An academic controversy
unfolding at the University of Illinois is attracting national attention. After
the American Indian Studies department offered Steven Salaita a tenured job,
University authorities became aware of Salaita’s tweets about the conflict in
Gaza, and eventually decided to withdraw the job offer. Two weeks ago, the U of I’s trustees voted 8-1 not to offer him a position at the
Urbana-Champaign campus.
That decision caused a storm
of protest. Salaita’s defenders, including legal scholars,
argue that his freedom of speech has been violated. Freedom of speech,
protected in the First Amendment, refers to freedom from government prosecution
for speech and similar actions. Freedom of speech is always limited in some
ways: libel and death threats are some examples. But nobody has limited
Salaita’s right to express his opinions, or threatened any legal action against
him.
Academics are always
concerned about possible restrictions on expression of unpopular opinions, and
want to protect so-called “academic freedom”. I believe this is an important
principle. If we wish universities to be open to the widest range of ideas,
then faculty must feel free to express ideas which might annoy some, or even
most people. Even at government supported institutions, professors should be
able to criticize the government or the corporations which employ major donors
or trustees.
Some people argue that
Salaita’s academic freedom has been violated. The American Association of
University Professors released a statement:
“faculty comments made on social media, including Twitter, are largely
extramural statements of personal views that should be protected by academic
freedom . . . his posts were arguably not intended as scholarly statements but
as expressions of personal viewpoint. Whether one finds these views attractive
or repulsive is irrelevant to the right of a faculty member to express them.”
Let’s examine Salaita’s
tweets to see how relevant they are.
He is angry about the Israeli military attack on Gaza, provoked by the
continued launching of rockets into Israel, and the kidnapping and murder of three
Israeli teenagers. His tweets use the harshest language to condemn the Israeli
Army for killing civilians in Gaza. But they go beyond that to condemn all
Israeli institutions and the entire history of Israel: “If you’re demented,
amoral, dimwitted, and have sociopathic tendencies, might I suggest applying
for a job in the Israeli MFA?” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Elsewhere he
calls “Israeli officials” “pathological liars”. He wrote: “Predicting Israel’s
behavior is easy. We have a sample size of 66 years of choosing territorial
expansion over peace and coexistence.”
He does mention the
Palestinian abduction and murder of the Israeli teenagers: “You may be too
refined to say it, but I'm not: I wish all the fucking West Bank settlers would
go missing.” He extends condemnation to all Israelis: “Too much of Israeli
society is cheering the bloodletting in Gaza for me to make a firm distinction
between the government and the people.” He repeatedly claims that Israeli
politicians and the people of Israel get pleasure from killing Palestinians.
Salaita uses “Zionist” as the
target of his anger. A Zionist supports the existence of a Jewish state, but
not necessarily every policy of Israel, just as an American patriot might not
support all of our government’s policies. An American patriot could have
opposed the wars in Vietnam War and Iraq. But Salaita hates all “Zionists” and
condemns them all: “Worry not, Zionist trolls! I’m awake and ready to once
again provide the conscience you must suppress in order to support Israel.”
Salaita extends his condemnation to American Jews: “I find it exceedingly odd
to argue Palestine with a bunch of white guys in the US playacting a Middle
Eastern identity.”
Salaita’s defenders appear to
me to deliberately misconstrue the nature of his tweets. For example, historian
Natalie Zemon Davis, in a letter to the U of I administration, calls them “vehement and intentionally
provocative”. She says, “The lack of ‘civility’ in some of his tweets is linked
to the genre itself: a tweet is often an answer to a tweet, and a tweet always
anticipates a response. Thus, in his public political life, Professor Salaita
participates in a mode that always leaves space for an answer.” Michael Rothberg, chair of English at Illinois, says “Professor Salaita’s tweets are
frequently expressed in strong language.” These comments, which mischaracterize
Salaita’s words, seem to me to display a lack of courage in confronting what he
actually says.
Some people have looked
beyond Salaita’s tweets to more serious writings. Salaita posted reviews of
1000 books on Goodreads, some of which were read by David Bernstein,
a law professor at George Mason University. Salaita’s review of Amos Oz’s “In the
Land Of Israel” appears to be typical of the sincerity with which he takes the
reviewing process: “Amos Oz is to incisive political writing what Leni
Riefenstahl was to socially conscious filmmaking.” That’s the whole review.
After Bernstein’s article appeared, Salaita’s Goodreads page disappeared.
I read significant portions
of his most recent book, “Israel’s Dead Soul”, available online. Chapter 2 about the Anti-Defamation
League typifies the quality of his work. Salaita writes that cartoons which
compare Israel and Nazi Germany are “viable ethically”, because both nations
engaged in “widely documented human rights abuses”. He claims that “numerous
cases of anti-Semitic vandalism in 2007 and 2008 were found to actually have
been committed by Jews.” He then offers four examples: in one he says that the
NYT reported that the perpetrator “was trained by the Mossad”, but the report
was only that the perpetrator claimed he was trained by Mossad; in a second,
the perpetrator was “a German woman”, not a Jew; in a third, Salaita says
“numerous swastikas that turned up on the campus of George Washington
University were ultimately attributed to a Jewish student,” but does not
mention that this student only drew a few of the many swastikas in question. He
then argues that the ADL is culpable for antisemitism because it defends and
promotes Israel.
In the next paragraph,
Salaita writes: “the notion that Palestinians and Arab states have aggressively
rejected peace whereas Israel has earnestly sought it has been thoroughly
discredited by dozens of historians,” and cites six books. But only three are
by historians, and several focus not on Israel but on weaknesses and mistakes
of Arab and Palestinian leaders. Salaita then transforms his straw statement
about the contrast between good Israelis and bad Palestinians into certainty
that no historian could now possibly argue anything good about Israeli actions.
Salaita repeatedly asserts that the ADL “maintains its denial” of the Armenian
genocide, while quoting and then explaining away an ADL statement from 2007
which affirms that the murder of Armenians was genocide.
Finally Salaita argues that
the ADL fits its own definition of a hate group by equating ADL’s support of
Israel with “perpetuation of extremism and hatred”; by defining Zionism as a
radical ideology; by “surmising” that the ADL would promote violent acts if
American policy no longer supported Israel; and by repeating the claim that the
ADL engages in “systematic Holocaust denial” because it does not support a
congressional resolution about the Armenian genocide.
My reading of this chapter
and other parts of the book leads me to the following assessment of Salaita’s
methods. His research is superficial and sloppy. He systematically excludes all
evidence and all citations to evidence which take any view other than his own.
He uses tortured logic to transform black into white when it suits his
argument. His initial assumptions determine the entire analysis: “I
conceptualize Zionism as deeply inhumane ethically,” and “Israel is the least
likely of nations to have a soul”.
Those who defend Salaita by
claiming he is being discriminated against don’t appear to be aware that in
chapter 1 of “Israel’s Dead Soul” he advocates entirely removing any reference
to Israel from his own university. He wants the multicultural officer to stop
displaying the Israeli flag. He urges “expelling Zionism from civic
institutions” (p. 39), by which he means any references to Israel. Including in
this expulsion are the Hillel groups on college campuses: “There is no reason
why Hillel should not thus be banned from participating in any form of
multicultural celebration.” (p. 22)
Salaita is not actually
writing about Israel, a complex society with deep internal fissures. Nor does
he appear to know much about Zionists, who strongly disagree among themselves about everything, including the government’s current
military policies in Gaza. Instead he projects his vilification on an imaginary
enemy whom he calls “Zionist” and personifies the entire nation of Israel into
a child murderer. “Israel’s Dead Soul” is not the work of a scholar, but of a
polemicist, different from his tweets only it its effort to place his extreme
opinions in more refined language.
Virtually every bit of
writing about Salaita is highly charged and thus probably biased. But I and others have
read enough of his writings to see that he consistently, expresses one-sided
views, based not on research but on his preconceived ideas, filled with nasty condescension
toward everyone else.
But for me the decisive
factor is Salaita’s ability to discuss the subjects on which he focuses.
Professors have opinions, but we also have an overriding responsibility to
create spaces where our students, of all political persuasions and opinions,
including none at all, can learn about controversies and make decisions for
themselves. Salaita makes clear that he has no interest in discussion with
people who disagree with him: “It’s
simple: either condemn Israel’s actions or embrace your identity as someone
who’s okay with the wholesale slaughter of children.” Again: “Supporters of
Israel should be forced – A Clockwork Orange style – to view pics of smiling
children who were killed on endless repeat.” Again: “If you’re defending Israel
right now you’re an awful human being.”
As University President
Robert Easter said, Salaita appears “incapable of fostering a classroom
environment where conflicting opinions could be give equal consideration.” I
would not want him as a colleague.
Steve Hochstadt
Professor of History
Illinois College
A shorter version of this
essay was published in the Jacksonville Journal-Courier, September 23, 2014.
