SUNY Buffalo political science professor, Jerome Slater has become a welcome addition to the progressive Jewish blog world. His new one, Jerome Slater: On the U.S. and Israel, covers specific territory for which he is a distinguished expert: human rights, the laws of war and just war theory, and the political rhetoric of the conflict. Slater is one of the few I know who can take on a figure as formidable as Michael Walzer on his own terms and best him.
Though it is not quite as true now as it once was, I have always said that what the online world needs regarding the I-P conflict is not more savage, confrontational blogs but ones that provide specific expertise and deep knowledge of sources. Another point I’ve made many a time is that there are too many polemicists and too few academics (right or left) blogging. That has changed since I first made this argument and a number of excellent academic analysts have entered the fray, but it still holds true. That’s one of the reasons why Prof. Slater’s blog is so helpful at this time.
His first few posts provide a rebuttal to Moshe Halbertal’s attack on the Goldstone Report and an overall appraisal of that Report and Israeli conduct of the Gaza war.
I urge you to add his blog to your Google Reader. He plans to treat his blog more as a series of essays than as an everyday blog. But when he does have something to say it will be important to read it.
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I have heard of Professor Slater and as an area resident I can verify that he is very well regarded at the University of Buffalo. I look forward to reading his blogs. Richard, thanks for sharing this wonderful news.
Hmm I thought that’s what this blog aspired to? Or are you suggesting that you don’t command a deep knowledge of sources? Or perhaps a certain polemical quality to your writing?
Fella, you should try to be a man of yr word. I can see yrs is worth about as much as a roll of toilet paper. O well, so you lied. You’re back like a bad penny.
Thanks for the snark. It shows your true colors. Jerry has been a political science professor for 40 yrs or so, published in the world’s finest publications in his field, not to mention books I’m sure, gone head to head with Michael Walzer. So no, I don’t have that background since I’ve only been blogging for 7 yrs.
And yes, when it comes to people like you who are deeply polemical, I’ll match you word for word & then some.
I never claimed my blog was the same as Jerry Slater’s or should be. The reason why I want academics blogging is to lend gravitas to our side. I do not have a PhD in political science or any field related to the I-P conflict (though I have an MA in Hebrew literature). Thus, I write a diff. sort of blog than Jerry or Jerry Haber or Mark LeVine or Bernard Avishai or any other academics who blog on this subject. The more diff. types of progressive blogs there are on the IP conflict the more successful our peacemaking will be.
Professor Slater is also one of a group of courageous academics who speak truth to power about many subjects, including Israel-Palestine, with courage and deep knowledge. He will bring to the blogosphere a wonderful sophistication and credibility, and provide readers with much-needed analysis of issues as they occur. He is very well respected and admired at UB, and I am so pleased to know he will be blogging; he raises the bar for everyone on the net.