Paying For The Privilege

Canadian universities are restive. At least some of the student populations within those universities are, markedly so. Led there by many of those who teach there, and by trade-union examples. Carleton University appears to be vying with the University of Western Ontario and York University as presenting as the most volatile, institution-defying, socially-rejecting, intellectually biased Israel-bashers.

The academe-and-student-body-related 'international-social-conscience' imperatives revolving around the unquestioning support of the Palestinian 'cause' by the simple expedient of slandering and isolating Israel through calls for investment-divestment and boycotting of Israeli scholars and merchandise production has been adopted with remarkable gusto.

The lib-left have lost some of their otherwise-directed campaigns in support of gay rights and farm workers rights in Latin America, so they have turned their activist righteousness and sanctimony on Israel. It helps tremendously that Israel is a nation which, while not comprised exclusively of Jews, is meant as a haven for Jews.

It is the Jewish-element of Israel that abrades the ethics-challenged social consciences of the highly hysterical left who find it fits very well with their world view of Jews in general and Israel in particular as piranhas feasting on the flesh of poor Arabs who want nothing more than what every other national group has achieved; a homeland of their own.

Which they historically slammed when it was offered as the UN passed a historic 1948 resolution to partition the geography, giving Israel its tiny island of heritage in a sea of Muslim nations who wasted no time in marching in a bellicose war of annihilation that failed. That failure with one war after another where Israel remained resolutely ensconced, did not result in accommodation to her presence.

The Palestinians have attempted to resort to any and every method conceivable to dislodge Israel and regain the territory they once, and continue, to consider theirs and theirs alone. And there the stalemate rests, with the Palestinians vowing to oppose their aggressor, the Israelis vowing to surmount their existential threat, and young intellectuals of Western orientation linked solidly with the perceived underdog.

To which an invited honoured guest speaker at Carleton University, addressing the student body, rests on his own celebrated laurels as a renowned intellectual and speaker, one whose distaste for Israel and for his own country the United States is legendary. Noam Chomsky gave his virulent critique of Israel a rest this time around, made no mention of having launched the original boycott actions against Israel.

But did go to great pains to remind the fervently-adoring student body that they have the right to be anarcho-intellectuals. That it is a shame that people such as they - seeking to fill their minds with scholarly ideas while disseminating their rigid ideas on social morality - must be forced to pay for the privilege. "When you trap people in a system of debt ... they can't afford the time to think", he advised them.

Which goes a long way to explaining how it is that reason and reasonableness is absent from their particular debate; their minds have become too fatigued by the intolerable burden of having to pay their share for their already-subsidized educations.