In New Low, Scholars Defend Medieval Blood Libel Charges Against Israel

Jasbir Puar

In a new low, the Middle East studies establishment is defending Jasbir Puar, the Rutgers University professor and Israel-boycott advocate who, in a controversial February 3 lecture at Vassar College, charged the IDF with the organ harvesting, deliberate maiming, and stunting of "Palestinian bodies." Campus Watch West Coast representative Cinnamon Stillwell provides the details at the Daily Caller:

Notorious Israel-bashers such as Rashid Khalidi (Columbia University), Joel Beinin (Stanford University), and Steven Salaita (American University of Beirut) are among the signatories to an open letter to Vassar College President Catharine Bond Hill defending Puar against an alleged campaign of "vilification and hatred" following her inflammatory lecture. Unlike the vast majority of academic jargon-filled apologias for bigotry that populate the lecture circuit, Puar's talk was widely covered and rightly condemned by a disgusted public.

. . . The letter inveighs against the particular evils of a February 17 Wall Street Journal op-ed by Mark G. Yudof, former University of California president, and Ken Waltzer, professor emeritus of history at Michigan State University, titled, "Majoring in Anti-Semitism at Vassar." Yudof and Waltzer had the temerity to point out the obvious: by accusing Israel of extracting organs from Palestinians for medical research, Puar was "updating the medieval blood libel against Jews."

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