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The International Legal Forum (ILF), a nonprofit organization based in Tel Aviv which advocates for equality in Israel and the Middle East, on Sunday asked Princeton University to remove from the syllabus of a new Department of Near Eastern Studies course a book that accuses the Israeli Defense Forces of “maiming” Palestinians and of harvesting the organs of Palestinians they have killed, about which I wrote on Thursday. More on this request can be found here: “Legal Group Seeks Removal of ‘Blood Libel’ Book from Princeton University Course,” by Dion J. Pierre, Algemeiner, August 9, 2023:
The International Legal Forum (ILF), a nonprofit organization based in Tel Aviv which advocates for equality in Israel and the Middle East, on Sunday asked Princeton University to remove from the syllabus of a Department of Near Eastern Studies course a book that accuses the Israeli Defense Forces of “maiming” Palestinians and harvesting their organs.
Students in the class are assigned Rutgers University professor Jasbir Puar’s The Right to Maim for a course titled “The Healing Humanities: Decolonizing Trauma Studies from the Global South,” which will be taught by Professor Satyel Larson this fall. Right to Maim has been accused by academics of being “pseudo-scholarship” for trafficking in antisemitic blood libels rooted in medieval conspiracies charging that Jews murdered Christian children and drank their blood during Passover.
Puar began making such claims in Feb. 2016, when she said at Vassar College that “young Palestinian men…were mined for organs for scientific research.” At the same event, she accused Israel of committing “genocide in slow motion.” Later that year, during a panel at Dartmouth College she said Israel uses “maiming as a deliberate biopolitical tactic” to enforce settler-colonialism.
Jasbir Puar has been spreading her venomous lies about Israelis “mining the bodies of Palestinians for organs” on campuses since 2016. Such a record, one would have thought, would have led to an unwillingness to spread her views, but now it is 2023, and her book, The Right to Maim, now appears on the syllabus of a course to be taught this fall at Princeton. Her text was, we are told, “approved by the faculty,” but it turns out that the entire faculty was not asked. It was only those in the Near Eastern Studies Department, who gave their placet — not surprising, as that department’s members are, like those in Middle Eastern Studies Departments everywhere, adamantly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel, and willing, it seems, to allow the most monstrous charges against the Israelis to be disseminated in the hallowed halls of Princeton.
“Although we firmly believe in the notion of open debate on campus and do not take the call to exclude any kind of reading material lightly, the book in question does not contain any educational merit but only promulgates a dangerous conspiracy and age-old antisemitic trope,” said a letter ILF shared with The Algemeiner. “This kind of blind racism would not be permitted against any other minority not should it be tolerated with respect to Jewish students.”
The Right to Maim is not merely antisemitic. Its baseless charge against the Israelis harks directly back to the medieval blood libel against the Jews, who were accused of killing Christian children in order to use their blood to make Passover matzohs. Think of the tales of William of Norwich and Hugh of Lincoln, supposedly “killed by Jewes,” that led to the massacres of innocent Jews over many centuries in Europe.
ILF added that Princeton University’s record on keeping antisemitic ideas off its campus is spotted [sic], citing the English Department’s hosting controversial Palestinian activist Mohammed-El Kurd in January despite his history of spreading blood libels and insulting Jewish students who attend his events. The group also explained that admitting Puar’s book into its curricula violates both its commitment to pursuing truth as well as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism adopted by the US government in May and used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and the United Nations. Additionally, ILF argued that teaching the book may contravene Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which forbids discriminatory conduct at universities receiving federal funds.
The charges are lies — not merely matters of opinion, but flat-out lies. Neither Jasbir Puar, nor anyone else, has ever adduced a single example of the IDF “harvesting the organs of dead Palestinians.” Surely the Princeton faculty , and President Eisgreber, don’t want their university to become a laughingstock by allowing such antisemitic blood-libel material in a course. The university’s commitment to the truth matters….
Besides, the use of this book likely constitutes a violation of the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism. And finally, if Princeton allows Puar’s book to be taught, this likely violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, forbidding discriminatory conduct at institutions receiving federal funds. If this book is used, it may trigger a Title VI investigation, and the possible loss to Princeton of tens of millions of dollars in federal funds.
Princeton University president Christopher L. Eisgruber denounced antisemitism in May 2021, following a series of incidents in which, he said, “passing motorists…heckled identifiably Jewish students, accusing them of hostility toward Palestinians.”
Princeton’s president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, has a good record on calling out antisemitic acts on campus. His own mother was a Jewish refugee from Germany. He is keenly aware of the effects of antisemitism.
I am certain he did not know anything either about Jasbir Puar’s antisemitic book, or about its planned use in a new course at Princeton, until the scandal broke. But now he does know, and he has to do the right thing, for the good name of his institution, and insist that the book be removed from the syllabus. I am convinced that he will do so.
They won’t remove it but counter with “Middle East terrorists like Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, Taliban, etc… use women and children as Human Shields. Any person, no matter the age or gender, are burned alive in public displays. Islam’s Sharia Law allows the whipping, beating, and maiming of Women in Public! All support the destruction of Israel! All this, supported by American University Professors, many so-called Human Rights groups, and anyone against this is labeled as Islamophobic!”
REMINDER: Four Muslims were killed here in Albuquerque. The Democrats running for office, Michelle Lujan-Grisham, Raul Torres/AG, Melanie Stansbury/Congress and the President of the Islamic Center of NM who organized TWO PROTESTS IN SUPPORT OF HAMAS and who is also the unofficial advisor to UNM’s Muslim Student Association, ALL COME ON TV with outrage and promoted the ISLAMOPHOBIA LINE in a news conference praying and implying that it was a White Supremacist/Trump supporter. THEN, THE KILLER TURNED OUT TO BE A MUSLIM! Now what? They came back and it was like a funeral. Stansbury and Ahmad Assed/the President, still promoted Islamophobia. THEY ALL WON THEIR RACES! NM is pure blue now and a reason NM is 50th in many categories and #1 and #2 in crime.
JEW HATING is normal but dare say anything about Muslims….. oh golly!
Ina word………..NO!
Princeton and other Ivy League schools were more honest from around 1910 to the 1950s, when they had quotas restricting Jewish enrollment. Now they denounce “Zionism” and think people smarter than Joe Biden, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Maxine Waters and Hank Johnson are fooled. Funny how the Left engages in the most OBVIOUS dog whistle politics and think no one notices.
The LEFT (including univeristy presidents) have long ago made their choice. The presidents will remain cowards and do nothing. The LEFT has aligned with the Jew hating terrorists.
If Princeton does not remove the offensive text, that behavior signals that truth is unimportant on ANY given topic. Truth is the common currency between people that allows them to communicate. What possible goal is so important that it overrides the need for truth on a college campus? I would say they believe with a full heart that ridding the world of the particularism of Jews and Judaism will permit almost any behavior no matter how destructive. I am sure they are also bent out of shape about liver cells in the body being forced to take out the garbage for their entire lives, while brain cells make all the decisions.
Islam and. Hitler were united before the holocaust too. Look at the anti-semetism that reared its head then. History repeats itself. Ramaswamy had better retract his policy of stopping aid to Israel or he will lose alot of Christian Republican votes. Keep the left’s anti-semetism out of schools and Universities, and focus on education for future generations.
unfortunately mr. fitzgerald is delusional . that any left wing facility would backtrack on its unending diatribe against israel is folly . they will give lip service to what is the right thing to do all the while waiting for the dust to settle so they can continue their insidious poison in another form . they will continue to think what they have always believed . given half the chance they would be the first to light the gas ovens then puar would provide the lists of oven candidates . now that the u.s. has allowed itself to be white anted by islam it will be all downhill from here . after all muslims are the best of people according to their war mongering pedophile prophet and the rest are infidels and allah is the best of deceivers . so far he has done a great job as most in america and the west are deceived .
It’s a funny sort of genocide when the population increases and their leadership grows rich!
History teaches Jew-hatred, AKA, anti-Semitism, is unjustifiably inexplicable. It extends its demonic head and inexplicably, it finds a noticeable level of admirers. Some of those faithful to Islam and the teachings of the Koran may find “truth” in the necessity of murdering jews, but again, their “truth” is unjustifiable. So, jews are left with a world under constant threat of the demon, anti-Semitism, controlled by being attacked with a response exposing its ugliness. Still, only some will care to be concerned, the rest remain festering in the swamp of their hatred and ignorance.
Is this incident, and so many others like it , not perhaps a clear indication that university education is not that important, especially in the so called humanities?