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Lebanese Academic Suffers Friendly Fire

Violated boycott to oppose occupation

by
Marc Tracy
March 12, 2010
(Amazon)
(Amazon)

A Palestinian academic in Lebanon named Sari Hanafi—he teaches at the American University in Beirut—has come under fire for collaborating with two Israeli scholars on a book, in violation of a formal academic boycott of Israel’s academy and cultural institutions.

Here’s what’s odd. The two Israeli scholars are anti-Zionist. The book in question is called The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule. And the book contains, according to the academic, “a detailed analysis of the ways in which Israel deploys technologies of power and systems of control to maintain its stranglehold over the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It is a book that concentrates on the illegality of the occupation regime.”

Fellas! The whole “strange bedfellows” thing works best if you let them stay the night!

Boycott and Madness [NOW Lebanon]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.