The New York Times has a click-baitish headline about Hamas on the front page, except that unlike most click-bait headlines, this one happens both to be click-bait and true.
“Pro-Palestinian Group at Columbia Now Backs ‘Armed Resistance’ by Hamas”
It’s true. They do. Of course, at this point, a headline like that is a bit like one ca. 1943 that said:
“Pro-Jewish Group at Columbia Now Backs ‘Armed Resistance’ by Stalin’s Red Army”
Or, how about, ca. 1944:
“Pro-Chinese Group at Columbia Now Backs ‘Armed Resistance’ against Imperial Japanese by Communist Army Led by Mao Zedong”
Scary! Or even: “Jewish newspaper debates role of Nazi-influenced brigade in Russian invasion of Ukraine“?
It’s too late for pearl-clutching, folks. Way too late. But leave it to a bunch of overpaid, monumentally ignorant college administrators to try.
Alarmed that some Columbia students now support Hamas, of all things, the University’s spokesman had this to say in finger-wagging remonstrance:
“Statements advocating for violence or harm are antithetical to the core principles upon which this institution was founded,” said Ben Chang, a spokesman for Columbia.
Here’s a challenge for Ben Chang, and for all of his horses and men: try to enforce this principle with all the stringency that you can muster, and all the consistency it demands. But enforce it just as stated: No one–and I mean no one–is to advocate any form of violence or any form of harm to anyone, ever, within hailing distance of the sacred precincts of Columbia University. Got that?
In other words:
- No one is to advocate the eating of meat or dairy products, which harm animals.
- No one is to advocate the pro-choice position on abortion, which harms embryos and fetuses.
- Really, no one is to discuss bioethics at all. It can’t be discussed without advocating harm to someone.
- Self-defense is not to be discussed. It involves harm and violence.
- Policing is not to be discussed. Law is not to be discussed. Warfare is not to be discussed.
Harm shall henceforth not be spoken, heard, or seen. Not at Columbia.
I’m half-inclined to say that this dog won’t hunt, but perhaps I should avoid such hurtful locutions and just say that a principle like this isn’t feasible. It isn’t feasible because it’s absurd. As for the “core principles” of Columbia’s “founding,” Columbia’s own website brags about the role it played during the Revolutionary War. So it would be more accurate to say that Columbia was founded directly on violence. In any case, Columbia’s founding aside, the judicious use of violence and harm are core principles upon which human life is founded. Try to live entirely without them, or without their advocacy, and harmful as it may be to say this, but you’ll die.
The whole thing combines hypocrisy with evasion. For the last year–for the last several decades–it’s been the highest form of patriotism to advocate the use of colossal forms of violence and harm against “terrorists,” a term that almost no one can define. It’s an axiom of American life, including life at Columbia, that we have to kill terrorists en masse lest they kill us. We don’t just “advocate” this. We do it. It follows that when it comes to the US Government’s uses of violence and harm, or Israel’s, or Ukraine’s, or the Kenyans we hired as mercenaries to fight (and lose to) the Haitian gangs, almost no one in this country, and probably no one in Columbia’s administration, thinks that we should suppress the advocacy of violence and harm. No one thinks we should suppress the advocacy of genocide, as long we don’t call it that. If we do, the “terrorists win.” We can’t have that, can we?
Logic really permits only two possibilities here. Either you proscribe the advocacy of all violence and harm by everyone, regardless of who they are, or why they’re using it, or any other morally relevant factor; or you permit it somehow. In the first case, you fast-forward straight to absurdity right from the get-go.
In the second case, if you permit some advocacy of violence but not others, you need a principle to differentiate the permissible from the proscribed, and an argument for the principle. If you don’t have any of these things, but just pull categorical imperatives out of your ass á la Ben Chang, you’ll then inevitably end up enforcing those imperatives in a partial, biased, and ad hoc way. At that point, you can say any damn thing you want, but the one thing you won’t have is moral authority when you say it. When you then try to enforce your pseudo-principles, the Hamas-supporters will predictably get mad. But when you call the cops to do harm and violence to them, you’ve lost the plot that you yourself were supposed to be writing. What now? Call the cops but make sure they don’t harm anyone? How’s that going to work? What point would it serve? I don’t know. But whatever happens, don’t ask for sympathy.
At this point, I can think of only one remedy for our situation. Let’s find an island; it doesn’t matter how large or small. Put Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Iranians, the IDF, the Biden Administration, and the administration of Columbia University on it, and let them all fight it out until every group strangles every other in the entrails of one of the others. Keep them there without food, drink, or medical supplies until we can really confirm that they’re all good and dead. Then leave them there to decompose, and move on. A violent and harmful scenario, to be sure. But they’ve earned it.
Policy of Truth 
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What do we make of the fact that Dylan appears to be wearing a keffiyeh?
Probably not much (since it’s not really a keffiyeh). Apparently, there’s a cottage industry on Dylan’s view on Israel-Palestine, much of it focused on his 1983 song, “Neighborhood Bully.” Two views:
Ruchama (pro-Israel, pro-Dylan): https://medium.com/illumination/bob-dylan-on-israel-afdfbc1b3223
Electronic Intifada (anti-Israel, anti-Dylan):https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/michael-f-brown/bob-dylans-embrace-israels-war-crimes
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It’s like trying to pin William S. Burroughs down on his views on Arab resistance to French rule in North Africa.
“I am definitely anti the Arab Nationalists and pro-French ….. You can’t imagine what a pain in the ass these Nationalists are.” (Letter to Allen Ginsberg, 13 Sept. 1956)
“Riots are the accumulated, just resentment of a people subjected to outrageous brutalities by the French cops ….” (Letter to Allen Ginsberg, 23 Jan. 1957)
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Well, I initially read your Dylan comment too quickly and so thought the controversy was over whether his song was pro- or anti-Israel. Not so much. So my Burroughs comment was less apposite than I’d thought.
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It didn’t strike me as inapposite, actually.
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I don’t think Burroughs’s view is that hard to make out. Many people on the American Left are sympathetic to the plight of African Americans or Native Americans, even to the point of sympathizing with, say, riots or uprisings. But they would draw the line at Black separatism or the literal recognition of Native sovereignty of a sort that challenges the US Government’s monopoly on force. The view is, in effect: “I sympathize with your riot, but get it out of your system; then calm down and accept US sovereignty.” Same with Arabs in North Africa.
There’s a bit of Burke in everyone, including me. When students briefly took over my building at Felician back in 2016 during an anti-racist protest, I was annoyed. Not that I called the cops on them, but ideally, I would want the Revolution to take place with a minimum of noise and disruption, assiduously avoiding the east wing of the third floor (where my office was).
https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/felician-university-racist-email/
Turns out they did avoid it. Students regarded that part of the building as “creepy.” And who wants to climb up a third flight of stairs? And then down.
I’m going to invite comment on this post from Benjamin Chang, the spokesperson mentioned in it. Maybe he can do a better job of communication than Burroughs or Dylan. I mean, look at his credentials: “He joined Columbia from Princeton University, where he served as deputy vice president for communications and university spokesperson.” In other words, he used to work in the Eighth Bolgia; now he works in the Ninth.
https://communications.news.columbia.edu/directory/ben-chang
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I don’t think that describes Burroughs though. His politics were a complicated and not always consistent mixture of right and left, but “sensible liberal” accommodation to the established power structure was never his bag. Although he didn’t call himself an anarchist, he essentially was; he was generally delighted at anything that challenged the US Government’s monopoly on force. This is the guy who said (in criticism of the approach taken by friends like Ginsberg): “The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn’t going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like nothing better than love and nonviolence. The only way I like to see cops given flowers is in a flower pot from a high window.” He called for “break[ing] down national borders.” When he was asked “What is your stand on student rioting and violence?” he replied, “There should be more riots and more violence.” His novels Cities of the Red Night and Ghost of Chance dramatise, positively, a worldwide alt-history more-or-less anarchist third-world revolution against established colonial powers.
My take on the contrasting quotes above about North Africa (where he was living at the time) is that he tended to be hostile to whichever group had most recently inconvenienced him. Kerouac, despite his vast differences from Burroughs, was much the same way. They both would seize upon some recent incident in their lives and blow it up into a vast generalisation about some individual or group or locale or movement; then a different incident would generate a contrasting generalisation. (The various questionable substances constantly flowing through their systems no doubt contributed to these erratic swings.)
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Also, if there was a violent riot outside his building, Burroughs wouldn’t stay in his room and hope not to be annoyed; he would rush out into the street, hoping to see some bloodshed. Whereas bloodshed was the last thing Kerouac wanted to see; he would have stayed in his room typing. While Ginsberg would have gone out and tried to give flowers to the rioters or the cops or both. An oddly sorted trio.
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When the Hell’s Angels were planning to attack a peace march at Berkeley, Ginsberg met with the Hell’s Angels leaders and, well, he didn’t give them flowers exactly, but he charmed them with his fearlessness and got them to agree not to attack the march. So his method wasn’t always impractical.
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Of course the threats that some of the Arab nationalists made against gays and drug users would hardly have endeared them to Burroughs. When he imagined his ideal worldwide third-world revolution it was always highly homoerotic and drug-friendly.
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I’m actually planning to write a post on a related topic.
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how is the Abu Eisheh family doing after all these years? the video is from the year 2007 and im really wondering how they are doing after all of the stuff that happened
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