Juan Cole, who is smart as all get out, has a piece on the campaign against Joseph Massad at Columbia (instigated by the David Project and abetted by the NYTimes)
One of the things Massad is alleged to have said (but apparently did not say) to a student is “If you're going to deny the atrocities being committed against Palestinians, then you can get out of my classroom.” Now, of course one can’t simply kick out an enrolled student. But what about saying such a thing up front, on the first day of class? Like, in a class on the Holocaust (such as some of my colleagues have taught), saying, "If you think the Holocaust didn’t happen, maybe you shouldn’t be taking this class," it seems to me a perfectly reasonable position. I mean, who wants to waste time with the non-reality-based?
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Her face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, she sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of her feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm . . . . irresistibly propels her into the future to which her back is turned, while the pile of debris before her grows skyward. (Walter Benjamin, revised)
