Considering the crisis, or crises, that beset American universities, Jonathan Marks puts forward “a conservative case for liberal education” in his aptly named new book Let’s Be Reasonable. In this context, Marks analyzes the anti-Israel mania that has infected so many professors and students, and the very unreasonable Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement in particular. Andrew Pessin writes in his review:
Being reasonable in Marks’s view also requires clarity and transparency about one’s premises, conclusions, and aims. BDS presents itself as a “nonviolent” movement to “support Palestinian rights” and no doubt convinces many well-meaning individuals to sign on under that banner. But the easily documented reality, as Marks shows, is that the movement as a whole is perfectly fine with violence, and its goal brazenly includes the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state.
How should a defender of liberal education—in particular one who supports Israel—respond to this campaign? Not, Marks insists, by political propagandizing in the other direction. . . . Nor is the proper response to cancel or “de-platform” campus BDS speakers and events. To be reasonable is to seek truth, and that requires hearing all sides, so silencing one’s opponents is not the answer. Nor, similarly, is the right response to engage in “viewpoint discrimination”—for example, by refusing the establishment of a student group such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a tactic much in the news of late due to a court case resulting from Fordham University’s effort to do just that.
Marks’s vision of a newly energized liberal education is appealing, and Let’s Be Reasonable is an important and timely book. . . . But exactly how effective is his “reasonable” approach when campus anti-Israelism, pursued with a sometimes-fanatic zeal, produces discrimination against Israel and (in particular) the many Jewish students who support her?
[O]ne never wants to stoop to the level of one’s enemies, but if one feels (as many do) that the campus assault on Israel is something akin to a war, that it is truly anti-Semitic in nature, and that it has serious long-term consequences for the wellbeing not merely of Israel but even of Jews in America—then one might think that more is necessary than merely “being reasonable.”
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/andrew-pessin/conservative-defense-liberal-education/