Linguist, left-wing activist Prof. Tanya Reinhardt dies age 63

[Violet_Crumble]

Linguist and left-wing activist Professor Tanya Reinhardt died in New York on Saturday at age 63.

Reinhardt, one of the most outspoken representatives of the radical Israeli left, was a fierce critic of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, saying they represented a perpetuation of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. She was also a proponent of an academic boycott of Israeli universities to protest the occupation.

After receiving a master's degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Reinhardt wrote her doctoral thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under renowned linguist Noam Chomsky.

Her contributions to linguistic theory dealt with the connection between meaning and context, and the interface between syntax and systems of sound.

From 1977, Reinhardt taught courses in linguistics and literature at Tel Aviv University, including classes in critical reading of media and the analysis of discourse based on Chomsky's methods.

For the last 15 years she also taught at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

In December 2006, Reinhardt left Israel and settled in New York to teach at New York University.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/839031.html

RIP Tanya...

[Douglas Carpenter]

1. my goodness, I've read two of her books within the past year

Here is the website of her articles she has written since 1994. The most recent was written sept/oct 2006:

http://www.tau.ac.il/~reinhart/political/politicalE.html


The laste Professor Reinhart's two most recent books:

Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948, 2nd ed

link:

http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Palestine-1948-Open-Media/dp/1583226516/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/102-8701952-4352901?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1173763065&sr=1-2

link:

The Road Map to Nowhere: Israel/Palestine Since 2003

link:

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Map-Nowhere-Israel-Palestine/dp/1844670767/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/102-8701952-4352901?ie=UTF8&qid=1173763065&sr=1-2


.

[Violet_Crumble]

2. I've only got Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948...

It's a really good book, and I nearly bought a copy of the Road Map to Nowhere in September last year when I went to a lecture she did over here, but I was in pennypinching mode coz I was going on an OS trip two days later, and didn't buy it....

My daughter came with me to the lecture last year, and when I told her Tanya Reinhart had died and it was a sudden death, she rolled her eyes in that really annoying teenage way kids have and said: 'Well, d'uh! She was really really old! Old people die all the time!' I wish I could remember the days when I thought anyone over 18 was really really old...

[Douglas Carpenter]

3. scary thought

I remember when I turned eight years old consciously thinking to myself, "gee this is half way to being 16," at the time I considered 16 to be practically grown up.

Now I hate to think how old I am half way to being.

But perhaps by then there will be a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.

[bemildred]

4. RIP Ms Reinhardt. Would that more Israelis had her wits and guts. nt

[eyl]

5. Though I pretty much disagreed with

her views, this is sad new indeed

baruch dayan emet

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. Democracy Now has a special eulogy to Professor Reinhart today

(Please note my Professor Tanya Reinhart avatar which I just installed. Peace be upon her)


The Democracy now special in the last 15 minutes of todays program includes part of an interview she did on Democracy Now in October 2004 and excerpt from a speech she gave in NYC in February 2007

"The Israeli linguist, author and peace activist Tanya Reinhart has died of a stroke at the age of sixty-three. Reinhart was one of the most outspoken critics of Israeli government policies and one of Israel's leading advocates for Palestinian national rights. She was professor emeritus of linguistics and media studies at Tel Aviv University and Global Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at New York University. She wrote columns for Israel's largest daily newspaper, Yediot Ahranot, and had an active following of readers around the world for her critical perspectives on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Her books include "Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948" and "The Road Map to Nowhere." In December, she moved to New York saying she could no longer live in Israel due to its treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. "


link:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/03/19/1354224

Interview Professor Reinhart did on October 8, 2004

link:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/08/1530244&mode=thread&tid=25

Interview with Professor Reinhart September 8th, 2003

link:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/08/1555247&mode=thread&tid=13

[Igel]

7. Too bad.

Her second-most-recent book just got to the top of my "to read, in field" list.

Interface Strategies: Optimal and Costly Computations. MIT Press. (Economy and reference-set interpretations.)

Very much not politics or I/P, no matter what you can interpret the title to mean.

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. In Memory of Tanya Reinhart By NOAM CHOMSKY

She Drew Away the Veil on Criminal and Outrageous Conduct

link to full article:

http://www.counterpunch.org/reinhart03192007.html

"It is painful, and hard, to write about the loss of an old and cherished friend. Tanya Reinhart was just that.

Tanya was a brilliant and creative scientist. I can express my own evaluation of her work most concisely by recalling that years ago, when I was thinking about the future of my own department after my retirement, I tried to arrange to offer Tanya the invitation to be my eventual replacement, plans that did not work out, much to my regret, mostly for bureaucratic reasons.

I will not try to review her remarkable contributions to virtually every major area of linguistic studies. Included among them are original and highly influential investigations of syntactic structure and operations, referential dependence, principles of lexical semantics and their implications for syntactic organization, unified approaches to cross-linguistic semantic interpretation of complex structures that appear superficially to vary widely, the theory of stress and intonation, efficient parsing systems, the interaction of internal computations with thought and sensorimotor systems, optimal design as a core principle of language, and much else. Her academic work extended well beyond, to literary theory, mass media and propaganda, and other core elements of intellectual culture.

But Tanya's outstanding professional work was only one part of her life, and of our long and intimate friendship. She was one of the most courageous and honorable defenders of human rights whom I have ever been privileged to meet. As all honest people should, she focused her attention and energy on the actions of her own state and society, for which she shared responsibility ­ including the responsibility, which she never shirked, to expose crimes of state and to defend the victims of repression, violence, and conquest.

Her numerous articles and books drew away the veil that concealed criminal and outrageous actions, and shone a searing light on the reality that was obscured, all of immense value to those who sought to understand and to react in a decent way. Her activism was not limited to words, important as these were. She was on the front line of direct resistance to intolerable actions, an organizer and a participant, a stance that one cannot respect too highly. She will be remembered not only as a resolute and honorable defender of the rights of Palestinians, but also as one of those who have struggled to defend the moral integrity of her own Israeli society, and its hope for decent survival.

Tanya's passing is a terrible loss, not only to her family and those fortunate enough to come to know her personally, and to those she defended and protected with such dedication and courage, but to everyone concerned with freedom, justice, and an honorable peace."

link to full article:

http://www.counterpunch.org/reinhart03192007.html

[Douglas Carpenter]

9. An Interview with Tanya Reinhart with ERIC HAZAN: The Roadmap to Nowhere

link to full interview: http://www.counterpunch.org/reinhart03192007.html

"Despite the grim events described in the book, the overall feeling that comes through is that of hope. Why?

Reinhart: "I argue that the reason that the U.S. exerted even limited pressure on Israel, for the first time in recent history, was because at that moment in history it was no longer possible to ignore world discontent over its policy of blind support of Israel. This shows that persistent struggle can have an effect, and can lead governments to act. Such struggle begins with the Palestinian people, who have withstood years of brutal oppression, and who, through their spirit of zumud--sticking to their land - and daily endurance, organizing and resistance, have managed to keep the Palestinian cause alive, something that not all oppressed nations have managed to do. It continues with international struggle--solidarity movements that send their people to the occupied territories and stand in vigils at home, professors signing boycott petitions, subjecting themselves to daily harassment, a few courageous journalists that insist on covering the truth, against the pressure of acquiescent media and pro-Israel lobbies. Often this struggle for justice seems futile. Nevertheless, it has penetrated global consciousness. It is this collective consciousness that eventually forced the U.S. to pressure Israel into some, albeit limited, concessions. . The Palestinian cause can be silenced for a while, as is happening now, but it will resurface."

Tanya Reinhart was one of those whose determined voice and writings did just that: change global consciousness. AC / JSC"

link to full interview: http://www.counterpunch.org/reinhart03192007.html

Amazon link to her latest book: The Roadmap to Nowhere:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1844670767/counterpunchmagahttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1844670767/counterpunchmaga

link to articles by the late Dr. Reinhart starting in 1994. The most recent article was written in Sept/Oct 2006:

http://www.tau.ac.il/~reinhart/political/politicalE.html

[Englander]

10. Eulogies from Occupation magazine;

http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=18874

[Englander]

11. From "The Other Israel: Voices of Refusal and Dissent"

http://www.amazon.com/Other-Israel-Voices-Refusal-Dissent/dp/1565849140/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-9065016-5040868?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174480930&sr=1-1

The second half of 1948: The Sharon-Ya'alon Plan
TANYA REINHART
Yediot Ahronot, 10 June 2001

Official declarations and many reports in the Israeli media indicate that the Israeli military and political leadership are aiming, eventually, at a total destruction of the Palestinian authority, and, with it, the process of Oslo, which is now dominantly considered by them a 'historical mistake'. What can they be after? -Let us trace some of the background for this development.

Ever since the 1967 occupation, the military and political elites (which have been always closely intertwined in Israel) deliberated over the question of how to keep maximum land with minimum Palestinian population. The leaders of the '1948 generation' - Alon, Sharon, Dayan, Rabin and Peres - were raised on the myth of redemption of land. But a simple solution of annexation of the occupied territories would have turned the occupied Palestinians into Israeli citizens, and this would have caused what has been labeled the "demographic problem" - the fear that the Jewish majority could not be preserved. Therefore, two basic conceptions were developed.

>snip

But what can they have in mind as a replacement of the Oslo arrangements? One wave of rumors (reported e.g.in March 9 in Yediot) is that the IDF plans to reinstall the Israeli military rule. But this does not make any sense as a long term plan. The Oslo agreements were conceived precisely because that system could no longer work. The burden of policing the territories was much too heavy on the army, the reserves and the Israeli society, and the IDF's success in preventing terror was, in fact, much lower than that of the PA in later years. After the Lebanon experience, and after the seven years of Oslo, during which the Israeli society got used to the idea that the occupation comes for free, with the PA taking care of the settlers' security, it is hard to imagine that anyone believes a pre-Oslo arrangement can be reinstalled.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that after 30 years of occupation, the two options competing in the Israeli power system are precisely the same as those set by the generation of 1948: Apartheid (the Alon-Oslo plan), or transfer - mass evacuation of the Palestinian residents, as happened in 1948 (the Sharon plan). Those pushing for the destruction of the Oslo infra-structure may still believe that under the appropriate conditions of regional escalation, the transfer plan would become feasible.

In modern times, wars aren't openly started over land and water. In order to attack, you first need to prove that the enemy isn't willing to live in peace and is threatening our mere existence. Barak managed to do that. Now conditions are ripe for executing Sharon's plan, or as Ya'alon put it in November 2000, for "the second half of 1948".

Before we reach that dark line, there is one option which was never tried before: Get out of the occupied territories immediately.

http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/node/553