freepalestine
12th November 2012, 09:34
A Zionist Tribute to Fred Halliday (I): A Critique of Susie Linfield’s Review in The Nation
By As'ad AbuKhalil - Fri, 2012-11-09 12:24- Angry Corner
The Nation magazine has long ceased to be a leftist magazine. It has served for years now as a mere propaganda sheet for the Democratic Party. On foreign policy, it has pretty much adhered to the Zionism of Amos Oz: the Zionism that accepts and approves of Israeli massacres of women and children, but then feigns concern when the number of victims reaches too high a figure, for their taste. The magazine has surrendered its coverage of Palestine, either to no one at all, or to people who parrot Zionist principles. The recent review article by Susie Linfield (http://www.thenation.com/article/170917/journeys-fred-halliday#) is an example of Zionist anti-Palestinian advocacy, only more shameful and audacious than usual.
Linfield’s review is a dishonest tribute to Fred Halliday. I have avoided writing extensive criticisms of Fred Halliday despite being in disagreement with his writings for years. I had, indeed, been influenced at some point, early in my college years, by Halliday. His book, Arabia Without Sultans, was a model of scholarship for a young radical activist. I was happy to realize that scholarship could be used to promote revolution and radical movements. The book might not have been, thematically, held together, but it told a story that needed to be told. It exposed the real nature of the allies, and the clients, of Western governments.
Halliday traveled to the Arabian Peninsula and reported on the, then, promising Omani revolution (the Omani revolution was only crushed with a combination of Jordanian, Iranian, British and other foreign forces). Halliday represented the best of Orientalist training: he was fluent in Farsi and Arabic (he was able to do interviews in Arabic on al-Jazeera – which is rare among Western scholars of the Middle East, especially American scholars of the region), and studied the history, culture, and politics of the region. His writings never wavered from the revolutionary sentiments of the time, and I appreciated that.
But Halliday changed by the late 1980s. He – like many leftists who abandoned leftism after the collapse of the USSR – became an unabashed advocate of........................
http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/angry-corner/zionist-tribute-fred-halliday-i-critique-susie-linfield%E2%80%99s-review-nation
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A Zionist Tribute to Fred Halliday (II): A Critique of Susie Linfield’s Review in The Nation
By As'ad AbuKhalil - Wed, 2012-11-14 15:42- Angry Corner
...................The fact-checkers of The Nation were presumably too biased in favor of Linfield to uncover her falsification of the interview that Halliday conducted with Ghassan Kanafani in 1971. Linfield was not satisfied with the promotion of the late Halliday; she seems intent on distorting his early writings as well. Perhaps she should be reminded of the following words, which Halliday wrote after his interview with Kanafani:
"The assertion that the Palestinian problem is the result of a clash between two equally legitimate nationalisms, Israeli and Palestinian, avoids the central structural element that the Israeli nation has constituted itself by oppressing the Palestinians. Hence the two nationalisms cannot be placed on a par. Any just rectification of this oppression will involve the ending of Zionism, and of the Zionist state, the form of colonialism concretized in Israel. Given such a rectification, the Israeli nation will be entitled to the rights of any national group, including secession and an independent state." (Arabia Without Sultans (2002 edition, p.30, footnote 3)).
http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/angry-corner/zionist-tribute-fred-halliday-ii-critique-susie-linfield%E2%80%99s-review-nation
By As'ad AbuKhalil - Fri, 2012-11-09 12:24- Angry Corner
The Nation magazine has long ceased to be a leftist magazine. It has served for years now as a mere propaganda sheet for the Democratic Party. On foreign policy, it has pretty much adhered to the Zionism of Amos Oz: the Zionism that accepts and approves of Israeli massacres of women and children, but then feigns concern when the number of victims reaches too high a figure, for their taste. The magazine has surrendered its coverage of Palestine, either to no one at all, or to people who parrot Zionist principles. The recent review article by Susie Linfield (http://www.thenation.com/article/170917/journeys-fred-halliday#) is an example of Zionist anti-Palestinian advocacy, only more shameful and audacious than usual.
Linfield’s review is a dishonest tribute to Fred Halliday. I have avoided writing extensive criticisms of Fred Halliday despite being in disagreement with his writings for years. I had, indeed, been influenced at some point, early in my college years, by Halliday. His book, Arabia Without Sultans, was a model of scholarship for a young radical activist. I was happy to realize that scholarship could be used to promote revolution and radical movements. The book might not have been, thematically, held together, but it told a story that needed to be told. It exposed the real nature of the allies, and the clients, of Western governments.
Halliday traveled to the Arabian Peninsula and reported on the, then, promising Omani revolution (the Omani revolution was only crushed with a combination of Jordanian, Iranian, British and other foreign forces). Halliday represented the best of Orientalist training: he was fluent in Farsi and Arabic (he was able to do interviews in Arabic on al-Jazeera – which is rare among Western scholars of the Middle East, especially American scholars of the region), and studied the history, culture, and politics of the region. His writings never wavered from the revolutionary sentiments of the time, and I appreciated that.
But Halliday changed by the late 1980s. He – like many leftists who abandoned leftism after the collapse of the USSR – became an unabashed advocate of........................
http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/angry-corner/zionist-tribute-fred-halliday-i-critique-susie-linfield%E2%80%99s-review-nation
------------------------------------------
A Zionist Tribute to Fred Halliday (II): A Critique of Susie Linfield’s Review in The Nation
By As'ad AbuKhalil - Wed, 2012-11-14 15:42- Angry Corner
...................The fact-checkers of The Nation were presumably too biased in favor of Linfield to uncover her falsification of the interview that Halliday conducted with Ghassan Kanafani in 1971. Linfield was not satisfied with the promotion of the late Halliday; she seems intent on distorting his early writings as well. Perhaps she should be reminded of the following words, which Halliday wrote after his interview with Kanafani:
"The assertion that the Palestinian problem is the result of a clash between two equally legitimate nationalisms, Israeli and Palestinian, avoids the central structural element that the Israeli nation has constituted itself by oppressing the Palestinians. Hence the two nationalisms cannot be placed on a par. Any just rectification of this oppression will involve the ending of Zionism, and of the Zionist state, the form of colonialism concretized in Israel. Given such a rectification, the Israeli nation will be entitled to the rights of any national group, including secession and an independent state." (Arabia Without Sultans (2002 edition, p.30, footnote 3)).
http://english.al-akhbar.com/blogs/angry-corner/zionist-tribute-fred-halliday-ii-critique-susie-linfield%E2%80%99s-review-nation