Another Silly Academic

A British professor has refused a request to write an article for an academic journal funded by Israeli universities.

Professor Richard Seaford, from the University of Exeter in England, refused to write the article, saying he was taking part in the academic boycott of Israel.

"Alas, I am unable to accept your kind invitation, for reasons that you may not like. I have, along with many other British academics, signed the academic boycott of Israel, in the face of the brutal and illegal expansionism and the slow-motion ethnic cleansing being practiced by your government," Seaford wrote to Dr. Daniella Dueck. Dueck, a lecturer at Bar Ilan University and a member of the Scripta Classica Israelica editorial board had requested that Seaford write a book review for the journal.

Er, excuse me, my learned Professor but Israel, for the past 12 years now, has been engaged in a shrinking maneuver. First Gaza and then Jericho and then the six major cities in Judea and Samaria were turned over. Parts of the Arava to Jordan. Then, all of Gaza went and a section of North Samaria. And Olmert, our PM, wants to lessen Israel's territorial geography more through a dimunition process.

As for slow-motion ethnic cleansing, it sure is slow. The Arab population in Israel, what was left of the original residents who declared war on the bnascent state of Israel and previously was itself engaged in ethnic cleansing at Tel Hai, Jaffa, Petah Tikva, Hebron, Tzfat, Beer Tuviyah, et al., all this before 1939 and Kfar Etzion, Bet HaAravah, Neveh Yaakov, Atarot during 1947-48, has grown, constantly.

Is this a keen intellectual mind at work here, or a typical one-dimensional Marxist/Radical/Progressive ideologist at work?

Oh, by the way, his e-mail is: R.A.S.Seaford@exeter.ac.uk