Where Zionism and the 'alt-right' meet

29.7.17

Where Zionism and the 'alt-right' meet: [mondoweiss.net] As with the Salaita case, these episodes reveal a clear pattern: University administrations falling silent, or actively participating in, persecution of faculty in a concession to the hard right, often openly racist, sexist political attacks.

Zionists and Israel supporters who attacked Salaita called him a racist, bigot and anti-Semite, while themselves falling silent about the deaths of Palestinian children.

We also see universities invoking “free speech” and “academic freedom” primarily to restrict them when they involve critiques of racism, sexism and U.S. imperialism. In an insidious, but typically neoliberal move, the language of social justice is used to attack the principles of social justice.

Here, we see the corporate, neoliberal university at its nefarious worst: aligning itself with the de facto politics of reactionary states (in the Salaita case Israel and the U.S., in the latter specifically the Trump administration).