Silencing academic criticism of Zionism

Joel Kovel is a well known American politician and academic, who made the mistake in 2007 to write a book (mildly) critical of zionism. For this he has had to suffer through accusations of anti-semitism and now his employer, Bard College, has fired him:

This document argues that this termination of service is prejudicial and motivated neither by intellectual nor pedagogic considerations, but by political values, principally stemming from differences between myself and the Bard administration on the issue of Zionism. There is of course much more to my years at Bard than this, including another controversial subject, my work on ecosocialism (/The Enemy of Nature/). However, the evidence shows a pattern of conflict over Zionism only too reminiscent of innumerable instances in this country in which critics of Israel have been made to pay, often with their careers, for speaking out. In this instance the process culminated in a deeply flawed
evaluation process which was used to justify my termination from the faculty.

Meanwhile John Yoo is still at Berkeley…

Louis Proyect has more information.