Assuming it is true that the world Palestinian population (however that is determined) is currently around 14.5 million, from a starting point far south of 2 million in 1948, the contrast to the world Jewish population is startling. It stood at over 16 million on the eve of WWII and to this date has yet to recover to that level. In a nutshell, that is the difference between a fake genocide and the real thing.
To you list of the made-up “Scholasticide” and “Cultural Genocide” must be added the fairly newly minted “Domicide” which is meant to capture property damage to houses. The only thing these concepts have in common is an attempt to downplay and divert from the horrific crime of genocide as defined in the international convention. The only groups who benefit from such malicious misuse of words are those who would commit genocide - the real one.
I just stumbled upon this substack and I had to take a huge burst of laughter. It’s a little bit weird and creepy that an ancient brown alumni like Goldsmith is still so obsessed with his alma mater and writing multiple craze pieces about a current student who was in a tragic incident constantly mentioning his “rejectionist culture”. Are you always this obsessed with young men ? Please get a hobby, do some exercise, talk to your wife assuming she hasn’t left you already because of how boring your obsessions are. Take care and touch some grass :)
Not that Mr. Goldsmith needs anyone to defend him, but I will anyway.
Some people are proud of their alma mater and remain so long after their graduation. They are entitled to express their reasonable concerns when it appears that the University that helped educate them succumbs to dangerous anti-intellectual groupthink.
The chanting in support of the openly and proudly genocidal Hamas terror group is the culmination of the fall of Middle Eastern studies from the high point of scholarly engagement to the depths of faculty lounge theorizing that seems to run interference for a particularly nasty Islamist supremacist ideology.
Your string of abuse is no substitute for a rational, evidence based argument refuting Prof. Pessin’s piece. Other than providing a forum for your particularly noxious logorrhea, it’s unclear why you bothered to respond. Your comment was not meant to persuade but to insult and bully. In other words, it is unserious.
Surely you can find more productive things to do with your time - and if you don’t understand the irony of this last statement, I suggest you find someone who can explain it to you.
lol. Like this whole substack obsessing over a small department at Brown constitutes being productive. These posts are just littered with racist tropes on Arabs and Palestinians even going as far to belittle a Palestinian student at Brown. Mr. Goldsmith finds things to provoke himself as to get a response and then write about it like you older people do on Facebook hence the disconnect with younger generations. Mr. Goldsmith sent a hateful e-mail first to the head of the graduate union and then posted her response as to get the little gratification in his life from the lot of you all. (Old white people who view any nuanced debate coming from an Arab intellectual as hate speech because it challenges your antiquated ways of viewing the world in stereotypes) The student and faculty body at Brown is aware of this substack and we laugh and your all’s compulsive obsession disorder) i suggest Mr. Goldsmith finds a clinician to explain that to him.
Also since everyone in this thread seems to be so fact-centric. Answer me this, what was the verdict of the most recent ICJ case on the Palestinian Territories ? What was the Knesset’s most recent vote on a 2 state solution ( compare that to the official stance of the United States, international community and Arab countries that maintain ties with Israel) Also, can you please point me one quote where CMES faculty praise the October 7th attacks. (There are full recordings of each Watson and cmes teach in on Gaza-Israel uploaded on the Watson website ) Pleqsw find me a snippet of the recording where a professor openly praises Hamas. I’m also noticing a trend in these substack post with a transfiction on the past whether it be your alls issue with the current courses offered at Brown, the current verdict of international bodies or changing American public opinion. My best advice to you all is to sit back and enjoy retirement :) Touch the grass and smell the roses before carbon emissions make it a thing of the past !
Whoever you are, but guessing that you may have some connection to Brown’s Center for Middle East Studies, I appreciate your post. It is the first time anyone perhaps connected to Brown’s CMES has ever responded arguably substantively to my posts. This is not the place, or the way, to respond to your easy to answer questions, but how about this. I have twice in the last several years provided CMES and the Watson Center and the names of academics and others who would welcome the opportunity to speak at Brown on the Israel/Palestinians issue. I have never received a response. In my post of June 21 (which comments on Brown’s GLO and its president Razek), I wrote as follows (again to save you the trouble of searching): “My suggestion of nearly a month ago that Eli Rosenbaum, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School, be invited to speak on campus this fall has yet to be responded to. As noted previously, Rosenbaum is a true expert on genocide and the laws of war having spent nearly 40 years representing the United States in the prosecution of war crimes and war criminals around the world. And, unlike a single person on the Brown faculty, he has real-life experience dealing with these concepts in a context - trials - where facts and law matter; by way of contrast, in the real world, op-ed pieces, journal articles and speeches by academics and others speculating about genocide and the laws of war matter not at all.” So how about it? Let’s work together to get Rosenbaum to speak at CMES this fall. And then we can work on putting together a CMES panel - morning, afternoon or full day - addressing all the issues you raise in your post, and more, with all points of view represented. What could be more intellectually honest than arranging for both of those events?
I doubt you all will respond to reason given that you all label almost all academics in Middle East studies department both Palestinians and Israelis as hate filled. You all aren’t even good with getting your facts right as the grad student union leader Goldsmith identified in his post is not even the current president.
I responded to Vijay Ragnara last night. I reposted a few minutes ago what I posted last night re his comment with one additional thought. To save you the trouble of searching, here’s what I posted a few minutes ago: “In a May 24, 2024 article in the Brown Daily Herald, written by Senior Staff Writer Ethan Schenker, Razek is quoted as “Sherena Razek, GS GLO’s current president”. Her LinkedIn page today reads, in pertinent part: “currently I am the President of of AFT/RIFT Local 6516, the Graduate Labor Organization at Brown University.” It also is worth noting that in Razek’s thoughtful response to my post and the Pessin article re “genocide”, she does not speak to, much less deny, that she is president of Brown’s GLO.”
You are indeed an ironist’s goldmine, starting with your handle. Your latest response neatly confirms the substance of this particular piece.
Facts are not hateful, they are the building blocks of an argument. But you have refuted nothing. Name calling and slurs are not argument. Even your attempt at snark fails. Jean-Paul Sartre no doubt had your type in mind in a famous essay dealing with people who do not argue a position in good faith.
But what is perhaps most troubling in your latest contribution is your poor grammar. You can do better if only you would put your mind to it.
Thank you Charles. A.A’s attempt at who knows what reflects precisely what I’ve been saying now for years about the intellectual abilities, that is the lack thereof, of so many at Brown. Q.E.D. for the second time today.
Assuming it is true that the world Palestinian population (however that is determined) is currently around 14.5 million, from a starting point far south of 2 million in 1948, the contrast to the world Jewish population is startling. It stood at over 16 million on the eve of WWII and to this date has yet to recover to that level. In a nutshell, that is the difference between a fake genocide and the real thing.
To you list of the made-up “Scholasticide” and “Cultural Genocide” must be added the fairly newly minted “Domicide” which is meant to capture property damage to houses. The only thing these concepts have in common is an attempt to downplay and divert from the horrific crime of genocide as defined in the international convention. The only groups who benefit from such malicious misuse of words are those who would commit genocide - the real one.
I just stumbled upon this substack and I had to take a huge burst of laughter. It’s a little bit weird and creepy that an ancient brown alumni like Goldsmith is still so obsessed with his alma mater and writing multiple craze pieces about a current student who was in a tragic incident constantly mentioning his “rejectionist culture”. Are you always this obsessed with young men ? Please get a hobby, do some exercise, talk to your wife assuming she hasn’t left you already because of how boring your obsessions are. Take care and touch some grass :)
Not that Mr. Goldsmith needs anyone to defend him, but I will anyway.
Some people are proud of their alma mater and remain so long after their graduation. They are entitled to express their reasonable concerns when it appears that the University that helped educate them succumbs to dangerous anti-intellectual groupthink.
The chanting in support of the openly and proudly genocidal Hamas terror group is the culmination of the fall of Middle Eastern studies from the high point of scholarly engagement to the depths of faculty lounge theorizing that seems to run interference for a particularly nasty Islamist supremacist ideology.
Your string of abuse is no substitute for a rational, evidence based argument refuting Prof. Pessin’s piece. Other than providing a forum for your particularly noxious logorrhea, it’s unclear why you bothered to respond. Your comment was not meant to persuade but to insult and bully. In other words, it is unserious.
Surely you can find more productive things to do with your time - and if you don’t understand the irony of this last statement, I suggest you find someone who can explain it to you.
lol. Like this whole substack obsessing over a small department at Brown constitutes being productive. These posts are just littered with racist tropes on Arabs and Palestinians even going as far to belittle a Palestinian student at Brown. Mr. Goldsmith finds things to provoke himself as to get a response and then write about it like you older people do on Facebook hence the disconnect with younger generations. Mr. Goldsmith sent a hateful e-mail first to the head of the graduate union and then posted her response as to get the little gratification in his life from the lot of you all. (Old white people who view any nuanced debate coming from an Arab intellectual as hate speech because it challenges your antiquated ways of viewing the world in stereotypes) The student and faculty body at Brown is aware of this substack and we laugh and your all’s compulsive obsession disorder) i suggest Mr. Goldsmith finds a clinician to explain that to him.
Also since everyone in this thread seems to be so fact-centric. Answer me this, what was the verdict of the most recent ICJ case on the Palestinian Territories ? What was the Knesset’s most recent vote on a 2 state solution ( compare that to the official stance of the United States, international community and Arab countries that maintain ties with Israel) Also, can you please point me one quote where CMES faculty praise the October 7th attacks. (There are full recordings of each Watson and cmes teach in on Gaza-Israel uploaded on the Watson website ) Pleqsw find me a snippet of the recording where a professor openly praises Hamas. I’m also noticing a trend in these substack post with a transfiction on the past whether it be your alls issue with the current courses offered at Brown, the current verdict of international bodies or changing American public opinion. My best advice to you all is to sit back and enjoy retirement :) Touch the grass and smell the roses before carbon emissions make it a thing of the past !
Whoever you are, but guessing that you may have some connection to Brown’s Center for Middle East Studies, I appreciate your post. It is the first time anyone perhaps connected to Brown’s CMES has ever responded arguably substantively to my posts. This is not the place, or the way, to respond to your easy to answer questions, but how about this. I have twice in the last several years provided CMES and the Watson Center and the names of academics and others who would welcome the opportunity to speak at Brown on the Israel/Palestinians issue. I have never received a response. In my post of June 21 (which comments on Brown’s GLO and its president Razek), I wrote as follows (again to save you the trouble of searching): “My suggestion of nearly a month ago that Eli Rosenbaum, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School, be invited to speak on campus this fall has yet to be responded to. As noted previously, Rosenbaum is a true expert on genocide and the laws of war having spent nearly 40 years representing the United States in the prosecution of war crimes and war criminals around the world. And, unlike a single person on the Brown faculty, he has real-life experience dealing with these concepts in a context - trials - where facts and law matter; by way of contrast, in the real world, op-ed pieces, journal articles and speeches by academics and others speculating about genocide and the laws of war matter not at all.” So how about it? Let’s work together to get Rosenbaum to speak at CMES this fall. And then we can work on putting together a CMES panel - morning, afternoon or full day - addressing all the issues you raise in your post, and more, with all points of view represented. What could be more intellectually honest than arranging for both of those events?
I doubt you all will respond to reason given that you all label almost all academics in Middle East studies department both Palestinians and Israelis as hate filled. You all aren’t even good with getting your facts right as the grad student union leader Goldsmith identified in his post is not even the current president.
I responded to Vijay Ragnara last night. I reposted a few minutes ago what I posted last night re his comment with one additional thought. To save you the trouble of searching, here’s what I posted a few minutes ago: “In a May 24, 2024 article in the Brown Daily Herald, written by Senior Staff Writer Ethan Schenker, Razek is quoted as “Sherena Razek, GS GLO’s current president”. Her LinkedIn page today reads, in pertinent part: “currently I am the President of of AFT/RIFT Local 6516, the Graduate Labor Organization at Brown University.” It also is worth noting that in Razek’s thoughtful response to my post and the Pessin article re “genocide”, she does not speak to, much less deny, that she is president of Brown’s GLO.”
You are indeed an ironist’s goldmine, starting with your handle. Your latest response neatly confirms the substance of this particular piece.
Facts are not hateful, they are the building blocks of an argument. But you have refuted nothing. Name calling and slurs are not argument. Even your attempt at snark fails. Jean-Paul Sartre no doubt had your type in mind in a famous essay dealing with people who do not argue a position in good faith.
But what is perhaps most troubling in your latest contribution is your poor grammar. You can do better if only you would put your mind to it.
Thank you Charles. A.A’s attempt at who knows what reflects precisely what I’ve been saying now for years about the intellectual abilities, that is the lack thereof, of so many at Brown. Q.E.D. for the second time today.