Donor yanks Israel Studies endowment at U of Washington over professor’s Israel criticism

Conservatives are routinely silenced but free speech for Leftists is sacred. Even defence of murderous Palestinian terrorism is fine, which is what was involved below

The University of Washington has put its five-year-old Israel Studies Program on hold after a major donor, angry about a professor’s criticism of Israel, took her money back.

Becky Benaroya, a prominent Seattle philanthropist, gave $5 million in 2016 to create the program. But after a professor who held the Jack and Rebecca Benaroya Endowed Chair in Israel Studies was among hundreds of Jewish studies and Israel studies professors to sign a widely circulated statement criticizing Israel last year, Benaroya became concerned about what was happening in the program she had funded.

She requested months of meetings with the professor, Liora Halperin, and university officials to discuss her views on the program’s direction. Those meetings — which also included a representative of the pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs, according to a person familiar with them — culminated in the university returning the entire endowment to Benaroya earlier this year.

As a result, the university stripped Halperin of her chair position and halted programming related to Israel studies — moves that Halperin told JTA will have consequences both on campus and well beyond it.

“In making the nearly unprecedented choice to return the endowment money — in the absence of any contractual obligation to do so — UW has dealt an immediate blow to the students who have come to rely on the resources of the program, limited our opportunities to bring innovative academic programming, and sent a broader chilling message about the potential material consequences of engaging in principled political speech,” she said.

“We should not be imposing litmus tests on who is and is not virtuous enough to receive an endowed chair at a university,” David Myers, a professor of Jewish history at the University of California, Los Angeles, told JTA. “I think any defender of the university system and the right of free speech has to be deeply concerned about it.”

https://www.jta.org/2022/02/24/united-states/israel-studies-endowment-revoked-over-professors-israel-criticism-at-university-of-washington

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Facebook allows praise of neo-nazi Ukrainian battalion if it fights Russian invasion

The reversal raises questions about Facebook’s blacklist-based content moderation, which critics say lacks nuance and context.

Facebook will temporarily allow its billions of users to praise the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi military unit previously banned from being freely discussed under the company’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, The Intercept has learned.

The policy shift, made this week, is pegged to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine and preceding military escalations. The Azov Battalion, which functions as an armed wing of the broader Ukrainian white nationalist Azov movement, began as a volunteer anti-Russia militia before formally joining the Ukrainian National Guard in 2014; the regiment is known for its hardcore right-wing ultranationalism and the neo-Nazi ideology pervasive among its members.

Though it has in recent years downplayed its neo-Nazi sympathies, the group’s affinities are not subtle: Azov soldiers march and train wearing uniforms bearing icons of the Third Reich; its leadership has reportedly courted American alt-right and neo-Nazi elements; and in 2010, the battalion’s first commander and a former Ukrainian parliamentarian, Andriy Biletsky, stated that Ukraine’s national purpose was to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade … against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].”

With Russian forces reportedly moving rapidly against targets throughout Ukraine, Facebook’s blunt, list-based approach to moderation puts the company in a bind: What happens when a group you’ve deemed too dangerous to freely discuss is defending its country against a full-scale assault?

According to internal policy materials reviewed by The Intercept, Facebook will “allow praise of the Azov Battalion when explicitly and exclusively praising their role in defending Ukraine OR their role as part of the Ukraine’s National Guard.” Internally published examples of speech that Facebook now deems acceptable include “Azov movement volunteers are real heroes, they are a much needed support to our national guard”; “We are under attack. Azov has been courageously defending our town for the last 6 hours”; and “I think Azov is playing a patriotic role during this crisis.”

https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-battalion-russia/

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