"Scholasicide" is one of those words made up specifically to come up with a new way to slander Israel. In this case, it was made up by a person who was a PLO official before Oslo who then became an academic at Oxford. It appears to have been used only to attack Israel.
There are a number of these "-cide" terms that are used virtually only against Israel, like "domicide," "urbicide," "memoricide," and "politicide." Their very existence is based on the lie that Israel intends to erase Palestinian existence in every possible dimension. Now, one of these terms whose very existence is based on antisemitism is enshrined by an association whose field should be dependent on accuracy and impartiality.
I just made a cartoon about how this dynamic works.
We've noted previously that Palestinians and their groupies love to hijack any cause just to turn it into a vehicle to attack Israel. Anti-racism, climate, oceans, women's rights, children's rights...the list goes on. Palestinians join world bodies tackling real problems just so they can make speeches and write papers about how Israel is the enemy of every social movement.
No doubt this irritates people who are dedicated to their causes. They are willing to tolerate it because they think that the alternative - being harassed forever - is not worth the hassle.
But one comment about the AHA resolution struck me as being true, and accurate for all of these causes.
“If this vote succeeds, it will destroy the A.H.A.,” Jeffrey Herf, a professor emeritus of history at the University of Maryland and one of five historians who spoke against the resolution on Sunday, told me. “At that point, public opinion and political actors outside the academy will say that the A.H.A. has become a political organization and they’ll completely lose trust in us. Why should we believe anything they have to say about slavery or the New Deal or anything else?”
Already the Middle East Studies Association lost several schools as affiliates when they were taken over by Israel haters. A number of others dropped their association with the American Anthropological Association after their own July 2023 anti-Israel resolution. Alternative academic groups are forming.
The single-minded obsession with Israel, which is today's flavor of antisemitism. doesn't just hurt Jews. It hurts everyone who adopts its stances.
Any good that is being done in academia, in the field of social justice, and in international forums to combat problems that transcend national boundaries is endangered by the Jew-haters who try to make every cause about Israel. Unfortunately, those fields and forums themselves are so filled with the modern antisemites that anyone pointing this out would be threatened with expulsion from the group.
The issue will come to a head in all these fields as each one must make a decision to prioritize their reasons for existing or their being taken over by a special interest group that happens to be obsessed with Jews.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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