Joseph Massad

Joseph Massad
Born	1963
Occupation	Associate Professor

Joseph Andoni Massad (1963–) is an Associate Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History at Columbia University. He is of Palestinian Arab descent from a Christian family. He became the center of a controversy over Anti-Zionism, antisemitism, and academic freedom in 2004 and 2005.

Colonial Effects

Massad has published extensively in both scholarly and general circulation periodicals, to widely mixed reviews. Reviews of his book, Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan tend to align according to the reviewer’s political beliefs. For example, according to Mary C. Wilson, of the Journal of Palestine Studies, “Massad offers a theoretically informed and highly interesting analysis of the construction of national identity in Jordan…[Colonial Effects] is full of fascinating information and an analysis of the colonial and postcolonial state’s production of national identity that should invigorate the field.” Rashid Khalidi, the director of Columbia University’s Middle East institute, described it as “well written and tightly argued.…One of the best of the new crop of studies that deal with the evolution of national identity in the Middle East.” L. Carl Brown described it in Foreign Affairs as “not the usual political history but a study of legal changes and the use of the military for nation-building.”

However, a review in the Middle East Quarterly states that “Massad has done a thorough job of mastering the source material, but his ideological bias runs deep and devalues the results." The reviewer, Jordan expert Asher Susser, essentially argues that Massad is an Orientalist, claiming that "Massad portrays Jordanians as the malleable creatures of others, non-participants in their own national enterprise who think only the thoughts Westerners imbed in their minds," adding that "Factual distortion and sheer invention would also seem perfectly permissible in Massad's account.” The book also received a negative review in Jordan's leading daily newspaper, Al-Ra'i, entitled "An Orientalist View of the Making of Jordanian Identity," by Jehad Al-Mheisen, a researcher at the Jordan Press Foundation in Amman. According to Al-Mheisen, Massad excessively focuses on the top-down role of the army and the law in forging a Jordanian identity, but overlooks the country's social structure, most importantly the tribes. Al-Mheisen argues that the integration of the bureaucracy with traditional social groups forms the core of Jordanian identity, which is durable, deep-rooted, and authentic, and no different in that way than other Arab countries, including Egypt. Calling the book more political than historical, Al-Mheisen asserts that it is marred by "numerous distortions" and inaccuracies, serving "Massad's a priori orientalist perspective." [1] Even a favorable review, by Professor John Chalcraft of University of Edinburg,[2] criticized the Orientalist nature of Colonial Effects: "the mass of the population barely get a mention in Massad's account, the key subjects of which are the 'Great Men' of Jordanian history...there is an impression that one, white, male, colonial subject is privileged with potency, whereas the agency of others is effaced. For the colonizer, one theory of the subject, for the colonized, another."

Controversial views

Professor Massad is an outspoken critic of Israel's existence as a "Jewish state", arguing that the Zionist project is inherently racist. He argues that Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism, an “anti-Semitic project of destroying Jewish cultures and languages in the diaspora.” These views and others have garnered significant controversy.

Massad has himself been accused of anti-Semitism, although it is a charge he strenuously denies. In a letter to Columbia University president Lee Bollinger, James Schreiber, a graduate of the university and member of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, recalled a speech by Massad he had attended two and a half years earlier, which he characterized as an "anti-Semitic diatribe." Schreiber alleged, "Massad’s thesis in summary was that Jews -- Zionists -- viewed themselves as superior to other people and Arabs as less than human…" Massad replied, calling the account incorrect and "defamatory." He stated, "My principled stance against anti-Semitism and all kinds of racism is a matter of public record... Indeed I have condemned anti-Semitism in my Arabic and English writings, regardless of whether the person expressing it was pro-Israel or anti-Israel, an Arab, an American Christian, or an Israeli Jew." Massad has argued generally that these accusations are part of a concerted effort by political opponents to intimidate him and other pro-Palestinian scholars.

Massad has argued that "U.S. imperialism" is ultimately behind Israeli actions. He has attacked the "Israel Lobby" thesis, saying, "the lobby is powerful in the United States because its major claims are about advancing US interests and its support for Israel are contextualised in its support for the overall US strategy in the Middle East. The pro-Israel lobby plays the same role that the China lobby played in the 1950s and the Cuba lobby still plays to this day. The fact that it is more powerful than any other foreign lobby on Capitol Hill testifies to the importance of Israel in US strategy and not to some fantastical power that the lobby commands independent of and extraneous to the US "national interest." The pro-Israel lobby could not sell its message and would not have any influence if Israel was a communist or anti-imperialist country or if Israel opposed US policy elsewhere in the world."

Massad has "questioned the genetic links between 19th century European Jews and the ancient Israelite kingdom" and denied that Jews "are the descendants of the ancient Hebrews,” Joseph Massad, . Diana and Paul Appelbaum argue that "existing genetic data lend no support whatsoever to these assertions", but deny also that genetic data can prove the converse: "Advocates [of a claim to sovereignty] who look to genetics for a decisive victory are certain to be disappointed."

Massad has for years denied the existence of homosexuals and lesbians in Middle Eastern countries. In his latest book, Desiring Arabs, Massad writes that pressure for gay rights in the Middle East is the result of a "missionary" campaign orchestrated by what he calls the "Gay International".

"It is the very discourse of the Gay International which produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist," he writes (pp 162-3).

Massad as Orientalist?

Massad's newest book, Desiring Arabs, was reviewed critically by Brian Whitaker, former Middle East editor of the Guardian, in an essay entitled, "Distorting Desire."[3] Whitaker's review clearly implies that Massad is an Orientalist, a charge previously made against Massad by Israeli scholar Asher Susser, Jordanian journalist Jehad Al-Mheisen, and Professor of Middle Eastern History John Chalcraft[4], in reference to an entirely different Massad book, Colonial Effects (see above). For instance, Whitaker writes that Massad's book gives the impression that "Arabs are incapable of making critical judgments" about "foreign ideas and influences." Although Massad often accuses his ideological and rhetorical opponents of Orientalism, four unrelated critics, none of whom has any apparent axe to grind against him, have now leveled the same charge against him, with respect to two different books. Massad has never publicly addressed these charges.

Alleged classroom intimidation

In 2004, the David Project, a pro-Israel advocacy organization, produced a film, "Columbia Unbecoming," interviewing students who claimed that Massad (and other professors, e.g., George Saliba) had intimidated or abused them for their pro-Israel views. This eventually sparked a university investigation, which concluded in April, 2005. The Ad Hoc Grievance Committee dismissed most of the allegations, but did find credible elements of one allegation that Massad had reprimanded a student inappropriately. The committee noted that "there can be little doubt of Professor Massad's dedication to, and respectful attitude towards, his students whatever their confessional or ethnic background or their political outlook," and that "we have no reason to believe that Professor Massad intended to expel [the student] from the classroom," but stated, quoting the university handbook, that "angry criticism directed at a student in class because she disagrees, or appears to disagree, with a faculty member on a matter of substance is not consistent with the obligation to 'show respect for the rights of others to hold opinions differing from their own,' to 'exercise responsible self-discipline, and to 'demonstrate appropriate restraint.'"

Massad continues to deny the allegation, in which the student specifically alleged that after raising her hand and asking a question, Massad had yelled, "If you're going to deny the atrocities being committed against Palestinians, then you can get out of my classroom!" Two other students who claimed to be present on the day have supported the allegation, but others have stated that the incident never happened. One teaching assistant present at the time stated publicly on WNYC (New York City's public radio station) in April 2005 that Massad did not angrily criticize the student in question, and 20 students signed a letter in response to the committee's report stating that they were present in class on the day of the alleged incident, and that the incident had never happened.

Massad's defenders see the campaign waged by students and others around these criticisms as a politically motivated attack on academic freedom. An informal ad-hoc committee of Arab and Jewish students at Columbia was formed to defend Massad from the allegations which were subject to the investigating committee, with a website at censoringthought.org. In addition, at least two petitions were created in support of the embattled professor, one by a Jewish student at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and the other at jerusalemsites.org. The New York Civil Liberties Union issued a statement of support for Massad, saying that for his critics, "the line between ideological content and conduct seems to blur significantly and one is left with the distinct impression that these accusations are really about the content of academic lectures and writings. Thus, in the end, the attempt by some outside the academy to transform these accusations into a demand for the termination of a scholar or other sanctions reduces to a direct attack upon principles of academic freedom." The students who had alleged this and other incidents of intimidation and their backers have not retracted their charges, however, instead criticizing Columbia for "whitewashing" copious evidence of anti-Semitism and intimidation of students by Massad and other members of the Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures department.

Works

Books, and articles and book reviews published in scholarly journals. Numerous non-scholarly articles are not included.

Books

• Massad, Joseph A. (October 15, 2001). Colonial effects: the making of national identity in Jordan. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12322-1 LCCN 20-1 – 0. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Massad, Joseph A. (2006). The Persistence of the Palestinian Question: Essays on Zionism and the Palestinians. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-77010-6. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
• Massad, Joseph A. (June 15, 2007). Desiring Arabs. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

Articles

• "Affiliating with Edward Said," forthcoming in Emancipation and Representation: On the Intellectual Meditations of Edward Said, Hakim Rustom and Adel Iskander, eds., (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
• "Beginning with Edward Said," in Belonging, The Catalog for the 7th International Biennial of Sharjah, curated by Jack Persekian and edited by Kamal Boullata, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, 2005. (Invited)
• "The Weapon of Culture: Cinema in the Palestinian Liberation Struggle," forthcoming in Hamid Dabashi, editor, Palestinian Cinema, (London: Verso, 2006).
• "The Persistence of the Palestinian Question," Cultural Critique, No. 59, Winter, 2005.
• "Liberating Songs: Palestine Put to Music," in Ted Swedenberg and Rebecca Stein, Popular Palestines: Cultures, Communities, and Transnational Circuits (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005).
• "The Intellectual Life of Edward Said," Journal of Palestine Studies, No. 131, Spring 2004, (pp. 7-22), (Invited).
• "The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle," Interventions, Volume 5, Number 3, 2003, (pp. 440-451).
• "The Binational State and the Reunification of the Palestinian People," Global Dialogue, Volume 4, Number 3, Summer 2002.
• "History on the Line: Joseph Massad and Benny Morris Discuss the Middle East," Debate with Israeli historian Benny Morris, History Workshop Journal, Spring 2002, (pp. 205-216).
• "Re-Orienting Desire: The Gay International and the Arab World" Public Culture, Spring, 2002, (pp. 361-385).
• "On Zionism and Jewish Supremacy," New Politics, Winter 2002, (pp. 89-101).
• "Return of Permanent Exile," in Naseer Aruri, ed., Palestinian Refugees and the Right of Return, (London: Pluto Press, 2001). This is a republication of "Return or Permanent Exile: Palestinian Refugees and the Ends of Oslo," Critique, No. 14, Spring 1999, (pp. 5-23).
• "Jordan’s Bedouins and the Military Basis of National Identity," in Cairo Papers, Essays on the Social History of the Middle East, edited and published by the American University in Cairo, Cairo, Summer 2001, (pp. 113-133).
• "Palestinians and Jewish History: Recognition or Submission?" Journal of Palestine Studies, No. 117, Fall 2000, (pp. 52-67).
• "The 'Post-Colonial' Colony, Time, Space and Bodies in Palestine/Israel," in The Pre-Occupation of Post-Colonial Studies, edited by Fawzia Afzal-Khan and Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks, Duke University Press, 2000.
• "The Politics of Desire in the Writings of Ahdaf Soueif," Journal of Palestine Studies, No. 112, Summer 1999, (pp. 74-90).
• "Return or Permanent Exile: Palestinian Refugees and the Ends of Oslo," Critique, No. 14, Spring 1999, (pp. 5-23).
• "Art and Politics in the Cinema of Youssef Chahine," Journal of Palestine Studies, No. 110, Winter 1999, (pp. 77-93).
• "Political Realists or Comprador Intelligentsia: Palestinian Intellectuals and the National Struggle," Critique, Fall, 1997 (pp. 23-35).
• "Zionism’s Internal Others: Israel and the Oriental Jews," Journal of Palestine Studies, Summer, 1996, No. 100, (pp. 53-68)
• "Conceiving the Masculine: Gender and Palestinian Nationalism," Middle East Journal, Summer 1995, Vol. 49, No. 3, (pp. 467-483).
• "Repentant Terrorists, or Settler-Colonialism Revisited: The PLO-Israeli Agreement in Perspective," Found Object, Spring 1994, No. 3, (pp. 81-90), (Invited)
• "Palestinians and the Limits of Racialized Discourse," Social Text, Spring 1993, No. 34, (pp. 94-114).
• "Chansons de la liberation: La Palestine mise en musique," in Revue d'études palestiniennes, No. 87, 2003.
• "Al-Dawlah al-Thuna'iyyat al-Qawmiyyah wa I'adat Tawhid al-Sha'b al-Filastini," in Al-Adab, Nos. 7-8, July-August, 2002, 42-48.
• "'An al-Suhyuniyyah wa Naz'at al-Tafawwuq al-'Irqi al-Yahudi: min ajl 'amaliyyat salam haqiqiyyah," in Al-Adab, Nos.5-6, May-June 2002. 19-30.
• "Al-Filastiniyyun wa al-Mihraqah al-Yahudiyyah," published in Al-Muntada, Vol 16, No, 8, August 2001.
• "Sasah Waqi'iyyun Am Muthaqqafun Kumbraduriyyun, Al-Muthaqaffun Al-Filastiniyyun wa Al-Sira' Al-Watani," in Kan'an, Jerusalem, no. 85, April 1997.
• Al-Usuliyyah al-Yahudiyyah fi Isra'il, Muraja'at Kitab, Kan'an, Al-Taybah (Israel), No. 106, Summer 2001, pp. 36-41.

Book reviews

• "Deconstructing Holocaust Consciousness," a Review Essay of The Holocaust in American Life by Peter Novick and The Holocaust Industry, Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering by Norman Finkelstein and Mark Chmiel’s Elie Wiesel and the Politics of Moral Leadership, Journal of Palestine Studies, Autumn, 2002, (pp. 78-89)
• Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel by Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, (London: Pluto Press, 1999), Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, MIT, no.1, 2001.
• Jordanians, Palestinians and the Hashemite Kingdom in the Middle East Peace Process by Adnan Abu-Odeh, Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1999, Journal of Palestine Studies, Winter 2000, No, 118.
• Palestinian Identity , The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, by Rashid Khalidi, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Summer 2000.
• The Modern History of Jordan, by Kamal Salibi, New York: I.B. Tauris, 1998, Middle East Studies Bulletin, Summer 2000.
• Jordan and the Palestine Question, The Role of Islamic and Left Forces in Foreign Policy-Making, by Sami Al-Khazendar, London: Ithaca Press, 1997, Journal of Palestine Studies, No. 113, Fall, 1999.
• Political Islam and the New World Disorder, by Bassam Tibi, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, Middle East Journal, Volume 53, Number 3, Summer 1999.
• The Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, by Joel Beinin, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, Journal of Palestine Studies, No. 111, Spring, 1999.
• The Dream Palace of the Arabs, A Generation’s Odyssey, by Fouad Ajami, New York: Pantheon Books, 1998, Al-Ahram Weekly, April 30-May 6 1998.
• Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination, Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan, by Andrew Shryock, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, Journal of Palestine Studies, No. 105, Fall, 1997.
• Islam and Romantic Orientalism: Literary Encounters with the Orient, by Mohammed Sharafuddin, London: I.B. Tauris, 1996, Middle East Journal, Vol. 51, No. 4, Autumn 1997.
• Image of the Prophet Muhammad in the West: A Study of Muir, Margoliouth and Watt, by Jabal Muhammad Buaben, Leicester, UK: The Islamic Foundation, 1996, Middle East Journal, Vol. 51, No. 4, Autumn 1997.
• Islam and the Myth of Confrontation, Religion and Politics in the Middle East, by Fred Halliday, London: I.B. Tauris, 1996, Journal of Palestine Studies, No. 102, Winter 1997.
• Israel’s Secret Wars, A History of Israel’s Intelligence Services by Ian Black and Benny Morris, New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1992, Middle East Insight, April, 1992.
• Republic of Fear, The Politics of Modern Iraq, by Samir al-Khalil, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990, Against The Current, January 1991.

References

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