I like to learn. That’s the main reason I have a PhD and stay in academia. I love an intellectual pursuit. This week, I’m attending a causal inference workshop to refresh my training on quantitative causal inference. Causal inference is the field of knowledge dedicated to understanding if one thing causes another. It’s sounds pretty simple, but it turns out, it’s very complex outside of a highly controlled experiment (think randomized controlled trial) to “prove” causation. Statistically, there are so many confounding variables we have to consider. To use my research area as an example, I’m interested in understanding how guaranteed income influences health. We know that income (but more so wealth, another story to unpack) is related to health. However, because high-income people and low-income people are different in so many other ways (discrimination, diet, occupation, residential location, leisure time, etc.), we need to be able to more effectively isolate the impact of the income to understand its impact on health. So that’s what I’m in the workshop to learn how to do better.
Anyway, on day 2 of a 5-day intensive course on causal inference, the director of the program opened the workshop with a very odd and inappropriate soliloquy—complete with slides—on Israel. To be clear, no other presentation was delivered that did not focus on the methodology we were expecting (and paid) to learn about. My brain took a while to register what was being said because it was so out of place: Israelis are not colonizers. Israelis have nowhere else to go. Hamas is the “cause” of all the pain and suffering in Gaza. Anti-zionism is antisemitism.
While he’s talking, I’m looking around at the faces in the room to see if I’m the only one out of sorts. About 6 minutes into the monologue I raised my hand, giving him much more respect than he gave anyone else in the room. More respect than he deserved, to be frank.
“First, I disagree with basically everything you said. And second, what does this have to do with what we’re here to learn?”
“Nothing, I’m just using my platform to speak about it as I have done for the past year and as I will continue to do.”
It was an odd exchange. I had one of those moments where you think about all the things you could’ve and should’ve said. Mainly, instead of saying “I disagree with you” I should’ve said “What you said are outright lies and we can go point for point but that’s not why we paid all this money.”
I was unable to focus on much of the content for the rest of the session because of how my nervous system responded to his crassness. All this while we enter the 22rd month of the US-backed Israeli genocide in Palestine during which the daily atrocities have been extensively documented and observed worldwide. So, I decided to write in response to the lies.
“Israelis are not colonizers.”
By zionists’ own definition, zionism is colonization. See articles NYT articles from 1883, 1899, and 1902. Israel's establishment involved the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 and ongoing military occupation and settlement expansion in Palestinian territories—hallmarks of settler colonialism. Like other colonial projects, it involves domination, land expropriation, and erasure of Indigenous people.
“Anti-zionism is antisemitism”
zionism is a political ideology which advocates for a specific nationalist project. Criticizing it is not the same as criticizing Jewish people nor expressing hatred of Jewish people. Many Jews reject zionism while affirming Jewish identity and opposing antisemitism. On a personal note, much of my own intellectual development related to social justice issues (including and beyond the struggle for Palestinian liberation) is due to being taught and mentored by anti-zionist Jews.
“The food aid problem”
To his credit, he did say that Israel is getting “some things wrong.” The word “some” is doing quite a bit of heavy lifting. To downplay systematic mass starvation—one of many war crimes Israel has committed—as a “food aid problem” is intellectually dishonest and repugnant. One in three people are going days without any food in Gaza and, since Mid-July, at least 16 children under the age of five have died from hunger-related causes. The issue in Gaza is not a lack of food aid, but deliberate obstruction of aid by Israel, which controls borders and restricts humanitarian access. Multiple international agencies have confirmed that trucks carrying food and medical supplies are being delayed, denied entry, or attacked. This is a political blockade, not a logistical failure.
These are just a few. But one of the sneaky lies he told wasn’t said explicitly—it was implied. It was the notion that it takes courage to speak in favor of Israel. As if this was a moment of righteous indignation. As if he was standing up against some great powerful force—instead of at an intensive training program on causal inference. As if Israel doesn’t receive the full financial backing from our government with our tax dollars. As if people who speak out for Palestinian (human) rights are not persecuted, suspended, and denied tenure (i.e., fired) at his very institution and others being abducted, detained, or getting their degrees revoked at other institutions across the country. The reality is: zionism is a settler colonial and white supremacist project. So, supporting it is as American as apple pie.
But maybe he has a point. There seems to be a global downward trend in support for Israel. Two Israeli human rights organizations have finally admitted that Israel is committing genocide. And a new poll showed that adults from countries around the world disproportionately hold negative views of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu. In the US, specifically, negative viewpoints rose 11 percentage points from 2022-2025. A more appropriate engagement with the attendees who had paid for specific training would have been an exercise estimating the causal impact of perpetrating genocide on public perception.
To that point, I don’t mind genuine engagement with politics in academic research spaces. In fact, I think we could use more of it. That’s why I asked, “what does this have to do with causal inference?” Meaningful engagement with current events is how I keep students interested in the content when I teach. However, this was not that. It’s telling that we’ve gotten to this place in academic settings. There there can be no discussions about the apartheid, the wanton violence, and the human rights violations Israel has inflicted on the Palestinian people for over 75 years. Only proclamations of Israel’s rights—rights that apparently no one else has—and accusations of antisemitism. It’s disingenuous, unproductive, and it’s part of the playbook that has allowed this genocide to continue for almost two years.
During the break, at least 6 people thanked me for saying something. They told me how uncomfortable he made them and how inappropriate his comments were. Hopefully, having seen someone say something will move them to be that person next time.
Children’s reading resources:
Ghanameh, A. (2023) These Olive Trees. Viking Books
Moushabeck, H. (2023) Homeland: My Father Dreams of Palestine. Chronicle Books
Ebeid, R. (2020) Baba, What Does My Name Mean? A Journey to Palestine
Aslan, R. (2024) A Kids Book About Israel & Palestine
Murad, N.L (2024) Ida in the Middle. Crocodile Books
Adult reading resources:
Erakat, N. (2020). Justice for some: Law and the question of Palestine. Stanford University Press.
Khalidi, R. (2020). The hundred years' war on Palestine: A history of settler colonialism and resistance, 1917–2017. Metropolitan Books.
Loewenstein, A. (2024). The Palestine laboratory: How Israel exports the technology of occupation around the world. Verso Books.
Pappe, I. (2024). Ten myths about Israel. Verso Books.
Said, E. W. (2025). The question of Palestine. Text Publishing.