is obviously wrong. The solution has not been implemented yet because both sides don't really want it. For both sides the cost of adopting the solution is much greater than the benefit. From Israel’s perspective, the solution has two main problems: One is the great security risk involved in withdrawing to the 1967 borders, along with the possibility that the other side will not keep its promises.
Israel fears that after it withdraws Hamas, or an even worse regime, will rise to power in the West Bank and simply ignore the peace agreement. The other price is the evacuation of at least 120,000 Israelis. The political, social and economic cost would be huge. The direct compensation for the settlers alone would amount to 120 billion shekels (about $32 billion). Where would this money come from? And what about the Palestinian side?
The American assumption may sound reasonable, but it is completely false. According to this assumption, the Palestinians want to free themselves of the “occupation” and establish a small independent state in the West Bank and Gaza. The first part is true, but the second part is not. The Palestinians were never willing to make do with a small state of their own. They want “justice,” revenge, recognition as victims and above all – the “right of return.”
The Palestinians do not really want a small and divided state, and therefore are not willing to pay the price for it: A commitment to declare an end to the conflict, promising not to make any other demands in the future and recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. When the desire is not genuine, there will not be a willingness on the part of the Palestinians to make “painful compromises,” which are necessary for achieving peace.
So what should be done? The Americans must take a few steps back and reexamine their basic assumptions. Most importantly, they should try to determine what is really important for the various players: Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc. They should also determine whether the “two states” solution is the only one. Many people believe it is a bad solution, as it has a “zero–sum game” element to it. Perhaps there are other solutions.
Should the Americans insist on the old paradigm, Israel must continue to play the game: Agree to return to the negotiation table without preconditions and recognize that the peace process is a positive thing. Will the process bring peace? Probably not, but that is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that we will not be blamed for its failure.
Eiland:
US President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry are expected to visit the region together in late March to try and promote an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. It is amazing to see how American policy has not changed in 20 years. Each administration creates expectations regarding a solution to the conflict without reassessing it and asking the basic question: Why have the peace efforts failed so far?
It seems that the American approach is: There is a problem (the conflict), so there must be a solution. What’s the solution? Two states. Why hasn't the solution been implemented until now? Apparently because we haven’t put enough effort into it. What’s the conclusion? We have to try harder.
This conclusion is obviously wrong. The solution has not been implemented yet because both sides don't really want it. For both sides the cost of adopting the solution is much greater than the benefit. From Israel’s perspective, the solution has two main problems: One is the great security risk involved in withdrawing to the 1967 borders, along with the possibility that the other side will not keep its promises.
Israel fears that after it withdraws Hamas, or an even worse regime, will rise to power in the West Bank and simply ignore the peace agreement. The other price is the evacuation of at least 120,000 Israelis. The political, social and economic cost would be huge. The direct compensation for the settlers alone would amount to 120 billion shekels (about $32 billion). Where would this money come from? And what about the Palestinian side?
The American assumption may sound reasonable, but it is completely false. According to this assumption, the Palestinians want to free themselves of the “occupation” and establish a small independent state in the West Bank and Gaza. The first part is true, but the second part is not. The Palestinians were never willing to make do with a small state of their own. They want “justice,” revenge, recognition as victims and above all – the “right of return.”
The Palestinians do not really want a small and divided state, and therefore are not willing to pay the price for it: A commitment to declare an end to the conflict, promising not to make any other demands in the future and recognizing Israel as a Jewish state. When the desire is not genuine, there will not be a willingness on the part of the Palestinians to make “painful compromises,” which are necessary for achieving peace.
So what should be done? The Americans must take a few steps back and reexamine their basic assumptions. Most importantly, they should try to determine what is really important for the various players: Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc. They should also determine whether the “two states” solution is the only one. Many people believe it is a bad solution, as it has a “zero–sum game” element to it. Perhaps there are other solutions.
Should the Americans insist on the old paradigm, Israel must continue to play the game: Agree to return to the negotiation table without preconditions and recognize that the peace process is a positive thing. Will the process bring peace? Probably not, but that is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that we will not be blamed for its failure.
Syria’s Many Militias: Inside the Chaos of the Anti-Assad Rebellion.
Syria’s Many Militias: Inside the Chaos of the Anti-Assad Rebellion. By Rania Abouzeid. Time, March 5, 2013.
Apologetics, Politcs, and Our Moral Imagination. By Peter Wehner.
Apologetics, Politics, and Our Moral Imagination. By Peter Wehner. Commentary, March 4, 2013.
Hagel and the “Israel Lobby.” By Max Boot.
Hagel and the “Israel Lobby.” By Max Boot. Commentary, March 2, 2013.
The Global Middle Class Is Destroying Democracy. By Joshua Kurlantzick.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. By Joshua Kurlantzick. Foreign Policy, March/April 2013.
To Achieve Mideast Peace, Suspend Disbelief. By Dennis B. Ross.
To Achieve Mideast Peace, Suspend Disbelief. By Dennis B. Ross. New York Times, March 2, 2013.
“Hatufim” (Prisoners of War): “Homeland” in the Holy Land. By Debra Kamin
“Homeland” in the Holy Land. By Debra Kamin. Foreign Policy, March/April 2013.
A TV thriller taps into Israel’s collective subconscious.
Prisoners of War on Hulu.
A TV thriller taps into Israel’s collective subconscious.
Prisoners of War on Hulu.
Think Again: The Pentagon. By Thomas P. M. Barnett.
Think Again: The Pentagon. By Thomas P. M. Barnett. Foreign Policy, March/April 2013.
The military’s Chicken Littles want you to think the sky is falling. Don’t believe them: America has never been safer.
Barnett:
Please remember amid all this frenetic scaremongering that the Pentagon is never more frightened about our collective future than when it’s desperately uncertain about its own. Given the rising health-care costs associated with America’s aging population and the never-ending dysfunction in Washington, we should expect to be bombarded with frightening scenarios of planetary doom for the next decade or two. None of this bureaucratic chattering will bear any resemblance to global trends, which demonstrate that wars have grown increasingly infrequent, shorter in duration, and diminished in lethality. But you won’t hear that from the next-warriors on the Potomac.
The military’s Chicken Littles want you to think the sky is falling. Don’t believe them: America has never been safer.
Barnett:
Please remember amid all this frenetic scaremongering that the Pentagon is never more frightened about our collective future than when it’s desperately uncertain about its own. Given the rising health-care costs associated with America’s aging population and the never-ending dysfunction in Washington, we should expect to be bombarded with frightening scenarios of planetary doom for the next decade or two. None of this bureaucratic chattering will bear any resemblance to global trends, which demonstrate that wars have grown increasingly infrequent, shorter in duration, and diminished in lethality. But you won’t hear that from the next-warriors on the Potomac.
The Inside Story of How the White House Let Diplomacy Fail in Afghanistan. By Vali Nasr.
The Inside Story of How the White House Let Diplomacy Fail in Afghanistan. By Vali Nasr. Foreign Policy, March/April 2013.
But You Are the Pizza Police. By Andrew C. McCarthy
But You Are the Pizza Police. By Andrew C. McCarthy. National Review Online, March 5, 2013.
The Evolving Terror Threat. By Walter Russell Mead.
The Evolving Terror Threat. By Walter Russell Mead. Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2013.
Mead:
As France announces plans to stand down in Mali and the United States builds a new drone base in neighboring Niger, the conflict formerly known as the global war on terror is spreading and intensifying. Many in Washington would like to talk about other things, but while the West might be tired of the war on terror, the war on terror isn’t tired of the West. America and its allies face an “existential threat,” as British Prime Minister David Cameron recently said, and the conflict may last for decades. So it is worth stepping back to see where matters stand.
On 9/11, it became clear that all was not well in the post-Cold War, post-historical world. The war on terror has since gone through several phases.
The first was Osama bin Laden's attempt to launch a true “clash of civilizations” between the West and the world of Islam. His strategy for achieving this goal was a series of spectacular blows against the citadels of Western power that would weaken the West and vest his movement with the prestige to draw Muslims world-wide to his banner.
Bin Laden failed. In phase two of the war, effective counterterrorism blocked his efforts to mount repeated attacks on the scale of 9/11. The war in Iraq (however misguided some consider it) forced al Qaeda in Iraq into a contest that it lost politically as much as militarily. When the chips were down, Iraq’s Sunni Muslims chose the Americans over al Qaeda.
The awakening in Iraq was part of a much larger tide of opinion among Muslims around the world: The more they saw of al Qaeda, the less they liked it, and the less they thought it had anything to do with the Islam they learned from the Quran. By the end of the George W. Bush administration, the effort to launch a grand war against the West under the flag of al Qaeda had decisively failed.
The Obama administration hoped to complete the marginalization and destruction of al Qaeda, extending Mr. Bush’s military strategy and developing a more effective political counterstrategy that would further sideline radicalism by building deeper ties between the U.S. and the moderate Muslim majority. The military strategy worked reasonably well. The campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan that included the death of bin Laden continues to degrade the capabilities and prestige of the original al Qaeda network, even if the American exit strategy from this difficult conflict remains unclear.
The political strategy to reach out to Muslims has had less success. Failed American attempts to broker a peace between Israel and Palestinians undermined many Muslims’ faith in the Obama administration’s intentions (or capacity). The Arab Spring caught the administration off balance, and Washington has struggled to maintain its priorities as the Middle East has drifted away from liberal democratic protest toward a darker agenda. American efforts to build bridges to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood have alienated Egyptian liberals without establishing strong bonds with the Islamists. The U.S. failure to support effective humanitarian intervention in Syria (even if prudent in terms of American domestic politics) has dramatically undermined the administration’s effort to portray the new U.S. as a pro-democracy, humanitarian power guided by the responsibility to protect.
Meanwhile, even a weakened and ideologically marginalized al Qaeda has found ways to assert itself as a credible and sometimes powerful force. The emerging sectarian war in the Middle East between Muslim Sunnis and Shiites makes al Qaeda’s fanatical fighters valuable once again to the powers of the Persian Gulf. The ultramilitants are emerging as significant forces on the Sunni side in Syria and Iraq, and as a result they are regaining lost credibility and access to funding from affluent sympathizers in the region. They have also found fertile ground in the weak states of North Africa.
The question that confronts the U.S. and its allies now is twofold. How to counter the explosive growth of radical jihadist organizations and networks in Libya’s post-Gadhafi vacuum and in surrounding states? And what to do about the integration of terrorist groups into the sectarian Sunni-Shiite war that spans the region and to some degree overlaps with America's own struggle to stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon?
At this stage, the terrain favors America's enemies. In places like the wide swath of Africa’s Sahel region, and in Yemen, Syria and Iraq, it is difficult to establish strong states that can keep the extremists in check. The free-floating nature of the new jihadist movement also poses problems: At any given moment, from Afghanistan to Mauritania, dozens of groups are competing for funds and followers, moving swiftly in response to perceived opportunities.
Yet this is war: One side makes a move, the other counters it, and so it goes until one side finds a strategy that the other cannot overcome—or until the exhausted combatants accept a compromise peace. In the first phase of the war, al Qaeda tried to lead the world’s Muslims on a grand jihad. In the second phase the U.S. and its allies (including Muslim religious and civic leaders around the world) dealt effectively with that threat. Now al Qaeda has developed a way to remain relevant even without the broad support it once hoped for.
The fourth stage of war, one hopes, will see the U.S. and its allies once again push al Qaeda and its allies to the margins, relegating them permanently to the nuisance fringe. At present al Qaeda appears to have only a limited capacity to attack the U.S. and its principal European allies. But that could change quickly if the terrorists succeed in establishing havens in North Africa. This war isn't over, and the danger isn’t past.
Mead:
As France announces plans to stand down in Mali and the United States builds a new drone base in neighboring Niger, the conflict formerly known as the global war on terror is spreading and intensifying. Many in Washington would like to talk about other things, but while the West might be tired of the war on terror, the war on terror isn’t tired of the West. America and its allies face an “existential threat,” as British Prime Minister David Cameron recently said, and the conflict may last for decades. So it is worth stepping back to see where matters stand.
On 9/11, it became clear that all was not well in the post-Cold War, post-historical world. The war on terror has since gone through several phases.
The first was Osama bin Laden's attempt to launch a true “clash of civilizations” between the West and the world of Islam. His strategy for achieving this goal was a series of spectacular blows against the citadels of Western power that would weaken the West and vest his movement with the prestige to draw Muslims world-wide to his banner.
Bin Laden failed. In phase two of the war, effective counterterrorism blocked his efforts to mount repeated attacks on the scale of 9/11. The war in Iraq (however misguided some consider it) forced al Qaeda in Iraq into a contest that it lost politically as much as militarily. When the chips were down, Iraq’s Sunni Muslims chose the Americans over al Qaeda.
The awakening in Iraq was part of a much larger tide of opinion among Muslims around the world: The more they saw of al Qaeda, the less they liked it, and the less they thought it had anything to do with the Islam they learned from the Quran. By the end of the George W. Bush administration, the effort to launch a grand war against the West under the flag of al Qaeda had decisively failed.
The Obama administration hoped to complete the marginalization and destruction of al Qaeda, extending Mr. Bush’s military strategy and developing a more effective political counterstrategy that would further sideline radicalism by building deeper ties between the U.S. and the moderate Muslim majority. The military strategy worked reasonably well. The campaign in Afghanistan and Pakistan that included the death of bin Laden continues to degrade the capabilities and prestige of the original al Qaeda network, even if the American exit strategy from this difficult conflict remains unclear.
The political strategy to reach out to Muslims has had less success. Failed American attempts to broker a peace between Israel and Palestinians undermined many Muslims’ faith in the Obama administration’s intentions (or capacity). The Arab Spring caught the administration off balance, and Washington has struggled to maintain its priorities as the Middle East has drifted away from liberal democratic protest toward a darker agenda. American efforts to build bridges to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood have alienated Egyptian liberals without establishing strong bonds with the Islamists. The U.S. failure to support effective humanitarian intervention in Syria (even if prudent in terms of American domestic politics) has dramatically undermined the administration’s effort to portray the new U.S. as a pro-democracy, humanitarian power guided by the responsibility to protect.
Meanwhile, even a weakened and ideologically marginalized al Qaeda has found ways to assert itself as a credible and sometimes powerful force. The emerging sectarian war in the Middle East between Muslim Sunnis and Shiites makes al Qaeda’s fanatical fighters valuable once again to the powers of the Persian Gulf. The ultramilitants are emerging as significant forces on the Sunni side in Syria and Iraq, and as a result they are regaining lost credibility and access to funding from affluent sympathizers in the region. They have also found fertile ground in the weak states of North Africa.
The question that confronts the U.S. and its allies now is twofold. How to counter the explosive growth of radical jihadist organizations and networks in Libya’s post-Gadhafi vacuum and in surrounding states? And what to do about the integration of terrorist groups into the sectarian Sunni-Shiite war that spans the region and to some degree overlaps with America's own struggle to stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon?
At this stage, the terrain favors America's enemies. In places like the wide swath of Africa’s Sahel region, and in Yemen, Syria and Iraq, it is difficult to establish strong states that can keep the extremists in check. The free-floating nature of the new jihadist movement also poses problems: At any given moment, from Afghanistan to Mauritania, dozens of groups are competing for funds and followers, moving swiftly in response to perceived opportunities.
Yet this is war: One side makes a move, the other counters it, and so it goes until one side finds a strategy that the other cannot overcome—or until the exhausted combatants accept a compromise peace. In the first phase of the war, al Qaeda tried to lead the world’s Muslims on a grand jihad. In the second phase the U.S. and its allies (including Muslim religious and civic leaders around the world) dealt effectively with that threat. Now al Qaeda has developed a way to remain relevant even without the broad support it once hoped for.
The fourth stage of war, one hopes, will see the U.S. and its allies once again push al Qaeda and its allies to the margins, relegating them permanently to the nuisance fringe. At present al Qaeda appears to have only a limited capacity to attack the U.S. and its principal European allies. But that could change quickly if the terrorists succeed in establishing havens in North Africa. This war isn't over, and the danger isn’t past.
Obama’s Pelosi II Strategy.
Stymied by a GOP House, Obama looks ahead to 2014 to cement his legacy. By Scott Wilson and Philip Rucker. Washington Post, March 2, 2013.
Obama’s Pelosi II Strategy. Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2013.
WSJ:
Old Washington hands have been scratching their heads about the start of President Obama’s second term, with its aggressive liberal priorities and attacks on Republicans. Whatever happened to governing? Well, the answer arrived this weekend as the Washington Post reported that Mr. Obama’s real plan for the next two years is returning Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker in 2014.
“The goal is to flip the Republican-held House back to Democratic control, allowing Obama to push forward with a progressive agenda on gun control, immigration, climate change and the economy during his final two years in office, according to congressional Democrats, strategists and others familiar with Obama's thinking,” reports the Post, which is hardly hostile to the President.
The article says that shortly after finishing his speech on Election Night last year, Mr. Obama called Mrs. Pelosi and Steve Israel, who runs the Democratic House re-election campaign, to discuss 2014. The strategy fits Mr. Obama’s unprecedented new effort to raise $50 million in $500,000 chunks to fund Organizing for Action (OFA), which will spend millions in GOP-held districts. Mr. Israel says he met in January with Jim Messina, Mr. Obama’s 2012 campaign manager who now runs OFA, to discuss the 2014 races.
White House press secretary Jay Carney pushed back against the article on Monday, saying 2014 is “not a focus” for Mr. Obama. But that looks like an attempt at damage control after the Post blew the White House’s cover. Mr. Obama has to appear to want bipartisan deals even as he prepares the ground for blaming Republicans in 2014 when those efforts fail.
This is already clear on the budget, as Mr. Obama insists on a second tax increase that Republicans can't accept. We’re also increasingly worried about White House sabotage on immigration reform, as it pushes the bill left on a guest-worker program and enforcement. Mr. Obama is doing exactly what you’d expect if he doesn’t want a deal and plans to use the issue to drive minority turnout in 2014.
It’s important to understand how extraordinary this is. Presidents typically try to secure major bipartisan deals in their fifth or sixth years, before their political capital ebbs. That’s what Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan did, and George W. Bush tried on Social Security. Mr. Obama seems to think he can use the next two years mainly to set up a Pelosi House that would let him finish his last two years with a liberal bang.
The next time you hear Mr. Obama, House Democrats or one of their media acolytes talk about GOP “obstructionism,” refer them to the Washington Post article that shows what they really intend for the current Congress. Bipartisan failure is their strategy.
Obama’s Pelosi II Strategy. Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2013.
WSJ:
Old Washington hands have been scratching their heads about the start of President Obama’s second term, with its aggressive liberal priorities and attacks on Republicans. Whatever happened to governing? Well, the answer arrived this weekend as the Washington Post reported that Mr. Obama’s real plan for the next two years is returning Nancy Pelosi as House Speaker in 2014.
“The goal is to flip the Republican-held House back to Democratic control, allowing Obama to push forward with a progressive agenda on gun control, immigration, climate change and the economy during his final two years in office, according to congressional Democrats, strategists and others familiar with Obama's thinking,” reports the Post, which is hardly hostile to the President.
The article says that shortly after finishing his speech on Election Night last year, Mr. Obama called Mrs. Pelosi and Steve Israel, who runs the Democratic House re-election campaign, to discuss 2014. The strategy fits Mr. Obama’s unprecedented new effort to raise $50 million in $500,000 chunks to fund Organizing for Action (OFA), which will spend millions in GOP-held districts. Mr. Israel says he met in January with Jim Messina, Mr. Obama’s 2012 campaign manager who now runs OFA, to discuss the 2014 races.
White House press secretary Jay Carney pushed back against the article on Monday, saying 2014 is “not a focus” for Mr. Obama. But that looks like an attempt at damage control after the Post blew the White House’s cover. Mr. Obama has to appear to want bipartisan deals even as he prepares the ground for blaming Republicans in 2014 when those efforts fail.
This is already clear on the budget, as Mr. Obama insists on a second tax increase that Republicans can't accept. We’re also increasingly worried about White House sabotage on immigration reform, as it pushes the bill left on a guest-worker program and enforcement. Mr. Obama is doing exactly what you’d expect if he doesn’t want a deal and plans to use the issue to drive minority turnout in 2014.
It’s important to understand how extraordinary this is. Presidents typically try to secure major bipartisan deals in their fifth or sixth years, before their political capital ebbs. That’s what Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan did, and George W. Bush tried on Social Security. Mr. Obama seems to think he can use the next two years mainly to set up a Pelosi House that would let him finish his last two years with a liberal bang.
The next time you hear Mr. Obama, House Democrats or one of their media acolytes talk about GOP “obstructionism,” refer them to the Washington Post article that shows what they really intend for the current Congress. Bipartisan failure is their strategy.
Israelite Life Before the Kings. By Robert D. Miller.
Archaeological Views: Israelite Life Before the Kings. By Robert D. Miller. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 39, No. 2 (March/April 2013).
The Spade and the Text: The Interaction between Archaeology and Israelite History Relating to the Tenth-Ninth Centuries BCE. By Amihai Mazar. Proceedings of the British Academy, No. 143 (2007).
Israel, Edom and Egypt in the 10th Century B.C.E. By Nadav Na’aman. Tel Aviv, Vol. 19, No. 1 (March 1992).
The Spade and the Text: The Interaction between Archaeology and Israelite History Relating to the Tenth-Ninth Centuries BCE. By Amihai Mazar. Proceedings of the British Academy, No. 143 (2007).
Israel, Edom and Egypt in the 10th Century B.C.E. By Nadav Na’aman. Tel Aviv, Vol. 19, No. 1 (March 1992).
Monday, March 4, 2013
National Review Mission Statement. By William F. Buckley, Jr.
Our Mission Statement. By William F. Buckley, Jr. National Review, November 19, 1955.
Do We Need a Pro-Israel Lobby? By Martin Kramer.
Do we need a pro-Israel lobby? By Martin Kramer. Sandbox, March 4, 2013.
Review of James M. Banner, Jr., “Being a Historian: An Introduction to the Professional World of History.” By Jim Cullen.
Review of James M. Banner, Jr., Being a Historian: An Introduction to the Professional World of History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012). By Jim Cullen. History News Network, February 24, 2013.
Cullen:
Though he has enjoyed a series of elite perches in his career, which have circled around elite research universities, the core argument of Being a Historian is a strongly ecumenical one: there are many ways to unselfconsciously claim that identity. Yes: being a historian always involves writing – but not necessarily monographs, much less books, in an age of blogs, video and other new media. Yes, historians are always teachers – but not necessarily at colleges, much less classrooms, at a time when “students” of history come in all shapes, sizes, and walks of life. Unfortunately, he notes, far too many people absorb the message that a meaningful career turns around the circumscribed compass of tenured professor. The reasons for that, he explains, are largely historical (and he duly traces the emergence of the profession in the last nineteenth century and its solidification in the first half of the twentieth). But the last few decades in in particular have witnessed a vastly expanded scope and reach for Clio in ways that its practitioners have failed to recognize, much less prepare for.
Among his more provocative observations are those that note the diminished role for style and voice in contemporary historical writing. “When have we read, as we do in literary and art criticism, of the literary influences on a historian, of the other historians from whom a scholar seems to take inspiration for argument, evidence, and style in addition to ideology and research approach of the shaping of traditions of historical writing and form rather than method or subject?” he asks in a footnote. “Historical knowledge is impoverished to the degree that question must be answered with silence.” To put the matter more succinctly: “One often summons great respect for works of history without taking much pleasure in reading them.”
All this said, there is an air of the unreal surrounding Becoming a Historian, because Banner seems to understand the principal problems with the profession in terms of misplaced perceptions and overlooked training opportunities, when its real crisis is grounded not in the preparation of scholars or in longstanding arguments about epistemology, but rather its economic foundations. He does take note of longstanding controversies like unionization efforts among graduate students or the growing – even dominant – role of adjuncts in most history departments. At one point he describes the reduction of institutional reliance on part-time faculty as “an effort broadly under way,” which seems out of touch, because there is little discernible success in this regard among historians or anyone else in higher education.
Banner seems to conceive becoming a historian in terms of talented and ambitious people assessing it as a possible career in the way they might finance or health care. (Until recently, one might have said medicine or law, but these two fields are undergoing the kind of upheaval aspiring professionals might have hoped to avoid – upheaval of the kind workers in other sectors of the global economy have taken for granted for a generation.) Instead, a decision to embark on a career as a historian today is a little closer to that of deciding to become an actor, musician or professional athlete, an ambition likely to instill concern if not terror in a parent's heart. As even the most insulated senior scholar now says as a virtual incantation: “There are no jobs.”
Of course, this is not literally true. Baby Boomers are leaving the profession all the time, and someone will get that tenure-track job -- for a while longer, anyway. And yes, there's probably more of a demand than ever for certain kinds of public history professionals, albeit on a much shakier pecuniary basis. Amid the growing power and appeal of foreign universities (which will increasingly retain their own students), the proliferation of alternative online learning opportunities (whose existential threat to smaller liberal arts colleges is quickening), and the shrinking government role in financing research and subsidizing tuition (which is forcing schools to refocus their priorities, a.k.a. reduce their program), change is coming to the historical profession – academic or civic, public or private – whether scholars want to acknowledge it or not.
To invoke a distinction Banner is careful to cultivate at the outset of this book: history will survive as discipline, as it has for thousands of years. But as a profession? That’s a lot less clear. A more likely scenario would seem to involve history as a disposition or focus for an individual teacher in a larger humanities field, which has shrunk as a locus of student interest amid well-founded anxieties about finding well-paying job (never history’s strong suit in any iteration). I happen to chair the history department of a private high school where roughly half of the teachers I supervise hold doctorates, most, though not all, refugees from the university world. But if I have my way, our department will be evolving in a significantly interdisciplinary way in which history will become one color on a palette from which students will practice the arts of reading, writing and thinking. I’ll always consider myself a historian, even though my own doctorate is in American studies. But that’s a matter of personal loyalty, not livelihood.
Cullen:
Though he has enjoyed a series of elite perches in his career, which have circled around elite research universities, the core argument of Being a Historian is a strongly ecumenical one: there are many ways to unselfconsciously claim that identity. Yes: being a historian always involves writing – but not necessarily monographs, much less books, in an age of blogs, video and other new media. Yes, historians are always teachers – but not necessarily at colleges, much less classrooms, at a time when “students” of history come in all shapes, sizes, and walks of life. Unfortunately, he notes, far too many people absorb the message that a meaningful career turns around the circumscribed compass of tenured professor. The reasons for that, he explains, are largely historical (and he duly traces the emergence of the profession in the last nineteenth century and its solidification in the first half of the twentieth). But the last few decades in in particular have witnessed a vastly expanded scope and reach for Clio in ways that its practitioners have failed to recognize, much less prepare for.
Among his more provocative observations are those that note the diminished role for style and voice in contemporary historical writing. “When have we read, as we do in literary and art criticism, of the literary influences on a historian, of the other historians from whom a scholar seems to take inspiration for argument, evidence, and style in addition to ideology and research approach of the shaping of traditions of historical writing and form rather than method or subject?” he asks in a footnote. “Historical knowledge is impoverished to the degree that question must be answered with silence.” To put the matter more succinctly: “One often summons great respect for works of history without taking much pleasure in reading them.”
All this said, there is an air of the unreal surrounding Becoming a Historian, because Banner seems to understand the principal problems with the profession in terms of misplaced perceptions and overlooked training opportunities, when its real crisis is grounded not in the preparation of scholars or in longstanding arguments about epistemology, but rather its economic foundations. He does take note of longstanding controversies like unionization efforts among graduate students or the growing – even dominant – role of adjuncts in most history departments. At one point he describes the reduction of institutional reliance on part-time faculty as “an effort broadly under way,” which seems out of touch, because there is little discernible success in this regard among historians or anyone else in higher education.
Banner seems to conceive becoming a historian in terms of talented and ambitious people assessing it as a possible career in the way they might finance or health care. (Until recently, one might have said medicine or law, but these two fields are undergoing the kind of upheaval aspiring professionals might have hoped to avoid – upheaval of the kind workers in other sectors of the global economy have taken for granted for a generation.) Instead, a decision to embark on a career as a historian today is a little closer to that of deciding to become an actor, musician or professional athlete, an ambition likely to instill concern if not terror in a parent's heart. As even the most insulated senior scholar now says as a virtual incantation: “There are no jobs.”
Of course, this is not literally true. Baby Boomers are leaving the profession all the time, and someone will get that tenure-track job -- for a while longer, anyway. And yes, there's probably more of a demand than ever for certain kinds of public history professionals, albeit on a much shakier pecuniary basis. Amid the growing power and appeal of foreign universities (which will increasingly retain their own students), the proliferation of alternative online learning opportunities (whose existential threat to smaller liberal arts colleges is quickening), and the shrinking government role in financing research and subsidizing tuition (which is forcing schools to refocus their priorities, a.k.a. reduce their program), change is coming to the historical profession – academic or civic, public or private – whether scholars want to acknowledge it or not.
To invoke a distinction Banner is careful to cultivate at the outset of this book: history will survive as discipline, as it has for thousands of years. But as a profession? That’s a lot less clear. A more likely scenario would seem to involve history as a disposition or focus for an individual teacher in a larger humanities field, which has shrunk as a locus of student interest amid well-founded anxieties about finding well-paying job (never history’s strong suit in any iteration). I happen to chair the history department of a private high school where roughly half of the teachers I supervise hold doctorates, most, though not all, refugees from the university world. But if I have my way, our department will be evolving in a significantly interdisciplinary way in which history will become one color on a palette from which students will practice the arts of reading, writing and thinking. I’ll always consider myself a historian, even though my own doctorate is in American studies. But that’s a matter of personal loyalty, not livelihood.
The American Dream: A Cultural History. Review by Jim Cullen.
Review of Lawrence R. Samuel, The American Dream: A Cultural History(Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2012). By Jim Cullen. Reviews in History, February 21, 2013. Also find it here.
The Sequester and the Arab Spring. By Andrew C. McCarthy.
The Sequester and the Arab Spring. By Andrew C. McCarthy. National Review Online, March 2, 2013.
McCarthy:
Like the sequester molesters, “Arab Spring” devotees have their own fantasy vocabulary. The whoppers are “freedom” and “democracy,” the ideals, we’re told, that have swept the Middle East, even as it sinks into repression, social unrest, and the persecution of religious minorities. Islam and the West use the same words, but we are not conveying the same concepts — just as a “cut” in your budget means something very different from a “cut” in Washington’s.
Freedom? “Let it be known to you that the real meaning of freedom lies in the perfection of slavery,” explained al-Qushayri, a celebrated eleventh-century scholar of Islam.
I offer this bit of Islamist wisdom as an explanation, not a put-down. Not that the distinction matters much. As Spring Fever makes clear, the culture of Middle Eastern Islam is convinced of nothing so much as its own superiority. It does not judge itself by non-Islamic standards, particularly the standards of Western civilization, with which it sees itself in a conflict that will end only when one side prevails.
The dynamic, classical, supremacist Islam of the Middle East teaches that Allah has given mankind, His creation, the gift of sharia: the “path,” the all-purpose societal framework — covering all aspects of life, not just spirituality — for living in dignity through obedience. “Freedom,” in this context, is to make the “free” choice to surrender oneself entirely to this path.
That is the antithesis of a freedom to chart one’s own course, the freedom of the West. Here, Allah is not the sovereign. Our faiths may guide us, but the people are sovereign, with a right to govern civil society as they see fit — including in contradiction of sharia’s provisions, which deny what the West sees as basic civil rights.
Thus the folly of Arab Spring apologists, who envision a new generation of Muslim rulers, popularly elected and thus — the fable goes — responsive to the needs of their “constituents.” Responsive government, however, is the hallmark of societies in which freedom means self-determinism. In the Muslim Middle East, it is foolish to speak of “constituents.” The ruler’s fidelity is not to the people but to Allah. It is for the people not to dream but to obey, as long as the ruler is faithful to sharia. They don’t enjoy the prerogative of deviating from the path.
“Accommodation,” like “constituents,” is a term that echoes through the Arab Spring. Sharia must be accommodated — given pride of place in the Middle East and growing deference in the West. “Accommodation” turns out to be Arab-Spring for “balanced approach,” the oh-so-reasonable packaging of an idea that is actually perverse.
Almost never do we hear that federal law must accommodate, say, the law of Tennessee. When people’s principles are the same, their legal systems — a reflection of their notions about right and wrong — will mesh easily. When there is a conflict, it is not because of a lack of accommodation; it is because either the federal government or the state government is in error. We don’t accommodate error; we correct it, either in the legislature or in the courts.
Calling for “accommodations” is a polite way of saying that cultural values and the legal systems they create are incompatible. When a culture cedes ground to a different culture’s antithetical principle — when, for example, we are told free speech must “accommodate” sharia blasphemy laws that proscribe negative criticism of Islam — that is not a reasonable compromise. It is a corruption of the good. That is how a culturally confident society sees it.
There is a reason why the Islamic supremacists who run the Organization of Islamic Cooperation insisted in 1990 on having their own “Declaration of Human Rights In Islam.” The purportedly Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written by non-Muslim diplomats after the Second World War, does not work for them. Islamist leaders understood that Western concepts of civil rights and human rights do not jibe with sharia. They wanted their own declaration, reflecting their own very different aspirations.
Neither does “democracy” work for the Islamists on the rise across the Middle East — at least, not as we understand it in the West. For us, democracy is not a process but a way of life, a worldview implying basic assumptions about liberty and equality. To the Islamic supremacist, “Democracy is just the train we board to reach our destination,” as Recep Tayyip Erdogan, now Turkey’s prime minister, put it in 1998 when he was the mayor — or, as he referred to himself, the imam — of Istanbul.
The destination Erdogan had in mind is power. Not the empowerment of free people that is the genuine augur of spring. The power of the “Arab Spring” is the imposition of perfect slavery.
McCarthy:
Like the sequester molesters, “Arab Spring” devotees have their own fantasy vocabulary. The whoppers are “freedom” and “democracy,” the ideals, we’re told, that have swept the Middle East, even as it sinks into repression, social unrest, and the persecution of religious minorities. Islam and the West use the same words, but we are not conveying the same concepts — just as a “cut” in your budget means something very different from a “cut” in Washington’s.
Freedom? “Let it be known to you that the real meaning of freedom lies in the perfection of slavery,” explained al-Qushayri, a celebrated eleventh-century scholar of Islam.
I offer this bit of Islamist wisdom as an explanation, not a put-down. Not that the distinction matters much. As Spring Fever makes clear, the culture of Middle Eastern Islam is convinced of nothing so much as its own superiority. It does not judge itself by non-Islamic standards, particularly the standards of Western civilization, with which it sees itself in a conflict that will end only when one side prevails.
The dynamic, classical, supremacist Islam of the Middle East teaches that Allah has given mankind, His creation, the gift of sharia: the “path,” the all-purpose societal framework — covering all aspects of life, not just spirituality — for living in dignity through obedience. “Freedom,” in this context, is to make the “free” choice to surrender oneself entirely to this path.
That is the antithesis of a freedom to chart one’s own course, the freedom of the West. Here, Allah is not the sovereign. Our faiths may guide us, but the people are sovereign, with a right to govern civil society as they see fit — including in contradiction of sharia’s provisions, which deny what the West sees as basic civil rights.
Thus the folly of Arab Spring apologists, who envision a new generation of Muslim rulers, popularly elected and thus — the fable goes — responsive to the needs of their “constituents.” Responsive government, however, is the hallmark of societies in which freedom means self-determinism. In the Muslim Middle East, it is foolish to speak of “constituents.” The ruler’s fidelity is not to the people but to Allah. It is for the people not to dream but to obey, as long as the ruler is faithful to sharia. They don’t enjoy the prerogative of deviating from the path.
“Accommodation,” like “constituents,” is a term that echoes through the Arab Spring. Sharia must be accommodated — given pride of place in the Middle East and growing deference in the West. “Accommodation” turns out to be Arab-Spring for “balanced approach,” the oh-so-reasonable packaging of an idea that is actually perverse.
Almost never do we hear that federal law must accommodate, say, the law of Tennessee. When people’s principles are the same, their legal systems — a reflection of their notions about right and wrong — will mesh easily. When there is a conflict, it is not because of a lack of accommodation; it is because either the federal government or the state government is in error. We don’t accommodate error; we correct it, either in the legislature or in the courts.
Calling for “accommodations” is a polite way of saying that cultural values and the legal systems they create are incompatible. When a culture cedes ground to a different culture’s antithetical principle — when, for example, we are told free speech must “accommodate” sharia blasphemy laws that proscribe negative criticism of Islam — that is not a reasonable compromise. It is a corruption of the good. That is how a culturally confident society sees it.
There is a reason why the Islamic supremacists who run the Organization of Islamic Cooperation insisted in 1990 on having their own “Declaration of Human Rights In Islam.” The purportedly Universal Declaration of Human Rights, written by non-Muslim diplomats after the Second World War, does not work for them. Islamist leaders understood that Western concepts of civil rights and human rights do not jibe with sharia. They wanted their own declaration, reflecting their own very different aspirations.
Neither does “democracy” work for the Islamists on the rise across the Middle East — at least, not as we understand it in the West. For us, democracy is not a process but a way of life, a worldview implying basic assumptions about liberty and equality. To the Islamic supremacist, “Democracy is just the train we board to reach our destination,” as Recep Tayyip Erdogan, now Turkey’s prime minister, put it in 1998 when he was the mayor — or, as he referred to himself, the imam — of Istanbul.
The destination Erdogan had in mind is power. Not the empowerment of free people that is the genuine augur of spring. The power of the “Arab Spring” is the imposition of perfect slavery.
The Arab Spring and the Scary Hidden Stressor. By Thomas L. Friedman.
The Scary Hidden Stressor. By Thomas L. Friedman. New York Times, March 2, 2013.
The Arab Spring and Climate Change: A Climate and Security Correlations Series. Edited by Caitlin E. Werrell, Francesco Femia. Preface by Anne-Marie Slaughter. Center for American Progress, February 28, 2013. PDF.
The Arab Spring and Climate Change: A Climate and Security Correlations Series. Edited by Caitlin E. Werrell, Francesco Femia. Preface by Anne-Marie Slaughter. Center for American Progress, February 28, 2013. PDF.
Zhang Xin: China’s Real Estate Mogul. By Lesley Stahl
Zhang Xin: China’s Real Estate Mogul. By Lesley Stahl. Video. 60 Minutes, March 3, 2013. Transcript. YouTube. Complete 60 Minutes episode for March 3, 2013 here.
Fareed Zakaria Talks to Chinese Developer Zhang Xin. Video. Fareed Zakaria GPS, June 20, 2010. YouTube. Transcript.
More interviews with Zhang Xin, here, here, and here.
Stahl:
No one symbolizes China’s rapid 30-year rise – from the backwaters of communism to the second largest economy in the world – better than real estate developer Zhang Xin.
What’s interesting about her is that while we think of China as being uncreative, repressive and as far as you can get from the American dream, she breaks every one of those stereotypes.
She’s a mogul who got her start not in China, but on Wall Street. But she missed the Great Wall, so she went back home, and made it big!
The mogul, Zhang Xin, is the fifth richest self-made billionaire woman in the world.
[Zhang Xin: This is us. The one outside is us.]
She’s pointing out her buildings. With her partner husband, she has built more of Beijing than almost any emperor in China’s history.
. . . . . . . . . .
Zhang Xin: China is the place that produced more self-made billionaires than any other country in the world.
Lesley Stahl: Do you know what the American dream is?
Zhang Xin: Uh-huh.
Lesley Stahl: It sounds like the American dream – doesn’t it?
Zhang Xin: Uh-huh. Very much so.
. . . . . . . . . .
Lesley Stahl: She believes open market tools like public auctions and transparent accounting will lessen the corruption and the cronyism. The woman who once slept on a dictionary, and now has about $3 billion in her bank account, may tout China as the new land of opportunity, but she knows it’s still not the land of the free.
Zhang Xin: You know, I hear a lot in the U.S., people praise Wall Street, people praise state capitalism in China, “Look at how efficient things get done. Decisions get made so quick and so effective. It can roll over a policy overnight nationwide. And here in the U.S., we need to go through Congress, Senate, and debate.” And you know, I have to say, for a Chinese living in China, Chinese—if you ask one thing, everyone craves for is what? It’s not food. It’s not homes. Everyone crave for democracy. I know there’s a lot of negativities in the U.S. about the political system, but don’t forget, you know, 8,000 miles away, people in China are looking at it, longing for it.
Lesley Stahl: Do you think there will be democracy here? Let’s say, I’ll put a time frame on it, in 20 years?
Zhang Xin: Sooner.
Lesley Stahl: You’re an optimist.
Zhang Xin: I am.
Lesley Stahl: A bold statement in a country with heavy government censorship and limited freedom of speech.
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