In mid-January, still another group, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, released a statement asking Claremont McKenna to explain its silence over Bassam Frangieh's controversial views in favor of suicide bombing, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Saddam Hussein. (The statement is similar, though not identical, to the one that StandWithUs issued earlier.)
Scholars for a Peace in the Middle East is a nonpartisan group of academics that stand athwart the rising tide of distortions and dishonesty promulgated by the anti-Israel advocates on campus. One of the things that they stand against is the campaign to boycott Israel, which, unfortunately, has taken place here on our campus. Bassam Frangieh, for instance, signed a pro-Hezbollah petition calling for Israel to be boycotted, among other things.
SPME issued a counter petition that says in essence that professors throughout the world will consider themselves honorary Israelis for the purpose of the boycott. Any institution that boycotts Israel, they, too, will boycott. On January 29, 2009, Professor John J. Pitney signed that petition. (Other academics can sign it here.)
Unlike Professor Frangieh who refuses to answer to parents, faculty, alumni, and students in direct violation of the academic freedom principle that professors be answerable for the petitions they take, Professor Pitney helpfully sent me this email when I asked him why he signed the petition after I broke the story about Frangieh.
Unlike Professor Frangieh who refuses to answer to parents, faculty, alumni, and students in direct violation of the academic freedom principle that professors be answerable for the petitions they take, Professor Pitney helpfully sent me this email when I asked him why he signed the petition after I broke the story about Frangieh.
I stand by the language of the petition itself: We are academics, scholars, researchers and professionals of differing religious and political perspectives. We all agree that singling out Israelis for an academic boycott is wrong. To show our solidarity with our Israeli academics in this matter, we, the undersigned, hereby declare ourselves to be Israeli academics for purposes of any academic boycott. We will regard ourselves as Israeli academics and decline to participate in any activity from which Israeli academics are excluded. " *We know where Pitney stands. In fact, he recently told me that he is putting up stickers around his office door saying that he stands with Israel.
Why won't Frangieh stand up for his own views? Why does Richard Rodner on the one hand defend Frangieh's views as academic freedom, while, on the other, delete any mention of them from Wikipedia?
