I agree with you that it’s not really a legal argument. I do think the right response is to have someone write a detailed rebuttal in a prestige journal rather than to say, “this is absurd, no one will take it seriously.” That was the mistake people made with “settler-colonialism.”

That’s exactly right. My post doesn’t even address the legal aspects of the article, because as Ralph pointed out in his comment, it’s not really a legal paper.

🤦‍♂️

Not all Jews are in favor of genocidal settler colonial projects. And all of these articles are biased, you just don’t notice it unless it happens to be against the status quo.

Political Zionism is a genocidal settler colonial project. Have you ever read what Herzl or Jabotinsky wrote? Israel doesn’t stop being a settler colonial project just because colonialism isn’t as popular as it once was.

I don’t disagree with you, Ralph, about the problems with the paper but I think the answer is not to say, “it’s bad, don’t pay attention to it,” but to have someone ( not me!) spend a year rebutting it in detail.

Emblematic of the dishonesty of the article is another critical omission above some of the others you identify. Despite the timing of its publication and obvious relationship to the subject, nowhere does the author mention October 7.

The article has garnered far more attention than it deserves largely because of the “secretive” and “unusual” process leading to its publication. I take this to be code for a process that excluded the critical eyes of Jews. A Columbia tradition! If you are going to rewrite history in the name of “social justice,” this is how it is done.

This is the kind of comment it is wisest not to respond to, but I want to correct one common confusion you express. Judaism is of course a religion, but the Jews are both a religious group and a nation and an ethnicity. There are many Jews who are atheists, and the majority of Jews in Israel are not religious, nor were the state’s founders. Political Zionism is not about religion, but about nationality. The French people have a state in France, their homeland. The Japanese people have a state in Japan, their homeland. The Arab people have many states. Jews have a right to a state in their homeland, too. Note that I did not claim that the Jews are the only people who have rights in the land. That is why the land must be shared in the long run.