Steven SalaitaĀ was fired from his position as associate professor in the American Indian Studies program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) apparently over views critical of Israel, especially itsĀ current massacre in Gaza.
Meanwhile,Ā Cary Nelson, former president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), who has publicly supported the universityās decision to remove Salaita, gave frank comments to The Electronic Intifada revealing the extent of his own pro-Israel views.
Nelson acknowledged that he had been monitoring Salaitaās social media use for months.
This indicates Salaita may be the victim of a retaliation campaign. Salaita is the author ofIsraelās Dead SoulĀ andĀ The Uncultured Wars, Arabs, Muslims and the Poverty of Liberal Thought, as well as a contributor to a number of publications includingĀ SalonĀ and The Electronic Intifada.
He was a prominent campaigner for theĀ American Studies AssociationāsĀ decision to boycott Israeli academic institutions last December.
In May, Salaita wrote a post for The Electronic Intifada called āHow to practice BDS in academe.ā
Fired not ārevokedā
This morning,Ā Inside Higher EdĀ reportedĀ that Salaita had merely had a job offer ārevoked.ā
Salaita was ārecently informed by Chancellor Phyllis Wise that the appointment would not go to the universityās board, and that he did not have a job to come to in Illinois, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation,āĀ Inside Higher EdĀ said.
āThe sources familiar with the universityās decision say that concern grew over the tone of [Salaitaās] comments on Twitter about Israelās policies in Gaza,ā it added.
Neither the university nor Salaita have commented on the matter. Salaita did not respond to requests for comment.
But a source with close knowledge of the situation, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly, disputedĀ Inside Higher EdāsĀ version. The source told The Electronic Intifada that Salaita had actually been āfired.ā
The source said they had seen documentation indicating that Salaitaās appointment had been through all the ordinary procedures for hiring faculty, up to and including the scheduling of new faculty orientation.
Salaita had already resigned from his position as associate professor of English at Virginia Tech, according toĀ Inside Higher Ed.Ā It would not make sense for Salaita to resign from a secure position without already having been fully and properly hired to a new one.
Even thoughĀ Inside Higher EdāsĀ sources say the opposite, the publicationās own analysis supports The Electronic Intifadaās reporting that Salaita has actually been fired.
āAs recently as two weeks ago, the university confirmed to reporters that he [Salaita] was coming,āĀ Inside Higher EdĀ reported. āThe university also declined to answer questions about how rare it is for such appointments to fall through at this stage.ā
Target
Salaitaās exact status at the university is likely to be important to the outcome of his case.
If a job offer was merely ārevoked,ā asĀ Inside Higher EdāsĀ sources claim, then Salaita would likely have far fewer protections than if he had already been hired, and then fired.
Opponents of Palestinian rights are already seizing on this distinction to spin and legitimize the decision to remove Salaita for his opinions expressed in public forums.
According toĀ Inside Higher Ed, AAUP past president Cary Nelson, who is also an English professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said that āit was legitimate ā at the point of hiring ā to consider issues of civility and collegiality. In this case, [Nelson] said, that would lead him to oppose Salaitaās appointment.ā
Nelsonās views are important because his former role at AAUP means he is often cited as an authority on academic freedom issues, though his own anti-Palestinian biases are rarely examined.
In a telephone interview with The Electronic Intifada from his Urbana-Champaign home, Nelson went even further, claiming that Salaitaās supposed social media transgressions āare more serious than collegiality and civility.ā
Nelson accused Salaita of āincitement to violenceā for retweeting aĀ tweetĀ by another Twitter user, stating: āJeffrey goldbergās story should have ended at the pointy end of a shiv.ā
Goldberg, aĀ former Israeli prison guardĀ whoĀ participated in and helped cover up the torture and abuse ofĀ Palestinian prisoners, and now a writer forĀ The Atlantic, is one of the most prominent defenders of Israelās bombardment that has killed more than one in every one thousand Palestinians in Gaza over the last month.
While Salaita is known for an acerbic sense of humor ā a likely reason he would have retweeted the tweet ā it is an oft-stated norm of Twitter that āa retweet does not equal an endorsement.ā
When pressed, Nelson could provide no example of any tweet written by Salaita that āincited violence.ā
Nelson acknowledged, however, that he has been closely monitoring Salaitaās Twitter account for months. āThere are scores of tweets. I have screen captures,ā he said. āThe total effect seems to me to cross a line.ā
Salaita has āalways tweeted in a very volatile and aggressive way,ā Nelson asserted, but ārecently heās begun to be much more aggressive.ā
Another example Nelson gave was an 8 July tweet by Salaita, at the beginning of Israelās current massacre in Gaza,Ā stating, āIf youāre defending #Israel right now youāre an awful human being.ā
Nelson claimed that this might mean that students in one of Salaitaās classes who ādefended Israelā could face a hostile environment.
But Nelson acknowledged that he knew of no complaints about Salaitaās teaching and that Salaita was not even scheduled to teach classes on Palestine and the Israelis.
Asked if he therefore supported a āpre-emptive firingā based on a Tweet, Nelson again insisted that Salaita had not been āfired,ā but merely not hired. Nelson claimed that if Salaita had already been hired, he would defend him.
When asked if he would oppose the hiring of a person who said that āsomeone who defends Hamas firing rockets towards Tel Aviv is an awful person,ā Nelson answered: āNo.ā
There could be no clearer admission that Nelsonās opposition to Salaita is based on the content of his views, specifically criticism of Israel.
Resistance to Israel is ācriminalā
This became clearer when Nelson expanded on his views on Palestine and the Israelis.
Nelson defended Israelās attack on Gaza as part of its āright to self-defense,ā although he stressed that many aspects of the attack were āunethicalā and āimmoralā and that pictures of children killed by Israel were āhorrific.ā
When asked whether he would condemn IsraelāsĀ bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza, Nelson used cautious language: āItās very difficult for someone from a distance to judge particular artillery strikes. My personal view is that Israel should have been more careful. From what I know, there are military actions as part of the Gaza incursion that seem regrettable to me and should not have taken place.ā
While asserting Israelās right to bomb Gaza, Nelson denied that Palestinians have any right to armed resistance to the onslaught.
āI donāt know where that right would come from,ā he said. āI donāt view Gaza under as under occupation so I donāt see a right to resistance.ā
When asked if the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international bodies were incorrect in theirĀ viewĀ that Israelās siege of Gaza constitutes ācollective punishmentā and is therefore a war crime, Nelson insisted he was unable to make legal judgments.
Nelson added that he did not see that the situation in the occupied West Bank āwarrants resistance,ā either. āI donāt think thereās a right to violent resistance on the West Bank.ā
Asked if he thought āall Palestinian military resistance is criminal,ā Nelson answered: āYes. I think that is my view.ā
When asked if any of Israelās actions could be labeled ācriminal,ā Nelson repeated that many were āimmoralā and āunethical,ā but that he was not qualified to give legal opinions about Israelās actions.
Nelson, an outspoken campaigner against the nonviolent, Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS), said that Palestinians should resort to ācivil disobedienceā in the West Bank such as āblocking roads.ā
Israel hasĀ shot dead 17 Palestinians just in the last monthĀ in the occupied West Bank.
BDS is āpolitical violenceā
Nelson reaffirmed his strong opposition to the BDS movement because some of its prominent advocates ā he namedĀ Omar BarghoutiĀ and philosopherĀ Judith ButlerĀ ā dispute Israelās āright to exist as a Jewish state.ā
āI consider that to be a form of political violence,ā Nelson said.
Asked if he called himself a āZionist,ā Nelson answered: āYes.ā
If there were doubts about Nelsonās clear bias against Palestinians and their pursuit of their rights by any means (except of course the most invisible and ineffective), his frank comments to The Electronic Intifada put them to rest.
On 21 July, Salaita wasĀ attackedĀ for his Twitter use in the right-wing, anti-Palestinian websiteĀ The Daily Caller.
It seems clear that with Nelson now publicly leading the charge, Salaita is the latest victim of a nationwide campaign to intimidate into silence anyone on campus who criticizes Israel or supports effective campaigns to secure Palestinian rights.
Call for action
Brooklyn College political science professor Corey RobinĀ has also pointed outĀ that in the past, Nelson himself has criticized how āclaims about collegiality are being used to stifle campus debate, to punish faculty, and to silence the free exchange of opinion by the imposition of corporate-style conformity.ā
Nelson has alsoĀ previously supportedĀ academic boycotts, though never for Palestinian rights.
But now, Robin says, Nelsonās about-face is āa symptom of the effects of Zionism on academic freedom, how pro-Israel forces have consistently attempted to shut down debate on this issue.ā
Robin urges people toĀ write toĀ UIUC Chancellor Phyllis Wise asking her to reverse her decision.
āAs always, be polite, but be firm,ā Robin writes. āDonāt assume this is a done deal; in my experience, it often is not.ā
Supporters have alsoĀ launched an online petition, which as of this writing, had already gathered more than 1,500 signatures.
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