I was a student at London University’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies between 1995 and 1999. The college was based in Senate House opposite the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) –the scene of some recently abhorrent behaviour by anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian activists. I passed SOAS every day during my four years at university. I loved the atmosphere in and around the place which seemed much more vibrant than my tiny college.
During those four years there were a couple of occassions when anti-Israeli leaflets were handed out to passing students. I remember a couple of times when the accusations located within bordered upon the offensive. But I let them pass, thinking it was nothing more than harmless student radicalism.
So I was heartened to read that an attempt by the same SOAS activists and the SOAS Student Union to block a talk by Israeli embassy political councilor Roey Gilad was defeated. I was even more impressed when I learned that the union was overruled by SOAS director, Colin Bundy, and that Trevor Phillips, the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, turned up unannounced and delivered an impromptu talk on freedom of speech. For more details see Norman Geras.
It’s about time Jewish students and pro-Israeli students were given some backing at SOAS.
But it also made me wonder about the recent troubles at Columbia University in relation to pro-Palestinian professor Rashid Khalidi. Khalidi has been the target of a prolonged attack by the David Project and the New York Sun for months now because of anti-Israeli bias in his lectures. However, I hear that a number of Jewish students at Columbia are extremely annoyed at the way Khalidi and the university are being portrayed. They feel the whole thing is being blown out of proportion and is damaging the reputation of the university.
The most recent attacks on Khalidi in the New York Sun led to him being barred by the New York City Board of Education from teaching public school teachers about the Middle East. Columbia has criticized the City for its knee-jerk reaction but why isn’t it doing more to defend him?
Surely universities should be places of debate, where people with different views (however radical) are free to express them as long is it is done in a constructive manner. The more universities welcome Israeli councilors and Palestinian lecturers the better we can all understand each other.
For a balaced view of the situation see this recent article in The Forward.
Meanwhile, here is an excerpt from the latest salvo printed in the New York Sun opinion page on Friday:
Nat Hentoff is quoted in the Forward as suggesting that instead of dumping Mr. Khalidi, the city “should have brought in a team teacher for the course so that it wouldn’t be one-sided indoctrination.” He’s a First Amendment expert who reckons the American Constitution requires New York taxpayers to pay for two Middle East teacher-trainers, one who says, wrongly, that Israel’s “occupation” is the longest in modern history and another that says it is not; one that says, wrongly, that shooting Israeli soldiers is legitimate resistance and one that says it is not. Maybe the First Amendment requires having a teacher trainer who says the Earth is flat and another who says it’s round.
This article also appears on Betty The Crow News.
UPDATE 5:00pm EST: I just found this in today’s Columbia Spectator
No TagsThe University Senate returned to its discussion of improving Columbia’s grievance procedures on Friday in response to the ongoing MEALAC controversy, but it began with President Bollinger’s first public criticism of the New York City Department of Education’s recent dismissal of Rashid Khalidi from a program for secondary school teachers on instruction about the Middle East.
Bollinger called the dismissal of Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies, a “very, very serious matter” and said that the University believes the Department of Education’s actions were “wrong.”
