I have not been posting lately because, as I have indicated, I do not think that I have the kind of specialist knowledge of the Israeli situation that would give what I say any merit. But I have been watching those reports obsessively. First CNN and then MSNBC finally began to have reports about and interviews with the families of the Palestinians being released, and not at all surprisingly, one finds those stories as moving as the stories about the released Israelis. Now that reporters can get into Gaza more easily, we begin to see pictures of the total devastation that has been wrought in Gaza city by the Israelis. Having supported Hamas for years as a counter to the Palestinian Authority in order to make any possibility of an independent Palestinian state impossible, and having been caught completely by surprise by the Hamas attack, Netanyahu is now committed to the total destruction of Hamas. It is my impression that the destruction of Gaza and the deaths of 20,000 or more Palestinians is, from his point of view, a feature not a bug of the war effort he has mounted.
I suppose we shall have to leave it to history and the
experts to make a final judgment on the performance of Biden, but it seems to
me it may turn out in the end that he has played this disaster as well as he
possibly could to retain some influence with Israel and pressure them to back
off from their war plans. I have no idea whether this is true. It may just be my
desperate effort to find some suggestion of hope in a disasterous situation.
Meanwhile, if a may turn to a much happier matter, my
grandson Samuel (or Sam, as he wishes to be called now) will turn 18 next month
and I have been brooding about what to give him as a birthday present. He is
currently applying to colleges and his father tells me that he will be taking a
course next semester on Middle Eastern affairs. Considering all of that, I have
decided to give them three books.
The first is a copy of the great work by Erich Auerbach, Mimesis. I read Mimesis many many years ago, and not surprisingly I was fascinated
and delighted by it, but it has been decades since I looked at the book and
when Samuel’s copy (whoops, I mean Sam’s copy) arrived from Amazon, I picked it
up and reread the first chapter. Lord it is a wonderful book.
The second book I decided to give him, to prepare him for
his course next semester, is Edward Said’s Orientalism.
Coincidentally, the edition of the Auerbach book that arrived is a fiftieth
anniversary reprint with a special new preface by Said.
If hr reads those three books, I think he will be ready
for the great adventure of college.
9 comments:
Great to see you back.
It's a small world. I did one of my master's papers (we had the choice of three long papers or one longer thesis) on Eric Auerbach and Leo Spitzer (a romance philologist like Auerbach)
for a graduate seminar on literary criticism taught by Edward Said. That was in 1970.
Another enthusiastic vote for Mimesis here. Once one of my students at the San Francisco Art Institute was complaining about how poor the 'curriculum' was at that appalling 'school', and asked me for a very short list of books from the 20th century that he could begin to read to begin to relieve his ignorance. Along with Mimesis, I suggested The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and the two Vocation lectures, and also maybe The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Of course there are countless good choices. The one other thing by Auerbach that is essential for a basic education in 'Western' thought is the lengthy essay 'Figura', which would nicely supplement Mimesis's 'Adam and Eve' chapter.
RPW: it seems to me it may turn out in the end that Biden has played this disaster as well as he possibly could to retain some influence with Israel and pressure them to back off from their war plans.
"President Reagan ... actually allowed 21 UN resolutions that directly or indirectly condemned Israeli behavior and actions to pass. These included condemning Israel for the bombing of Lebanon, Iraq, and Tunisia....
[O]n June 7, 1981, ... Israel launched a surprise bombing raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, and, in so doing, violated the airspace of Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Reagan not only supported UNSC Resolution 487, which condemned the attack, but he also criticized the raid publicly and suspended the delivery of advanced F-16 fighter jets to Israel. Moreover, over the strident objections of Israel and the pro-Israel U.S. lobby groups, Reagan approved the sale of advanced reconnaissance aircraft (AWACS) to Saudi Arabia, which Israel then viewed as a hostile state.
A year later, in August 1982, when Israeli forces advanced beyond southern Lebanon and began shelling the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Beirut, Reagan responded with an angry call to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, demanding a halt to the operation.
In addition, during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Reagan intervened directly when Israel threatened to blow up the Commodore Hotel in downtown Beirut, which housed more than 100 western reporters....
In addition to allowing the UN resolutions to pass and suspending the F-16 delivery, Reagan also restricted aid and military assistance to Israel to help force its withdrawal of troops from Beirut and central Lebanon." (my emphasis)
Lawrence J. Korb
May 24, 2021
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/05/24/ronald-reagan-wasnt-afraid-to-use-leverage-to-hold-israel-to-task/
entry from Reagan's diary Aug 12, 1982:
"Met with the news the Israelis delivered the most devastating bomb & artillery attack on W. Beirut lasting 14 hours. Habib [US mediator] cabled—desperate—has basic agreement from all parties but cant arrange details of P.L.O. withdrawal because of the barrage. King Fahd called begging me to do something. I told him I was calling P.M. Begin immediately. And I did—I was angry. I told him it had to stop or our entire future relationship was endangered. I used the word holocaust deliberately & said the symbol of his war was becoming a picture of a 7 month old baby with it’s arms blown off. He told me he had ordered the bombing stopped—I asked about the artillery fire. He claimed the P.L.O. had started that & Israeli forces had taken casualties. End of call. Twenty mins. later he called to tell me he’d ordered an end to the barrage and plead for our continued friendship. Spent rest of day meeting with Congressmen on Tax bill."
https://www.reaganfoundation.org/ronald-reagan/white-house-diaries/diary-entry-08161982/
Headline in NYT at the time:
"REAGAN DEMANDS END TO ATTACKS IN A BLUNT TELEPHONE CALL TO BEGIN"
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/13/world/reagan-demands-end-to-attacks-in-a-blunt-telephone-call-to-begin.html
More commentary from Yanis Varoufakis:
"Genocide is happening now, in Gaza, in tandem with Israel's opportunistic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. We are here because our humanity is being tested.
Because future generations are going to censure us for having allowed the death count to exceed 10,000, mostly women and children. We are here because when our grandchildren ask us, 'Where were you in 2023 during the mass murder of Palestinians?,' there will be no hiding behind excuses such as, 'I didn't know.' We do know. Our governments know. Everyone knows. Because the Israeli government proudly proclaims its genocidal intent."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wL8d-h-u94
Those are three great reading suggestions. I'd add a good introduction to sociological thinking, too—perhaps C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination, or something more systematic such as Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality.
Re Brian Ogilvie's comment: I'd second Mills, _The Sociological Imagination_. The Berger & Luckmann, however, is not v. easy reading and somewhat jatgony (though not terrible in that respect) and it's full of names of theorists, not just the famous ones, and I would not recommend it to an 18 year old, no matter how smart. (I had to read it in between first and second year of college, as I recall; didn't much like it at the time.) I think a better choice as an intro to sociological thinking wd be Dennis Wrong, _The Problem of Order_ or, from a different angle, perhaps something short by Immanuel Wallerstein.
On a different topic, I suspect -- though haven't read it -- that Andrew Delbanco's book _College_ might pair well with RPW's _ The Ideal of the University_ (which I also haven't read).
I encourage people to go to youtube and search for Al Jazeera News Live English. They provide an excellent steady video report of what is taking place in Gaza along with excellent analysis from people around the world.
No need to wait for the hall monitors to let you see what they think is ideological acceptable.
Post a Comment