jon_banquer
2014-11-08 02:52:26 UTC
http://fathomjournal.org/book-review-the-case-against-academic-boycotts-of-israel/
"While some contributions - most notably one of Ilan Troen's two - highlight both synchronically and diachronically the abundance and diversity of boycotts of Israel and Jews invoked by Berman's characterisation, it is evident that the major thrust of virtually all presentations concentrate on the contemporary situation in American post-secondary education and thus on a decidedly left-wing version of this phenomenon. Indeed, as Cary Nelson correctly points out in his introduction, boycotting Israel as a solid manifestation of detesting its very existence has become arguably the single most potent marker of being of the left today. He quotes one of the global left's most cherished gurus, the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo, who states the obvious that, 'by now, anti-Zionism is synonymous with leftist world politics.' Even if one is explicitly and actively anti-racist and anti-sexist, opposed to oppression, favours economic equality, fights for workers rights, actively supports the LGBT community, advocates strict gun control, stands for ecological reforms; one will be at best a very suspect, indeed even an unwelcome, member of what constitutes today's left and being progressive without having decidedly and explicitly anti-Zionist views."
"While some contributions - most notably one of Ilan Troen's two - highlight both synchronically and diachronically the abundance and diversity of boycotts of Israel and Jews invoked by Berman's characterisation, it is evident that the major thrust of virtually all presentations concentrate on the contemporary situation in American post-secondary education and thus on a decidedly left-wing version of this phenomenon. Indeed, as Cary Nelson correctly points out in his introduction, boycotting Israel as a solid manifestation of detesting its very existence has become arguably the single most potent marker of being of the left today. He quotes one of the global left's most cherished gurus, the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo, who states the obvious that, 'by now, anti-Zionism is synonymous with leftist world politics.' Even if one is explicitly and actively anti-racist and anti-sexist, opposed to oppression, favours economic equality, fights for workers rights, actively supports the LGBT community, advocates strict gun control, stands for ecological reforms; one will be at best a very suspect, indeed even an unwelcome, member of what constitutes today's left and being progressive without having decidedly and explicitly anti-Zionist views."