Misplaced Pages

Views and controversies concerning Juan Cole

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Former user 2 (talk | contribs) at 02:11, 15 October 2006 (→Expertise and professionalism: more accurate desc. of MEQ). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 02:11, 15 October 2006 by Former user 2 (talk | contribs) (→Expertise and professionalism: more accurate desc. of MEQ)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Juan Cole is an academic scholar whose expertise is on the Middle East; he is also a frequently cited media commentator and, since 2002, a blog writer. His political comments and views have attracted controversy.

Cole's Views

On al-Qaeda's "Doomsday Document"

In April 2003, Professor Cole presented a paper to the Yale Center for Genocide Studies analyzing the letter found in 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta's luggage. Cole's close textual analysis of the document attempts to understand how the language and mythology of Islamic spirituality was manipulated in order to prepare the hijackers psychologically to commit monstrous acts. Cole argued that:

The beginning instructions of the Doomsday Document give us vital insight into how a normal, middle class, secular young man like Ziad Jarrah, a Lebanese engineer with at Turkish-German live-in girlfriend, could become a mass murderer and suicide. He and others were convinced that they were reenacting sacred history... Just as small bands of early Muslims often inflicted defeats on larger Meccan forces, so a handful of young believers could hope to inflict a grievous blow on the 21st century Mecca of the West. The hijackers thus saw themselves as holy warriors, as Muslim raiders. Their victims were not even human, but rather mere animals for ritual slaughter. Atta and other handlers convinced them to live a double life. Inwardly they were committed to piety and asceticism and self-sacrifice. Outwardly they frequented bars and strip clubs, both to throw the intelligence agencies off the scent and to get a foretaste of the rewards of martyrdom. If it was Bin Laden who put them up to this double life, he may well have done so with personal knowledge of the kind of guilt it would induce, and the kind of self-hatred and openness to manipulation to which the guilt could lead.

On Islam and terrorism

Cole has been a frequent proponent of the view that mainstream Islam does not condone modern suicide terrorism. When Reverend Jerry Falwell called the Prophet Muhammed a "terrorist" on CBS's 60 Minutes, Cole pointed out,

Falwell's comments are problematic for many reasons, not least with regard to historical accuracy. Muhammad forbade murder and the killing of innocents, and never used terror as a weapon in his struggles against his aggressive pagan enemies. Far from glorifying aggression, the Koran says (2:190), 'Fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but do not begin hostilities, for God does not love aggressors.'

When journalist Thomas Friedman wrote in 2005 that "To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden," Cole responded with references to many such condemnations, and argued,

As for Friedman's main point, that Muslims haven't done a good job of fighting jihadi ideology and terrorism, it is bizarre. The Algerian government fought a virtual civil war to put down political Islam, in which over 100,000 persons died. The Egyptians jailed 20,000 or 30,000 radicals for thought crimes and killed 1500 in running street battles in the 1990s and early zeroes. Al-Qaeda can't easily strike in the Middle East precisely because Syria, Egypt, Algeria, etc. have their number and have undertaken massive actions against them. What does Friedman want?

On the war in Iraq

Cole is a staunch critic of the George W. Bush administration's policy in Iraq. He has been highly critical of the conduct of the American and British post-War occupation of Iraq. In particular, the decisions to disband the Iraqi Army, the treatment of prisoners in Iraq, and the details of the interim Constitution of Iraq have been problematic for Cole. As of May 2006, he believes Iraq is in a state of civil war, and that large scale conflict between Sunnis, Shias, the Kurds, Iraqi Turkmen, and the Assyrians or a Yugoslavia-like breakup of Iraq, cannot be avoided in the absence of the occupation forces. He has been highly skeptical of the war's value in combating international terrorism and suggests it could increase terrorism by producing Jihadists out of angry Iraqis who would not have otherwise become violent extremists.

Cole has provided several critical judgements on the occupation. First, it has led to resurgence of pan-Arab nationalism "In the 19th century the Ottoman sultan, Abdulhamid II, and the reformer, Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, launched the pan-Islamic project - the unity of Sunnis and Shia against European imperialism - but it always failed. The US hyperpower seems finally to be nudging the movement from a dream into political reality." Second, the Iraq war has been enormously beneficial to Salafi jihadists in general and to al-Qaeda in Iraq.

.. Bush and his policies led to there being anything like an effective Islamic radical terrorism in Iraq in the first place. The tiny Ansar al-Islam group that operated in the north before 2003 had been hunted by the Baath security and only survived because of the US no-fly zone that prevented Iraqi armor from being deployed against it. Bush has not shown any particular ability to put this genie, which he unleashed, back in the bottle. His war in Iraq has been an enormous boon to the international Salafi Jihadi movement, encouraging angry youths from all over the world to join it to fight to the US. "

Third, the biggest beneficiary of the occupation of Iraq has been Iran. Cole sees the neoconservative goal of creating an American-aligned "model democracy" as a failure, and argues that it has instead strengthened the Iranian influence in Iraq. "The United States lacks the troops, but perhaps even more critically, it is now dependent on Iran to help it deal with a vicious guerrilla war that it cannot win."

Cole critics have stated that he has made contradictory statements about the Iraqi invasion. For example, on March 19, 2003, on the eve of the invasion, he wrote approvingly of Saddam Hussein's removal by force: "I remain convinced that, for all the concerns one might have about the aftermath, the removal of Saddam Hussein and the murderous Baath regime from power will be worth the sacrifices that are about to be made on all sides" Cole responded to these critics saying

My position on the war was in fact very complex. I thought it was a terrible idea, but declined to come out against it because I believed that if Saddam's genocidal regime could be removed by the international community in a legal way, that some good would have been accomplished. But the bottom line is that I thought a war would be legal only if the United Nations Security Council authorized it."

On the Israel lobby and US foreign policy

Cole's critics allege that he accuses pro-Israel Jewish Bush Administration officials of having dual loyalty to Israel. Some go as far as to suggest that this is what makes Cole notabale. The New York Sun has quoted Cole critics saying he is "best known for disparaging the participation of prominent American Jews in government". Cole has been critical of Jewish US government officials who he alleges have ties to the Likud Party. Charging that this group has dual loyalties, Cole writes:

One of his charges is that I am accusing the Neoconservatives in the Pentagon of "dual loyalties". That is true, but not in the way Lake imagines. I believe that Doug Feith, for instance, has dual loyalties to the Israeli Likud Party and to the U.S. Republican Party. He thinks that their interests are completely congruent. And I also think that if he has to choose, he will put the interests of the Likud above the interests of the Republican Party.
I don't think there is anything a priori wrong with Feith being so devoted to the Likud Party. That is his prerogative. But as an American, I don't want a person with those sentiments to serve as the number 3 man in the Pentagon. I frankly don't trust him to put America first.

Some critics see Cole's criticism of certain US government officials as holding dual loyalites as an "anti-semitic conspiracy theory" and an example of new antisemitism. Efraim Karsh, professor and Head of Mediterranean Studies at King's College London, writes; "Cole may express offense at the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but their obsession with the supposed international influence of "world Zionism" resonates powerfully in his own writings."

Cole found Karsh's criticisms "beneath contempt," and responded as follows: "Karsh used scurrilous propaganda techniques, attempting to insinuate that my criticisms of the Neconservative clique in the Bush administration are somehow like believing in the forged 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion.'... No serious person who knows me or my work would credit his outrageous insinuations for a moment."

Cole has responded more generally to these charges, writing:

Political dual loyalties have nothing to do with any particular ethnicity. It is natural for Armenian Americans to have a special tie to Armenia, for Greek Americans to have a special tie to Greece, for Iraqi Americans to feel strongly about Iraq. For them to take pride in the achievements of their homeland is right and natural, and unexceptionable. There is no reason on the face of it to even bring up their ethnicity with regard to public service.

But if a Syrian American is a strong devotee of the Baath Party, would you appoint him Undersecretary of Defense?

The Likud Coalition in Israel does contest elections. But it isn't morally superior in most respects to the Syrian Baath....

So I don't see a big difference between having a fanatical Syrian American Baathist as the number three man in the Pentagon and having a fanatical Jewish American Likudnik....

I simply think that we deserve to have American public servants who are centrally committed to the interests of the United States, rather than to the interests of a foreign political party. So my position implies a political litmus test for high public office. And, of course there is such a litmus test. Why bother to have Congress confirm or reject appointees otherwise?

Cole has additionally argued that his US neoconservatives and Israeli "Likudnik" critics have used claims of "anti-semitism" against him not because they believe he is anti-semitic, but rather as a tool of intimidation due to his political views:

So this is the way it goes with the Likudniks. First they harass you and try to have you spied on. Then they threaten, bully and try to intimidate you. And if that fails and you show some spine, then they simply lie about you. (In this case the lies are produced by quoting half a passage, or denuding it of its context, or adopting a tone of pained indignation when quoting a perfectly obvious observation). . . The thing that most pains me in all this is the use of the word 'anti-semite' . . . David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes are encouraging a new kind of anti-semitism, which sees it as unacceptable that Jews should be liberals or should criticize Likud Party policies.

Critics such as Alexander H. Joffe argue that Cole "has a conspiratorial bent...he tends to see the Mossad and the Likud under his bed.".

Philip Wiess, in the Nation, in reference to Cole's claims of an organized campaign to discredit him, writes that "if this isn't a network, neither are the professionals who exchange cards at New York parties." .

Cole sees support in the controversial Mearsheimer and Walt 2006 working paper The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

Cole has also stated that he does not feel most American Jews were in favor of the war in Iraq or support the interests of AIPAC, and states that, "no one should blame 'the Jews' for the Iraq War." When Douglas Feith resigned from the Bush Admininstration, Cole emphasized that his arguments against Feith and the "Likudniks" should not be twisted into attacks against Jews: "It is also important to underline that only a small minority of American Jews support the Likud Party or its policies, and that a majority of Jewish Americans opposed the Iraq war. In short, the problematic nature of Feith's tenure at the Department of Defense must not be made an excuse for any kind of bigotry."

Cole has taken a stand against anti-Semitic theories about the war in Iraq. Responding to actor Mel Gibson's comments that Jews "are responsible for all the wars in the world," Cole wrote, "'Jews' did not cause the Iraq War. George W. Bush caused the Iraq War. He had Gentile advisers who wanted him to go for it. He had a handful of Jewish advisers who wanted him to go for it. But he is the president. It was his decision. And the American Jewish community was distinctly lukewarm about the whole idea, and very divided."

On Israel

Cole is a vocal critic of some of Israel's policies claiming "Israel as a state is not perfect and cannot be above criticism in democratic societies, including practical criticism." Specifically, Cole was critical of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and in particular "Ariel Sharon's arrogant trampling on the basic human rights of Palestinians" and feels that the "U.S. government keeps silent about Israeli human rights abuses." With regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Cole believes the "main obstacle to a comprehensive peace has been Israel's refusal to give the Palestinians and the Syrians the same deal they gave Egypt." Cole has long advocated a comprehensive Middle East peace granting the Palestinians their own state on the West Bank and Gaza. He advocates peace treaties with full trade in accord with the Arab Peace Initiative.

In Salon, Cole wrote that

The actions of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seem intended to create a failed state in Gaza and the West Bank, thus rendering the Israeli claim that 'we have no one to talk to' a self-fulfilling prophecy and allowing Israel to continue with its unilateral, annexationist policies, free of the need to even pretend to negotiate. This shortsighted 'strategy,' which both the United States and, to a slightly lesser degree, the strangely docile Europeans have signed off on, is a recipe for continued hatred, extremism, bloodshed, injustice and festering grievances. Unless Israel and its patron summon the wisdom to take the long view and hammer out an agreement that will give the Palestinians a viable state, rather than simply trying to smash them into submission, the world's most dangerous conflict will continue to rage, with dangerous consequences for all."

Cole has stated that he views the state of Israel as "a project of Jewish nationalism that is as legitimate as any other national project." Critics, however, have argued out that Cole's position vis-a-vis Israel's existence is more ambiguous than this statement would suggest. Efraim Karsh criticizes Cole on this point: "While Cole pays the customary lip service on his blog to Israel's right to exist within its pre-1967 borders (and says it would be worth American lives to defend Tel Aviv), he also makes clear that he thinks the Middle East would have been better off without the Jewish state. Discounting altogether the millenarian Jewish attachment to Palestine, so as to misrepresent Israel's creation as an ordinary colonialist project, he claims in one post that it would have been preferable for the British to have simply accepted Jewish refugees "rather than saddling a small, poor peasant country with 500,000 immigrants hungry to make the place their own." .

Cole has also stated that "Israel is a close ally and friend of the United States, and we should defend it from its enemies" . Cole's critics, however, point to other of statements of his in which he suggests the Pentagon has become a sort of proxy for Israeli policy:

These pro-Likud intellectuals concluded that 9/11 would give them carte blanche to use the Pentagon as Israel's Gurkha regiment, fighting elective wars on behalf of Tel Aviv (not wars that really needed to be fought, but wars that the Likud coalition thought it would be nice to see fought so as to increase Israel's ability to annex land and act aggressively, especially if someone else's boys did the dying)."

In regard to this particular statement by Cole, Alexander Joffe has said that "Suggestions that American Jewish officials desired 'someone else's boys' to fight is anti-Semitic and a common refrain in Cole's commentary."

Cole asserts that Likud party supporters who protested the withdrawal from Gaza, meet his definition of fascist in the following ways; 1) radical nationalism, 2) militarism and aggressiveness, 3) racism, 4) favoring the wealthy, punishing the poor, (He maintains "in all the territory dominated by Israel, the poorest subjects are the Palestinians, who have been made poor by Israeli policies.") and finally, 5) dictatorship. Cole maintains that "...they have long favored Israeli military rule, which is to say, dictatorship, over the Palestinian population." He also claims to be the target of a smear campaign by Likud's American proxies due to his criticisms of their militarism and authoritarianism.

Martin Kramer, a professor of Middle East History at Tel Aviv University and former head of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, accuses Cole of applying a double to the term "fascist". For example he quotes Cole’s opinion that:

The lazy conflation of Muslim fundamentalist movements with fascism cannot account for their increasing willingness to participate in elections and serve in parliamentary government. Hezbollah, for example, ran in the 2005 elections and had 12 members elected to parliament. Altogether, the Shiite parties of Hezbollah and Amal, who have a parliamentary alliance, have 29 members in the Lebanese parliament of 128 seats. Hezbollah and Amal both joined the national unity government, receiving cabinet posts. This is not the behavior of a fascist movement tout court.

Kramer asserts Cole's definition is applied inconsistently, and is essentially polemical: "Not only is Cole unable to define fascism in a way recognizable to any historian of Europe (where it first arose), he doesn't even apply his own definition consistently in the Middle East."

On Anti-Semitism

Professor Juan Cole has strongly condemned Anti-Semitism. He has circulated a petition against a boycott of Israeli academics. However, he views the New anti-Semitism movement as susceptible to abuse as a cover to condemn critics of Israeli occupation and settlement of the Gaza strip and the West Bank which is contrary to international law and U.N. resolutions. Cole writes:

When a movement sprang up to boycott Israeli academics in Europe, I wrote against it in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

In the Middle East Studies establishment in the United States, I have stood with Israeli colleagues and against any attempt to marginalize them or boycott them.

But of course, for the pro-Likud forces, all that means nothing. Being fanatics and often even cultists, they will accept nothing less than a toeing of the party line. And they have perverted the word "antisemitic" to simply mean "won't go along with Gush Emunim's plans." I think there is some danger of the word "antisemitic" as a result becoming useless and being discarded altogether. Why not just speak of racism or bigotry? We don't have a special word for anti-Black racism, and the African-Americans suffered their own Holocaust in the centuries of the slave trade. If someone accused me of being a racist because I objected to Israeli colonization of the West Bank, the full absurdity of the accusation would be obvious. "Antisemitism" has become so wrought up with Likud propaganda that it now can be employed in dishonest ways, as a cover for aggression and expropriation.

Professor Cole has criticized Harvard former President Lawrence Summers for having equated favoring university divestment from Israeli stocks with anti-Semitism. Cole argued that divestment was a just strategy because Israeli treatment of the Palestinans was in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and went on to say that

In the 1980s, many campuses saw a successful campaign for divestment against South Africa, a racist regime with which U.S. and Israel governments and industry at times collaborated. Only fringe voices would have suggested that the campaign was animated by prejudice against white people or by anti-Semitism. Summers's statements are most urgently dangerous because they cheapen the phrase "anti-Semitism," and thereby weaken its force and its power in the struggle for civil liberties and human rights for everyone.

Controversies

Expertise and professionalism

Efraim Karsh has challenged Cole's expertise on subjects he addresses in his blog: "Having done hardly any independent research on the twentieth-century Middle East, Cole's analysis of this era is essentially derivative, echoing the conventional wisdom among Arabists and Orientalists regarding Islamic and Arab history, the creation of the modern Middle East in the wake of World War I, and its relations with the outside world." . Other critics, including Washington Times columnist Joel Mowbray have described Cole as having "a résumé thin on recent scholarship and a long track record of highly inflammatory and often inaccurate statements", and stating "Mr. Cole has written considerably little in academic publications since launching his blog in early 2002".

Cole has responded to the charges raised by Karsh Cole by noting his "extensive" publications on the twentieth century Middle East, including articles "in refereed academic venues on the Taliban, on September 11, the Ayatollahs of Iraq and democracy, on the historiography of the Muslim Brotherhood, on the Salafi leader Rashid Rida and many other twentieth century and twenty-first century subjects." Cole also reminded readers that he had "published a raft of op-eds on contemporary affairs" in newspapers and magazines.

Critics have characterized Cole's extra-academic work as promoting, "polemic over scholarship"

Critic Martin Kramer has alleged in his blog that Cole changes blog entries without alerting readers. According to Kramer, "Blogger etiquette demands that substantive errors be fixed by adding or posting an explicit correction." Kramer's charge was cited by Alexander Joffe in the Middle East Quarterly., published by the Middle East Forum. Cole told Salon.com that the Quarterly "publishes scurrilous attacks on people. There's no scholarship. It's a put-up job."

Supporters praise Cole's expertise. Zachary Lockman, a Middle Eastern studies professor at New York University's, president-elect of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, says "It's fair to say he is probably among the leading historians of the modern Middle East in this country." Joshua Landis, an assistant professor of Middle Eastern Studies at University of Oklahoma, says that Cole is "top notch." Landis continues:

He was the wunderkind of Middle East Studies in the 1980s and 1990s. He can be strident on his blog, which is one reason it is the premier Middle East blog.... Juan Cole has done something that no other Middle East academic has done since Bernard Lewis, who is 90 years old: He has become a household word. He has educated a nation. For the last thirty years every academic search for a professor of Middle East history at an Ivy League university has elicited the same complaint: 'There are no longer any Bernard Lewises. Where do you find someone really big with expertise on many subjects who is at home in both the ivory tower and inside the Beltway?' Today, Juan Cole is that academic."

Frances Rosenbluth, a Professor of Political Science at Yale University, has stated that within "the field of contemporary Middle Eastern studies", Cole "is very highly regarded as a scholar."

Faculty position at Yale University

In 2006 Cole was nominated to teach at Yale University and was approved by both Yale's sociology and history departments. However, the senior appointments committee overruled the departments, and Cole was not appointed.

According to "several Yale faculty members," the decision to overrule Cole's approval was "highly unusual." . However, Yale officials stated that the rejection was not unusual, and Deputy Provost Charles Long stated that "every year, least one and often more fail at one of these levels, and that happened in this case." The history department vote was 13 yes, 7 no, and 3 abstain . Professors interviewed by the Yale Daily News said "the faculty appeared sharply divided."

Yale Historian Paula Hyman commented that the deep divisions in the appointment committee were the primary reasons that Cole was rejected: "There was also concern, aside from the process, about the nature of his blog and what it would be like to have a very divisive colleague." Another Yale historian, John Merriman, said of Cole's rejection: "In this case, academic integrity clearly has been trumped by politics."

In an interview on Democracy Now!, Cole noted that he had never applied for the Yale job: "Some people at Yale asked if they could look at me for a senior appointment. I said, 'Look all you want.' So that's up to them. Senior professors are like baseball players. You’re being looked at by other teams all the time. If it doesn't result in an offer, then nobody takes it seriously." He described the so-called "scandal" surrounding his nomination as "a tempest in a teapot" that had been exaggerated by "neo-con journalists": "Who knows what their hiring process is like, what things they were looking for?"

Dispute over Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments on Israel

On October 26, 2005, Iranian President Ahmadinehad gave a speech at the "World without Zionism" conference in Tehran. In the speech, Ahmadinehad addressed the history of relations between the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds, Israel as the current focus of this relationship, the recognition of Israel by Islamic countries, and visions of the future of Zionism. In the speech, he twice referred to a statement by the Ayatollah Khomeini that, "Israel has declared armed struggle against Islamic countries and its destruction is a must for all governments and nations of Islam" and stated that, "Our dear Imam said that the occupying regime must be wiped off the map and this was a very wise statement. We cannot compromise over the issue of Palestine."

The phrase was translated by the New York Times as Israel, "must be wiped off the map". A similar translation was provided by the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera. Iran's official IRNA news agency and all official translations of Mr. Ahmadinejad's statement, including a description of it on his Web site (www.president.ir/eng/), refer to wiping Israel away . MEMRI translated the phrase as, 'This regime that is occupying Qods must be eliminated from the pages of history". Many interpreted the speech as the expression of an Iranian threat against the state of Israel.

Cole objected to the use of the idiom, "wiped off the map", commenting that "no such idiom exists in Persian". He translated the phrase literally to mean the occupation of Jerusalem ( "Qods"), "must from the page of time." He interpreted the object of the statement to be the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 War rather than the whole state of Israel. He interpreted Ahmadinejad's use of the phrase quoted not as a threat, but as a metaphor describing an inevitable and grand historical process culminating in the end of the Zionist state. Sohrab Mahdavi, described by New York Times reporter Ethan Bronner as "one of Iran's most prominent translators," and Siamak Namazi, managing director of a Tehran consulting firm, who is bilingual, both say "wipe off" or "wipe away" is more accurate than "vanish" because the Persian verb is active and transitive. Cole states that this is incorrect, however: "mahv shodan is in fact an intransitive verb construction. Shodan is to become. An mard khoshhal shodeh is 'that man became happy.' It is not a transitive verb. That is why mahv shodan is better translated 'vanish,' also an intransitive verb. The transitive is mahv kardan, to 'wipe out' or 'eliminate.'" Cole comments on the implications of the translation in the New York Times article: "The New York Times was told by supposed Persian language experts in Iran, and appears to believe, that mahv shodan is a transitive verb construct. It makes me a little worried about the state of grammar in Iran, and in the Persian speaking staff of the NYT, and also about its newsgathering prowess. If they cannot find out that shodan is intransitive, something well known in Persian grammar for thousands of years, you wonder what other assertions they are swallowing." Cole indicates that he informed the New York Times of his claim before they printed the story, and continued: "I guess we academic Persianists are not trusted to know an intransitive verb when we see one."

Prior to the publication of much of this analysis, Christopher Hitchens had attacked Cole's translation and interpretation as a whitewash of Iranian threats to destroy Israel, especially in light of Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Professor Cole has completely missed or omitted the first reference in last October's speech, skipped to the second one, and flatly misunderstood the third. (The fourth one, about "eliminating the occupying regime," I would say speaks for itself.) He evidently thinks that by "occupation," Khomeini and Ahmadinejad were referring to the Israeli seizure of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. But if this were true, it would not have been going on for "more than fifty years" now, would it? The 50th anniversary of 1967 falls in 2017, which is a while off. What could be clearer than that "occupation regime" is a direct reference to Israel itself? One might have thought that, if the map-wiping charge were to have been inaccurate or unfair, Ahmadinejad would have denied it. But he presumably knew what he had said and had meant to say. In any case, he has an apologist to do what he does not choose to do for himself. But this apologist, who affects such expertise in Persian, cannot decipher the plain meaning of a celebrated statement and is, furthermore, in need of a remedial course in English.

Cole countered,

Ahmadinejad...has condemned mass killing of any sort and was not threatening military action (he is in any case not in command of the Iranian military). He compares his hope for an end to any Zionist regime in geographical Palestine to Ayatollah Khomeini's prediction that the Soviet Union would one day vanish. It wasn't a hope to kill Soviet citizens, but a desire for regime change."

Cole told the New York Times, "I am entirely aware that Ahmadinejad is hostile to Israel. The question is whether his intentions and capabilities would lead to a military attack, and whether therefore pre-emptive warfare is prescribed. I am saying no, and the boring philology is part of the reason for the no."

Legal disputes

Cole threatened legal action against Daniel Pipes and historian Martin Kramer, after Campus Watch published a "dossier" on Cole. Cole asserted that the document (screenshot reproduced here) incorrectly portrayed him as a supporter of Islamic extremism, exposed him to acts of violence, and thus constituted "stalking."

Cole was threatened with legal action by Yigal Carmon for making what Carmon described as "patently false" claims about MEMRI, an organization led by Carmon. Cole called MEMRI, "a sophisticated anti-Arab propaganda machine...essentially on behalf of the Likud party of Israel..funded to the tune of $60 million a year by someone" MEMRI's actual funding, as reported to the IRS is less than $2 million a year. In a personal letter to Cole, Carmon objected to Cole's statements, saying that they went, "beyond what could be considered legitimate criticism, and...qualify as slander and libel" and objected to Cole's "trying to paint MEMRI in a conspiratorial manner by portraying us as a rich, sinister group". Cole posted Carmon's letter on his blog, along with a suggestion that Carmon was threatening to sue not because he found Cole's remarks libelous, but out of an attempt to silence him using a SLAPP suit. Martin Kramer viewed Carmon's legal threat as "frivolous", but also considered Cole's protest ironic in light of Cole's previous threat against himself and Pipes.

Cole and the Bahá'í Faith

Cole joined the Bahá'í Faith as an undergraduate in 1972, and the religion later became an important focus of his academic work. In the 1990s, he became a regular participant on "Talisman," an academic email list devoted to intellectual discussion of Bahá'í topics. On the list, Cole advocated some structural changes to some Bahá'í procedures — including allowing women to be elected to the Universal House of Justice and instituting term limits on some elected positions — all addressing perceived abuses of authority. Cole's ideas were felt by some to overlook scriptually-defined Bahá'í methods and channels for the voicing of grievances or disagreements to lead to the resolution of conflict while preserving the unity of the community. The Bahá'í administrative system, defined in Bahá'í scripture, is seen by the community as sacred and divinely revealed. After exchanges involving himself, various contributors to Talisman, and representatives of the Bahá'í administration, Cole resigned his official membership in the organization. He later announced that he had recovered his private faith, but remains unaffiliated with the central Bahá'í institutions. Since his resignation, Cole has continued to publish academic articles and book chapters on the Bahá'í religion. In addition, Cole has created H-Bahai, a Web site making available a wealth of difficult to obtain primary sources on the Bahá'í Faith.

External links

References

  2. Juan Cole, "Muhammad Was a Terrorist?" History News Network (7 October 2002).
  3. Thomas L. Friedman, "If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution," New York Times (8 July 2005) A23.
  4. Juan Cole, "Friedman Wrong about Muslims Again," Informed Comment (9 July 2005).
  5. Informed Comment, Blog Posting March 20, 2006
  6. Informed Comment, Blog Posting November 4, 2005
  7. Informed Comment, Blog Posting June 4, 2006
  12. Cole, Juan Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion Informed Comment, March 31, 2003
  13. Cole, Juan Cole on Iraq, 2002-2003 Informed Comment, June 12, 2005
  14. Yale's Next Tenured Radical? April 18, 2006
  15. ^ Cole, Juan Dual Loyalties Informed Comment, September 09, 2004
  16. Juan Cole, Media - and MESA - Darling by Jonathan Calt Harris, Front Page Magazine, December 7, 2004
  17. ^ Juan Cole and the Decline of Middle Eastern Studies Alexander H. Joffe, Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2006 13(1) Cite error: The named reference "DeclineOfMES" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  18. ^ Juan Cole's Bad blog, by Efraim Karsh in the The New Republic Cite error: The named reference "Karsh" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  19. Cole, Juan Misplaced Pages, Karsh and Cole Informed Comment, October 12 2006. Cole was responding specifically to the inclusion of a quote from Karsh on his Misplaced Pages article.
  20. Cole, Juan "Character Assassination", Informed Comment, December 8, 2004
  21. ^ "Burning Cole", The Nation, July 3, 2006 issue
  22. Cole, Juan. Breaking the silence, Salon.com, April 19. 2006.
  23. Cole, Juan Fixing the Intelligence Around the Facts Part DeuxInformed Comment, June 20, 2005
  24. ^ The Misuse of Anti-Semitism, Juan Cole, The History News Network, September 30 2006
  25. ^ Have Arabs or Muslims Always Hated Israel, Juan Cole, December 14 2004
  26. Review of Bernard Lewis' "What Went Wrong: Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response", Juan Cole, Global Dialogue, 27 January 2003
  27. Pentagon/Israel Spying Case Expands: Fomenting a War on Iran, by Juan Cole in Informed Comment
  28. Cole, Juan, 200,000 Israeli Fascists Demand Colonization of Gaza, Informed Comment Blog, July 26 2004
  29. Cole, Juan, Sharon's Critique of the Authoritarian Likud Party, Informed Comment Blog, November 22 2005
  30. Cole, Juan, Bush, Islamic Fascism and the Christians of Jounieh, Informed Comment Blog, August 08 2006, quoted by Martin Kramer in, Cole, fascism, and mind quality control, Sandbox blog, 20 September 2006
  31. Kramer, Martin Cole, fascism, and mind quality control, Sandbox blog, 20 September 2006
  32. Cole, Juan, A Golden Oldie: Character Assassination, Informed Comment Blog, 4/20/2006
  34. Cole Fire, John Fund, Wall Street Journal, Monday, April 24, 2006
  35. Cole is poor choice for Mideast position, Michael Rubin, Yale Daily News, Tuesday, April 18, 2006
  36. Yale's Next Tenured Radical?, Eliana Johnson and Mitch Webber, The New York Sun, April 18, 2006
  37. Making Cole-slaw of history, Martin Kramer, Sandbox blog, 10 July 2005
  38. Michelle Goldberg, "Mau-mauing the Middle East," Salon.com (30 September 2002). The Middle East Quarterly describes itself as follows: "Since its founding in 1994, the Middle East Quarterly has become America's most authoritative journal of Middle Eastern affairs. Policymakers, opinion-makers, academics, and journalists turn first to the Quarterly, for in-depth analysis of the rapidly-changing landscape of the world's most volatile region. The Quarterly publishes groundbreaking studies, exclusive interviews, insightful commentary, and hard-hitting reviews that tackle the entire range of contemporary concerns – from politics to economics to culture, across a region that stretches from Morocco to Afghanistan"
  39. ^ Burning Cole, Philip Weiss, The Nation, June 16 2006
  40. ^ Leibovitz, Liel (2006-06-02). "Middle East Wars Flare Up At Yale". The Jewish Week. Retrieved 2006-06-07.
  41. ^ Goldberg, Ross (2006-06-10). "Univ. denies Cole tenure". Yale Daily News. Retrieved 2006-06-12.
  42. Goodman, Amy (August 4 2006). Democracy Now! http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/04/1418253#transcript. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help)
  43. The Cole Report, Christopher Hitchens, Slate, Tuesday, May 2, 2006
  44. Text of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Speech, translation by Nazila Fathi, The New York Times Tehran bureau, October 30 2005
  47. ^ Just How Far Did They Go, Those Words Against Israel?, Ethan Bronner, The New York Times, June 11 2006 Cite error: The named reference "NYT611" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  48. Special Dispatch Series 1013 MEMRI, October 28, 2005
  49. http://www.juancole.com/2006/06/steele-on-ahmadinejad-of-arenas-of.html
  50. The Cole Report, Christopher Hitchens, Slate, Tuesday, May 2, 2006
  51. Hitchens the Hacker; And, Hitchens the Orientalist And, "We don't Want Your Stinking War! Juan Cole, Informed Comment blog, May 03, 2006
  52. Qui custodiet ipsos custodes? Campus Watch, Martin Kramer, Sandstorm blog, September 18, 2002
  53. Dossiers: COLE, Juan, Screenshot on ei: The Electronic Intifada
  54. ^ Juan Cole Jogs My MEMRI at "Martin Kramer's Sandstorm" blog, November 25, 2004
  55. Bin Laden's Audio: Threat to States? at Juan Cole's blog. November 02, 2004
  57. Intimidation by Israeli-Linked Organization Aimed at US Academic. November 23, 2004
  58. Johnson, K.Paul (Winter 1997). "Bahá'í Leaders Vexed by On-Line Critics". Gnosis Magazine. Retrieved 2006-06-11.
  59. Universal House of Justice (1996-07-02). "Dissidence and Criticism by Bahá'ís and Scholars". Bahá'í Library Online. Retrieved 2006-06-11.
  60. Universal House of Justice (1997-04-07). "Issues Related to the Study of the Bahá'í Faith". Bahá'í Library Online. Retrieved 2006-06-11.