Re: [Marxism] Anti-Defamation League Pressured UCSB to move against William I. Robinson

[J.M.P.Cloke@xxxxxxxxxxx]

This sounds more and more like when the Critical Geography 
forum discussed whether the AUT in the UK (of which I used 
to be a member) should legitimately undertake a boycott of 
Israeli Universities, at the request of scholars at the 
Beir Zeit University, a wagonload of Palestinian and 
Israeli activists and the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

The number of us who argued for on the basis of Israeli 
apartheid was, umm, few in number, and the response 
hysterical and immediate - from the British Board of 
Jewish Deputies through to yer man Alan Dershowitz, who 
threatened to come over to the UK and personally put us in 
jail - the issue eventually got punted by the AUT.

Having said which, any attempt to compare what israel does 
with what the nazis did is stupid, stupid, stupid - stupid 
three times because 1) the historical, factual background 
makes such a comparison pointless and obscene, 2) far from 
advancing the cause of the Palestinian people by making 
such comparisons, you allow their legitimate grievances to 
be drowned in a cacophony of hysteria from the AIPACies 
who want you to make just such a stupid move, and 3) 
because you alienate the mass of people who, whilst not 
being lefties/activists, may recognise that events such as 
the Gaza Massacres are unacceptable war crimes.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.   


Jon Cloke


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