No innuendo intended at all. Tenure may not quite be armor of adamantine proof, but (at least in the Ivies) it makes a big difference. By contrast, look at poor Norman Finkelstein, who was imprudent enough to defy the Zionist thought police before he had tenure. His academic career is kaput -- even a fourth-rate place like DePaul won't keep him. Now *there*, if you like, is a nervy guy. Very much to his own cost.
I don't know much about Dabashi. For all I know, he's a fine fellow and very likely he has written other things that I would read with greater pleasure. But in the context of the building war hysteria, the barking and howling and slavering of mad dogs like Bollinger, the bombers fueled and ready on the runways... I just think it's an ill-judged moment for even-handedness.
And to tell the truth, even-handedness is not a virtue I've ever admired much anyway, at any time or place. One law for the wolf and the lamb is tyranny, as the man said.
> The university's undistinguished university president Lee Bollinger
This is very unfair to Bollinger. He is anything but undistinguished. Au contraire, he has distinguished himself as one of the most egregious fellators of the Israel lobby in the entire cadre of university administrators -- and the competition for that distinction, in that world, is fierce. Credit where it's due.