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Feb. 2, 2006
Boycott Backlash
Boycotts of academic institutions are antithetical to academic freedom and should not be used as a means of protest, according to a new policy being adopted by the American Association of University Professors.
Related stories
- New Haven Censured; 2 Colleges Have Sanction Lifted, June 16
- Tenure as a Tarnished Brass Ring, March 31
- An AAUP Manifesto, June 7, 2007
- AAUP President Speaks, June 7, 2007
- British Professors Seek to Cut Ties to Israeli Scholars, May 30, 2006
The policy follows considerable controversy in the last year over a boycott declared by Britain’s main faculty union against two Israeli universities. The AAUP and many other faculty groups condemned the boycott, which was ultimately withdrawn. But tensions over the boycott remain high — and the AAUP is currently facing criticism for inviting eight prominent backers of the boycott to a small private gathering in Italy this month to discuss academic boycotts.
AAUP officials say that the invitations simply represent the group’s commitment to listening to all ideas. But critics say that the association is devaluing its statement by giving legitimacy to those who would seek to isolate Israeli scholars and academics.
While the association’s commitment to opposing boycotts is being questioned by some, the statement itself is unequivocal in criticizing them — even in cases where colleges are located in undemocratic countries or where institutions themselves do not live up to the ideals of free expression.
“Colleges and universities should be what they purport to be: institutions committed to the search for truth and its free expression,” the new policy states. “Members of the academic community should feel no obligation to support or contribute to institutions that are not free or that sail under false colors, that is, claim to be free but in fact suppress freedom. Such institutions should not be boycotted. Rather, they should be exposed for what they are, and wherever possible, the continued exchange of ideas should be actively encouraged. The need is always for more academic freedom, not less.”
An academic boycott, the policy states, “undermines exactly the freedom one wants to defend” and “takes aim at the wrong target.”
The policy also rejects an argument put forth by some defenders of the Israeli boycott that academic freedom concerns could be mitigated by creating a boycott loophole to allow interaction to continue with professors who were sufficiently supportive — in the boycott organizers’ views — to Palestinian rights. “We especially oppose selective academic boycotts that entail an ideological litmus test,” the policy states. “We understand that such selective boycotts may be intended to preserve academic exchange with those more open to the views of boycott proponents, but we cannot endorse the use of political or religious views as a test of eligibility for participation in the academic community.”
While the position outlined in the policy is consistent with what the AAUP has said for decades, it is the group’s first paper on the topic. While the AAUP has yet to publish the document, it has been approved by the association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and there are no plans to change the policy.
The AAUP policy notes that while the group censures institutions for violating academic freedom, it does not advocate that scholars stop interacting with their colleagues at those colleges. And while the AAUP once endorsed a boycott, it was an economic, not academic, one. In that case, the AAUP in 1985 urged colleges to sell stocks in companies that did business in South Africa without adhering to certain principles. But at no time did the AAUP advocate a cut in ties to South African colleges or academics.
“In protesting against apartheid in South Africa, the AAUP carefully distinguished between economic and academic boycotts largely on matters of principle,” the policy states. “Economic boycotts seek to bring pressure to bear on the regime responsible for violations of rights; they are not meant to impair the ability of scholars to write teach, and pursue research, although they may have that result. Academic boycotts, in contrast, strike directly at the free exchange of ideas.”
The primary advocates for the boycott of Israel include some leaders of the Association of University Teachers, the main faculty union in Britain. In pushing for the boycott last year, they argued that two Israeli institutions — Bar-Ilan University and the University of Haifa — were complicit in Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.
Almost as soon as the boycotts were announced, they were widely criticized by academic leaders in the United States and elsewhere. Many professors — including some who are strongly critical of Israel’s government — said that a boycott didn’t make sense given that universities promote the free exchange of ideas and that within Israeli society, many academics are among the leading supporters of Palestinian rights. In fact, a number of Palestinian scholars criticized the boycotts (and a few Israeli scholars supported them).
In Britain, meanwhile, many academics said that the union vote for the boycott took place without many professors participating. Facing all of the criticism, the union held another vote in May and revoked the boycotts. Leaders of the pro-boycott movement did not respond to requests for comment about the AAUP document, but their Web sites outline their views and forums have been organized at British universities in the last month to discuss reviving the boycott, with some suggesting that Hebrew University of Jerusalem be added to the boycott list.
The AAUP statement appears to be almost entirely consistent with the views of boycott opponents in Britain and the United States. But online discussions among boycott opponents have been full of criticism of the association over this month’s meeting about academic boycotts. With support from the Ford, Rockefeller and Nathan Cummings Foundations, the AAUP has invited 22 scholars to Bellagio, the conference center in northern Italy, to discuss academic boycotts.
Boycott critics are upset that at least 8 of the 22 participants are strong proponents of a complete academic boycott of Israel, and that they were all strong defenders of the British faculty union’s original stand. The critics are also angry that many prominent opponents of the British union’s boycott were not invited to the meeting.
Jon Pike, a senior lecturer in political philosophy at Britain’s Open University, wrote to the AAUP to express “very serious concerns” about the invitations. “Why do you weight the conference so strongly to the very small minority who are strong opposed to the AAUP’s position?” he asked. Pike went on to say of the panel that it was “terribly skewed towards marginal, unrepresentative, and absolutist positions, now widely discredited in the UK.”
Pike published his criticisms on the Web site of Engage, a group formed in Britain to oppose the boycott. (He also posted replies from the AAUP, which noted, among other things, that some of the Palestinian critics of the boycott cited by Pike had been invited, but decided not to attend.)
Another leading critic of the boycotts — Emanuele Ottolenghi — criticized the AAUP invitations in an interview Wednesday. Ottolenghi is a research fellow on Israeli law, politics and society at the University of Oxford, and he wrote to boycott organizers last year urging them to add his name to their boycott list as long as they were shunning scholars in Israel.
Ottolenghi said he could understand why the AAUP might invite one or two boycott supporters to the meeting to so that their ideas could be heard. But he said that by giving boycott supporters such a significant share of participation, the AAUP was elevating the legitimacy of “people who on a false agenda of liberty and human rights are trying to silence people.” Some ideas, he said (citing denial of the Holocaust as an example), do not deserve to be debated on equal terms, and he said that the idea that academics who work in certain countries should be cut off from the academic community because of their government’s views was such an idea.
While Ottolenghi is a strong supporter of Israel, he said that the leaders of the British boycott movement not only tried to take away his right to hold his views, but that they also attempted to impose views on the large majority of British academics who aren’t consumed with the politics of the Middle East or who — even if they feel passionately about the Middle East — want their union to focus on other issues.
“I think the union should battle for better salaries for academics,” Ottolenghi said.
Some professors in Israel who have been working against the boycott are also angry over the invitation list to the AAUP event. Gerald M. Steinberg, director of the Program on Conflict Management and Negotiation at Bar-Ilan University, said that the AAUP was creating a forum for “the demonization of Israel” and failing to recognize that some of those it was inviting were using the boycott as “a vehicle” to attack Israel.
Several of those invited to the conference did not respond to messages.
Roger Bowen, general secretary of the AAUP, defended the invitations, noting that many boycott critics would be present, and that the association was coming down strongly on their side. “It always shocks me when people are fearful about hearing the thoughts and ideas of those with whom they disagree. The AAUP does not boycott ideas and i think this conference is simply a reminder of that. We believe in the free and honest exchange of views and that’s what we are doing here.”
Bowen said that there was no danger that the presence of all of the boycott supporters would shift the association’s position. “The statement is the statement,” he said.
The AAUP is “confident enough” in its ideals, he said, to talk with people with whom it disagrees. “I’d rather have a dialogue than a monologue,” Bowen said. “We already know what we think.”
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Comments
Engage was set up to oppose the campaign to boycott Israeli writers, teachers, academics, students, artists, musicians and thinkers.
Engage opposes the occupation of the West Bank because we think that this also imposes, amongst other restrictions of freedom, severe restrictions on academic freedom in Palestine.
Engage rejects the demonization of Israel, “Zionists” and Jews, as well as the demonization of Muslims, Palestinians and Arabs.
See these two pieces on the AAUP symposium from the Engage Website at www.EngageOnline.org.uk:
here and here.
David Hirsh, Dr at Goldsmiths College, University of London, at 7:15 am EST on February 2, 2006
Boycott Backlash
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East was very much responsible for bringing in the AAUP to come out against the AUT of Haifa and Bar-Ilan University Scholars. While it seems that their ongoing statement about academic boycotts is solid and their action last spring was lauditory, the conference in Bellagio, with a cast of characters who separated themselves from the academic community with the initiation and support of the boycott are give star billing and credibility. While Roger Bowen may be confident that a dialogue about the boycott and AAUP’s policy will further strengthen AAUP’s position, many of off ( and quite a few who are AAUP members) seriously question the consistency of word and deed here as the agenda, goals and desired outcomes are not clear. If the purpose is to have a debate, it is not clear. If the purpose to have a discussion, what are the topics for discussion? If the purpose is to review the policy after the fact with a select group of opponents commenting on the the policy, it seems a bit inappropriate. SPME has called for a clarification of what this conference is really about and to date, there has been no clear satisfactory response. This is quite troubling and reflects poorly on an association with an impeccable reputation for academic thoroughness and taking the high road.
Dr. Edward S. Beck, President at Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, at 7:45 am EST on February 2, 2006
I am amazed at Dr. Beck’s comments and his desire to rush to judgment about and to censor a conference he seems to know little about except that those who disagree with his viewpoint are among those who have been invited. To say that those who favor academic boycotts have been given “star billing” is entirely false; to suggest that AAUP plans to modify its statement is equally untrue. To demand that AAUP be accountable to SPME is chilling—the AAUP ought not to be accountable to any outside organization. Were it to do that then it would indeed compromise its “impeccable reputation for academic thoroughness and taking the high road.” This conference and the thought that went into it confirms that reputation and I, for one, am proud of it.
Joan W. Scott, Professor of Social Science at Institute for Advanced Study, at 10:25 am EST on February 2, 2006
Prof. Scott writes: “This conference and the thought that went into it confirms [the AAUP’s] reputation [for academic thoroughness and taking the high road] and I, for one, am proud of it."Quotations from some of the invitees (copied and pasted from the Engage site):
Omar Barghouti on academic and cultural links between Israelis and Palestinians:
Some critics of boycott argue that it is still necessary for Palestinian intellectuals and artists to maintain and foster open communication channels with their Israeli counterparts, to debate, to share, to convince, to learn and ultimately to reach a common vision for peace.
I beg to differ. Those who imagine they can wish away the conflict by suggesting some forums for rapprochement, détente, or “dialogue” not conditioned upon common recognition of international law and universal human rights are either clinically delusional or dangerously deceptive.
Israelis who insist on asking the Palestinians to pay a political price in advance in return for their own “noble” recognition of a meagre subset of Palestinian rights are not really seeking justice or a moral end to the conflict. Some shamelessly seek European funds; others do it for prestige or fame; and some even participate in this typical colonial behavior as a form of taming the Palestinian shrew, or inhibiting resistance to oppression. Most Palestinians who accept such humiliating conditions are primarily compelled by a resource-starved environment under occupation. They are as free in their “choice” to participate in such projects as a slave is in “choosing” whether or not to oblige when asked by her master to “make love”. Love, however, can only be made between the free. — Open Democracy.
This piece by Omar Barghouti is part of a longer debate on the “Open Democracy” website – see here.
Omar Barghouti: it is not the occupation of the West Bank that is the problem, but the existence of Israel itself:
The most peculiar dimension in the popular and academic Israeli discourses on the creation of the state is substituting the concept of “independence” for colonization and birth for destruction. Even committed “leftists” often grieve over the loss of Israel’s “moral superiority” after occupying the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, as if prior to that Israel were as civil, legitimate and law-abiding as Finland! Ironically, while stubbornly rejecting Palestinian refugee rights, Israeli academics have played a central role in the massive campaigns demanding, and often winning, restitution, repatriation and compensation rights for Jewish refugees of the World War II era....
Israeli universities, says Barghouti, are part of the infrastructure of colonization:
...the Military colonization of the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1967, with all what it entails in land expropriations, house demolitions, indiscriminate killings, and, most ominously, the colonial wall — declared illegal by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July of this year — which serves to facilitate Israel’s unremitting land grab and gradual ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Israeli universities — all government controlled — have not only been complicit in planning, maintaining and furnishing the justification for various aspects of the occupation, but have also directly participated in acts of colonization. Besides the voluminous record of individual acts of collusion by Israeli academics, the academic institutions themselves have never refrained from committing colonial crimes themselves.
Omar Barghouti on the similarity of Israeli and Nazi policy:
...what seems to escape the mainstream opinion makers is that during the current intifada, the Israeli army has crossed many of its former red lines, committing crimes that are reminiscent in form — though certainly not in scale — of Nazi crimes against European Jews...
Omar Barghouti on the Isreli left:
What left? Those in Israel who officially call themselves “the left” — the Zionist left, more accurately — easily make the far-right parties in Europe look as moral as Mother Teresa... — on the JFJFP website.
Hilary Rose: “What is self-evident is that a cultural and economic boycott is slowly assembling.”
“The exaggerated attention to the “academic freedom” issues raised by the unilateral removal from an editorial board of two Israeli academics by one signatory to the boycott call is like focusing on a potential local mote to avoid the flagrant international beam.” — in the Guardian(this piece is jointly written by Hilary Rose and her husband Steven Rose.
Hilary Rose on Israeli academics:
...apart from a handful of brave dissidents, most are either silent or actively complicit in the actions of the Israeli state. There is no equivalent anger to that of British academia’s reaction to the illegal Iraq war.
In response to the European moratorium call, launched in 2002, which invited researchers not to collaborate with colleagues at Israeli universities in making research bids, Israeli universities set up a joint committee to resist this.
The Israeli academic community does not see freedom as indivisible — the freedom most noisily defended is only its own. — in Socialist Worker (this piece is also jointly written by Hilary and Steven Rose.
Prof Hilary Rose compares an academic boycott of Israel with the sporting boycott of South Africa during the apartheid era. “Sporting isolation hurt South Africa and ultimately contributed to the end of that regime. I don’t think Israel values sport but it does value science and high culture.”- Daily Telegraph.
Yehudith Harel:
Academia and academics are not “priviledged children” and they can be and should be the target of boycott just as any other institution and people in the aggressor society. — labournet.
Yehudith Harel:
We created a reality in which we imposed so much suffering, humiliation, death and damage on the Palestinians until there came to be enough desperate people who feel that they have nothing to loose and nothing to live for, and therefore they are ready to kill and get killed. These acts are indeed horrifying but it is up to the Palestinians to deal with the moral aspects of their legitimate resisatance to the Occupation. As an Israeli Citizen and the Occupier, I am in no position to condemn them or chastize them. Full Stop. labournet.
Yehudith Harel:
... in our collective subconscious we got used to justify whatever evil and suffering we inflict on our OTHER — our Palestinian victims — by the fact that we were once the victims and that we still are. We dared to assume that we can act and speak in the name of the 6 million victims. This reasoning is sick. Furthermore, we are not the victims any more — but the victimizers. — labournet.
Ur Shlonsky:
The principal and explicit aim of the Zionist program and practice is to increase the number of Jews in Eretz Israel and shrink the number of non-Jews, i.e. the Arabs living there.
The idea of expelling the Palestinians, called “transfer” in Israeli political language, is woven into Zionist discourse from its early beginnings. Recently, however, it has fully entered public debate. — solidarity-us.
Ur Shlonsky:In short, the human bombs in the cafes and buses assure ever broader and deeper support for a project of ethnic cleansing. Israeli civil society is authorized and encouraged to use force that becomes justified as a means of self-defense. All the elements are put in place for what Des Forges, in the Rwandan context, called “the genocidal campaign.”
Further, continued kamikaze actions and the media coverage they elicit furnish a central element in the struggle to rally world public opinion to the Zionist cause. solidarity-us.
George Hendricks, at 10:55 am EST on February 2, 2006
Institutionalized Hate
It scares me to think that the world can ascribe a morally equivalent argument to terrorist killing innocents and a wall built to protect a population.
It scares me to think that people can forget the car bombs, bus bomb, and the sanctioned killing of Palestinian children by their parents.
It scares me to think that the world forgets that the Arab world attacked Israel in 1967. Or that the Arab world still strives to wipe them off the face of the planet.
It scares me to think that people who teach children can be so full of revisionist thinking and hate.
It scares me to think that hate, called by any other name, is still hate and the proponents of this hate can call themselves academics in the pursuit of truth. I guess all that matters to them is their truth and not the Truth.
Concerned American Jew, at 12:55 pm EST on February 2, 2006
If we cannot boycott Israeli universities, then what can we do? Are we supposed to sit back and accept the situation? Should we behave like the Germans during the Nazi period, who pretended they couldn’t smell the stink of burned flesh from the concentration camps? Should we limit our protest to not buying Jaffa oranges at our supermarkets? The pro-Israeli propaganda has made miracles in representing Palestian resistance as terrorism, and this worked incredibly well with the uneducated members of the public — just read any readers’ letters page on any British tabloid. The more educated members of the public are kept at bay by flooding them with holocaust exhibitions, movies, books, museums etc, so that in the public opinion the Jews remain the victim, when in fact they are now the victimizers. I think academics should do something about this, engaging with the whole society rather than writing on their specialised journals. Last year’s boycott made it to the first pages of many UK newspapers, and I felt proud of being an academic. For the first time I felt that we were thinking again. We were intellectuals again, acting to lead the society in the right direction, to reveal the truth to the masses obnubilated by television. It didn’t last long though... we are back to discussing salaries and research assessment exercises, and the Palestinians are left to their collective punishments, bulldozered homes and to the shameful new wall.
Fiammetta, at 2:00 pm EST on February 2, 2006
Its Starting Already
We have a well-meaning union leadership naively opening up a debate on boycotts with a bunch of israel-hating “experts".
People are shocked when it is suggested that this is dangerous. Don’t they believe in free speech and open debate? Are “the Jews” trying to close down an open exchange of ideas?
And immediately, a space opens up in the public domain for the sort of rubbish presented by “Fiammetta".
1) “We have to do something!” As though doing something damaging and dangerous was better than doing nothing. As though there wre not positive things that people could do to help towards peace in the Middle East.
2) “Israel = Nazi Germany.” So lets relate to Israeli and Jewish academics and students as though they were pro-Nazi?
3) “The pro-Israeli propaganda has made miracles in representing Palestian resistance as terrorism". Clever these Zionists, huh? How did they manage to represent the suicide bombing of buses as “terrorism"? Satanic geniuses, their PR guys.
4) And the Zionists flood the “more educated” minds with myths and narratives about the Holocaust. Oh why are they always going on and on about the Holocaust?
5) “We felt like intellectuals again... acting to lead the masses...” Yes. I suggest we could all re-read Hannah Arendt on the role of intellectuals in the rise of the Nazi movement.
6) Back to discussing salaries and the RAE. Yes. Well thats a strange thing for a trade union to do, isn’t it?
Roger Bowen and the AAUP should understand what kind of dangerous nonsense they are encouraging and legitimating by opening up this “debate” within the Professors’ Union in the States.
Alf Green, at 4:05 pm EST on February 2, 2006
Wow.
“For the first time I felt that we were thinking again. We were intellectuals again, acting to lead the society in the right direction, to reveal the truth to the masses obnubilated by television.”
Do you really see this as your self-appointed role in life? What do you think could possibly qualify you for such a godlike role? Let’s leave “the masses” unharmed by such illusions, O.K.?
JBM, at 4:05 pm EST on February 2, 2006
Dear Alf Green and JBM,
this is an academic list, meaning that it is for people who can read.
1) I wrote that “ignoring the Palestine issue” equals “behaving like the Nazi Germans". This is different from saying “Israel” equals “Nazi Germans".
2) I said that Zionist propaganda is using the Holocaust to silence opponents of Zionism and the current genocide in Palestine. This is different from saying that the Holocaust consists of myths and narratives.
Could I humbly suggest that you join a course in basic literacy?
And finally (since you are clearly not academics) you will be surprised to hear this, but academics are selected for their ability to put information together and see beyond the accepted truth. This is why they may be particularly important in a fight against strong propaganda like this one. Other groups are also doing their bit out there, so why shouldn’t we? And what else can we do apart from an academic boycott? Any suggestions?
I know that it is more difficult to obtain objective information about Palestine in the US than it is in Europe, but if you read the great posting by George Hendricks (just above my — admittedly more biased — posting), you may begin to understand what the question is. An academic boycott is not the best solution, but at least it results in debate — you may say good things or bad things about it, but at least you are talking about it. This is better than pretending nothing is happening in the Middle East.
Fiammetta, at 2:30 pm EST on February 3, 2006
Basic literacy
No one misreads you, Fiammetta, and no one misunderstands you. It is you who seriously misunderstand: Given the state of your understanding and open ill-will towards Jews, you are in no position to lead anyone towards truth.
You are, further, in no position to question my decades of university teaching experience or literacy skills. Your words speak with perfect clarity. If you want to hate Jews, that is your choice, but antisemitism has nothing to do with proper academic conduct or reasoned thought.
JBM, at 4:45 pm EST on February 3, 2006
We do not need this kind of debate
Fiammetta says that “an academic boycott is not the best solution, but at least it results in debate".
This is, I think the point of the criticism against the AAUP meeting in Belagio.
AAUP is making a serious mistake because it is opening up the kind of “debate” that Fiammetta and her co-thinkers want to open up.
The boycotters have every right to speak and to try to debate. But AAUP should not help them to open up a debate about whether Israel is the only illegitimate state on the planet, about whether “Zionism” is a form of racism, about whether Jews are foreigners in Jerusalem, about whether there is a global Zionist conspiracy to subjugate Muslims, about how the Jews keep going on about the Holocaust in order to build a cover for their own racist crimes.
This “debate” is as dangerous as other hateful “debates” — such as whether black people are naturally stupid or whether women are unable to think clearly.
People have the right to talk nonsense. But the Union that represents academics should not be legitimating their nonsense and providing a respectable platform for it.
Alf Green, at 8:35 am EST on February 4, 2006
Perks of the profession
What everyone has missed so far is that university profesors, especially outside the U.S., are poorly paid and get relatively few perks. One perk is being invited to conferences in nice locations. By inviting the eight individuals involved, the AAUP is also inviting them at its expense to enjoy what I’m sure are lavish accommodations in a nice resort in Italy. So their anti-Israel activism has paid personal dividends, even if the AAUP ignored every word they said in Bellagio. Of course, even if this were just a meeting in a Chinese restaurant in London it would still be giving the miscreants much more credibility than they deserve.
And for the crazed anti-Zionist lady: I’ve always wondered how people who claim Israel is engaging in “genocide” square that with the huge, consistent increase in the Palestinian population since 1967 in the territories. Are the Israelis just incompetent at genocide? Is this some sort of bizzaro-world genocide, where the word means the exact opposite of its meaning here on earth 1?
David Bernstein, Professor at George Mason University, at 10:35 pm EST on February 4, 2006
From a layman.–let me state at the start. I am not an academic, nor have I ever been much interested in academic freedom, sort of taking it for granted that the First Amendment takes care of the right to free speech. I was very surprised to learn that it does not! Now I am so intrigued by the conflict surrounding the postponed Academic Freedom Conference at Belagio that I have been googling the subject. I came across the WRMEA site which led me to Joan Scott, Chair of Committee A of AAUP. Out of a committee of five in a panel discussion held in September 2005 titled “Academic Freedom and Middle East Studies” at Princeton, there was not one pro-Israeli academic discussant. Miriam Lowi, who (I think) is Jewish, takes the stand that all Jews aren’t Zionists, nor indeed, are they. But in her mind being pro-free speech for Israeli professors is being dreadfully Zionistic. A ridiculous position!All said, it looks to me that Scott and her coterie are so immersed in the muddy waters of the Palestinian-Israeli struggle that everything relating to academic freedom leads them to be concerned with academic freedom only so far as it pertains to the Middle East and Israel. They seem to have misplaced their goggles.
Martin Wheilds, at 9:00 am EST on February 16, 2006
JBM — if your literacy level is so far beyond criticism, please be so kind as to point out to me where Fiammetta says a single thing which permits you to accuse her of hating Jews.
David Bernstein — assuming that Fiammetta is the “crazed anti-Zionist lady” you refer to (but surely you think all anti-Zionists are crazed?), please point out where in either of her comments the word “genocide” appears. The accusation forms such a large part of your post that one might almost imagine it had some connection with the truth, if one were unable to read.
Alf Green — “...a debate about whether Israel is the only illegitimate state on the planet, about whether “Zionism” is a form of racism, about whether Jews are foreigners in Jerusalem, about whether there is a global Zionist conspiracy to subjugate Muslims, about how the Jews keep going on about the Holocaust in order to build a cover for their own racist crimes.”
My. What a vivid imagination you have. Five totally invented “debates” for you to rubbish. Anything to avoid actually responding to arguments, or , yiou know, behaving like the responsible academic you so clearly are not.
“People have the right to talk nonsense.”
A right which you, JBM and David Bernstein, have exercised most vigorously.
Rob, at 12:45 pm EDT on September 28, 2006
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The British “intellectuals"? who want to boycott Israeli universities are nicely following in Hitler’s footsteps. The Nazis boycotted Jewish academics everywhere, forced them out of the German universities, burned their books and papers, and killed those who couldn’t escape. Hans Gesund
Hans Gesund, at 7:05 am EST on February 2, 2006