The Shalem Centre in Jerusalem is hosting a conference on "psycho-ontology" December 11-15. Big shindig. Fantastic line up: David Chalmers, Jesse Prinz, Susanna Siegel, Stephen Pinker, Amie Thomasson, and many others. Wow! Great news!
Oh, but wait a minute.
Sergio Tenenbaum (Toronto), visiting Hebrew University this term, writes that danger lurks:
I am writing out of concern that North American academics might be unwittingly giving legitimacy to an organization whose politics they might find objectionable; namely, the Shalem Centre in Jerusalem. The Shalem Centre is organizing a conference in “Psycho-Ontology” and the list of speakers is absolutely first-rate. You can find a link to the conference here.
I should preface these remarks by saying that I am absolutely opposed to academic boycott of Israel; in fact, I am right now spending six months in Israel as part of a research group at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem. However, I obviously do not support every institution in Israel, and I certainly think that some of them should be boycotted in light of their support for the Occupation and the policy of building settlements on Palestinian land. One possible candidate for boycott is the Shalem Centre.
The Shalem Centre is a right-wing think tank with very close relationships to the Netanyahu government and Neocons in the US. At present the Shalem Centre is asking for accreditation from the Council of Higher Education to grant undergraduate degrees. There is good reason to suspect that the education offered would have a very heavy ideological bias. Just to give an example, prominently displayed on the main page of their website is a link to a jaw-dropping paper by their Senior Vice President. So far the Israel accreditation agency has not accepted the Shalem Centre’s application, but certainly organizing conferences with respectable academics is part of their strategy for making the case that they are a legitimate academic institution.
I myself have decided not to participate in any events sponsored by the Shalem Centre. However, I can see here that there is reason for reasonable disagreement. But at a minimum people who participate in Shalem Centre's activities should be aware of the Centre’s ideological and political agenda.
Boycotts are boycotts. Think what you will of them. But speakers and participants need to be careful that they are not advancing a right-wing organization's agenda of legitimization.
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