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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Reut Cohen</title>
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		<title>Pushing ‘Palestine’ at UCLA</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/reut-cohen/pushing-palestine-at-ucla/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=pushing-palestine-at-ucla</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/reut-cohen/pushing-palestine-at-ucla/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Feb 2013 04:38:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Reut Cohen]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palestine]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[panel discussion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UCLA]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=177718</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Campus opens its doors to an Israel hate-fest. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/reut-cohen/pushing-palestine-at-ucla/swrnnucla/" rel="attachment wp-att-177742"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-177742" title="swrnnucla" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/swrnnucla.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="203" /></a>The United Nations General Assembly’s decision to grant “non-member state observer” status to the Palestinians in November, 2012 was the latest salvo in the never ending quest to create a mythical state of “Palestine” unburdened by concessions to coexistence with Israel. A recent <a href="http://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/events/showevent.asp?eventid=9789">panel discussion</a>, “Palestine &amp; the UN,” at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) took up the subject with mixed results. Sponsored by the Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES), the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, and the Burkle Center for International Relations, the event was well-attended, with an audience of approximately 100 comprised of students and community members.</p>
<p>Asli Bali, a professor at the UCLA School of Law <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=asli+bali&amp;sa=Search">not known</a> for providing a balanced approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, was in this instance the more objective voice on the panel. She was the only speaker to point out that this was not the Palestinians’ first time declaring statehood at the UN and, she added, “It may not well be the last time.”</p>
<p>Making a solid case that the Palestinians’ bolstered status is largely symbolic, she noted that Fatah “put itself back on the map” by finding “a non-military way” to score a success. Employing a term often associated with critics of Islamism, she summed it up as a successful example of “lawfare.”</p>
<p>She went on to characterize Egypt as a “patron” of Hamas in the Arab-Israeli conflict, but pointed to a fissure in the relationship. Referring to Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense in November, 2012, she stated:</p>
<blockquote><p>Egypt was extremely upset about the seven-day operation that took place in Gaza, and what they were upset with was Hamas. [They] were pressing Hamas to absolutely unilaterally desist in what was, at the end of the day, pinprick attacks in any case, but to unilaterally desist.</p></blockquote>
<p>By “pinprick attacks” Bali was referring presumably to the thousands of rockets indiscriminately fired at Israel’s populace over the last decade. Southern Israel, in particular, has <a href="http://www.idfblog.com/facts-figures/rocket-attacks-toward-israel/">been hit</a> with over 8,000 rockets since Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, resulting in psychological trauma, injuries, and death.</p>
<p>Steven Spiegel, director of UCLA’s Center for Middle East Development, identified himself as the panelist presenting Israel’s side, but was, in fact, less neutral than Bali. He even announced at one point: “My agenda is to get Israel outside of the West Bank.”</p>
<p>Spiegel spent much of his time lambasting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s “right wing” for not promoting peace. “There are many Netanyahus,” Spiegel said, arguing that Netanyahu has alienated many Israeli voters and Western states. “Israelis are tired of paying for settlements,” he added, suggesting that if Netanyahu joins forces with right-wing elements “the Orthodox will be asking him for money for his Yeshivas every couple of days.”</p>
<p>It is worth noting that it was right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin who, along with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, reached a peace accord that would be difficult to reproduce in today’s rapidly Islamizing Middle East.</p>
<p>Spiegel suggested that a lack of assurance from the Palestinian Authority ultimately caused several nations to abstain from voting in the November, 2012 decision, pointing to what he characterized as a well-founded concern over how the Palestinians would use, or abuse, the International Criminal Court as a weapon against Israel.</p>
<p>Arguing that in the days preceding Israeli elections, Palestinians often engage in “physical violence” that sways the Israeli population to vote for the right-wing establishment, Spiegel added,</p>
<blockquote><p>It is true that Abu Mazen almost blew it by announcing a few days ago, right before the election, that the Zionists and the Nazis had been in cahoots in the 1930s—not something to make Israeli voters feel good about the Palestinians.</p></blockquote>
<p>Contradicting his original theory, he concluded that, “it wasn’t something as dramatic as a UN vote and it wasn’t a physical attack, so it does seem, from what we know, that the Israeli voters ignored that series of stupidities.”</p>
<p>Spiegel suggested that Israeli society is largely indifferent to, or even supportive of, the Palestinian bid: “Most Israelis of any stripe would accept, if the Palestinians wanted it, a situation where the Palestinians were the Vatican and the Israelis were Italy.” Currently, the other UN non-member state is the Holy See, also known as the Vatican.</p>
<p>Despite Spiegel’s claim to represent “Israel’s side,”  he proffered an extremely narrow view of Israeli society, portraying right-wing elements as radical and, to some extent, tarring centrist Israelis with the same brush by suggesting that Yair Lapid—founder and chair of Yesh Atid, the second largest party in the Knesset—is “no dove.”</p>
<p>Although the panel discussion was indicative of the obsession in Middle East studies with blindly pushing the “Palestine” narrative—often at the expense of Israel—in contrast to the <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=center+near+eastern+studies+cnes&amp;sa=Search">vast majority</a> of CNES-sponsored events involving the Arab-Israeli conflict, this one was uncharacteristically subdued. At some point, reality has to set in, even in academia.</p>
<p><em>Reut R. Cohen is a journalist, researcher, and photographer. You can follow her at </em><a href="http://www.reutrcohen.com/"><em>www.reutrcohen.com</em></a><em>.</em> <em>She wrote this article for</em> <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/"><em>Campus Watch</em></a><em>, a project of the</em> <a href="http://www.meforum.org/"><em>Middle East Forum</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Apologist for Gender Apartheid</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/reut-cohen/apologist-for-gender-apartheid/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=apologist-for-gender-apartheid</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/reut-cohen/apologist-for-gender-apartheid/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 May 2010 04:01:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Reut Cohen]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ali]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Joseph]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[suad joseph]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Susan Slyomovics]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[women in the middle east]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=60769</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Middle Eastern women want to be subjugated and abused, says Prof. Suad Joseph.
]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/joseph.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60774" title="joseph" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/joseph.gif" alt="" width="375" height="245" /></a></p>
<p>On May 7, 2010, UCLA’s <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4420">Center for Near Eastern Studies</a> (CNES) and the <em>Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies</em> co-sponsored the lecture, “<a href="http://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/events/showevent.asp?eventid=8062">Rethinking Arab Women as ‘Subjects</a>.’” The talk was delivered by <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=suad+joseph&amp;sa=Search">Suad Joseph</a>, a Lebanese-born professor of anthropology and women’s studies at UC Davis, and president-elect of the <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/survey.php/id/38">Middle East Studies Association</a> (MESA), the principal professional organization for scholars of the region. Joseph, who has <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/3645">co-edited a book</a> with CNES director <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/search.php?cx=015692155655874064424%3A-cjrsa07xqe&amp;cof=FORID%3A9&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;q=slyomovics&amp;sa=Search">Susan Slyomovics</a>, is considered a pioneer in the field of Middle East women’s studies, accolades which—as is, sadly, <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/2442">often the case</a>—translates into <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_1_why_feminism.html">apologetics</a> for the oppression of Middle Eastern women.</p>
<p>Joseph announced she was perturbed about the title of her lecture; she couldn’t decide whether “Arab” was an appropriate term to use for identification purposes. Yet, she contradicted herself (and followed the Arabist practice of her discipline) by referring to the Middle East exclusively as the “Arab world” and by questioning the identities of Jews, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and other distinctive, regional minorities. She wondered why these groups perceive themselves as separate from Arabs when the answer is readily apparent both in the distinctive histories of theses peoples and in their persecution at the hands of Arab Muslim majorities. The very term “Arab”—often used arbitrarily to describe anything Middle Eastern—is loaded with a perilous and extreme nationalism that has made ethnic minorities such as <a href="http://www.reutrcohen.com/2009/01/1000000-middle-eastern-jews.html">Mizrahi Jews</a> and <a href="http://www.christiansofiraq.com/Lewis.html">Assyrians</a> victims of the majority.</p>
<p>Joseph questioned, and at times denounced, studies examining the status quo of women in the Middle East. She argued that the representation of Arab women as subjects is a “problematic category and necessary one,” and that there is serious fault with characterizations—particularly in Western research and media—of Arab women as the victims of patriarchy, culture, politics, and religion. Instead, Joseph contended, notions of self are changing and malleable.</p>
<p>Predictably for contemporary Middle East studies, Joseph paid tribute to Edward Said’s deeply flawed book <em>Orientalism</em>, which helps explain her rejection of any implied Western superiority regarding women’s rights. In asserting that Westerners shouldn’t assume women in the Middle East wish to imitate secular, Westernized women, she encapsulated the ideology widespread on college campuses: multiculturalism, a form of cultural relativism that denies the ability to judge non-Western cultures on their merits, and which, in practice, judges all non-Western cultures as superior. She made no reference to universal human rights or to the <a href="http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/fiw10/FIW_2010_Tables_and_Graphs.pdf">possible reasons for rising Arab immigration</a> to secular European nations and to North America.</p>
<p>Joseph asserted that Arab women are the “most relationship-driven” of any with which she has worked. She described Americans, in contrast, as less “relationship-driven” and American women as having fewer expectations than their Arab counterparts. Joseph offered no factual evidence for either of these preposterous claims. Given the grave circumstances under which many Arab women live, one would think it is they who are forced to have fewer expectations and not, as Joseph contended, Western women.</p>
<p>Incredibly, Joseph theorized that Arab women want to be claimed by men, and therefore have no objection to being subjects of a patriarchal and theocratic society in which their individual rights are abridged. The audience, which appeared to consist mostly of Center for Near Eastern Studies and Women’s Studies faculty, nodded their heads in agreement with this troubling statement. In fact, those gathered reacted favorably to the lecture overall and asked no challenging questions of the speaker. Overwhelming (if understated) evidence of the systematic and institutionalized abuse of Middle Eastern women didn’t seem to factor into the equation.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.freedomhouse.org/uploads/fiw10/FIW_2010_Map_MENA.pdf">In many regions of the Middle East, the basic standing of women and the attitude of men towards them are pre-modern. </a>Were this not so, there would be no honor killings, female genital mutilation, child marriage, or legitimized wife-beating. Moreover, the West should consider the disturbing social implications for its societies as these barbaric customs are imported through Muslim immigration.</p>
<p>If I may end on a personal note: As a woman of Middle Eastern origin, the situation of women in the Middle East has always fascinated and troubled me. Although I come from a very traditional Middle Eastern family—albeit Jewish—the women in my family have always been empowered and independent. Therefore, I find it extremely difficult to come to terms with the theory that Middle Eastern women are a different breed who welcome abuse for some twisted concept of maintaining a “relationship-driven” society.</p>
<p>If one believes, as I do, in fundamental human rights, there are moral principles that define our basic freedoms. Middle Eastern women’s rights activists such as Shirin Ebadi and Ayaan Hirsi Ali do not excuse the misogynistic and theocratic elements in their native countries. Instead, they demand freedom, even in the face of their abusers and of Western apologists.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Joseph’s lecture belongs in the latter category, demonstrating yet again that Middle Eastern women who seek intellectual and moral support from Western professors of Middle East studies will come away disappointed.</p>
<p><em>Reut Cohen is a journalist, researcher, and the publisher of </em><a href="http://www.reutrcohen.com/"><em>ReutRCohen.com</em></a><em>. She wrote this article for </em><a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/"><em>Campus Watch</em></a><em>, a project of the </em><a href="http://www.meforum.org/"><em>Middle East Forum</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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