Why Israel absolutely needs an academic ethical code - by Eytan Meir

...In 2010, Israel’s Council for Higher Education came out with an official decision that all attempts the politicize academia should be rejected. Seven years have since passed, and universities have done nothing to address this issue. The time has come to return pluralism, diversity, and basic sanity to Israeli academia.

Eytan Meir..
blogs.timesofisrael.com..
15 June '17..
Link: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-israel-needs-an-academic-ethical-code/

The new proposed academic code of ethics, written by author of the IDF Code of Ethics, Prof. Asa Kasher, is a long-overdue breath of fresh air for Israeli academia.

Among other things, the code recognizes and seeks to address the widespread phenomenon in which certain professors – under the guise of academic freedom – use their position to subject students to politicized material that reflects only one side of the academic debate – their own – while at the same time prohibiting other points of view, particularly from students.

Despite what the code’s detractors claim, the code does not in any way stifle political debate or ban political discussion from the classroom.

On the contrary, it aims to create an environment where students are presented with both sides of the discussion, which allows them to critically think, engage in vibrant academic exchange, and arrive at their own conclusions. That is the purpose of academia.

Unfortunately, many professors believe that their academic position gives them the mandate to preach only one side of the debate, while bullying and berating students who do not think like them.

In more extreme, but not uncommon, instances, right-wing students are afraid to voice their opinions in class or to write pro-Israel content in their papers, out of concern that they will receive lower grades.

This is not academic freedom. This is not pluralism. This is coercion in the service of indoctrination.

Many opponents of the code mistakenly conflate academic freedom with freedom of speech. But what is lawfully guaranteed to an individual outside of the classroom does not translate to what should be permitted inside of the classroom.

All should agree that while one’s right to engage in blatantly racist dialogue is protected free speech, such behavior is unacceptable in the classroom – and rightfully so.

Israel’s Thermidor Moment

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
19 July '10

The upcoming anniversary of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and of the Jewish commonwealth occurs on the eleventh month of the Hebrew calendar. Three weeks of mourning culminate in a day of fasting during the hottest month of the year. Then the temperature goes down and Jews read the comforting words of Isaiah.

The eleventh month of the French Revolutionary calendar was also the hottest of the year. It was called Thermidor, after the French word “thermal” which itself comes from the Greek "thermos" (heat). In popular parlance, Thermidor has become synonymous of a period of cooling off after erring and tyranny. This is because on 9 Thermidor (27 July) 1794, Maximilien de Robespierre was guillotined and his Reign of Terror ended. The Thermidor revolt against Robespierre’s tyranny partially restored civil liberties and religious freedom.

Robespierre held on to his shaky power through terror and intimidation. Dissidents were systematically dubbed “traitors” and arbitrarily beheaded. Chopping off people’s heads is undoubtedly one way of making them abandon their ideas. But ideas live on when they happen to be successful, and eventually Robespierre himself was guillotined.

Just like Robespierre at the height of the summer, some of Israel’s academics seem to be feeling the heat. Last week, Eliya Leibowitz, an astrophysics professor at Tel-Aviv University (and a son of the late Lithuanian brainbox and sophistic maestro Yeshayahu Leibowitz) wrote a piece in Ha’aretz comparing some of Israel’s student movements to Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

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Antisemitic craziness for beginners

Haim Bresheeth

Fresnozionism.org
13 June '10

Question: which Hamas leader wrote the following this past week?

… the full lunacy and vileness of this latest Israeli war crime is becoming clear to all who can read. Israeli propaganda has worked overtime, based on the kidnapping of the activists, isolating them from the whole world, confiscating all their material evidence, on top of the brutalities of maiming and murdering many of them. This meant that for the last few days, only the the voice of Israeli propaganda was available to the international media. Fictional narratives, more complex than most Hollywood scripts, were woven and reinforced by what must be the largest propaganda machine anywhere.

Of course, this matter [sic] little now. The facts are now coming out, and many inquiries will be conducted and will establish the full horror of this murderous piracy. The world will not be fooled by this anymore…

The resolution of this conflict will only be reached by the annulling Zionism and its racism, its military and ‘civil’ racist machineries, the total removal of all settler communities, and the return of Palestinian refugees, as well as the payment of full compensation to all those who were hurt by the Zionist enterprise over the last few decades.

Give up?

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Degenerate Israeli Academics on the Rampage

Isi Leibler
Candidly Speaking from Jerusalem
18 May '10

In the politically correct world of infantile leftism, words like sedition and disloyalty have effectively been erased from the political lexicon. Indeed, those daring to employ such terms are automatically smeared as “McCarthyite” or fascist.

But despite Israel being surrounded by Moslem nations whose primary objective is to eliminate Jewish sovereignty from the region, a growing minority of Israeli academics, funded by Israeli taxpayers and Diaspora Zionist philanthropists, exploit their universities as launching pads to undermine and delegitimize their own country. Some even promote global boycott, divestment and sanctions of the very institutions which provide their salaries. They teach their students that the state in which they live was born in sin, that Israelis behave like Nazis and morally justify the campaigns by our enemies to demonize and delegitimize us.

What magnifies this obscenity is that university administrators feel obliged to maintain the continued tenure of such immoral and anti-social degenerates on the grounds of academic freedom. Can one conceivably visualize any other institution providing salaries to employees actively working towards its destruction?

Related article: 'TAU restricts freedom of speech'

The issue came to a head at the recent meeting of the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University when Marc Tanenbaum, a long-standing American donor and supporter, submitted a resolution calling on the University Senate to review conditions governing the status of academics indulging in “inappropriate behavior” such as promoting academic boycotts of Israeli universities, and recommending that academics be prohibited from listing their affiliation or academic titles whilst engaged in domestic or international forums of a political nature.

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