Israel/Palestine and the paradoxes of academic freedom

Radical Philosophy

Volumn , Issue 135, 2006, Pages 8-17

  Butler, Judith ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 33749610923     PISSN: 0300211X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Note

References (6)

1. Horowitz, a former Marxist, is a neo-conservative working on a variety of fronts to combat what he perceives as totalitarian leftism within the US academy: promoting an 'Academic Bill of Rights'; writing books, a database on 'leftists' and 'jihadists', and the FrontPage 'magazine'. FrontPage is primarily a platform for a strong Zionist attack on leftists and especially on academics who may be critical of Israel or the current US war efforts, and to hurl ritual abuse against 'jihadists', who seem to comprise any and all people of Arab descent with whom the author disagrees. His websites regularly smear the progressive broadcaster Al Franken's photo as well as disparaging Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old volunteer from the International Solidarity Movement who was killed by the Caterpillar trucks belonging to the Israeli army.
2. Neve Gordon points out in correspondence with me that 'this was the conclusion of the World Conference on Human Rights (the Vienna conference) in 1993, where human rights practitioners from all over the world gathered. It was basically the representatives of Third World NGOs that led to the formulation of Article 5 in the Vienna Declaration: 'All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated.' The Third World practitioners argued that one cannot, for example, have freedom of speech without education. http://www.unhchr.ch/huridocda/huridoca.nsf/.
3. In an appeal formulated in 2002 by faculty and students at Birzeit, the following situation was graphically described: 'the working life of the University has been severely disrupted by an intimidating Israeli military checkpoint on the Ramallah-Birzeit road, which is part of the expanded network of roadblocks preventing communication between all Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank. Even when open the checkpoint allows only pedestrian traffic to pass; Israeli soldiers posted there arbitrarily deny passage to students and other civilians, as well as regularly engage in various forms of harassment which at times have resulted in the physical injury of students and faculty. When closed the checkpoint effectively brings the working life of the university to a halt. Since March 2002, the situation at the checkpoint has deteriorated further and access to the University has on the majority of days been totally impeded. Following Israel's military reoccupation of West Bank towns (including Ramallah) in mid-June 2002, all Palestinian educational life within the reoccupation zones has been brought to a grinding halt by a blanket curfew imposed on the civilian population. The majority of Birzeit students and faculty are confined to their homes with dwindling hope of returning to their academic lives in the foreseeable future. The cumulative effects of these measures over the past 18 months have put the future of Birzeit University at grave risk.'
4. For a longer version of the discussion that follows, see my contribution to Beshara Doumani, ed., Academic Freedom Post 9/11, Zone, New York, 2006.
5. See JTA, The Global News Service of the Jewish People, www.jta.org, for one of many attacks on the Ford Foundation for ostensibly supporting 'Palestinian causes'.
6. See for Ford Foundation www.fordfound.org/about/guideline.cfm; and for Rockefeller Foundation www. rockfound.org/grantmaking/FundingPrograms.