Good academics keep their opinions to themselves

Well a hero of mine , Norman Finkelstein just got fired (well denied tenure but soon to be fired). An academic at De Paul University in the U.S. He had the brave stupidity to criticise Israel and the scholarship of a Zionist lawyer (Alan Dershowitz also noted for representing OJ Simpson).

Predictably he got labeled an Anti-Semite and recently denied tenure despite the recommendation of his faculty. Apparently, you can still be an Anti-Semite even if both your parents are holocaust survivors. (I know that was a bit cheap ah).

The story is still unfolding however, and as far as political drama goes this ones got plenty of it, so we'll see what happens next.

The easy way to understand Palestine

People are always trying to say Palestine is a complicated issue .... it's not really but the arguments tend to go round in circles, so I won't bore you. Instead here's a map the UN has recently produced of the West Bank, which reflect the "facts on the ground".


Now imagine trying to get anything done in that place, run a business, run a government, a hospital, see your family in a neighbouring town. Every time you or something you need (like water, electricity or anything you want to buy or sell) crosses a piece of orange space a bureaucrat can just say "no" end of story. You can't even vote them out, your only allowed to vote for people who don't have any power over the orange space (i.e. the Palestinian Authority).