Petra Marquardt-Bigman reviews former AAUP president Cary Nelson’s recent book, Israel Denial: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, & the Faculty Campaign Against the Jewish State, at the Algemeiner, noting his emphasis on four particularly vile BDS-supporters: UC Berkeley’s Judith Butler; UCLA’s Saree Makdisi; former academic Steven Salaita; and, perhaps worst of all, Rutgers professor Jasbir Puar. She aptly describes Puar’s book, which, to its shame, Duke University Press published in 2017, as an update of “age-old antisemitic libels for the 21st century.”
Pointing out that the particular value of Nelson’s book is that “BDS advocates will find it hard to use their routine dodge of claiming their critic is a rabid right-wing supporter of Israel,” Marquardt-Bigman lauds Israel Denial for demonstrating “how BDS activism poisons the campus climate, promotes discrimination and polarization, and undermines academic freedom.”
For another thoughtful analysis of Nelson’s book that focuses on the same “toxic BDS professors,” check out David Mikics’s review earlier this month at Tablet Magazine.
