Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumPeter Beinart’s Colonial Logic: Opponents Of Israel Boycott Make Anti-Democratic Arguments
An academic boycott of Israel is really protesting a segregationist mentality that should have ended long, long agoSTEVEN SALAITA
Last week, members of the American Studies Association [ASA] voted overwhelmingly to affirm a resolution boycotting Israeli academic institutions. The membership vote followed unanimous approval of the resolution by the ASA National Council. Intense debate has followed the affirmation.
Much of the reaction from the boycotts opponents has been infantile: threats of lawsuits, screams of anti-Semitism, vulgar trolling, ear-piercing hysteria, and various strategies of derailment borrowed from the Glenn Beck playbook. These tactics are fit to ignore.
More thoughtful responses have emerged, however, and provide opportunity for serious engagement. One such response arrived from Peter Beinart, who supports a boycott focused on West Bank settlements but not on anything to do with 1948 Israel (i.e., anything inside the so-called green line).
While Beinarts piece is thoughtful, it has serious problems, especially in its unexamined assumptions. Rejecting the singling out of Israel and academic freedom as viable arguments against boycott, Beinart opposes the ASA resolution because its denying the legitimacy of a democratic Jewish state, even alongside a Palestinian one.
Here is Beinarts argument:
MORE...
http://www.salon.com/2013/12/20/peter_beinarts_colonial_logic_opponents_of_israel_boycott_make_anti_democratic_arguments/
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)It's been his MO for years now. He basically talks like Palestinians like housing developers talk about trees. It's not as shrill or harsh or vociferously bigoted as many of his fellows, but it expreesses a clear indifference, and assumption that his own desires take precedence over theirs.
shira
(30,109 posts)...by yet another failed Arab majority Islamist state, isn't it you who values the lives of Palestinians (and Jews) at next to nothing?
Any self-respecting progressive leftist should be calling for Israel to better itself, within the secular liberal western style framework. Not euthanizing itself in favor of a regressive Islamist theocratic fascist totalitarian dictatorship.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)That's news.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)On second thought, keep chugging, this could get funny.
shira
(30,109 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)I say that I think Peter Beinart is a fake asshole (to paraphrase)
In response, you go on a rampage about me "advocating Israel's destruction," and "in favor of a theocratic dictatorship."
I'm really not seeing any rational connection between these topics. It looks like you're just drunkenly ejaculating text at me. It's random and senseless. While that's not exactly unusual for you, it usually takes about five posts to work yourself into a good lather and cease all attempts at rational discourse.
You okay? Take the pills out of order this morning or something?
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)Who the hell does he think he's kidding?
Response to Purveyor (Original post)
delrem This message was self-deleted by its author.
bemildred
(90,061 posts)1.) Embed your desired outcomes in the facts, principles, and assumptions on which your argument is based, put them outside the dispute. (Begging the question)
2.) Argue against your opponents views using your facts, principles and assumptions, showing his folly. (Straw man)
3.) Lots of casting of aspersions and "nobody could want that" sort of assertions. (Ad hominem)
If you lack the nerve or facts to entertain the full weight of your opponents arguments and argue back on his premises, and you are not willing to concede anything, it will always become an argument about who gets to frame the debate.