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Times Watch for
April 20, 2004
Hedges Lauds Another Defender of Anti-Israeli Violence
Reporter Chris Hedges, infamous for being unplugged while delivering a tone-deaf anti-war commencement speech in Illinois, files another liberal "Public Lives" profile Tuesday about a pro-Palestinian professor--a profile that neglects to include the professor's defense of violence against Israeli soldiers.
"Casting Mideast Violence in Another Light" looks at "noted Middle Eastern scholar" Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, who Hedges notes "has been assailed by conservatives and many supporters of Israel for being critical of United States policy on the Middle East. He is a scathing critic of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, although he says he supports Israel's right to exist. He also says he feels that the perceptions of the conflict in the West are heavily skewed in Israel's favor. He calls suicide bombings war crimes."
Khalidi may indeed call suicide bombings "war crimes," but that's misleading: As shown below, Khalidi doesn't condemn all killing of Israelis.
The article includes the usual humanizing touches typical for a "Public Lives" profile: "He has three grown children, two of whom work in the Middle East. When they were younger he coached their baseball teams and he has pictures of himself in a baseball uniform in team photos in his office. His wife, Mona, is an assistant dean at Columbia. He lives happily, he said, in Morningside Heights once more."
Hedges says of Khalidi: "While his critics call him an apologist for the enemies of America--The New York Sun called him 'the professor of hate'--he doggedly insists that he is merely carrying out his role as a historian, working to show how historical forces, largely ignored in the United States, have shaped the modern Middle East. He takes particular delight in demolishing the various clichés used to describe the Middle East, bred out of what he terms 'America's historical amnesia.'"
An actual examination of the Sun piece provides a much fuller and much grimmer picture of the man smiling from the pages of the Times Metro Section.
The July 23, 2003 Sun story by Adam Daifallah, "Hauser Helped Fund Professor of Hate," gets Khalidi's opinion on killing Israelis straight from the source: "The New York Sun has obtained an audio recording of a speech Mr. Khalidi gave on June 7, 2002, at a conference of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. While condemning violence against innocent civilians, which Mr. Khalidi said 'means condemning Israel,' he appeared to condone the killing of armed Israelis in the next breath. 'Killing civilians is a war crime. It's a violation of international law. They are not soldiers. They're civilians, they're unarmed. The ones who are armed, the ones who are soldiers, the ones who are in occupation, that's different. That's resistance.'"
(For an earlier Hedges' profile of a terror-sympathizing, pro-Palestinian college student, click here.)
For the rest of Hedges' profile of Rashid Khalidi, click here.
• Chris Hedges | Israel | Rashid Khalidi | Palestinians | Public Lives
"Controversial" to Claim Alger Hiss a Spy?
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Felicia Lee file "Bush Nominee for Archivist Is Criticized for His Secrecy" for Tuesday's paper, a long story on a supposedly "intense controversy" over (of all things) Bush's nominee for archivist of the United States: "The nominee, Allen Weinstein, is a former university professor who for two decades has worked to bring about democracy in former dictatorships. As a historian, he is best known for a 1978 book on Alger Hiss, a work that still stirs anger among historians who say Mr. Weinstein refused to make his notes public."
The blurb line sets up a stark confrontation: "Concerns are raised about a historian's methods vs. the public's right to know." But there's nothing in the story that makes Weinstein appear a threat to the "public's right to know." The best Stolberg and Lee can do is his refusal to make his personal notes for his Hiss book public.
They continue: "He has long been controversial among historians, in part because of his conclusion in his 1978 book, 'Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case,' that Hiss was indeed a Communist spy."
Stolberg and Lee don't name any of these "historians" to which claims of Hiss' guilt remain controversial, perhaps because there's no longer much "controversy" on the matter among mainstream academics. Weinstein's book is considered the final word on the subject-- even in liberal academia it's now the accepted view that Hiss was a spy, and recent revelations from Soviet files have only strengthened the case against him. Only last-stand lefties like Victor Navasky of The Nation magazine still made noises about Hiss' innocence after "Perjury."
For more from Stolberg and Lee on Bush's nominee for archivist, click here.
• George W. Bush | Communism | Alger Hiss | Felicia Lee | Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Stalking Ken Starr's Religious Beliefs
Deborah Solomon writes a weekly Q&A in the Times Sunday magazine, and she puts former special prosecutor Ken Starr on the hot seat. After prodding Starr about the Monica Lewinsky investigation, she asked the prosecutor, well known for his Christian beliefs: "Do you pray every night?....Do you believe that atheists go to hell?" When he refused to get into theology, she pouts: "You're impeding my investigation. You won't answer anything, although you investigate everyone else."
For the full interview of Ken Starr, click here.
• Deborah Solomon | Religion | Ken Starr
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org