Rove Scholar

Sara Roy writes in the London Review of Books:

Recently, at Harvard University where I am based, a Jewish student, using an assumed (gentile) name, began posting anti-semitic statements on the weblog of the Harvard Initiative for Peace and Justice, an anti-war, pro-Palestinian group on campus. The student, it turned out, is the secretary of Harvard Students for Israel - which dissociated itself from the incident - and had previously accused the HIPJ of being too tolerant of anti-semitism. He now went undercover as part of a self-appointed effort to monitor anti-semitism on campus. In one posting, for example, he referred to Israel as the 'AshkeNAZI state'. Incidents of this kind, which are becoming commonplace on American campuses, reflect a wider determination to monitor, report, defame and punish those individuals and institutions within academia whose views the right finds objectionable. The campaign is directed at area studies generally but the most virulent attacks are reserved for those of us in Middle Eastern studies whose ideas are considered anti-Israel, anti-semitic or anti-American.

Two things: I'm glad the Harvard Students for Israel disassociated themselves--I also hope they removed the individual in question from his position as secretary, and booted him from their organization. Second, I don't doubt for a second that it is the sleaze tactics at the top of the slagheap, i.e., Mr. Karl Rove--and his good buddy Dubya--who inspire this stuff. Really raises the level of discourse, no?