Academic Left Silent On Russian Imperialism; ‘It’s Not Israel’

Not Israel.

London, March 6 – European and American academics are explaining their inaction on the Russian show of force in Ukraine by noting that the aggressor in this case cannot be construed as Israel, and therefore no opposition need be registered.

In an address to a conference of the Harvard-Yale-Princeton-Oxford- Columbia-Radcliffe-International Team of Educators (HYPOCRITE), Professor Lisa Duggan told HYPOCRITE attendees that they must be careful not to object too loudly to Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, lest the world get the idea that there are problems worthy of addressing that do not lend themselves to direct demonization of Israel.

“While no one disagrees that Russia’s behavior is less than perfect, we as academics have a responsibility to keep international attention focused on the evil that is Israel and the ways in which we can delegitimize Israel,” she said. “Since no major elements of the Russia-Ukraine crisis can be directly attributed to Israeli crimes, our attention to the crisis must remain at most perfunctory.” She said an academic boycott of Russian institutions was out of the question.

Other speakers at the conference emphasized that mere imperialism or military aggression is not enough to justify the moral ire of the liberal academic. “The scholar who adheres to a consistent line of moral reasoning that does not presuppose the centrality of Israel as the cause of all the conflict in the Middle East, or, at the very least, blame American or European cultural imperialism for the world’s ills, lacks the authority to call himself or herself a scholar,” said president emeritus of HYPOCRITE Noam Chomsky. “It is axiomatic that non-Western peoples do not posses a capacity for being responsible for their actions, and that therefore the fault must always lie, and does always lie, with the West – all the more so if sinister notions about Jews and Israel can be imputed.”

In the same vein, said Duggan, reports that Egypt intends to revoke the citizenship of the 13,000 Palestinian refugees who were granted it under newly rules relaxed by Muhammad Morsi’s brief administration must not be given exposure, as it gives the lie to the Arab line that the refugees are not interested in citizenship in other Arab countries. Calling undue attention to the matter would make people ask uncomfortable questions about the restrictions various Arab countries place on those refugees, including barring them from citizenship and limiting their movement and employment opportunities. “Anything that might, even by contrast, portray Israel’s policies as benevolent cannot be given currency,” she warned.

By a vote of 45-0, HYPOCRITE approved a resolution condemning Israel for trying to make an issue in the Security Council of the Syrian-Iranian attempt to ship missiles to the Gaza Strip.