Rupert Murdoch’s right-wing Jerusalem Post reports on a new campaign against British academics launched by the Anti-Defamation League, an organization which has the sordid distinction of having spied on anti-Apartheid activists during the ’80s for the White-supremacist government of South Africa:

The Anti-Defamation League has launched a new series of print and on-line advertisements aimed at combating the campaign among British trade unions to boycott Israel.

“When British unions single out Israel for boycott… that’s not activism, that’s anti-Semitism,” read one of the ads printed in The New York Times…

“If British journalists and university professors and doctors want to make a point for justice, there are 20 countries they could deal with,” explained ADL National Director Abe Foxman. “If they included Israel [in their critique], I’d say Israel doesn’t belong, but I wouldn’t call it anti-Semitism. But if the only country [that is subject to criticism] in the whole world is Israel, I call it anti-Semitism.”

Jeffrey Blankfort comments: “What is noticeable is that the ADL and others who charge that Israel has been unfairly singled out never mention any other country that would fall into the same category. How many pension funds invest in French, German, British, or Sudanese bonds? What other countries have faculties that openly cooperate with their repressive governments (other than, of course, the US, but there is far more opposition to US policies on American campuses than one finds in Israel).”

“You can’t assume it’s clear to everybody that this is a selective, bigoted campaign,” he added. “One needs to explain it to people.”

Asked if he supported some calls among American Jews to launch a counter-boycott of British academic institutions, Foxman said, “We don’t believe you fight boycotts with boycotts. That legitimizes earlier boycotts and ends up hurting innocent people, which is what [the UK boycott campaign] is doing.”

These words of course ring hollow since at the same time ADL has played a key role in curtailing the academic freedom of Norman Finkelstein in the US. The difference is that the UCU boycotts institutions that are complicit, whereas ADL’s pernicious campaigns are targetted at individuals.

In the US, Rabbi Botox uses the Murdoch press to decry the absence in Britain of a lobby as powerful as the one in US, and directs his ire at Jewish dissidents.

British Jewry comprises some of the most stalwart and generous funders of Israel anywhere in the world. But their public defense of Israel - especially when it comes to controversial polices - is erratic. There is no significant British equivalent of AIPAC, for example, and many British Jews regard such overt pro-Israel pressure on government to be inappropriate and counter-productive.

Finkelgate

Meanwhile, students are calling for action at DePaul University to defend the academic freedom of professors denied tenure for political reasons.

DePaul Students Sit-In for Academic Freedom

Upset over DePaul University’s denial of tenure to Professors Norman Finkelstein, and Mehrene Larudee, and after a meeting between 30 student leaders and DePaul President Fr. Dennis Holtschneider at his office, students have taken action to defend academic freedom which is under attack at the nation’s largest Catholic institution. After an unsuccessful meeting where their demands were ignored by the administration, DePaul students are continuing their sit-in overnight and through this week at the President’s office and plan to escalate action among the student body.

Student leaders called for Fr. Holtschneider to grant the professors tenure. They presented him with a petition of over 700 signatures calling for a reversal of the decision, and engaged in a heated discussion on the legitimacy of the university’s decision. The decision made at the secretive University-level overturned the tenure decisions made at the Departmental and College-levels, which approved Finkelstein’s position by votes of 9-3 and 5-0, respectively. Students were surprised by Larudee’s rejection as she was unanimously approved by both the Departmental and University level tenure committees. The student leaders cite Finkelstein and Larudee’s positive peer reviewed scholarship and flaws in the tenure process as reasons why they should receive tenure. Denial of tenure to the professors means their employment at DePaul will be terminated.

Finkelstein, son of holocaust survivors and outspoken critic of oppressive Israeli policy in Palestine, has come under attack from detractors like Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who seeks to silence critics of Israel and has successfully interfered in internal DePaul tenure processes. Despite being in the midst of their hectic finals-week and upcoming graduation, student leaders are currently sacrificing their time by occupying the Executive Offices of DePaul University indefinitely until their demands for the tenure of Professors Finkelstein and Larudee are met.

Source: fanonite.org