‘Israel Studies’ Editors Apologize . . . for Pro-Israel Bias

by Cinnamon Stillwell, MEFORUM

Haaretz reports that editors of the Israel Studies journal—which is affiliated with the Association for Israel Studies—have issued a public apology in response to the manufactured controversy over a special issue titled, “Word Crimes: Reclaiming the Language of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.”

Written and edited by a group of Israel and Jewish studies professors to address the manipulation of academic language in order to demonize Israel and advance BDS, the issue set off academics who were incensed at the departure from anti-Israel orthodoxy. Following its publication, eleven members of the journal’s editorial board resigned in protest.

After mounting a campaign that included an attempt to “shut down” the special issue based, ironically, on the claim that its title “shuts down discourse,” detractors have now succeeded in getting Israel Studies editors to issue a groveling apology and “plans for preventing such recurrences in the future.” In other words, the editors have apologized for publishing a variety of viewpoints and are promising not to do so again. Not to mention the spectacle of a journal devoted to Israel studies caving in to those accusing it of “anti-BDS, pro-Israel bias.”

However, Miriam Elman, a Syracuse University professor and “Word Crimes” contributor and co-editor who has been vocal in its defense, tweets that the Haaretz article, among other shortcomings, “misrepresents [the] editors’ position; [and] fails to note the MANY positive reviews of this publication . . . or its brisk sales.” She also references a series of informative reviews, statements, and counter-statements authored by “Word Crimes” contributors and critics, and published in Fathom Journal in recent months—something that Haaretz, curiously, omits.

To put the underlying problem in perspective—and as Elman noted in May—the “minority group” of “Word Crimes” critics actually attempted to prevent the Association of Israel Studies from holding its 2019 annual meeting . . . in Israel. As Middle East Forum President Daniel Pipes put it on Twitter, “For anyone who still believes that #Israel studies offers a solution to the disaster that is #MidEast studies, the antics at the journal called ‘Israel Studies’ should end that dream.”