Statement on the Arrest of Hebrew University Professor Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
Take action today for Professor Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s immediate release.
Category: Columns
Anti-woke Republicans attacked Columbia University. It capitulated
In a congressional hearing, Republicans used specious charges of rampant antisemitism to advance an illiberal agenda on campuses
Statement on the Situation in Israel and Palestine
The International Sociological Association (ISA) expresses its deep concern about the horrific events of October 2023 in Israel and Palestine as the human carnage there is unfolding in plain view. There have been far too many victims in this and previous cycles of violence. War and violence are never acceptable solutions and are against all the values we uphold. We stand by and respect the UN resolutions concerning this situation and share the call by many of our Palestinian and Israeli colleagues for an immediate release of hostages, exchange of prisoners, and the ending of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Yanis Varoufakis: My Berlin speech on Palestine that German police entered the venue to ban – and whose publication here led to my being banned from Germany!
Watch/read the speech that I could not deliver because German police burst into our Berlin venue to disband our Palestine Congress (1930s style) before I could address the meeting. Today, because I dared publish this speech here, the Ministry of Interior issued a “Betätigungsverbot” against me, a ban on any political activity. Not just a ban on visiting Germany but also from participation via Zoom. Judge for yourselves the kind of society Germany is becoming when its police bans the following words:
Jewish faculty reject the weaponization of antisemitism
To President Shafik: “We write as Jewish faculty of Columbia and Barnard in anticipation of your appearance before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on April 17, where you are expected to answer questions about antisemitism on campus. Based on the committee’s previous hearings, we are gravely concerned about the false narratives that frame these proceedings to entrap witnesses. We urge you, as the University president, to defend our shared commitment to universities as sites of learning, critical thinking, and knowledge production against this new McCarthyism.”
After six months of war, I fear we may lose Palestine completely
Israel’s onslaught has been on a scale never seen before. I spend my days searching for hope
OPEN LETTER FROM NORTH AMERICAN ACADEMICS CONDEMNING SCHOLASTICIDE IN GAZA
Please input your full name, contact information and institutional affiliation (for identification purposes only) in the form below the text of the Open Letter. Email addresses will not be published. Names of signatories (>1,100 to date from >215 higher educational institutions) will be added progressively. If you have any difficulties signing, or any questions, please contact: academicsvsscholasticide@gmail.com.
Is This the End of Academic Freedom?
Silencing pro-Palestinian speech and action sets a dangerous precedent.
Columbia Is Waging War on Dissent
The university is under pressure to root out any students or faculty critical of Israel—and it’s already caved.
Science magazine’s editorial bias against Palestinians
After reading Science’s absurdly one-sided story (February 28, 2024) on the effect of the genocide in Gaza on Israeli academics, I wrote an email to the news editor to intervene. He responded by offering to publish parts of the email as a “letter” in response to the story. I then reworked the text of the email to prepare it for publication and submitted a draft. The editor sent it back with substantial deletions, notably removing the paragraph describing the deliberate nature of the Israeli military’s destruction of academic life in Gaza. The sentence in which I explained the principles of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) was also removed, on the grounds that “[w]e often don’t know the motivations of those calling for or practicing a boycott.” I pointed out to the editor that the initial story had speculated freely about the supposed antisemitic motivations of alleged boycotts of Israeli academics and insisted on retaining the deleted passages. The editor declined to withdraw the deletions and I decided not to allow the text to be published in amputated form. Below is the text, including the passages Science refused to publish.