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Contents:
MLA Anti-Israel Resolution: Victor Lieberman, MLA.org, Dec. 23, 2013— I write as a colleague with some expertise in international affairs. The MLA since 1982 has approved three resolutions condemning overseas restrictions on academic freedom.
An Academic Scandal Headed for Chicago: Amy Stoken & Jack S. Levin, Chicago Tribune, Jan. 1, 2014 — Academicians from all over the world will gather in Chicago for the 129th annual convention of the 30,000-member Modern Language Association.
Pro-Israel College Groups Denied Chance to Present at Modern Language Association Conference: Algemeiner, Jan. 2, 2014— The pro-Israel campus groups Hillel International and the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) have been denied the right to present a discussion on Israel at the Jan. 9-12 Modern Language Association (MLA) convention in Chicago.
Top 10 Worst U.N. Decisions of 2013: Hillel Neuer, Times of Israel, Dec. 31, 2013 — 1. The UN Human Rights Council elected Hezbollah supporter Jean Ziegler, founder and recipient of the Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize, as a top advisor.
Looking Forward, Looking Back: Editorial, Jerusalem Post, Jan. 1, 2014 — In his Rosh Hashana message in August, President Shimon Peres spoke with his usual passion and forthrightness about the tough situation facing Israel.
Pro-Israel College Groups Denied Chance to Present at Modern Language Association Conference: Algemeiner, Jan. 2, 2014
Jesus of Palestine?: Clifford D. May, National Review, Jan. 2, 2014
The Power of Propaganda and Misinformation: Maurice Ostroff, Jerusalem Post, Jan. 2., 2014
ASA’s Tiresome Selective Indignation: Richard L. Cravatts, Jewish Press, Jan. 2, 2014
In 2013, America Swapped Its Sledgehammer for a Scalpel. Here’s Who Won and Lost: Lee Smith, Tablet, Dec. 26., 2013
Victor Lieberman
MLA, Dec. 23, 2013
I write as a colleague with some expertise in international affairs. The MLA since 1982 has approved three resolutions condemning overseas restrictions on academic freedom. Two of the three criticized Israel (the third concerned El Salvador). In early 2014 the MLA Delegate Assembly will consider a fourth resolution. This too criticizes Israel, in this case Israeli restrictions on the entry of American academics of Palestinian ancestry to the West Bank. Given that three of four resolutions single out Israel, are we to conclude that Israel represents the principal threat to academic freedom not only in the Mideast, but in the world at large? Such a claim would be hard to defend. Systematically and unapologetically, at least fifty African, Southeast Asian, and South Asian counties prevent the expression of unwelcome opinions in university classrooms or campuses. Likewise universities in Iran and every Arab country — including, it should be noted, Palestinian institutions in the West Bank and Gaza — routinely proscribe academics who question official policy. In China academic freedom has never enjoyed the slightest degree of legal or social protection (only this month a Shanghai university fired a professor for daring to criticize President Xi Jinping). In Russia, Belarus, and other ex- Soviet states, disobedient research centers and academics face concerted government attack. By contrast, in the West Bank and Israel proper Jewish and Arab professors and students frequently and openly denounce Israeli policy without inhibition or restriction. What possible logic then could lead the MLA to conclude of 193 UN member states, Israel is the only one deserving repeated MLA censure?
In truth, of course, this proposed resolution, coming in the wake of the recent American Studies Association resolution, is part of a broader critique of Israeli policy. Here too a comparative view is in order. The Jewish state offered to recognize Arab/Palestinian sovereignty over the West Bank on five occasions — 1947, 1967, 1968, 2000, 2008 — but in each instance this offer not only was rejected, but was rejected with violence. A fundamental problem has been the refusal of a large, generally dominant, sector of Palestinian opinion to accept a Jewish state. It was that refusal — perfectly understandable, if in the event self-defeating — that spawned the war of 1947-49 and the Six Day War. The latter in turn produced the defensive occupation of the West Bank. No thoughtful person can deny that Israeli policy there is ugly and, in the long run, untenable. But without Palestinian rejectionism, and Israel’s fear that that such rejectionism will produce a Hamas-run state next to the Jewish heartland, the occupation and settlements would lose their raison d’etre. To blame Israel exclusively for an occupation which grows out of a reciprocal dynamic and which Israel in fact has repeatedly sought to end is, once again therefore, to torture the record. I teach a course on the Arab-Israeli conflict that is popular with Muslim and Jewish students because it treats sympathetically the fears of both Palestinian and Jewish communities. Given a bit of intellectual rigor, it is possible to incorporate these contrary views in an overarching narrative. But in its odd selectivity and penchant for a priori logic, the proposed MSA resolution is embarrassingly anti-intellectual. I urge you to oppose its passage.
AN ACADEMIC SCANDAL HEADED FOR CHICAGO
Amy Stoken & Jack S. Levin
Chicago Tribune, Jan. 1, 2014
Academicians from all over the world will gather in Chicago for the 129th annual convention of the 30,000-member Modern Language Association. The MLA, according to its website, provides opportunities for teachers of English and foreign languages "to share their scholarly findings and teaching experiences with colleagues and to discuss trends in the academy." The four-day convention, starting Jan. 9, features exhibitions, opportunities for job interviews — and 810 sessions, all but one of which will address topics connected to the study of language and literature. The one exception is entitled "Academic Boycotts: A Conversation about Israel and Palestine." "This roundtable," the MLA website explains, "addresses the political movement Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel, seen by its defenders as a viable means to end the Palestinian occupation."
That the only political session at the MLA targets Israel must appear strange to the unbiased observer. Anyone familiar with the Middle East will wonder what is meant by ending "the Palestinian occupation." Does it refer to Israel's presence on the West Bank? Israel took control of that area in 1967 in the course of defending itself against an invasion from the army of Jordan, the country which then ruled the West Bank territory. For decades Israel has pursued a series of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority — just as it did, successfully, with Egypt and Jordan — in hopes of reaching a peace deal to end any Israeli presence on the West Bank. The latest phase of those Israeli-Palestinian talks, under U.S. sponsorship, is ongoing even as the MLA prepares to gather in Chicago.
Or, perhaps, by "occupation" the conveners of this MLA session mean the very existence of Israel itself, which, according to some diehard opponents of the Jewish state has no international legitimacy, even though the United Nations mandated Israel's creation and admitted Israel to U.N. membership. If that's the case, this roundtable of academics is simply seeking to dismantle a U.N. member state. One would think that an organization dedicated to languages and literature would value Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, where academic freedom is alive and well, a free press flourishes, and there is no discrimination based on race, religion, sex or sexual preference. If the MLA wants to pronounce on international politics, why are there no sessions on countering repressive regimes such as those in Syria, Iran, Zimbabwe or North Korea, where people, for example, suffer imprisonment or worse for expressing politically incorrect ideas or adhering to the wrong faith? Even worse, this MLA boycott "conversation" doesn't even pretend to examine both sides of the question. All of the announced speakers are on record favoring an Israeli boycott. In fact, presiding officer Samer M. Ali informed The Chronicle of Higher Education that Israel's guilt is not open to doubt but rather, "(t)he question that panelists will be debating is not whether Israel is violating the rights of Palestinians, but what to do about it."
This academic scandal headed for Chicago will not be an isolated incident, but simply the latest phase in an effort by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel to get American scholarly bodies' help in delegitimizing the Jewish state. The Association for Asian Studies, the American Studies Association and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association — all relatively small —have endorsed academic boycotts of Israel, and the "conversation" at the MLA convention is designed as the opening wedge to pry an endorsement from a larger and mainstream body. What happened to the concept that academic organizations were designed to facilitate communication between both educators within a single country and educators in different countries, rather than to build walls between groups of educators in pursuit of one or more perceived political goals?
Thankfully, the boycott movement is opposed by all the responsible voices in the academy who have spoken. The American Association of Universities and the American Association of University Professors, as well as numerous individual scholars, have condemned it as a violation of academic freedom. Most of our prestigious local academic institutions, the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the University of Illinois at Chicago, have voiced their rejection of these academic boycotts. But the battle is far from over. An alert to fair-minded scholars in every academic field: Don't let your profession become a haven for Israel-bashers.
PRO-ISRAEL COLLEGE GROUPS DENIED CHANCE TO PRESENT
AT MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE Algemeiner, Jan. 2, 2014
The pro-Israel campus groups Hillel International and the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) have been denied the right to present a discussion on Israel at the Jan. 9-12 Modern Language Association (MLA) convention in Chicago. MLA’s convention includes a roundtable discussion that will feature supporters but no opponents of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. The discussion—titled “Academic Boycotts: A Conversation about Israel and Palestine”—is seen as a possible precursor to an MLA academic boycott of Israel, which would mirror recent boycotts by the American Studies Association and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association. The MLA convention will consider a resolution that condemns Israel for alleged “arbitrary denials of entry to Gaza and the West Bank by U.S. academics who have been invited to teach, confer, or do research at Palestinian universities.”
Hillel and the ICC asked the 30,000-member MLA for the chance to present what they called an “open discussion featuring MLA members regarding academic freedom in Israel, its territories, and Gaza,” but MLA said the deadline to book a meeting at the convention had passed. “The MLA convention has procedures for its members to organize sessions, and that deadline was 1 April [2013],” MLA Executive Director Rosemary G. Feal, the MLA’s executive director, wrote in an email to ICC Executive Director Jacob Baime. “We do not rent space at our convention for nonmembers to hold discussions.” The existing MLA session’s speakers will include BDS movement co-founder Omar Barghouti; University of Texas professor Barbara Jane Harlow, who has stated her support for the ASA boycott of Israel, University of Southern California professor of English David Lloyd, a well-known BDS activist; and Wesleyan University professor Richard Ohmann, who signed a 2009 letter that described Israeli treatment of Palestinians as “one of the most massive, ethnocidal atrocities of modern times.” University of Texas professor Samer M. Ali, who publicly defended the ASA boycott, organized the roundtable…
ICC and Hillel said they are now considering organizing a “balancing panel” discussion at a nearby location during the MLA convention. The panel would feature MLA members who oppose the anti-Israel resolution being considered at the convention. Ali, the organizer of the convention’s roundtable on BDS, told The Chronicle of Higher Education that the roundtable assumes that Israel violates the rights of Palestinians, and that the debate will center on what to do about it. “If people want to come and debate occupation, I think it will be a waste of their time, because that’s not what the roundtable is about,” Ali said.
TOP 10 WORST U.N. DECISIONS OF 2013
Hillel Neuer
Times of Israel, Dec. 31, 2013
1. The UN Human Rights Council elected Hezbollah supporter Jean Ziegler, founder and recipient of the Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize, as a top advisor.
2. The UN General Assembly adopted 21 condemnatory resolutions against Israel, compared to 4 on the rest of the world combined.
3. The same UN General Assembly elected China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia to the UN Human Rights Council. The dictatorships will take their new seats on January 1, 2014.
4. UN human rights expert Richard Falk blamed the Boston Marathon terror bombings on “the American global domination project” and “Tel Aviv.”
5. The UN Special Committee on Decolonization, charged with upholding fundamental human rights and opposing the subjugation of peoples, elected the murderous Syrian regime to a senior post.
6. The UN Conference on Disarmament in May 2013 made Iran its president.
7. The UN Economic and Social Council, which oversees the UN women’s rights commission, elected genocidal Sudan as its vice-president.
8. The UN Human Rights Council elected slave-holding Mauritania to be its vice-president.
9. The UN chose Zimbabwe, a regime that systematically violates human rights, to host its world tourism summit.
10. UNESCO, which condemned no other country but Israel, and which was silent as Hamas bulldozed a world heritage site to make a terrorist training camp, allowed Syria to sit as a judge on UNESCO’s human rights committee.
Jerusalem Post, Jan. 1, 2014
In his Rosh Hashana message in August, President Shimon Peres spoke with his usual passion and forthrightness about the tough situation facing Israel. “We are going through a stormy time, but there is no room to lose hope and to lose faith. I do believe that out of this very complicated situation we can carry the hope of a better year for all mankind, for the Jewish people, for all your families, for each of us.” This message underpins the issues that Israel faces year after year – a chaotic Middle East, extremism on our borders, the Iranian threat, and the ever shifting peace process with the PLO.
Last year saw more than half a dozen trips by US Secretary of State John Kerry to the region to work on an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. In April alone he made three trips. The new year begins with yet another piece of Kerry shuttle diplomacy. Most of this work and the ongoing negotiations have been opaque. The narrative presented is that Kerry is “rescuing” or “saving” the peace talks. He said on December 15: “I’m personally encouraged that very tough issues are beginning to take shape in terms of various options that may or may not be available to the leaders to choose between to help resolve it.” The talk now is of a “framework declaration of principles” that will be unveiled.
One of the major themes of 2013 in regard to this issue has been the government’s failure to speak with one voice. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni told a conference recently that “the settlements are not part of Israel’s security, they are hurting it.” At about the same time, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said the Palestinian leadership was not a partner for peace. Meanwhile, Likud lawmakers led by MK Miri Regev have sought approval of a bill annexing the Jordan Valley. This gave the public the sense that last year was one in which the government had no clear policy. The triumphant return of Avigdor Liberman to the Foreign Ministry in November after being acquitted of corruption charges might have brought some consistency to the coalition, but so far he does not seem to have put his imprint on Israel’s policy. It is our hope that the government will in the coming months be able to finally formulate a clear vision and regional policy.
In 2013, American foreign policy and influence once again seemed to falter and weaken in the Middle East. This was seen on several fronts, particularly the Iranian nuclear issue. The signing of an interim agreement in November seems to give the Iranians more time to develop their nuclear facilities while the West gets little in return. The Iranian nuclear negotiator told the press on December 31 that, “based on the conclusions the talks held with expert delegations, the implementation of the Geneva accord will start at the end of January.” The Saudis have accused the US of abrogating its responsibility toward confronting Tehran. Riyadh has been saber-rattling that it will “go it alone.” That leaves open the possibility that 2014 might be the year that the Saudis and Israelis cooperate together on the Iranian issue. Another side of faltering US policy was President Barack Obama’s decision in September to scrap plans for air strikes on Syria.
Last year, the Egyptian revolution that began in January 2011 ended abruptly as Mohamed Morsi was overthrown in July and a military regime imposed on the country. The military seems to have widespread support because of the public’s disdain for the Muslim Brotherhood, the regime has banned the Brotherhood and Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has emerged as the country’s strongman. As the horrific Syrian civil war rages on, it increasingly spills over into Lebanon and Turkey, while assassinations and chaos threaten Lebanon, Libya and Tunisia. In Turkey, corruption scandals and infighting in the ruling party are shaking the iron grip of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Israel was able to stave off conflict last year, but terrorism reared its ugly head toward the end of 2013 as the government released security prisoners and advanced peace talks with the Palestinian Authority. Keeping a pulse on developments in Israel and the territories will be essential for a peaceful and secure 2014.
List of Universities Rejecting Academic Boycott of Israel (Updated)
Source: Legal Insurection
American University (D.C.), Amherst College, Barnard College, Birmingham Southern College, Boston University, Bowdoin College, Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, CUNY, Brown University, Carnegie-Mellon University, Case Western Reserve University, Catholic University, City University of New York, Clark University, Colby College, Colgate University, College of Charleston, Colgate University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Dickinson College, Drake University, Drexel University, Duke University, Emory University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida International University, Fordham University, Franklin & Marshall College, George Washington University, Georgetown University, Gettysburg College, Goucher College, Hamilton College, Harvard University, Haverford College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Indiana University, Johns Hopkins University, Kenyon College, Lafayette College, Lehigh University, Loyola University Maryland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michigan State, Middlebury College, New York University, Northeastern University, Northwestern University Ohio State, Pennsylvania State University, Pomona College, Princeton University, Purdue University Ramapo College, Rhode Island College, Rice University, Rider University, Rutgers University, St. Lawrence University, Skidmore College, Smith College, Stanford University, State University of New York (SUNY) System, Swarthmore College, The City University of New York, Trinity College (CT), Tufts University, Tulane University, Union College, University of Alabama System, University of California System, University of California-Berkeley, University of California-Davis, University of California-Irvine, University of California-San Diego, University of California – San Francisco, University of Chicago, University of Cincinnati, University of Connecticut, University of Delaware, University of Florida, University of Illinois System, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Illinois at Springfield, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of La Verne, University of Kansas, University of Maryland, University of Maryland – Baltimore County, University of Miami, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pittsburgh, University of Rochester, University of Southern California, University of Texas-Austin, University of Vermont, Vanderbilt University, Wake Forest University, Washington University in St. Louis, Wesleyan University, Willamette University, Yale University, Yeshiva University
Jesus of Palestine?: Clifford D. May, National Review, Jan. 2, 2014The members of the American Studies Association care deeply about historical truth, which is why they protested so strenuously when, over Christmas, Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas called Jesus “a Palestinian messenger.”
The Power of Propaganda and Misinformation: Maurice Ostroff, Jerusalem Post, Jan. 2., 2014 In their book Sleight of Mind: What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions, neuroscientists Stephen Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde describe how magicians use the way our nervous systems are wired to create seemingly impossible illusions.
ASA’s Tiresome Selective Indignation: Richard L. Cravatts, Jewish Press, Jan. 2, 2014 Seeming to give credence to Orwell’s wry observation that “there are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them,” the fatuous members of the American Studies Association (ASA) passed a December 15 resolution to institute an academic boycott against Israeli universities.
In 2013, America Swapped Its Sledgehammer for a Scalpel. Here’s Who Won and Lost: Lee Smith, Tablet, Dec. 26., 2013 With the end of 2013 comes the end of the American era in the Middle East.
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