When Steven Salaita received a conditional job offer from a college dean at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the letter included a standard disclaimer, warning him that the offer would not be final until and unless the board of…
read moreSeveral weeks ago, I returned from a coast-to-coast tour of the United States and Canada with mixed feelings. In dozens of events and meetings, I was exposed to a complicated and alarming state of affairs. I’ll start with the good…
read moreAN EVIDENCE-BASED ANALYSIS OF THE NATURE AND IMPACT OF ISRAELI PUBLIC HEALTH POLICIES PRACTICES IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA. The incendiary claim that Israel has deliberately damaged the health of the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip…
read more“What if the Jews themselves were Nazis?,” mused French philosopher, Vladimir Jankélévitch in 1986. “That would be great. We would no longer have to feel sorry for them; they would have deserved what they got.” The recasting of Israelis, and,…
read moreAt the end of last year, the American Studies Association earned more press attention than it has in its entire history by voting to boycott Israeli academic institutions. The effect of the boycott has been devastating—not to Israel, where apparently…
read moreSteven Salaita, the professor whose University of Illinois job offer was rescinded earlier this year over his inflammatory comments about Israel, is now on a road show, talking about how people like him are not allowed to talk. So far,…
read moreOver the coming days, I’ll be attending the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) annual conference in Washington. It’s time for me to catch up on the zeitgeist in my field, and there’s no better place to do that than at…
read moreThe American Studies Association (ASA), allegedly a scholarly association – (“our nation’s oldest (1951) and largest association devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history,”) has abandoned its scholarly pursuits to boycott Israel, and banned Israel’s university representatives…
read moreAt a Jewish literary retreat I attended this past summer, at the height of the Gaza war, fault lines opened between those anxiously following news from Israel and others apparently indifferent or professing concern for the “suffering on both sides.”…
read morePrinceton University professors have opened a new front in the battle over Israel on campus with a petition signed by 60 tenured faculty members calling for the university to divest from companies backing the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. The…
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