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University of HaifaUniversity of Haifa - Israel hater Micah Leshem (Dept of Psychology), cheers on Neve Gordon's call for a Boycott against Israeli "apartheid"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.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- 1. I find Prof. Sherman’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 hir country - wouldn’t Sherman 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 Sherman, Apartheid’s apologists claimed necessity and that an equitable solution would be |