Where's the historian's outrage?
American college professors have now shown their true colors when it comes to Israel. Remember how 126 historians recently tried
to get the American Historical Association (AHA) to condemn Israel for
“interfering with the travel of students” by maintaining security
checkpoints? Well, now it’s the Palestinian Authority (PA) that is
setting up checkpoints to block teachers—and wouldn’t you know it, those
angry historians have suddenly fallen silent.
The
126 radical historians presented their resolution at the AHA’s
convention in Atlanta in January. The Gang of 126 claimed the students
are sometimes delayed “15 minutes or more” at Israeli security
checkpoints, and these delays supposedly are “impeding instruction at
Palestinian institutions of higher learning.”
The
real impediment to Palestinian education, however, is the behavior of
the PA. More than 20,000 Palestinian public school teachers are striking
because the PA has failed to implement a 2013 agreement between the PA
and the Palestinian Teachers Union. The pay raises and promotions
required by the agreement have never been put into effect.
The
PA claims that it doesn’t have enough money to pay the teachers. Yet
the PA has one of the largest per capita security forces in the world;
in fact, more than half of all PA employees are in the security forces.
One
of the tasks for which the PA needs such a large security force
is—arresting teachers! Last week, the PA police arrested 20 teachers and
two school principals for the “crime” of participating in a rally
supporting the striking teachers.
I
suppose that news won’t come as a surprise to anyone who reads, for
example, the U.S. State Department’s annual report on human rights
around the world. The most recent report states that under the PA, there
are “restrictions on freedom of speech, press, and assembly.” There are
“limits on freedom of association and movement.”
Now Haaretz reports
that “the PA security services set up rings of checkpoints to prevent
the teachers from attending a demonstration” in support of the strikers.
What? Checkpoints? Palestinians
delayed? Education disrupted? Those 126 angry historians should be up
in arms. And they would be, except for the inconvenient fact that it is
the PA, not Israel, which is to blame for the checkpoints. And Israel’s
critics are constitutionally incapable of ever criticizing the
Palestinian leadership for anything it does. These educators did not
protest on behalf of Palestinian university students because they care
about them, they simply are against Israel’s existence. Shameful.
Read the column on line here at JNS.ORG.
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