Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Another Israeli Boycott

This time it's Israeli academics.  A group of professors has banded together and decided to boycott a college that's in a settlement in the West Bank.  The professors signed a petition saying they won't participate in any activities there.

This is the kind of thing that will help create peace.  As more and more Israeli groups boycott illegal settlements, and more and more academics start writing about Israel in the 20th century.  Too often, Israeli historians who write about what's been done to the Palestinians are called "self-hating Jews."  Because pointing out that your own people have done something wrong means there must be something wrong with you.

The whole thing reminds me of America in the 1950s and 1960s.  If you were a child then, you learned about how people came to America and made a nation out of nothing.  Manifest Destiny was king.  Nowadays, you learn that other people actually lived in America before the white man got here.  And these other people were killed and herded onto reservations.  It seems like Israel is just starting to go through that process.  That enough people are finally saying, Stop It!  I want to know the truth.  Only after BOTH sides have accepted reality will peace be an option.

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