Sunday, February 23, 2014
Elder of Ziyon
The conference will have the usual obscene Israel-bashing that one would expect from the ASA,with speakers from Adalah-NY, Students for Justice in Palestine, and "Jewish Voice for Peace."
Indeed, the entire conference seems to be made up to justify the unjustifiable boycott of Israel voted on by the ASA and condemned by hundreds of colleges and universities.
But Duggan's comments in the Facebook page are more interesting than the conference itself, and reveals how Israel-bashers purposefully choose to live in an echo chamber of their own hate:
PLEASE DO NOT post or circulate the flyer. We are trying to avoid press, protestors and public attention. Feel free to share it with friends, colleagues and grad students though.
So protesting Israel-themed events is free speech (which peaceful, non-threatening and non-intimidating protests indeed are), but the idea of anyone protesting an Israel-bashing conference is awful and must be avoided at all costs!
Is this how the head of an academic association should be acting - as if she is ashamed of her viewpoints, only wanting to spout them to a handpicked audience of people with the same hate?
Well, sorry, Lisa. Your little conference is outed, and now you will have to worry that evil little Zionist spies will infiltrate, not to mention protest. You will be nervous that someone will secretly record the sessions and will post them to YouTube for the world to hear.
It is unclear whether this conference is officially sponsored by NYU itself. The registration webpage says all questions should go to NYU, implying that this is an official university event and not just part of the American Studies Program.
People might want to ask NYU about why they are seemingly sponsoring a conference that they want to keep secret from Zionists.
(h/t StopBDSParkSlope)
UPDATE: To the surprise of no one, the Facebook page disappeared. Not before I took a screen shot, though.
