Reason Magazine
- reason.com
- reason.tv
- reason.org
- Donate
- Site Search:
Reason on Facebook
Reason on Twitter
Reason on YouTube
Reason RSSGet Reason E-mail Updates!
Manage your Reason e-mail list subscriptionsadvertisements
Kramer vs. Cole
As a follow-up to Julian's entry on MEMRI and its threat to begin a libel suit against Middle East scholar-blogger Juan Cole, you might want to go to the site of another schogger, Martin Kramer, who recalls that Cole threatened legal action against Kramer and his colleague Daniel Pipes for having created an allegedly threatening "dossier" on him on the Campus Watch website (Kramer was not involved with Campus Watch).
I've published Cole in the past and am on friendly email terms with Kramer, so I have no dog in this fight, but I do agree with Kramer (with reservations about his views of Cole, whose website I nevertheless find overrated) when he writes:
MEMRI's president, Yigal Carmon, shouldn't have threatened legal action--in part because it makes too much of Cole, who's famously prone to fact-free tantrums, and whose weblog is an embarrassment of errors. But in the same measure, Juan Cole shouldn't have threatened action two years ago against Daniel Pipes and myself. I don't like the culture of litigation, where people deal with criticism by legal intimidation instead of arguments.
|11.26.04 @ 1:21PM|#
Kramer's got Cole there. Neither should have threatened legal action. The dossier is hardly threatening. Plus, it didn't call for direct action towards Cole, like Cole did with MEMRI. Not that a call to action matters, since it was a non-violent call to action, but Kramer's got Cole here.
Tim Cavanaugh|11.26.04 @ 1:22PM|#
I have three rules for evaluating commentary on the middle
east:
1. Immediately stop reading or listening to anything that includes
any variation of the phrase: "Beirut used to be called the Paris of
the Middle East."
2. Immediately stop reading or listening to anything that asserts
without evidence that U.S. aggression in the Muslim world is a
great "recruiting tool" for terrorists.
3. Immediately stop reading or listening to
anything that uses the simile "sand" in reference to any policy
issues involving the Middle East.
Kramer is a serial offender of Rule 3, Cole a serial offender of
Rule 2. So I'll pass on both.
|11.26.04 @ 1:33PM|#
Cripes Tim, that leaves only Michael Young and Naguib Mahfooz left to take seriously. :)
|11.26.04 @ 2:10PM|#
When in NPR finally going to give Juan Cole his own show? It seems like he's on one of their shows at least once a week.
Luke Thomas|11.26.04 @ 3:28PM|#
Yes, Cole is being hypocritical.
But ANYONE who listens to the likes of Pipes or Kramer, two men who
are competing for a monopoly of error in their various assessments
about the Middle East, should not be taken seriously.
There are others who lean to the right that do not resort to
hysterical invective. Bernard Lewis or Dennis Ross come to
mind.
|11.27.04 @ 12:06PM|#
No one associated with Campus Watch is in a position to whine
about "intimidation."
Stones, glass, houses.
Tim,
"Immediately stop reading or listening to anything that asserts
without evidence that U.S. aggression in the Muslim world is a
great "recruiting tool" for terrorists."
Do the teenagers dead next to RPG launchers in Falluja count as
evidence?
|11.27.04 @ 7:51PM|#
The statement lumps all Muslims together and religious bigots have nothing to teach me about the Middle East.
|11.27.04 @ 10:07PM|#
Does it not occur to you that maybe people say "Islam is Peace"
tongue-in-cheek because this is the standard politically correct
response to any association of Islam with terrorism??? It's sort of
like saying "jihad" means internal struggle for piety.
Does it make me a bigot to laugh when a talking head says "Islam is
Peace"? Does it make me a bigot to chuckle when an Islamic Studies
"professor" asserts that jihad is an internal struggle?
|11.27.04 @ 11:57PM|#
"I tune out anyone who, with sarcasm, refers to Islam as a
religion of peace."
Y'all see what I mean, right?
Tim Cavanaugh|11.28.04 @ 4:02AM|#
I'm going to split this one down the middle: I tune out anybody who says "Islam is a religion of peace" sarcastically (though I'll cop to having used that gag when it was still slightly fresh), and I tune out anybody who says "Jihad means internal struggle" unsarcastically.
|11.28.04 @ 4:07PM|#
>>Does it not occur to you that maybe people say "Islam is
Peace" tongue-in-cheek because this is the standard politically
correct response to any association of Islam with
terrorism???>>
Actually except for a few professional spokespersons the only
person I've heard say that was President Bush after 9/11. Or
something similar.
Jihad CAN mean internal struggle, and I would prefer it to mean
ONLY that, hence I wouldnt ridicule its use that way though it
obviously also means religious war.
To "smite Amalek" can mean in Judaic circles literal genocide or a
metaphoric crusade (can I say that word?) against evil. I would
prefer that Israeli settlers mean the metaphoric, hence I wouldnt
discourage that interpretation.
Any benign interpretation of a religious concept should be
ENCOURAGED.
And the sarcastic "Islam is a religion of peace" is played out,
except maybe on LGF (where they actually use babytalk like
"moonbat"). Pretty much marks the speaker as biased; like someone
saying "Israel is a democracy" sarcastically.
|11.28.04 @ 8:46PM|#
At the risk of beating a dead horse....
You said: "Jihad CAN mean internal struggle, and I would prefer it
to mean ONLY that..."
This is EXACTLY my point. It FEELS so much more comfortable (and
less offensive to those more PC-inclined). We all would prefer that
Islam really is peace and that jihad really is an internal
struggle. But reality indicates that for a great many Muslims this
simply isn't the case. And until our politicians and media start
discussing these realities, the West will continue to delude
itself.
I still am not sure why Ken chose to throw the "bigot" label around
so carelessly. As one who loves to raise the ire of my San Fran
neighborhood cafe Marxists, I make sure I say "Islam is Peace" with
as much sarcasm as possible...call me a bigot for liberty and
democracy I guess.
|11.28.04 @ 9:17PM|#
But Islam doesnt mean peace (though it can be possiblr validly
stretched to "peaceful surrender" with common root consonants), and
it is not a pacificist religion; whereas jihad can mean, and
sometimes really does mean in actual use, a struggle of a less
bellicose kind. (Inverting the above argument a bit, the root word
for jihad and ijtihad are the same -- and the latter is the concept
of openness and inquiry that most liberal Muslims want to see
embraced are also the same -- referring to struggle of ideas in
discourse if I am not mistaken).
But really who says Islam means peace?; most Muslims never said
that I think until Bush did. Juan Cole doesnt say it.
Like all religions it is proferred as an inner peace of sorts. But
I always heard it to mean submission or surrender (to the will of
God). Most Muslims are proud that it has a fighting side, even the
liberals who want the concept used defensively and
metaphorically.
Bigotry comes in because the sarcastic version is often associated
with people who simply want to denigrate the religion as a whole
rather than its more belligerent adherents.
Why would Marxists associate warnly with the "religion of peace"
considering that jihad waging Muslims decisively sapped the USSR
and local communists in Afhganistan and elsewehre.
|11.28.04 @ 10:48PM|#
The term "jihad" refers to a holy war, but it also describes an
individual's struggle to, for instance, resist temptation too. Used
in this context, I don't find the term alarming; indeed, I don't
find it particularly interesting. Did some professor you can cite
claim that when terrorists call for a jihad, they're really just
asking people to struggle against sin? I don't understand your
fascination with the term, quite frankly. Your interpetation
doesn't seem to have much use beyond its propaganda value, that is.
In context, holy war or struggle, either way, why does it matter?
Does your answer have something to do with America "deluding"
itself?
Who in America, or elsewhere for that matter, denies the link
between radical Islam and terrorism? This link doesn't mean that
Islam isn't a religion of peace any more than what the Spanish did
to Native Americans and what Catholics and Protestants did to each
other mean that Christianity isn't a religion of peace. When I talk
to Muslims about Christianity, I start by explaining that there are
very few things that are true of all Christians. I can say the same
thing about Islam (Talk about people who like to argue!); in spite
of what you may have heard, there is very little that is true of
all Muslims.
People who preface a point with the suggestion that there is
something inherently violent about a given creed and its followers,
especially when they're shaky on the facts, should be prepared to
defend themselves against charges of religious bigotry. That's not
a function of standard political correctness; that's just plain old
logic. Generalizing about something based on a small sample is a
logical fallacy; generalizing about the creed of Islam and the
people who practice it based on its most radical components is the
logical fallacy of religious bigotry. I'm not saying that's what
you're doing, but if that is what you're doing, deal with it.
...
|11.28.04 @ 11:00PM|#
...
Anyway, I have very little to learn about America from those who
would typify Christianity and its followers by the actions of
Ulster Unionists and the IRA, and I don't have anything to learn
about the Middle East from those who would typify Islam and its
followers by the actions of its extreme elements either.
P.S. I haven't seen Tim use the bit in context, bit I've read much
of what he's published over the last couple of years and I doubt he
intended to suggest that Muslims are inherently violent; rather, I
suspect he used the bit for comic effect. Other well-known blogs
use the bit in the context I denounced above, and you are defending
them and the use of the bit in that context, are you not?
...I don't throw the term around carelessly.
|11.28.04 @ 11:21PM|#
I guess I just took exception to your assertion that those who
sarcastically say "Islam is Peace" are bigots. The sarcasm is an
understandable response to the political correctness that
academics, the press and our politicians continue to shove down our
throats.
Do you really need me to cite specific quotes? I think you get my
point.
And while I agree with you that this is, in fact, a war against
radical Islam, I would caution that the radicals account for a
significant portion of the Muslim population, even right here in
the U.S. Of course, how we define "radical" could be up for
debate.
I'm always careful to never generalize across an entire group or
sub-group (the Hard Left being the lone exception) but I do think
we've got a problem with Islam so long as the radicals continue to
exert increasing dominance over the "mainstream".
|11.29.04 @ 10:00AM|#
...Well pardon me for the bedtime story! I guess I never get
bored debunking Republican propaganda victims, but, then again, I
like arguing with Jehovah's Witnesses.
...They always skip my door now; the last time, I had to chase them
half-way down the street!
Site comments/questions:
Media Inquiries and Reprint Permissions:
(310) 367-6109
Editorial & Production Offices:
3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd.
Suite 400
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 391-2245