“Do you think Israel’s government is genocidal?”
That’s the question that Rep. Bob Good, a Republican of Virginia, fired at Jonathan Holloway, president of Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey, last week in a U.S. House committee hearing.
Holloway, a scholar of African American history who has been steadily climbing the ladder of administrative positions at top-tier schools, looked stunned.
“Um sir, I don’t … have an opinion on Israel’s um …in terms of that phrase.”
Good: “You do not have an opinion as to whether Israel’s government is genocidal?”
Holloway: “Uh, no sir, I think Israel has a right to exist and protect itself.”
Good: “Do you think Israel’s government is genocidal?”
Holloway: “I think Israel has a right to exist and protect itself, sir.”
Good: “But you will not say Israel’s government is not genocidal. You can’t say that?”
Holloway stuck to his script: “Sir I believe in the government’s right…”
Good, cut him off: “You can’t be that surprised by the topic of the discussion today and you can’t say that Israel’s government is not genocidal. That’s interesting.”
Good has a point.
It is hard to believe that Holloway, or anyone following world events in the slightest for that matter, would not have formed an opinion on whether the Israeli government is committing a genocide.
While Good was trying to wring a “no” out of Holloway, the correct answer for a university president, as a representative of the domain of knowledge, would undoubtedly have been “yes.”
Hellbound and Down 