‘New Israel and Zionism Society’ of Exeter wages war on committed scholarship
A workshop with Professor Ilan Pappé at the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter
Ilan Pappé writes in +972:
Recently, I received a polite email from an Israeli student in my university inviting me to a talk by one Yoseph Haddad who, I was informed, will tell the campus about the wonderful life of a 48 Arab in Israel. This coincided with the establishment of a new student society at the University of Exeter, the “New Israel and Zionism Society”. The headline in the Jewish Chronicle hailed the fact that no student group on the campus objected to it.
The reason for the polite invitation was an attempt to represent Zionist propaganda as an organic part of healthy academic life and debates, whereas the absence of objection to the new society was because no one knew about its establishment or its registration. But this is hardly the point.
What matters is that quite astonishingly, the Anglo-Jewish community that supports Israel and Zionism genuinely believes, at this time and age, that either a Zionist Arab or a new Zionist outfit have a credible message to present to students and faculty alike in British universities.
The clueless student guild accepted the main argument for having such a society: “We believe there is a lack of representation of Zionist ideas and values which are often misconceptualized by students in general”.
The “misinformed students” are postgraduate students in Palestine and Middle East Studies, who know more about Israel and Palestine than probably the most senior journalists in The Jewish Chronicle. So, the aspiration of the new society that “our university now has a chance to provide a fair and robust platform for Israel”, is about forty years too late.