Schmemann reflects on year after 9/11

New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner Serge Schmemann spoke harshly of US foreign policy in a lecture entitled "The Middle East: One Year After Sept. 11" on Wednesday evening.

One of the issues that Schmemann touched on repeatedly was the lack of national dialogue concerning US military action since Sept. 11. "Foreign affairs are not of interest to many Americans," he said. "Sept. 11 had the effect of squelching debate." It has often been seen as unpatriotic to question the US government, Schmemann said, especially since last September.

Schemann's speech in the ASEAN Auditorium focused on the role of the US government since Sept. 11, the possibilities for Israeli-Palestinian peace, and the difficulties faced by journalists reporting about the Middle East. The speech was followed by responses from history professor Leila Fawaz, political science professor Malik Mufti, and visiting Fletcher professor Marc Gopin.

The lecture dealt with the impending war with Iraq. "Even before Sept. 11, the Bush Administration felt intent on defining a new enemy," Schmemann said. This enemy, according to Schmemann, was realized first as global terrorism and then ultimately as Saddam Hussein.

Schmemann harshly criticized this aspect of US foreign policy, calling the "might equals right" philosophy of the Bush administration "the classical fallacy of empires." The US, he said, has reverted to defining its friends based on which countries agree with US policy. Schmemann summarized this strategy as, "we will declare who is good and who is evil, and we will expect everyone to be with us."

Also addressed was the prospect of a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Schmemann proposed that the Camp David and Taba meetings, during the fall of 2000 and the spring of 2001 respectively, outlined what is generally accepted as the eventual conclusion. "The end is in view, and it is known," Schmemann said, referring to the basic two-state scenario with a shared Jerusalem discussed by Arafat, Barak, and Clinton.

During a brief question and answer session following his speech, Schmemann was asked to address specific issues, including settlements, refugees, water, and Jerusalem. "They can only be resolved as a package," he replied. No leader could report to his people that he had lost on one issue without reporting a victory on another.

A key hindrance to achieving peace, according to Schmemann is the so-called "clash of civilizations." The leaders have "finally succeeded in unifying their respective peoples... in hatred," he said. "Each side sees every event in their shared history in a diametrically opposed view."

To counteract this stalemate, Schmemann suggested, the US must assume its proper role as the only government that can make peace. But he said the US will not pay attention to the Middle East until it is done dealing with Iraq.

Professor Mufti agreed, stating that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians want to look forced into the obvious conclusion, and that the US holds the only hope for a settlement.

Schmemann suggested that on one level, the conflict can be viewed as "personal feuding between Sharon and Arafat," and Professor Gopin complained that the public "has a tendency of thinking of a whole civilization as a few people."

The bulk of Schmemann's speech concerned the difficulties of reporting on the Middle East. American reporters "are perceived not as a witness, but as a judge," he said. "We are expected to keep score; we are supposed to say who is wrong and who is right."

The Middle East, according to Schmemann, differs in this aspect from every other region he has covered. In South Africa during the apartheid years, the lines of moral clarity were drawn more clearly. In the Soviet Union, he reflected, reporters were not viewed as impartial referees but as "agents of imperialism" or "white knights in the struggle for totalitarianism."

Accusations of bias toward one side or another in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are incessant, to say the least, according to Schmemann. "Whatever you say or write, somebody is going to violently disagree with you." American Jews, he said, view Israel as a sacred mission and a source of identity.

Professor Fawaz agreed with this assessment. "If you criticize policy by Israel, you are [viewed as] anti-Semitic," she said.

On the other hand, Schmemann said, charges of pro-Israeli bias are just as rampant. "We are taken to task for viewing the events through Israel."

But while suicide bombings are shown over and over in the news, reporters are not allowed access to Jenin and other devastated refugee camps, Fawaz said.

Schmemann is currently the deputy foreign editor of the Times. He has served as the Times bureau chief for Jerusalem, Moscow, Bonn, and the United Nations. Schmemann received the Pulitzer Prize in 1991 for his coverage of German reunification, and he is the author of Echoes of a Native Land: Two Centuries of a Russian Village (Knopf 1997).

The lecture was sponsored by the International Relations Program, the Provost's Office, and the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies. Wednesday's program was the second in a series of two to reflect on the year following Sept. 11.