“A Statue to Reason” »

AbuKhalil, who moved to the United States in 1983 and earned his Ph.D. from Georgetown University, is now a political science professor at California State University and currently a visiting professor at Berkeley. At first glance, his political thinking is hard to categorize. First and foremost he is an advocate for the Palestinian people and scathing in his denunciations of Israel and of American foreign policy in the Middle East. “Israel and the U.S.,” he wrote in one posting, “will drag a deadly process (they will call it ‘peace process’ for sure) for years if not more, and Israel will continue what it has not stopped doing since 1948 (and earlier): killing Arabs at will.”

AbuKhalil also wrote a fascinating critique of the controversial paper “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” by Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer. His analysis pointed out some of the contradictions in the paper—most notably that the authors seemed “intent on blaming all the ills in U.S. foreign policy on the Israeli lobby.” Nor is AbuKhalil indulgent of Arab governments or movements. He denounces the corruption of the Fatah party and the “vulgar anti-Jewish references” that come from Hamas's pronouncements and publications. Still, he adds, “If Hamas has practiced versions of indiscriminate and aimless violence—which I personally reject on principle—it should be pointed out that Israeli terrorism—in scale and in magnitude—by far exceeds that of Hamas, but nobody has noticed here in the U.S.”

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