Ohio State Assistant Professor Defends Hamas
Welcome to the world of Academia, right? A friend of mine contacted me and tipped me off that an Ohio State Assistant Professor was interviewed during an anti-Israel rally in downtown Columbus and staunchly defended Hamas, a radical Islamic terrorist organization. He also railed against what he called a “colonial occupier” in Israel. Hourglass 1941 has a pretty in-depth online report, including this video which features the OSU staff member, Pranav Jani:
The most interesting parts come when the interviewer questions Jani about the rocket attacks into Israel launched by Hamas. He calls the rocket attacks, which were not retaliatory in nature, “an act of self-defense.” He goes on to say that “any resistance to the colonial occupier is justified.” Later he calls for a secular Democratic state, which is not what Hamas is pushing for as an organization at all. Most interesting to me however, was his defense that he may not “agree with a particular tactic a group uses”, just as he calls unprovoked rocket attacks self-defense. Does he agree or disagree with the tactic of using children as human shields?
For some background, Pranav Jani is an Assistant Professor in the English Department here at The Ohio State University. His website at Ohio State includes some information about him, including the websites he visits frequently. The sites include such prestigious publications as The New York Times and The International Socialist Review. The typical slanted outlets such as Al-Jazeera and al-Ahram Weekly also make an appearance alongside anti-war sites, his personal blog [on which he calls himself a Marxist], and ESPN.
It’s mildly sickening that some portion of my tuition has contributed to employing this man, who was quoted as leading the chant “Long live the Intifada” at the rally in downtown Columbus. In his mind, Israel (which showed tremendous restraint over the past year) is the bad guy and Hamas (which uses children as human shields and wires their women with explosives to make a point) is the regional good guy. Ohio tax money, perpetrating this twisted world view.
Jani is wrong to defend Hamas as resisting an imperial occupier. However, he does make a statement that is 100% accurate. It pertains to the solution to the problem. When asked by the interviewer, “when you believe that justice has been achieved, what will that look like?” He responded, “the beginning of justice would be a secular democratic state with Jews and Arabs living side by side.” I fully agree: Taking religion out of government would be the beginning of peace. Unfortunately, what he fails to acknowledge is that Hamas isn’t resisting a Jewish religious state for the purpose of achieving a secular democratic state; it’s trying to empower a Muslim religious state the world round.
There’s really no ‘good guys’ in this little dispute…With the people in charge of Hamas or in charge of the little alleged democracy that could, Israel. Hamas wants to kill people, Israel wants to kill arabs and/or push them out of the region…Sure wish WW2 really did away with colonialsim, never would have all these problems…
But, yeah, a two-state solution is the only fair and right solution.
So, about 20 Isralis killed over the space of ten years by these rockets fired from Gaza, yet Israel can kill hundreds over the span of a few days is an appropriate, cheered-by-the-US response?
If Ohio tax money paying the salary of this dick is outrageous to you, where’s the outrage over US tax dollars being used to blow up brown people by the dozens with fighter jets?
As a jew, I can say with the upmost confidence that Israel is a racist, militaristic country, partly founded by terrorists and run by those same terrorists for decades. It is run by a hard right wing whom want nothing more than a ‘Greater Israel’ that physically excludes the natives who live and have lived around the borders of the ‘48 partition.
Terrorism? Ask a brit’s family who was killed at the King David hotel or during the forties by the Irgun or Haganah if there wasn’t a zionist terrorism wave that helped found that place—Or the family of Count Bernadotte—Or move up a few decades and talk to the famlies of someone killed or wounded on the USS Liberty….
You little humpers need to get over this blind love for this place. It really has nothing to do with us and will continue to cause nothing but hate for the US at the cost of billions in wars and tax subsidies.
There should really be more attention on this.
This is a war of ideals and culture and this Asst. Prof. needs to be “let go.”
Lead the charge and rally more citizens from Ohio my friend. Great entry Justin!
[...] from Shots on the House, originally authored by OSU student Justin [...]
[...] on January 11, 2009 Cross-posted from Shots on the House, originally authored by OSU student Justin [...]