Sunday, June 24, 2007

I saw Ahmad `Abdur-Rahman defending Abu Mazen on Al-Arabiya TV. He now holds a senior position in Abu Mazen's structure of power. I knew `Abdur-Rahman in his Lebanon days, when he was editor-in-chief of Filastin Ath-Thawrah (the mouthpiece of Fath). I used to tell him that his newspaper was unreadable--it was. I took a graduate seminar with `Abdur-Rahman at AUB taught by Walid Khalidi. Once, we were supposed to read a book by Hans Morgenthau (Politics Among Nations). We came to class, and Khalidi asked us what we thought of the book. `Abdur-Rahman said: "Bad. Very bad." Khalidi asked him to explain how and why it was bad. `Abdur-Rahman said: "It is imperialist." Khalidi asked him to elaborate. `Abdur-Rahman only said: "Very imperialist." With that, Khalidi moved on.