Yes. The gerbils, who will be sad and hurt by this comparison.
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Sounds like a micro-aggression to me!
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Iâll note that archaeology is inherently a âpoliticalâ discipline, and that is especially true of archaeology in Israel, where archaeology has long played an important role in state formation and the development of a national identity.
One does not have to take a stance to study the interplay between archaeology, politics, and nationalism, of course, but the people complaining that âuniversities have become too politicalâ do not always make that distinction.
To quote Jodi Magnessâ superb Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth as an example,
While archaeology has been used in many countries to advance political or nationalistic agendas, Masada perhaps best exemplifies this phenomenon. Although Masadaâs eventual fame is largely a result of Yadinâs excavations, the site had become a symbol of the modern State of Israel long before the 1960s. It is the late Israeli archaeologist Shmaryahu Gutman who deserves much of the credit for the creation of the Masada myth. Beginning in the 1930s and through the next couple of decades, Gutman organized treks to Masada for youth movements and groups of guides which established the site as an emblem of Zionist aspirations. With the creation of Israel in 1948, Masada became a symbol of the new state. Gutman continued to make a case for Masadaâs importance through the 1950s and was involved in the first archaeological explorations of the site (see chapter 2). It was because of Gutmanâs persistence that Yadin later undertook excavations at Masada.
Nachman Ben-Yehuda, an Israeli sociologist, notes that the Masada myth is based on a whitewashing of Josephusâs account. For example, instead of referring to sicarii, the Jews atop Masada are typically described as Zealots, as for example by Yadin, or as defenders or rebelsâneutral terms that mask the groupâs violent activities. Their terrorism of other Jews, including the massacre of innocent villagers at Ein Gedi, is overlooked in the Masada myth (see chapters 7 and 8).
A constellation of interrelated events in the twentieth century made possible Masadaâs transformation into a symbol of Jewish heroism and the modern State of Israel. First, the European Jews who immigrated to Palestine in the first half of the twentieth century sought to establish a physical connection to the Zionist homeland. Treks like those organized by Gutman to Masada were intended to forge this bond. Even today, hikes around the country remain an integral part of Israeli life. Second, archaeology proved a useful tool in establishing Zionist claims to a land that had not been under Jewish rule for two thousand years. Third, the notion that heroic Jewish freedom fighters held out against the mighty Roman Empire to the bitter end countered the image of millions of passive European Jews starving to death or being gassed in Nazi concentration camps. In fact, the defenders of Masada have been compared explicitly to the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Fourth, after 1948, Masada became a metaphor for the State of Israel: isolated, besieged, and surrounded by enemies on all sides, as expressed by the popular slogan, âMasada shall not fall again.â This phrase was coined in 1927 by a poet named Yitzhak Lamdan in reference to persecuted European Jews returning to Zion. From the early 1950s on, the IDFâs armored units climbed to the top of Masada for induction ceremonies.
It seems strange for someone who seems so learned to focus on an arbitrary and tangential reference- in this case to archaeology - and to miss the point. Ever miss the forest for the trees? And the fact that you found one or more archaeologists who made it political doesnât make all archaeologists political. Or I have to take a closer look at the T-Rex the next time Iâm at the AMNH.
Please pretend I said âa Physicistâ instead of âan archaeologistâ, or take your pick of any discipline that isnât political according to you. Does that change the underlying point that many if not most serious academics have other things on their mind than politics of any stripe? Politics wonât get you tenure in Mathematics at Harvard. Unless you want to cut and paste a treatise about how Math and Physics are also actually political to educate us all?
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FIRE rates U-Chicago as 13th in Free Speech. (Harvard is #248, MIT #136.)
It didnât take long for someone to leverage FIRE ratings to justify forcing Universities to take a stand. Quite a different opinion from Rabbi Fischman, former bar mitzvah tutor, who quotes this article https://www.chronicle.com/article/harvard-last-in-free-speech-dont-trust-fires-rankings
Hyperpoliticized people complaining about bigotry are ironically engaging in identity politics of the most radical kind. I was taught that it is disrespectful to assume that everyone from any religion, race or country all believe the same thing. Such an assumption would be entirely wrong as to Jews in America as well as Jews in Israel. In many cases, it is Jewish students who are loudly protesting the Gaza War and calling for a free Palestine. This is the case at Yale. This is the case at Harvard. According to Jewish writers, Hannah Klein and Jake Roth, more than 50% of American Jews are in favor of a ceasefire. There is also a lot of scholarship and writing about how the picture of American Jews that we mostly see is the most harshly Zionist because Jewish people currently in positions of authority skew to those politics.
The narrative of rampant anti-Semitism rests on the artificial construction that this political discourse - that does get heated - is just another example of inevitable Jewish victimhood. What happens to that narrative when the so-called aggressors are Jewish themselves? This also smashes the supposition that just because there are some bad actors in a group of protestors that they are all bigots. Was everyone who supported BLM a violent, looting arsonist? Uh, No.
And if someone only characterizes BLM in the context of its worst excesses of violence, fire and destruction do they clearly have a political ulterior motive? Obviously. Itâs not all about the swastika with or without the word Israel after it any more than BLM was all about smash and grab at Gucci. Steering the discourse into this blind alley is itself political.
The dichotomy of opinion in Israel and in America among Jews lays bare the fact that this is a political fight. Which is exactly why Universities could and should be able to be silent on this. If Cambridge wanted to defer comment on George Floyd, I wouldnât feel that all Brits are all racist against African-Americans. Would you? Did I miss it when a lot of BLM people demanded a reaction from Imperial College?
Look, political discussions, especially when tens of thousands of civilian deaths are on the line, get heated. Doesnât anyone remember our soldiers coming home from Vietnam to shouts of âbaby killerâ from college kids? It didnât take any anti-Semitism to cause that reaction. It just took horror at the killing of civilians. But now itâs all anti-Semitism?
Jewish zionists are entirely entitled to their opinions about Netanyahu. But when college students are upset about a war, itâs really not anything new. In any country. For any war where their country is complicit. Itâs calling anyone who disagrees with a particular side an anti-Semite that is the new twist.
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To return to the facts, MIT just released their financial report for the 2024-2025 academic year, and 39% of students are attending tuition free. For any family making < 140k per year, MIT is tuition free, and the financial burden to even those making over $250k per year is substantially reduced. In case anyone thinks this is exaggerated, thank goodness MIT is good with numbers. For the graduating class of 2023, 86% of MIT students graduated with no debt, and of the 14% who assumed debt, the median debt was $14,844.
I guess when youâre a billionaire, you sometimes forget how much things actually cost. Another false narrative bites the dust!
I found their article you are apparently referring to (it has the same illustration you used) in the socialist magazine Jacobin:
Apparently their data is based on the poll by The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, âa research organization with a focus on American Muslims.â
I am not in a position to analyze their methodology or the impact of nuances of the questionâs wording on the outcome, but I will, in the interest of completeness, provide the results of another poll:
The poll, conducted by Schoen Cooperman Research (SCR), found that 81% of American Jews support Israel continuing its military operation to ârecover all Israeli hostages and remove Hamas from power.â Only 12% of respondents said they preferred âan immediate ceasefire to save Palestinian lives, even if that means âIsraeli hostages arenât recovered and Hamas remains in power.â
This was in December, so the numbers may have shifted somewhat, but I wouldnât take the 50% figure as gospel.
I am not exactly a billionaire, but while my kid graduated in 2023 with no debt, our cost was very much in the six digit range, even though it only took him five semesters to graduate.
But I bet dollars to doughnuts that the parents of many of those disrupting the learning are indeed paying much less, if anything.
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Because all of those ignorant anti-Semites have to be poor? Of course youâd believe that.
And youâre comparing two articles - both written by Jewish people - one written in what you characterize as a âsocialist magazineâ, and one written in âJewish Insiderâ. Youâre making my point for me that there is a dichotomy in opinion among Jewish people. And one that everyone should acknowledge and respect before labeling everyone who says "free Palestine " an anti-Semite bent on worldwide genocide.
Schoen Cooperman Research (SCR), found that 81% of American Jews support Israel continuing its military operation to ârecover all Israeli hostages and remove Hamas from power.â Only 12% of respondents said they preferred âan immediate ceasefire to save Palestinian lives, even if that means âIsraeli hostages arenât recovered and Hamas remains in power.â
So according to Schoen Cooperman Research, 81% of American Jews support a continued war as long as all hostages are rescued and Hamas is removed from power and we have all rainbows and unicorns from then on, and only 12% prefer a ceasefire only to save Palestinian lives even if all the hostages are killed and Hamas stays in power and we have eternal darkness afterward? Like you, Iâm no expert in methodology, but really? After the IDF killed 3 hostages who were raising their hands in surrender?
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Because, among other things, a kid who gets suspended after their parents shelled out $200K will have a lot of explaining to do at the Thanksgiving table.
Anyhow, I pays my money, and I gets to protest about the campus climate.
And if anyone doesnât like to read my protestations, they can just move to another forum, amirite? 
It is not my characterization - I provided a link to my source: the Jacobin magazine
Here it is again in a more visible format:
âDichotomyâ?
I have in fact acknowledged here back in November that where there are two Jews, there are three opinions;):
As for genocide⊠I believe these accusations are currently flying in the other direction.
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Sooner or later Momofboiler1 will move this into PM, and then this entirely political conversation couched in the language of Campus events can be laid mercifully to rest. Pays your money or no.
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The fact that an adult - and parent no less - feels free and dare I say proud of comments like this tells me SO much about the behavior of some college students.
@Chekov I hope youâll share with us what dialect or vernacular you were attempting to use here.
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Choosing to disengage is a reasonable and prudent response to the unreasonable vitriol shown in the Politics Forum and this thread. On campuses, as well.
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These are serious issues, but obviously there is a lot of baiting going on here. Having just scrolled a bit more of this enormous thread, Iâm surprised that the mods have allowed this to continue for so long.
Looking back, although no new viewpoints have really been expressed really for months, there is a background hum of some using this forum to continuously push their political agenda. And if anyone responds, then issue baiting is the order of the day. Disappointing to see.
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Which college students?
I thought it was pretty obvious (though English is not my first language):
@Chekov The college students who resort to glib, insulting or otherwise distasteful means of communication. On any side of any issue. Many on this thread bemoan the fact that students are unable to have nuanced, respectful conversation on this topic, when the fact is that most adults are also woefully unable to maintain a respectful tone themselves.
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Well, at least I am glad we got the matter of my vernacular settled.
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Discussing moderation in a thread is against the ToS of this site. If there are posts that require moderation intervention, the appropriate course of action is to flag the post.
Moderators of this site are volunteers. There arenât many of us and we canât possibly read every post on every thread.
If there is an issue that needs to be addressed beyond flagging, PM the mods or send an email to the admin@collegeconfidential.com
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Are the protests accomplishing anything other than to annoy the other students and professors? In that MIT clip, students in the front rows didnât seem to even flinch and just wanted the chanting to be over. Are they recruiting any students to their side of the debate? I donât think so. Are those protesting even students (at those schools)?
Many years ago, the American Indian Movement had a sit in at a CU classroom building. The school moved classes to other classrooms and it was annoying to have to find your classes (long before electronic notifications) but it didnât sway students to join the protests or make many changes. Because it was so peaceful I do think other students were a little sympathetic, but not many joined the movement or stopped going to class.
Itâs been 6 months since the protests started. Any changes?
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Regional or national news coverage (in some cases).
A protest does not need to change any minds on the campus in order to make the news, but it must be newsworthy in some way. Disruption or controversy makes it more newsworthy.