Israel's First Arab Rhodes Scholar is a Disabled Muslim Woman

"Israel’s first Arab Rhodes scholar has the chutzpah to love her country, and to try to change it."
That's the headline of the JTA on Lian Najami, a disabled Muslim Arab Israeli who soon, presumably, will be studying at Oxford.  

She speaks five languages, has worked for Democratic (and Jewish) U.S. Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii (on counter-terrorism policy), opposes academic boycotts, and thinks Israel should be a democracy for all of its citizens, irrespective of background. It's a good piece, and she sounds like an interesting (and of course incredibly accomplished) woman. I wish her all the best.

Anti-Semitism at the Oxford Labour Club

The (now-former) co-chair of the Oxford University Labour Club announced his resignation, citing rampant anti-Semitism within the organization: 

"Despite its avowed commitment to liberation, the attitudes of certain members of the club towards certain disadvantaged groups was becoming poisonous," [Alex] Chalmers wrote.

"Whether it be members of the Executive throwing around the term 'Zio' (a term for Jews usually confined to websites run by the Ku Klux Klan) with casual abandon, senior members of the club expressing their 'solidarity' with Hamas and explicitly defending their tactics of indiscriminately murdering civilians, or a former Co-Chair claiming that 'most accusations of antisemitism are just the Zionists crying wolf,’ a large proportion of both OULC and the student left in Oxford more generally have some kind of problem with Jews," Chalmers continued. 

 Oxford's Jewish Society (JSoc) released the following statement of its own:

Oxford University Jewish Society is saddened by the anti-semitic reports coming out of Oxford University Labour Club, and stands fully in support of Alex Chalmers' decision to resign.

We are, however, unsurprised by this news. It is not the first time that Oxford JSoc has had to deal with anti-semitic incidents within the student left and it will not be the last. It is a significant and worrying issue and one that on many occasions, Jewish students have felt that they are fighting alone. We are grateful that Alex Chalmers has made the statement that he did and has brought the issue of anti-semitism to the fore in a way that Jewish students have so far been denied.

Oxford JSoc strongly rejects any accusation that Jewish students are inventing claims of anti-semitism to discredit Palestinian solidarity politics. This is a repeated trope that has been used to silence Jewish students and it will carry weight no longer. When anti-semitism intersects with Palestinian solidarity politics, it is not the job of Jewish students to be quiet, but the job of Palestinian solidarity activists to rid their movement of anti-Jewish prejudice.

Many of Oxford’s Jewish students who hold progressive views have long felt excluded from left-wing political spaces. Jewish students who raised the issue of anti-semitism at the OULC meeting were laughed at and mocked. It is high time that this issue is confronted. We hope Alex’s resignation triggers a broader awakening amongst student political movements, and that anti-semitism, particularly on the student left, is finally taken seriously.

That third paragraph is critical, and needs to be repeated over and over again. Jews have been too deferential to the Livingstone Formulation for too long, and it's high time it stopped carrying weight. Our sense of alienation and maltreatment is entitled to the same respect and concern as any other outgroup; casting it as a bad faith ploy is no less reactionary than when any other group is claimed to be "playing a card".

Conversos

I will admit that I harbor some prejudice against Jews who convert to another faith. It's not something I'm proud of, but there it is. There is a feeling of abandonment -- we're an embattled minority, and these folks are taking the easy way out. A socially sanctioned (encouraged, even) Michael Jackson pill, if you will. And sometimes, converts, in their quest to prove their loyalty to their (new) faith, are amongst the most zealous oppressors of their former brethren (this, of course, is not limited to folks converting from Judaism).

But this my problem, and my prejudices do not deserve any more protection by the law than anyone elses. So when an Israeli Oxford Professor claims she was discriminated against after converting from Judaism to Anglicanism, assuming her story is accurate, I think she has every right to legal redress.

Of course I have the right to oppose anti-Jewish behavior from any source, whether it be from Jews, Gentiles, or formerly-Jewish Gentiles. But neither I, nor anyone else, has the right to take a preemptive strike -- discriminating for fear of discrimination. My prejudices are my own problem, and I should be the one (as much as possible) to bear their burden.

Via.

The 15 Second Negative Speech

Here's an upcoming resolution being debated by the prestigious Oxford Union (a debating society): "This House believes the pro-Israeli lobby has successfully stifled Western debate about Israel's actions."

To repeat, they are having a debate at a prestigious western university about whether the west can debate about Israel.

The resolution was not a paradox of self-reference, and neither is this one.