[Peace-discuss] Letter submitted to N-G

[Jenifer Cartwright via Peace-discuss]

BRAVO, David Green!!!

      From: David Green via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
 To: "peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> 
Cc: Ahmad Hamdan <ahamdan2 at illinois.edu>; "rwarrior at illinois.edu" <rwarrior at illinois.edu>; "sashermn at illinois.edu" <sashermn at illinois.edu>; Gary Storm <grstorm24 at gmail.com>; "sbrotman at illinois.edu" <sbrotman at illinois.edu> 
 Sent: Sunday, December 7, 2014 11:59 AM
 Subject: [Peace-discuss] Letter submitted to N-G
   
  This letter responds to Jim Dey’s column of October 26th regarding BDS, and implicitly to Gary Storm’s cogent commentary of December 6th. It also responds to Nelson’s edited volume The Case Against Academic Boycotts of Israel, 470 pages, which I have read twice.I support BDS and the Palestinian cause, but I do not support an academic boycott. Academic boycotts risk violating academic freedom. However, Nelson has targeted Steven Salaita from well prior to his de-hiring, thus making a mockery of academic freedom.I support a two-state solution, as Nelson also does. Nevertheless, genuine support involves resistance against occupation. Neither Nelson nor his 30 co-authors can claim to offer such resistance. Instead they offer apologetics for Israeli aggression and lurid, baseless accusations of anti-Semitism in academia. Their arguments are for the most part propagandistic, decontextualized, irrelevant, or Islamophobic. Collectively, they display enormous self-pity among privileged academics who work in environments free of anti-Semitism.Nelson, along with Rachel Harris of the U. of Illinois and historian Kenneth Stein, has written a chapter called “The History of Israel.” This chapter is not scholarship but liberal Zionist propaganda. It romanticizes Jews while being defamatory of Palestinians and Arabs. It is comparable to an exoneration of those who committed genocide against American Indians. I find it selective, tendentious, ethnocentric, and racist.I challenge Nelson to publicly debate me on the substantive issues of the conflict. Given the institutionalized dominance of Zionism on this campus, it’s important to level the playing field in an open and safe context.
David Green
_______________________________________________
Peace-discuss mailing list
Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss


  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20141207/a74e56c6/attachment.html>