by Gerald A. Honigman

 

 

     I guess it was my own fault.

 

     My two elder daughters brought home a momma cat and two small kittens that they found late at night several months ago wandering on the road. Another kitten was spotted not far away which lost out in its chance meeting with a car. Who could say no to them?

 

     The problem was that we already had three established cats. While we've had situations related to this involving our original two females, it was Binx, the young male, who (even though neutered) has really proven to be a pistol regarding the newcomers. And I have a suspicion that he began by first taking it out on me.

 

     I kept a box in my bedroom closet with some important stuff in it. No problem until after our feline additions entered onto the scene. Not long after their arrival, Binx was caught in the act of leaving souvenirs, if you get my drift, in my box.

 

     Not having much of a choice, I now had to gingerly weed through decades of materials I had saved. Funny what you'll find when you do this sort of thing.

 

     Among the various correspondence I now reviewed was a letter from Jahandir, a half Persian fellow graduate student, who was commenting on a doctoral research paper I had written.

 

     I liked Jahan, but we butted heads continuously. He's probably teaching at some university now. His politics regarding the Arab-Israeli dispute (too often a very important "litmus test" in Departments of Middle Eastern Studies and the like...that's why Drs. Daniel Pipes' and Martin Kramer's Campus Watch was created years later) were far more acceptable to the powers that be than myself, so I'm sure he wasn't denied a Ph.D. dissertation advisor the way I was.

 

     Knowing of the reputation regarding the tenured chief honcho in terms of anything having to do with Arab-Israeli politics, I had been assured by other professors that there would be someone else to work with when the time arrived to start my dissertation.

 

     Imagine taking a graduate course on the Palestine Mandate and never hearing anything about the Cairo Conference, the original 1920 borders of post-World War I "Palestine," the separation of Transjordan from the latter in 1922, and so forth. Or hearing Hitler's buddy, the Mufti of Jerusalem, being idealized while Jewish nationalist leaders like Jabotinsky were painted as the real fascists. Or constantly being fed material sympathetic to Arab nationalist aspirations while ignoring the rights of everyone else in the region. The only time, for example, that Kurds were ever mentioned  was when said professor made a mockery of their own aspirations upon reporting of his travels throughout southeastern Turkey. And forget about an assumed climate of academic freedom. Beware if you dared to disagree...as I would later find out the hard way. As is even more typical today, while Israel was constantly placed under the high power lens of academic scrutiny, the far more real and gruesome sins and stories of the Arab world were and are ignored. The Arab genocide of Black Africans in the Sudan, slavery in the Arab World, atrocities against Kurds, Berbers, and others as well were going on back then as they are today...but students would never know any of this coming out of the classroom.

 

     So, while working full time while going to school, I did my time, was used by the department to get extra funding for their program, became a teaching assistant for course work on the Middle East, and did what few other graduate students had ever done...got published in a heavily Nobel Laureate-sponsored academic journal, the Fall 1981 Middle East Review ("British Petroleum Politics, Arab Nationalism, and the Kurdish Struggle For Independence"). The latter occurred after I became aware of the hatchet job being done to me and submitted a doctoral paper for publication.

 

     That's where Jahandir again enters into the picture. Constantly demonstrating on campus against the Zionist occupiers on the West Bank, sitting across from me in class, and the like, we finally had a long-brewing exchange. After giving me a critique of my own positions and work, I hit him between the eyes with something as timely and relevant to the discussion today as it was when we did battle a quarter century ago.

 

     Prior to the Iranian nationalist era of the Pahlavi shahs, Iran's oil-rich western Khuzistan province had an Arab majority. In fact, it had largely been ruled by the Arab Sheikh of Mohammarah. Later, Arab chieftains had advocated the incorporation of "Arabistan" into Iraq. Undoubtedly, such memories played a role in Iraq's ill-fated decision to invade Iranian Khuzestan, sparking a long and costly war with Iran in the 1980s.

 

     But, guess how the Iranians, so quick to criticize Israel (which has been trying hard to arrive at a truly fair compromise with the Arabs over such things as the West Bank), dealt with their own Arab problem?

 

     Arabs were scattered, numerous Aryans were transferred from elsewhere into the strategic province, and any manifestations of Arab nationalism were ruthlessly squashed by whatever means necessary...and with no United Nations' condemnations, trials in Geneva, or whatever. Those seem to be saved almost exclusively for the Jews in their attempts to survive. Among other measures, serious thought was given by Iran to outlawing Arabic as a spoken tongue...shades of Iraqi and Syrian Arab and Turkish and Iranian past policies towards the Kurds.

 

     The point, of course, is the blatant hypocrisy and double standards both Jahan, the current Iranian rulers, and much of the rest of the world typically display in all of these matters.

 

     And, oh yes, Jahan never did respond to my counterattack.