How an Israeli Academic Accuses Israel of Judaizing Israel - by Sheri Oz

...It is one thing to see Israel maligned in professional journals when authors are clearly antisemitic (based on other things I discover about them on the internet) or do not live here and therefore are not fully immersed in the context of the Middle East (weak excuse, I know, but I am feeling generous at the moment). But when an Israeli, born and bred in Jerusalem, working in an Israeli research institute does this, I sincerely do not understand it.

Meet Professor Doron Bar

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
20 August '18..

I think some people are quite thrilled that there are Jewish vandals who can be trotted out for display when they want to demonize the Jews. How else to explain the fact that, in a paper arguing that Israel was busy “Judaizing” Muslim holy places in 1948-1967, the very first sentence is about the 2013 destruction of Ottoman wall tiles in what is purported to be David’s Tomb? The author argues that:

This event is part of a broader process — which began in 1948 and received institutional support from the Israeli state — of expropriating Muslim holy places and turning them into active sites of Jewish prayer. [page 68]

Could it have been an editorial error that he omitted the word, back: i.e., turning them “back” into active sites of Jewish prayer?

Furthermore, we can find nothing in his paper about the broader process — which began whenever Muslim conquerors would land in a new place and that continues to this day — of expropriating holy places of every other people and turning them into active sites of Muslim prayer. Or just engaging in wanton destruction of said sites. An example of the former could be the transformation of the Hagia Sophia Church to a mosque in Turkey; and an example of the latter the famous Buddhas of Bamiyan. In Israel, of course, we can point to building of the mosque on top of the the Temple ruins, or the destruction of synagogues and the Jewish cemetery during the 19 years of Jordanian occupation of the Old City of Jerusalem.

Let me be clear about this: I hate it when Jews desecrate property of other religions. I feel shame, but I expect intellectual honesty from academics. I know, I should be inured by now, after having reviewed a number of academic papers from various disciplines in which I found glaring errors.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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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.

Amazing! Shlomo Sand resigns from being an invented Jew (or something like it)

...Reportedly, he did express concern about “how the forthcoming Arabic translation might be received in the Muslim world” – but it seems that ultimately, he was just “disappointed” that he wasn’t even invited when the Arabic-language edition of his book was published in Ramallah. However, Sand was hosted at Jerusalem’s Al-Quds University by Professor Sari Nusseibeh, who served as the university’s president at the time, and this was certainly an honor that would not have been bestowed on anyone who had written books on “The Invention of the Palestinian People” and “The Invention of the Land of Palestine.” Indeed, one shudders to think how an author promoting those titles would be received by Sand’s admirers.

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
12 October '14..

Tel Aviv University, which was recently ranked Israel’s best, also has the doubtful distinction of employing a professor of history who is regarded as a first-rate authority on Jews by lots of first-rate Jew-haters. Shlomo Sand earned the admiration of antisemites everywhere with his “Invention of the Jewish People,” a book that was hugely successful as it appealed to both old-fashioned Jew-haters and supposedly progressive “anti-Zionists”. In a comprehensive review that takes Sand’s ramblings perhaps too seriously, his truly accomplished Tel Aviv University colleague Anita Shapira has politely noted that Sand “bases his arguments on the most esoteric and controversial interpretations, while seeking to undermine the credibility of important scholars by dismissing their conclusions without bringing any evidence to bear.”

Needless to say, Sand enjoyed his new-found celebrity and eventually delighted his fans with yet another fanciful screed, this time on the “Invention of the Land of Israel.” Since he apparently promised to come up with a trilogy, he has now published another volume where he announces his resignation from being a – presumably invented – Jew. In response to this publication, my very erudite Facebook friend David Sigeti wrote a comment that echoes Shapira’s point quoted above and highlights the important question how Sand’s specious “scholarship” could be so shamelessly promoted by many academics and intellectuals:

“I think that the best short phrase to describe Sand is ‘serial crackpot’. [According to Sand] All the genetic evidence is fabricated and the Ashkenazim are really from Central Asia, Yiddish is a Slavic language in spite of being mutually comprehensible with various dialects of German, the ancient Romans were incapable of transporting large numbers of slaves across the Mediterranean in spite of having fed Italy from Egypt for centuries etc., etc., etc. He is almost certainly the only author in the modern, democratic world to write a book that relies on so many crackpot hypotheses in fields as diverse as genetics, linguistics, and history and to get it taken seriously by other academics and intellectuals.

(Continue)

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Who has given her the mandate to decide who decides who is an Israeli?

Eytan Meyersdorf..
Times of Israel..
25 April '13..

The president of Ben Gurion University, Rivka Carmi, recently questioned the aims and tactics of the Zionist movement, Im Tirtzu, an extra-parliamentary movement that works to strengthen and advance the values of Zionism in Israel.

In her article, Carmi claimed that the movement “derides ‘exposing’ students to speakers and opinions that some might consider anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli,” and called for a country where “everyone’s opinion can be heard without fear.” Clearly, Im Tirtzu does not fall into Carmi’s category of “everyone.”

Carmi was quick enough to lash out against Im Tirtzu for protesting MK Haneen Zoabi’s appearance at the university’s “Who is an Israeli” conference, when protest is the definition of a healthy democracy. Why does MK Zoabi have the right to protest against the Jewish state (and to even participate in acts of violence against IDF soldiers), but others do not have the right to protest against her? Is that Carmi’s idea of democracy?

Ironically enough, it was the political science department in Carmi’s own university that was deemed unfit by the Council for Higher Education for being slanted to the radical left and was forced to implement major changes in order to make the department more pluralistic.

Hypocrisy at its finest.

Im Tirtzu is a movement spearheaded by students; students who disagree with the values being taught by professors preaching the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement to their classes; students who disagree with the values of pro-terrorist rallies; students who disagree with the values being taught by MK Haneen Zoabi. While those views have a place within the academic world, it is critical that the other side is presented.

Marquadt-Bigman - A professor holds forth on Israeli paranoia

Petra Marquadt-Bigman..
The Warped Mirror..
23 May '12..



Peter Beinart, author of the widely discussed – but apparently less widely read – book “The Crisis of Zionism,” can’t be held responsible for what his admirers write in their reviews. However, if an author tweets a review and highlights its complimentary character, I think it’s fair to conclude that he welcomes this review.

The review in question is published in the June issue of The New York Review of Books (NYRB) under the title “Israel in Peril.” It is written by David Shulman, Professor of Humanistic Studies at the Hebrew University; as Shulman’s biographical note at NYRB adds, he is also “an activist in Ta’ayush,” a group that describes itself as “a grassroots movement of Arabs and Jews working to break down the walls of racism and segregation by constructing a true Arab-Jewish partnership.”

Shulman begins his review by ridiculing Israel’s response to a planned “Air Flotilla” organized by various supposedly “pro-Palestinian” groups adamantly opposed to Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Ignoring the fact that the “Air Flotilla” organizers were hoping to bring some 2000 activists to Ben Gurion airport, Shulman asks why “a handful of harmless demonstrators” should “elicit so severe a reaction” and he then proceeds to answer his own question by claiming that there is a “logic—that of the endless war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness—[that also] underlies Netanyahu’s constant dwelling on the Holocaust in relation to Iran.”

Shulman then goes on to claim:

CAMERA - Ha'aretz Launders BDSers

TS..
CAMERA/Snapshots..
25 January '12..

In a page two article this week, Ha'aretz whitewashes two Israeli personalities who have promoted BDS efforts, turning them into victims of an alleged "McCarthyist" campaign while ignoring their own calls to boycott Israel. Talila Nesher reports:

Three self-proclaimed watchdog organizations have labeled about 10 percent of Israeli academics as anti-Zionist, according to a recent study by a group of academics, artists and university students who aim to counter the categorizations. The organizations, which are open about their activities, are Im Tirtzu, IsraCampus and Israel Academia Monitor.

The group's survey came up with the names of more than 1,000 Israelis, 800 of whom are academics but also including authors, journalists, public intellectuals, and past and present cabinet ministers, that appear on a list maintained by the trio of organizations.

Members of the group include political scientist Prof. Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Israeli Film Directors Guild chairman Rani Blair; and the chairman of the Israeli Documentary Filmmakers Forum, Uri Rosenwaks. They recently created the Blacklist website (blacklist.co.il), which invites visitors to check whether they themselves appear on the lists.

"There is a real concern for the future of Israeli democracy and about McCarthyism against anyone who criticizes the government's policies in the occupied territories or social aspects," Gordon said. "Every week new names appear on these sites, and we wanted to examine the extent of the phenomenon. The people who will be hurt most are junior faculty members who are trying for university positions and are wary of being 'marked out,'" Gordon said. . . .

Neumann - Is Ben-Gurion PoliSci Department Biased?

Jonathan Neumann
Commentary/Contentions
03 January '12

A recent report by an international committee appointed by Israel’s Council for Higher Education recommended that the Politics and Government Department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev be shut down, should it fail to address the shortcomings outlined. In particular, the department stands accused of allowing the faculty’s leftist political opinions and fondness for activism to affect the curriculum and undermine the quality of its academic research, a viewpoint apparently affirmed by students.

Faculty have responded that the committee is populated by extreme rightists and set out to hurt the department. However, in an op-ed for Haaretz entitled, ‘‘Yes, Shut it Down!’’ (perhaps unsurprisingly, it is only available in Hebrew) Ze’ev Maoz, a professor at UC Davis and the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center and a self-declared “proud man of the left” (credentials here), revealed he had been tasked with evaluating the department some nine years ago and came to the same conclusions, also based solely on academic considerations.

Rather than confront the findings of this report (and, it seems, the previous one), faculty have gone on the defensive. Meanwhile, Prof. David Newman, a founder of the department and now a dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Ben-Gurion, has paid it little attention, instead engaging in a peripheral, if revealing, personal conflict with Prof. Efraim Karsh, of King’s College, London.

Our Children and the False Gods of the Academic Left

Tuvia Brodie
The Jewish Leadership Blog
13 June '11




As news stories accumulate discussing the danger of being Jewish at Left-leaning American colleges, perhaps we should consider the Left on Israel’s campuses.

The academic Left is a small but potentially powerful force in Israel. It is they who lead the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement here; they celebrate international condemnation of Israel; and they promote an openly anti-Israel agenda.

By definition, this group is articulate. They are some of the best educated among us, and some are the most honored educators we have. Our college-age children—impressionable and eager to please those who control their grades—are attracted to them like iron particles to a magnet. Whatever kool-aid they offer, our children drink.

The academic Left seem to enjoy almost unlimited freedom. To a large extent, they do as they please. They create rules which few dare question. If you have gone to an Israeli college, you understand the power they exert over our children.

If you have gone to a faculty gathering, you also understand that academe is not a world of equals. In fact, there is no equality. Instead, there is an unequal class structure: the tenured professor; the tenure-seeking professor; the non-tenure-track teacher; the part-time teacher; and the graduate assistant. As with all class-based societies, everyone here has his place and everyone knows his place.

The elite are the tenured. They live with the freedom and the arrogance that come to those called ‘first –class.’

The anti-Israel academic Left is populated, primarily, by two groups, the tenured elite and the untenured wannabees, some of whom will get their tenure because they sing the right songs.

Today, those ‘right’ songs are about creating another state for Arabs—at Israel’s expense. The songs are about ‘social justice’ and ‘equality’. According to this political gospel, the rights of the Arab supercede the rights of the Jew, capitalism is poisonous, and religion is fascism. Our children worship at their feet.

But there is a troubling problem here, because both the call of Academic Left—and the Academic Left itself—is built on hypocrisy.

Haven’t you noticed? While Leftist academics celebrate equality, they themselves benefit from an elitist world that is fundamentally unequal, a world that favors the chosen—the tenured—above all others. While they promote equality and justice through the power of the government over the individual, they demand for themselves the kind of individual freedom you can only find in an unequal world.

Perhaps it is hypocrisy that makes the call of the Academic Left seem so dangerous—the promotion of ‘equality’ and ‘justice’ as the cure for what ails us; for if you do not admit that the world you love rejects the world you promote, can you really admit that the causes you support are toxic?

To understand this question, consider a recent Jonathan Rosenblum essay about America (and Israel): it is not equality that made America wealthy, he argues, but freedom—specifically, the freedom to pursue one’s own economic dream. Equality did not make America great; enhanced freedom did. Interestingly, this is exactly what the tenured academic Left has—almost unlimited freedom; but freedom is exactly what the academic Left rejects for others.

If your children wish a proper grade, they must think the ‘proper’ (anti-Israel) way; the same is often true for those who seek tenure. That is not freedom.

As Rosenblum points out, it is the emphasis of freedom over equality that has made Israel and America number one and two in the world (in that order) for ‘per capita rate of business formation’, which lies at the foundation of successful national wealth; but the academic Left has chosen to sell the reverse--equality over freedom. Our children drink every word.

A case might be made that the value that promotes the most freedom for the most citizens is exactly this value: the belief in individual freedom to create personal wealth. Arab nations seem to have no clue about this—and, you’ll notice, they have few freedoms. It may be no accident that America has such a high rate of business formations; but it is both astounding and predictive that Israel is number one in the world in that category—it astounds because Israel is so small and so restrained by intense security needs, and it is predictive because, based on America’s experience, Israel’s future wealth potential is enormous.

But the academic Left rejects this. Living with unprecedented freedom-- and inequality-- they prefer to seduce our children with songs of an equality and a social conformity their own lifestyle rejects. They promote false gods—and our children worship them.

Certainly, not all academics are Leftists--and not all of our children drink the kool-aid. We should remember that. But as the academic Left sells its false gods to our children, shouldn’t we worry about our children?

Read your Tanach. Do your children understand the consequences of worshipping false gods?

Do you?


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A Lesson in Politics : The Integrity of Ben Gurion Unversity is on the line

Israel Resource Review
05 January '11

By Kalman Liebskind, 
Senior Investigative Reporter
Maariv Daily Newspaper, Tel Aviv, Jan 4, 2011

Ben Gurion University is in stress. The recent reports published by
the “Im Tirtzu” student movement about the Post-Zionist political
control dominating important parts of the university have had their
effect and impact. They have managed to attach labels to the
university’s name in the world with which it is uncomfortable. In the
(leftist) media, in which “Im Tirtzu” was denounced as “censors,” the
university was enjoyed seeing itself defended by journalists. But it
turns out that “Im Tirtzu” managed to get out its message in dialogue
with the wider public, talking to them over the heads of the official
commentators on the TV news shows.

The vast majority of citizens, those who serve and whose children
serve in the Israel Defense Forces, have no affinity for faculty
members calling for worldwide boycotts of Israel, who denounce Israeli
soldiers, and who call on their own students to refuse to serve in the
army. An official statement issued last week by the country’s Council
on Higher Education (the public body that overseas Israeli
universities and colleges) was yet another slap in the face for large
swaths of Israeli academia. The Council proclaimed: “Situations must
be prevented where students or faculty members face rejection,
silencing, penalization or discrimination because of their personal
views or characteristics, including their political opinions.”
(Clearly the Council meant the harassment of non-leftists by leftist
faculty members - SP)

The donors to Ben Gurion University also saw the reports and started
asking questions. Many of these people, who live abroad and send
their generous contributions to the institution of higher learning
that bears the name of David Ben Gurion, had not been aware of the
atmosphere of political extremism that dominates large parts of the
university.

Chanting the Chants That Europe wants to Hear – Israeli Academics who Demonise Their Own Country

Daphne Anson
18 November '10

“Thy destructors and destroyers shall come from amongst you “ warns Isaiah (49:17). And in recent years such would-be obliterators of the Jewish State have included not only far-left, often deracinated, Jews, but Israelis or ex-Israelis (yordim), many of whom teach in universities.

Interfering with academic freedom is rarely if ever a worthy undertaking. Stifling the free expression of opinion leads to the burning of books and to McCarthyist witch hunts, and is the hallmark of tyrannous dictatorships. Nevertheless, when some academics, in their classrooms and outside them, advocate harm to their own democratic nation state – for example in the form of crippling economic boycotts – it seems prudent to subject them to scrutiny. Similarly, when they call for that state to be dismantled altogether, it seems not unreasonable to suspect them of sailing close to the wind of treason.

In 2004, alarmed at the presence on campuses of Israeli academics calling for BDS, a non-profit watchdog organisation called Israel Academia Monitor (IAM) was founded, stating that "Israeli academic institutions have been misused in recent years for radical anti-Israeli and even anti-Semitic propagandizing, often by tenured radicals with embarrassing academic records and dubious research credentials." IAM aimed to "bring to light statements written by and about the academic extremists and university anti-Zionists...to expose their activities”.

(Read full post)

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Mount Scopus or Mount Olympus?

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
09 November '10

On November 2nd, 2010, the Knesset’s Education Commission hosted a special hearing under the title: “The Exclusion of Zionistic Positions in Academia.” The event was chaired by MK Zevulun Orlev and attended, among others, by Education Minister Gideon Saar, by members of Knesset from various political parties, by high-ranking representatives of Israeli universities, by Israeli NGOs, and by ordinary citizens.

Two Israeli NGOs, the Institute for Zionist Strategies (IZS) and Im Tirtzu, were asked to present the main conclusions of their study on what they claim to be the growingly post-Zionistic narratives of Israel’s political science and sociology departments. In October 2010, the IZS published a 122 page document called “Post-Zionism in Academia.” Im Tirtzu, for its part, published in May 2010 a 64 page document called “Anti-Zionistic Incitement and Bias in Universities.” Both publications include an extensive review of syllabi, and both reach the conclusion that students are mostly taught a one-sided and derogatory description of nationalism in general and of Zionism in particular. Im Tirtzu’s report also includes testimonies of students about what they claim to be the one-sidedness and political intolerance of their professors, as well as a review of the political petitions signed by Israeli academics.

(Read full post)

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Dishonest or incompetent?

Op-ed: Israeli academics lack either professional integrity or professional competence

Martin Sherman
Israel Opinion/Ynet
13 October '10

Of late, there has been a major uproar in the media over alleged bias in the Israeli academe. The "eye of the storm" was centered on a research document published earlier this month by the Institute for Zionist Strategies (IZS), whose findings indicate a sharp bias in favor of post-Zionist perspectives relative to pro-Zionists ones in the sociology departments of all the nation's major universities.

According to the study, this bias was reflected in the disproportionate distribution of the political affiliation of the faculty members, in the content of course syllabi, and in the nature of the activities of related research institutes.

Unsurprisingly, the publication of the findings produced an outburst of furious protest from those faculty members referred to in the study, who attempted to dismiss its significance, deny the validity of its findings and denigrate the competence of its authors.

Despite the criticism, there is in fact no real difficulty in proving that which the detractors seek to deny - namely the prevalence of a grave imbalance in the range of political opinions represented among the senior ranks in Israel's institutions of higher education - at least as far as the faculties of social sciences and humanities are concerned.

(Read full article)

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If you will it, it is no Nightmare

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
23 September '10

Thus didn’t Herzl write in Altneuland: his famous punch line referred to a dream, of course. That dream came true, but so did the nightmarish sight of an intellectual tyranny.

Ever since Israel’s first Minister of Justice Pinhas Rosen called his law partner Moshe Zmora to appoint him President of the Supreme Court, the country’s ruling elites have mastered a type of nepotism that favors and reproduces intellectual uniformity. Former Chief Justice Aaron Barak made sure that Ruth Gavison wouldn’t get his job because she had dared to question his judicial activism (“She has an agenda” Barak explained –as if Barak himself didn’t have one). Similarly, Barak declared in January 2008 that the Minister of Justice’s attempts to reform the appointment of Israel’s Supreme Court could turn Israel into a third world country.

Really? Actually, Israel is the only Western democracy whose Supreme Court is not appointed by politicians. Our judges are selected by a nine-member committee comprised of two cabinet ministers (chosen by the government), one coalition and one opposition MK (chosen by the Knesset), three sitting justices (chosen by the Supreme Court President), and two lawyers (chosen by the Bar Association). So politicians occupy only four out of the nine seats. The legal establishment, with five seats, dominates the panel.

(Read full post)

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How to Distort the News, In Hebrew

Yishai Goldflam/Tamar Sternthal
CAMERA/Media Analysis
23 August '10

A letter from the Im Tirtzu Israeli activist organization to the president of Ben-Gurion University addressing the alleged imbalance in the number of Zionist versus post-Zionist lecturers in the university's politics and government department has created a storm in the Israeli media. Covering the controversy, the news departments of two major Israeli media outlets, Ha'aretz and Ynet, recently engaged in a little literary license, apparently forgetting that their job is restricted to reporting the news.

Ha'aretz's Aug. 17 Hebrew headline screams:

Im Tirtzu to Ben-Gurion University: Fire Leftist Professors Or We'll Drive Away Donors

The English headline, in contrast, does not mention the firing of professors:

Im Tirtzu threatens boycott of Israeli university over 'anti-Zionist' bias.

Ynet's Hebrew headline the same day goes even further than its Ha'aretz counterpart, purporting to actually quote from the letter:

"If You Don't Fire Leftist Professors, We'll Drive Away Donors"

(Read full analysis)

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Israel fights the demagogues

Im Tirzu's success shows that after a generation of accepting the Left’s domination of the public discourse the public has had enough.


Caroline B. Glick
Our World/JPost
24 August '10

Israeli academia is in an uproar. And this is a good thing. Last week, the Zionist student movement Im Tirtzu opened a rather modest campaign against Ben- Gurion University’s Politics and Government Department.

And the howls of protest stretched from the Negev to the border with Lebanon.

Im Tirtzu is a grass-roots initiative of university students.

Over the past few years it has managed to amass a modest budget funded by Jewish and non-Jewish Zionists here and in the US.

One of Im Tirtzu’s central goals is to engender an atmosphere of academic freedom and intellectual pluralism on university campuses. Over the past generation or so, those campuses, and particularly the humanities and social sciences faculties, have become hotbeds of anti- Zionist activism and intellectual terror. Stories of professorial intimidation of and discrimination against Zionist students are widespread, as are instances of outright indoctrination in the classrooms.

As Ma’ariv’s Ben Dror Yemini reported this week, at Hebrew University’s law school, Prof. Yehuda Shenhav teaches a class called “Bureaucracy, Governance and Human Rights.” In the course of their studies, the students are expected to participate in the work of anti-Zionist organizations including Machsom Watch and Yesh Din. At the end of the year, the participants – who will be paid NIS 1,450 for their activism – are expected to write an article describing their experiences which will be turned into a booklet edited by Shenhav and anti-Zionist activists Michael Sfard and Yael Barda and published by their anti-Zionist NGOs.

The situation at Ben-Gurion University’s Politics and Government Department is particularly distressing. It is headed by Dr. Neve Gordon, an anti-Zionist activist who has written that Israel is a “proto-fascist state,” has castigated it as an “apartheid state” and has signed petitions calling for international academic, scientific, economic and cultural boycotts of the country.

(Read full article)

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Saddam-style freedom

Op-ed: Leftist professors’ concept of ‘freedom’ similar to Saddam Hussein’s vision


Omer Gertel
Israel Opinion/Ynet
18 August '10

Saddam Hussein won 100% of the vote in the elections held in Iraq in 2002. This accomplishment made him very happy, as it proved that popular support for him grew since the 1995 elections, where he only own 99.96% of the vote. Indeed, freedom and democracy were flourishing in Saddam’s Iraq, and every seven years citizens were offered the opportunity to vote any way they wished, as long as they elected the man with the moustache.

I would not be referring to Saddam had it not been for Dr. Nitza Berkovitch’s article, McCarthyism in Tel Aviv, where she bemoaned the assault on what she dubbed “academic freedom” and various elements’ desire to politicize academia. As I discovered, Dr. Berkovitch and myself apparently hold different definitions for the term “freedom”; however, to properly explain this, I must put Saddam Hussein aside for a moment and turn to Edward Said.

Every sociology student is familiar with Said’s name, and with his book, Orientalism. For the benefit of those unfamiliar with this work, I shall briefly sum it up: Said managed to blame the imperialist, wicked West for all the East’s maladies. Every problem in the “Orient,” according to Said, stems from the manner in which the West portrayed and treated Middle Eastern nations.

As result of Said’s immense influence, to this day we see Western intellectuals and almost every Middle Eastern citizen blaming the West for everything, while minimizing the influence of religious fundamentalism, totalitarianism, undeveloped education, technological backwardness, or discrimination against women and minorities.

(Read full article)

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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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