Kramer basically argues that decreasing the quality of child care in the Palestinian territory will decrease radicalism. He doesn’t really note the illegal destruction of Palestinian homes, the white phosphorous used in Operation Cast Lead, or the current, ineffective humanitarian blockade. That’s his prerogative, but what’s problematic to me, as a member of the Harvard community, is the Weatherhead Center’s response:

The Center takes no position on any issue of scholarship or public policy, nor does it attempt to monitor or control the activities of its affiliates.

Accusations have been made that Martin Kramer’s statements are genocidal. These accusations are baseless.

Did anyone catch that? On one hand, the center takes no positions on ANY issue of scholarship, but in the very next paragraph it makes an entirely POLITICAL statement: negating the genocidal consequences of Kramer’s statements.

And that’s not Weatherhead’s only instance of tortuous logic:

It would be inappropriate for the Weatherhead Center to pass judgement on the personal political views of any of its affiliates, or to make affiliation contingent upon some political criterion. Exception may be made for statements that go beyond the boundaries of protected speech, but there is no sense in which Kramer’s remarks could be considered to fall into this category.

They may have proofread this statement, but they certainly didn’t think it through. Why? To know whether a statement goes beyond the boundaries of protected speech, you MUST pass judgment: The Exception merely proves the Rule.

Any anti-semitic statement would be IMMEDIATELY Reprimanded, branded as racist, and shunned by the Weatherhead Center. South African White Supremacists made the same argument during apartheid, in evidence cited by Felix from the Juan Cole post.

http://www.juancole.com/2010/02/harvard-professors-modest-proposal.html

Weatherhead should be ashamed for such a shoddy response and for paradoxically feigning objectivity and defending such despicable tripe.

Kramer’s assertion that he “didn’t propose that Israel take a single additional measure beyond the sanctions it now imposes” amounts to an admission that Israel is already committing crimes against humanity by barring basic care for the Palestinian people.

The Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank are a “protected people” under international law. Israel is responsible for delivery of food, water, medical supplies, etc. But Israel systematically denies all of these and more — crimes against humanity — as Kramer effectively admits.

As suggested by another commenter, anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian racism enjoys a unique exemption from the standards of American justice and morality. Remember that former Harvard president Larry Summers, known for his own racist and bigoted comments (and now disgraced as an architect of the financial collapse), condemned as _anti-Semitic_ calls for boycotts of Israel, disinvestment from companies investing in Israeli occupation and calls for boycott of Israeli academic institutions that discriminate against Palestinians.

Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz _routinely_ condemns as anti-Semitic very nearly _any_ criticism of Israel while supporting Israeli atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon (among others).

The citation of Juan Cole in this space is also interesting. Harvard’s favorite competitor, Yale, dropped an offer to Juan Cole because idolaters of Israeli war crimes started threatening Yale if Cole were granted a faculty post. Harvard is no different. A person like Kramer or Dershowitz can do and say _anything_ with regard to Arabs with no fear whatsoever of reprisal. Shaul Mofaz — personally and directly responsible for war crimes — was welcomed into the Kennedy School.

As a PSC “colleague”, I cannot but agree with Felix’s words. I can only imagine if this had been spoken by

-A Turk regarding Kurds or Armenians
-A Chinese person regarding Tibetans (or any other Chinese minority, such as the Uighurs, for that matter)
-Any American saying that Israel should no longer be supported by US funding and military aid

How many minutes would it have taken for the bloodhounds to have been released on the person?

Two weights and two measures have always been used by the West, but in the Palestinian case it is particularly evident

Jeremy, no the Chinese government’s population control plans do not amount to genocide, because they are done on a national scale and (as far as I know) apply to all ethnic groups, thus there is no discriminatory undercurrent involved.

Whereas there is one if you do so only with Palestinians.

Actually, China’s one-child rule does not apply to ethnic minorities, at least not the officially recognized ones. It only applies to the Han majority population. The rationale for this is that while China needs to control its population the imposition of the one-child rule on minorities would threaten their survival. Which is not to say that other Chinese policies don’t oppressively target the minority groups. Whether those policies rise to the legal definition of genocide I don’t claim to know.

As for Kramer’s comments, they are loathesome and Harvard’s blatant double standard and hypocrisy is shameful.

It is true that many countries have natality policies that encourage or discourage births by various means. What is objectionable in Kramer’s comments (and what makes the policy he is suggesting genocidal under international law) is the targetting of a captive population living under military occupation.

If a Harvard fellow were to publicly propose that the US Federal Government withhold WIC and Food Stamps from American Indian reservations in order to discourage Native Americans from having children who might grow up to become “superfluous” and potential radicals, Harvard would promptly strip him of his fellowship and issue an apology to the Natve American community. And if they didn’t there would be public protest demonstrations by faculty and students. But this sort of technocratic racism is routinely tolerated when the people in question are Palestinians.

When speaking of Palestinians it is common and accepted to speak of their babies as a “demographic threat” or even, a “time bomb.” This is the daily language of Israeli elected officials and their cheerleaders in the U.S.. So it should hardly surprise us when someone like Kramer advocates withholding UNWRA food aid to Palestinian children who, because they are living under a blockade, depend on it for their survival.