MARTIN PERETZ APOLOGIZES TO BRANDEIS AND KRISTOFF FOR (GASP!!!) ISLAMOPHOBIA!!
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/09/13/2740890/brandeis-students-alumni-to-peretz-apologize
Brandeis students, alumni demand Peretz apology
September 13, 2010
WASHINGTON (JTA) — More than 350 students and alumni at Brandeis University called on columnist Martin Peretz to apologize for saying Muslims do not value human life or deserve free speech.
“Recently, in your September 4th column, you claimed that Muslims don’t value human life, that they are soft on terrorism, and that you wish to strip them of their First Amendment Rights,” said the letter to the editor in chief of the New Republic, initiated on Saturday by Innermost Parts, a blog by students at the suburban Boston, nonsectarian Jewish university. “That was unacceptable, irresponsible, and wrong.”
Peretz, a 1959 Jewish graduate of the university, posted an item on his TNR blog, the Spine, about the recent controversy over an Islamic center planned for within three blocks of the site of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The post concluded: “Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. And among those Muslims led by Imam [Feisal Abdul] Rauf,” the center’s chief planner, “there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.”
By midday Monday, the protest letter had 364 signatories. Among its co-sponsors were J Street U, the Brandeis affiliate of the dovish pro-Israel lobby, and the Muslim Student Association.
On Monday, he apologized for his comments on the First Amendment, but would not retract the statement about Muslim life being cheap.
“I do not think that any group or class of persons in the United States should be denied the protections of the First Amendment, not now, not ever,” he said.
Of his contention that Muslim life is cheap, he said, “This is a statement of fact, not value.”
A Martin Peretz Apology
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF
After my Sunday column criticizing comments by Martin Peretz about Muslims, he today issued an apology. Here it is:
Nicholas Kristof and I do not see the world—and America’s role in it—in the same way. I have sometimes expressed my disagreements with his opinions vociferously (vociferousness is my business). But in yesterday’s The New York Times, he quotes two sentences that I recently wrote—one of them genuinely embarrasses me, and I deeply regret it.
The embarrassing sentence is: “I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.” I wrote that, but I do not believe that….So I apologize for my sentence, not least because it misrepresents me.
The other sentence is: “Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, especially for Muslims.” This is a statement of fact, not value. In his column, Kristof made this seem like a statement of bigotry. But on his blog, he notes that he concurs with it. “Peretz makes some points that are valid, and I agree with him that Muslims haven’t said nearly enough about those Muslims who kill other Muslims—in Kurdish areas, in Iraq, in Western Sahara, in Sudan, and so on.”
Every week brings more and more gruesome evidence of this, in the the Middle East and Central Asia and elsewhere. The idea that in remarking upon the cheapening of Muslim lives I was calling for the cheapening of Muslim lives, as some have suggested, is preposterous. There is no hatred in my heart; there is deep anxiety about the dangers of Islamism, and anger at the refusal of certain politicians and commentators to adequately grasp those dangers, but there is no hatred, none. In these unusually inflamed days, I am glad to say so clearly.
First, let me say that I welcome and respect the apology. It’s easy when we say dumb things to dig ourselves deeper, and very hard to apologize. So that was classy.
But I disagree with his suggestion that I concur that Muslim life is cheap.
Sure, many Muslims have killed other Muslims, and there hasn’t been enough outcry. But I’ve also seen Muslim aid workers risking their lives — in Darfur, for example, or in Gaza, or in Iraq, or in Pakistan, or in Afghanistan, or in Indonesia — in a way that we could all emulate. Those aid workers value human life so much they risk their own to save others. To insist that Muslims don’t value human life, because some terrorists don’t, is an insult to a billion Muslims around the world — and it’s also wrong. For Al Qaeda, life is cheap. For Muslim aid workers and doctors, life is treasured. Generalizing about Muslims is as impossible as it would be to generalize about Americans from Quakers to Don Rumsfeld.
Making generalizations about racial, ethnic or religious groups is a dangerous game. Many Muslims see Americans dropping bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan and think that Christians don’t value human life. Arabs see Israelis invading Gaza and insist that Jews don’t value human life. Islam is no more monolithic than Christianity or Judaism, and these kinds of sweeping generalizations have historically led to dehumanizing other groups in ways that lead to discrimination and violence. They’re invidious and dangerous whether it’s we or Afghans who fall for them.
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