OU professor revives call for Israel boycott

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Charles, Jul 17, 2004.

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  1. Charles

    Charles New Member

  2. Dennis Ruhl

    Dennis Ruhl member

    Takes 2 to tango.

    The confict was essentally settled some years ago until the Palestinians added new demands such as return of pre-1948 residents and their property.

    The Palestinian leadership has no will to settle with less than victory and that isn't going to happen.

    If there was peace, there might be a desire to replace the incompetent conflict-driven Palestinian leadership. Revolutionaries don't go quietly.
     
  3. Floyd_Pepper

    Floyd_Pepper New Member

    Knowing the academic system(s) in the region, I would dare to say that the Israeli government would not give a toss if the system is boycotted. It wouldn't affect its policies, just hurt the Israeli professors and students.

    By the way, I have not heard Prof. Rose offering similar boycot on:

    Russia (given the horrors in Chechnya)

    China (occupying Tibet, brutal oppression of academic freedom or even of the language in schools over there)

    Or... well... of his own government, that occupied Northern Ireland several centuries ago, sent there settlers and since then, refuses to withdraw; and now also occupies Iraq.

    (OK - the last one was a provocation. But think of that: how many times do you hear about the human rights situation in Russia or in China, and hear offers to boycot ot sanction them, and how many times do you hear the same about Israel? If you're against human rights violations of any kind, and oppose violence, like me, you should have one policy on the matter.).
     
  4. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    And betrayed its word in the Balfour Declaration, botched the Mandate, wrote the shameful White Paper, tolerated Arab pogroms...perhaps the good professor should, erm, boycott himself.
     
  5. Dennis Ruhl

    Dennis Ruhl member

    Yes, the Brits pretty much frigged that one up. Had the UK and France simply let the Arabs determine their own destiny at the end of WWI, Jews probably would have been a respected minority in an Arab state, as many Jews had been for 1,300 years. I could be wrong.
     
  6. Rich Hartel

    Rich Hartel New Member

    But why would the good professor boycott himself, when it's easier to blame the Jews for all the Middle East problems.

    I wonder if the good professor knows that it is the Palestinians who want to push all the Jews into the sea, not the other way around!!

    Rich Hartel
    A.A. in Theological Studies, Trinity College of the Bible (present)
     
  7. cogent

    cogent New Member

    Fashionable

    It is now fashionable in the salons of Europe and America to be anti-Israel anti-Jewish. We've seen this before. Look at the situation in France, a portion of which we really know about from our own biased media. France is a state under siege and they've already surrendered to the Arabs among them.

    The situation in the Middle East is solved the day one side or the other wins. It is the same with our war on the Wabbist radical sect of Islam (not that silly "war on terror" - it just hides who our enemy is).

    I mean, did we compromise and negotiate with Hitler? Tojo? Mussolini? I didn't think so.
     
  8. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    Prof. Rose's proposal is offensive and stupid. It is an insult to the relative academic freedom that Israeli professors enjoy, and betrays a simplistic understanding of the Middle East crisis. It would also make some areas of study almost impossible by robbing us of central scholars in the areas of (inter alia) Holocaust studies, Jewish studies, and Biblical archaeology.

    Those of you who are looking for a way of responding to Prof. Rose might consider signing this petition:
    http://www.professors.org.il/petition/


    Cheers,
     
  9. maranto

    maranto New Member

    I have to agree with Tom. The idea of using higher education and academic research as a political bargaining chip is abhorrent. It is antithetical to the principals of independent scholarship and everywhere it has happened, the results have been devastating for the national academic infrastructure.

    As a group that is by definition, dedicated to an exploration of topics related to education, I would think we can all agree that academic boycotts are a fundamentally bad idea… regardless of where you fall in the Israeli-Palestinian debate.

    Cheers,
    Tony Maranto
     

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