Tag Archives: Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Detentions Leave Palestinian Students in Limbo

The Chronicle: Detentions Leave Palestinian Students in Limbo

Ashraf Abuiram should have graduated from college long ago, but his life took an unexpected turn.

In late 2005, when he was a second-year student pursuing a degree in sociology at Birzeit University, 20 jeeps carrying 100 Israeli soldiers showed up at his home in the dead of night. He was arrested, detained without a trial, and spent a year in a prison camp in the south of Israel before being released and allowed to return to college.

Mr. Abuiram was suspected of aiding terrorist organizations but never charged with any crime. His story is not an uncommon one.

Columbia U. Provost Agrees to Meet With Critics of Palestinian Scholar’s Tenuring

The Chronicle: Columbia U. Provost Agrees to Meet With Critics of Palestinian Scholar’s Tenuring

Columbia University’s new provost, Claude M. Steele, has agreed to meet with several Columbia professors critical of the institution’s recent decision to grant tenure to Joseph A. Massad, a Palestinian scholar who has been accused of anti-Israel bias, according to a letter posted online by the Manhattan Institute. In a letter sent to Mr. Steele in July, before he had started his job, 14 professors argued that the university had violated its own procedural rules in granting Mr. Massad tenure after a second review they view as unjustified. In a response sent to the professors this month, Provost Steele said it was important for Columbia’s faculty members to have faith in the integrity of the tenure process.

Israeli Academic Criticized for ‘Los Angeles Times’ Op-Ed

Inside Higher Ed: Israeli Academic Criticized for ‘Los Angeles Times’ Op-Ed

An Israeli academic who is prominent in his country’s peace movement is under intense criticism for publishing an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times calling for a boycott of Israel. Neve Gordon, who teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University, writes that Israel has become an apartheid state and that outside pressure is the only way his country will ever allow the creation of a Palestinian state. While many Israelis, particularly in academe, share Gordon’s belief that Israel should not stand in the way of a Palestinian state, there is, not surprisingly, a wide consensus in Israel that boycotts are not appropriate. And in Israel academe, which has been a boycott target for some British and other academics, that opposition to a boycott movement is strong. Haaretz reported that after the article appeared, Israel’s consul-general in Los Angeles wrote to the president of Ben-Gurion, Rivka Carmi, to say he was hearing from donors to the university who were vowing to stop giving. Carmi denounced the essay, as did Israel’s education minister, who called it “repugnant and deplorable,” the newspaper reported. Amid the uproar, Gordon qualified his call for a boycott in a statement to YNet News, saying that he wanted a boycott to be “graded” and “sensitive,” starting with products made by Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

Report Assails Israeli Policy That Keeps Palestinian Students From Leaving Gaza

The Chronicle News Blog: Report Assails Israeli Policy That Keeps Palestinian Students From Leaving Gaza

Jerusalem — An Israeli human-rights group says that new restrictions imposed by Israel on Palestinian students trying to leave the Gaza Strip to study abroad include a demand that they be personally escorted by foreign diplomats.

Second guessing Israeli-Palestinian conference

Inside Higher Ed: Second Guessing a Conference

In a move some critics have called unprecedented and dangerous, a Canadian government official has asked its humanities granting council to reconsider the funding of an academic conference some Jewish groups are calling “anti-Israeli” and “anti-Semitic.”

Gary Goodyear, minister of state for science and technology, asked the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council – the Canadian equivalent of the National Endowment for the Humanities – to reconsider its awarding of $19,750 in funding for an upcoming conference at York University, in Toronto.

Academic Freedom at the U of California

ZNet: Academic Freedom at the U of C
Remarks for Seventh Annual International Al-Awda Convention, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
Garden grove, California

Academic freedom is under attack at the University of California. I am under investigation by the university – and I face possible sanctions – because of my vocal condemnation of the nearly one-month long Israeli invasion of Gaza that began last December.

This campaign against academic freedom is not just an attempt to punish me. Much more importantly, it aims to create an environment of fear and intimidation in which any criticism on Israeli policy is subject to sanctions and censorship.

Finkelstein talk rescheduled at Clark U

Worcester Telegram: Gaza talk rescheduled at Clark U.

WORCESTER — Acknowledging “the process could have been better,” Clark University President John Bassett has approved rescheduling the appearance of a controversial scholar and author whose talk he had canceled two weeks ago.

After learning earlier this month that the Students for Palestinian Rights planned to bring Norman Finkelstein to campus Thursday, the first night of a university-sponsored Holocaust and genocide studies conference, Mr. Bassett nixed the student organization’s plans.

Universities Are Betraying Their Central Mission


This poster for Israeli Apartheid Week was taken down by staff at Carleton University & the University of Ottawa.

CAUT Bulletin: Universities Are Betraying Their Central Mission

Over the past few weeks, CAUT has become aware of a number of disturbing cases in which university administrations have limited or suppressed debate on controversial issues. Whether it is banning posters or noisy demonstrations, we believe such heavy-handed actions constitute a clear threat to the purpose of post-secondary education.

Not surprisingly, the failures involve bitterly contentious issues. One is Middle East politics. Last month Carleton University and the University of Ottawa banned a student organization poster for Israeli Apartheid Week because the universities felt it too provocative. The poster, by noted political cartoonist Carlos Latuff, shows a stylized Israeli warplane firing a missile at a child holding a teddy bear and standing on ground emblazoned with the word “Gaza.” York University has gone even farther, invoking a noise policy to justify handing club suspensions and fines to student organizations that held counter-protests for and against Israeli

York wants more civil Israeli-Palestinian debate

Globe and Mail: York wants more civil Israeli-Palestinian debate

TORONTO — A month after rancorous and polarizing on-campus fights about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, York University will announce today its plans to steer the debate back toward civility.