13-03-11 SPME logoEarlier today, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) issued an excellent “Statement Condemning Current Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Against Israel.”  LDB has just issued a press release applauding the SPME statement for “taking a courageous stand against anti-Semitic and anti-Israel bigotry.”  By way of disclosure, I am a former member of SPME’s board of directors and a former chair of the SPME Legal Task Force. The SPME Statement is as follows:

A Statement Condemning Current Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Against Israel

March 11, 2013

Pronouncements attempting to appeal to the conscience of academics supportive of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement often depict Israel as a Nazi-like state.  These views—once labeled extreme—have become increasingly mainstream as academics call for Israel’s destruction, not by might or power but by bad analogies and misguided ideas. (more…)

13-03-11 Gil TroyWe are delighted to welcome historian Gil Troy of McGill University as our first guest blogger this week.  Troy is a distinguished scholar of American presidential history as well as a widely read columnist on issues relating to the Middle East.  He has combined his passions for American history and Middle East policy with an important new book on the United Nations’ notorious “Zionism is Racism” proclamation.  Published last year by Oxford University Press, Troy is gaining excellent reviews for Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight Against Zionism as Racism.  In my review of Moynihan’s Moment last month for The Brandeis Brief, I pointed out that it has important lessons for the present moment in American foreign policy.  We are looking forward to hearing more from McGill’s distinguished historian, who boasts the additional credential of being a brother of our own Tevi Troy, a member of LDB’s board of directors.