Israel
TagSupporting Higher Education in Gaza (guest post)
“No matter what else one thinks of this conflict, our hearts should break over the loss of educational opportunities for over a million people which will extend far beyond this war.” (more…)
An Open Letter from Gaza Academics
“We have come together as Palestinian academics and staff of Gaza universities to affirm our existence, the existence of our colleagues and our students, and the insistence on our future, in the face of all current attempts to erase us.” (more…)
Srinivasan on Open Letters, Protests, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom
Amia Srinivasan’s specialty, it seems to me, is making sense of moral ambivalence: detecting, dissecting, and sometimes defending its reasonability, even in the face of unavoidable and urgent decisions. (more…)
NYU Philosophy Graduate Students Call for Divestment
“Six months on from the brutal Hamas attacks of October 7th, more than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed… Some 1.9 million people… have been displaced. Over two hundred aid workers have been killed during the conflict. At least 103 reporters are dead… Gaza is facing a famine. As long as it continues to invest in war, NYU is implicated in this devastation. D..
Administration Sets Police on Peaceful Student Protestors
Milagros Peña, president of Purchase College, State University of New York, authorized campus and local police to forcibly break up what appears to be a peaceful gathering of student protestors, in a continuing trend across the country. (more…)
Columbia Philosophy Grad Students Condemn Campus Arrests
“We call for the reversal of student suspensions and for departments to refuse to comply with university investigations or sanctions of students and employees participating in non-violent political action.”
University of California Faculty Statement on Protests
“We believe that the ability to protest nonviolently is essential to our democracy and a basic human right that must be respected and protected.” (more…)
Campus Protests about Israel and the Palestinians (several updates)
This post is for discussion of the ongoing campus protests against Israel’s response to the October 7th, 2023 attack on it by Hamas, and in support of the Palestinians. (more…)
Hobart and William Smith Colleges Fails Its Faculty and Its Students
Mark D. Gearan, president of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, has removed political theorist Jodi Dean from her courses because she authored a pro-Palestinian blog post, published on April 9th. (more…)
University Revokes Philosopher’s Visiting Professorship over Signing of “Philosophy for Palestine” Letter (updated)
The University of Cologne yesterday withdrew its invitation to Nancy Fraser (New School) to take up its 2024 Albertus Magnus Professorship, a visiting position that the university considers a “special honor,” because Professor Fraser had been one of several hundred signatories of the “Philosophy for Palestine” open letter published last November. (more…)
American Philosophers Should Condemn the War in Gaza (guest post)
“American academic philosophers should speak out to condemn the Israeli assault on Gaza.” (more…)
Moral Philosophy as War Propaganda (guest post)
“The hellish reality of this war is transfigured by philosophers into abstract thought experiments and technical prose.” (more…)
Speech, Campuses, Antisemitism (guest post)
“If we don’t resort to censorship, we need to think more about the responsibilities of all actors involved with this difficult speech… This suggests an important role for colleges: helping students to exercise these responsibilities rather than simply trying to control them through speech codes.” (more…)
Disproportionate and Intended Harm to Innocents in Israel’s War in Gaza (guest post)
“Experts on just war disagree on what precisely counts as permissible proportion. But clearly this is grossly disproportionate.”
Israel, Hamas, and “Blowback” (guest post)
“The proportionality constraint is backward-looking in the following sense: to determine how bad a prospective harm is for a potential innocent victim, we sometimes need to look at what that victim has suffered in the past, and whether we’re responsible for what they’ve suffered” as well as “whether we should have acted differently in the past thereby avoiding the n..
Proportionality, Psychic Harm, and the Day After (guest post)
“Once we count psychic harm, it looks like Israel’s war might be proportional. But it could be proportional only if the Israelis aren’t imposing on basically all Gazans a greater psychic burden than the psychic burden that Israelis hope to avoid,” which could be the case “if Israel takes it upon itself, as soon as possible, to reassure the Gazans that Gaza will not ..
Condemnations, Moral Guidance, and Gaza (guest post)
“The absence of moral guidance by philosophical condemners conveys that they do not think of Israelis as friends whom they want to morally improve. Perhaps, worse, it reflects the sense that there is something morally improper about providing Israelis with guidance and advice…” (more…)
There Is No Military Objective In Gaza (guest post)
“There is no feasible or achievable military goal, legitimate or otherwise, for Israel’s bloody campaign in Gaza.” (more…)
Israel & Hamas: Another Letter, Another Critical Response (updated)
As mentioned in an update to this post, a group of philosophers posted an open letter, dated November 1, 2023, under the heading “Philosophy for Palestine.” (more…)
How Not To Intervene In Public Discourse (guest post) (several updates)
“I think that philosophers (and other intellectuals and academics) can sometimes offer valuable contributions to public discourse. Still, I think this letter is a paradigmatic example of how not to do so.” (more…)
Open Letter on the Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza from Oxford Researchers
“We implore you to call for an immediate cessation to Israel’s morally disastrous attack on Gaza, and for Israel to allow the free passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, in addition to continuing to call on Hamas to release the Israeli hostages.” (more…)
Proportionality and Responsibility in the Israel-Hamas Conflict (guest post)
What do the “moral constraints that apply to defensive force” imply in a situation as complicated as the conflict between Israel and Hamas? (more…)
David Enoch Arrested While Protesting Judicial “Reforms” in Israel
David Enoch, professor of philosophy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was among those protesting the Israeli government’s controversial plans to scale back the independence and power of its judiciary yesterday near Tel Aviv when he was arrested by police. (more…)
Israeli Philosophers Oppose Government’s Anti-Democratic “Reforms” (updated)
Over 100 Israeli philosophers have signed an open letter to the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the nation’s Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, expressing concern about recently advanced legal changes. (more…)
Israeli Philosophers Object To Deportation of African Refugees (updated w/ link to petition)
Over 70 Israeli philosophers have signed an open letter objecting to their government’s efforts to deport African refugees and migrants. (more…)
Heyd Wins EMET Prize
David Heyd, professor of philosophy at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is the winner of the 2017 EMET Prize for Art, Science and Culture in the Humanities category. (more…)
Israeli Philosophy Community Calls For Rejection Of Proposed Ethics Code
Over 80 Israeli philosophers—the vast majority of the Israeli philosophical community—have issued a statement urging their government’s Council for Higher Education to reject a proposed academic ethics code. (more…)
Is Academic Freedom in Israel Threatened by a Philosopher-Authored Ethics Code? (Updated with English Translation of Proposed Code)
Israel’s Minister of Education has proposed the adoption of a code of ethics for academics that some worry poses a threat to the academic freedom of professors there. The code was authored by Asa Kasher, the Laura Schwarz-Kipp Chair in Professional Ethics and Philosophy of Practice at Tel Aviv University. (more…)