Anti-Israel students plan to boycott course taught by IDF general
Anti-Israel students at the University of Chicago are calling for their peers to boycott three courses with 'zionist narratives' being offered in the winter of 2023.
The anti-Israel student group is giving special attention to a course that will be taught by a former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) general.
Anti-Israel students at the University of Chicago (UChicago) are calling for their peers to boycott three courses with “zionist narratives” being offered in the winter of 2023, giving special attention to a course that will be taught by a former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) general.
The courses are “Religion in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Peacemaking,“ “Security, Counterterrorism and Reslience, The Israeli Case,” and “The Political Theologies of Zionism.”
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the student organization objecting to the courses, states in an Instagram post announcing the boycott from last semester that “[b]y attending these classes, you are perpetuating a propaganda campaign that creates complicity in the continuation of Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestine.”
The post goes on to refer to Israel as “an apartheid state predicated upon racial segregation,” claims that Israel “sits on stolen Palestinian land,” and alleges that the term “terrorism” is a misnomer for what is really simply “resistance to colonization and occupation.”
The “Security, Counterterrorism and Resilience” course will be taught by Meir Elran, a former IDF general.
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According to a statement by the SJP club on Elran’s upcoming course, “Elran’s lectures display scant concern regarding Israel’s programmatic theft of Palestinian land, its demolition of Palestinian homes,” and other alleged crimes of the state of Israel.
On January 5, the SJP club launched their #IsraeliMilitaryOffOurCampus campaign to try to convince UChicago to remove the course.
To help with this effort, SJP has also released a document titled “List of 18 Reasons to Oppose General Elran’s ‘Counter-Terrorism’ Course.”
In the document, the group accuses Professor Elan’s course of perpetuating “racism, islamophobia, and colonial militarism.”
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According to EJewish Philanthropy, “[L]ast year, Hillel tracked more than 500 instances of Jewish students and their campus institutions being subjected to antisemitic harassment, discrimination and attack.”
When Campus Reform contacted Professor Elran for a statement, he informed CR he is not currently providing statements.
Campus Reform reached out to each party mentioned, and this article will be updated accordingly.
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