A.
1. I am not surprised that you find my arguments "facile". You have obviously misunderstood them - and have certainly misrepresented them. Indeed you seem to have brought the non-sequitur to levels rarely previously attained.
2. My main argument is not "He who pays the piper calls the tune". Indeed quite the opposite! I am NOT calling on Gordon "change his tune", only to display the courage of his convictions and eschew payment from the coffers of regime he finds so distasteful that he calls on others to shun it. So while Gordon blithely advocates a policy that involves others bearing economic cost by severance of contacts with the vile regime (whether these be Israelis losing their livelihood as a result of closures due to divestment, or foreigners, due to termination of profitable business with Israel), he apparently has no moral qualms in ensuring he suffers no economic cost as a result of his pseudo-moral stance.
2. Moreover I am not suggesting that Gordon live under Palestinian regime as you claim. I merely point what the consequences for him would be if did. This too underscores the underlying contradiction in his position – striving create a reality that would be the diametric opposite of the values to which he purports to subscribe and which he invokes to promote his prescribed policy.
Therefore Gordon's conduct is marred by both its moral inconsistency AND its substantive inconsistency. It is thus craven, disingenuous and ignoble and ought to be branded as such.
3. You are of course right that I might well commend an Iranian academic calling for a boycott of the current regime. However quite apart from the odious insinuation that any similarities may be drawn between the Israeli polity and the tyrannical theocracy in Teheran, several cardinal distinctions between the two examples should be noted. For it is highly unlikely to say the least, that such an Iranian academic would be able to make such a call unless he/she were in exile, and not - as in the case of Gordon – while comfortably employed by an institute financed by the regime against which he/she advocates the boycott. Indeed to do so WITHIN Iran would clearly involve risking life, limb and livelihood, all of which would in all likelihood be terminated/severed with great haste. Gordon, on the other hand, is risking ….well, nothing. How intrepid.
4. Yes, there are different restrictions on Palestinian and Jews but there is no racial motivation behind this – as the lack of such restrictions vis-à-vis Arab citizens in Israel clearly prove. This divergence is driven not by considerations of race but of security. (Whether these considerations are well founded or not is a valid – but totally different –debate.) The reasons for the Israeli policy are not rooted in doctrine of racial superiority on the part of the Israelis but in manifestations of national enmity on the part of the Palestinians. They are a result of what the Palestinians DO; not of what they ARE – as was the case with the Apartheid regime vis-à-vis the Blacks in South Africa. (In fact there is an abundance of plausible evidence to support the claim that if there is any manifestation of racism it is in the OPPOSITE direction - from the Arabs towards the Jews, who are regularly portrayed with contempt, reminiscent of Der Sturmer, in official Arab/Palestinian media precisely because what they are not what they do.)
5. It is thus not ISRAELI INIQUITY but PALESTINIAN ENMITY that begets this divergence. Different Palestinian behavior would elicit different Israeli responses. Only the blind, the irresponsible and those who have learnt nothing from the decade and half of death and destruction that accompanied the Oslowian fiasco could serious suggest that this enmity could be mitigated by Israeli concessions. So far evidence strongly suggests that concessions do not satiate Palestinian appetites but only whets them.
6. Thus to conclude from the external manifestation of Israel's security policy that it is in anyway similar to the racial doctrine of apartheid is to take ignore much of the facts, distort much of those not ignored, and to discount the context – not all together dissimilar to the fellow who concluded that gravity has been suspended after observing leaves being wafted aloft by an updraft – the example you so hastily dismiss.
That was in answer to this:
B.
1. I find Prof. ’s arguments facile. His prime argument is “He who pays the piper calls the tune” which he equates with “moral integrity, and moral consistency”. As is the wont of such rightists, he assumes that Gordon would meet a worse fate in a Palestinian state, and therefore heavily intimates that because Gordon is sensitive to their suffering he should live there. One wonders if his father, who defended blacks against Apartheid, lived in Soweto. His arguments from science are silly – there is consensus in the scientific community about what constitutes evidence for the earth’s curvature and why leaves apparently defy gravity when supported by updrafts. There is no consensus on political issues, theories abound,
and Gordon, as a political scientist, has one which he propounds.
Quite possibly his LAT article reflects his personal views too, but in this particular case there is a grey area between his personal views and his professional analyses, and that is what lends credence to his analysis and probably irks the rightists no end. It is both his academic and personal freedom that irks them, ie his freedom to express views they loath.
2. The enlistment of holocaust analogies is also typical of rightists argumentation, like yellow stars on the settlers; but tell me this – if an Iranian academic were to suggest a boycott of his
country - wouldn’t ______ and ilk be the first to commend hir on hir “moral integrity, and moral consistency” and courage, etc etc?
So all their moral outrage, verbiage and “disgust” is indeed rubbish, nothing to do with the boycott issue. It is purely their blatant political opposition to Gordon that motivates their virulent attacks on him.
And by the same token it boils down to what Gordon bases his thesis on – the INDISPUTABLE SCIENTIFIC FACT that in territory that in the territory governed by Israel it parts people into those that have full rights and those that have none, parts by fences and military force, etc etc etc. The Afrikaner term for apart is “apartheid”, and that basic fact is Gordon’s point of departure. It is not very original, it was indeed largely solved by a world-wide boycott. All the lecturers that were expelled from their jobs and country by their
universities and government, and there were plenty, ultimately did not help South Africa defray the inevitable demise of Apartheid.
Like _______, Apartheid’s apologists claimed necessity and that an equitable solution would be suicide, etc etc. In fact, post Apartheid SA has one of the most progressive constitutions on earth.
So the fact of Apartheid here is indisputable. One’s interpretation of that fact in terms of necessity, whether to discard or strengthen it, is given to political views, and that is what is being discussed here. Neither is this a discussion about free speech. It is a discussion about the freedom to oppose extreme monolithic Nationalism. In this country, expressing sentiments that offend the chauvinists will bring a stampeding lynch mob to threaten the offender’s family, job, and home, and comparing his writings to Nazism, even among social scientists.
Little could more justify Gordon’s proposal to seek drastic solutions, and little could more highlight his courage and integrity.
C.
A Day of Shock in Beersheba
By Yocheved Miriam Russo
27/8/2009
Today, many of us in Beersheba – home of BGU, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, named in honor of Zionist supreme, David Ben Gurion – find ourselves in a state of shock.
BGU President Prof. Rivka Carmi says she’s “shocked” by the call to boycott Israel made in a LA Times op-ed written by Dr. Neve Gordon, the Chairman of her Department of Politics and Government.
As Prof. Carmi told the Jerusalem Post, "We are shocked by Dr. Neve Gordon's irresponsible statements, which are morally deserving of full condemnation. We vehemently shake ourselves of the destructive views [advocated by Gordon], who makes cynical use of freedom of expression in Israel and Ben-Gurion University."
As for me, I’m shocked that she’s shocked.
Is Prof. Carmi the only one at BGU who hasn’t been watching – and reading, and listening to – the vicious anti-Israel propaganda that Neve Gordon has been spewing for years? Was she unaware of his “destructive views” when just last January she promoted him, made him Chairman of the Department of Politics and Government?
Is she the only one who doesn’t remember how Gordon barricaded himself with Terrorist Supreme Yasser Arafat during the siege of Ramallah? How – for years -- he’s posted his “destructive views” on Holocaust denial websites? How he repeatedly called for Israel to be destroyed through his “one state” solution, in which Jews would be inundated with Arab “refugees”?
Can the head of the University possibly have been unaware that her lecturer in Political Science – and now head of the Department – regularly denounced Israel as a fascist, terrorist regime, one that “resembles Nazi Germany”?
Has she completely forgotten last December’s war, when Hamas rockets and missiles rained down on much of southern Israel, some hitting the BGU campus? Did she forget how, in response, her Department head, Dr. Gordon, didn’t denounce the Hamas terrorists? Instead he denounced Israel for “targeting” the building called “Gaza University”, a structure used as a repository for the rockets intended to kill Israelis.
Was Prof. Carmi really so aloof from faculty affairs that she failed to notice that Dr. Gordon was a regular columnist for the Hamas media apologist, Aljazeera.com, where Gordon regularly ranted that Israel is opposed to peace and was plotting to steal Arab lands?
So it seems. Apparently Prof. Carmi isn’t much interested in anything her Politics and Government Department does. According to Prof. Fred Lazin, who teaches political science within that department, before Neve Gordon submitted his treasonous commentary to the LA Times, he told his department what he was going to say, and offered to step down as chair if they thought his words would prove too embarrassing. "There was a unanimous decision not to let him do that," Lazin said.
So the whole BGU Department of Politics and Government stands behind Neve Gordon’s treasonous commentary – and the President of BGU is completely unaware of it? For years now, foreign educational institutions have worked to boycott Israeli academic institutions. But the President of BGU, one of seven Israeli Universities, has no idea that her Department of Politics and Government supports the boycott?
So Prof. Carmi wants us to believe, because in her ‘shocked’ denial, she refers to Dr. Gordon as “one rogue faculty member.” I guess she wasn’t aware that the entire Department of Politics and Government endorsed what Neve Gordon wrote.
Even if she doesn’t pay attention to internal faculty affairs, it would be hard for anyone who reads a regular newspaper in Israel to have missed the legal skirmish when Neve Gordon took it upon himself to sue Prof. Steve Plaut, a University of Haifa professor of economics, for libel. Especially after Gordon lost, because one of the appellate judges, Judge Abraham Abraham, made an astonishing ruling all of his own. Even though Plaut had not described Gordon as a “Jew for Hitler”, if he had, Judge Abraham wrote in his opinion, Plaut would have been within his rights.
How many professors does Prof. Carmi have, anyway, who get themselves into messes like this? Professors who sue other professors for libel – which ends up with an Israeli appellate Judge ruling from the bench that her professor could be called a “Jew for Hitler”?
Okay, so let’s suppose Prof. Carmi was indeed oblivious of the litigation itself. How could she possibly have missed the highly colorful newspaper battle that came after, when US legal lion Alan Dershowitz jumped into the fray with a fiery op-ed in the Jerusalem Post? “Neve Gordon,” Dershowitz wrote, “belongs to the class of the rabidly anti-Israel far-left professors whose trade mark is the delight they take in comparing Israel to apartheid South-Africa and Nazi Germany"?
Such ignorance is shocking, especially when Dershowitz characterized Gordon’s writing as "consisting of anti-Israeli propaganda designed to 'prove' that the Jewish State is fascist". Really, wouldn’t you think a University President would sit up and take notice at that? Be a little bit concerned about how one of her Department heads is being portrayed in the international community?
When Dershowitz’ took his parting shot – writing that “Gordon has gotten into bed with neo-Nazis, Holocaust justice deniers and anti-Semites", terming him "a despicable example of a self-hating Jew and self-hating Israeli" – wouldn’t you think that the head of any normal University would be a little leery about having such a person teaching politics and government?
If Neve Gordon had been teaching art or music, maybe it wouldn’t have mattered so much. But to have that kind of anti-Israeli venom spewing from the head of your Department of Politics and Government? How could she afford not to pay attention?
It’s not as though Prof. Carmi wasn’t in charge during this time. She was appointed President in December of 2005, almost a full year before the whole Dershowitz episode, which had most of the world wondering and shaking their heads over what could possibly be going on at BGU.
If nothing else, you’d think that at least some of her Board of Directors or her major donors would have called some of these incidents to her attention. It’s too bad they didn’t. If they had, then surely Prof. Carmi couldn’t be “shocked” by Gordon’s newest outrage.
The truth is, I can’t imagine how anyone who’s been reasonably aware of University politics could be shocked or surprised by Neve Gordon’s most recent broadside. For years he’s been calling Israel an ‘apartheid’ state. The only new element he added was a few specifics about his proposed boycott of Israel.
Maybe it’s that Gordon’s LA Times proposal doesn’t seem very serious to professional academics. Gordon begins with his traditional observation, saying that “most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state”. He goes on to note that neither pressure nor condemnation from the EU and the US has had any positive effect. So he suggests a bit of stronger medicine, a boycott of Israel, beginning with divestment from companies operating in Judea and Samaria and later moving on to firms which “help sustain and reinforce the occupation.”
"Nothing else has worked," Gordon laments. "Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians - my two boys included - does not grow up in an apartheid regime."
Gordon weeps crocodile tears over how difficult this is for him, as an Israeli citizen, “to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel”.
That part I understand. I, too, find it difficult to make the suggestion I’m going to make. Unlike Neve Gordon, I live in Beersheba, home of BGU. One of the biggest employers in our fair city is BGU. Many of my friends work for or are associated with BGU in some way. Normally, I’d fall on my own sword before doing anything that would hurt them or their families in any way.
But -- as Gordon notes – the situation is serious. If we want to save BGU some tough action is required. Dr. Gordon suggests a boycott as a way to gain Israel’s attention. So why not a boycott of BGU, to get Prof. Carmi’s attention?
As seems apparent, Prof. Carmi has been unaware of the anti-Israel venom that has, for many years, been spewing out of her Department of Politics and Government. Not only has she not taken steps to reprove or reform her wayward Department head, she’s done precisely the opposite, not only promoting him, but endorsing him, supporting him, defending him, repeatedly terming his vicious hate propaganda "serious and distinguished research into human rights."
This can’t go on. So here’s my proposal: In order to save BGU from itself, I think a boycott is in order. If we want to save Beersheba’s much-loved Ben Gurion University of the Negev, then we must boycott it.
Don’t send students to BGU. Don’t send money. Send a message. Enough is enough.
D.
Fire Gordon, without firing him
Posted on August 30 2009 by Sydney Levy under Educational Institutions , Free speech.
The words of condemnation against Ben Gurion University’s President, Prof. Rivka Carmi, for her incendiary attack against Dr. Neve Gordon continue to pour in. You may recall that in response to the op-ed he printed in the Los Angeles Times endorsing boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel, Prof. Carmi issued the following statement,
“We are shocked and outraged by his remarks, which are both irresponsible and morally reprehensible. We strongly disassociate BGU from Gordon’s destructive views that abuse the freedom of speech prevailing in Israel and at BGU.”
She added that,
BGU is a Zionist institution that is fulfilling David Ben-Gurion’s vision on a daily basis, promoting the development of the Negev and Israel and reiterated its commitment to advancing research and activities that benefit all of the residents of the region. This kind of Israel-bashing detracts from the wonderful work that is being done at BGU and at all Israeli universities. Academics who entertain such resentment towards their country are welcome to consider another professional and personal home.”
In a period of 48 hours, Prof. Carmi received over 4,000 emails of protest.
Over 180 Israeli professors — many from BGU — have signed a petition in defense of Dr. Gordon.
The petition reads, in part (my translation from the Hebrew):
The university’s claim that academic employees must state explicitly that they do not express the views of the university is absurd and does not reflect current norms. University employees participate frequently in political activities. They sign petitions, appear on radio and TV, organize demonstrations, join political parties and groups, write letters to the editor, and more. It has never been attributed to the university (or any other institution) a political position simply because a university employee supported it.
Moreover, last Thursday, students and professors at BGU sent a letter to Prof. Carmi that reads in part (again, my translation):
We, the students, wish to express our support of Dr. Neve Gordon and his welcome efforts to bring to the public important issues regarding the future of Israeli society–issues that are absent from the legitimate public dialog.
And it says further,
We are taught History but it seems we are not allowed to learn from it… We’re allowed to learn, but not to think, not to reach practical conclusions, certainly not in a wide circulating English newspaper.
Shlomo Zand wrote an opinion piece that asks BGU President Prof. Carmi the same question I was asking myself: Ben Gurion University: A zionist institution?
In her response to to the op-ed by Dr. Neve Gordon — in which the Beer Sheva professor called on the world to increase pressure on Israel, all the way to an international boycott — BGU President Prof. Rivka Carmi stated: “We strongly disassociate BGU from Gordon’s destructive views that abuse the freedom of speech prevailing in Israel and at BGU.” She added that “BGU is a Zionist institution that is fulfilling David Ben-Gurion’s vision on a daily basis, promoting the development of the Negev and Israel. This kind of Israel-bashing detracts from the wonderful work that is being done at BGU and at all Israeli universities. Academics who entertain such resentment towards their country are welcome to consider another professional and personal home.”
I do not know if Rivka Carmi’s “we” included the academic staff of BGU or maybe she included in her excitement all academics in Israel. In any case, as a staff member of Tel Aviv University, I feel the urgent need to disassociate myself publicly from the views of [BGU] President Carmi.
Naively, I had thought up until now that BGU, as well as the academic institution in which I teach, is for all purposes an Israeli institution. I could not have imagined that a person sitting at the helm of a university would have described it as a zionist institution, in the same way that in the not too distant past the presidents of the universities in the USSR described their institutions as communists.
So much for academic freedom, eh? You’re free to say what you want, as long as you agree with us.
Gideon Levy aptly highlighted the double-standards of the Israelis horrified by Dr. Gordon’s article, drawing a comparison to the indignation produced by a Swedish newspaper article describing baseless accusations of organ theft by Israeli soldiers:
The timing of the mini-maelstrom over an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times by Neve Gordon, who teaches politics and government at Be’er Sheva’s Ben-Gurion University, calling for a boycott of Israel, was somewhat grotesque. Hardly have the throats dried of those calling for his dismissal, for his citizenship to be revoked, for his expulsion and, if all else fails, his stoning, when another petition has surfaced on the Internet, this one calling for a boycott of Ikea. A bad article on the back page of a Swedish tabloid is enough to produce a call here for a consumer boycott to which thousands sign their names.
The Israelis think that one scurrilous article is enough to warrant punishing everything Swedish… Gordon thinks the occupation is a sufficiently important motive to boycott everything Israeli.
After all of this noise, you’d expect the leaders of Ben Gurion University to reconsider their position. Fat chance. They want to have their cake and it eat it too. University leaders want to be able to defend academic freedom (you know, zionists only need apply), while undermining it at the same time. My guess is that they’ve figured out that they cannot fire Dr. Neve Gordon either because of his tenure or because of the additional damage to their reputation.
Beyond tenure, there are basic protections afforded all university employees. In case university leaders did not remember, Virginia Aksan, the President of the Middle East Studies Association reminded them that,
Article 2 of BGU’s own Academic Code affirms that the university “will not discriminate in its activities against any person for reasons of race, religion, nationality, gender, or political views [and] will act to protect academic freedom.” Article 4c of your university’s Code of Ethics further clarifies “in addition to their academic freedoms, researchers of the university enjoy all civic freedoms enjoyed by every citizen of the state, including freedoms of expression and organization… Researchers are authorized to express their political or religious opinions without incitement and are authorized to act to implement them using legal means.”
Hmmm… How can the university overcome these pesky legal hurdles?
You will find the answer in Prof. Carmi’s statement. She said,
Academics who entertain such resentment towards their country are welcome to consider another professional and personal home.
The University administration is currently exploring its options concerning Gordon’s actions.
Was she brazenly calling for the expulsion of Dr. Gordon from his own country? Of course not! She was simply saying that he is ‘welcome’ to leave of his own accord.
As Uriel Heilman (Freedom of speech, not freedom from criticism) would have it, Prof. Carmi was simply expressing her own opinion,
If the professor, Neve Gordon, can write the Op-Ed, why can’t the university president make her views known on the matter?
How quaint. There is no pressure at all — it is simply your employer, the head of an institution that purports to encourage academic freedom expressing her opinion, saying that you should leave your job and your country.
But let’s not bee too harsh on Mr. Heilman. After all his piece in defense of Prof. Carmi did have this gem of a line: “refraining from criticism runs counter to the spirit of free-speech rights.”
This is what we’ve been saying in this blog all along.
Back to Prof. Carmi and her “welcoming” Dr. Gordon to leave. It seems that she is doing more than just “expressing her opinion.”
Officials of Ben-Gurion University are calling on Dr. Neve Gordon to resign his post as head of the Political Science department. In coordination with University President Prof. Carmi, University Rector Professor Jimmy Weinblatt met Thursday with faculty members who had signed a petition supporting Dr. Gordon and told them that “it was up to Gordon to reach the proper conclusions.” The rector met with Dr. Gordon’s supporters “to cast their influence on Gordon to resign his post”.
With a straight-face, the rector added that “Gordon’s status as faculty member will not be compromised and that the University administration will no violate his civic and academic freedom of expression.”
Huh? Who is he trying to fool?
Certainly not Prof. Uri Ram, head of BGU Sociology and Anthropology Department, who stated,
Should he be fired as head of the Political Science department due to his political opinions I shall call on all department heads in the University to resign as well, in support of Gordon and in protest of the violation of his rights, civil freedom and the University establishment in Israel.”
Personally, I don’t believe that Dr. Gordon will be fired. Rather, the university seems intent to do whatever it needs to make his life at BGU unpleasant so that he will leave of his own accord… and then pretend that academic freedom in Israel has not been compromised at all.
In fact, academic freedom has been compromised a long time ago.
When Dr. Gordon published his piece, he did not set out to open a debate about academic freedom in Ben Gurion University, but rather to talk about the Israeli occupation and nonviolent ways to end it. Let’s honor his wish and refocus on the occupation, shall we?
Maybe Tel Aviv University’s Anat Matar can lead the way,
When the flag of academic freedom is raised, the oppressor and not the oppressed is usually the one who flies it. What is that academic freedom that so interests the academic community in Israel? When, for example, has it shown concern for the state of academic freedom in the occupied territories?
This school year in Gaza will open in shattered classrooms as there are no building materials there for rehabilitating the ruins; without notebooks, books and writing utensils that cannot be brought into Gaza because of the goods embargo (yes, Israel may boycott schools there and no cry is heard).
Hundreds of students in West Bank universities are under arrest or detention in Israeli jails, usually because they belong to student organizations that the ruling power does not like.
The separation fence and the barriers prevent students and lecturers from reaching classes, libraries and tests. Attending conferences abroad is almost unthinkable and the entry of experts who bear foreign passports is permitted only sparingly.
All that Dr. Gordon wanted to do was to find a way to right these wrongs. He suggested boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. Is that the right answer?
Noble Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu believes it is. Speaking in favor of Dr. Gordon’s call to apply selective sanctions on Israel, he said that,
…when F.W. de Klerk became president he telephoned congratulations. “The very first thing he said to me was ‘well now will you call off sanctions?’ Although they kept saying, oh well, these things don’t affect us at all. That was not true.
Regarding Israel, the hysteric reaction that resulted from a mere op-ed in the LA Times proves Archbishop Tutu’s point.
-Sydney Levy
E.
I should like to place on public record my unequivocal refusal to attach my name to the proposed letter distributed by Alon Harel, expressing support for Neve Gordon's right to call for a boycott of Israel. I should also like to specify my reasons for this:
While freedom of academic expression is of course a value of great importance it should not be exposed to unbridled misuse - even less to cynical abuse – as it has been in this instance. One might hope that the exercise of such freedom would be constrained by other values - arguably of no lesser importance -- such as moral integrity, and moral consistency.
Indeed, one can detect neither integrity nor consistency in Gordon's continued acceptance of a salary paid in large degree from the coffers of regime he finds so despicable and iniquitous that he feels morally bound to work for its downfall. (Indeed, one can only imagine what his fate would be if he were employed by a similar institution financed by the Palestinian regime he so fervently wishes to establish, and were to invoke "academic freedom" to express views similarly – indeed far less - critical of his institute's sponsor.) Surely both moral integrity and consistency would call for him to take upon himself, as the trail-blazer for his proposed initiative for boycott and disinvestment, some of the economic hardship that would befall others, were his demands to be implemented (via loss of jobs, factory closures etc.)
Moreover, while there may well be legitimate debate as what is true, there are clearly claims that are demonstrably false. Would Alon Harel leap to the defense of a professor of geography who insisted on propagating a doctrine based on the tenet that the world is flat, citing as evidence his personal – and indisputably accurate - measurements of elevation across the Salt Flats of Utah? Or a professor of aeronautics who adamantly claimed that the law of gravity has been repealed, citing as evidence his eminently verifiable observations of leaves being wafted aloft by an updraft of wind? Would advocacy of such manifest absurdities qualify for defense under the label "academic freedom"? (Here some of you may wish to peruse Kenneth Waltz's insightful discussion of the necessary methodological similarities in the natural and the social sciences, THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS. p.68)
Gordon's claim that Israel is an apartheid state is no less preposterous than these examples. This of course not the forum for a claim-by-claim refutation of Gordon's accusations, nor for a case-by-case citation of the factual distortions and/or omission he employs to formulate his allegations. However as someone who grew up in apartheid-era South Africa and whose father (an attorney) regularly defended Blacks (often pro bono) in the courts against state injustices, I assert this on the basis of a significant amount personal experience.
In keeping with the spirit of academic freedom, may I suggest perusal of "ZIONISM & RACISM: THE NOT SO SUBTLE DIFFERENCE".
In keeping with the spirit of moral integrity I should point out that there is some dispute as to the authenticity of the quote from Martin Luther King on page 6 -- however not as to the fact that he expressed similar sentiments during his lifetime.)
In conclusion may I appeal to all who have been approached, not to succumb to the dreaded CSD (Common Sense Deficiency) syndrome.
F.
Gordon is not merely expressing an opinion - he is advocating actionable policy which is likely to highly detrimental to many of his countrymen - Jews and Arabs - especially those whose livelihoods may me endangered by boycott and divestment far more than income of the fortunate few sheltered by safeguards of "tenure"
It would, in fact, be a case that eminently fits the very prescription which you yourself quote: "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." - even though I did not advocate the "exercise of power" - only moral censure
Indeed the consequences of Gordon's proposed policy would arguably be more harmful that those of some irate critic of his describing him as "a traitor" and presenting cogent arguments - linguistic and substantive - to justify the epithet.
Nonetheless, however well founded and persuasive such arguments might be - and even if they did not call for any actionable measures to taken - I have a feeling you would not spring to such a critic's defense, vigorously endorsing his right of freedom of expression to articulate his view.
Would I be mistaken??
G.
Boycotts only harden Israeli opinion
Far from saving this traumatised nation, boycotts are a gift to the fearmongers – we must educate and persuade Israelis instead
The most inaccurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. That's the exact opposite of what Neve Gordon said on Cif last week. Level whatever criticisms you want against Israel – start with West Bank occupation and oppression of Palestinians, and go on to the domestic discrimination suffered by the Arab minority – but the simple fact is that none of it is the apartheid of the old South Africa. Abundant evidence of this is readily available, in the Guardian and elsewhere.
Why then is the comparison so often made? One reason, in a different context, is in the words of American comedian Stephen Colbert: "Remember kids! In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant."
For some, the apartheid accusation is the way to destroy Israel. If Israel can be linked with apartheid then it can be denounced as illegitimate as was white-ruled South Africa and hence be wide open to international sanctions.
Those who pursue this couldn't care less about facts. They have an agenda and are unscrupulous about distortion, lying and exaggeration. Their ultimate purpose is exposed by how they answer a basic question: whether or not they accept the fact of Israel's existence.
Others use the apartheid label because they are genuinely affronted and angered by Israeli behaviour – from the occupation to the attack on Gaza – and it seems an easy way to reduce to digestible size the complexities of the national-religious struggle between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians over a small piece of land. It's wrong and it's lazy but that's how many people behave.
It is surprising, and disappointing, to find Gordon in these ranks. He is a professor of politics at a good Israeli university and one expects a more informed approach. I have never met him but see from his writing that he is a man of conscience. He condemns Israeli misdeeds and has long worked for peace, although to be sure he seems to be at the outer fringe of Israel's peace camp. So active is he that rightwing extremists rant at him and try to pressure his university to get rid of him.
Now, however, not only does he take over the apartheid line but he supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement aimed at Israel. That presumably includes the academic boycott that he has previously opposed; he thus becomes both the arrow and the target. He still has to explain how he will resolve this personal contradiction.
Equally the "double standard" which he rightly describes as a problem. Why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights, he asks. To which he could add the US because of its many human rights sins, Greece and Romania for mistreating their Roma people, India for Dalits, Turkey for Kurds, Lebanon's denial of rights to Palestinians, Cuba, Libya etc etc. He puts a good question, but does not give an answer.
The explanation for his new outlook is: "The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost non-existent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right."
He is venting the left's despair...
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