Israel Matzav

Steven Salaita moves up in the world

I am sure that many of you remember Steven Salaita, the professor whose offer of a tenured position at the University of Illinois was withdrawn after the trustees discovered his Jew-hatred. The University was eventually censured by the American Association of University Professors.

Now, Salaita, who has become a hero to the Arab-Muslim world, is leaving the United States for at least a year. He has accepted a position occupying the Edward Said chair of American Studies (How's that for an oxymoron? Said was at Bir Zeit on the Hudson when I was there and was an America hater) at the American University in Beirut.

Steven Salaita announced on Twitter that he will be the Edward W. Said Chair of American Studies at the American University of Beirut (AUB) for the 2015-16 academic year.

I'm thrilled to announce that I will serve as the Edward W. Said Chair of American Studies at #AUB for the 2015-16 academic year.

— Steven Salaita (@stevesalaita) July 1, 2015

I'm sure his friends at Hezbullah will prepare a welcome befitting of a king.

The Israel Academia Monitor notes:

Steven Salaita's academic trajectory is on the uptake.  From a virtually unknown academic in a modest college, he is headed to Beirut to assume the Said chair at the American University of Beirut. Clearly this is an award for Salaita who became a celebrity in Middle East studies.

The fact that the once respectable the American University in Beirut would hire Salaita is troubling, as the article below indicates. But the American University is by no means unique in this regard. To the contrary, there is a larger trend at work here that rewards anti-Israel scholars and scholarship. As IAM indicated, a number of Israeli academics found prestigious positions in British and other universities.

Having continued now for more than three decades, this trend has led to the delegimization of Israel and provided the justification for BDS.

I hear that there are a lot of suicide bombers in Lebanon.

Labels: academic boycott, anti-Semitism, BDS, Beirut, Hezbullah, Lebanon, liberal academia

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:10 PM