Critical Perspectives and Reflections

  We’re hearing a good deal of “Oh mying!”, “Tch Tching” and seeing a lot of hand wringing among the Right and some of the “reasonable Left” these days about the various blockades, encampments and other forms of protest, against the genocidal war waged by the State of Israel and its abettors among Western governments. The blockades of course are primarily demanding that the universities make public their investment portfolios and then divest in whatever part of them involves Israeli stocks. Two issues seem to be the most prevalent in all the sturm und drang. One of the concerns is that some people, many of them Jewish, feel uncomfortable in the atmosphere of the events. The second concern is that the protests have caused, within the physical boundaries of the universities, significant disruption. It seems to me that there are two things to be said about the first concern. First, relative to Jewish people, many of them are clearly not feeling uncomfortable with the challenges to the...