IsraCampus.Org.il - Tel Aviv University

This is probably one of the most difficult periods in my political life as a Jew living in the State of Israel. The events of the war in Gaza hit hard my foundations of hope that a peaceful conflict resolution between Israelis and Palestinians can be achieved in the near future. Moreover, my trust in humanity has been weakened seeing the ease with which human beings rally for a war, exercise blind patriotism, express desire for vengeance, delegitimize the opponent, and develop insensitivity to human life, denial of responsibility, self-righteousness and moral entitlement. This is in contrast to the great difficulty that human beings have in mobilization for peace. We see over and over again that it takes many years and many efforts to persuade people in the importance of peace, but it takes an extremely short time to convince people in the need of war. It is even more difficult to establish moral considerations.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University – Ran HaCohen (Dept of Comparative Literature) prettifies and legitimizes anti-Semitism

'So a private person who doubts the loyalty of Jews in a telephone interview is a dirty anti-Semite to Foxman. But a major political party that publicly defames Arab Israelis and pledges to revoke their citizenship gets a pass from the director of the Anti-Defamation(!) League, purportedly committed to "Fighting Anti-Semitism, Bigotry, and Extremism"!'

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Anat Biletzki (Dept of Philosophy) and Anat Matar (Dept of Philosophy) support Hampshire College divestment from Israel

They endorse, among other things, the boycotting Israeli goods and calling on the American Government to stop funding Israel.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - PM Olmert: No funding for bodies that refuse to employ officers

"In my opinion, any university that disqualifies lecturers on such grounds, before an examination [of their service] has been concluded, is not suitable to receive funding from the Israeli government," Olmert said.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Olmert denounces Tel Aviv University anti-democratic leftist faculty members as self-righteous hypocrites

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert came to the defense of Col. Pnina Sharvit-Baruch on Sunday, speaking out against those seeking to prevent her from taking up a teaching position at Tel Aviv University when she finishes her IDF career in the coming weeks.

The prime minister blasted the "self-righteous hypocrites" at the university who "presume to preach morality" without first learning the facts of a case.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Prof. Shlomo Avineri denounces the "McCarthyism" at Tel Aviv University, the attempt to impose an anti-Israel leftist litmus test on those who can teach in the TAU Law School

'The attempt to "protect" those who belong to the left while employing McCarthy-style methods against those associated with the right is nothing but hypocrisy, which has no place in academia. The people working to prevent Sharvit-Baruch's appointment do not realize that the proposal gives legitimacy to the dark forces that lurk on the sidelines of Israeli society, to begin pursuing the voices in academia that strike them as "unpatriotic" or "insufficiently Zionist." This may even apply to some of the people heading the fight against Sharvit-Baruch.'

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Daniel Breslau (Dept. of Sociology) gives “advice” to President Obama on how to manipulate Israel for Palestinian Benefit

All of these tactics have been convenient for Israel and the US, allowing them to support Palestinian rights and peace in principle, while in practice denying them. Through Palestinian fragmentation, continued violence that Israel itself often instigates, and the decline of the Palestinian Authority, Israel has worked hard to make the complaint of `no partner` a reality.

This is why George Mitchell and the Obama Administration have such a difficult task. The new president must anticipate the lengths to which Israel will go to avoid direct, substantive, and binding negotiations. Real pressure on Israel will inevitably result in a confrontation as Israel will make moves such as those listed above to test Obama. He will have to be wise to Israel`s tactics, and will have to be ready to neutralize them as soon as they arise.

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On the anti-Semitic web site Counterpunch, Ben Gurion University's Neve Gordon and Tel Aviv University's Yigal Bronner smear Israel using Hamas propaganda "statistics" verbatim

'This latest assault underscores that Israel, not unlike Hamas, readily resorts to violence and does not distinguish between civilians and combatants (only the weapons at Israel's disposal are much more lethal). No matter how many times the Israeli government tries to blame Hamas for the latest Palestinian civilian deaths it simply cannot explain away the body count, especially that of the children. In addition to the dead, 1,855 Palestinian children were wounded, and tens of thousands of others have likely been traumatised, many of them for life.....Israel's masters of war must be happy: the seeds of the next wars have certainly been sown.'

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Tel Aviv University - Chaim Gans (School of Law) thinks Israel has a right to exist only if it destroys all the settlements and withdraws to the Green Line. That is his "defence" of Zionism!

Moreover, Israel must bring all of this to an end not only because the occupation of the West Bank and the inequality between Jews and Arabs in Israel are bad in and of themselves and corrupt Israel's present and future moral standing, but also because these practices render Israel's good faith in relying on the justice of Zionism's past questionable.

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The Assault on Academic Freedom by Tel Aviv University Leftist Faculty Members

The anti-Zionist caucus of far-leftist professors at Tel Aviv University has a new cause. It is the suppression of academic freedom in the university's School of Law. The leftists are upset that the school is considering allowing the woman colonel who heads the Israeli Defense Forces international law division to lecture in its Law School. The far-leftists are opposed to that. Basically they are opposed to anyone teaching in the School of Law who is not a far-leftist anti-Zionist like them.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University – Ran HaCohen's (Dept of Comparative Literature) continues to serve as Hamas' Mouthpiece

When I talk of ignorance, I do not mean that Israelis do not know there is occupation. They have known that for three-and-a-half decades, and their ideology has enabled them to live with it -- more (on the Right) or less (on the Left) comfortably. But the current phase of occupation differs from its former stages in the intensified use of disinformation and state-controlled ignorance. And so, while Israelis generally believe that "it must be quite terrible over there," very few of them know which Palestinian towns are under siege or closure at a given time, and what is the difference between the two. They do not know of villages locked behind a fence and a closed gate. They hardly know where the so-called "Separation Fence" is erected, and what it means for the Palestinians. Israelis have no idea how long it would take for a Palestinian to get from Ramallah to Bethlehem, and whether he is allowed to. And they definitely do not know that when the army is reported to remove a permanent checkpoint somewhere in the occupied Palestinian territories it is replaced by an even worse temporary checkpoint. Obviously, all this has immediate impact on the question "who is to blame" for the violence, which translates directly into political support.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Anat Biletzki (Dept of Philosophy) invents Reality with Statistics

A group of British academic anti-Semites is circulating an electronic leaflet in which they explain that insists that 8000 Hamas rockets landing on Israeli civilians just do not count, because they are just symbolic protests and do not do very much damage. Therefore it is only Israeli retaliation that counts as the launching of war. Translation: dead Jews do not count because Jewish lives have no value and Jews deserve to be sent to concentration camps.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Moshe Zuckerman's (Dept. of History) anti-Israel rhetoric gets quoted by the traitor and spy Azmi Bishara

Dr. Moshe Zuckerman of Tel-Aviv University provided an interesting answer to these questions, by saying, "Zionism always wanted to create an "Israeli" identity, however the realities constantly challenges this aspiration and contradicts it and regardless of how hard Zionism tries to fabricate "Israeli" identity and by force, the outcome is that the "Israeli" identity does not exist. Dr. Zuckerman continued by saying, "There has never been a unique culture and civilization that is different than the culture of the local communities that they lived in. In other words, the culture of the Jews who lived among the Arab people was a reflection of the Arab culture, as the culture of German Jews reflected the German culture, and so on."

In other words Dr. Zuckerman recognizes the constituents for Nation building that Jews in general lack. Jews are merely a religious group. They have no common language, no common history, no common culture, no common territory and no common economical system to form a Nation that might be entitled for the right of self-determination. Yet, Mr. Bishara accepts the Zionist-fabricated "Israeli culture" as sufficient constituent for forming a Jewish state on Palestinian stolen land. So, it could very well be that Mr. Bishara is more Zionist than Dr. Zuckerman. Most importantly, Mr. Bishara did not bring the issue of culture and heritage simply out of ignorance, because he has prepared the Arab masses to accept the Zionist existence in Arabia, while preparing the Zionist masses for accepting the Arabs within 1948 OP (Occupied Palestine) as a cultural/National minority, and to grant them culture autonomy, as he calls it. And, what is worse is that Mr. Bishara prepares the Arabs within 1948 OP to assimilate and to integrate in the "Israeli" society, which is a contradiction to his doctrine of recognizing the Arabs as a "National minority."

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Anti-Zionist Professor Moshe Zuckerman (Dept of History) Invents a New Anti-Semitic Blood Libel

Anti-Zionist Tel Aviv University professor Professor Moshe Zuckerman (history) tells German radio that Israel has murdered 400,000 Palestinians during the Gaza conflict. See this report. Head of TAU's Institute for German History.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Ran HaCohen's (Dept of Comparative Literature) attacks Ben Dror Yemini and Maariv Newspaper

But Taub's demagoguery fades compared to Ben-Dror Yemini's (an Israeli Daniel Pipes) in Ma'ariv. In a column titled "The Most Justified Offensive Ever" (miraculously, the very words used by his Ha'aretz twin Ari Shavit for the Lebanon War just two years ago), Yemini draws a straight line from Hitler to Hamas (no coincidence they both start with an H, just like Hezbollah, Saddam Hussein, and Hemorrhoids), and explains that "Since the Nazi ideology […], no movement has been as dangerous to world peace as political Islam." My apologies for quoting this trash; we need an Israeli demagogue to instrumentalize the Holocaust, and Yemini was born for such dirty jobs.

(Israel's policy is) 'The damage to the civil population should be maximized, because the worse the humanitarian crisis is, the better and the sooner the operation would end. It's the same major-general, by the way, who just a year ago caused outrage by urging the Israeli government to negotiate directly with Hamas. Do not to look for consistency, integrity, or intelligence where war criminals are involved.'

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Shlomo Sand's Revisionist Pseudo-History of the Jewish People

Sand describes his own venture into historic revisionism as an exploration in historiography, and notes: "My initial intention was to take certain kinds of modern historiographic materials and examine how they invented the 'figment' of the Jewish people. ... Sand, who was once active in the Israeli splinter Maoist group Matzpen, also wanted to learn about stories of conversions to Judaism and then to connect those strands into a theory that claimed that all Jews everywhere are the descendants of converts. That being the case, Jewish peoplehood must itself be a fabrication, one invented in 19^th century Germany, notably contemporaneous with the antecedents of Nazism. For Sand this is not a coincidence, because then Zionism can be shown to be similar to Nazism, is proven illegitimate, and so Israel should not exist at all. This is quite a novel way to rewrite history.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Carlo Strenger (Dept of Psychology) rewrites history

"We Jews demand of the world never to forget that 6 million of us were killed in the Holocaust. We would do well not to forget that some 6 million black Africans died during the long history of the slave trade, one of the most shameful chapters in the history of humanity.... Obama's election is a triumph of universalism over chauvinism."

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Ran HaCohen's (Dept of Comparative Literature) article serves basis for new call for economic boycott

It is about mentioning the fact that Israel is breaching each and every principle of "free market" economy in the OT – and this is what the OECD is supposed to promote.

It was the Israeli academic Ran HaCohen from Tel Aviv University who succinctly pointed to this argument in his article Keep Israel out of elite economic club The Electronic Intifada, 17 June 2008

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - The leftwing McCarthyism of Carlo Strenger (Dept of Psychology) who thinks all non-leftists are guilty of terrorism

The Sternhell Attack gave the Left an excuse to judge and sentence the Right without trial upon the front pages of the newspapers. Then Strenger – imitating Emile Zola – “accuses” Isracampus.org.il, among others, in order to cover up that the conviction of the Right – imitating Alfred Dreyfus – was based on false accusations and misrepresentation of justice.

'I accuse those Jews, inside Israel and outside, who run websites that track "dangerous left-wing intellectuals" in Israel. They call people like Zeev Sternhell "anti-Semitic," "self-hating Jews" and "enemies of Israel....For too long the Israeli Right has taken a forgiving attitude toward its 'wild weeds.' For too long it has used extremists to present its own views as acceptable mainstream."

Unlike the police, Strenger claims to know who attacked Sternhell's home and who was behind it.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University Marxist sociologist Yehuda Shenhav explains why the "Palestinian refugees" deserve compassion, but the Jewish refugees from Arab countries (or what he calls "Arab Jews") do not:

'Any reasonable person, Zionist or non-Zionist, must acknowledge that the analogy drawn between Palestinians and Arab Jews is unfounded. Palestinian refugees did not want to leave Palestine. Many Palestinian communities were destroyed in 1948, and some 700,000 Palestinians were expelled, or fled, from the borders of historic Palestine. Those who left did not do so of their own volition. In contrast, Arab Jews arrived to Israel under the initiative of the State of Israel and Jewish organizations. Some arrived of their own free will; others arrived against their will. Some lived comfortably and securely in Arab lands; others suffered from fear and oppression.'

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Ran HaCohen (Dept of Comparative Literature) Conveniently Forgets Arab Terror When He Scoffs About Israeli Security Concerns

But that's not the end of it: the report also states that "For its part, Israel would like to supervise border crossings, maintain a limited deployment in the Jordan Valley, continue overflights of the Palestinian territory, maintain early warning stations on mountain ridges, and hold emergency response units in Palestinian areas."

Oh, so that's what Israel means by a "two-state solution": An "independent" "Palestinian" "state" with Israeli supervision on its borders crossings, full of Israeli soldiers, Israeli jets, Israeli military stations – and, of course, Israel's right to send even more soldiers into it in "times of emergency." Shall we – to expose Israel's true face – suggest mutuality? How about Palestinian control on Israel's border crossings, a Palestinian military presence along Israel's Mediterranean coast, Palestinian jets free to fly over Tel Aviv and Dimona, Palestinian military stations in Haifa and Ramat Yishay, and Palestinian emergency response units in Israeli areas? Obviously, such "security arrangements" are completely incompatible with a sovereign, independent state. … The Israeli proposal – as its "security arrangements" reveal – proves once again that Israel is no partner for peace.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv U’s Chomsky disciples in linguistics leave us speechless

When historians look back at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they will no doubt observe the importance that words played for Israel’s enemies in the dispute. Blowing up a bus full of people becomes “legitimate resistance,” and a security fence to keep out suicide bombers and terrorists suddenly becomes an “apartheid wall”; “occupation” takes on multiple meanings—does it mean the West Bank and Gaza or all of Israel? In fact, it means both depending on its usefulness at the time the phrase is spoken by irredentist Arabs. Words such as “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” increasingly refer to a subjugated Palestinian Arab population that in reality seems to only grow exponentially. To the outside world, a plethora of deceptive words, be they in English or translated to other languages, suggest Israel is persecuting the Arabs who are bent on the Jewish state’s annihilation by distorting that Israel, a Jewish haven from European Nazism, has in effect become the nation of the new Nazis and that the Arabs are the new Jews. Such is the power of words used to manipulate ideas and disguise facts in any language.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University – Shlomo Sand (Dept of History) – gets bad peer review of book by Israel Bartal who reduces the work to fiction.

What is Sand trying to prove in this study? In his view, the homeland of the Jewish people is not Palestine, and most Jews are descendants of the members of different nations who converted to Judaism in ancient times and in the medieval period. He claims that the Jews of Yemen and Eastern Europe are descendants of pagans.

According to Sand, this historical truth was concealed by Zionist thinkers, who developed an ethno-biological ideology, and the so-called "Jewish people" was invented as late as the 19th century. Furthermore, he argues, the idea of a "nation" that was exiled from its homeland in ancient times and which is destined to return to it in the modern age so as to rebuild its independent state is merely an invented myth.

...Or, perhaps, because everything is an invention anyway, it does not really matter whether the "imagined object" is black or white? The lugubrious Israeli combination of aggressive one-dimensional conceptuality and blatant disrespect for details will undoubtedly captivate the hearts of the public relations executives of the electronic media. However, we, the skeptical historians, who are buried between mountains of books and piles of archival files, can only continue to read what has really been written and to write about what has really been read.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University Academics among those demanding Israel's Extermination in the "Haifa Conference for the Right of Return And the Secular Democratic State in Palestine"

'In the second part of the opening session, there were three speeches in Hebrew: Yehuda Kupferman (Tel Aviv University) from the "Committee for a secular and democratic state in the whole of Palestine," and Dr Uri Davis from "the movement against Israeli Apartheid in Palestine" - both from the initiating committee, and Dr Anat Matar (Tel Aviv University) , a leading activists in support of the rights of Palestinian prisoners and for the rights of Israeli youth to refuse serving in the Israeli army....(Among the demands were to) Strip the Jewish presence in Palestine of its colonialist nature, which is connected to the racist Zionist project, as a tool of imperialism and global capitalism.'

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University – Shlomo Zand (Dept of History) – Students protest Zand’s book that denys a Jewish Nation

Professor Shlomo Zand of Tel Aviv University says there is no such thing as a Jewish Nation. Students at the university say that the professor is anti-Semitic.

In his new book, Zand says that Judaism is a religion and is connected to no nation.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University – Anat Matar (Dept. of Philosophy) Gets Arrested Participating in an Illegal Demonstration

This morning at five o'clock army and border police forces entered Bil'in, declared a curfew, prohibited the weekly demonstration and ordered the eight Israelis, who had stayed the night in Bil'in, to leave. When they refused they were all arrested…. Some 25 Israelis were arrested, among them Dr Anat Matar of the Tel-Aviv University, Philosophy Department, and veteran Meretz activist Latif Dori. Some of them were dragged into the police cars after passively resisting arrest.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

University of Haifa - Who needs Shakespeare?

Here is what they are teaching in the English Department at the University of Haifa (guest lecturer from Tel Aviv University):

'The Israeli queer activist group "Black Laundry" emerged in 2001 following the outbreak of the second Intifada. Black Laundry effected a two-fold shift in Israeli LGBT politics - both in its move from identity politics narrowly defined (i.e. a politics focused solely on the interests of the LGBT community) to a politics of identification concerned with the occupation as well as with other types of oppression...'

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv Philosophy Professor Anat Matar promotes draft dodging from the IDF to aid her Palestinian Arab “Allies”

And here Anat Matar, the self-avowed deep thinker and philosopher, shows how she is neither. She states in an interview, “As for ending the occupation itself, I'm far from being optimistic. But of course, pressure on the U.S. government, boycotting Israel in all sorts of ways - in short, making manifest the similarity between Israel and Apartheid South Africa - all these could perhaps change something. I'm not sure about the short run. But slowly, slowly this should be understood by more and more people.” One wonders where is her concern for the 30% of Israeli children and the elderly who must eat in soup kitchens due to the Arab League Boycott she supports. The suffering of Israelis apparently means nothing to Anat Matar.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Anat Matar hard at work at destroying Israel through creating a "Right of Return" for "Palestinian refugees"

Haifa Conference for the Right of Return And the Secular Democratic State in Palestine

Friday and Saturday, June 20-21, 2008

Haifa, Al Midan Theatre, Khouri St 2

Friday, June 20

17:00 - Youth meeting: Youth struggle, the Return of Palestinian refugees, and the Secular Democratic Society

19:00 . Opening Session

On behalf of the Initiating Committee . Rajaa Zo'abi O'mari

Ayman O'deh . Secretary General - Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (HADASH)

Awad Abed El-Fatah . Secretary General - National Democratic Alliance (BALAD)

Muhammad Kanaa'ne . Secretary General - Abnaa elBalad Movement (The movement is part of the coalition that constitute the Initiating Committee)

Palestinian speakers from the post-1967 occupied territories and the Diaspora

Dr. Anat Matar

Prof. Bhim Singh from Kashmir

Greetings to the Haifa Conference.

Cultural Program

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Kenneth Mann (Dept of Law) Participated in Conference that promotes "ending the Occupation"

The following Israeli academics participated in FFIPP-International Conference that promotes "ending the Occupation":

Menachem Klein, Bar Ilan University - Dept of Political Studies
Kenneth Mann, Tel Aviv University - Dept of Law
Eyal Wiezman, University of London - Dept of Visual Cultures

It has been almost two years since the last FFIPP conference in Ramallah.
Since then, the situation in the Occupied Territories has deteriorated with the
rapidly worsening conditions in Gaza, the continued construction of the Wall
and the settlements, continued violence— mainly against the Palestinians- and
the lack of any progress in the ‘negotiations’. The tensions between Hamas and
Fatah continued as well and the isolation of Hamas contributed to the general
deterioration. The Annapolis conference has failed to produce any positive
change in the region and the occupation of Iraq is now threatening to escalate
into, potentially, a major confrontation with Iran.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Gadi Algazi (Dept. of History) laments at the wrong Wall

True, the fence was built after a wave of attacks on Israeli civilians during the bloody days of the second intifada. It was built by exploiting the black days of violent suppression of the intifada in the territories, the choking of Palestinian civilian protest, of suicide bombers. But Sharon’s project was far-reaching from the start, a project of systematic annexation and cutting the West Bank into fenced reservations for the natives. But most importantly, the fence was built on fear, through deliberate exploitation of real fears, and real suffering.

You can build on fears. Especially barbed-wire fences. You can also make a nice profit from it. The main question is how we, and are children after us, will live behind those fences.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Ran HaCohen (Dept of Comparative Literature) blames Israel for all Palestinian Problems

The Palestinian territories have no central bank, nor their own currency or monetary sovereignty: they are dependent on the Israeli shekel. Nor do they have declared and internationally recognized borders nor geographic contiguity, a precondition for defining an economic unit. The Palestinian-controlled enclaves are encircled, divided and separated by Israeli roadblocks and by Israeli-controlled areas, like roads closed to Palestinian traffic, Israeli settlements, army facilities etc. Only Israel can decide whether a Palestinian laborer, businessman or entrepreneur may move from one point to another -- within his allegedly independent economic unit. ... If this goes together with a ‘commitment to free economy,’ then Zimbabwe and North Korea can join OECD just as much.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Distributed the Week at Tel Aviv University:

Danger: Islamofacism in Tel Aviv University

Last week the Arab student committee held elections.

The winner: the EQRAA party, which belongs to the "Islamic Movement in Israel". They got over 50% of the student votes! Many of those voting for the Islamofascists were admitted to Tel Aviv University under affirmative action preferences for Arab students, and some received fellowships paid for by donors to the university!

Two days prior to the elections it was discovered that three Arabs from Lod, who were members of the Islamic Movement, planned to kidnap an IDF soldier, murder him, hide his body, and demand the release of Palestinian terrorists.

The Islamic Movement is active in war against Israel and support for Palestinian terror. It publishes hate propaganda against Jews and celebrates Palestinian suicide bombers. Its leaders have been convicted of financial and logistical support for the Hamas terror organization.

When the Arab students voted EQRAA, they voted for terrorism and against the State of Israel.

A majority of the Arab students who voted are radical, racist, fascists and terror supporters.

They are a clear and present danger!

Tel Aviv University - Carlo Strenger (Dept. of Psychology) debates politics with those who claim Israeli "ethnic cleansing" and condones their actions

Brian, I have been following the debate in the UK and the activities of Independent Jewish Voices (IJV), and I was happy to see a growing group of Jews liberate themselves from the stranglehold of Jewish organisations who, however sincerely, believe that Israel is best served by uncritically defending Israeli actions, whatever their human cost and long-term political consequences.

My goal is to differentiate between two types of criticisms: the first type tries to foster debate, dialogue and has a political goal. I have disagreements with some of the things said by members of IJV, but I mostly feel that I can relate to them, that there is a way to enter dialogue (as with your advertisement marking Israel's 60th anniversary, published in the Jewish Chronicle).

====

Let me begin with a basic belief of mine: any criticism of Israel that does not actually incite racism and antisemitism is legitimate. Many supporters of Israel automatically play the card of antisemitism to muzzle criticism. This is intellectually and morally wrong and it is dangerous. It empties the charge of antisemitism of serious content, and creates deep animosity not only towards Israel, but also towards Jews in general.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University. - Daniel Bar-Tal (Dept. of Political Psychology) conveniently omits Israel’s Academic Fifth-Column in his list of dangers confronting Israel at Sixty

Through the years many thousands of Palestinians, including civilians and children who were not engaged in any violent activity against Israel, were killed or injured by the Israeli forces. More than 600,000 of the Palestinians were arrested through the years of occupation, many thousands spent years in prisons and as detainees, many were tortured, some were expelled and their houses demolished. Many aspects of Palestinian collective and individual lives are controlled by the Israelis and through the years this has had an immense negative effect on the development of their economic, societal and political infrastructure. According to UN 2007 report 57 percent of the households in the territories live in poverty. In principle, this occupied population lives without basic human and civil rights under continuous humiliation and discrimination that cannot be accounted for by threats to the security of Israel. As examples it is possible to provide about 100 checkpoints and several hundred roadblocks that turn the lives of the Palestinians into a miserable experience, or the fact that many of the settlements and the outposts were built on private Palestinian land confiscated under false pretexts, or the attempts to build security the fence well beyond the green line in order to take hold of more Palestinian land.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Aviad Kleinberg (Dept of History) wants Israel to stop liking America

Yet what caused my sense of discomfort (not to mention slight nausea) was the absence of any limits, or what I would call lack of self respect. The flattery showered on Bush was embarrassing and exceedingly exaggerated – bowing down to the ground where a handshake would do.

Bush was repeatedly presented as a leader who has no equal, a cosmic savior almost. He is our father, our king, and the US is our beloved and loving mother. We love and adore our beloved mother and father. Our gratitude knows no boundaries.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Ran HaCohen (Dept of Comparative Literature) belittles Israel on Independence Day

Christians – the ancient self-designated heirs to the Jews – commemorate Christ's tormented way to resurrection and redemption in the weeks leading to Easter. Zionists – the modern self-designated heirs to the Jews – have their Lent after Passover, commemorating what they construct as their via dolorosa leading to the "Jewish State." In the weeks following Pesach the country indulges in a nationalistic orgy, hardly imaginable in any other modern state, reminiscent of a primitive tribe. If you want to understand how a whole nation is led to defy its own interests, to follow a corrupt, de facto military leadership wasting the nation's fortune and blood on unnecessary wars and immoral occupation for decades, pay a visit to Israel shortly after Pesach.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Shlomo Sand (Dept of History) denies 3000 years of Jewish History and dismisses the Diaspora as an "invention"

In this work, the author attempts to prove that the Jews now living in Israel and other places in the world are not at all descendants of the ancient people who inhabited the Kingdom of Judea during the First and Second Temple period. Their origins, according to him, are in varied peoples that converted to Judaism during the course of history, in different corners of the Mediterranean Basin and the adjacent regions. Not only are the North African Jews for the most part descendants of pagans who converted to Judaism, but so are the Jews of Yemen (remnants of the Himyar Kingdom in the Arab Peninsula, who converted to Judaism in the fourth century) and the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe (refugees from the Kingdom of the Khazars, who converted in the eighth century).

Unlike other "new historians" who have tried to undermine the assumptions of Zionist historiography, Sand does not content himself with going back to 1948 or to the beginnings of Zionism, but rather goes back thousands of years. He tries to prove that the Jewish people never existed as a "nation-race" with a common origin, but rather is a colorful mix of groups that at various stages in history adopted the Jewish religion. He argues that for a number of Zionist ideologues, the mythical perception of the Jews as an ancient people led to truly racist thinking: "There were times when if anyone argued that the Jews belong to a people that has gentile origins, he would be classified as an anti-Semite on the spot. Today, if anyone dares to suggest that those who are considered Jews in the world ... have never constituted and still do not constitute a people or a nation - he is immediately condemned as a hater of Israel."

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Anat Biletzki (Dept of Philosophy) issues a call to the Prez of TAU

Commemorate Sheikh Muwanis

Published by StudentCoalition on Mar 30, 2008

Category: Politics

Region: Israel

Target: students/workers of Tel-Aviv university and other supporters

Web site: http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/images/sheikh_muwannis_lowresolution.pdf

Description/History:

(The petition is available in Hebrew, Arabic and English)

A letter to the president of Tel-aviv university - A request for commemoration of the village of Sheikh Muwanis on campus and in university publications

(signatures would be added to the letter).

Please note your status and department at TA university, if relevant.

Petition:

To: Prof. Tzvi Galil

President, Tel Aviv University

Re: A request for commemoration of the village of Sheikh Muwanis on campus and in university publications

Dear Sir,

We, students and employees of Tel Aviv University and their supporters, hereby request that you take action to commemorate a chapter in the history of our institution which has heretofore been silenced – the fact of its erection on the lands of the Palestinian village of Sheikh Muwanis, which was destroyed in 1948 and its residents forced to become refugees.

Commemoration is possible through many means, for example the construction of memorial markers, as is common around the world and in Israel. We consider it particularly important to make public the past of the university club, the "Green House", formerly the home of the Abu-Kahil family of Sheikh Muwanis. This building is one of the sole remnants of the village, but its history is absent from the official publications of the University. It would also be appropriate to respect the memory of the village's cemetery, upon which many university parking lots have unfortunately been constructed.

In our opinion, a leading institution dedicated to the search for and revelation of the truth, such as Tel Aviv University, is morally obliged to take this important step of recognition of historical truth – documented among other places in research done at the University itself. In addition, this is a gesture of rapprochement of the kind which we deem very necessary at the present moment. While Israel celebrates the sixtieth anniversary of its foundation, the Palestinian people are marking six decades since their national catastrophe, the Nakbah. After such a long delay, the University would do well to act against the willful ignorance of the plight of the Palestinian people and the deliberate erasure of its presence. We would appreciate it if you would agree to meet with a delegation of the signatories to this letter to discuss the topic.

This letter recaps the content of a previous letter, sent on 28 October 2003 to then-University President, Prof. Itamar Rabinowitz, by students and employees of the University, the descendants of the residents of Sheikh Muwanis, and the members of Zokhrot organization. The previous letter is hereby attached.

http://www.nakbainhebrew.org/index.php?id=143

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Carlo Strenger (Dept. of Psychology) Takes on the Passover Haggada

This past week, Strenger outdid his anti-Israel leftist friends and took on not only Zionism but the Passover Haggada! You can see it, in http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/976908.html in Hebrew (not available in English). There Strenger explains how the Haggada is a backward archaic anti-democratic document. And in fact that is the whole problem with Israel that it attempts to incorporate in its essence those primitive sentiments from the Bible and Haggada.

Now what really bothers Strenger of course is that if people read the Haggada or the Bible they may get the foolish idea that Jews have the right to their own state and to Jerusalem, something Strenger no doubt wants us all to "question." Israel has squashed the "traditional Jewish tradition of critical thinking and irony," opines Strenger, meaning . I guess . that too many Israelis laugh at his own "ideas." He names Woody Allen and Steven Spielberg (and Spinoza, who is fashionable among the atheist clique) as non-religious Jews whom we in Israel should all take as our role models. He claims Maimonides himself abandoned Judaism for a while, although (to Strenger's disappointment?) returned to it. He denounces the Zionist movement and Ben Gurion for filling the minds of Israelis with such mythology and archaic nonsense, which then directly led to a group of simply awful people building settlements in Palestinian lands after 1967. He adds that the story of Masada is a fabrication and that the great archeologist Yigal Yadin knew it was fake but kept it hidden in a grand conspiracy because he was afraid of what revealing the fabrication would do to Israeli morale. All of which proves that Strenger's mind is about as deep as that of Barry Chamish and just as capable of inventing conspiracist nonsense.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Yigal Bronner (Dept of East Asian Studies) and Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept. of Political Science) refute Jewish claim to the City of David

"Archaeology has become a weapon of dispossession," Yonathan Mizrachi, an Israeli archaeologist, said in a recent telephone interview with us. He was referring to the way archaeology is being used in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood in the oldest part of Jerusalem, where, we believe, archaeological digs are being carried out as part of a concerted campaign to expel Palestinians from their ancestral home.

According to the Old Testament, King David established Jerusalem as his capital, but the Jews were later conquered and expelled. Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War four decades ago, and ever since Israeli archaeologists have been trying (unsuccessfully) to produce proof of David's presence in that area. Occasionally they have even refrained from documenting the long Muslim presence, which is the cultural heritage of the Palestinian inhabitants. And, at any rate, the fact that not a single Muslim structure has been preserved in the entire national park that has been set up in Silwan is a clear indication of this erasure strategy. By concentrating almost entirely on unearthing the remains of the Judean kingdom, while ignoring the subsequent 3,000 years, archaeologists have violated several ethical rules as stipulated by the World Archaeological Congress. Those include the acknowledgment of the "indigenous cultural heritage, including sites, places, objects, artifacts, human remains" as well as establishing "equitable partnerships and relationships" between archaeologists and indigenous peoples whose cultural heritage is being investigated.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here and here

Tel Aviv University - Professor Amos Funkenstein (Dept. of History and Philosophy of Science, Chairman) interviewed in Haaretz, December 9, 1988:

Between 1933 and 1937, up to Kristallnacht, the situation of Jews in Germany was in some respects better than that of Arabs in the territories. In other respects, it was worse, but overall, the resemblance is remarkable. In the first place, both the Jews in Germany and the Palestinians in the territories were "subjects" denied citizenship. But the Jews in Germany had at that time more lawful options to pursue than the inhabitants of the territories. A Jew there, in 1936, did not yet feel totally outlawed - it was from 1938 that the Nazis began to break into their homes and stage pogroms on a scale resembling ours. Generally, it was harder in Germany than here to subvert the legal order... It occurred to nobody that elderly Arabs ordered to remove the roadblocks from the streets are like the Jews of Vienna, whom the Nazis, after entering the city, forced to sweep the snow... Jewish culture is in general not tolerant. It has always been intolerant towards dissenting minorities, such as the Karaites or the Samaritans.

Why Does Tel Aviv University Remember Tanya Reinhart

Tanya Reinhart was an anti-Zionist militant that embarrassed even some of the die-hard leftists in the Israeli academia. She denounced the Oslo agreement, she condemned the security fence, she advocated the Palestinian "right of return", and she was captivated by conspiracy theories and even supported the boycott against her own university. Yet, her colleagues in Tel-Aviv held an evening in which they paid tribute to her activities on the first anniversary of her death.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Yinon Cohen Badmouths Israel at Columbia University

'[Amnon Rubinstein, writing in Maariv] tells of ... a meeting attended by two Israeli professors. One proposed the screening of the film Jenin, Jenin, a cinematic slander of Israel, and the other proposed inviting Israel-demonizing Norman Finkelstein to campus. Rubinstein doesn't name the two, but the sad thing about Columbia is that their identities aren't obvious. More than two Israeli professors there could have made these sorts of proposals.... So were they? The chair has been filled by Yinon Cohen, a Tel Aviv University sociologist who works mostly on labor markets and migration. Cohen isn't a hard-left post-Zionist, but he's far enough left to have signed a May 2002 open letter by some Israeli faculty. At the time, Israel was wrapping up Operation Defensive Shield, its response to the wave of suicide bombings inside Israel that had killed Israelis in the hundreds. The letter's signatories announced their "wish to express our appreciation and support for those of our students and lecturers who refuse to serve as soldiers in the occupied territories... [T]he present war is not being fought for our home but for the settlements beyond the green line and for the continued oppression of another people."

For more information go to

http://sandbox.blog-city.com/columbia_israelis.htm

Columnist Steven Shamrak denounced "self-hate, disloyalty to their own country and self-destructiveness" by Israeli Academics:

'It is astonishing what is happening on the political front in Israel's universities. The level of self-hate, disloyalty to their own country and self-destructiveness is unprecedented:

'At the Tel Aviv University: Gadi Algazi, a history professor, stated: "Commercial and political exploitation of lands stolen by Israel." I wonder where he got his qualification from? Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy, Anat Biletzki claims that she is working for the human rights of the Palestinians but completely ignores the Jewish right for land and Israel's right to exist and requirements for self-defence.

'At the University of Haifa: Professor of Psychology Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi, in addition to his pro-Arab views, proclaimed that the rights to free speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion do not exist in Israel. In this case, why is he is not in jail? Could he tell us how many Arab or Muslim organizations he knows that are able to take similar anti-government statements in their own countries?'

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University – Ran HaCohen (Dept. of Comparative Literature) insists that the answer is that Israel is evil and guilty so now what was the question again?

'But the best example of HaCohen’s logic is his equating in the same article the allied bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the worst of war atrocities. HaCohen cynically wears on his sleeve as justification for his narcissism that some of his family were in the Holocaust in Europe, while he ignores the Holocaust that was also going on in the Pacific under the Japanese. On a personal level, this writer’s late uncle who flew 35 missions over Germany was sweating bullets over being sent next to fight Japan when those two atomic bombs forced the issue. US estimates were one million casualties if Japan had to be invaded.'

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Tel Aviv University - Elad Orian (Dept. of Physiology and Pharmacology), engaged in mutiny and insurrection among Israeli soldiers, co-stars in the anti-Israel propaganda film Bil'in Habibti

'The best part was to have a real refusenik (Israeli former soldier who joined the peace demonstrations and refused to serve further) Elad Orian there, he gave many interesting tales about his experience, such as going for the first time with sniper mentality among Palestinians shouting allah ho akbar, his experiences with army and how once arrested the soldiers could talk to him freely, how some sent secret text messages expressing support during the demonstration, how Israeli society has largely come to conclusion that the occupation isn’t sustainable (mentality is something like ok one way or other lets keep Palestinians out so build wall, or else their population grows and Jewish majority cant exist) so peace movements has many supporters so the film was also quite popular but its big step to actually be an activist supporting their cause, to be on the "other side".'

http://joyboseroy.blogspot.com/2007/12/openmedia-film-on-palestinian-village.html

Tel Aviv University - About Kim Yuval (Dept. of Psychology) and his brother Yani, who was shot while confronting the army last month

Part of the "Joint Struggle against Israeli Apartheid"

'The solidarity between the Palestinian residents of Bil'in village, internationals and the anti-occupation and anti-Zionist Israelis who each week trekked to the village has become an inspiring model for joint popular struggle....The solidarity between the Palestinian residents of Bil'in village, internationals and the anti-occupation and anti-Zionist Israelis who each week trekked to the village has become an inspiring model for joint popular struggle, not only in Palestine but also around the world.'

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Avi Shlaim, Israeli extremist from Oxford who wants Israel to be annihilated, to be honored at Tel Aviv University

The University of Tel Aviv is hosting the Iraqi-Israeli-British new historian for a lecture on King Hussein and Israel. Will he tell them what he wrote on page 8 of his new book? That the Balfour Declaration calling for a Jewish Homeland was an Atrocity?

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For Tel Aviv law professor Neta Ziv, it’s all “academic” (even if it kills Jews and destroys Israel)

Professor Ziv is the embodiment of how the abstractions of academia can ultimately lead to the opposite of what the academy was meant to do: to enhance society through the application of scholastic study and scientific inquiry to arrive at truth. This is clearly present in her applications of American jurisprudence to Israel’s situation as a tiny democratic country surrounded by a sea of Arab nationalist and Islamic dictatorships calling for the state’s destruction. Ziv defines her activities as preserving human rights; others might define them as enabling the enemies of Israel to destroy the Jewish state. As an educator, she promotes developing what could be considered “cause lawyers” who use the courts to promote a radical agenda against the state in time of war.

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Philosophy Professor Anat Biletzki’s “philosophy” is to smear Israel abroad

Professor Biletzki’s analytical philosophy is to smear Israel abroad politically at anti-Israel symposiums and events on college campuses and elsewhere that are fundamentally organized by Arab irredentist groups that frequently use the words “human rights” and “peace” as a deceptive cover to destroy the Jewish state. As an expert in the philosophy of language, Professor Biletzki of all people should understand how language is used to mask real intent, particularly by Arab propagandists. Despite this, she speaks frequently to and is quoted extensively by members of the International Solidarity Movement who claim to be “nonviolent human rights advocates” in one breath, then endorse violence against Israelis as “legitimate resistance” in the next as they act as human shields for terrorists

For more details and to see the full original article, go here