Founding of Israel ‘an act of genocide predicated on the racial ideology of Nazism’
Blog posts by a Brock University sociology professor who once said the “Alien” and “Predator” movies franchises are anti-black are being “reviewed” for “antisemitism” and a “profound ignorance of basic historical facts.”
Tamari Kitossa’s “The Professor’s Corner” blog, which appears to have begun in late 2021 with posts skeptical about the COVID pandemic, was reignited last year with pontifications on Israel, Gaza, and Zionism.
The latter are what Brock is looking into.
According to The Standard, Kitossa (pictured) alleges among other things that “Zionism and Nazism are the same,” and that Israel’s actions since its founding could be called the “Zionist Holocaust of Gaza.”
“'[N]o European Jew alive’ cannot know the establishment of Israel was ‘an act of genocide predicated on the racial ideology of Nazism,’” reads one post. It further asserts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and “the trope of antisemitism” act as “bulwarks” against “any and all acts of depravity” by Israelis against Palestinians.
Both Kitossa’s peers at Brock and other experts criticized his “historically inaccurate” claims.
The University of Toronto’s Robert Brym said the “failure to recognize ‘Jews and Israelis form politically heterogeneous groups is a clear example of antisemitism.’”
Brym, a Jew and Zionist who believes Palestinians should have their own state, noted Jews have had “a continuous presence in Israel for 3,000 years” and thus it’s antisemitic to state only Israel must sacrifice its sovereignty.
Further, claims that there’s been a “genocide” of Palestinians contradicts evidence staring everyone in the face: In 1947 there were 1.3 million Palestinians in the region; today there are almost seven million.
By contrast, actual genocides such as that of the Armenians during World War I, Canadian Native Americans after the War of 1812, and Jews during World War II resulted in population reductions of almost 70 percent.
The faculty group Brock Coalition Against Antisemitism put out a statement saying Kitossa’s writing are “abhorrent and unscholarly.”
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B’nai Brith Canada’s Richard Robertson added “One has to question the motives of somebody who is so learned, who is consciously, and one would assume under their own free will, posting such rhetoric online.”
If Kitossa were employed at an American university (Brock is in Canada), his personal writings, however controversial or hateful, likely would be protected by the First Amendment and academic freedom. The University of Waterloo’s Emmett Macfarlane said the latter still applies.
“The university […] can’t be punishing a faculty member just because they write something that may be deeply offensive,” Macfarlane said. “I would caution people against wanting to hand the mantle of censorship or judge to a bunch of university administrators […] the university is just a support structure for teaching research and for free expression. It’s not the embodiment of what everyone in those communities actually say or think.”
The founders of the Network of Engaged Canadian Academics, however, said there is “considerable disagreement” whether “extramural work” like Kitossa’s blog is protected by academic freedom as the topics of Israel, Zionism, etc. are outside Kitossa’s area of expertise (which include “Blackness, anti-Blackness, [and] Black masculinities”).
Macfarlane also noted Canada has hate speech laws which may or may not apply to Kitossa’s writings.
When asked by The Standard for comment, Kitossa merely pointed to one of his blog entries and added “2024 (minus) 1944 (equals) 80 years. What happened in 1944? To whom? By whom? What is happening in 2024? To whom? By whom?”
Four years ago Kitossa argued that the films in the “Alien” and “Predator” franchises are anti-black partly due to the Alien queen allegedly representing black women having babies, and the Predator being a “riff on images of Black men as dreadlocked, violent and superhuman.”
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IMAGE: Brock University
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