The International Legal Forum (ILF) demanded Sunday that a Princeton University class remove an anti-Israel book that accuses the Jewish state of purposefully maiming Palestinians, according to a letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies Satyel Larson is teaching a class titled “The Healing Humanities: Decolonizing Trauma Studies from the Global South” during the upcoming fall semester, which includes the book “Right To Maim” by Rutgers University’s Gender and Women’s Studies Professor Jasbir Puar. The ILF called for the book’s removal because of its “blind racism” and “lack of educational value, according to the letter.
ILF warned that including the material in the class could create a “hostile” environment on campus, which is prohibited by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and called for Princeton to condemn antisemitism, according to the letter.
"[W]e call on you now to stand steadfast against antisemitism, in all its vitriolic and hateful manifestations as expressed in this vile book, that has no place in a university of Princeton’s prestige or any educational environment, and call for its immediate removal from the curriculum,” the letter concludes.
Puar’s book argues that Israel’s military enforces the “right to maim” Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, according to a summary. She further claims that the Jewish state is deliberately seeking to “enable the mass debilitation of Palestinian bodies” in order to protect the country’s “racialized capital.”
Puar also defended comments she made during a 2016 speech as Vassar College in New York, where she claimed that Palestinians she spoke with believed that Israel was harvesting organs from the bodies of their children killed in violent confrontations with Israeli military, according to an article she wrote for Jadaliyya, a media outlet produced by the Arab Studies Institute.
The book’s accusations are a “modern-day antisemitic blood libel” and contain “very serious and defamatory accusations,” the ILF’s letter stated. The book also appears to violate the White House’s recently rolled out National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism for singling out Israel due to “anti-Jewish hatred,” according to the letter.
“Although we firmly believe in the notion of open debate on campus and do not take the call to exclude any kind of reading material lightly, the book in question does not contain any educational merit, but only promulgates a dangerous conspiracy and age-old antisemitic trope,” the letter reads. “The request to remove the book in question is not a debate about the limits of free speech, that is raging across campuses today, but quite simply a testament to its lack of educational value and potential for incitement to racial hatred and violence against the Jewish community.”
Princeton, Larson and Puar did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
