When they again come to round up the Jews, I hope you have a copy of this letter to show them, Dr. Kaplan. Maybe you’ll be spared.

It takes a certain kind of academic who claims to be able to know how history will unfold, and that is what these english professors claim to do. The legacy of BDS may be quite different from what you are hoping.

The Holocaust is not trivialized by comparing it to BDS. The accuracy of the comparison is trivialized by those who pretend they have a crystal ball. If English is about affording words meaning, I have no problem with people thinking about the association between PennBDS, genocide, and Kapos.

As you claim to be scholars, I would expect a more scholarly and less emotional analysis that is akin to “oh no, icky words!” Icky truths, perhaps.

English Professors??? It should come as no surprise that Amy Kaplan, Heather Love and Ania Loomba would come to the defense of the BDS movement and invoke the language of that academic gibberish of “respectful and rigorous intellectual exchange”. If only we could depend on today’s academic professionals to uphold a once-proud standard of rigorous academic research and unbiased presentation of the facts. The dirty little secret is out, however, girls, because the humanities departments in liberal arts colleges are as “highly-politicized” as it gets. Kaplan, Loomba and Love should know. After all—they are ENGLISH professors, but you wouldn’t know it from one look at their bios or course curriculum. Their narrative is straight out of the Marxist Left, and these activists are under no obligation to uphold long-held but now ignored university policy governing professional academic conduct

It is blatantly hypocritical and outrageous for these political partisans to attack (“distinguished colleague”—how condescending) Professor Gur for politicizing the debate. I should know, as I made it my business to attend a GAZA TEACH-IN at Penn, organized by the very same Loomba, Kaplan, with participation by the eminent Middle East scholar, Ian Lustick. On the panel were the same cast of characters, and true to color, from that podium, they Anne Norton described Israel as the new Nazi party, and Gaza the new Warsaw ghetto. The response from the pro-Israel side of the intellectual debate? Ooops, sorry, there was nobody invited to share that side of the story, because when an Israel advocate volunteered to share that side of the story—He was not welcome.

So much for rigorous intellectual debate. The case against Israel is case-closed in the closed leftist minds of Loomba et al, and it is far time the Universities demand that professors live up their professional obligations to Academic freedom, which is NOT a first amendment right, contrary to popular opinion. Rather than hide behind their disingenuous courtesie and protestations for robust intellectual debate, the least these angry women could do is put their politics up front, as virulent anti-Israel hate-mongers, just like they do in class and on campus when nobody is watching.

Ah, professors within the same department condemning each other. Isn’t it great how a BDS debate brings a campus together!

@Jon: Profs Loomba, Kaplan & Love don’t share a department with Prof Gur. They’re in the English Dept & he’s in the Dept of Psychiatry.

My mistake, my mistake. So it is professors between departments at each other’s throats that we can thank BDS for.

Oh, and do you think Professors Kaplan, Loomba and Love would extend their cordon of respect for rigorous and intellectual exchange to accusations of Apartheid which also trivialized history and distorts complex issues? Or is it only BDS critics who are required to “carefully assess historical analogies rather than deploy them for rhetorical advantage”?

The BDS conference was precisely about carefully assessing “historical analogies” and pointing out how complex issues of apartheid (in South Africa and in Israel) are. Could it be that rigorous intellectual debate involves thinking about a topic instead of shouting about it?

Three cheers for three inspiring professors who exemplify what it means to be an engaged intellectual!

So can we presume that issues such as the stark similarity between places like Gaza and Apartheid South Africa (especially if you’re female, Christian or non-Muslim) was on this weekend’s agenda, or perhaps the collusion between the Gulf States and Apartheid South African which traded oil for blood gold was on the agenda?

Or was such “rigorous intellectual debate” about genuine Apartheid not on the agenda for a reason?

“Beating a loved one is like eating sweets” (Tharb al-habib, zbib).

are those wisely chosen word?