Thursday, August 05, 2010
Elder of Ziyon
28500. Zionism and Palestine. PQ: Enrollment will be limited and by consent of instructor. This course has three broad aims, the first of which is to explore the various strands of early Zionist thinking in Europe during the late 19th and early 20th century. The second aim is to analyze how the European Zionists who came to Palestine created the Jewish state in the first half of the 20th century. The third aim is to examine some key developments in Israel’s history since it gained its independence in 1948. While the main focus will be on Zionism and the state of Israel, considerable attention will be paid to the plight of the Palestinians and the development of Palestinian nationalism over the past century.
The instructor?
John Mearsheimer, co-author of perhaps the most highly visible anti-Israel (and, some argue, anti-semitic) tract of the past decade.
He has said publicly that any Zionist Jew is a "new Afrikaner" and explicitly anti-Zionist Jews are "righteous Jews." He knowingly lied when he wrote that the US support for Israel was the major motivation for 9/11.
As The Weekly Standard points out, Mearsheimer is known as an expert on international relations, but in not known to have any expertise whatsoever on the subject of Zionism.
But since the enrollment is only by Mearsheimer's consent, maybe he won't have to worry about being called to task by a student who knows more than he does. After all, he just has to exclude the students with Jewish or Hebrew sounding names.
