Saad-Ghorayeb:"I was invited to engage in security normalization with Israeli officers ... to play 'native-informant"

Amal Saad Ghorayeb responds on Helena Cobban's JWN, here

".... The episode is nothing short of a botched attempt to enlist me --on account of my “academic expertise [on Hizbullah] and reputation” to borrow Hammond’s words-- to deliver a lecture on the Lebanese resistance movement to an audience of Israeli and other NATO officers and diplomats,  and then, in clear violation of my country’s laws, to engage IDF officers and diplomats in back-channel talks, in the context of the scheduled “Q&A” session. It is crucial to repeat here that these Israeli guests were not private citizens but diplomats and IDF officers, and that accordingly, I was invited to not merely engage in cultural normalization with Israeli academics, but in security normalization with Israeli officers. .....

That a hardened military man with decades of experience under his sleeve, would respond in such hysterical fashion to a non-threatening e-mail, written in an “academic” –albeit “claptrap”--style by his own account, leaves one wondering whether he has been isolated in his ivory tower for too long or is simply acting out a subconscious fear of the recalcitrant native who refuses to play the role of native-informant...."