McCarthyism and post-Zionism

All Im Tirtzu asked from BGU is that a solution be found to the extreme bias found in the Political Science department, where only post-Zionist opinions are presented.


Dan Illouz
In the Spotlight/JPost
23 August '10

Academic freedom is an essential component of the mission of the academy. Scholars should be able to hold political positions without fearing repression. This is precisely the principle that guided Im Tirtzu’s recent efforts to fight the silencing of Zionist opinions in Israeli academia. Unfortunately, these efforts were met with misinformation, McCarthyism and outright lies. As is often the case when Zionism is attacked, the victims have been portrayed as aggressors while the aggressors were portrayed as victims.

Several months ago, at the request of the Knesset Education Committee, Im Tirtzu published a report revealing frightening information about academia. The report recorded testimonies from students who complained about a strong anti-Zionist bias in universities. Those students also testified about instances in which professors used intimidation and threats to silence Zionist views. Im Tirtzu demanded action be taken to defend the freedom of speech of Zionist students.

As Im Tirtzu demanded the right to free speech for all, the post-Zionist sectors of the academic world accused it of denying their free speech. However, freedom of speech does not include freedom to silence other opinions. In an effort to silence Im Tirtzu, its opponents accused it of McCarthyism and thought policing.

In reality, the whole purpose of Im Tirtzu’s efforts was to remove thought policing from Israel’s academic world.

Im Tirtzu is not the only organization to have dealt with this issue. Over the past few years, Israel Academia Monitor has monitored the anti-Zionist behavior of Israeli academia, building a database of testimonies on-line. NGO Monitor researched the dependency of academics on foreign donors who often hold anti-Israel views.

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