A recently published collection of essays, Anti-Zionism on Campus, examines the clout of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement at American institutions of higher learning, and its successful bullying of its opponents. Both of the volume’s editors, Doron Ben-Atar and Andrew Pessin, are professors whom BDS supporters tried to hound from their respective universities. In his review, Jonathan Marks writes:
Anti-Zionism on Campus consists of 32 essays, 25 by scholars and seven by students, which together make the case that those who speak up for Israel on campus, or merely deny that Zionism is racism, risk “verbal attack, social and professional ostracization,” and “setbacks to their careers.” As an undisguised Zionist [and college professor] who has so far avoided such consequences, I read Anti-Zionism on Campus as a skeptic. By the time I finished the book, I was convinced. . . .
At Northern Michigan State University, in 2011, Gabriel Noah Brahm complained of the lopsidedly anti-Israel character of a university-sponsored visit to Israel. He was soon “up on some kind of charges.” He was cleared, but the cloud that hung over him almost certainly contributed to his English Department colleagues’ hostility to his tenure bid. The resulting tenure denial was overturned by a unanimous vote, but Brahm had been put through the wringer. . . .
Faculty are not guiltless in these transactions. . . . When Shlomo Dubnov, a professor of music at the University of San Diego, opposed, in 2012, an anti-Israel divestment resolution, false and serious charges against him were retailed on the website of the San Diego Faculty Association with the active support of that body’s head. . . .
Although we encounter a few good actors in Anti-Zionism on Campus, the essays’ authors teach one to expect from colleagues, at best, private messages of support when the campus anti-Israel movement comes for you and at worst their active participation in the . . . witch hunt. . . . I venture to say that BDS succeeds to the limited extent it does only because feckless administrators and fearful professors will not stand up to bullies. May this much-needed book help more of them understand that there are a lot more of us than there are of them.
Read more on Minding the Campus: https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2018/06/14/how-campus-bullies-pulled-off-the-anti-israel-bds-movement/