Martin Kramer is an authority on the modern Middle East. He holds research fellowships in Jerusalem, Cambridge, and Washington, and is author of the weblog Sandbox and co-convener of Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH). Updates daily.
Follow Martin Kramer on Twitter.Ivory Towers on Sand
Martin Kramer's Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America appeared six weeks after 9/11, and gave rise to an intense controversy. Seven years after publication, the book has been made available as a free download. Click here.
Israel Lobby
Martin Kramer has written several critiques of the Israel Lobby thesis of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. In reverse chronological order:
• Israel, Iraq, and Cold Feet
• The American Interest
• Mearsheimer/Walt Retreat
• Israel, Oil, Realism
• Israel and Iraq War
• A Powerful Lobby
• Stephen Walt's World
Events
7 past eventsSee All
- Obama and the Two-State Solution
Woodrow Wilson International Center...
Monday, June 8 at 9:00am - 9th Annual Herzliya Conference
Inter-Disciplinary Center (IDC) Campus
Tuesday, February 3 at 9:45am - 6th Annual Jerusalem Conference
Regency Hotel
Tuesday, January 27 at 2:00pm - The US and Israeli Roles in th...
Institute for National Security Stu...
Thursday, December 18 at 2:10pm - What is Middle Eastern Studies...
Grand Salon
Friday, November 28 at 6:00pm - Iran, Hezballah, and Hamas: Te...
Hudson Institute
Wednesday, November 19 at 9:00am - Is Peace Possible?
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
Monday, November 10 at 6:30pm
Martin Kramer
Sob-to-the-judge strategy: "The Arab-Israeli conflict may shift from the battlefield to international organisations and courts. Israel may be forced to recognise fundamental Palestinian political aspirations, and even the right of return eventually, by order of the international community." Is that pathetic? Arab state...s have dropped out, Israel has whipped the "resistance" (three times since 2002), so the Pals will bank on... the Goldstones?Read More
Source: english.aljazeera.net
Expert says state's influence upon public opinion has not grown with its military power.
Martin Kramer
"An international epic production aimed at bridging cultures. The film will educate people about the true meaning of Islam." And Sheikh Qaradawi as adviser! Life imitates art! The late Richard Grenier wrote a hilarious novel, "The Marrakesh One-Two" (1983), about a gaffe-filled, intrigue-ridden attempt to make a biopic... on Muhammad ("The Second Greatest Story Ever Told"?) It will leave you in stitches.Read More
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
Barrie Osborne, part of the Oscar-winning team behind the Lord of the Rings films, says the new production 'will educate people about the true meaning of Islam'. In accordance with Islamic law, the prophet will not actually be depicted on screen.
Martin Kramer Douglas Davis: "I am left with my own very personal question: where exactly was Richard Richard [Goldstone], paragon of human rights, when my human rights were being comprehensively trashed in an interrogation room at the Security Police headquarters in Pretoria? This was not Rwanda, Yugoslavia or even Gaza. My interrogation room was less than a minute's walk from Judge Goldstone's Supreme Court."
Source: www.spectator.co.uk
Why has Richard Goldstone, a self-professed Zionist, accused Israel of war crimes in Gaza? Douglas Davis suspects opportunism.
Martin Kramer
When will Gideon Levy stop sucking up to Israel's critics? He's probably envious of Amira Hass, who recently got a prime suck-up award for journalistic distortion (http://3.ly/xpR). The piece at the link is just a rant, absent any journalistic insight. Expect more of this from Levy, as he angles for some international ...Euro-denominated award delivered to "courageous" Israelis who spew invective only against... Israel.Read More
Source: haaretz.com
"Israeli hearts can no longer be won with hope, promises of a better future or sweet talk, for this is no longer Israel's language. For something to change, Israel must understand that perpetuating the status quo will exact a painful price."
Martin Kramer
A year ago, I gave this address about the baggage Barack Obama would bring to his Middle East policy. May I quote myself? "The United States will try to talk the radicals out of being radical, and once again it will fail. And the United States will try to talk Israelis and Palestinians into a final peace for all times ...which neither of them wants as much as America wants it, and once again it will fail." Bingo.Read More
Source: sandbox.blog-city.com
Martin Kramer assesses the influences on Barack Obama's thinking about the Middle East.
Martin Kramer
Don't trust Rashid Khalidi with numbers. "Recent polls show that Mahmoud Abbas has the support of 12% of the Palestinians," he says. "When you see Abbas getting 12% in a poll, this [Goldstone] is partly the reason." 12% is what Abbas gets when Pals are asked which Pal—any Pal—they most trust. Actual approval rating: 39....4% are "very" or "somewhat satisfied" with Abbas' performance. Spin away, Rashid. Poll: http://3.ly/Z4kRead More
Source: www.cfr.org
"People were just outraged that an authority, purportedly representative of the Palestinians, should in effect be shilling for the Israelis and preventing investigation of alleged war crimes by Israel, as well as alleged war crimes by Hamas."
Martin Kramer "One businessman who attended Ehud Barak's 65th birthday party said the former prime minister's hedonism has swelled to the point where he is totally disconnected from the average Israeli. There is no chance Barak will return to the premiership, the source said. 'I felt like I was going to throw up at any minute. I felt like a visitor in Ceausescu's mansion.'"
Source: www.haaretz.com
"It is as if the man has gone insane," the associate told the newspaper. "He lives in another universe, disconnected from the people, dizzied by money, enchanted by money, by power."
Martin Kramer
Matt Yglesias spoke at the J Street conference. What did he find? "A number of people in the audience really were quite uncomfortable self-defining as 'pro-Israel' in any sense and others are uncomfortable with the basic Zionist concept of a Jewish national state. It had seemed to me that it was clear that that wasn't ...what J Street is there to advocate for. Apparently, though, it wasn't clear to everyone." I'm shocked.Read More
Source: yglesias.thinkprogress.org
I completely grasp the pull of radical cosmopolitan values, but I think people who think that the area west of the Jordan River would be a great place to try implementing them in the short-term are being a bit crazy.
Martin Kramer The president and provost of the U of Chicago: “The repeated disruption by audience members of the views presented by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, speaking at the invitation of the Harris School, is disturbing. Any stifling of debate runs counter to the primary values of the University of Chicago and to our long-standing position as an exemplar of academic freedom.” So they’re disturbed. Therefore... therefore what?
Source: www.chicagomaroon.com
President Zimmer and Provost Rosenbaum took a stand in an e-mail to all faculty, staff, and students.
Martin Kramer It's quite commonly said that the RAF used chemical weapons against Iraqi tribesmen during the 1920 rebellion. The claim belongs to the "who are we to lecture them?" relativists on the left. (Here is an example from Juan Cole: http://3.ly/tnR). But new research shows that the British never did use chemical weapons in mandatory Iraq. Saddam was the first to use them there—against his fellow Iraqis.
Source: www.journals.uchicago.edu
It has passed as fact, from tourist guidebooks to the floor of the U.S. Congress: British forces used chemical weapons on Iraqis just after World War I. According to historian R. M. Douglas, no such incident ever occurred.
Martin Kramer The latest Philistine tactic is to disrupt campus addresses by Israeli political figures. They did it to Ehud Olmert at the U of Chicago (http://3.ly/Eai), and they’ve done it to deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon at the London School of Economics (at link). Universities should raise the costs by (1) admitting only card-carrying students to these events and (2) disciplining the vandals. They’ll wither.
Source: electronicintifada.net
The minister began and ended his lecture amid boos and chants of "Free, Free, Palestine" while his speech was interrupted relentlessly throughout with audience members questioning Israel's atrocities.
Martin Kramer I arrived in Cambridge today for my (abbreviated) fall stay at Harvard, just in time to catch one of Orhan Pamuk’s Norton Lectures (http://3.ly/grS)—this one entitled “Museums and Novels,” evoking his newly-published “The Museum of Innocence.” I haven’t read much Pamuk, only “The White Castle,” a minor work. Now I shall read more.
Source: astore.amazon.com
“It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn’t know it.” So begins the new novel, his first since winning the Nobel Prize, from the universally acclaimed author of Snow and My Name Is Red.
Martin Kramer
Do you know what independent watchdog groups thrive upon? Whiners who charge them with McCarthyism. The link might as well be an ad for Israel Academia Monitor and IsraCampus. If you want to be a serious public intellectual, don’t claim immunity from criticism just because you happen to be an academic. There’s no prote...ctionism in the marketplace of ideas, and if you can’t give as well as you get, leave it to those who can.Read More
Source: www.haaretz.com
"The crude censorship they use to shut up academics runs counter to the most cherished beliefs about freedom of speech in Western democracies. They undermine Israel's status as a democracy."
Martin Kramer Orwell described Newspeak as "the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year.” So here is Amira Hass, Haaretz journo, shrinking English: “When borders are closed, when all exits to Gaza and out of Gaza are closed, this is violence. This is daily violence. When children do not have pens and pencils and paper to use in schools, this is violence.” My Facebook page must be violence too.
Source: www.democracynow.org
“There are no Americans who have a potential right to become automatically Saudi citizens or Chinese, or I don’t know what. Only Israel.”
Martin Kramer Goldstone Report: “The timing of the first Israeli attack, at 11:30 am on a week day, when children were returning from school and the streets of Gaza were crowded with people going about their daily business, appears to have been calculated to create the greatest disruption and widespread panic among the civilian population.” Well, perhaps the timing was optimal for the targets? It’s a (blood)-libelous speculation.
Source: www2.ohchr.org
Head of the UN Fact Finding Mission Justice Richard Goldstone presented the report of the Mission to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on 29 September 2009, urging the Council and the international community as a whole to put an end to impunity for violations of international law in Israel and the ...
