Mr. Kurtz Comes to America

from Counterpunch
WEEKEND EDITION SEPTEMBER 5-7, 2014

An Indigenous Peoples' History
Mr. Kurtz Comes to America
by RON JACOBS
Joseph Conrad is responsible for some of the best writing on imperialism’s darker side in the English language. The jungles of Marlowe and Kurtz in his classic novel Heart of Darkness remain some of literature’s ugliest manifestations of European hubris and white racism ever written. Conrad’s characters are so well contrived they have become metaphors for the imperial economic and cultural system of domination that is championed by its kings and rulers as much as it is maligned by its victims and those opposed to its machinations. The sheer brutality of the rational yet insane Kurtz represents the reality of colonialism at its most murderous. Kurtz’s statement at the end of the novel, “Exterminate all the brutes!” is the most succinct take on colonialism and imperialism’s final solution to challenges from their subjects that exists.

Furthermore, that statement represents not only a solution for Kurtz and his real life inspirations and imitators; it also represents the history of European subjugation of the planet. This is why essayist Sven Lindquist used it for the title of his classic on the history of imperialist racism, Exterminate All the Brutes! Likewise, a new history of the United States from Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, titled An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, discusses and illuminates what may be the most obvious and complete expression of Kurtz’s sentiment—the genocidal destruction of the indigenous peoples of North America. This genocide was close to total. Entire nations of people were killed off, their cultures denied, and their lands stolen. The physical methods undertaken in the course of this destruction gave new definition to the term brutality. The philosophical underpinnings of the centuries’ long endeavor provided a spiritual and epistemological rationale for the brutality.

Indigenous-History

Virtually all history has elements that are never pretty, never uplifting, and rarely mentioned by most historians. This book is one such history. The saga Dunbar Ortiz chronicles is one born in resistance to European and American colonialism and imperialism. From the struggles against the early British settlers in New England and Virginia to the final catastrophes at Sand Creek and Wounded Knee, Dunbar Ortiz never flinches from the truth. Because it is a history of the United States, and given the fact that the United States was created on land absconded from the people living on and cultivating the land when they arrived, it is also a history whose primary definition is that resistance. Early on, the comparison to the more modern settler states of South Africa and Israel is made. However, it remains clear that the land called the United States is the template for settler colonialism. This history makes it clear that this process is not only about land, it is also about the total erasure of those being replaced from human memory. Undertaking such a project involved a combination of murderous militarism, psychological manipulation and the creation of a myth that told the settlers any killing they undertook against the natives was blessed by God, no matter how cruel a form such killing took.

There were various colonial-settler warriors who took greater delight than others in the mass murder they perpetrated. Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson and William Tecumseh Sherman were two such men. Jackson had no shame when it came to his racist attitudes towards Native Americans and Blacks. Indeed, his men fashioned reins from for their horses from the skin of Shawnees they had killed. Meanwhile, Sherman’s reputation as the reigning master of total warfare against a population was only enhanced during the US counterinsurgency campaigns against Native Americans. His burning of Atlanta during the US Civil War remains as one of history’s most brutal and bloody campaigns against a civilian population in the long and bloody history of warfare. Some of his final public statements quoted in this text prove his bloodlust never changed. As Dunbar Ortiz reminds the reader, the tactics of war undertaken by these men and the multitude of other US soldiers and militia men remain in use today in every military foray undertaken by Washington’s troops and mercenaries.

Some stories cry out to be told. Often, the reason they have not been told is because those in power fear the particular truths of the tale.

The story told by Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz in An Indigenous People’s History of the United States is one such story. It has been too long in telling. Dunbar Ortiz’s writes her narrative with a measured rage that enlivens the history being told, challenging the reader to reconsider every other history ever written about the United States. Essential myths of American exceptionalism are destroyed in these pages while the truths of its bloody genesis and maintenance are categorically declaimed. Informed by Frantz Fanon and Tecumseh alike, Dunbar Ortiz has written a well-researched and important history of genocidal war and indigenous resistance. When it comes to the settler nation called the United States, there is very little virtue in what is written in these pages. This book takes its place in the library of those history texts that tell the history the rulers do not want told. That in itself is justification enough for its publication. Dunbar Ortiz’s captivating and incisive writing only enhances that justification.

Ron Jacobs is the author of the just released novel All the Sinners, Saints. He is also the author of The Way the Wind Blew: a History of the Weather Underground and Short Order Frame Up and The Co-Conspirator’s Tale. Jacobs’ essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch’s collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His third novel All the Sinners Saints is a companion to the previous two and is due out in April 2013. He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. He can be reac

Netanyahu vs. Abu Ubaydah: On Victory and False Victory

From the Palestine Chronicle

The resistance victory statement was different from that of Netanyahu's.

By Ramzy Baroud



In the rush to analyze the outcome of Israel's 51-day war in Gaza, dubbed Operation Protective Edge, some may have neglected an important factor: this was not a war by traditional definitions of warfare, thus the conventional analyses of victory and defeat is simply not applicable.



That being the case, how can we explain Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's triumphant statement on 28 August, and the massive celebrations on the streets of Gaza regarding the resistance 'victory' over Israel? To be truly fathomed, they must be understood in context.



Soon after the ceasefire declaration on 26 August, ending Israel's most destructive war on Gaza yet, Netanyahu seemed to have disappeared from the scene. Some Israeli media began predicting the end of his political reign. Although this notion was a bit hasty, one can understand why. Much of the man's political career was predicated on his 'anti-terror' stance and Israeli security agenda.



He served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999, with the decided aim of defeating the Oslo 'peace process.' He argued it compromised Israel's security. Then as a finance minister in Sharon's government (2003-05), he was troubled by Ariel Sharon's intentions regarding re-deploying out of Gaza. In fact, it was the Gaza 'disengagement plan' that ended the Netanyahu-Sharon alliance.



It took Netanyahu a few years to fight his way back from the seeming oblivion in Israel's complicated political landscape. He fought a grueling political battle, but managed to redeem only some of the rightwing Likud party's past glory through fractious alliances. He served as prime minister from 2009-2013, and for a third term (a rarity in Israeli history) from 2013 to the present.



Not only was Netanyahu the king of Israel, but its kingmaker as well. He did keep his friends close and enemies closer, and cleverly balanced out seemingly impossible coalition odds. He succeeded, not simply because he is a shrewd politician, but also because he managed to unite Israel around one goal: security. This he did by fighting "Palestinian terror," a reference to various Palestinian resistance groups, including Hamas, and building Israeli defenses. He had such command over that political discourse that no one came even close, surly not the newcomer centralist politician Yair Lapid, or even rightwing and far-right hawks Avigdor Liberman and Neftali Bennet.

But then, Gaza happened, a war that could possibly become Netanyahu's biggest miscalculation, and perhaps the reason for his downfall. Aside from the collapse in his approval ratings, down from 82% on 23 July, to less than 38% shortly after the ceasefire announcement, the man's own language in his post-ceasefire press conference is telling enough.



He seemed desperate and defensive, arguing that Hamas failed to achieve its war objective, although it was Israel, not Hamas, that instigated the war with a list of objectives - none of which were achieved anyway. Hamas responded by mocking his statement as the group didn't start the war, nor had any demands then, a group official told Al Jazeera. The demands were made in the subsequent ceasefire talks in Egypt, and some of them were in fact achieved.



Netanyahu is twisting language and stretching the truth in a despondent attempt to score a political victory, or to simply save face. But few are convinced.



Writing in Foreign Policy on 20 July 20, Ariel Ilan Roth came to an early conclusion about the Gaza war, which has proven to be only partly true. "No matter how and when the conflict between Hamas and Israel ends, two things are certain. The first is that Israel will be able to claim a tactical victory. The second is that it will have suffered a strategic defeat."



Wrong. Even the tactical victory was denied this time around, unlike previous wars, most notably the so-called Operation Cast Lead (2008-09). The Gaza resistance must have learned from its past mistakes, managing to withstand a 51-day war with a destructive outcome unprecedented in all past Gaza conflicts. When the Egypt-mediated ceasefire was announced, every Israeli soldier was pushed behind Gaza's borders.



Almost immediately after the agreement, a Hamas official from Gaza read a statement in which he called on Israelis living in the many evacuated border towns to return to their homes, in a statement of defiance also unprecedented. Shortly after, hundreds of fighters representing all factions, Fatah included, stood at the ruins of the Shejaiya, neighbourhood in Gaza city. "There is no room amongst us for that defeated, weak Arab," the military leader of the Gaza resistance Abu Ubaydah declared, as throngs of people showered the fighters with kisses.



He too declared some kind of victory. But is his "victory" statement any different from that of Netanyahu's?



"Israel has a history of claiming victory when in fact it has suffered defeat; the October 1973 war is the best example," wrote Roth in Foreign Policy. The difference back then is that many in Israel accepted false victories. This time around they refuse to do so, as various opinion polls by Haaretz, Channel 2 and others are showing. Furthermore, the chasm in Israel's political class is wider than it has been in many years.



Irrespective of this, 'victory' of the resistance cannot be understood within the same context of Israel's own definition of victory, or false victory. Surely the resistance "was able to establish deterrence, displaying an incredible level of resilience and strength, even when equipped with primitive weapons," as argued by Samah Sabawi. The very idea that powerful Israel, and the likes of Netanyahu, can use Palestinians as a testing ground for weapons or to enhance approval ratings seems to be over. The Sharon old wisdom that the Arabs and Palestinians "must be hit hard" and "must be beaten," as a precondition for calm, or peace, was challenged like never before in the history of Arab-Israeli wars.



Gaza's ceasefire "celebrations" were not the kind of celebrations that would follow a football match win. To comprehend it as an expression of mere joy is a mistake, and reflects a lack of understanding of Gaza society. It was more of a collective statement by people who lost 2,143 people, mostly civilians, and have over 11,000 wounded and maimed to care for. Let alone the total or partial destruction of 18,000 homes, 75 schools, many hospitals, mosques, and hundreds of factories and shops.



No, it was not a statement of defiance in the symbolic sense either. It was a message to Israel that the resistance has matured and that Israel's complete dominance over when wars start and how they end is over.



Only the future could prove how accurate such an assessment is and how consequential it will be for the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are under military occupation. Interestingly, "liberating Jerusalem," was in fact a dominant theme among jubilant Palestinians in Gaza. Another theme was the insistence of national unity among all Palestinians. After all, this was the real reason why Netanyahu had launched his war on Gaza in the first place.



Resistance discourse, al-Muqawama, is now the most dominant in Palestine, and it goes beyond factional divides, or the tired discussion about useless 'peace talks' that garnered nothing for Palestinians but territorial loss, political division and much humiliation. That sentiment is already reverberating in the West Bank. But how it will be translated in the future is yet to be seen, considering the fact that the Palestinian Authority (PA) there is weak in its dealings with Israel, and very intolerant of any political dissent.

Israeli pressure on PA President Mahmoud Abbas will continue. In his first press conference after the ceasefire Netanyahu repeated the same ultimatum. Abbas "needs to choose what side he is on," he said.



After failing to end the Gaza resistance, Netanyahu is left with nothing other than pressuring Abbas, 79, whose choice, after Gaza's war, means so little to begin with.



- Ramzy Baroud is a PhD scholar in People's History at the University of Exeter. He is the Managing Editor of Middle East Eye. Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).

Illinois chancellor says she should have “consulted with more people” before firing Palestinian scholar

from the electric intifada
Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Thu, 09/04/2014 - 14:54

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) Chancellor Phyllis Wise has said she regrets she did not consult with more people before taking her decision to fire Palestinian American scholar Steven Salaita.

“I, in hindsight, wish I had been a little bit more deliberate and had consulted with more people before I made that decision,” she said.

Wise made the comments in an appearance before the student senate on Wednesday, indicating that she and other administrators are feeling the pressure of the outpouring of protests, boycotts and faculty votes of no confidence over the decision (video above and transcript below).

She was also directly confronted by students objecting to her decision.

Wise acknowledged the negative impact her decision is having on the university: “There have been a lot of criticism of his [Salaita’s] recruitment and now a great deal of criticism of us not following through. There have been boycotts by other universities.”

In early August, Wise abruptly terminated Salaita weeks before he was due to start teaching in a tenured position in the American Indian Studies Program, setting off a national and international firestorm and condemnations from individual academics and academic associations around the world.

The faculty in six of UIUC’s departments have cast votes of no confidence in the chancellor, the university president and the board of trustees.

Wise’s decision followed a massive letter-writing campaign by pro-Israel students, alumni and donors claiming that Salaita’s tweets criticizing Zionism and Israel’s massacre in Gaza constituted “anti-Semitism.”

What remains unclear is whether broader consultation would have actually led Wise to make a different decision, given the corporatization of decisionmaking at the University of Illinois and other institutions. It may simply be that Wise believes that by “consulting” more widely, she would have been able to pre-empt the crisis now engulfing her institution.
Efforts to appease donors

Despite mounting evidence of her efforts to appease major, pro-Israel donors who were angered by Salaita’s appointment, Wise continues to maintain that she was not influenced by the university’s financial interests.

“If you read the News-Gazette you will read articles that state that I made my decision because I was afraid we would lose donors,” Wise said. “What I can assure you is that … whether or not someone had been a donor, is a donor, or would like to be a donor, is not at all considered in our decision.”

On 2 September, the Illinois newspaper the News-Gazette revealed that “a number of wealthy donors threatened to stop giving money to the university” because of Salaita’s appointment.

Among hundreds of pages of correspondence requested by the News-Gazette under the Freedom of Information Act are emails showing that Wise rearranged her schedule to meet with one particularly wealthy donor to discuss Salaita hiring just days before it became public that she had fired him.

That donor has been named as Steve N. Miller, a Chicago-area venture capitalist and a major donor to the university.

Miller is also on the board of the Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, almost certainly the most influential and active pro-Israel advocacy organization in Illinois.
Confronted by students

Following her comments, students made statments challenging Wise’s decision.

Several students also read prepared statements praising Wise and repeating the false accusations of “anti-Semitism” that were pervasive in the letter-writing campaign.

As the chancellor listened, graduate student Rico Kleinstein Chenyek read a letter from members of the university’s Jewish community rejecting Wise’s earlier claim that she was acting to protect students from Salaita’s supposed lack of civility.
UIUC Chancellor & Provost Semesterly Student Senate (Part 4) #UIstudents4salaita

“Your decision to fire Professor Salaita is in fact what threatens us as Jews,” Chenyek said. “By pointing to anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism in an attempt to obscure politically and financially-motivated University actions, you minimize the Jewish voices of those who have resisted real and violent anti-Semitism,” Cheyenek added.

“By conflating pointed and justified critique of the Israeli state with anti-Semitism, your administration is effectively disregarding a large and growing number of Jewish perspectives that oppose Israeli military occupation, settler expansion, and the assault on Palestine,” Chenyek said.

“The firing of Professor Salaita is the Israeli attack on Palestine coming to our campus. Just as we work tirelessly to oppose Israeli ethnic cleansing and displacement of Palestinians taking place in our name, we will ensure that the silencing of Professor Salaita and others like him does not take place in our name either,” Chenyek stated.

Other students statements can be seen in the video at the top, following Wise’s comments and in this last clip:
UIUC Chancellor & Provost Semesterly Student Senate (Part 3) #UIstudents4salaita

Transcript of comments by UIUC Chancellor Phyllis Wise

I learned that the board of trustees was unlikely to approve of his appointment and I went ahead with Vice President Christophe Pierre and wrote Professor Salaita and told him that the last step in his recruitment meant that the approval by the board of trustees was unlikely to happen and therefore his appointment was not being realized.

I, in hindsight, wish I had been a little bit more deliberate and had consulted with more people before I made that decision but because of the timing of the issue and that is to say I found out about this at the very end of July. And I knew he [Salaita] was going to be moving here in probably the third week in August. I felt it was more humanitarian to let him know that it was unlikely for his appointment to be finalized. Now again, and hindsight is always 20-20 and I wish had done some more consulting before I had made the decision to write him a letter.

There have been a lot of criticism of his recruitment and now a great deal of criticism of us not following through. There have been boycotts by other universities. There have been repurcussions [unintelligble]. If you read the News-Gazette you will read articles that state that I made my decision because I was afraid we would lose donors. What I can assure you is that even though as Provost Adesida said that both he and I are on the road a great deal to try and raise money for scholarships and also other issues like the renovation of Altgeld or the renovation of other buildings that whether or not someone had been a donor, is a donor, or would like to be a donor, is not at all considered in our decision. I think it is absolutely critical that we raise more money because the state is gradually decreasing the amount of money – and just today I saw the slide over the last twenty years – but that was not any factor in my decision, but I wanted to let you know about this in case you [unintelligible].

Following Gaza War: Palestinian Support for Hamas, Armed Confrontation at All-Time High

from The Algemiener
SEPTEMBER 2, 2014 10:15 AM 21 COMMENTS
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After Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, Palestinian support within the coastal enclave and the West Bank for Hamas’ leadership is at an eight-year high, Israel’s NRG News reported Tuesday, noting a new poll.
According to the results, “if presidential elections were to take place today, Ismail Haniyeh would easily win over Abbas and Hamas would win the largest percentage of the popular vote in parliamentary elections.”

The survey, conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Research, says that 61 percent of Palestinians would vote for Hamas leader Haniyeh and over 32 percent for rival Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas.

The survey, taken between August 26th to 30th, sampled 1,270 adults in face-to-face interviews, held in 127 randomly selected locations, and had a 3 percent margin of error, according to the pollsters.

In addition to supporting Hamas rule in the West Bank, “the overwhelming majority of the [Palestinian] public views Hamas as the winner and Israel as the loser in this war. Furthermore, a similar majority views Hamas’ approach of armed confrontation with Israel as the most effective means of ending Israeli occupation,” according to the poll.

“Abbas received 43% [support] in the Gaza Strip and 25% in the West Bank. Two months ago, Abbas received the support of 53% in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and Haniyeh 41%. The rate of participation in such elections would reach 71%.”

The level of satisfaction with Abbas’ performance dropped from 50% two months ago to 39%, according to the poll.

Iran, Turkey, and Qatar were thought “the most instrumental in supporting Hamas and helping Gazans remain steadfast against the Israeli attacks,” as opposed to Egypt, which was seen as “weak and unhelpful,” and, in fact, “a majority believes that Egypt played a negative role in the ceasefire negotiations.”

Some more of the results, by the numbers:

79% believe that Hamas has won the Gaza War; 3% believe Israel came out the winner; and 17% believe the two sides were losers.
79% believe Israel was responsible for the eruption of the Gaza war; 5% believe Hamas was responsible; and 12% believe the responsibility lies with the two sides.
63% believe that the ceasefire agreement satisfies Palestinian interests, but 34% disagree with that. Moreover, 59% are satisfied with the accomplishment gained in the agreement compared to the human and material losses sustained by the Gaza Strip; 39% are dissatisfied with the accomplishment.
An overwhelming majority of 86% support the launching of rockets from the Gaza Strip at Israel if the siege and blockade are not ended.
60% say that Hamas does not launch rockets from populated areas, but 30% say it does. 49% think it is justified for Hamas to launch rockets from populated areas and 46% disagree with that. The percentage of those who believe that launching rockets from populated areas is unjustified increases to 59% among Gazans while standing at 38% among West Bankers.

Bombs in Gaza Wound Academic Freedom in Urbana-Champaign

SEPTEMBER 01, 2014

Crisis at the University of Illinois

by BEHROOZ GHAMARI TABRIZI
I write as a professor of History and Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I have long taken pride in the University of Illinois as a highly respected public university in the country, as a place in which Noble Prize winners work, pathbreaking early computers were built, award-winning research is conducted, and world-class scholars teach and sustain a highly vibrant world of ideas. I used to see the name of my institution in light of these significant grounds. Not anymore.

I write also to appeal to all those who care about and appreciate the significance of academic freedom because they understand how this precious value contributes to the wellbeing of our society. I hope that by reading this you will feel as outraged and troubled as many of us at the University of Illinois feel. This is not a highbrow predicament of the intellectual elite. This is a crisis of one of the most important foundations of our increasingly deteriorating democracy, that of freedom of expression and the right to have an institutional voice against the corporatization of American universities.

I recently came back from Jakarta where I was participating in a scholarly conference. On several occasions during my short trip my Indonesian colleagues asked me whether I was from the same institution that “fired” that English professor. I was shocked by how fast the embarrassing news of our administration’s misconduct travelled half the world and turned an institution to which many of us proudly belong, into from the subject of the most depressing academic news cycles.

Alas, this is not the case these days. From a piece in Haaretz to an editorial in Inside Higher Education , from the Illinois AAUP committee to a whole host of bloggers from across the country, academics have denounced the Chancellor of University of Illinois’ decision to rescind the hiring of the Professor Steven Salaita for his incendiary tweets against the Israeli attacks on civilians in Gaza. Chancellor Wise has reportedly informed Prof. Salaita that the university has voided a job offer that was extended to him earlier this past year. The news came nearly 10 months after Professor Salaita had signed an offer letter, at a time when he had already resigned from his position as an Associate Professor of English at Virginia Tech with the understanding that he was to move to Urbana-Champaign with his family. His courses were already enrolled and he was to begin teaching with a few weeks. (See the fact sheet)

Salaita Fact SheetIt is also now revealed that Chancellor Wise made her decision in response to outside pressures. The university responded to an open records request from Inside Higher Ed for communications to the chancellor about the Salaita appointment, prior to her action to block it. The communications show that Wise was lobbied on the decision not only by pro-Israel students, parents and alumni, but also by the fund-raising arm of the university. The communications also show that the university system president was involved, and that the university was considering the legal ramifications of the case before the action to block the appointment. According to Haaretz, the Simon Wiesenthal Center sent a letter to Robert Easter, President of the University of Illinois, protesting the appointment of Salaita. The letter characterizes Salaita as a “misguided academic” who “spews venomous and mendacious analogies” about Israel and raises the question “What possible prestige can Salaita add to the UI faculty?” An op-ed piece in Urbana-Champaign local newspaper, The News Gazette, also published a series of decontextualized inflammatory posts from Salaita’s personal twitter account (see Phan Nguyen for the context of the tweets) and echoed other conservative lobbyists in calling on the University’s Board of Trustees to block his appointment.

More than 16,000 people have already signed a Petition asking Chancellor Wise to reconsider her decision and to reinstate Prof. Salaita’s appointment. In a strong statement, the American Association of University Professors argued on behalf of Steven Salaita that his and the faculty of the University of Illinois’ academic freedom has been violated. More than 3,000 scholars have so far boycotted the University of Illinois, cancelling lectures, refusing to write letters of recommendation or participate in peer review.

Chancellor Wise claims that by her decision she was merely protecting the dignity and interests of students whose sensibilities Professor Salaita disregarded by his inflammatory tweets. Had she consulted with the search committee and others who carefully vetted his dossier, she would have known that Salaita’s teaching record is exemplary by any standard. The record shows that his pedagogical approach and his classroom presence has by no means been compromised by his political commitments and ethical imperatives which motivate his public engagement with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The teaching record in his file shows that in the category of “concern and respect” for students, according to documents posted on Mondoweiss, “Salaita has earned an incredibly high evaluation from the students in the last six courses he taught in his former institution. Here is where students evaluate their professor for professional empathy, respect for diverse points of view, and sensitivity to student opinion and student lives.”

Here is a sample from Professor Salaita’s official teaching evaluation:

30 Total: 28 Excellent 2 Good

30 Total: 30 out of 30 Excellent

10 Total: 10 out of 10 Excellent

29 Total: 28 Excellent 1 Good

28 Total: 28 out of 28 excellent

28 Total: 25 out of 28 excellent, 2 good, one No Response

The Salaita affair has exposed a larger trend in the corporatization of American universities. Many of us might disagree with Salaita’s comments and tone in which he delivered them. But the general public as well as university presidents need to be concerned about the ominous precedent that is being set by the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees at the University of Illinois. What makes American institutions of higher education distinct, intellectually vibrant and academically rich, lies exactly in the principle of the separation of scholarly affairs from business and political considerations.

Universities have always struggled for inclusion, for diversity (of ideas and people), for deeper thinking and wider outreach. It has always been the faculty and students who have pushed for change against the resistance of a variety of higher education administrations. It has always been the faculty and students who pushed to hire women, to hire African-Americans, to hire other minorities, to hire Jews without prejudice, to defy the stigma associated with sexual preferences, to include and give significance to ethnic studies, to protect unpopular and controversial ideas. There is not a single case that any of these changes was instituted top-down by any university administration, no matter how progressive and open-minded they were. There is a long history that emerging ideas and the outspoken advocates of those ideas were characterized as “uncivil,” “subversive,” or “incendiary.” It is unfortunate that Chancellor Wise and her supporters have yet again introduced “civility,” a worn out, racially charged and gendered device of exclusion in justifying the decision to void Professor Salaita’s appointment.

All that could be done precisely because universities operate based on the principle of shared governance. Shared governance checks the Administration’s authority over substantive issues of merit and scholarship and protects the independence of academic units and departments. This is where the difference lies between a university and a corporation. The Chancellor of a university cannot and should not exercise the authority of her office in the same vein as the CEO of a company. Shared governance means that she must abide by and respect faculty deliberations and decisions regarding academic matters. The determination of what is acceptable discourse and how it furthers or hinders discussion in a field is not the responsibility of the Chancellor or the Board of Trustees. These are offices that are readily susceptible to and swayed by outside political pressures and donors’ proclivities. As the Salaita affair demonstrates.

By rescinding Salaita’s appointment, in effect, Chancellor Wise has turned a pro forma step in the process of hiring new faculty (and potentially in faculty promotion) into an active vetting procedure. Such scrutiny at the managerial level inevitably undermines the integrity and autonomy of faculty governance. This is a serious issue for all university campuses to confront with diligence and care. Under the existing order, the administration shares and communicates any grave concerns about new hires or promotions with the relevant departments or units. If the new order persists and spreads to other campuses around the country, it will inevitably transfer authority and discretion away from faculty and endow the already growing class of administrative managers with unprecedented oversight and veto power. In addition to its political context, as Timothy Burke eloquently argues, the Salaita Affair is about restructuring university governance and facilitating the migration of practical authority and decision-making upwards.

There are two precedents being set at Illinois: One by the Administration and the other by the faculty and students. The former will make the universities increasingly vulnerable to the demands of private donors and political ambitions of its administration. The latter intend to uphold hard fought and earned right of free expression, academic freedom, and the institutional autonomy of scholarly inquiry. Let us hope that the latter wins. Universities must be defended! Please do your share!

Behrooz Ghamari Tabrizi is Associate Professor History, Associate Professor of Sociology, Associate Professor of Global Studies, and Conrad Humanities Scholar (2014-2019) at the University of Illinois.

Judaism’s hijacking by Zionists drives 70% of secular Jews to marry non-Jews– Koppman at Huffpo

US Politics Philip Weiss on August 31, 2014

Steve Koppman is a playwright and the author of a book on Jewish Folklore. At Huffington Post he has published an anti-Zionist piece that says Jews should be supporting the BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions) movement because it epitomizes the best of Jewish values in opposition to the militant Jewish state that oppresses Palestinians. A wonderful piece. My headline’s provocative, but Koppman said that part too.

He points out the ways that Jewish nationalism has entered his religious space and corrupted it:

For five years in our synagogue like many others, a special prayer was made for Gil’ad Shalit — an Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas — every Shabbes. But never in my experience was there mention of the five to ten thousand Arabs held over that period in Israeli prisons, sometimes indefinitely, without trial or charge. What happens, I wondered, when our kids learn “the rest of the story”? What are we telling them? Only Jewish lives matter?

One of the Jewish Torah ‘s three commands to “love” is to love “the Other.”

A Judaism that treasures Jewish lives and devalues Arab lives is no longer Judaism.

He knows about the Jewish movement against such racism. He says that rightwing Zionists are a minority who have hijacked the community:

The U.S. Jewish community has largely had its political identity hijacked by an influential minority, including many community leaders and rabbis, who see its essential role as advocating for Israel no matter what it does, bolstering U.S. government support and billions annually in U.S. aid….

This support is largely free of moral content. It’s what sociologists have called “amoral familism.” Israel’s actions are not subject to moral examination but presumed to define morality. Past crimes against us are forever used subliminally to justify new crimes by us. Israel’s insistence on”security” and more land trumps Arab people’s demand for basic rights and self-determination as it has for decades. The “organized community” and American aid help maintain Israeli intransigence against what’s seen as an uncaring and always at least potentially anti-Semitic world.

But blockade and occupation are recognized acts of war most of us would support resistance to anywhere else in the world. The West Bank has been occupied for almost 50 years, its residents subject to arbitrary arrest, control over movement, land seizure and home destruction. Nearly two million Gazans have been blockaded for more than seven years — malnourished, economy strangled, health ruined — in collective punishment.

Election of a Palestinian government was sabotaged by Israel’s refusal to deal with it and mass arrest of the winners. Israel likes to call itself the Middle East’s “only democracy” while effectively ruling nearly five million — and growing — unrepresented Palestinians.

It is unclear what choice Palestinians have beyond active resistance and meekly accepting permanent subjugation in their own land. The recent “Kerry Round” of failed peace talks made this newly clear.

Sadat went to Jerusalem. The Arab League accepted Israel. Remember the Oslo accords? But for Israel, it’s always as if it’s 1967. If not 1944.

But what about the children we actually blow apart in 2014? An Israeli child was killed last week. What if it were 500 Jewish children? American children?

He’s worried about the Jewish brand:

Israel and its American supporters have long reversed the worldwide moral posture of the Jewish people, a disaster for American Judaism as we try to pass on an ethos radically compromised by the need to continually rationalize permanent oppression of another people by our own.

The synagogue is continually debased by regular prayers for the welfare and triumph of the occupying army, whose central mission has become subjugating Palestinians in perpetuity — policies few if any Jews would countenance practiced by any other state against any other people.

The founding event of the Jewish people was the greatest slave revolt in history. As a young Jew growing up in New York long ago, I knew every fight for freedom was mine. Jews supported human equality, the rights of all, with a reliability and enthusiasm that inspired people of other groups. What we looked down on most in our sub-culture was looking down on people.

Young Jews grow up today in a radically different world in which they are encouraged by the organized community to rationalize permanent suppression (and when they resist — “self-defense” killing) of Palestinian Arabs.

Here’s the intermarriage bit:

The “organized community” believes the explosion of intermarriage among non-Orthodox U.S. Jews from about 15 percent in 1967 — when Israel became a confirmed occupier — to over 70 percent today< is pure coincidence. But anyone who’s thought about it, or known young American Jews, knows better. We are living through an effort to re-define Judaism into, “The belief system that supports the Israeli state,” that dishonors the Jewish message of freedom, hope and resistance to tyranny that echoes through history. Here’s the BDS part: Confronting today’s Israel and demanding it change is not a rejection of Judaism but the most profound manifestation of it. Jews should not be fighting the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanction) movement that struggles to hold Israel accountable. We should be leading it. It is our people that’s disgraced by Israel’s policies and the heartless, mindless cheerleading of AIPAC and its supporters. This is a logical and morally clear argument shared by a great number of young Jews who are saying No to the demand that they support massacres. You can differ about the intermarriage claim, but there’s obviously something to it. Neoconservatism alienated me from Jewish life till like Arielle Klagsbrun I could find a tabernacle of Jews that denounced neoconservatism. I wanted to have my anti-Zionism inside Jewish life. But the thing I find most dispiriting about this is that Koppman isn’t in the New York Times. I’ve seen the Sunday Times spread out on the kitchen counter for the last two weeks and a bigger collection of lifestyle news and mouthwatering real estate and web-meme trivia-spotting and US Open overkill you will not find in all the slopbuckets of the internet. And this is printed on deathless newsprint, to divert the elite, and it’s a wasteland for ideas. Koppman is writing about riveting matters that affect the greatest source of instability in the world, and meantime Emily Bazelon, an ardent Zionist who says American Jews must support Zionism, is given the New York Times Magazine to write a piece about endangered abortion rights. That’s the state of establishment Jewish culture: support liberal landmarks of freedom for Americans while destroying the wall between church and state in the Middle East, and plunging the entire region into a cauldron of religious conflict. Andrew Sullivan long ago wondered where are the anti-Zionist writers in the mainstream press. They’re still marginalized. An important synthetic argument like Koppman’s is on Huffpo, and the Times has blinders on. Oh and yesterday Jodi Rudoren was once again echoing the fears of Israeli Jews, about securing their country’s future as a “Jewish democracy.” Is such a magic trick possible if you are not coming out of the heart of the American Jewish community, as Rudoren is? Would Rudoren support such a project in the U.S. where she lives? Of course not. Do the vast numbers of Palestinians living under Israeli governance find that project obnoxious? But of course. Where is Koppman? - See more at: http://mondoweiss.net/2014/08/judaisms-support-zionism.html#sthash.Lc69buAZ.dpuf

Israel's two state solution: we take all the land and you can have a state floating in the air

U.S.: Israel's West Bank land grab 'counterproductive' to two-state solution
State Department urges Israel's government to reverse its decision to lay claim to land belonging to five Palestinian villages.
By Reuters and Chaim Levinson | Sep. 1, 2014 | 12:47 AM


Haaretz
Israel to appropriate 3,799 dunams (988 acres) of West Bank land, Aug. 31, 2014. Photo by Haaretz


The United States sees Israel's announcement on Sunday of a land appropriation for possible settlement construction in the West Bank as "counterproductive" to peace efforts and urges the Israeli government to reverse the decision, a State Department official said.



Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank announced the takeover of 988 acres (3,799 dunams) belonging to five Palestinian villages between the Etzion settlement bloc and Jerusalem. The move clears the way for construction of a new settlement named Gvaot.

The announcement follows the cabinet’s decision last week to take over the land in response to the June kidnapping and killing of three teenage Jewish boys by Hamas militants in the area.

"We have long made clear our opposition to continued settlement activity," the U.S. official said. "This announcement, like every other settlement announcement Israel makes, planning step they approve and construction tender they issue is counterproductive to Israel's stated goal of a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians."

"We urge the government of Israel to reverse this decision," the official said in Washington.

The appropriated land belongs to five Palestinian villages in the Bethlehem area: Jaba, Surif, Wadi Fukin, Husan and Nahalin.

The Peace Now anti-settlement group termed it the biggest appropriation in 30 years and a Palestinian official said would cause only more friction after the Gaza war. Representatives of the settler movement welcomed the announcement.

Israel maintains that construction at Gvaot would not constitute a new settlement because the area is officially designated a neighborhood of a long-standing settlement, Alon Shvut. However, the area of Gvaot lies several miles away from Alon Shvut.