An Open Letter about Normalization and Boycott

Not many Israelis, or even Americans know that Edward Said, regarded here as a champion of the Palestinians, has undergone loud and harsh criticism within the Arab world for his support of the process of normalization.

Recently I found myself without resources in a battle against the opponents of normalization. I felt as I had in Egypt in the midst of a huge academic-political battle -- that legalities and the rules of normal business behavior were of no use when the powerful are allowed to act as they will. Now that it's over, I should at least publicly defend my belief in cultural normalization -- the right, and the duty of serious academics, intellectuals, and those in the arts, sciences, and athletics to meet, communicate with, compete with, and publish alongside Israelis.

I first learned about the idea of muqata' (the boycott, or cutting-off of relations) within the leftist Arab community, where Israeli products and individuals were avoided, and no-one spoke of "going back" to the West Bank or Israel until Oslo. Of course this was not the case for many Palestinians from inside the Green line (Arab-Israelis) or those from the West Bank or Gaza. But this extended beyond the Israeli government and Israelis. As a graduate student in Cairo, I saw the deep freeze extended to the late Malcolm Kerr when he arranged for some 50 Israeli students to visit the AUC -- this at a time when normalization was supposedly blooming. Then during my further graduate studies at UCLA, the Arab students organized against a Jewish-American intellectual who was being considered for a directorship of the Gustave von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies. It was rumored that he had run guns during '48, or anyway was a "big Zionist." . Two Egyptian students countered the others, saying that we should not pass judgment until we had read his books. I, the oblivious nerd, had already decided that I wanted to work for him, as I had already read all of his books and was unaware of the whole debate until months after its completion. The others succeeded in blocking his directorship, but not his presence -- he became chair of a different department.

I then observed the policy in practice in more recent years while living and teaching in Egypt . Once again, Jews and Israelis, Israelis and Zionists are often conflated. So Israelis, Arab Israelis, and even Americans could be targets, like then U.S.- ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, who was snubbed by various individuals, saying and sometimes writing that Washington had insulted Egypt by sending a Jewish ambassador. An Egyptian friend was blasted for meeting with an Israeli poet in Europe. Another Egyptian friend's historically significant family was mistakenly identified as being Jewish in a local newspaper, I helped him write his response, although I wished he did not feel that he had to respond so urgently .

Several of Said's printed pieces on normalization emerged from a particular debate on cooperation with Israelis in a publication project. Said, in the particular piece that was printed in the Al-Ahram Weekly, and reprinted elsewhere did not go as far as I have above in defining normalization, although he suggested that Arabs must welcome and communicate with those Israelis who opposed apartheid and theocracy.

"There are numerous avenues for communicating with Israelis who are prepared to fight against apartheid and theocracy in their country. And here we, [Arabs], must courageously welcome such people and not hide behind casuistry about being opposed to 'normalization.' We must normalize with Israelis who share our goals, that is, self determination for the two peoples in Palestine." (Edward Said)

By apartheid, I believe he means the policies of separation and discrimination of the Palestinians and Arab citizens of Israel. I see this everyday around me here in the Negev, where the Israelis are supposed to live and attend school in one community, and the Bedouins in another. Or at the Erez checkpoint, where even sick Gazans cannot obtain permits to cross the border for medical treatment,and ordinary men who need a day's work in construction are forbidden from crossing because of "security" concerns.

By "theocracy," I presume that he means the political basis of the Israeli state, and the primacy of Jews and Jewish rights over all other citizens and their rights, and the role of Judaic law. I suppose that he means the public school system that uses the Torah as a basic text for instruction informing second-grade students that they are the Chosen of God. While one can surely grasp the historical rationale for the Jews who built and fought for a nation in which they can freely practice their religion, the legal, moral, and educational implications of the above policies, and the use of identity cards marking one, indelibly Jewish or non-Jewish, really likens Israel to Iran -- another notable theocracy in the region.

So there are serious objections to the practice of apartheid and the structure of theocracy in Israel with which I concur. Said has gone further in proposing and demonstrating that young people in the arts should play and learn music together. So, in this case, the young musicians involved those of various political perspectives

I would go further and suggest that there will be no hope for the establishment of democracy, justice, or peace for Israelis and Palestinians if Arabs, and all other academics do not attempt to communicate with Israeli academics -- not only with liberals, but with those of other perspectives as well, including the "religious." The anti-normalization campaign, the existing anti-Arab feeling, and lack of contact with Arab intellectuals and cultural figures has produced a very dangerous gap of hatred and ignorance. This is true in Israel and it is true in Egypt where many of my former students had no idea that there are Arab citizens of Israel, and lack basic knowledge of the countries history, political and cultural trends. It is true in the United States where Americans could not distinguish between Sikhs and Muslims. It is particularly important to establish communications in the intellectual milleu, and to do so, not only in supposedly neutral space -- outside the region -- but here as well.

I write that I am surprised that I would have to defend this position. I knew that it would be terribly difficult to come to Israel and to try to establish meaningful exchanges. I thought that I would try to establish some collegial contacts, learn some Hebrew, and write about my experiences later on, when I had digested and understood them. I cannot pretend that I have successfully "communicated," either with colleagues whom I have met, but do not know all that well, with students, or with very many ordinary citizens due to my stumbling, elementary Hebrew, and my lack of understanding of the Israeli ethos.

But two recent incidents -- one an important professional attack by an international academic association affiliated with the Middle East Studies Association of North America, and a well-known Dutch publishing house, and the other a more minor insinuation by a Canadian-Palestinian at a small European symposium require a response.

This first incident involved an academic association to which I have belonged since 1987, the Association for Middle East Women's Studies (AMEWS) I became an Editorial Board member in 1996, a voting Board member in 1997, and President from 1999 until November of 2001. In that capacity, with the full knowledge and support of the elected board members I had negotiated and contracted an agreement with the Dutch publishing house, Brill to establish a professional journal for the study of women and gender in the Middle East and the Islamic world. Brill suggested that I co-edit with an Egyptian-American scholar at Georgetown, who unbeknownst to me, supports muqata' (the boycotting of Israelis). Brill also invited me to edit a book series, and I invited an American scholar who lives in Egypt to co-edit. The Board of Directors of AMEWS voted and then agreed in an official meeting to raise the dues of the Association lso that all members would receive the journal, issue 1: 1 of which was planned for this coming May.

Last spring, I accepted a fellowship at an Israeli university. I had also been offered an interesting position in Islamic studies in the United States, but I turned this down, seeking to expand my own knowledge of Israel and Israeli society. I had once hoped to stay in Cairo permanently -- I really believed that one cannot be a serious scholar of the Middle East in my particular specialization and live outside of the region. Having spent a year writing in the United States, I wanted to return to the region, and learn, not simply teach and write. I joined the academic community at Ben Gurion University of the Negev where some of my colleagues are the "new" or revisionist historians in Israel, others hold anti-Zionist and anti-racist views, others have seriously studied the Bedouin community, and quite a few represent a combination of good solid scholarship on the Middle East and intellectual liveliness.

I was and remain terrified by the prospect of being banned from further research in the Arab countries, since I have spent about 30 years of my life either in academia, or engaged in the study of Arabic music. I was even more terrified by the absolutely quiet and tidy community I moved into -- the antithesis of noisy, friendly Cairo, and by the absence of any language but Hebrew or Russian in the streets. But certainly my very sketchy knowledge of Israel is expanding.

My colleagues were informed of my new location, assumed to be temporary, as this is only a fellowship. The journal was advertised, calls to papers issued, and articles were sent to me for review. My book series co-editor reiterated her commitment to the project in August, and two book manuscripts were under consideration. Then, at the annual meetings of the Middle East Studies Association held in November, the Association above held its annual business meeting and the journal's establishment in this year was formally resolved. But the very next morning, the first official meeting of the journal saw a coup d'ètat by the same group who had agreed in the previous day's binding proceedings. First I was ordered to give the chairing of the meeting over to AMEWS, although it was a editorial board meeting for the publication itself. Then certain individuals who had voted on two publication agreements claimed never to have seen any working agreement with Brill. At the end, I was ordered to convince the Brill editor that no affiliations or credits to institutions were to be listed on the journal, to ensure that my own at an Israeli university would not appear. I was also told to tell Brill that the first issue should appear at the end of the year. (This would ruin the financial arrangements made for the year, and would presumably ensure that I would have left Israel by then.)

A Lebanese member of the journal's Advisory Board protested, observing that although "cooperation" is technically forbidden in Lebanon, academics routinely engage in shared endeavors, so why was this primarily American group so fired up? Yes, it was Americans who insisted on the politics of anti-normalization. The Dutch publisher initially rejected their demand to remove affiliations since the advertising had already been printed. He first said this request was 'unprofessional " and "unscholarly." He, my co-editor and I finalized the arrangements for the journal and the contract. I had already signed a contract for the book series.

Then my co-editor met with the Brill editor without me. She offered her resignation explaining that there were clearly irreconcilable differences between herself and myself and AMEWS. The editor asked to her to wait, but somehow she informed the AMEWS Board of her action, although she did not inform for me for another month.
The series co-editor also met privately with the Brill editor and said she must resign if my affiliation were listed. Similarly, I was not informed of this for another two weeks. But each communicated with the AMEWS Board, or its new President as was apparent from some inadvertantly shared email that the new President sent to the Board members.

The Board began meeting without me via e-mail to organize a vote against the already planned journal. I complained and was told that I had presented a "no-compromise" stance by conveying the publisher's statements. A letter from an American academic in Sharjah appeared raising very specific objections to Ben Gurion University's supposed "connection" with the journal. My co-editor contacted those members of the Advisory Board she had recruited, showing them the publicity materials and they sent in their resignations --both senior scholars at Georgetown University , one of whom had attended a symposium at Ben Gurion University with me in 1997. She also had met secretly with Brill to tell the publisher that she would resign as co-editor if her "terms" were not met.

The association moved quickly, voting without consultation with its several hundred members to lower its dues, thus cancelling the previous financial arrangments made with Brill. I had warned the new President that this vote contravened the Association bylaws, and that a delay would cause Brill to cancel the journal. The new President emphasized the Association's concerns with an "affiliation with an Israeli institution" in her correspondence to Brill.

Brill then cancelled the journal, writing to me to say tthat AMEWS had violated our existing agreement, and in quotes from a letter from the new AMEWS President communicated its concerns with the "matter of affiliation" which Brill expected to affect the editorship, editorial board (two Israelis had been included on the existing board) and even "article submissions."

Brill next wrote that my affiliation would also be a problem with the book series, since my American co-editor had threatened to resign over this issue as well. I was told to "find a solution" to the "problem of affiliation" but not what this should be -- presumably that I should leave my fellowship, or resign as series editor. I wrote back and protested that we had signed a contract and two manuscripts were in process, but Brill cancelled the book series as well

Meanwhile, I contacted a colleague seeking to complain of AMEWS actions with MESA's Committee on Academic Freedom, but AMEWS quickly contacted this individual and -- what a surprise! -- convinced her that the matter did not concern my affiliation with an Israeli university.

A long and messy story. But what does it show us? First of all, US and US-based academics, enforced the anti-normalization campaign, despite the willingness of 3 Arab academic editors and 10 Arab scholars on the Editorial Advisory board who were enthusiastic about participating in the project. This was not a journal ABOUT normalization -- but the temporary affiliation of a co-editor (me) was the question.

One American academic who was not on the Editorial Advisory Board but attended its meeting in order to express her concern that the Association was not "ready for a journal." I found this odd since this individual as a former AMEWS Board member had voted enthusiastically in favor of the publications arrangment.

In the meeting she argued that she might have serious difficulties traveling in the Middle East if it was "known" that she subscribed to our journal! Another (American) directed her comments to me, saying, "your colleagues at BGU" are "so liberal, they'll understand why we can't list BGU in any way on this journal."

.Are these academics subjected to the black-listing and public attacks suffered by members of certain professional syndicates in Egypt? No. Or thrown out of a writer's union like a certain well-known Syrian poet for condoning normalization? No. Are they active in campaigning for Palestinians? Absolutely not. Yes, they circulate email petitions, but that's the extent of their activism. . Are the Palestinians, now undergoing one of the most terrible periods of attack and attempted de-legitimation by the Sharon government served by the provocation of a feud amongst academics of Middle Eastern studies? Certainly not.

The other incident to which I should respond occurred on the same day of a huge neo-Nazi demonstration in Berlin at the Center for Modern Oriental Studies. The accuser, had previously spent a good 10 minutes attacking those who study the Islamists and the veil (that's me). Then, she suggested that my work, in this case on Lebanon, could be snapped up by the Israeli security apparatus, so that I was at best "unethical " for daring to "work for an Israeli university" and at worst, my research could be used to hurt Arabs. Oh, and I am also anti-feminist for this terrible slip in "working" for an Israeli university. The critique was directed to me, not to a permanently based Israeli academic who had accompanied me to the conference. Or to another Israeli academic employed in Europe who is publishing her own experiment in communication with this scholar. But apparently, I needed her permission to conduct my own experiments in normalization. So, I felt that I should enlighten her a little as to my own upheavals in academia, and ask her how she dared to use the word unethical, and anti-feminist as part of an effort at political coercion. To her credit, she apologized "for hurting me" -- not for her statements, briefly, although not in front of the other scholars.

Who gains from efforts to intimidate those who support normalization? Certainly not my institution, nor I.. Not Georgetown, not the Canadian academic, nor the Dutch publisher. Not the young scholars who watch and listen and make cowardly choices since they don't want to risk critique, or an Amish shunning. Well, perhaps my colleagues in AMEWS will eventually publish their own journal, but if they uphold muqata,' they will by definition, be exclusionary. No, the only ones who benefit are those who demean the pursuit of Middle Eastern scholarship, those who feel they can advance as scholars by tripping up others, or those on the extreme right, both in Israel and in the Arab world.

If one is a scholar of Egypt, or Lebanon, one is somehow excused from covering Israeli politics, or even knowing basic facts about the country.. This cuts the other way as well. Israeli academics, cannot hope to spend extended periods of productive working scholarship in the Arab world, and must shift their research and research questions accordingly. It is more difficult for them to counter the demonizations of the Arabs and Arab culture rampant in the Israeli press and in popular discourse given their lack of access to Arab countries, and Arab scholars.

Would scholars engage in a boycott of Americans and American scholars? After all, Americans have just spent several months bombing Afghanis -- those associated with al-Qa'ida, and those with no connection at all -- to bits. A war on terrorism is perilously close to a war on Muslims. What if Muslim scholars decided on a boycott?

Unimaginable, you should answer. Right. America is, after all, ominpotent -- or nearly so. . Would the field of Middle Eastern Studies hush this over, as did the colleague from the Middle East Studies Association, saying that it is not a question of boycott but simply a "complicated matter of representation"? No, I think not.

American scholars and European publishing houses risk little by supporting the boycott on Israeli academics, but we all pay for their implementation of the politics of patronage, elitist exclusion, and racist demonization. It's fairly easy to support a boycott of the known "enemy" and proliferate its demonizations. Establishing lines of communication, or networks is far, far more difficult task -- and one for which egotistical, self-absorbed academics (myself included) are so badly prepared. .

Fear and human insecurity, say the Sufis are the enemies of peace and self-knowledge. Let us learn from them.

Sincerely,

Dr. Sherifa Zuhur
Visiting Senior Fellow
Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy
Ben Gurion University of the Negev