Word: israell
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...would expect in an academic forum. Several of the speakers do not even have any particular expertise on the proposed topic. Though the forum is promoted as an intellectual exercise with the noble goal of opposing racism, it is more a not-so-subtle attempt to discredit Israel...
...quick background check on a few of the key speakers proves this. The keynote address, for example, is to be delivered by Benjamin Beit Hallahmi of Haifa University. His area of expertise is not political science or history, but psychology. Hallahmi has authored a misstatement-filled book on Israel's military connections, but he is neither an authority on Israeli foreign policy nor a reasoned intellectual observer...
...bordering on anti-Semitism. Chomsky loudly defends the rights of those Palestinians living within Israeli-controlled borders, although he seems less concerned with the plight of the 60 percent of Palestinians who live under the brutal rule of Jordan's King Hussein. Chomsky has long denied the right of Israel to exist. Should this person's enthusiasm for linking Israel and South Africa be regarded as a legitimate academic pursuit...
...qualifications of the speakers. Of the nine sponsors, five did not previously have apartheid on their agendas. Only one is exclusively devoted to the issue. Although the sponsors may be sincerely dedicated to the rights of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, some are sincerely anti-Israel as well. Should Harvard feel compelled to lend them its resources...
Agreed. But to have a group of pro-Palestinian organizations and anti-Israel speakers debate Israeli policy unlikely to accomplish that. It's akin to having a board of Christian fundamentalists discuss the legality of abortion, or having Zairean leader Sese Seko Mobutu speak about peace in Africa, for that matter. Although all views should be heard, treating such a forum as an academic pursuit would make a mockery of the term. To lend Harvard's credibility to a conference so imbalanced in its approach, so determined to push a particular point of view rather than to give...