ZIONIST MCCARTHYISM SPREADS ON CAMPUSES

[proud2BlibKansan]

INSIDE HIGHER ED - At Barnard College, Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropologist who is coming up for tenure, is under attack by some alumnae and pro-Israel groups for a book, published by the University of Chicago Press, that was critical of Israeli archaeology and its use in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At Wayne State University, similar groups are pushing the university not to hire Wadie Said for a faculty position in the law school. In that case, critics of Said are attacking him and his late father, the literary theorist Edward Said, saying that both Saids' activism on behalf of the Palestinian cause has amounted to support for violent groups.

These debates follow the cancellation last month of a lecture by Tony Judt, a professor at New York University, at the Polish consulate in New York City, amid charges that the Anti-Defamation League had encouraged Polish officials to call off the talk. And in June, Yale University turned down Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who is a leading figure in Middle Eastern studies, for a position after a lengthy period in which critics of Cole argued that he was not a suitable choice for the position, in part because of his criticism of Israel. And Princeton University has faced criticism over a possible hire as well.

This weekend, the Middle East Studies Association, of which Cole is the president, voted to expand the work of its academic freedom committee which has focused on helping scholars in the Middle East to engage in efforts on behalf of colleagues in the United States.

"The subtext of these controversies is whether it is going to be allowed for Palestinians to hold positions in academe in the United States. Is it going to be allowed for people who are not Zionists to hold positions? Is there a Zionist litmus test in the United States?" said Cole in an interview Monday. He characterized the pro-Israel groups' activities as "the privatization of McCarthyism" and said that they represented the most serious threat today to academic freedom in the United States....

http://hnn.us/roundup/archives/14/2006/11/#32185

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

1. If true, this type of behavior will only hurt Israel in the long run

We need to be talking to each other throughout the world and not shutting off dissent or unpopular opinions, which will eventually boil over if suppressed.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JohnLocke]

15. So, do you support the destruction of archeological sites?

Particularly troubling, Ms. Stern said, is Ms. Abu El-Haj's conclusion that the Palestinians who in 2000 desecrated Joseph's Tomb — a Jewish holy site in the West Bank city of Nablus — need to be "understood in relation to a colonial-national history in which modern political rights have been substantiated in and expanded through the material signs of historic presence."
In a recent e-mail message to fellow Barnard graduates, Ms. Stern, who lives in Israel, wrote, "In Abu El Haj's view, deliberately destroying ancient buildings is not to be condemned, it is to be ‘analyzed as a form of resistance to the Israeli state.'" Ms. Stern urged fellow Barnard graduates to contact the college's president "if you share my concern about the implications of hiring a young scholar who writes with so little respect for the use of evidence."

Is this acceptable to you?

[Wonk]

21. No, I don't. Do you support apartheid?

Rhetorical question, but feel free to answer if you like.

I ain't gonna play Sun City.

[JohnLocke]

23. As long as we're trading questions...

No, of course not.

Do you support Israel's right to exist within secure and recognized borders?

[Wonk]

27. Sure do. The question is where exactly are those borders drawn?

And by whom? And how gerrymandered are they?

[Warren DeMontague]

29. That is, unfortunately, not the only question.

Borders don't mean a whole lot if the people on both sides can't expect to live free of attacks, terrorism, rocket fire, bombs and violence. Note I said both sides.

Honestly, I think that the parameters of a reasonable final deal were fairly close to being hammered out in 2000. I think Bill Clinton (to his everlasting credit) brought both the Israelis and the Palestinians about as close to solving these issues pretty much once and for all as we've seen. So, the question of the borders isn't a total mystery. As far as I was concerned, the Palestinians (really, Arafat) walked away from that deal with a last minute all or nothing demand of full right of return for 3 million Palestinians, which everyone knows would mean the end of Israel as a state. The way I saw it, he bargained in what was supposed to be good faith, and when there was real "danger" of an actual settlement, he walked away from the table.

That's my take on it. I know others here disagree and have their own narrative of what has gone on down there. There are plenty of alternate histories floating around with regards to Israel and the middle east (I've even been told that any belief that Israel was in imminent danger of being attacked in 1967 is a historical lie, and instead due to a "petty persecution complex") so I'm not really interested in debating that specific point.

However, in answer to the previous post, I suspect that a solution to these questions would probably look a good deal like the one that was almost adopted in 2000.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. How about suicide bombing? Support that?

Rhetorical question, of course.

[Wonk]

26. When did you stop beating your wife?

Rhetorical question, of course.

[Wonk]

28. Yo! Mods! Since you deleted post #2, you may as well delete the sub-thread.

Without the sub-thread in context it won't make much sense.

[Poll_Blind]

3. More Campus-Watch zampolit?

Campus-Watch

PB

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. Zampolit?

:shrug:

[Behind the Aegis]

5. Do read the review of her work.

Review of Nadia Abu el-Haj's Facts on the Ground; Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society.

[Swede]

7. Pretty scathing stuff.

Post-modernism of Abu El Haj’s highly politicized variety will eventually collapse under the weight of its own absurdities. The damage that such scholars inflict on universities by abandoning the disinterested pursuit of truth as a goal in favor of a style of scholarship that invents and destroys facts to serve political objectives may be far more difficult to repair.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

20. This scientific journal seems to view her work from a more dispassionate

position.

This review of her book in American Ethnologist, the Journal of the American Ethnological Society considers the questions she raises about how political goals influence science such as archaeology are important ones to make. The review is mixed, with both criticism and praise. At any rate, it looks like her work from a scientific point of view, while controversial, is deemed to have a valid place within the scientific literature in the opinion of this scientific journal.

http://www.aaanet.org/aes/bkreviews/result_print.cfm?bk_id=592

"...Abu El-Haj provides an important and timely look at some of the politics of self-representation behind the Israeli government's public face, within a broader argument about science's capacity for political involvement and for maintaining and even advancing colonialist policies. However, I reiterate that her failure to present either official Palestinian or public Palestinian/Israeli opinions and attitudes within the context of Israel's (settler) nationalist-archaeological discipline means that answers to the excellent questions she raises are never made clear. ..."

[laststeamtrain]

6. The End of Academic Freedom and the Israel Lobby (Juan Cole)

The End of Academic Freedom and the Israel Lobby

Terri Ginsberg and Rima Abdelkader survey the wreckage of a once proud tradition of American academic integrity.

This is what I wrote last week on the subject:

<snip>

Pennsylvania's legislature was conned by the Neocon master of Disinformation and the Big Lie, David Horowitz, into wasting taxpayer money to investigate if professors mistreat their students because of the latter's politics. The commission found that such instances are "rare" and that nothing further need be done. D'oh. There is not any way to know how students vote, and why would you bring that in to grading their paper on Moliere's plays? Pennsylvania voters should consider whether Rep. Gibson C. Armstrong, R-Lancaster, deserves to sit in their legislature if he is going to waste their hard-earned money on these silly wild goose chases. Isn't there a Pennsylvania (or better, Lancaster) bloggers' network that can bring Armstrong's record in this regard before the public? .

http://www.juancole.com/2006/11/end-of-academic-freedom-and-israel.html

[everythingsxen]

10. Not that he has an axe to grind...

since he didn't get professorship after makking anti-Israeli remarks and having lukewarm support from other professors.

[Solo_in_MD]

8. I've this kind of stuff working on both sides, CAIR is no friend of academic freedom either.

Two wrongs are just two wrongs. Neither side should be doing it.

[JCMach1]

11. Universities are about the Freedom of Ideas

IF they are truly banning these people, that is profoundly wrong...

On the other hand, it should also be the goal of said academics to open the eyes of their students with multiple positions and ideas on the issues. Remember, I teach in the Middle-East.

While the majority of my students are profoundly anti-Israel, I always try to get them to examine their position. For example, if the position of the Israeli Government always the position of the majority of Israelis. I also get them to think about the conflict in terms of economics and power instead of just politics and ideology.

While that does not change people's minds, it does change how they think about issues.

[Behind the Aegis]

13. You are correct that it is the duty to open eyes.

However, you and I both know that bigotry can be found in all levels of society, higher education as well. When a professor discards facts and creates a revisionist history, that is problematic.

Teaching should not be about changing minds, but rather exposing them to a variety of things, but of all, there should be a commitment to truth. I think you understand and believe that.

[dailykoff]

12. A little repression goes a long way in academia.

On the bright side, they're not beating up on Marxists this week. . . .

[JohnLocke]

14. Abu el-Haj seems to make up things as she goes along...

In "Facts on the Ground," Ms. Abu el-Haj suggests Jerusalem was destroyed not by the Romans, but by the Jews themselves due to rising class tensions among them. Yet, the 1st-century historian and scribe Josephus described in great detail the Roman siege of Jerusalem. Additionally, carvings in the Arch of Titus in Rome depict the Roman General Titus showing off menorahs and other objects looted from the Second Temple.

http://www.nysun.com/article/43652

[JCMach1]

16. There is some truth to Israeli manipulation of data

especially concerning Masada.

Also, there has been much hair-pulling in Israel over evidence that the Jews and Philistines actually mixed (including religiously)!

While I am not familiar with el-Haj's work, I would want to see her evidence before jumping the gun on anything.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. Yes, the Jews didn't become uniformly strict about monotheism

until the Exile to Babylon.

Before that, there are continual Bible stories about people worshipping Canaanite gods. This apparently represents a historical reality.

[Hissyspit]

18. Josephus' versions of events are considered suspect by many historians.

The truth could as well be that both are true.

[JohnLocke]

19. That is true.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. Not only that, it's SPREADING IN ALL CAPS

Fiendish Zionists!

:eyes:

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. LOL I just cut and pasted the headline from the link

It was in all caps.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[proud2BlibKansan]

30. I didn't cherry pick anything

I just thought it was an interesting article for DISCUSSION. You know, that's what we do here - discuss things. Apparently that is a difficult concept for you to grasp, so you decide to try to read my mind and find a motive. Sheesh.

[everythingsxen]

32. I didn't have to reach far...

since the site you linked to had a link to the real article. You could have linked to it, but instead you linked to a decidedly anti-Israeli website with a much more limited article focusing on the anti-Israeli side.

It would have been an interesting topic for discussion if you had chosen to use the source version which was an objective piece and instead chose to pick an anti-Israeli sites edited version of the story.

[rman]

33. This is happening in the US?

So why was this moved to the I/P forum?

[cali]

34. It's a Zionist conspiracy.

Seriously, I'm assuming that it was moved because much of the controversy has to do with Israel/Palestine.

[Lithos]

35. Locking per I/P guidelines

Subject title does not agree with article title.

Article itself is not the primary article and is an opinion piece by an unknown individual (vanity).

Lithos
DU Moderator