How Academics Should Do Politics Re: Gaza

I think I understand the impulse to posture re: Palestine. It’s impossible to exaggerate how horrible the situation is, the level of lethal violence visited upon tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians by the state of Israel. I seldom have problems with the content of radical statements that have been bandied around. You can denounce Israel and Zionism in the strongest terms you like. I certainly have, for years. What does not follow is the idea that these screeds would have any importance. After all, isn’t the purpose to persuade wider circles of people to our point of view?

There are numerous ways for people to link up with organizational efforts that denounce Israeli massacres in Gaza and its myriad of crimes elsewhere. I like Jewish Voice for Peace because it offers strong criticism and generates a media hit. To our nitwit local TV news people, the recent demo in D.C. seemed like a man-bites-dog story. They reported it breathlessly. But there are numerous other vehicles. Anyone can find one that suits their politics.

I've had decades of experience dealing with academics' reluctance to engage in activism. People in any profession are absorbed in the pressure of their careers and family responsibilities. Nobody can blame them for that.

All the more reason to realize that Palestine is not the lane for radicals in academia, as academics. I do not mean anybody should avoid getting involved with protests. It is, rather, that nobody is going to care about the pronouncements of any subgroup on campus. Much closer to the professional and personal well-being of such folks is the trend here in the U.S. regarding academic freedom, including especially the space for anti-Zionist organizing on campuses. 

Of course, it doesn't end there. Everybody is aware of the Trumpist right's slanderous blather about LGBTQI "grooming" and Critical Race Theory, also of keen interest to the academic community. Public universities in red states are under pressure from Republican demagogues attacking the content of instruction. Next door to me in West Virginia, there is an initiative to eliminate non-STEM departments from the state university. Private universities can be pressured by donors, as we recently saw with the Univ of Pennsylvania.

An actual Trump victory next year would go even further, to endanger the immigration status, even the citizenship, of radical professors and their families. Trump's xenophobic cronies have spoken of de-naturalization in literal terms. The most accessible lever is to push back on campuses, not in platform statements on Palestine. Certain gratuitous radical statements on Palestine could actually impede members' ability to appeal to others around them on issues of mutual interest.

Neither, by the way, is anybody going to care about political economy analyses of Israel. That business may be professionally gratifying, but on the most basic level it is beside the point: there is an ongoing massacre of innocents.

So my argument is that ironically, the way for campus people to have an impact on Gaza is to organize around something entirely different, but related. As noted above, strengthening academic freedom enlarges the space for criticism of Israel.

There is a kind of vanity or self-absorption implied by the obsession with platform statements. Get over yourselves!

If I was employed by a university, I would first seek out fellow progressives, both students, other faculty, and non-instructional employees. Then I would appeal to organizations such as AAUP chapters, student clubs, and campus unions. Broad coalitions standing up for academic freedom (including union rights) and free speech would have juice. Perfect, endlessly fussed-over radical statements issued from splendid isolation would not.