Mario Loyola writes about the infantilization and dehumanization of the "Palestinians"--by the left.

A few months ago, I was reading Rashid Khalidi's latest book (The Iron Cage, on the struggle for Palestinian statehood) and I was struck by his evident mission, which was not to relate the history of what happened in Palestine, but rather to explain how everything that happened in Palestine was the fault of the Zionists and their allies. The major premise of this argument is really very odd: namely, that everyone in the story has moral agency except the Palestinians, who (by virtue of their status as victims) cannot commit any crimes for which the Zionists are not ultimately responsible. This struck me as a particularly dehumanizing way to defend the Palestinians.

But Rand,

Current humanities department dogma states that only the powerful have moral agency, while the powerless (as self-declared) are victims, and have no moral agency. How can you possibly disagree with that?

The fact that removing moral agency = removing humanity is of no consequence, dontcha know?

*/remove tongue from cheek

MG

Clyde Haberman (former NYT bureau chief in Jerusalem) in his IHT review seems to have a different view from this Loyola guy:

"But he makes this more than an exercise in self-pity by refusing to let the Palestinians themselves off the hook. If they indeed live in an iron cage, well, Khalidi says, they helped mold the bars themselves. "

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/05/arts/idbriefs6A.php

Maybe Loyola didn't bother reading the whole book. I would not be surprised.