Cary Nelson, humanities professor, author of “Manifesto of a Tenured Radical,” and labor union organizer, has been taking on a new, and I would say, a more positive role. He’s opposing the growing movement against Israel known as “Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment” (BSD)

One wing of that movement is trying to get academics “to work towards the cancellation or annulment of events, activities, agreements, or projects that promote the normalization of Israel in the global academy.” It is having some success in at least raising the issue; several fringe professorial associations have signed on to the boycott, and the Modern Language Association has debated a condemnation of Israel for hindering the entrance of scholars into the West Bank.

Nelson has also been one of the few academic defenders of the University of Illinois (where he works) in its contretemps with Steve Salaita, whose job offer was rescinded when his vicious tweets against Israel surfaced.

Most recently, Nelson wrote an article on Inside Higher Ed probing whether or not the BDS and related anti-Israeli movements are anti-Semitic. He says that they are:

While the BDS movement undoubtedly gathers some conscious anti-Semites into its fold, the way in which it more broadly assigns the traditional pariah status of Jews to the Israeli state is equally troubling. Debates about BDS resolutions and petitions often invoke the standard tropes anti-Semitism has deployed, notably that BDS opponents are organized and funded by an international Jewish lobby, an accusation that surfaced during the Modern Language discussion of its 2014 resolution condemning Israeli visa policies.

He’s probably right: Anti-Israel viewpoints undoubtedly reinforce traditional anti-Semitism and vice versa. I wonder, though, how much of the hostility to Israel comes from Ivory Tower leftists simply because they champion causes that sound compassionate, especially when supported by their “groupthink” colleagues, and who have a deft ability to screen out reality.