I have been informed off list that the reason I have been singled out
for attention is that I accused certain people on this list of being
anti-semitic.
The exact words in this message (I will preserve the anonymity of the
sender) were:
"I object quite strongly to being called anti-semitic - as those of us
who criticise the murderous policies of the Israeli state so frequently
are by activists of your stripe."
Apart from the general low-level insults and attempts to lump my views
in with 'activists of your stripe' (honestly!)
1. I do not equate criticism of, or campaigning against, the policies,
discourse and actions of the Israeli state with anti-semitism - read my
posts! If I did that would make me anti-semitic for a start...
2. I have never accused people on this list, or indeed the boycott, of
being anti-semitic. I said on the 27th of April (and you can check the
list archives):
"And whilst this particular first step cannot be considered anti-semitic
in itself, it certainly does buy into strong latent anti-semitism,
especially if
placed in the context of other statements by some of the proposers."
I was very careful to say that I thought the boycott was NOT
anti-semitic (just inadvisable), however that it exists in a CONTEXT of
long-standing anti-semitism in Europe (which makes this kind of thing
dangerous). I would have hoped that academics, who are supposed to be
people who can read words carefully and understand them, would have been
able to tell the difference beteween the INTENT BEHIND A SPECIFIC ACTION
in question and CONTEXT. The reference to the 'some of the proposers'
was in relation not to any critical geographer that I know, but to the
lecturer from Birmingham, Sue Blackwell, (whose name escaped me at the
time) who had previously given credence on her website to a faked
statement supposedly by Ariel Sharon about the Jews running the world
even after it had been exposed as a fake... now that IS anti-semitic in
the classic sense of the term, isn't it?
An apology would be nice, but I doubt I will get one. If further
statements are made along the lines of the message I received above I
will be asking for moderators' action against the messages and persons
concerned.
Yours for polite and open academic dialogue and a free Palestinian
state,
David.
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