Faculty Forum January 2021

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Dear Colleagues:

Happy New Year!

As we enter the New Year we are re-launching the Faculty Forum in addition, to our other products and publications including but not limited, to the BDS Monitor and our Webinars.

Positively, in 2020 notwithstanding COVID we did see a significant amount of push back on BDS in particular with the normalization between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, and Morocco. Further, Sudan took a stance and highlighted Palestinian rejectionism.

But in contrast to these changes in the region “Cancel culture” is on the rise and antisemitism, is the only form of hate speech that cancel culture has no problem tolerating, while pro-Israel stances remain occasions to cancel those who dare express it. All of this, is motivated in part by the sense that history is either made up for the benefit of the powerful, or that history’s uncomfortable truths necessarily compel feelings of guilt, which must then be translated into political action.  And real historical understanding of events like the Civil War and the Holocaust are fading, or, like the history of Jewish nationalism—Zionism—they are deliberately distorted in order to damn supporters.

Clearly, there is much work to be done.

As always, we would love to hear from you and welcome your feedback and article submissions.

 

Sincerely,

Asaf Romirowsky, PhD

Faculty Forum January 2021

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AUTHOR

Asaf Romirowsky

Asaf Romirowsky PhD, is the Executive Director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME). Romirowsky is also a fellow at the Middle East Forum and a Professor ​[Affiliate] at the University​ of Haifa. Trained as a Middle East historian he holds a PhD in Middle East and Mediterranean Studies from King's College London, UK and has published widely on various aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict and American foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as on Israeli and Zionist history.

Romirowsky is co-author of Religion, Politics, and the Origins of Palestine Refugee Relief and a contributor to The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel.

Romirowsky’s publicly-engaged scholarship has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The National Interest, The American Interest , The New Republic, The Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, Ynet and Tablet among other online and print media outlets


Read all stories by Asaf Romirowsky