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<h1 id="reader-title">Israel linked to suspension of Palestine
course at UC Berkeley</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field"><span class="field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/nora-barrows-friedman"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label
skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Nora Barrows-Friedman</a>
and </span><span class="field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah"
typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label
skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ali Abunimah</a></span></span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single" property="dc:date"
datatype="xsd:dateTime"
content="2016-09-16T10:28:00+00:00">16 September 2016</span></span>
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<p><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/university-california-berkeley">The
University of California, Berkeley</a> – an
institution synonymous with <a
href="http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/CalHistory/60s.html">free
speech protests</a> in the 1960s – has shut down a
student-led course on Palestine.</p>
<p>The censorship is one of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/nicholas-dirks">Nicholas
Dirks’</a> last acts as chancellor of the college. His
administration decided to suspend the course after
Israel-aligned organizations demanded that he do so.</p>
<p>There are indications of pressure from the Israeli
government as well.</p>
<p>Dirks, who is stepping down as chancellor in the wake
of persistent scandals over finances and personal
conduct, leaves as he arrived: amid controversy over his
role in stigmatizing and suppressing speech and
scholarship related to Palestine.</p>
<p>But the course suspension is also a worrying sign of
the growing threat to free speech as Israel and its
lobby groups move to suppress discussion of Palestine on
campuses, inside and outside the classroom.</p>
<p>The one-unit <a
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160913204647/http://www.decal.org/file/4465">course</a>,
which was set to run this semester and titled
“Palestine: A Settler-Colonial Analysis,” was proposed
by Palestinian American student Paul Hadweh as part of
the university’s Democratic Education at Cal initiative.</p>
<p>Known as DeCal, the program is taught by students under
supervision from university staff.</p>
<p>The chancellor has <a
href="http://chancellor.berkeley.edu/campus-statement-ethnic-studies-98198-fall-2016-decal-course">alleged</a>
that “policies and procedures governing the review and
approval of proposed courses” for DeCal had not been
complied with.</p>
<p>He added that Carla Hesse, the executive dean of the
College of Letters and Sciences at the university, “is
very concerned” about a course “which espouses a single
political viewpoint and/or appears to offer a forum for
political organizing rather than an opportunity for the
kind of open academic inquiry that Berkeley is known
for.”</p>
<p>Dirks and Hesse appear to echo the claims made by
anti-Palestinian organizations which have been targeting
students and faculty who criticize Israel.</p>
<p>Hadweh says he followed every procedure and policy
exactly as required in planning the class. He found out
about the university’s scrutiny from a report in the
Israeli media – two hours before his course was
suspended.</p>
<p>Dirks and his administration were <a
href="http://www.amchainitiative.org/letter-to-uc-berkeley-chancellor-dirks">pressured</a>,
by more than 40 pro-Israel groups. Those groups signed a
letter organized by the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/amcha-initiative">Amcha
Initiative</a>, urging that the course be censored.</p>
<p>Dirks’ office <a
href="http://www.amchainitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Letter-from-Chancellor-Dirks-9.13.2016.pdf">replied</a>
to Amcha on Tuesday morning this week. The reply seems
to have been prompt – Amcha’s letter was dated 13
September, that same day.</p>
<p>Amcha is a Zionist organization unaffiliated with the
university which has repeatedly intimidated, harassed
and spied on students and faculty.</p>
<h2>Pressure</h2>
<p>The Amcha letter claims that the student-run course
would encourage “political indoctrination” and
admonishes the student teacher for his involvement with
<a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/students-justice-palestine">Students
for Justice in Palestine</a>.</p>
<p>It also labels guest speakers listed in the course
description as “politically motivated” individuals who
“meet our government’s criteria for anti-Semitism,”
accusing them of intending to “indoctrinate students to
hate the Jewish state and take action to eliminate it.”</p>
<p>The course <a
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20160913204647/http://www.decal.org/file/4465">lists</a>
only two guest lecturers, both UC Berkeley faculty, <a
href="http://ethnicstudies.berkeley.edu/people/faculty-profile/keith-feldman-1">Keith
Feldman</a>, an assistant professor of comparative
ethnic studies and <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/malcolm-x-meets-freedom-fighters-palestine/15121">author</a>
of <em>A Shadow over Palestine</em>, and <a
href="http://ethnicstudies.berkeley.edu/people/faculty-profile/hatem-bazian">Hatem
Bazian</a>, a lecturer in Asian American and African
diaspora studies.</p>
<p>Two years ago, Amcha <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/zionist-group-publishes-target-list-anti-israel-us-professors">published
a target list</a> of more than 200 professors around
the US, including Bazian, who is the faculty sponsor of
the DeCal course.</p>
<p>Amcha has also <a
href="http://www.amchainitiative.org/campusmonitor/campusmonitor-ucberkeley/">accused</a>
Feldman of anti-Semitism over the content of his book
and his political critique of Zionism.</p>
<p>Last year, Amcha <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/nora-barrows-friedman/amcha-attempt-block-palestinian-voices-university-course-fails">tried
and failed</a> to shut down a similar course at UC
Riverside, leveling many of the same accusations.</p>
<h2>“Secret” Israeli role</h2>
<p>Hadweh said that students who had enrolled in the
course were outraged to hear it had been suspended.</p>
<p>“More than anything, it’s saddening that this scholarly
approach and academic inquiry is being so thoroughly
delegitimized,” he told The Electronic Intifada on
Thursday.</p>
<p>“The irony of the situation is that this course was
suspended – without any democratic process whatsoever –
because of the claim that it was a space for political
mobilization,” Hadweh explained.</p>
<p>“In actually suspending the course, it has forced the
students to mobilize politically.”</p>
<p>The students who signed up to take the DeCal course
have <a
href="https://medium.com/@ethnicstudies198/an-open-letter-to-the-uc-berkeley-administration-regarding-academic-freedom-1bf60c9a040e#.1us98g6n1">published
an open letter</a> admonishing university
administrators.</p>
<p>“The decision to suspend our course is both
discriminatory and a violation of our academic freedom,”
they write. “We demand the reinstatement of the course.”</p>
<p>A <a
href="https://org.salsalabs.com/o/301/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=20362">petition</a>
with the same demands has been initiated by the
organization <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/jewish-voice-peace">Jewish
Voice for Peace</a>.</p>
<p>The students, along with Hadweh, Bazian and lawyers
with <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/palestine-legal">Palestine
Legal</a>, say that the university’s claim – that
Hadweh did not comply with procedures – is entirely
false.</p>
<p>“I complied with all policies and procedures required
for creating the course,” Hadweh <a
href="http://palestinelegal.org/news/2016/9/14/uc-berkeley-censors-course-on-palestine-and-settler-colonialism">said
earlier this week</a>.</p>
<p>According to Hadweh, the course was “vetted and fully
supported” by Bazian, as well as a committee tasked with
approving all the university’s programs.</p>
<p>Hadweh added that UC Berkeley suspended the class
without consulting him, Bazian or the committee which
had approved it.</p>
<p>He said that he “first learned that our course was
under scrutiny <a
href="http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=1209136">from
a report in the Israeli media</a> that describes the
involvement of an Israeli government minister in efforts
to cancel the course.”</p>
<p>Two hours later, he said, “I received an email from the
university notifying us of the suspension.”</p>
<p>The report from Israel’s Channel 10 states that the
“Association of University Heads of Israel is trying to
prevent this course using secret means.”</p>
<p>It also says that <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/gilad-erdan">Gilad
Erdan</a>, Israel’s minister in charge of combating
the Palestinian-led <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/bds">boycott,
divestment and sanctions</a> movement, described “the
person who is giving the course as an extremist BDS
activist.”</p>
<p>Erdan also said he is “acting to expose [Hatem]
Bazian.”</p>
<p>Reports in Israeli media recently revealed that Erdan’s
ministry of strategic affairs, supported by Israeli
intelligence agencies, <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-using-black-ops-against-bds-says-veteran-analyst">is
engaging in “black ops”</a> targeting Palestinian
activists and human rights organizations.</p>
<h2>“Failure of leadership”</h2>
<p>Bazian confirmed that the university did not
communicate with him or Hadweh prior to suspending the
course.</p>
<p>He received an email from the dean at 9:59am on Tuesday
saying she had determined that the course had not gone
through sufficient academic review.</p>
<p>Half an hour later, he was emailed a copy of the letter
Dirks’ office had sent to Amcha in which the chancellor
stated that the course had been suspended.</p>
<p>“It went through my signature, it went through the
department’s signature, it went through the academic
senate that approves courses and got the course control
number and room reservation,” he added.</p>
<p>Bazian said he was concerned about the university’s
capacity to buckle under political pressure from outside
groups, “completely throwing [out] academic freedom,
freedom of speech, shared governance and the ability of
students to engage in difficult and critical issues in a
university.”</p>
<h2>Placing blame</h2>
<p>UC Berkeley officials maintain that outside
organizations had no influence on the dean’s decision to
spike the class.</p>
<p>However, it appears that after an outcry from Israel
lobby groups, the dean acted quickly to place the blame
solely on Hadweh, accusing him of failing to follow
procedures.</p>
<p>Hesse claims she began investigations into the course
in late August, although <em>Inside Higher Ed</em> has
<a
href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/09/14/berkeley-puts-palestine-course-hold-after-claims-anti-zionist-political-motivation">reported</a>
that they began earlier this month.</p>
<p>The investigation had been prompted by concerns raised
within the university, Hesse has claimed, and started
before any public criticisms were made.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof also insisted that
the timing of the letter sent by Amcha and the
chancellor’s statement was “entirely coincidental.”</p>
<p>Mogulof told The Electronic Intifada that “this
particular course did not receive the same level of
scrutiny as other courses have,” adding that the
university administration had “legitimate questions
specifically related to Regents policy.”</p>
<p>He was referring to the recent statement by the
Regents, the University of California’s governing body,
on principles regarding “intolerance” that were also
formulated <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/pressure-forces-amendment-univ-california-intolerance-report/16141">under
intense pressure and scrutiny</a> from Israel lobby
groups.</p>
<p>“The decision had been already made [to suspend the
course] before the messages had reached us,” he
asserted.</p>
<p>But close observers of academic freedom issues are not
buying the university’s claims.</p>
<p>“The administration seems anxious to claim that their
decision was made in reaction to the concerns of
students, faculty and staff on campus,” John K. Wilson,
editor of the American Association of University
Professors’ <em>Academe Blog</em>, <a
href="https://academeblog.org/2016/09/15/berkeley-bans-a-palestine-class/">wrote</a>.
“But the truth is that Berkeley faced a global onslaught
of organizations attacking them for allowing this
course.”</p>
<p>And as Wilson noted, Mogulof himself had been <a
href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/09/01/campus-watchdog-upcoming-palestine-course-will-increase-antisemitic-atmosphere-at-uc-berkeley/#">communicating
with</a> right-wing pro-Israel media as early as 1
September, when Amcha and other campus watchdog groups
had already been targeting the course.</p>
<h2>“Anti-intellectual embarrassment”</h2>
<p>Paul Hadweh described his course as “designed to
provide students with the opportunity to critically
engage with scholarship that examines Palestine’s past
and present through the lens of settler-colonialism. In
doing so, we hope to explore durable and just political
solutions.”</p>
<p>“This course is more about asking questions than
providing answers,” Hadweh added. “I think it would be
valuable to study this and clearly many of my peers at
UC Berkeley do too.”</p>
<p>He said that enrollment had to be expanded after 31
students signed up for a class limited to 24.</p>
<p>“Now UC Berkeley has censored the class before we could
even have one discussion,” Hadweh said. “That’s not the
education we signed up for.”</p>
<p>The actions of Dirks and Hesse “are profoundly
anti-intellectual and an embarrassment to UC Berkeley,”
Palestine Legal’s <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/liz-jackson">Liz
Jackson</a> told The Electronic Intifada, “not to
mention a violation of the university’s legal
obligations.”</p>
<p>Jackson said that Hesse had summarily suspended the
course without reviewing the material “and went over the
heads of the faculty chair and department chair, who are
experts on substantive issues.”</p>
<p>“Under fundamental academic freedom principles, there
can be no requirement that a course be so-called
balanced between two sides,” she said. “Because to
enforce such a requirement would require a level of
intrusion on faculty expertise and a policing of course
content from above.”</p>
<p>In reviewing the <a
href="http://www.decal.org/courses/">list of DeCal
courses</a> offered this semester and in previous
semesters, it is “painfully obvious” that UC Berkeley
has placed requirements against “one-sided” political
viewpoints only on issues related to Palestine, she
added.</p>
<p>“Is <a href="http://www.decal.org/courses/4268">Marxism</a>
one-sided? Is <a
href="http://www.decal.org/courses/4158">Copwatch</a>
one-sided? The First Amendment and academic freedom
obligations prohibit the university from applying a
special rule to content that is favorable to Palestinian
rights.”</p>
<p>In addition, the rights of students of Palestinian
origin to access an equal education is an “alarming
legal issue,” Jackson explained.</p>
<p>“What we’re seeing here is the university’s flagrant
pandering to outside interests, mainly the Israel lobby,
and they have abandoned their duty to protect the
educational environment from the interference of outside
interests,” she said.</p>
<p>“The result is that a Palestinian American student and
his peers who want to study a complex issue from a
Palestinian perspective are denied their ability to
study their own history at their school.”</p>
<p>“That is flirting dangerously with racial and national
origin discrimination,” Jackson said.</p>
<h2>Dirks’ pandering to anti-Palestinian pressure</h2>
<p>Nicholas Dirks’ <a
href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/08/17/uc-berkeley-chancellor-to-resign-amid-series-of-controversies-including-criticism-of-university-response-to-sexual-harassment-allegations/">scandal-plagued</a>
tenure at the helm of UC Berkeley ends just as it began,
with the chancellor throwing Palestinians – and academic
freedom – under the bus in an effort to appease
pro-Israel critics.</p>
<p>In fact, the story of Dirks’ pandering to
anti-Palestinian pressure begins even before he arrived
in California, when he was vice president for arts and
sciences at New York’s <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/columbia-university">Columbia
University</a>.</p>
<p>In 2004, the Israel lobby group <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/david-project">The
David Project</a> released <em>Columbia Unbecoming</em>,
a film alleging that faculty, particularly Professor <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/joseph-massad">Joseph Massad</a>,
had intimidated and abused students who disagreed with
their critical views on Israel and had made anti-Semitic
remarks in class.</p>
<p>The film was a <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/joseph-massad-responds-intimidation-columbia-university/5289">key
element</a> in a campaign by pressure groups spanning
more than a decade, targeting Massad, seeking to deny
him tenure and to force him out of his job over his
views on Israel and its state ideology, Zionism.</p>
<p>In consultation with Dirks, Columbia President <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/lee-bollinger">Lee
Bollinger</a> appointed an <a
href="http://www.columbia.edu/content/convening-ad-hoc-faculty-committee.html">investigative
committee</a> to look into the film’s lurid claims,
which were backed and amplified by various New York
politicians, including then congressman Anthony Weiner.</p>
<p>But the investigative committee’s report, released in
March 2005, dismissed the allegations and found no
evidence of anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>Even <em>The New York Times</em>, which supported
investigations of alleged “anti-Israeli bias” at
Columbia, <a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/07/opinion/intimidation-at-columbia.html">conceded
in an editorial</a> that “There is no evidence that
anyone’s grade suffered for challenging the
pro-Palestinian views of any teacher or that any
professors made anti-Semitic statements. The professors
who were targeted have legitimate complaints themselves.
Their classes were infiltrated by hecklers and
surreptitious monitors, and they received hate mail and
death threats.”</p>
<p>Yet it was Dirks himself who gave new life to the false
allegations after he was named as UC Berkeley’s next
chancellor in November 2012.</p>
<p>The UC Berkeley news office <a
href="http://news.berkeley.edu/2012/11/27/transcript-extra-divestment/">published
a video interview with Dirks</a> in which he attacked
Columbia.</p>
<p>Dirks claimed it had been “very difficult” for “some
students to find safe spaces in which to talk about
Israel where they didn’t feel that the basic context in
which they found themselves wasn’t hugely not just
anti-Israel, but by implication, anti-Jewish and
anti-Semitic.”</p>
<p>He also boasted about his own role in the witch hunt
targeting Massad: “We, in fact, and it was my
responsibility as the executive vice president for the
arts and sciences, convened an unprecedented faculty
committee to look into some of the allegations that had
been made.”</p>
<p>He also repudiated a petition he had signed in 2002,
calling for divestment from companies that supply
military hardware Israel uses to maintain its occupation
in Palestine. “Truth is, I do not support divestment as
a strategy for the university. I don’t support
divestment with respect to Israel,” Dirks said.</p>
<p>The UC Berkeley news office <a
href="http://news.berkeley.edu/2012/11/27/in-conversation-chancellor-designate-nicholas-dirks/">revealed</a>
that the interview with Dirks had been “recorded shortly
before” the Board of Regents, the University of
California’s top governing body, approved his
appointment.</p>
<p>Dirks’ statements reviving the debunked Israel lobby
smears did not go unnoticed by his former colleagues at
Columbia, 14 of whom <a
href="http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2012/12/19/letter-editor-former-vice-president-dirks-defaming-department">responded
with a public letter</a> condemning him.</p>
<p>“Our sense of outrage stems from Dirks’ denial of the
fact that the very committee set up by then Vice
President Dirks found no evidence whatever for concerns
about the climate for Jewish students let alone about
the nature of instruction in our department,” the
professors of Middle East, South Asian and African
studies wrote. “We feel affronted by the fact that the
chancellor’s defaming the department means that he now
rejects the committee’s finding and seems instead to
accept as true the false accusations leveled against us
by an external hate group that has since been exposed
and discredited.”</p>
<p>Dirks was also one of the college administrators who in
the wake of the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/university-illinois">University
of Illinois’</a> firing of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/steven-salaita">Steven
Salaita</a> under the banner of protecting “civility,”
apparently sided with those who sought to stifle free
expression.</p>
<p>Salaita, whose case sparked international concern over
the use of the vague concept of civility as a <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/civility-israel-lobbys-new-weapon-against-free-speech-us-campuses">cover
for censorship</a>, was fired over tweets critical of
Israel during its summer 2014 attack on Gaza.</p>
<p>In a message to the UC Berkeley community just weeks
after Salaita’s firing, Dirks <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/civility-israel-lobbys-new-weapon-against-free-speech-us-campuses">declared</a>
that “we can only exercise our right to free speech
insofar as we feel safe and respected in doing so, and
this in turn requires that people treat each other with
civility.”</p>
<p>Dirks’ statement provoked <a
href="https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/09/09/berkeley-chancellor-angers-faculty-members-remarks-civility-and-free-speech">scathing
criticism</a> from fellow academics and free speech
advocates.</p>
<p>Anita Levy, associate secretary at the American
Association of University Professors, called Dirks’
position “astonishing.”</p>
<p>“That the university which gave rise to the free speech
movement should celebrate it by embracing the notion of
civility is patently absurd,” Levy said.</p>
<p><em>Translation provided by Dena Shunra.</em></p>
<p><em>Nora Barrows-Friedman and Ali Abunimah are the
associate editor and executive director, respectively,
of The Electronic Intifada.</em></p>
<br>
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