Academic Fraud of the Day: Eve Spangler

 Eve Spangler is an associate professor of sociology at Boston University.  Her "scholarly interests" include "Inequality and Intersectionality; Classical Sociological Theory; Health, Human Rights and Social Justice in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict; Work Organization: Health and Safety in the Global Economy."

Spangler wrote a book called "Understanding Israel/Palestine: Race, Nation, and Human Rights in the Conflict"  that purports to make the Palestinian issue easy to understand. She writes that the book "will be useful for classes in Middle East studies, peace and conflict studies, Middle East history, sociology of race, and political science. It can be helpful for church groups, labor groups, or other grass roots organizations committed to social justice, and for all readers who wish to be informed about this important topic."

This supposed academic claims that Israeli settlers raise and release wild pigs just to irritate Palestinians.

But she has a footnote! Where is her scholarly source?

It's Mondoweiss.  But Mondoweiss didn't even write the article, it was excerpted from the absurd anti-Israel propaganda site IMEMC.

Palestinian farmers in the Salfit district appealed all to Palestinian and international bodies to stop the continued destruction of their crops, caused by the Israeli pigs in the district.Farmers said, ‘We have encountered heavy losses in our wheat and barley crops, where the pigs destroyed them completely.’

They added, ‘We tried to get rid of the pigs with all available ways but we have failed’, pointing out that the only way is to shoot them; which is difficult due to the miltary’s monitoring towers and checkpoints in the area.

Furthermore, according to Al Ray, Palestinian researcher Khaled Maali explained that the settlers found launching wild pigs toward the Palestinian farmlands was the best effective way to fight the Palestinian farmers without significant cost.

Maali pointed out that the occupation prevents the Palestinians from shooting the pigs, whereas it permits settlers to kill the pigs when they reach their colonial settlements.

Even this story is internally inconsistent, claiming that settlers raise pigs (against Jewish law)for no other reason but to release them in Palestinian farms, yet they also shoot the pigs that somehow make their way back to where they were raised.

And even if the story was true, Spangler should have sourced it correctly instead of referring to a secondary source, showing that even as a lying academic, she fails as an academic.

The idea that Jews raise and release wild boars (which have lived in the region since Biblical times) is laughable to anyone with the ability to think - but not to a Boston University PhD who specializes in "Inequality and Intersectionality".

Oh, Spangler also writes in her book as fact that Israel engages in "pink-washing" - that any human rights it gives to LGBT community is really an attempt to divert attention from its crimes, an equally laughable slander.

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