George Mason University apparently has an active anti-Israel group. It has proclaimed the achievement of boycotting Israeli hummus, and staged a walkout on a commencement speaker with close ties to Israel.
The propaganda-named Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) now is playing the race card against GMU’s President, who tweeted his opposition to the academic boycott of Israel:
There’s no racism in those tweets.
Except that the SAIA say that the reference to “blowing up” relationships is a racist referral to all Palestinians as bombers, GMU President Cabrera’s Racist Tweet Opposing Academic Boycott:
His line that “Universities exist to build bridges of understanding, not to blow them up” insinuates that being in solidarity with Palestinians is on par with terrorism. Not only is this metaphor racist and distasteful, but it was also irresponsible. Supporters of the academic boycott are endangered when their activity is distorted through fear mongering. Cabrera’s use of damaging language is a blatant response to the support GMU SAIA received from faculty as a result of the NO HONOR IN APARTHEID campaign. His response is only a small part of the national “McCarthyite” campaign to destroy the positive learning environments student organizations have created regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on campuses. While academic integrity is often cited as a value of the administration, Cabrera’s rhetoric serves to limit discussion, exploration, and academic freedom around critical issues. While President Cabrera’s support for Israeli apartheid is no secret, his allegiance, to the best of our knowledge, is linked to position and profits.
Why does the anti-Israel group assume that referring to blowing up relations among universities is a reference to Palestinians blowing themselves up in cafes, buses, pizza shops and Passover Sedars?
Isn’t jumping to that conclusion revealing of SAIA’s own assumptions about Palestinians, more so than reflecting anything GMU’s president suggested?
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