Hypocritical Anti-Semitic Academics

You have to wonder about the psychological makeup of a Jewish lesbian feminist who stands in solidarity with genocidal anti-Semites, violent misogynists and homophobes. But such is the case with this anti-Israel whackjob, Berkeley Professor Judith Butler. Of course she is hardly alone in her profession as the same academics who sign petitions to boycott Israel, refused to sign a petition opposing islamic practices such as “honor” murders, wife beatings, FGM and the discrimination of women and gays in muslim countries.

Academics Boycott the Truth

by Prof. Phyllis Chesler, Israel National News

Don’t academics seek objective truth? Read about a study that proved just the opposite.

Academics, intellectuals—even journalists—are, presumably, concerned with objective truth and trained to recognize and avoid bias or extreme distortion. In addition, a physicist is expected to know something about physics and a Women’s Studies professor is, presumably, expected to know something about women’s rights—and wrongs; in addition, he or she is supposed to “care” about the subject in a way that a physicist may not be able to “care” about sub-atomic particles.
However, this does not seem to be the case where Israel and/or Islamic gender apartheid are concerned. And, I could also be wrong about the physicist.
Take the recent survey undertaken by Dr. Fred Gottheil, a professor or Economics at the University of Illinois. (Thank you, Carol Mizrahi, for calling this to my attention). He published his finding yesterday. Last year, a professor of English at the University of Southern California, Dr. David Lloyd, managed to garner 900 academic signatories from 150 universities for his letter-petition in favor of culturally and academically boycotting Israel; last year, Lloyd sent this letter-petition to President Barak Obama soon after he took office. According to Gottheil, Lloyd’s letter petition (which cannot be found online) “was notable not only for its criticism of Israeli policy — that is standard fare among the set of academics who subscribe to a post-colonial view of the world — but rather for its demonizing of the Jewish state. His technique was anything but novel. It associated Israel with pre-Mandela South Africa. Lloyd’s South African-linking brushstrokes were many and crude, citing ‘collective punishment,’ ‘apartheid regime,’ ‘racist regime,’ ‘besieged Bantustans,’ ‘crimes against humanity,’ and ‘ethnocidal atrocities.’ These were layered on his fact-distorting canvas like icing on a poisoned cake.”

What Dr. Gottheil then did was smart. He painstakingly tracked down 675 of the original signatories and, without referring to the Lloyd anti-Israel petition-letter at all, asked these same academics who are, ostensibly, concerned with social justice issues, to sign a statement-petition which opposed the widespread abuse of women in the Middle East, including in the disputed Palestinian territories. Gottheil specifically mentioned and documented “honor-killing, wife-beating, female genital mutilation” and the systematic “discrimination against women, gays and lesbians in the Middle East.”
Guess what? According to Gottheil, less than 5% of these same academics (27 people!) signed his statement-petition. And, most shocking, (but not surprising to me), literally only five of the169 Women’s Studies academics signed his statement. As Gottheil puts it:

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