The University of California (UC)- Berkeley has reinstated an explicitly anti-Israel course which discusses, among other anti-Israel issues, how "Palestine" would look without Israel, and examines "possibilities" to this end. The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has condemned the course, understating that a university course would not be given anywhere "that advocated the dismantlement of any other country." The course, entitled: ‘Palestine: A Settler Colonial Analysis,’ examines the history of the region from the 1880s “through the lens of settler colonialism.” The ZOA notes that this presumes fallaciously that Zionism is a colonial movement, rather than a national liberation movement. The course aims to “explore the connection between Zionism and settler colonialism," and also examines “the possibilities of a decolonized Palestine,” i.e., one in which Jewish self-determination and statehood is non-existent. The course readings consist heavily of anti-Zionist passages from ‘new historians’ such as Ilan Pappé, Arab activists such as Edward Said, and others. It uses materials from organizations that seek to defame Israel such as Breaking the Silence. It even includes a reading from the Goldstone Report, whose anti-Israel findings were eventually rejected by its chairman, Judge Goldstone himself. The course reading materials include nothing from scholars who do not condemn Zionism. The course is sponsored, the ZOA states, by UC’s Hatem Bazian, co-founder of the radical anti-Israel movement known as Students for Justice in Palestine. “This UC course marks a new low in campus anti-Zionism," ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "that is perverting academic teaching about the conflict across the country. [It] brings into the open what is often merely latent: that courses at universities today that deal with Zionism, Arab nationalism and the history of Israel and the Palestinian Arabs are inherently biased against Zionism and Jewish national rights… This particular course openly asserts that Zionism is illegitimate [by falsely calling it ‘colonialist’], and indeed explicitly explores ways in which the destruction of Israel can be brought about." “Taking back our universities from the far left, Marxists and other absurdly biased, nakedly radical anti-Israel activist ‘scholars’ is a task vital to the future health of America and Israel,” Klein concludes.
