Problematic? MESA Ignores the Terror Threats Incubating on Palestinian Campuses - by A.J. Caschetta

...Actions against Palestinian universities by Israeli security forces in the West Bank and Gaza are not arbitrary. Rather, they are necessary, measured responses to the terrorist takeover of Palestinian campuses, where indoctrination and recruitment have supplanted education. In its contrived ignorance of these facts, MESA mirrors the morally bankrupt academic field it represents. Until and unless far-ranging reforms are implemented, students, policymakers, and legislators should shun it.

A.J. Caschetta..
Algemeiner..
15 February '19..

Despite all the corrupt, tyrannical theocracies and dictatorships in the Middle East, the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) — the academic umbrella organization for the field — aims its harshest criticism at the only democracy in the region: Israel.

MESA’s disdain is apparent in the dozens of “advocacy letters” it has directed at Israel since 2001. The latest open letter from its Committee on Academic Freedom to Israel’s government demands an end to the Jewish state’s alleged “arbitrary arrests at and incursions into Palestinian universities” and “the Israeli Army’s harm to students at all levels of education.”

Ignoring the long history of terrorist recruiting on Palestinian campuses and the terrorism committed by Palestinian students under the tutelage of their Hamas and Fatah advisors, MESA falsely portrays Palestinian academics and students as benign.

But MESA’s most disingenuous claim is that Israel harasses peaceful Palestinian students with “arbitrary arrests,” a phrase used three times in the short letter. The phrase also appears on Birzeit University’s Facebook page, where its “Right to Education Campaign condemns arbitrary arrest of Birzeit University’s Head of Student Council.”

So, who are the innocent students that MESA would have us believe were “arbitrarily” arrested, while working diligently toward their degrees?

(Continue to Full Column)

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