Israel Denial is the first book to offer detailed analyses of the work faculty members have published-individually and collectively-in support of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement; it contrasts their claims with options for promoting peace. The faculty discussed here have devoted a significant part of their professional lives to delegitimizing the Jewish state. While there are beliefs they hold in common-including the conviction that there is nothing good to say about Israel-they also develop distinctive arguments designed to recruit converts to their cause in novel ways. They do so both as writers and as teachers; Israel Denial is the first to give substantial attention to anti-Zionist pedagogy. No effort to understand the BDS movement's impact on the academy and public policy can be complete without the kind of understanding this book offers.

A co-publication of the Academic Engagement Network

About the Author

Cary Nelson is author or editor of over 30 books, including studies of modern poetry and the politics of higher education, Nelson's most recent book is Dreams Deferred: A Concise Guide to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and the Movement to Boycott Israel.

Reviews

The book completely discredits BDS by demonstrating in devastating detail how much it corrupts academic standards and undermines the chances for peace. With its more than 400 pages of text, some 50 pages of notes, and an extensive bibliography, the book not only reflects Nelson's longstanding concern about the corrosive effects of BDS activism, but also his vast experience and erudition as a prolific scholar whose academic career spans almost five decades.

* The Algemeiner *

After Nelson's book, no one should be able to take the work of the BDS professors seriously, given their reliance on propagandistic lies. Cary Nelson's Israel is not the mythic realm of demons fantasized by BDS advocates but an actual place that contains signs of hope.

-- David Mikics, Tablet

Nelson has written a very good book: clear, judicious, and exemplary in its concern for reason and evidence.

* Fathom *

Israel Denial is an epic response to BDS and its pseudo-intellectual underpinnings.

* elder of Ziyon *

Israel Denial seeks to take the rug out from beneath the feet of scholars pushing vilification of Israel and promoting discrimination against Israeli institutions by discriminating against Israeli faculty and students. This is an important book for those who want to be equipped with fighting what is called academic BDS.

* Israel Diaries *

[T]his book fills a desperate need-the need to expose the bigotry of the anti-Israel academy and the thinly veiled fictions they propagate.

* Commentary *

Israel Denial is a staggering work of rigorous intellectual inquiry that helps us understand how a deep anti-Israel animus in academia has fueled the rise of intersectionality as a movement to isolate and exclude Jews.

* Jewish Journal *



Book Information
ISBN 9780253045041
Author Cary Nelson
Format Paperback
Page Count 658
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press