Ben Buckman.net

Every Tuesday for the past three months, my Daily Free Press colleague Sufia Khalid has written a weekly critique of American culture, politics and media. It is the editorial policy of that newspaper not to allow responses from fellow columnists on their pages. But Ms. Khalid’s piece last Tuesday crossed every reasonable line of tact and editorial quality, and so, believing that a response to her and the problem she represents is both necessary and proper, along with refusal from the Free Press editors to publish this response, I resign from the Daily Free Press and am writing this outside its pages.

Ms. Khalid matters because, as an Arab-American who lived for many years in Saudi Arabia before coming to BU, she represents a very important segment of Middle Eastern society: upper-middle class, educated, relatively affluent Muslim Arabs. It is this demographic that speaks English, can afford American universities and is familiar with Western culture, and is therefore the group most likely to be the future liaisons between the United States and the Arab World. If cultural accord is ever to be achieved between East and West, people like Ms. Khalid will be at the forefront of its Arab side. In addition, she chose to be the Arab-Muslim voice of the BU student body newspaper, and so it is not I making her the poster girl for her demographic, but she.

In her eleven columns, Ms. Khalid has never once condemned terrorism. She called suicide bombings “disgusting” (like a dirty bathroom), but only as a qualifier for Palestinian suffering. She mocked the terrorist threat – “that Bin Laden dude,” January 31st; “9/11, terrorists, they're coming, aah!,” February 21st. She condemned the “crumbling” American society in every single column; she has condemned American women, college students, Bostonians, the media and of course the government. Yet she has never once condemned a single Arab or Muslim policy, leader or action; never acknowledged the threat of radical Islamic terrorism; never offered a single constructive idea for dealing with it.

And therein lies the problem in the Muslim world that Ms. Khalid represents: a self-righteous obsession with the West’s alleged decadence, ignorance and oppression of Muslims which justifies their refusal to self-criticize and condemn violence by their own people. By excusing terrorism and mocking every Western reaction to it, Ms. Khalid pardons violence with a deafening silence. The pen will only triumph over the sword in the Middle East when people like her stand up and say that there is evil in the world and it is not all caused by the United States government. So far they have failed the challenge repeatedly.

In her last column, she wrote, regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “Suicide bombings are disgusting, and Israelis do suffer. But Palestinians suffer much more frequently, and are ignored by the mainstream media.” This was one day after nine civilians were killed and over sixty wounded during holiday shopping in Tel Aviv by a suicide bomber, an attack condoned by the terrorist organization elected to run the Palestinian government.

Never mind that accurately counting and categorizing Palestinian deaths is impossible when the regime is accountable to no one (see www.seconddraft.org for an example of this). That is beside the point. It is also irrelevant to this discussion which side is “right” in the conflict. The real issue is Ms. Khalid’s mischaracterization of historical events – a reflection not only of her own ignorance but also of a broadly popular attitude. She writes, “Hamas officials have suggested that Palestine will recognize the state of Israel if Israeli leaders agree to respect the U.N. borders agreed upon in 1967. This means the burden now rests on Israel to recognize the state of Palestine – but I imagine Israel will continue to treat the idea of a Palestinian state as ridiculous.” Every single clause of that statement is factually incorrect. First, Hamas officials continue to demand the “right of return,” a de facto demographic destruction of Israel, so “recognizing” Israel on those terms is a farce. Second, there were no borders agreed upon by the U.N. in 1967; rather, the carefully worded U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 left the borders open to future negotiation. Third, the alleged burden on Israel to “recognize the state of Palestine” – there is not and never has been such a state. Except for a farcical declaration in 1988 – from Algiers, Tunisia – of a Palestinian state encompassing all of Israeli territory, the Palestinians have never declared a state, and for a very shrewd strategic reason: doing so implies an end to the conflict and a loss of their unrealistic dream. There is therefore no state for Israel to recognize; despite this, the last three Israeli prime ministers have stated publicly that they believe the Palestinians should have a state.

Where were the Ms. Khalid’s of the world when Ehud Barak offered Yasser Arafat a state at Camp David, only to have Arafat refuse and start an Intifada instead? Where was credit given when Ariel Sharon unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip to begin the process of establishing a Palestinian state? Why are they not condemning the Palestinian government now for squandering that opportunity and continuing instead to shoot rockets at towns and send suicide bombers into marketplaces?

The problem with the Palestinian cause and its benefactors such as Ms. Khalid is that a peaceful co-existence with Israel was never on the agenda. Arafat founded the PLO terrorist group in 1964 – three years before the occupation began – which over the next four decades hijacked airplanes, popularized suicide bombings, attempted to overthrow the Jordanian monarchy, fomented civil war in Lebanon and killed hundreds of Israeli civilians. Violence has always been the dominant modus operandi.There has never been a Palestinian Ghandi with a positive and realistic vision for his people. The Palestinians suffer today because the leaders they have chosen through elections or tacit consent have never constructively pursued their interests, and the Arab voices that speak for them (Ms. Khalid’s being that voice in this university’s paper) have never condemned their own self-imposed destruction.

Jews criticize the Israeli government all the time, because Israel is a democracy with a free press that covers a broad spectrum of ideas. Yet similar self-reflection on the part of Arab voices seems non-existent or mute. Constructive thought does not consist of praising or excusing everything one side does and condemning everything the other side does, and ranting from a self-righteous bubble adds nothing to the debate. Critics like Ms. Khalid offer no constructive solutions to real threats such as the Iranian nuclear program, nor do they explain why they are in fact not threats. They merely mock the media for discussing it and dismiss it as part of the oppressive, delusional American system.

It is a shame that Sufia Khalid matters to this issue at all, a shame that her voice is not drowned out by sharper, wiser voices. But the cultural discord between East and West is not going away tomorrow or next Tuesday, and if the self-chosen representatives of moderate Islam continue to excuse terrorism, ignorantly mock Americans and refuse to offer any constructive alternatives, we will continue to have a very serious problem.