Anti-Israel Prof Loses Post at Bard
Joel Kovel — one of the more outspoken professorial critics of Israel on American college campuses — is out of his job at Bard College. This week Kovel sent a letter to all Bard faculty members denouncing the way he has been treated and charging that his politics cost him the position.
Others suggest, however, that Kovel was treated the way many non-tenured professors are being treated these days as colleges retrench — and that mixed student reviews of his organizational skills in the classroom may have hurt him more than his politics.
And while the college is generally avoiding comment, some at Bard are angry at Kovel’s accusations that appear to link Israel’s treatment of Gaza with the college’s treatment of him.
His faculty letter concluded this way: “If the world stands outraged at Israeli aggression in Gaza, it should also be outraged at institutions in the United States that grant Israel impunity. In my view, Bard College is one such institution. It has suppressed critical engagement with Israel and Zionism, and therefore has enabled abuses such as have occurred and are occurring in Gaza. This notion is of course, not just descriptive of a place like Bard. It is also the context within which the critic of such a place and the Zionist ideology it enables becomes marginalized, and then removed.”
Kovel stands out among academic critics of Israel in that he does not just criticize actions of the government there, or advocate for a Palestinian state, but argues for the replacement of Israel with a secular state for Israelis and Palestinians....
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Others suggest, however, that Kovel was treated the way many non-tenured professors are being treated these days as colleges retrench — and that mixed student reviews of his organizational skills in the classroom may have hurt him more than his politics.
And while the college is generally avoiding comment, some at Bard are angry at Kovel’s accusations that appear to link Israel’s treatment of Gaza with the college’s treatment of him.
His faculty letter concluded this way: “If the world stands outraged at Israeli aggression in Gaza, it should also be outraged at institutions in the United States that grant Israel impunity. In my view, Bard College is one such institution. It has suppressed critical engagement with Israel and Zionism, and therefore has enabled abuses such as have occurred and are occurring in Gaza. This notion is of course, not just descriptive of a place like Bard. It is also the context within which the critic of such a place and the Zionist ideology it enables becomes marginalized, and then removed.”
Kovel stands out among academic critics of Israel in that he does not just criticize actions of the government there, or advocate for a Palestinian state, but argues for the replacement of Israel with a secular state for Israelis and Palestinians....