You might be interested in the following, esp since you noticed the conflict among philosophers. I have not included the 75 signatures:
We have read with care the “Statement on Gaza” of the American Studies Association’s (ASA) Executive Committee. We applaud the ASA’s reaffirmation of its unwavering commitment to academic freedom and freedom of expression without threat of censure or retaliation. However, there are fundamental omissions and forms of doctrinaire thinking that we cannot accept and do not think should be made to speak for all our colleagues in ASA.
First, the ASA's protest against the doxxing and harassment of students and faculty who express solidarity with Palestine and protest Israeli militarism and occupation should extend, as well, to Jewish students and faculty threatened and attacked on our campuses. The organization’s historic opposition to racism on our campuses should extend to antisemitism. Racism and antisemitism have no place in our universities and we’d welcome the ASA’s reaffirmation of this.
Second, the Hamas pogrom is not mentioned in any way in the Statement, even though its terrorist invasion of Southern Israel initiated a war and today’s crisis. An assault murdering 1,400 unarmed men, women, and children, mainly Jews, often in cold blood--in impact the per capita equivalent of some 50,000 deaths in the US in the 9/11 terrorist attack—somehow, this is not worth noticing at all. And with this stunning omission, the Statement can conflate all Palestinians in Gaza and beyond with Hamas, a fundamentalist, patriarchal terrorist force ruling (only) Gaza and dedicated to the complete annihilation of Israel and Jews. With this conflation, Palestinian “liberation” can be presented as the sole issue; truly deplorable Israeli government policies can be embraced as sufficient to “explain” and implicitly justify Hamas terrorism. This flattens a centuries-long historical conflict, in which there are many villains and few heroes on all sides, into a simplistic, ahistorical narrative.
We join our colleagues and many others in opposition to appalling Israeli government policies that have contributed, well before this crisis, to the disaster that is Gaza. We join in the call for the immediate provision of humanitarian aid and the freeing of all hostages. Yet the hostages to terrorism include not just two-hundred-forty Jews, but Gazan Palestinians themselves: Palestinian victims of the Israeli response or used by Hamas as human shields. These hostages to terror, now and prospective, share more than divides them: all are caught up in a humanitarian catastrophe it was the strategic intent of the Hamas murders to provoke, fueling generations of hatred and worse on all sides.
If Palestinians and Israelis are ever to approach a two-state solution or its peaceful equivalent, something within grasp not too long ago, and if we all are not to be consumed by a rising tide of anti-Semitism and anti-Palestinian racism, we might well look to what ordinary Israelis and Palestinians share, even if it is anguish, pain, and victimization. This may yet lay the groundwork for understanding and, ultimately, peace. Can we—Palestinians and Israelis, and their supporters around the world and here in the ASA--reach beyond stark either/ors to meet on the common ground of a shared pain and suffering? Can we then, together, begin to imagine and forge a path to peace? For the American Studies Association, whose leadership many of us have shared in the past, this is a goal we urge our colleagues to embrace.
Anothet insightful analysis and report Micah. I feat that a majority of the activist American Left is now in a twilight state. They demonstrate ZERO interest in strategic and effective thinking or praxis. They seem infected with a knee jerk anti-Americanism combined with a posture that owes much more to a personal therapeutic need to be marginal and therefore “the most radical” rather than the most effective. As I have argued since 9/11, the ANSWER coalition is led by a diseased cult that poisons everything it touches.
“ if we don’t fight for a “decent left” now, one that at a minimum rejects genocidal violence by any actor, where will we be in the future?”
When have we had such a ‘decent left’? That question sounds glib but Sartre and Camus also fought about the role of violence in achieving leftist goals and Sartre was pro-violence despite living in Europe during WWII.
What’s frustrated me is not that I’m not hearing condemnations of Hamas violence from US ceasefire organizations, it’s that there aren’t any organizations that are clearly identifying ethnonationalism as the problem. Say “nationalism”, say what it is, say why it’s bad, call out Hamas and Israel for promoting it into it and call for a civil rights in Israel/ Palestine.
You might be interested in the following, esp since you noticed the conflict among philosophers. I have not included the 75 signatures:
We have read with care the “Statement on Gaza” of the American Studies Association’s (ASA) Executive Committee. We applaud the ASA’s reaffirmation of its unwavering commitment to academic freedom and freedom of expression without threat of censure or retaliation. However, there are fundamental omissions and forms of doctrinaire thinking that we cannot accept and do not think should be made to speak for all our colleagues in ASA.
First, the ASA's protest against the doxxing and harassment of students and faculty who express solidarity with Palestine and protest Israeli militarism and occupation should extend, as well, to Jewish students and faculty threatened and attacked on our campuses. The organization’s historic opposition to racism on our campuses should extend to antisemitism. Racism and antisemitism have no place in our universities and we’d welcome the ASA’s reaffirmation of this.
Second, the Hamas pogrom is not mentioned in any way in the Statement, even though its terrorist invasion of Southern Israel initiated a war and today’s crisis. An assault murdering 1,400 unarmed men, women, and children, mainly Jews, often in cold blood--in impact the per capita equivalent of some 50,000 deaths in the US in the 9/11 terrorist attack—somehow, this is not worth noticing at all. And with this stunning omission, the Statement can conflate all Palestinians in Gaza and beyond with Hamas, a fundamentalist, patriarchal terrorist force ruling (only) Gaza and dedicated to the complete annihilation of Israel and Jews. With this conflation, Palestinian “liberation” can be presented as the sole issue; truly deplorable Israeli government policies can be embraced as sufficient to “explain” and implicitly justify Hamas terrorism. This flattens a centuries-long historical conflict, in which there are many villains and few heroes on all sides, into a simplistic, ahistorical narrative.
We join our colleagues and many others in opposition to appalling Israeli government policies that have contributed, well before this crisis, to the disaster that is Gaza. We join in the call for the immediate provision of humanitarian aid and the freeing of all hostages. Yet the hostages to terrorism include not just two-hundred-forty Jews, but Gazan Palestinians themselves: Palestinian victims of the Israeli response or used by Hamas as human shields. These hostages to terror, now and prospective, share more than divides them: all are caught up in a humanitarian catastrophe it was the strategic intent of the Hamas murders to provoke, fueling generations of hatred and worse on all sides.
If Palestinians and Israelis are ever to approach a two-state solution or its peaceful equivalent, something within grasp not too long ago, and if we all are not to be consumed by a rising tide of anti-Semitism and anti-Palestinian racism, we might well look to what ordinary Israelis and Palestinians share, even if it is anguish, pain, and victimization. This may yet lay the groundwork for understanding and, ultimately, peace. Can we—Palestinians and Israelis, and their supporters around the world and here in the ASA--reach beyond stark either/ors to meet on the common ground of a shared pain and suffering? Can we then, together, begin to imagine and forge a path to peace? For the American Studies Association, whose leadership many of us have shared in the past, this is a goal we urge our colleagues to embrace.
As is often the case - Micah adds valuable context and is open to going where others fear to tread.
Anothet insightful analysis and report Micah. I feat that a majority of the activist American Left is now in a twilight state. They demonstrate ZERO interest in strategic and effective thinking or praxis. They seem infected with a knee jerk anti-Americanism combined with a posture that owes much more to a personal therapeutic need to be marginal and therefore “the most radical” rather than the most effective. As I have argued since 9/11, the ANSWER coalition is led by a diseased cult that poisons everything it touches.
“ if we don’t fight for a “decent left” now, one that at a minimum rejects genocidal violence by any actor, where will we be in the future?”
When have we had such a ‘decent left’? That question sounds glib but Sartre and Camus also fought about the role of violence in achieving leftist goals and Sartre was pro-violence despite living in Europe during WWII.
What’s frustrated me is not that I’m not hearing condemnations of Hamas violence from US ceasefire organizations, it’s that there aren’t any organizations that are clearly identifying ethnonationalism as the problem. Say “nationalism”, say what it is, say why it’s bad, call out Hamas and Israel for promoting it into it and call for a civil rights in Israel/ Palestine.
Fuck the left. Moral midgits. Apologists for terror. Rape denialists. Atrocity apologists. Brainless fools with idiotic slogans.