The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

Shame on you, Tabsir

Without wanting to get into the recent decision by the British Academics' Union to pass a motion encouraging a boycott of Israeli universities and academics (I fully support this show of solidarity which remains, after all, optional and provides a course of action for selective boycott of academics who are in bed with the Israeli security establishment), I was rather dismayed to see this critic of the boycott use a picture of Nazi persecution of Jews in the 1930s. It's especially sad as this site, Tabsir, often has great posts on things Middle Eastern by well-known specialists in their fields. So what is that picture saying? That the majority of British academics who voted in favor of the boycott are Nazis? That they are anti-Semites? This is typical of the use of alleged anti-Semitism to deflect justified criticism of Israel, which after all has carried a brutal occupation for many decades. I expect it from Likudnik hacks like Abraham Foxman and the ADL, but not of Tabsir.