How Campus Bullies Pulled Off the Anti-Israel BDS Movement
A recently published collection of essays, Anti-Zionism on Campus, examines the clout of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement at American institutions of higher learning, and its successful bullying of its opponents. Both of the volume’s editors, Doron Ben-Atar and Andrew Pessin, are professors whom BDS supporters tried to hound from their respective universities. In his review, Jonathan Marks writes:
Anti-Zionism on Campus consists of 32 essays, 25 by scholars and seven by students, which together make the case that those who speak up for Israel on campus, or merely deny that Zionism is racism, risk “verbal attack, social and professional ostracization,” and “setbacks to their careers.” As an undisguised Zionist [and college professor] who has so far avoided such consequences, I read Anti-Zionism on Campus as a skeptic. By the time I finished the book, I was convinced. . . .
At Northern Michigan State University, in 2011, Gabriel Noah Brahm complained of the lopsidedly anti-Israel character of a university-sponsored visit to Israel. He was soon “up on some kind of charges.” He was cleared, but the cloud that hung over him almost certainly contributed to his English Department colleagues’ hostility to his tenure bid. The resulting tenure denial was overturned by a unanimous vote, but Brahm had been put through the wringer. . . .
Faculty are not guiltless in these transactions. . . . When Shlomo Dubnov, a professor of music at the University of San Diego, opposed, in 2012, an anti-Israel divestment resolution, false and serious charges against him were retailed on the website of the San Diego Faculty Association with the active support of that body’s head. . . .
Sohrab Amari: The SPLC Has Its Nose Rubbed in the Dirt
The SPLC in 2016 included Nawaz, who has spent years peacefully combatting both Islamism and anti-Muslim bigotry in Britain, in its Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists, alongside a litany of genuine haters. As evidence, the SPLC cited the fact that Mr. Nawaz had once tweeted a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad “despite the fact that many Muslims see it as blasphemous.” Dissidents across the Muslim world and in too many Muslim communities in the West risk beatings, torture, and worse for daring to criticize their religion and its founder. The SPLC in effect lent its liberal, “civil-rights” imprimatur to their mistreatment at the hands of their coreligionists.Southern Poverty Law Center Lists SPLC as ‘Anti-Muslim Hate Group’ (satire)
“Given our understanding of the views of Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam,” SPLC President Richard Cohen said in a statement, “it was our opinion at the time that the Field Guide was published that their inclusion was warranted. But after getting a deeper understanding of their views and after hearing from others for whom we have great respect, we realize that we were simply wrong to have included Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam in the Field Guide in the first place.”
Damn right. But Nawaz wasn’t the only victim of SPLC smears. Another was the Somali-born author and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has written for these pages. In the same Field Guide, the SPLC seemed to question Hirsi Ali’s personal story–she suffered genital mutilation in her native land–and accused her of bigotry for emphasizing the religious and ideological dimensions of Islamic terrorism. She, too, deserves a retraction and apology from the SPLC.
As for journalists who regularly rely on SPLC, the religious-liberty law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, another victim of the group’s smears, got it exactly right in its statement on the Nawaz settlement: “SPLC has become a far-left organization that brands its political opponents as ‘haters’ and ‘extremists’ and has lost all credibility as a civil-rights watchdog . . . SPLC’s sloppy mistakes have ruinous, real-world consequences for which they should not be excused.”
Blasting the group as a “bunch of Islamophobic bigots,” the Southern Poverty Law Center has officially classified itself as an anti-Muslim extremist group.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center targets Muslims like Maajid Nawaz – who are most certainly not anti-Muslim extremists– simply for their faith,” SPLC President Richard Cohen said in a recorded statement on Monday. “These folks are using their white privilege to attack innocent Muslims.”
Earlier in the day, SPLC apologized for listing Nawaz in a directory of anti-Muslim extremists and agreed to pay a $3.375 million settlement to Nawaz’s organization, Quilliam, which combats Islamophobia and Islamic extremism. But in its later statement, SPLC went a step further, demanding that its followers take to the streets to confront SPLC over its hateful actions.
“We must all fight racial and religious extremism – and in this case, that means standing up to people like me,” Cohen said. “Where is antifa on this one?”