Employing a label popular among academic devotees of the late Edward Said, Times of Israel blogger Dmitri Shufutinksy calls out Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill for engaging in “tropes that he seemingly opposes–namely, Orientalism.” According to Shufutinksy, Hill’s ignorant and dismissive response to Mizrahi Jewish journalist Hen Mazzig’s LA Times column explaining that, contrary to opponents’ stereotyping, Israel is not a “white” nation, has all the hallmarks of a “modern, more progressive lens of Orientalism [that] is focused on Jews.”
Intoning the “logic” of Said’s Orientalism, whereby only those of the identity at hand have a right to study said identity, Shufutinsky concludes: “There are many important conversations to be had about the conflicts in the Middle East and Jewish identity–and the voices leading the way should be those with skin in the game. Lamont-Hill has none and is trying to speak over those who do. He continues to show his hand as a privileged Western scholar, who condemns bigotry only when it affects him, yet regularly disregards the pain of other communities when it suits his political agenda.”
