Campus Reform reports that “Editors of the ‘Israel Studies’ journal are rejecting demands by a confederacy of leftist professors for an apology and for the removal of a special summer issue.” The issue at hand is called “Word Crimes: Reclaiming the Language of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” and it was written and edited by a group of Israel and Jewish studies professors to address the manipulation of academic language in order to demonize Israel and advance BDS.
Incensed at the departure from anti-Israel orthodoxy, academic detractors mounted a campaign that included petitions, outraged letters, demands for apologies, and perhaps most ironically, an attempt to “shut down the special issue” based on the claim that its title “shuts down discourse.”
One professor petulantly refused an award from the Association of Israel Studies because of its affiliation with the journal, while another went so far as to make the purchase-only issue available for free via Facebook. The latter came to an end after Indiana University Press sent the professor a cease and desist notice; meanwhile, other efforts to stifle the issue also turned out to be a spectacular failure.
It was a victory over what Miriam Elman, Syracuse University Professor and “Word Crimes” contributor and co-editor, describes as a “minority group who wants to dictate the way we study and discuss Israel and its conflict with the Palestinians and are so willing to disrespect the deliberative process and dismiss civil academic debate.” This minority group, according to Elman, also tried to prevent the Association of Israel Studies from holding its 2019 annual meeting . . . in Israel.
