The reality of Technion-Cornell vs. the rants of Steven Salaita - by Divest This!

...Every few years, our Temple is blessed by a visit from young Israeli soldiers traveling through Boston, and I’ve always been stunned by the seriousness and maturity of kids not much older than my recent high-school graduate. And it is these serious young men and women who then go on to university and from there become the next generation of Technion professors, business leaders, or successes in a thousand other fields (all the while continuing to contribute to the defense of their homeland). In a contest between such serious people and freaks and weirdos like Steven Salaita, who has the upper hand?

Jonathan Marks..
Divest This!/Elder of Ziyon..
18 September '17..

Fair Fight

I’ve talked a number of times about how unfair the fight is between Israel and her defamers.
Those defamers, after all, have a militant goal: the elimination of the Jewish state. With that goal as their North Star, strategies to weaken that state or make its destruction appear noble and just become clear, as do tactics to achieve those strategic aims (such as BDS). In addition, the sociopathic nature of Israel’s enemies gives them the power to manipulate others while feeling no guilt over their own destructive, ruthless behavior.

In contrast, nearly all Israelis and friends of Israel do not want to see enemies eliminated. In fact, our greatest dream (i.e., our goal) is not to see Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims destroyed, but rather to live at peace with them (or at least be left in peace by them). With such non-militant goals driving our enterprise, it’s no surprise that we cannot gin up the kind of hatred needed to drive decades-long hostile counter-campaigns. And our unwillingness to use others as means to an end means we are not ready to manipulate neutrals in order to use them as weapons in our political campaigns.

While I still hold to this analysis, some recent events also got me thinking of another way to look at “the fight,” one in which the odds can seem stacked in Israel’s favor.

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