Terra Incognita: The (ir)responsibility of the academy

Seth Frantzman
JPost
15 November 09

(Thoughtful with interesting points)

Recent debates surrounding politics at university have usually juxtaposed two different political viewpoints against one another. The Right argues that the academy is overflowing with extreme-leftist professors who work to undermine the existence of the state at home and abroad. The Left argues that its freedom of expression is being threatened by the Right and that its campaigns for "justice" or "human rights" are part of making the state more humane.

The Left believes that if a few of its extremist voices call for boycotts of their own universities then that might be "misplaced," but it is part and parcel of a democratic society. Perhaps both sides are right. The academy is at the forefront of anti-Israel intellectual extremism. It is also a bastion of freedom of expression in a free society.

But what both sides are missing is a third view of the academy, namely one that sees it as enshrining certain values, three of which should be responsibility, decency and maturity. The extreme-leftist antics of some faculty members should not be curtailed by laws or by dismissal from the academy. Instead there should be an inculcation of self-control.

Instead of crying "Nazi" every time the IDF does something an academic disagrees with, one could hold his tongue. Instead of requesting the boycott of one's own university, one could have some restraint. Instead of signing petitions encouraging soldiers to desert their units or calling on European powers to immediately intervene to "save" the Palestinians from a "genocide," one could show some self-control.

It is apparent that the central problem with too many of Israel's academics is that they are unsure of their place in society, they misunderstand their relevance and they are embittered and hysterical in their pronouncements to the point of having a childlike "crying wolf" mentality when discussing the conflict in the Middle East.

Consider a few examples. Prof. Ada Yonath, fresh after receiving a Nobel Prize, instead of saying a few words of praise for a society that gave her the opportunities to succeed and excel, immediately launched into a barrage of opinions about Gilad Schalit. She declared that Israel should release all its Palestinian prisoners and that holding them was the real source of all Palestinian attacks on Israel.
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