-Caveat Lector- From http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/1999/444/op2.htm > Defamation, Zionist-style > > By Edward Said > > Given the approach of the final status negotiations between Israel and the > Palestinians, it seems worthwhile to record here the lengths to which right-wing > Zionists will go to further their claims on all of Palestine against those of > the country's native Palestinian inhabitants who were dispossessed as an entire > nation in 1948. To this very end, an article has recently appeared in > Commentary, a small, extremely conservative Jewish monthly, which attacks my > life and story as a Palestinian by pretending to show that I am neither > Palestinian, nor ever lived in Palestine, nor that my family was evicted from > Palestine in 1948. It should be remarked that this is the third such attack on > me by Commentary in 20 years, the first being an enormously long critique in > 1981 of my book The Question of Palestine, the second a reckless article in l988 > or l989 entitled "The Professor of Terror," the third being this one, written by > someone called Justus Weiner, an Israeli who claims to work for an obscure > Israeli right-wing research centre in Jerusalem. Weiner's argument is buttressed > by his pretence that he spent three years on his study of my life, spoke to 80 > or so witnesses, and found many inconsistencies in what he says is "my story", > which he fabricates more or less at will. It seems astonishing that he obtained > funding for this project, although he tactfully doesn't say why, how much, for > and from whom. Thanks to the extremely pro-Zionist British Daily Telegraph, his > article has aroused the interest of the international press, which has been > calling me for comment and reaction. It is part of the Palestinian fate always > to be required to prove one's existence and history! > > The only problem with the current hullabaloo, at the outset, is that during his > three years of assiduous research Weiner never once contacted or in any way > spoke to me, an extraordinary omission by a man who pretends that he is both a > scholar and a journalist but actually uses the methods of neither one nor the > other. Another fact about his method is that he did not properly consult my > memoir, Out of Place, completed in September 1998, and to appear next month. > (Extracts from it will appear shortly in the New York Review of Books, The > Observer, Harper's and Granta.) There, I scrupulously record the facts of my > early life spent between Jerusalem, Cairo and Dhour Al-Shweir (Lebanon), making > clear that, being the member of a privileged class, I was spared the worst > ravages of the Nakba. I have never claimed to have been made a refugee, but > rather that my extended family, all of it -- uncles, cousins, aunts, > grandparents -- in fact was. By the spring of 1948, not a single relative of > mine was left in Palestine, ethnically cleansed by Zionist forces. Commentary's > Weiner does not mention that, allowing himself the preposterous claim that my > memoir (begun in 1994 and completed in 1998) was written to refute him in 1999. > > To make matters worse, Weiner's strenuous display of scholarly rigour is > undercut by many mistakes of fact. He calls Boulos Said my father's brother, > whereas he was my father's cousin. Boulos's wife, Nabiha, was my father's > sister. Weiner does not know that. He does not realise that the kuchan or tabo > is rarely complete, and that the family house was in fact a family house in the > Arab sense, which meant that our families were one in ownership. Together Boulos > and Wadie Said, cousins, partners, and close friends, owned the Palestine > Education Company, with branches in Jerusalem and Haifa. All, plus the house, > were lost to Israel in 1948. Weiner says that we didn't try for reparations, > thereby deliberately obfuscating two facts: that my father did in fact try to > sue the Israeli government for reparations and, second, that by l950 the law of > absentee property passed by Israel had converted all Palestinian property into > Israeli property, illegally of course. No wonder our efforts were unrewarded. He > says that I didn't attend St George's School. This is an outright lie. He does > not admit that the school's records end in l946 and I was there in 1947, or that > my father and cousins had attended the school starting in 1906. Had he been a > decent researcher, he might have sought out one of my classmates, Haig Boyagian > (who lives in the US now and quite coincidentally called me a week ago) and my > math teacher, Michel Marmoura, a retired professor at the University of Toronto, > for verification. Weiner says that my mother was Lebanese, whereas she was only > half Lebanese; her father was Palestinian. She had a Palestinian passport, and > in 1948 did in point of fact become a refugee. The Talbiyeh house was built for > my family in 1932 by Sab' Samaha. Weiner gets that wrong too. The Egyptian > branches of the family business were not nationalised, but sold to the Nasser > government; nor were they burned by revolutionary mobs but rather by the Muslim > Brothers. And so on and on. > > All this from someone who claims that I have falsified the past to pretend that > I am a victim. What he cannot understand, and has not been able to understand > from any of my writings, is the fact that I have been moved to defend the > refugees' plight precisely because I did not suffer and therefore feel obligated > to relieve the sufferings of my people, less fortunate than myself. Weiner is a > propagandist who, like many others before him, has tried to depict the > dispossession of Palestinians as ideological fiction: this has been a constant > theme of Zionist "information" since the 1930s. Actual sources are never given, > but innuendoes are used. In the body of his article, he does not name the people > he allegedly talked to "on four continents" or the documents he consulted, what > exactly they said, or when, and in answer to what question. My cousin Robert, > for example, told me that when at first he refused to talk to Weiner, Weiner > threatened him. And because he is relatively unknown, Weiner tries to make a > name for himself by attacking a better known person's reputation. I have had > many such attacks levelled against me in the past. Weiner's attempt now may be > useful as a way of discrediting all Palestinian claims to return and > compensation, which will be a central issue in the terminal phase of the peace > process. Weiner's polemic also covers up the racism of Israel's Law of Return, > which allows any Jew anywhere to emigrate to Israel, whereas no Palestinian, > even someone born there, has no such right. If someone like Edward Said is a > liar, runs the argument, how can we believe all those peasants who say they were > driven off their land? The Likud argument (Weiner's) is that the land all > belongs to the people of Israel, since it was given to them by God. All the > other claimants are therefore prevaricators and pretenders. > > Luckily, several survivors of 1948 from my family are still alive and well. My > oldest cousin, the last person to leave our Talbiyeh house, is 80 years old now > and lives in Toronto. Why was he not contacted? As my widowed aunt's oldest son, > he negotiated with Martin Buber and took him to court when he refused to leave > the house after his lease was up and our family returned from a year in Cairo. > What about our neighbours, other relatives, friends, members of the church > community? They were never contacted. Several children of the pastor who > baptised me are still alive also: they could have been contacted. No: what > Commentary wants is not the truth but the Big Zionist Lie. The irony is that a > few weeks ago American newspapers carried a front page story on the revision of > Israeli history schoolbooks which, thanks to the efforts of the New Israeli > Historians and of course the Palestinians themselves, are beginning to > acknowledge the events of 1948 as they really occurred, with the ethnic > cleansing, destruction of villages, massacres, etc, which have for so long been > denied. It is not entirely surprising, however, that an American Israeli and an > American Zionist journal turn out to be more Israeli than Israelis themselves, > less honest, less willing to deal with facts, more inclined to propaganda and > smear tactics, less likely ever to understand history or how their skewed > perspective produces only calumny and falsehood. > > I have always advocated the acknowledgement by each other of the Palestinian and > Jewish peoples' past sufferings. Only in this way can they coexist peacefully in > the future. Weiner is more interested in using the past -- either an individual > or collective past -- to prevent understanding and reconciliation. It is a pity > that so much time and venom as he has expended couldn't have been used for > positive purposes. A<>E<>R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." --Buddha + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller, German Writer (1759-1805) + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Universal Declaration of Human Rights + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." --- Ernest Hemingway + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
