In Arab culture there is a strong imperative to not speak ill of the dead, but I’m going to have to make an exception for Christopher Hitchens. Knowing Hitchens, I’m sure he’d approve. Hitchens had a tenacity and ferociousness that would not compromise for considerations of tact, tradition, or politeness. That was something I admired about him, and will pay tribute to it in the only fitting way possible.
I only met Christopher Hitchens once, on March 9th, 2006. The New York University Remarque Institute held an event entitled “What Happens Now? Israel And The Palestinians after Gaza, Sharon, And Hamas.” Hosted by the great late Tony Judt, it brought Hitchens to speak along with Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury and Israeli journalist Gideon Levy.
The discussion was very interesting and intelligent, until Hitchens took the pulpit and started hyperventilating about Hamas winning the Palestinian elections. He went on for 20 minutes on the evils of religion in politics. A theocracy, he said, could never make peace with its neighbors and will always discriminate based on idiotic religious grounds. Palestinians thus deserved to be isolated and punished by the USA for choosing a religious regime.
After his talk, I took Hitchens aside and asked him why he didn’t feel the same way about the other religious fundamentalist regime in Palestine: Zionism. If he was so concerned about Hamas’s religious fundamentalism, why was he silent about the religious fundamentalism that is driving millions of Palestinians out of their homes, occupying their land and denying them freedom because of their religion? Shouldn’t America deal with Jewish fundamentalism in the same way he wants it to deal with Islamic fundamentalism?
For once, I saw him flustered and speechless. It was clear he genuinely had not thought of this and now he felt thoroughly embarrassed. He smiled, looked around, tried to find something to say, but came up with nothing. He then tried to ignore me by going back to his comfort zone and engaging in a shouting match with a Muslim and calling him a “fucking peasant.” (That man was Ashraf Laidi, a currency trader and author whose CV indicates he’s never really been a peasant.) I asked Hitchens if he’d make my point in his next talk about Palestine/Israel, and again, he had nothing to say. I ended with: “well, either tell me why I’m wrong or admit you’re wrong and that in your next speech you’ll denounce Islamic and Jewish fundamentalism in the same way.” The stupid smirk left his face, and he walked away.
This was post-2001 Hitchens. The over-riding directive of his life was to make money by pleasing American right-wingers by dressing up their idiotic nationalism, chauvinism, and jingoism with Big Words and an English accent. It was a highly rewarding career, because he sold to morons who watch Sean Hannity the illusion that they are not complete cretins, and they pay top dime for that sort of intellectual deceit.
Clearly, it was not part of the New Hitchens act to include material critical of Israel, since the awful Islamo-Fascist-Satan-Beast had to be defeated at all costs. This life-long crusader against religion had perfected his new act to the point that he had stopped noticing, entirely, that Israel was a state based on religious discrimination, and was championing its case as it went on ethnically cleansing people who came from the wrong religion. Still, I’m sure on his death bed he would have imagined that this was all worth it, since it helped Israel and George W. Bush, the two greatest forces of secularism of our time, to spread the gospel of enlightenment, freedom, rationalism and tolerance to the “fucking peasants” of the Arab world.
When New Atheism hypocrites continue worshiping Hitchens, I’m glad to still honest voice like yours. I’m an atheist if it makes any difference for the reader!
Simply googling "Hitchens + Zionism" or going on youtube to watch any of his debates on the middle-east conflict refutes your claim that Hitchens was a supporter of Israeli aggresion. Hitchens did in fact revile many practices of the fanatic Jewish settlers and spoke against it many times.
As for comparing him to Hannity. Laughable.
IIRC, Hitchens was very good on the Palestinian issue.
But he still deserves to rot in hell for his support of the invasion of Iraq.
'Rot in hell'
What are you, 10 years old?
rot in the ground then. that piece of sod.
This is rich coming from you bluesman. I assume you are the same bluesman from World Affairs Board?
No, middle-aged, and to repeat: CH deserves to rot in hell.
The charge that he was a pandering fraud is absurd and hateful.__I think he was right that Islam is the most dangerous and bloody religion on earth today but wrong on the neocon wars and especially wrong in urging us on to them.__Far too many foreigners come here to get America to fight their battles, and you would think Americans would sooner or later realized those battles have nothing to do with us and the people who would drag us into them are not our friends but our deadly enemies.__The creation of Israel was wrong but so would be an attack aimed at destroying it now, sixty years later, when it has acquired a right to exist through successful resistance to destruction over so many years.__But that doesn't make it America's business.
I quote: "Far too many foreigners come here…" That raises the question: why did Hitchens leave England? I believe he did that when he realized that he should have lived before and not after George Barnard Shaw.
This is a lie. He occasionally talked bad about Christianity and Judaism before he started raking in money spreading lies about Islam to the racist masses. Honestly I don't think he was a racist. I think the writer is spot on. He was an opportunist of the worst kind. At least there is some honestly in being a racist.
Exactly. He wouldn't have made a dime going around 'bashing' ZIonism and Israel. He likely -, like many, many a commentator with access to the MSM – wrote and said what he knew his paymasters would accept. I'd have been an alcholic too if I had to work like that. But that's the reality in which he 'worked'. Its not like there isn't precedent after precedent of people losing their livelyhoods after speaking ill of Israel….
Boo-yah. Hitchens was a cretin and the world is a better place for his having gone to the great beyond. The best thing that can be said of an evil man like him is simply, "at least he can no longer spew forth filth from the wrong end of his anatomy."
Ta,
Simply googling "Hitchens + Zionism" or going on youtube to watch any of his debates on the middle-east conflict refutes your claim that Hitchens was a supporter of Israeli aggresion. Hitchens did in fact revile many practices of the fanatic Jewish settlers and spoke against it many times.
glad he's dead. Hope if there's a hell he's in it!
Oh, no doubt. There's a fiery pit ready for him.
I hope you die too and I hope it hurts you filth
You do realize that Hitchens (as an athiest) took lots of religions to task. He had several debates with Jewish religious leaders where he took them to task for various things. He was fairly equal in his chastizement of all religious beliefs and was never known for pulling punchs when it came to Christians either.
And I doubt very much Hitches was well loved by the fans of Sean Hannity who are primarly fundamentalist Christians and liked Hitchens about as much as they like Muslims.
"New atheists" give atheism a bad name. Hitchens bashing of Muslims was on racial terms not religious ones. It was a cover for cheering military aggression and and rationalizing his own petty prejudices.
Heres him whining about foreigners in a piece called "Londonistan Calling": http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/… Only some foreigners are worse then others :"Quite unlike the Irish and the Cypriots, they bring these far-off quarrels along with them. And they also bring a religion which is not ashamed to speak of conquest and violence."
(remember Muslims make up less than 3% of the population of the U.K.. Jews make a bigger proportion of the U.S. population then that. Its like lamenting the spread of Jews in the West and calling NYC Jew York, which is what people dig until they thankfully croaked like Hitchens.
"New atheists" give atheism a bad name. Hitchens bashing of Muslims was on racial terms not religious ones. It was a cover for cheering military aggression and and rationalizing his own petty prejudices.
Heres him whining about foreigners in a piece called "Londonistan Calling": http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/ features/2007/06/hitchens200706 Only some foreigners are worse then others :"Quite unlike the Irish and the Cypriots, they bring these far-off quarrels along with them. And they also bring a religion which is not ashamed to speak of conquest and violence."
(remember Muslims make up less than 3% of the population of the U.K.. Jews make a bigger proportion of the U.S. population then that. Its like lamenting the spread of Jews in the West and calling NYC Jew York, which is what people dig until they thankfully croaked like Hitchens.
"New atheists" give atheism a bad name. Hitchens bashing of Muslims was on racial terms not religious ones. It was a cover for cheering military aggression and and rationalizing his own petty prejudices.
Heres him whining about foreigners in a piece called "Londonistan Calling": http://www.vanityfair DOT com/politics/features/2007/06/hitchens200706 Only some foreigners are worse then others :"Quite unlike the Irish and the Cypriots, they bring these far-off quarrels along with them. And they also bring a religion which is not ashamed to speak of conquest and violence."
(remember Muslims make up less than 3% of the population of the U.K.. Jews make a bigger proportion of the U.S. population then that. Its like lamenting the spread of Jews in the West and calling NYC Jew York, which is what people dig until they thankfully croaked like Hitchens.
Fundamentalist Christians don't read Vanity Fair.
Umm,no- he wasn't ever even close to being fairly equal when it came to his 'chatizement of all religious beliefs'. I never heard him criticize Israel's ever-growing chorus of 'true-believers' who believe that Israel is the 'historical home of the Jewish people' – which is rubbish – and those who believe that Israel's theft of Palestine is simply 'reclaiming Jewish homeland'. Not once.
How do I know this? Because Helen Thomas said it once, essentially – and was GONE.
If he had, there is no way he'd be getting the naseua-inducing, gushing tributes on CNN and the like that's he getting now…
Fundamentalist Christians and NeoCons don't mix as much as Faux News would want you to imagine.
you are a fool, you say you only met him once and had him 'flustered and speechless' sounds like delusions of grandeur and you obviously have no concept of the man .. crawl back into your hole!
I've never really had any interest in Hitchins, but the fact that he is revered by so many in the establishment fills me with suspicion. Would the death of Noam Chomsky get so much media coverage, I doubt it.
The hundred thousand Iraqis murdered as a result of war-mongers like that drunken cow Hitchens never had a chance to meet him either. So what?
Crawl back into yours..
I hope there is truth in what you speak and not a shameless attack ..now he can’t come back at you”if it is true you should be aware of Isreal and it’s scary baby sitter the US and the consequences of going against the two.any ways seen as you don’t answer me on twitter I’ll ask you here . What happened to the plan of OPEC exclusivly trading in the Euro?
Nonsense. Hitchens was a long time supporter of Palestine and very much an anti-zionist. This article is pure hearsay, as Bluesman says, a quick search will show what Christopher's views actually were – all the evidence contradicts what you have to say.
It is so very brave of you make these accusations now the man is not around to dispute them by the way.
"It was clear he genuinely had not thought of this and now he felt thoroughly embarrassed."
Most likely he was embarrassed for you. He loved to point out abject ignorance in public settings, but coming face-to-face with it like that has a different quality.
He "loved to point out abject ignorance" sheesh what is it with people thinking that Hitchens was some sort of deep thinker. He was a two bit hack. How many of you fans ever even heard of this buffoon when he was a hack for the left of center u.s. liberals nevermind when he was a hack for decrepit marxist lenninist third-worldist groups.
-ia
It's not about whether or not Hitchens was a deep thinker.
It's about Saifedean Ammous accosting Hitchens to ask him why he exempted Israel from his arguments, when in fact Hitchens was an "anti-Zionist" of note and thinking that he had thereby embarrassed Hitchens, when in fact most likely he had embarrassed himself and Hitchens was, uncharacteristically, too polite to just tell him so.
Hitchens abandoned his Anti-Zionism long ago when it became convenient for his career. Soft targets like the west bank settlers and other fringe groups in Israeli politics are punching bags that even the most fervent zionists attack and criticize.
Anyway my perception of Hitchens was of him being fat pathetic drunk who kept switching his hack political allegiances until he said fug it and joined the "mainstream", who are always happy to admit deviants who see the light. If you perceive him as being a man of integrity ( and hence outwitting Ammous so badly that he didnt even realize it) then theres no point in arguing.
I'm not sure I'd describe Hitchens as "a man of integrity." I'm not even sure that has anything to do with it.
It's like this:
Suppose you were married.
And suppose your wife cheated on you with a skydiver, and they died in an accident wherein their chute failed to open while they made love in freefall, and that all of this received a reasonable degree of media attention.
Now, suppose at a party some time later, you were hitting on a lady, and I, knowing little or nothing about you, took you aside and said "you offered to buy her a drink, but what you REALLY should have done was offer to take her skydiving?"
Do you think you might just look at me like I was a fucking idiot, then walk away?
> Hitchens embarrassed, uncharacteristically polite
> Not sure whether Hitchens a man of integrity
> Segue into a bizarre analogy about making love while skydiving. What the f*ck?
There is not enough facepalm in the world for this.
"Hitchens was, uncharacteristically, too polite" — I tend to use Occam's Razor. Hitchens was a viciously pugnacious piece of warmongering trash and would have loved to have savaged a 20-something Arab punk. Instead he did not, in a fit of uncharacteristic politeness? Yeah ok.
Right; so spake a Chris Hitchens stooge/mark.
The ironic part about Hitchens is about his complete disdain for organized religion and being a huge enemy of the religious right. Look at his comments when Falwell finally kicked the bucket, cons where pissed beyond belief. It was one of the few things that I liked about him. I loved how he destroyed Dnesh D’Souza in a religion debate. That being said I believed neocons just saw him as a useful idiot, he hated Muslims as much as he hated conservative fundies.
He hated Muslims on racial not religious terms. His disdain for organized religion in the public sphere felt like a calculated career move after a lifetime of being on the wrong side of history. And how hard is it to criticize religion? Apparently too hard for Hitchens as his criticisms were liberal idealist, ignorant of historical, political, and social context and, like I wrote above, just a cover for rationalizing the imperialist, narrow-minded prejudices of a narrow layer of self-styled intellectuals. Ayn Rand cultist George Smiths "Atheism: the Case Against God"- now that's a rational scholarly critique of religious belief, without all the douchebaggery thats found nowadays with Dawkins and his ilk (which Hitchens gleefully added his brand to).
Ignore this tripe. Here is Hitchens speaking on the topic of Zionism a full five years before this implausible encounter.
http://www.youtube DOT com/watch?v=VQxhyy9Wpb4
Absolute nonsense. hitchins was a self declared anti-zionist. I definately think there is room for criticism of hitchins political positions and defense of western imperialist wars but that should be tempered with the acceptance of his decent side, which includes being anti-zionist. a ad hominem straw man attack on someone who has just died, thats low
I don't believe for a moment that the author of this article ever flustered Hitchens. Please. Like him or loathe him, the man was a lion who made confrontational debate his life's work. No one ever rendered him speechless, certainly not Saifedean Ammous.
Hitchens was not a lion. He was a quintessential alpha-male primate.
OMG: what a load of bullshit-I am officially declaring that Chris Hitchens' fans/marks are the worst on the net-and considering this beats out Jack Bauer, Batman, and the Incredible Hulk insufferable fans, that is no mean feat-then again, there was no mean feat I would put past Snitch.
What do you call a dead Chris Hitchens? One less war monger.
You flustered Hitchens. Riiiiiiiight. And no, he’s not in hell. Hell is a man made construct. Haven’t you read God is NOT Great. All this crap was made up long ago when human kind knew f#&k all about anything. RIP CH. You da man.
Uhhh to all you whiners in here bemoaning the "unfair" article about your hero Hitchens—-didn't he support the Iraq invasion? in fact he was "on the same side as the neo-conservatives" when it came to contemporary foreign policy issues.
But I know. "WAA WAA LEAVE HITCHENS ALONE! HE IS A LION WHO DEBUNKED RELIGIOUS WACKOS!"….well, anyone with half a damned brain could do that, so I fail to see the significance of Christopher Hitchens, and I doubt I ever will.
When I read about the horrors inflicted on Iraq: the depleted uranium, the razing of Fallujah, the massacre at Haditha and countless other smaller acts of American terrorism….and then I remember that Hitchens was a cheerleader for all this and I'm thankful he'll no longer get to spew his venom.
The guy did have a flaw in his thinking, but not in the direction the author makes. Talk to him about zionism and he'd use the criticism as any other religious ideology. Hearing him talk about Saddam though… it's like he has complete disdain for any distinction between ends and means. Yes, Saddam was an arsehole, and yes, if all humans are equal then we are morally obliged to help our fellow humans when ensnared in a closed system. But do not motives and means mean anything? He seemed to discount them by the end.
"But do not motives and means mean anything? He seemed to discount them by the end. " That's the essence of Trotskyists' modus operandi…which is why they'll always pander to the worst (in Hitchens' case, the racist pro-likud neocons in Amrica and beyond) in order to bring about their so-called revolution…
You don’t understand and are probably not aware of his full body of work. But think what you will, it really doesn’t matter.
Saifedean's comment was specifically about Hitchens' declaration that the Palestinians deserved to be marginalized by the US for electing a specifically religious group to govern them. He asked why Israel should not have the same treatment. Yes, Hitchens is on the record saying the very idea of Israel is stupid and that it should have to make the situation right. But he would never say the US should deal with Israel the way it deals with, say, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Palestine, or anywhere Arab/Muslim.
Jeremy,
I really hate to be in the position of defending Hitchens, but I think you've actually brought forward the missing distinction here.
Hitchens has generally been anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian.
IN PARTICULAR, he has loudly decried the fanatical religious wing in Israel and their backing of Israeli depredations in the West Bank.
He applied that same reasoning to the Palestinians when they elected a fanatical religious party.
The reason he has not recommended that the US "deal with" Israel in the same way that it "dealt with" e.g. Saddam Hussein has nothing to do with religious fanaticism per se. Rather he (mistakenly, in my view) considers Israel a supportive US "ally" while he views the Arab regimes as US enemies who want to kill Americans.
Sorry I got my tenses mixed up there, writing as if he were still alive. Not quite used to him being dead yet.
There are a lot of valid criticisms that can be levied at Hitchens. Making exceptions for Zionism per se is simply not one of them. Thus my conclusion that his silence in response to Ammous was one of embarrassment for Ammous over Ammous's display of egregious ignorance, rather than embarrassment for himself over something that simply wasn't so.
A shameful post by an embittered “angry Arab”. Right from the initial boasting about how uniquely polite Arabs are, through the conspiracy theory about Hitchens’ motivations, up to his absurd denunciation of Israel as a religiously fundamentalist state, the author fulfils every negative Arab stereotype.
This type of bile disgraces the whole anti-war left, and makes Ann Coulter look acute.
The authors’ mysteriously timed boast of rendering Hitchens speachless, not just once, but many times, will not be credited by any one who saw him in action. It woudn’t be believed if the author was talking of your every day politician, let alone ‘The Hitch’
For much of the 20th Century, Britain’s upper clahhhsss maintained a very presentational, ultimately ridiculous love affair with Marxism. The veddy proper lapped up “An Inspector Calls” while vouching secret support for capers of the Guy Burgess/Anthony Blunt ring of drawing-room spies. Like their American counterparts in that cloyingly adored pursuit, it’s amazing so many champions of peace, freedom and civil rights were more than willing to turn the keys over to a monster like Joseph Stalin. But, then again, those years were beginning of a postmodern era that prizes emotional mesmerism over intellectual logic. It won’t be missed…
But a few out there probably will miss Christopher Hitchens, bush-league English writer, social critic and professional drunk. …At least remember him. He was the guy who tore a new one into Mother Theresa, of all people.
Hitchens himself never sacrificed anything for the poor, although he was charter member of that dying Brit caste of silver-spoon revolutionaries. His crusades against workers’ chains generally ran to tapping at his keyboard and tippling at the nearest open bottle; his campaigns against organized religion were more rant than brief. But it’s not impressive that a Jew would confine his blasts to the Catholic Church; easy to note motes in someone else’s eye, after all. And it’s telling that such a cosmopolitan Lefty would be such an early and earnest supporter of the Iraq invasion.
Sometimes motivations are more tribal that social, it seems…
Somewhere a drunk tank is lonely.
I think you misunderstand Hitchens. He wasn't any more of a Jew than I am. Of course you don't know me, but being the typical mutt American I am a bit Jewish too, like Hitchens. He wasn't tribal though. Unless it was the British tribe, in which a leftie like Blair could also go over to the cause of war in Iraq on the most trumped up evidence. And now that we have Obama, we know how the thing was perpetuated through another "leftist". Yes of course the sort of leftist Hitchens was didn't have any truck with basic Salvation Army style compassion. It was always the grand system that needed changing, so that those little kettles would never need your spare change. Human nature was going to be transformed by a new age. Then, disillusioned, he decided to cash in on the hysteria of the post-9/11 era and to get close to power by saying what it wanted to hear. He took up the cause of Kurdish freedom (freedom to pump their own oil too). I'll be interested to see what Mr. Scrooge's estate amounts to.
Nicely done. Hadn't thought of the class aspect but then I had stopped taking Hitchens seriously by the time he became a fixture at Vanity Faire where it should have been obvious this was not a man of the people.
"Hitchens had a tenacity and ferociousness that would not compromise for considerations of tact, tradition, or politeness".
Saifedean, I've seen you talking on a variety of things, often in the company of Max Keiser, and you've always struck me as the sort of warmhearted but intellectually insightful – not to mention precise – fellow who would've blended in easily in the company of Ali and the other companions, (and that's said sincerely).
So I strongly suspect you must know in your bones Hitchens was merely the intellectual equivalent of the type of thug you can encounter in any pub in Liverpool in the UK – from where I hail – who 'win' their particular arguments by verbally and mentally assaulting their opponents from the off, sneering and dismissing anything they say – or, rather, TRY to say – never once actually directly answering any questions themselves, yet endlessly demanding the right to bombard their opponents with rhetorical questions intended to momentarily divert their mental processes – especially if they were on the verge of elucidating something which might actually show flaws in their own thinking or, worse, swing the crowd away from them – the underlying subtext of all such engagements being from the off: anything you might have to say doesn't need addressing because if if differs from their take it's trash; the ultimate substrate being: don't rile me buddy boy otherwise this big meaty fist goes in your mush!
Keiser in comparison comes out with the most outrageously sweeping, not to say bloody thirsty statements, and it's difficult not to believe on occasions he's genuinely infuriated by someone like Cameron, but he always gives his opponents a chance to have their say, invites them to clarify what they mean and aboveall doesn't constantly imply if they dare to contradict him he'll conme over there and knock their block off.
As for Hitchens himself, may he know the peace he clearly never knew in life, which is often the way when a young dreamer of a better world becomes disillusioned and bitter.
Haha, i dont believe any of this shit. You dont have the brains to make anyone speechless. Least of all Hitchens.
re: @DylanSama since my comment wont publish there.
"New atheists" give atheism a bad name. Hitchens bashing of Muslims was on racial terms not religious ones. It was a cover for cheering military aggression and and rationalizing his own petty prejudices.
Heres him whining about foreigners in a piece called "Londonistan Calling": http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/… Only some foreigners are worse then others :"Quite unlike the Irish and the Cypriots, they bring these far-off quarrels along with them. And they also bring a religion which is not ashamed to speak of conquest and violence."
(remember Muslims make up less than 3% of the population of the U.K.. Jews make a bigger proportion of the U.S. population then that. Its like lamenting the spread of Jews in the West and calling NYC Jew York, which is what people dig until they thankfully croaked like Hitchens.
ok if my comments really are being approved by the site admins then i apologize for posting half a dozen times. i assumed its part of the comment section problem
"The over-riding directive of his life was to make money by pleasing American right-wingers by dressing up their idiotic nationalism, chauvinism, and jingoism with Big Words and an English accent. It was a highly rewarding career, because he sold to morons who watch Sean Hannity the illusion that they are not complete cretins, and they pay top dime for that sort of intellectual deceit."
That was an outstanding couple of sentences. Just really powerful writing!
I believe that this happened just as Saifedean recounted it. And anyone who thinks Hitchens was not a neocon darling is just misinformed. As an intelligent Christophobe, Hitchens came to realize that atheism as a weapon had its limits and the only effective way to combat the Church was by joining the forces of anti-Logos directly.
"The over-riding directive of his life was to make money by pleasing American right-wingers by dressing up their idiotic nationalism, chauvinism, and jingoism with Big Words and an English accent. It was a highly rewarding career, because he sold to morons who watch Sean Hannity the illusion that they are not complete cretins, and they pay top dime for that sort of intellectual deceit."
Pure poetry!
Please approve of this video:
Christopher Hitchens on Israel and Zionism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQxhyy9Wpb4&feature=related
“A stupid idea to begin with…”
You nailed it. The post-2001 Hitchens saw the brass ring and he grabbed it. Earlier, he had made it plain that he considered Sharon a thug of the worst kind, and that Jewish fundamentalism was no different than the others. Yet only recently, as he was meeting for the last time with Richard Dawkins, they spoke about how monstrous it was to say Christian child or Moslem child, while pointedly leaving out the case of the Jewish child. In other words, you might choose to be a Christian or a Muslim, but if a Jew, you were apparently chosen (and met with all the attendant discrimination that those of other religions might be thought never to suffer, although it would be your parents who would determine that you be circumcised, without your being mature enough to consent – something you probably wouldn't even do if you knew it was coming).
In fact most of us take the religion we are given at birth, from which we may or may not rebel, but at any rate this should create some compassion towards one another since we have been dealt a hand we did not pick ourselves. We can leave the fold, but our family tradition will follow us. Why would Hitchens refuse to see the equivalence of all three? Funny you should ask. And that's where all that awkwardness seems to have come from: his vaudeville act was just that, and you had seen behind it, seen it wasn't quite intellectually honest.
If it wasn't mere venality on Hitchens's part, then we must conclude that the spectacle of 9/11 reduced him to unreason or caused him to regress to some earlier state of maturity which was jingoistic and preferred force over argument against one's foes. He would not be the only person affected that way. But I think he decided that he could certainly play such a person, and yet speak more eloquently than Sean Hannity, giving cover to so many others who would have been embarrassed to be seen in the company of the sort of person who talks through the side of his mouth and seems to beat an invisible billy club against his open palm.
Too bad he died before he could metamorphose into yet another form.
I did not have to rebel because both of my parents were atheists when I was born.I
Lucky you.
Yes, you can find a number of Hitchens' videos on YouTube denouncing Zionism and giving some really good and honest thought to the poison of ZIonism. However, this is all before 2001, when he completely flip flopped on all of his principles and became an absolute apologist for all of America's wars, as well as Israel's policies in the face of what he would then call "islamo-fascism".
Hitchens in 1991 was one of the BIGGEST critics of the American invasion of Iraq via Operation Dessert Storm, however in 2003, he was one of the biggest apologists for George Bush and Tony Blair in their newfound Middle East adventures.
You have to follow his career very carefully, and pay close attention to dates, when it comes to Hitchens, because at some point he totally and completely sold out, this is a fact. If you want to see this highlighted in the best manner possible, I urge you all to check out a 2003 debate, hosted by Democracy Now; George Galloway vs Christopher Hitchens. Seriously, whoever is critisizing this author for "having no idea about Hitchens" needs to carefully watch this debate.
After watching this debate, I urge all of you who are critisizing this author to step down from your cloud and apologize.
Salam.
i gave you a "+1 like" for what you wrote but it doesnt seem satisfying enough. I wish more atheists would realize how much they're being led by the nose into jingoistic pro-war propaganda by their so-called atheist spokesmen, and even now the same people (bart ehrman for one) are discouraging atheists againsts questioning the lack of proof for the existence of jesus, david, abraham and all the biblical figures which the fact being that there is no evidence for the kingdom of david, that there is no legitimacy for the singularly "jewish" state what so ever. But these guys don't seem to see the connection, or perhaps they do and they don't like it.
Check out jesusneverexisted.com, Ken Humphreys and David Ftizgerald.
thanks :)
Kuwait and the world deserved to have a huge supply of oil/modern conveinience taken away by force via Saddams adventuring? Explain please.
If you want to be absolutely sick to your stomach, then I urge you to watch an address to UCLA entitled:
Christopher Hitchens: 'Anti-Semitism is gateway to tyranny & the common enemy of civilization'
The point is that Hitchens DOES hold a Euro-American supremacist viewpoint. Even though he criticises Israel on numerous occasions, he does not actually DEVALUE the lives of Israelis in the same way as he routinely devalues the lives of muslims in general and specifically arabs. He is anti-zionist but still regards Israelis as superior to and more worthy of life than their neighbours. Hence he is happy for violent aggression against any arab regime but will never condone such action against Israel, whom he instead feels should just stop being silly and switch zionism off like a button. He would never say that the same crimes committed by Israelis and Arabs are equally worthy of NATO invasion and mass slaughter. He can hate all religions equally for all I care but that doesn't make him great, quite the opposite – his selective devalueing of arab lives over jewish lives makes him the same as any other sellout to the neocons.
Saifedean Ammous, did you forget about the 850,000 Jews forced from the Arab countries?
Danny Ayalon did a great video on Youtube about what happened to the Jewish and Arab refugees from 48.
I advise you to see it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_3A6_qSBBQ
The problem is Palestinian Rejectionism.
They deny Israel’s right to exist, http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=433
Promote terrorism and glorify terrorists who murder innocent Jews; http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=455
Promote virulent antisemitism in their schools, mosques, and popular media; and deny the Holocaust suddenly have discovered the dangers of incitement!
Case Study: Portraying Jews as “Apes and Pigs” http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=786
See the sickening hatred the Palestinians teach their kids in their schools and camps. http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=339
I didn't know Hitchens had so many cultists, but judging from the comments on here he did. You people are worse than the MEK trolls we had on a few weeks ago.
Great, comments not approved.
The Arabs are the racists.
In 2003, Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction shot and killed a Palestinian named George Khoury as he was jogging in Jerusalem's French Hill neighborhood.
Arafat, in a clear racist gesture, stated that this was a case of mistaken identity – because their victim turned out to be an Arab instead of a Jew.
ISRAEL is defending itself against Pan-Arabism, Arab imperialism and Arabization of the Middle East – that is the so called "problem". Just ask the Kurds, Coptics, Black Christians of Sudan, Berbers and Western Sahara.
The real problem is global Arab/Moslem insistence to spread hate, violence, wars, terrorism, lies, false accusations against Jews and reducing Jews to subhumans or second class citizens – slaves or servants – without any human rights, civil rights or national rights whatsoever.
For a good overview with links on Christopher Hitchens, start with https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Ch…
Genius, you sure showed Hitchens, I mean he clearly had never in his life heard the singularly brilliant argument that Israel has its own problem with religious extremists.
The funny part is the author criticizes Sean Hannity fans for their ignorance. This is the type of foolishness that sells big in the Arab world. Right now some teacher in a Madrasah in Egypt or Pakitan is reading this article to his students as they cheer how the golden tongue Muslim scholar, anointed by Allah himself, skewered the Atheist Imperialist charlatan. How sad.
So? Why is it okay to be popular in one set of extremist circles but not others?
I actually loved hitchen's books but was totally appalled when he took to the air waves as a war monger.
in his defense (from someone who is 1000% against the wars) i saw a few of his debates, and he never raised wmd or that Saddam was a Hitler, his only point i ever recall hearing was that we should liberate the kurds and give them their own secular state.
with that said, id like to mention something of a side not. i loved hitchens because he was a great atheist, and i had basically become one before the now waning atheist craze over the past few years, but it seems like one of the main reasons, the media really focused on all the atheist writers was to lay an intellectual, progressive base for islamo-fobia.
i think in the long run hitchen's real sin was not his support for the war. he was just doing commercials for the MIC just like most celebrities.
the real problem is the harm to atheism by using it as a propaganda tool against islam. giving a pass to all jewish and christian extremism, at least their modern forms. is what he really did wrong.
for a while when i would talk to people about atheism it was basically assumed that we were going to stand around mocking islam.
similar to how when the right only uses libertarianism to justify their worst policies. (get rid of all social programs so we can afford to dominate the earth) hitchens turned atheism in to just another reason why "we" were great and "they" were terrible
This article is one-sided tripe.
Hitchens was an outspoken critic of Israeli theft of Palestinian land and openly loathed Netenyahoo and his crackpot allies of the Jewish right-wing.
Seems a bit suspicious that the author only chose to write this now, on Hitchens' passing. He had a full 5 years since the alleged encounter to make this public whilst Hitchens was still alive – why didn't he do it then? If the author felt so strongly about it surely he would have wanted to publish it as soon as possible?
Perhaps Mr. Ammous was worried that the article would be refuted for the nonsense that it is?
I don't know if it what the author wrote was nonsense or not, but Hitchens was notoriously vile. Arrogant, sanctimonious and incurious, he was the dumb person's idea of what a smart person should act like.
I am sorry for the passing of Hitchens since I do not wish death on anyone, unlike Mr. Hitchens who seemed to revel in his warmongering, still he would have had more credibility in my mind if he didn't make his living hacking away at other people.
So when someone hacks away at him, his fans cry foul, though perhaps Hitchens wouldn't have minded, even after his death. After all it was what Hitchens was famous for.
Dear Dr. Ammous,
(I assume it is Dr., as I see from your online bio you are either finished with or in the final processes of graduating from Columbia; congratulations). You are correct about one thing in your essay; Christopher Hitchens would not begrudge a worthy opponent taking him to task for his beliefs, posthumously. However, I think he would be quite irritated by having a junior academic clutching onto his coattails to leverage a bit of fame for himself. Really, that is what your post is about, isn’t it? It is not that you wish to speak ill of the dead, though you certainly do indulge in that pleasure. No, this is about casting yourself in the light of a nemesis; a worthy opponent. After all, by your own account, you stood, toe-to-toe with Hitchens, spoke your mind and, to use your words, “For once, I saw him flustered and speechless. It was clear he genuinely had not thought of this and now he felt thoroughly embarrassed. He smiled, looked around, tried to find something to say, but came up with nothing.”
Kudos, sir. You accomplished what so many more with so much more experience have been unable to do. What a coup for such a young academic as yourself to have accomplished in casual ex post debate what so many others have failed to achieve.
And that brings us to the subject of you, Dr. Ammous. What are the accomplishments of such a man? Certainly, you have some newspaper and online journal articles, some interviews, a blog post, here and there, an unpublished dissertation on alternative energy fuels… oh, and a very active Twitter account, in which you give us such insights as “If you follow American politicians & take them seriously, you're a fucking moron.” Most of your emerging public image of expertise would seem to be in a completely different area.
Of course, the fact that Hitchens had already answered your questions, numerous times in print, in public addresses and through interviews does give one pause regarding your interpretation of events. Had you bothered to initiate even a cursory examination of Hitchen’s numerous interviews or writings on the subject of Zionism and the Palestinian State, you would have seen that he has publically and vehemently spoken against the former and in favor of the latter. It is embarrassingly easy to find examples. Even a brief Google search yields myriad instances. If you are internet savvy enough to Tweet, “I'm sick & tired of morons who think this dumb line works for any irrelevant discussion. Troll Block!” Then surely you can do a Google search, yes?
But just in case… here is one of the most succinct and compelling examples of Hitchen’s beliefs on the matter, "I am an Anti-Zionist. I'm one of those people of Jewish descent who believes that Zionism would be a mistake even if there were no Palestinians." Another is when, in a 2001 interview with Charlie Rose, he simply states, “I have been writing in favor of a Palestinian homeland all my life… It should be a matter of principle. If Jews born in Brooklyn have a right to a state in Palestine, then Palestinians born in Jerusalem have a right to a Palestinian state in Palestine.”
By the way, that first quote is from 2004; two years before your meeting and three years after the date you suggest through your blog and Twitter postings that Hitchens turned Israeli shill.
Dr. Ammous, like you, I earned my doctorate at Columbia. Like you, I initially was under the impression that my pedigree gave me some public intellectual status and I began expounding on all sorts of issues you will never see my name attached to in a peer reviewed publication. In short, I was acting like a horse’s ass. Fortunately, I had friends and colleagues who (sometimes) kindly pointed this out. As I grew in maturity and competency, I focused on my areas of expertise, and learned to listen more and speak less when I found myself outside those areas, even if I felt passionate about the subject. I hope you do the same. However, unlike you, I had neither the desire or the arrogance to attempt to leverage my own career at the expense of another man, especially so quickly after he could no longer respond. I would urge you to rein your ego in before it costs you a career.
You are not the nemesis your think you are. Hitchens’ silence, Dr. Ammous was not because he was speechless at your dazzling insights; he was speechless at your profound and saddening ignorance. My advice to you, as one alum to another is to realize that no special insights exist save those you have rigorously pursued through diligent scholarship, research and effort; Hitchens, love him or hate him, made a life time and a career of doing exactly this; you have not (yet). If you really do wish to stand toe-to toe with someone who has gone to such great lengths to verse themselves on a topic, than I suggest you do the work, show some humility, stop trying to profit from a dead man’s credibility and start building your own reputation. Dr. Ammous, let me do you the same kindness that was done to me. You sir, are a horse’s ass. I wish you all the best success in migrating to become a better part of the beast.
Why would a doctorate holder from Columbia fawn over Hitchens so much? Hitchens was a man, and thus far from perfect. It is not out of the realm of possibilty to think that at some points in his hedonistic life he may, just may, have been rendered speechless on occasion. Get over yourselves O Cultists of Hitchens.
You don't find it a bit strange that it took 5 years to publish the article irrespective of your feelings towards CH? It suddenly appears as soon Hitchens death is announced – convenient? It is so easy to slander the dead, you see they are not around to defend themselves.
As for Hitchens "hacking away", well yes he did and most of the people he hacked away at deserved the criticism – the Taliban & al Qaeda fundamentalists, the Zionist occupiers of Arab land, Saddam Hussein amongst many other dictators. Then there was the rabbis, immans and the papacy whom he criticised for their abuse of children, bigotry and lies.
In his life he witnessed injustice first hand and was in more tight spots than, I would suggest, all of the commentators & the author of this article put together. As a foreign correspondent he had to dodge bullets & was beaten up on several occasions. He knew of Saddams execution / torture chambers in Abu Ghraib and saw first hand how the Kurds suffered because of Hussein which is why he supported his removal.
Hitchens was very wrong about Iraq, but, as has been mentioned above, he was wrong with the best of intentions. Hitchens made a lot of enemies for his support of the Iraq war, it seems that many of these people can't see beyond that, ignorantly thinking that this one event discredited everything the man did before or since then. All of his work simply became of no value to these people.
No-one is above criticism; Hitchens included, I disagreed with him on Iraq and some of his politics but I can still see the value in much of his other work. Mr Ammous certainly is not above criticism & in fact very much deserves it for the cowardly timing of this article.
As for slandering the dead Hitchens had no problem with it himself, so I think if you live by the sword you die by the sword.
I've seen injustice as well but it doesn't give me an excuse to stand on a soap box and lecture others in a self-righteous manner. Hitchens was everything he claimed to despise, and was himself an intolerant bigot.
Hitchens never admitted he was wrong about Iraq, or about Marxism in general which has been used to justify killing far, far many people than the religions he claims to despise.
As for why wait until now to write the article, I say why not? Hitchens would have simply denied it or ignored it, and who would have really cared. Hitchens was never a serious intellectual and lost all credibility after 9/11 when he became a shill for war. I don't see any reason why Prof. Ammous-who holds a Phd from Columbia-would lie about the encounter.
To slander is to make a false statement, to lie in order to defame someone's character, when Hitchens was critical of people who had died he could usually back it up with good reason, he may have been many things but I don't think he was a liar.
If people have witnessed injustice, they could try to do something about it, or maybe not? Maybe it is easier to sit back and just get on with life for fear that someone might think you are being self righteous. Well, Hitchens wouldn't have minded if you thought he was self righteous, but he was not for sitting back, he took up the cause for liberty relentlessly – in articles, debates, books etc.
Yes, as I mentioned above, Hitchens was wrong about Iraq, he could have done more to admit this. Also as I mentioned, I didn't always agree with his politics, but, I can still see the value in much of his work.
Why wait until now to write the article? Well, for one Hitchens is not around to refute it, but it all likely-hood Ammous saw an opportunity to bolster his own notoriety by writing a contentious, crassly timed article. Had he been really so concerned about Hitchens ethics he would published the article asap after the alleged encounter. Ammous hold a phd from Columbia, ok… see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_author…