#faculty for israel

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Dion J. Pierre

Harvard University professors announced the founding of the school’s first “Faculty for Israel” group in a new op-ed for the campus newspaper.

“Israeli students and faculty are targets of pervasive anti-Israel hatred,” Jesse Fried and Matthew Meyerson wrote in the Harvard Crimson, explaining the need for such a group. “At Harvard, students have disrupted an Israeli professor’s lecture, an undergraduate has reported that a professor forced her to leave a classroom after she said she was Israeli, and an outside law firm engaged by Harvard found that another instructor discriminated against Israeli students on the basis of their national origin and identity.”

They added, “The message is clear: Zionists are not welcome,” and discussed the fits of antisemitism that have come over Harvard University students since Oct. 7, including an incident in which pro-Hamas students flooded a messaging forum with antisemitic tropes. They posted comments such as “we got too many damn jews [sic]…supporting our economy” and “she looks just as dumb as her nose is crooked.”

Harvard Faculty for Israel’s founding comes at an inflection point in the history of Harvard, whose reputation as the finest institution of higher education in the US has been besmirched by a series of crises which called into question not only the competence of its school officials but also the quality of the faculty and students being selected to share in its prestige.

Just this week, the Crimson reported, a Jewish student’s mezuzah “went missing” and could not be found by its owner for “several hours.” Later, Harvard University police found the prayer scroll “three doors down from the student’s room,” leaving the victim, Sarah Silverman, resolute in her belief that it was returned once a police investigation of the theft was launched.

In response, Harvard Chabad Rabbi Hirschy Zarchi implored Harvard to “recognize” the incident as a “hate crime.”

He added, “To tear down a mezuzah is to send a message of intimidation and erasure. It’s not just a matter of vandalism; it is an attack on the very identity of the Jewish community at Harvard.”

Meanwhile, the Crimson — a paper which has time and time again published articles which took as fact accusations of racial bias and just two years ago endorsed the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement which aims to destroy the world’s only Jewish state — saw it fit to note that there is not “any evidence” that a crime took place.

[falseandrealultravival]

The USA and Israel shall be destroyed by Russia and China (Essay)

Zero fighter

The following is the text of the letter I sent to the Japanese Ministry of Defense Intelligence Headquarters.

＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠

Personal Statement on Japan's Defense

I will state my personal opinion on Japan's defense. First of all, the basic premise is that the USA and Israel will be destroyed by fighting Russia and China. The USA only has 20% of the world's GDP, but has 60% of the world's military budget. (International political scientist: Ito Kan) This makes the USA a nation similar to North Korea, with a military power that exceeds the country's actual strength, and it will eventually have to be reduced. The power balance with China will tilt.

Furthermore, there is even a possibility that the USA will enter into an unavoidable civil war between the Republican and Democratic parties. If that happens, it will be a godsend for Russia and China, and they will be able to destroy the USA and Israel as easily as twisting a baby's arm.

So what should Japan do? We need to deploy laser weapons (defensive weapons) and a dozen nuclear weapons (offensive weapons) immediately so that we can remain above World War III. The US will never protect Japan with a "nuclear umbrella". That promise is, and always has been, an excuse to keep an eye on Japan and prevent it from becoming a nuclear power. The US still fears and hates Japan.

The above is my opinion as an engineer (Tokyo University, Faculty of Engineering).

PS: I called you at around 1:30 a.m. on March 24, 2025, to tell you about the matter I mentioned, but the phone operator was incompetent and did not put me through. He hung up the phone without my permission. The person answering the phone is important and should have the right level of insight. Putting an idiot in charge of the phone will be Japan's downfall.

Rei Morishita

USAとイスラエルは、ロシアと中国によって滅ぼされる（エッセイ）

以下は、私が日本の防衛省情報本部に送った手紙の文面です。

＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠

日本の防衛に関する私見陳述書

ゼロ戦

日本の防衛について私見を述べます。まず大前提としてアメリカ、イスラエルはロシア、中国と戦って滅びます。アメリカは世界全体のGDPの２０％の力しかないのに、世界全体の６０％の軍事予算を持っています。（国際政治学者：伊藤貫）これではアメリカは北朝鮮と同類の国家で、国の実力以上の軍事力で、いずれ削減せざるを得ません。中国とのパワーバランスは傾きます。

さらにアメリカは共和党と民主党とののっぴきならない内戦に突入する可能性す��あります。そうなればロシア、中国にとっては「渡りに船」、赤子の手をひねるようにアメリカ、イスラエルを滅ぼすことが可能です。

それでは日本はどうすれば良いか。第三次世界大戦に超然としていられるよう、レーザー兵器（防御兵器）と１ダースの核兵器（攻撃兵器）を急ぎ配備する必要があります。アメリカは決して日本を「核の傘」守ってくれません。その約束は、日本を監視し、核武装させないための口実ですし、これまでもそうでした。アメリカは今でも日本を怖れ、憎んでいるのです。

以上、工学士（東京大学工学部）としての私見を述べました。

追伸：去る２０２５年３月２４日午前１時３０分ころ、そちらに今回述べた件を伝えようと電話したのですが、電話オペレーターが無能で取次ぎませんでした。電話を勝手に切ったのです。電話番は重要で、それなりの見識の者を配置すべきです。オペレーターに馬鹿を置いては、日本の破滅です。

森下礼

[its-zaina]

The Faculty of Social Sciences, Denmark🇵🇸🔻.

|

[jcmarchi]

Researchers use earth’s magnetic field to verify Old Testament event - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/researchers-use-earths-magnetic-field-to-verify-old-testament-event-technology-org/

Researchers use earth’s magnetic field to verify Old Testament event - Technology Org

Research from Tel Aviv University (TAU) and three other Israeli universities will enable archaeologists to identify burnt materials discovered in excavations and estimate their firing temperatures. The new technique can determine whether a certain item, such as a mud brick, underwent a firing event even at relatively low temperatures, from 200°C (about 400°F) and higher. This information can be crucial for correctly interpreting the findings.

Applying their method to findings from ancient Gath (Tell es-Safi in central Israel), the researchers validated the Biblical account from 2 Kings 12,18: “About this time Hazael King of Aram went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned to attack Jerusalem.” (2 Kings 12, 18).

Dr. Yoav Vaknin led the multidisciplinary study from the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, Entin Faculty of Humanities, at TAU and the Palaeomagnetic Laboratory at The Hebrew University. Other contributors included Professor Ron Shaar from the Institute of Earth Sciences at The Hebrew University, Professors Erez Ben-Yosef and Oded Lipschits from the Nadler Institute at TAU, Professor Aren Maeir from the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University, and Dr. Adi Eliyahu Behar from the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology and the Department of Chemical Sciences at Ariel University. The paper has been published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

“Throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages, the main building material in most parts of the Land of Israel was mud bricks,” Professor Lipschits explains. “This cheap and readily available material was used to build walls in most buildings, sometimes on top of stone foundations. That’s why it’s so important to understand the technology used in making these bricks.”

The new method measures the magnetic field recorded and “locked” in the brick as it burned and cooled down. In the second stage of the procedure, the researchers gradually “erase” the brick’s magnetic field using a process called thermal demagnetization. This involves heating the brick in a special oven that neutralizes the earth’s magnetic field. The heat releases the magnetic signals, which once again arrange themselves randomly, canceling each other out, and the total magnetic signal becomes weak and loses its orientation.

The researchers fired mud bricks under controlled temperature and magnetic field conditions, measured each brick’s acquired magnetic field, then gradually erased it. They found that the bricks were completely demagnetized at the temperature at which they had been burned, proving that the method works.

“Our approach enables identifying burning which occurred at much lower temperatures than any other method,” Dr. Vaknin says. “Most techniques used for identifying burnt bricks are based on actual changes in the minerals, which usually occur at temperatures higher than 500°C [932°F], when some minerals are converted into others.”

After proving the method’s validity, the researchers applied it to a specific archaeological dispute: Whether a specific brick structure discovered at Tell es-Safi — identified as the Philistine city of Gath, home of Goliath — was built of pre-fired bricks or burned on location. The prevalent hypothesis, based on the Old Testament, historical sources, and carbon-14 dating attributes the destruction of the structure to the devastation of Gath by Hazael, King of Aram Damascus, around 830 BCE. But a previous paper by researchers including Professor Maeir, head of the Tell es-Safi excavations, proposed that the building had not burned down, but rather collapsed over decades, and that the fired bricks found in the structure had been fired in a kiln prior to construction. If this hypothesis were correct, this would be the earliest instance of brick-firing technology discovered in the Land of Israel.

To settle the dispute, the current research team applied the new method to samples from the wall at Tell es-Safi and the collapsed debris found beside it. The findings were conclusive: The magnetic fields of all bricks and collapsed debris displayed the same orientation, north and downwards. “Our findings signify that the bricks burned and cooled down in-situ, right where they were found, namely in a conflagration in the structure itself, which collapsed within a few hours,” Dr. Vaknin says. “Had the bricks been fired in a kiln and then laid in the wall, their magnetic orientations would have been random. Moreover, had the structure collapsed over time, not in a single fire event, the collapsed debris would have displayed random magnetic orientations.

“We believe that the main reason for our colleagues’ mistaken interpretation was their inability to identify burning at temperatures below 500°C. Since heat rises, materials at the bottom of the building burned at relatively low temperatures, below 400°C, and consequently the former study did not identify them as burnt. At the same time, bricks in upper parts of the wall, where temperatures were much higher, underwent mineralogical changes and were therefore identified as burnt, leading the researchers to conclude that they had been fired in a kiln prior to construction. Our method allowed us to determine that all bricks in both the wall and debris had burned during the conflagration: those at the bottom burned at relatively low temperatures, and those that were found in higher layers or had fallen from the top – at temperatures higher than 600°C.”

“Our findings are very important for deciphering the intensity of the fire and scope of destruction at Gath, the largest and most powerful city in the Land of Israel at the time, as well as understanding the building methods prevailing in that era,” Professor Maeir concludes. “It’s important to review conclusions from previous studies, and sometimes even refute former interpretations, even if they came from your own school.”

Source: AFTAU

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

[fairuzfan]

What's new(ish) in the settler-colonial state of the US is that a series of bills have been passed in the House (the Baby Senate as I like to say) and are on their way to the Senate that make it harder to voice support for Palestinians while also making sure your direct taxes aid the genocide in Gaza.

These bills affirm the US's stance on the settler-colonial Zionist Entity and the implicit ties that the government has with Israel and really — just goes to show you how Israel is just one big base for American Imperialism.

Anyways, there's still time to call your senate and tell them that you don't want these bills that only further spiral the US into fascism so even if you think it might not do much — it's important that we document our dissent in official sources. And while you're at it — call your congressperson and tell them that if they voted for this you're not voting for them next election. If they voted against the bills, still call your congresspeople and tell them you support their decision to vote against these bills.

Here are the bills:

📍Resolution: HR 6126

Resolution Name: Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act Description: Gives $14.3 Billion To Israel From The IRS (Taxes You Pay). Like straight up. Just takes it from an IRS project, which used our tax dollars to begin with, to give to Israel "defense." Link to check summary: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr6126

📍Resolution: HR 798

Resolution Name: "Condemning the support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations at institutions of higher education, which may lead to the creation of a hostile environment for Jewish students, faculty, and staff." Description: Will Penalize Students On American College Campuses For Supporting Palestine. This includes "Free Palestine" Protests as according to Rep Owens who introduced the bill (Click). Link to check who voted: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/118-2023/h578

📍Resolution: HR 3266

Resolution Name: "Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act" Description: They will be examining Palestinian education materials to see if it promotes "hate" or "violence" (aka are they teaching their children to become murderers??). Will inevitably require Revision Of Text Books In Palestinian Schools To Portray The Occupation In A Positive Light. Link to summary: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr3266

📍Resolution: HR 340

Resolution Name: "The Hamas International Financing Prevent Action" Description: Claims to stop financial support for "terrorist" organizations but considering that Gaza's government is run by Hamas, then this would mean Gaza will receive absolutely no aid and donating to people in Gaza could get you in legal trouble. Link to summary: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr340

There's a button for most of these bills that allows you to contact your representative directly. Please do take the time to contact them — while many of this isn't especially new to Palestinians, the difference is now that we have a larger power in numbers than we did in the past. Please make sure to advocate for you Palestinian comrades in the US whenever possible! Help us Free Palestine one step at a time!

[zvaigzdelasas]

New York University led by troubling example when the school shared an updated code of student conduct last week. Ostensibly aimed at curtailing bigotry, the new language instead shuts down dissent by threatening to silence criticism of Zionism on campus. Students who speak out against Zionism — an ethno-nationalist political ideology founded in the late 19th century — will now risk violating the school’s nondiscrimination policies.[...]

Tucked into a document purportedly offering clarification on school policy, the new NYU guidelines introduce an unprecedented expansion of protected classes to include “Zionists” and “Zionism.” Referring to the university’s nondiscrimination and anti-harassment policy, known as NDAH, the updated conduct guide says, “Speech and conduct that would violate the NDAH if targeting Jewish or Israeli people can also violate the NDAH if directed toward Zionists.”[...]

“Using code words, like ‘Zionist,’” the guide says, “does not eliminate the possibility that your speech violates the NDAH policy.”[...]

The entire premise of the guidance — that “Zionist” must be functioning as a “code word — is a flaw egregious enough to reject the entire document outright.

The language here is of utmost importance. The text does not say that “Zionist” can and has been used by antisemites as a code word, which is no doubt true. Instead, it takes it as a given that, when used critically, “Zionist” simply is a code word.[...]

According to NYU’s guidance, then, Zionist and Zionism are either antisemitic dog whistles when invoked critically or a protected category akin to a race, ethnicity, or religious identity. Ethically committed and politically informed anti-Zionism — including the beliefs of many anti-Zionist Jews like myself who reject the conflation of our identity and heritage with an ethnostate project — is foreclosed, and the long history of Jewish anti-Zionism, which has existed as long as Zionism itself, is all but erased.[...]

“For many Jewish people, Zionism is a part of their Jewish identity,” the NYU guidance says. And this is of course true. That does not, however, make Zionism an essential part of Jewish identity.

There are conservative Christians for whom the damnation of homosexuality is a key part of their Christian faith too, but Republican lawfare to see homophobic positions enshrined as protected religious expression have been rightly and consistently condemned by the liberal mainstream.

“The new guidance sets a dangerous precedent by extending Title VI protections to anyone who adheres to Zionism, a nationalist political ideology, and troublingly equates criticism of Zionism with discrimination against Jewish people,” NYU’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine said in a statement in response to the updated conduct guide.[...]

“Furthermore, the new guidance implies that any nationalist political ideology (Hindu nationalism, Christian nationalism, etc.) that is integrated into some members of that group’s understanding of their own racial or ethnic identity should be entitled to civil rights protections.”

27 Aug 24

[sizablelad]

the amount of antisemitic events and violence that’s occurred in mtl over the past couple weeks is INSANE

[nesmamomen]

After the Zionists threatened to kill my sister, I tried to compensate her for her loss, fear and psychological devastation by publishing her campaign. My sister is a student in the Faculty of Pharmacy and participated in medical conferences and was an active member in them. She recently received many messages from the Zionists threatening to kill her if she continues to publish Israel's crimes on her social media accounts. Therefore, I am addressing you, my friends, and asking for your urgent support to support my sister's campaign, through which she aims to complete her education and get out of the war zone

I did not ask you to do this except because I know that you are brothers to the Palestinians and will support us.

Her campaign has been verified by

@\nabulsi @\el-shab-hussein here @\ibtisams here @\90-ghoat here

🎯€2775 left to reach the first goal

@fancysmudges @brokenbackmountain @aleciosun @fluoresensitive @khizuo @lesbiandardevil @transmutationsquare @schoolhater @timogsilangan @appsa @buttercuparry @sayruq @malcriada @palestinegenocide @sar-soor @akajustmerry @annoyingloudmicrowavecultist @feluka @tortiefrancis @flower-tea-fairies @tsaricides @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @visenyasdragon @belleandsaintsebastian @ear-motif @kordeliiius @brutaliakhoa @raelyn-dreams @troythecatfish @theropoda @tamarrud @4ft10tvlandfangirl @queerstudiesnatural @northgazaupdates2 @skatezophrenic @awetistic-things @camgirlpanopticon @baby-girl-aaron-dessner @nabulsi @sygutka @junglejim4322 @heritageposts @chososhairbuns @palistani @dlxxv-vetted-donations @illuminated-runas @imjustheretotrytohelp

[kropotkindersurprise]

May 23, 2024 - Over a thousand Harvard students and faculty walked out of the offcial Harvard commencement ceremony to hold a People's Commencement, in solidarity with Palestine and the 15 seniors having their degrees withheld by Harvard for protesting against Israel's genocide. [video]

[notaplaceofhonour]

Columbia Encampment: “We support Hamas and the destruction of Israel!”

Jews and multiple faculty at Columbia: “This… seems dangerous & violent?”

everybody else for months: “Psshhh no the Columbia encampment it’s just a peaceful anti-war protest! They just want Columbia to divest from the Israeli government!”

Columbia encampment: “In no uncertain terms, we are trying to extend the success of October 7th to America in the form of unrest and violence to bring about the total collapse of our University & eradicate America.”

[memecucker]

“This latest bill is part of a continued effort by the [California] Legislative Jewish Caucus to impose ideological constraints upon ethnic studies as a field to disallow the critical teaching of Palestine within K-12 education in California,” Christine Hong, a professor of critical race and ethnic studies at the University of California (UC) Santa Cruz and co-chair of the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council (UCESFC) told Truthout.

While AB 1468’s authors are Democrats who have condemned the Trump administration’s attacks on public education, Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC), said the proposed bill would have similar effects as efforts in Republican-controlled states and on the federal level seeking to whitewash K-12 and college curricula and turn back the clock on civil rights progress.

“The Democrats and others who are championing these bills may not explicitly say themselves or even identify as part of the far right MAGA agenda, but it’s indisputable that what they are doing is in alignment with the broader attack on public education and the attack on anti-racist education, in particular,” Kiswani told Truthout.

AB 1468’s lead sponsor is the Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California (JPAC), one pillar of whose policy framework is to “maintain a strong California-Israel relationship,” including through “combat[ing] campaigns to delegitimize and demonize Israel.” JPAC lists the Anti-Defamation League and other Zionist organizations among its members.

Last year, members of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus proposed a raft of bills meant to stifle Palestine-related speech in public schools and on college campuses. Among those was AB 2918, a predecessor to AB 1468. When a diverse coalition of educators and advocates mounted a pressure campaign and succeeded in having it shelved, sponsors vowed to reintroduce it this year. “AB 1468 is AB 2918, but on steroids,” Guadalupe Cardona, a high school educator and member of the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, told Truthout.

The new bill would require all ethnic studies curricula, instruction and instructional materials to undergo public hearings, be vetted by the state, and be posted on the Department of Education’s website. AB 1468 also outlines standards according to which ethnic studies materials should be reviewed, including mandating that instruction focus on “domestic experience and stories” and not cover “abstract ideological theories, causes, or pedagogies.”

In the proposed legislation, “there are so many layers of policing and surveillance that no other academic area has,” Tricia Gallagher-Geurtsen, co-chair of the San Diego Unified School District Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee and a lecturer in critical race and ethnic studies at UC Santa Cruz, told Truthout. “It’s absolutely unprecedented overreach, and it’s an arm of the state trying to censor what our children are learning [and] censor the truth of our students’ realities.”

Under AB 1468, the body responsible for vetting ethnic studies materials would be the California State Board of Education’s Instructional Quality Commission, whose current members include Sen. Ben Allen and Anita Friedman. Friedman is a board trustee of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and executive director of Jewish Family and Children’s Services, an organization known for its efforts to silence discussions of Palestine and anti-Zionism in schools.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

You can’t save an institution by betraying its mission

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in SAN DIEGO at MYSTERIOUS GALAXY on Mar 24, and in CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL on Apr 2. More tour dates here.

Paula Le Dieu is one of the smartest, most committed archivists I know. Many years ago, she shared a neat analogy with me about the paywalling of public archives, a phenomenon that has become rampant as public institutions have been pushed to seek private funding to close the gaps left by swingeing cuts.

Closing up these archives in order to give these new "investors" a chance to make their money back is pitched as just "good business." But – as Paula pointed out – this isn't how business works at all! If you are an early-stage investor to a startup, providing patient capital in its early stages, then later investors don't get to zero out your shares. If a museum or public broadcaster is a business, then the public is the early investor, and their share is access. Taking away free access is tantamount to wiping out our investment.

But of course, public institutions aren't businesses, and they don't exist to make profits. They exist to serve the public interest. If your public health system, public education system, public archives, public museum or public parks are making a profit, then something is desperately wrong.

Managers of these public institutions forget this lesson at their peril. Every public institution eventually faces an existential funding crisis, and when that crisis strikes, the only thing that will save you is public support. Back in 2014, I got to speak to a group of curators about this when I keynoted the Museums and the Web conference in Florence:

https://mwf2014.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/glam-and-the-free-world/index.html

Since then, I've had many chances to talk with Paula about her views on archiving in these apocalyptic times. She's come up with a crisp formulation of the point I tried to make in that speech – when archives trade access off for preservation, they sign their own death warrants. As I said in my speech, if you don't maximize public access to your archive, then there will come a day when they take away your funding and the public won't care because you locked them out of their own collection. When that happens, all your careful preservation work will be used to prepare the auction catalog for the sale of your collection to the "philanthropic" billionaires who insisted that you lock up the collection in the first place. Your meticulous documentation will become the manifest for a shipping container full of formerly public treasures that will henceforth reside in a lightless, climate-controlled warehouse in the Geneva Freeport.

My conversations with Paula came back to me this weekend when I listened to Corey Rubin talking with Brooke Gladstone on NPR's On the Media, about the universities that are seeking to avert Trump's attacks by sacrificing students and faculty who spoke out against Israel's genocidal attacks on Palestine:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/mahmoud-khalil-and-a-new-red-scare-plus-press-freedom-under-threat

From Columbia's complicity in the kidnapping of green card holder Mahmoud Khalil, a grad student now held in immigration detention in Louisiana; to Yale professor Helyeh Doutaghi, suspended because an AI-driven pro-Israel site hallucinated a connection between her and Hamas:

https://coreyrobin.com/2025/03/15/mccarthyism-at-yale-then-and-now/

These institutions – and others, like the LA Children's Hospital, which halted gender-affirming care for trans kids – aren't merely "complying in advance." They are betraying their mission in order to save their bacon:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-02-04/childrens-hospital-to-stop-initiating-hormonal-therapy-for-trans-patients-under-19

This will come back to bite them in the ass. This is like firefighters doing a bit of arson on the side to make ends meet, and thinking that the townsfolk will continue to vote to maintain their budget.

I get it: it's damned easy to convince yourself that you need to destroy the village to save it. By "living to fight another day," you will get more chances to serve the public. Rationalization is a hell of a drug:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Trump and his fascist movement wont't let up on their assault against institutions that support free inquiry, care, justice and openness. Rolling over for them now will not keep you safe tomorrow. But with every betrayal, these institutions alienate more and more of the public, without whose support they are ultimately doomed. Supporters will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no supporters.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/19/selling-out/#destroy-the-village-to-save-it

Image: Ajay Suresh https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajay_suresh/52009406881/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[jcmarchi]

MIT-Kalaniyot launches programs for visiting Israeli scholars

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/mit-kalaniyot-launches-programs-for-visiting-israeli-scholars/

MIT-Kalaniyot launches programs for visiting Israeli scholars

Over the past 14 months, as the impact of the ongoing Israel-Gaza war has rippled across the globe, a faculty-led initiative has emerged to support MIT students and staff by creating a community that transcends ethnicity, religion, and political views. Named for a flower that blooms along the Israel-Gaza border, MIT-Kalaniyot began hosting weekly community lunches that typically now draw about 100 participants. These gatherings have gained the interest of other universities seeking to help students not only cope with but thrive through troubled times, with some moving to replicate MIT’s model on their own campuses.

Now, scholars at Israel’s nine state-recognized universities will be able to compete for MIT-Kalaniyot fellowships designed to allow Israel’s top researchers to come to MIT for collaboration and training, advancing research while contributing to a better understanding of their country.

The MIT-Kalaniyot Postdoctoral Fellows Program will support scholars who have recently graduated from Israeli PhD programs to continue their postdoctoral training at MIT. Meanwhile, the new MIT-Kalaniyot Sabbatical Scholars Program will provide faculty and researchers holding sabbatical-eligible appointments at Israeli research institutions with fellowships for two academic terms at MIT.

Announcement of the fellowships through the association of Israeli university presidents spawned an enthusiastic response. 

“We’ve received many emails, from questions about the program to messages of gratitude. People have told us that, during a time of so much negativity, seeing such a top-tier academic program emerge feels like a breath of fresh air,” says Or Hen, the Class of 1956 Associate Professor of Physics and associate director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science, who co-founded MIT-Kalaniyot with Ernest Fraenkel, the Grover M. Hermann Professor in Health Sciences and Technology.

Hen adds that the response from potential program donors has been positive, as well.

“People have been genuinely excited to learn about forward-thinking efforts and how they can simultaneously support both MIT and Israeli science,” he says. “We feel truly privileged to be part of this meaningful work.”

MIT-Kalaniyot is “a faculty-led initiative that emerged organically as we came to terms with some of the challenges that MIT was facing trying to keep focusing on its mission during a very difficult period for the U.S., and obviously for Israelis and Palestinians,” Fraenkel says.

As the MIT-Kalaniyot Program gained momentum, he adds, “we started talking about positive things faculty can do to help MIT fulfill its mission and then help the world, and we recognized many of the challenges could actually be helped by bringing more brilliant scholars from Israel to MIT to do great research and to humanize the face of Israelis so that people who interact with them can see them, not as some foreign entity, but as the talented person working down the hallway.”

“MIT has a long tradition of connecting scholarly communities around the world,” says MIT President Sally Kornbluth. “Programs like this demonstrate the value of bringing people and cultures together, in pursuit of new ideas and understanding.”    

Open to applicants in the humanities, architecture, management, engineering, and science, both fellowship programs aim to embrace Israel’s diverse demographics by encouraging applications from all communities and minority groups throughout Israel.

Fraenkel notes that because Israeli universities reflect the diversity of the country, he expects scholars who identify as Israeli Arabs, Palestinian citizens of Israel, and others could be among the top candidates applying and ultimately selected for MIT-Kalaniyot fellowships. 

MIT is also expanding its Global MIT At-Risk Fellows Program (GMAF), which began last year with recruitment of scholars from Ukraine, to bring Palestinian scholars to campus next fall. Fraenkel and Hen noted their close relationship with GMAF-Palestine director Kamal Youcef-Toumi, a professor in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.  

“While the programs are independent of each other, we value collaboration at MIT and are hoping to find positive ways that we can interact with each other,” Fraenkel says.

Also growing up alongside MIT-Kalaniyot’s fellowship programs will be new Kalaniyot chapters at universities such as the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth College, where programs have already begun, and others where activity is starting up. MIT’s inspiration for these efforts, Hen and Fraenkel say, is a key aspect of the Kalaniyot story.

“We formed a new model of faculty-led communities,” Hen says. “As faculty, our roles typically center on teaching, mentoring, and research. After October 7 happened, we saw what was happening around campus and across the nation and realized that our roles had to expand. We had to go beyond the classroom and the lab to build deeper connections within the community that transcends traditional academic structures. This faculty-led approach has become the essence of MIT-Kalaniyot, and is now inspiring similar efforts across the nation.”

Once the programs are at scale, MIT plans to bring four MIT-Kalaniyot Postdoctoral Fellows to campus annually (for three years each), as well as four MIT-Kalaniyot Sabbatical Scholars, for a total of 16 visiting Israeli scholars at any one time.

“We also hope that when they go back, they will be able to maintain their research ties with MIT, so we plan to give seed grants to encourage collaboration after someone leaves,” Fraenkel says. “I know for a lot of our postdocs, their time at MIT is really critical for making networks, regardless of where they come from or where they go. Obviously, it’s harder when you’re across the ocean in a very challenging region, and so I think for both programs it would be great to be able to maintain those intellectual ties and collaborate beyond the term of their fellowships.”

A common thread between the new Kalaniyot programs and GMAF-Palestine, Hen says, is to rise beyond differences that have been voiced post-Oct. 7 and refocus on the Institute’s core research mission.

“We’re bringing in the best scholars from the region — Jews, Israelis, Arabs, Palestinians — and normalizing interactions with them and among them through collaborative research,” Hen says. “Our mission is clear: to focus on academic excellence by bringing outstanding talent to MIT and reinforcing that we are here to advance research in service of humanity.”

[mariacallous]

Students and activists from multiple faiths are sounding the alarm over the Trump administration and lawmakers’ efforts to silence dissent on college campuses over issues like Palestinian rights — accusing officials of using allegations of antisemitism as a pretext to crush free speech and exert control over the country’s higher education system.

At a hearing Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee listened to testimony related to the rise in antisemitism in the U.S., particularly after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023. With the exception of temporary, fragile ceasefires, Israeli forces have been fighting in Gaza — and destroying infrastructure and killing civilians — ever since.

The U.S. also has seen a rise in Islamophobia since the attack, though Wednesday’s Senate hearing did not include concerns over that issue. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Republican-controlled committee’s ranking member, stressed that the panel under his leadership had held multiple hearings on hate against all faiths. He added that the mother of Wadee Alfayoumi, the 6-year-old Palestinian American boy murdered by his landlord in Illinois, attended a previous hearing.

“It was clearly a hate crime, and it was based on their religion,” Durbin said. “And the fact that that was part of the hearing did not diminish in any way my strong feelings about antisemitism. It is the same hatred that we’re trying to stamp out today.”

In the spring of 2024, protests erupted on college campuses across the country, with students and faculty of all faiths peacefully demanding that the U.S. government – the Biden administration at the time – stop supporting Israel in its destruction of Gaza and the Palestinian people.

Similar to the students who protested the Vietnam War, participants faced police brutality, far-right agitators, retaliation by their schools and mostly unfounded accusations of being antisemitic. Just Wednesday, Columbia University’s Barnard College expelled a third student for participating in pro-Palestinian activism.

“It is essential we continue working to dismantle real antisemitism while also defending our friends and community members who are falsely accused of antisemitism,” Ellie Baron, a Bryn Mawr College student who is part of this year’s graduating class, said in a statement. “The only [way]forward is through forging greater solidarity with all people who are targeted by fascism and supremacist ideologies, including antisemitism and anti-Palestinian racism.”

President Donald Trump has threatened to essentially sanction universities that allow peaceful protests for Palestinian human rights, and he has even called for revoking the visas of foreign students who participate in those protests. At Wednesday’s hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) repeatedly questioned why the government should not enact Trump’s pledge todeport foreign students who commit “an act of violence against a Jewish student.”

“Well, that’s already the law,” civil liberties attorney Jenin Younes posted on X. “So everyone with a brain knows these ‘antisemitism’ related [executive orders] aren’t about prosecuting violent crime or other illegal conduct like harassment and vandalizing property. They’re about suppressing disfavored speech and you’re smart enough to know that this is a grave violation of 1A.”

Despite Trump and his allies’ statements that they care about Jewish safety, the president’s actions have done the opposite. Trump and his billionaire friend Elon Musk are behind the layoffs of at least a dozen government officials from the Education Department’s office of civil rights, which looked into students’ complaints of discrimination — including antisemitism.

The president has a history of objectively antisemitic statements, like saying that any Jewish person who votes for Democrats “hates their religion,” and implying that Jewish Americans have dual loyalty with Israel. On his first day in office this term, Trump issued full pardons to rioters who carried out the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, including white nationalists and others who brought antisemitic symbols to the Capitol.

Musk has also come under fire for giving a Nazi-like salute during an event, openly supporting far-right German politics and saying that society should stop paying so much attention to the Holocaust.

“It is reprehensible that MAGA senators who have aligned themselves with white nationalists and antisemites like Elon Musk are putting on this hearing to crack down on the movement for Palestinian rights and for our civil liberties writ large under the guise of fighting antisemitism,” Jewish progressive group IfNotNow said Wednesday. “We refuse to let our Jewish community be the face of the Trump-Musk administration’s attacks on our rights.”

Protecting education and open dialogue is vital to “the ability of Jewish students to succeed and thrive,” Tufts University student Meirav Solomon testified at the Senate hearing on Wednesday.

Some lawmakers support adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which labels most criticism of the State of Israel as antisemitic. Civil and human rights groups – as well as the definition’s original co-author – have strongly opposed it as “overbroad” and “unconstitutional,” particularly in education spaces.

In November, a federal judge ruled that a state-level executive order threatening funding to Texas colleges and universities who don’t update campus free speech policies to include the IHRA definition of antisemitism likely violates the First Amendment.

“Distorting the meaning of antisemitism and making Jews the face of a campaign to crush free speech is deeply dangerous to Jewish Americans,” Barry Trachtenberg, presidential chair of Jewish history at Wake Forest University, said in a statement, “and all of us who work for collective liberation.”

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Niles Niemuth

The Toronto Police Service (TPS) escalated their campaign to crackdown on and suppress protests against the Gaza genocide last week with the announcement of a second arrest in relation to a March 7 protest. In addition to mischief charges which could bring up to 10 years in prison, the two demonstrators are facing charges of “disguise with intent” for wearing medical masks which protect from COVID-19 and other infectious diseases during the protest. This latter “offence” also carries a maximum sentence of a decade in prison.

“While demonstrations may end, investigations into criminal activity continue and we pursue all leads to hold individuals accountable,” Toronto Police Chief Myron Demikw declared in a statement Tuesday on X. He then boasted, “Over the last year we have made 80 demonstration-related arrests and laid 124 charges. Arrests can happen at any time after an offence.”

Tens of thousands in Toronto and across Canada have turned out to protest week after week for more than a year as Israel, with the backing of American imperialism and Ottawa, has carried out its ethnic cleansing operation in Gaza launched in the aftermath of the October 7 uprising led by Hamas. Protesters’ demands that the trade union-backed Liberal Trudeau government press for a ceasefire and stop arming Israel have been rebuffed, with Trudeau and Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly instead smearing protesters opposing genocide as “antisemites.”

Pro-Palestinian protest encampments erected by students, faculty and supporters on campuses across Canada have been broken up by court injunctions and police raids. The deployment of far-right Zionist vigilante groups on campus to provide “security” has been openly encouraged by the federal government, with a new law passed enabling private security firms to access government funding. Groups in line to profit from this funding stream include Magen Herut, whose members must be Zionists and have experience in policing or military service, and Shomrim, an international vigilante group present in Hasidic communities. Magen Herut members have “patrolled” at anti-genocide protests, where they have surveilled and intimidated participants.

Immediately upon Israel’s launch of its genocidal onslaught on Gaza, Canada’s political establishment closed ranks to launch a vicious witchhunt against anyone who spoke out against the mass slaughter. The New Democrats, who were in a confidence-and-supply agreement with the Liberals at the time, threw Member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament Sarah Jama out of their parliamentary caucus because she issued a statement declaring her solidarity with the Palestinians and accusing Israel of apartheid, an accusation supported by the United Nations. Trudeau has repeatedly sought to intimidate protesters by repeating the lies of extreme Zionist forces, including in February when he accused demonstrators of being antisemites merely because they marched past Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital.

With the backing of the governments of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Tory Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Demikw and the TPS have launched a far reaching campaign of harassment and arrests of pro-Palestinian protesters under the title “Project Resolute.” The Breach published an investigation in June which revealed the extensive character of the secretive political policing operation, which has included early morning raids, trumped-up charges and efforts to turn protesters into informants.

The police operations have gone hand in hand with the efforts of the political establishment to smear protesters as “antisemitic.” Eleven people were arrested last November in relation to a postering protest against the CEO of Indigo Books, who happens to be Jewish, over her campaign to support the Israel Defense Forces, with the police insinuating that their actions were “hate motivated.”

Demikw and TPS have been carrying out their crackdown in coordination with the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Canada’s premier spy agency.

Faisal Ibrahim, 38, was arrested and charged on October 19 with one count of mischief, interfering with property and a count of disguise with intent in relation to the March 7 protest. A research assistant and teaching assistant at the University of Toronto, Ibrahim had been targeted by Zionist social media pages for his pro-Palestinian activism before being charged by TPS.

Rachelle Friesen, 38, of the Student Christian Movement of Canada and Community Peacemaker Teams, was charged on October 1 with two counts of mischief that obstructs, interrupts or interferes with the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property and one count of disguise with intent in relation to pro-Palestinian protests on November 13, 2023 and March 7, 2024.

After living in Israel for five years, including four as Peace Program Coordinator with the Mennonite Central Committee, Friesen was deported from the country in 2014 and banned for 10 years for her advocacy on behalf of the Palestinians.

Protesters interrupted the Scotiabank Giller Prize gala at the Four Seasons Hotel in Yorkville on November 13, 2023 to protest the bank’s complicity in the Gaza genocide. Evan Curle and Maysam Abu Khreibeh, both 25, and Fatima Hussain, 23, were charged at the time with obstructing, interrupting, or interfering with the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property and using a forged document.

March 7, meanwhile, was a day of action by students and others protesting RBC and calling for the bank to divest from support for Israel, respect Indigenous sovereignty and end financing for the Trans Mountain Expansion and Coastal Gas Link pipelines.

The police claim that both Friesen and Ibrahim “wore medical masks to conceal their identity” during a March 7 protest in Midtown Toronto and that their participation prevented an employee from entering her workplace and forced her to leave the area in fear of her safety.

In another recent effort to suppress the protests, the Trudeau government in coordination with the Biden administration in the United States banned the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network as a “terrorist entity” and placed sanctions on activist Khaled Barakat.

Samidoun has organized protests in opposition to the Gaza genocide across Canada. Its international coordinator Charlotte Kates was arrested in April in Vancouver following a speech in which she led the crowd in a chant of “Long live October 7th” and advocated for the delisting of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and other groups as terrorist organizations. The organization’s listing as a terrorist entity resulted in its bank accounts being frozen and make it difficult for members to travel internationally.

The unanimous endorsement of Israel’s genocide within the political establishment has introduced a climate of fear and censorship into Canadian cultural life. In the latest example of this, the Aurora Cultural Center north of Toronto closed down an exhibit titled Expressions of Critical Thought after one day this month due to complaints of “antisemitism” on social media because some of the works on display referenced Palestine. The Center told the artists in an October 4 email that the show was being censored due to “concerns raised by members of our community regarding the traumatic responses to some of the artworks.”

“I feel what they did contributes to the consistent dehumanization of Arabs in general,” Iraqi-Canadian artist Hala Alsalman told Hyperallergic. “I’m the only Arab who was showing, but obviously it’s not just me, it’s all of us.” Chantal Hassard, a co-curator of the show and grandchild of Holocaust survivors, noted that there was nothing antisemitic about the art on display and the claims were a “dangerous mischaracterization of the term.”

[misfitwashere]

How Trump seeks to destroy the four major pillars of resistance

But we lose only if we stop fighting

ROBERT REICH

JAN 10

Friends,

Trump and his MAGA allies are already targeting the four major pillars of resistance to Trump during his first term. 

As we prepare for Trump’s second regime — which promises to be far worse than the first — it’s important to do what we can to protect and fortify these four centers of opposition. 

1. Universities

University faculties are dedicated to finding and exposing the truth — which has often meant calling out Trump’s lies. But Trump has warned that he’ll change the criteria for university accrediting in order to force university faculties into line.

In a campaign video, he said, “Our secret weapon will be the college accreditation system … When I return to the White House, I will fire the radical left accreditors that have allowed our colleges to become dominated by Marxist Maniacs.”

Authorized by the federal government, these accreditors are essential to college operations. If a college isn’t accredited, it can’t get federal funds.

Trump’s Project 2025 calls for replacing the current system of independent, nonpartisan accreditors with more politically pliable state accreditors. This would have disastrous effects. 

Many of the worst educational gag orders at the state level, along with DEI bans and faculty tenure bans, have been voted down or toned down because state legislators realized they were putting their schools’ accreditation status in jeopardy. If Project 2025’s recommendations are adopted, that guardrail disappears.

Trump has also threatened to increase taxes on university endowments. 

Republicans in Congress believe they were instrumental in getting the presidents of Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard to resign over their alleged failures to stop protests against Israel’s bloodbath in Gaza. Some are eager to resume their attacks on major universities.

2. Nonprofits

America’s nonprofits have been at the forefront of efforts to protect the environment, voting rights, and immigrants’ rights. Trump and his allies are seeking to stop nonprofit activism. 

The Republican House has already passed a bill that would empower the Treasury to eliminate the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit it deems to be supporting terrorism. An identical or similar bill could come across Trump’s desk after being reintroduced in the next Congress.

The legislation doesn’t distinguish between foreign and domestic terrorism — whether real or imagined — thereby making it easier for Trump’s authorities to intimidate nonprofit personnel and donors.

We’ve already seen something like this at the state level. In Texas, state authorities have attempted to shut down charities that assist immigrants. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has launched a probe of nonprofits, including the God Is Good Foundation, that have allegedly conspired to bring noncitizens to the state.

3. The media

I’ve been a critic of the mainstream media’s tendency to give “both sides” credence even when one side is clearly in the wrong and to “sanewash” some of Trump’s and his enablers’ rants. 

But journalists are an important bulwark against tyranny — which is why Trump and his allies are seeking to intimidate news outlets that have criticized or questioned Trump.

The flurry of defamation lawsuits — such as Trump launched against ABC (and ABC caved to) and the Des Moines Register — is the latest sign. Trump and his allies have also discussed revoking networks’ broadcast licenses and eliminating funding for public radio and television.

Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee to head the FBI, has threatened to “take on the most powerful enemy that the United States has ever seen, and no it’s not Washington, D.C., it’s the mainstream media and these people out there in the fake news. That is our mission!” 

Already social media platforms such as Musk’s X and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram have caved to Trump, allowing vicious authoritarian lies to be magnified unimpeded. 

4. Organized labor

In the 1950s and 1960s, labor unions were viewed as a source of countervailing power because of their activism on behalf of the working class and their significant political clout.

In those days, a third of workers in the private sector were union members. But today, only 6 percent of private-sector workers are union members, and it’s far from clear that organized labor will be an active source of resistance to Trump. (If government workers are included, the percentage of American workers who are members of unions is around 10 percent.)

Trump has warned organized labor that he will oppose their efforts to organize. The president of the Teamsters Union even appeared at the National Republican Convention in support of Trump.

***

Each of these centers of resistance to Trump has been a powerful source of truth-telling in America. It’s no surprise that all have been targeted by Trump and his allies. 

We need to be vigilant and do what we can to protect and fortify them. Remember: We lose only if we stop fighting.