Racist Dogma from University of Sydney's Jake Lynch

From The Australian, Letters to the Editor, December 30, 2013:

IT is easy now to forget - though some never will - that during the Nazi's rise to power, few universities distinguished themselves by taking a stand. Indeed, many hastened to prove their impeccable credentials and loyalty to the Reich by terminating the employment of Jewish academics.

The University of Sydney should be called to account for its acceptance of the racist dogma of its employee Jake Lynch, head of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.

The action taken by Andrew Hamilton representing the Israeli legal action group Shurat HaDin deserves support, just as Lynch's academic boycott against Israel deserves the strongest condemnation.

Christina Faulk, Swinger Hill, ACT

THE problem for Israelis who stand up to anti-Israel zealots is that they're damned when they do and damned when they don't.

So I'm damned if I know whether or not the legal action being launched by the Israeli group Shurat HaDin against Sydney University academic Jake Lynch is strategically sound ("Lynch like 'publican denying blacks, Jews' ", 28-29/12). A win for Lynch would presumably embolden the zealots in the boycott, divestment and sanctions brigade, while a loss could well have the same effect, with all the added zest of a bogus martyrdom to be savoured and exploited.

Neither scenario would benefit the likes of Israeli academic Dan Avnon, whose treatment by Lynch seems to have sparked this legal action. It is the rock and the hard place syndrome with a vengeance.

Helen Jackson, Higgins, ACT