Academic Freedom in Israel

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
27 August '10

This report, I will confess, warmed my heart:

Students at Haifa University reportedly prepared a list of “Pro-Palestinian” professors and a group of activists were preparing a boycott campaign targeting their classes and lectures.

Israel’s Hebrew Language daily newspaper Ma’ariv said a campaign began on Tuesday, targeting 20 lecturers from the sociology and political science departments who they said “participate in demonstrations against Israeli troops and the Israeli government” or who have publicly spoken out against them.

Ah, so Israeli students — at least some of them — are becoming more discerning, less likely to indulge professors who give rhetorical cover and sustenance to those whom they have met on the battlefield, and will likely once again.

“We won’t choose courses of these lecturers and we won’t attend their lectures. It is unthinkable that at a time when our friends are fighting or receiving blows from activists on a ship that calls itself a peace ship that these lecturers stand up and demonstrate and speak out against these soldiers,” one student was quoted as saying.”

Well, there’s a thoughtful young person.

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