Pro-Palestine students at the University of Chicago are demanding a boycott of a course taught this semester by a former Israeli Defense Forces general, according to the student group’s social media.
The course, titled “Security, Counter-Terrorism, and Resilience: The Israeli Case,” will be taught by Meir Elran, former IDF general and head of the Homeland Security Program at the Institute for National Security Studies. Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Chicago urged students to boycott it as part of its winter semester campaign “Israeli Military Off Our Campus,” according to its Instagram.
The group describes Elran’s course as “the sh*ttest, most racist class of them all,” referring to its previous campaigncalling on students to avoid “sh*tty Zionist classes.” It was also offered during the winter 2021 semester, according to Coursicle.
“That’s right, UChicago is hosting a military general- who’s made a career out of participating in and enhancing the violent repression of Palestinians- to teach students about ‘security,’” the post reads. “This class disguises Israel’s racist propaganda as academic education, whitewashes Israeli violence against occupies Palestinians, and sweepingly vilifies Palestinian resistance as ‘terrorism.’
“The racism, Islamophobia and colonial militarism of this course-passed off as ‘academic knowledge’- reveals the true face of the Israel Institute, the organization funding Elran’s course. As outlined in our 2021 report … the Israel Institute is implicated in a network of institutions that use millions of charity dollars to push a pro-Israel agenda among students in U.S. campuses, while operating under the guise of ‘non-partisan’ education,” the post continues. “Personally and institutionally, then, General Elran represents the Israeli military establishment, and this course constitutes nothing less than the incursion of the Israeli military-industrial complex on UChicago’s campus.”
The group is currently listing 18 reasons why students should boycott the class and the first three refer to Elran’s military history. The group will post one reason “per session of this course,” according to its Instagram.
“Above all, we look forward to a future in which the University’s Palestinian students will no longer be forced to watch leading participants in their ongoing Nakba be hired by their administration, welcomed on their campus, and handed positions of power in their classrooms,” the chapter wrote in a statement published in the student newspaper the Chicago Maroon and provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The SJP chapter also demanded students boycott two other courses they consider to be “zionist propaganda.” The courses include “Religion in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Peacemaking” and “The Political Theologies of Zionism,” both of which are taught by Israel Institute Visiting Fellow David Barak-Gorodetsky.
The University of Chicago, the Institute for National Security Studies and Elran did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Barak-Gorodetsky could not be reached.
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Republished with permission from Daily Caller News Foundation
