Publish or perish

My father, Ira Sharkansky, is a Professor of Political Science at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He's currently working on a book about the present conflict and is circulating proposals to publishers. He didn't expect to encounter many difficulties getting published, as he's published about thirty books during his career, including several books on Israeli politics. But this time something is different. The following excerpt is from a "friends and family" e-mail he sent out today.

As some of you know and others may have guessed, I'm writing a book that I call COPING WITH TERROR: AN ISRAELI PERSPECTIVE. I asked a friend in the publishing business to take a look at it, and help me find a publisher. What follows is a response he copied to me from an editor at one of the leading publishers of academic political science.

Hi there, I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. I just returned to the office from maternity leave and it's taking me a while to catch up. The project you mention below sounds promising, but I hesitate because of your friend's affiliation. Though I'm sure Prof Sharkansky is not a polemicist, the fact that he teaches at Hebrew University signals certain messages to readers I'd think. . . .I think when marketing a book on the Arab-Israeli crisis, the more non-partisan, objective the authorship, the better. Thanks for getting in touch, but I'm going to pass on this project. Best of luck to your friend.

It is not easy to maintain a sense of pride in a 40 year academic career when a publisher will not consider my work because I am teaching at the Hebrew University.

I'm not a political scientist, and I'm biased because this is my dad, but some of my initial thoughts are:
(a) The editor's only objection was the university where my father teaches. It doesn't sound like she even saw the manuscript.
(b) The way that Israel copes with terror is a timely subject, and might be considered important if for no other reason than that policy makers in this country might learn something useful from it.
(c) You're not likely to find very many experts on the way that Israel copes with terror except at say, an Israeli university.
(d) Israel's reputation for academic freedom and scholastic integrity is as good as any other country's reputation. We're not talking about, say, the USSR or Libya.

This was only the first reply out of several inquiries, so the book may well find a publisher. But I can only conclude that the other side's propaganda campaign, abetted by credulous journalists and scholars around the world, is having the desired effect of persuading people to treat Israel and Israelis as tainted goods. Individual scholars like my father lose out, but then so do those who would otherwise benefit from their research. This is just one more example of how the hideous Palestinian revolution serves to destroy more than it creates.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 10, 2002 07:00 AM