History Professors Take Aim At Israel

More than a hundred U.S. history professors have set aside their books and stepped away from their lecterns to unite in righteous fury over an outrage so urgent that all other causes can wait: Palestinian students are being inconvenienced.

I’m not kidding.

At the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, being held Jan. 7-10 in Atlanta, a group of radical historians will present a resolution about the mistreatment of students thousands of miles away — not Chinese students who have been jailed for dissenting from the Communist Party line; not students at Syria’s Aleppo University, which has been bombed by the Assad regime because it has been the center of anti-government criticism; and not even Palestinian students who have been persecuted by the Palestinian Authority for their “critical postings about Palestinian Authority forces on Facebook,” according to Human Rights Watch.

No, these 126 historians are angry because Palestinian students are sometimes delayed “15 minutes or more” at Israeli security checkpoints. These delays are “impeding instruction at Palestinian institutions of higher learning,” the learned professors insist.  And so they want the AHA to condemn Israel.

I sent an email last week to all 126 of the sponsors of the anti-Israel resolution.

I told them how disappointed I am that their resolution does not take into account the horrible fate suffered by another group of students in the Middle East—a fate far worse than what has been experienced by the Palestinian students who claim their travels have been impeded.

I am referring to the numerous American students who have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists, including my own daughter, Brandeis University junior Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in a Palestinian attack in April 1995. ...