City of…

So a few posts back I wrote about the growing debate about boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) in the U.S. and Israeli press. (If you don’t know what BDS is, click here and here to learn more!)

Well, the snark has hit the fan (in a manner that I, as a bit of a snark afficionado myself, truly appreciate), at least in the Israeli press.

Take a look at this op-ed from Rachel Giora in Ha’aretz, which starts out sounding like a defense of Ben Gurion University preisdent Rivka Carmi’s attack on Ben Gurion University professor Neve Gordon for publishing an article supporting boycott in the LA Times.

The mainstream Israeli press is superior to the mainstream U.S. press in a lot of ways, and apparently “level of snarkiness allowed” is one of them, because it quickly becomes evident (if you didn’t pick up on it from the title of the piece, “A Modest Proposal,” a reference to the Jonathan Swift’s 1729 essay in which Swift satirically proposes that Irish parents eat their own children in order to curb starvation) that Giora is letting Carmi and her crew have it, satirist style.

Just to give you a taste, here’s how the piece starts:

Like the president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Prof. Rivka Carmi, I too believe the demand that Dr. Neve Gordon resign as head of the university’s Department of Politics and Government is a legitimate and even modest demand, given the financial damage the university will sustain if he fails to do so. Accordingly, it is up to Gordon, who desires what is best for his institution, to comply with the demand forthwith.

Here’s how it ends:

Students, you are our future, and I have a modest proposal for you: Stay in the ivory tower. Try not to see reality as it is. And certainly do not describe it with pejorative words like “apartheid” or try to change it. Try to understand, in practical terms, what is worth studying and what you are better off not publishing, since your future depends mainly on the degree of flexibility you can display and on your ability to toe the line. Above all, you must remember that to adapt is to survive. See the Carmi case.

In between, Giora quotes a letter written by students to Carmi, which, if I can find a full version of, I will share, because the quote is priceless:

“We are taught history, but we are forbidden to learn from it. In gender studies, we are taught to identify violent discourse, but we are expected to go on speaking the routine and familiar militaristic language. We are taught to be social workers, but not to identify with exploited cleaning workers. Learning is allowed, but not drawing practical conclusions - especially not in a newspaper, in English, with a large circulation.”

Publish THAT, U.S. press!