Ben Gurion University
Ben Gurion University - Jerusalem Post Readers Respond
to David Newman's (Dean of Social Sciences) Expected Honor
The brainless scarecrow got a diploma, the
heartless tin man got a citation for caring, the cowardly lion got a
commendation for courage, and the anti-Israel anti-democratic David
Newman...... [talkback "hitzhaki (signed in using yahoo)"]
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Zippergate at Ben Gurion University
BGU President Rivka Carmi Investigates Critic's Forgotten Unzipped
Zipper
Carmi trumps up insignificant faux
pas into a sexual harassment investigation. She probes unzipped
zipper but not much else; ignoring far-leftist faculty
members when they issue calls for murder,
call for Israel to be annihilated, or
cheer on terrorist atrocities against Jews. Legitimate line of
investigation or an effort to harass her critic?
Professor David [longtime critic of Carmi and of the
politicization and radical indoctrination that has dominated the BGU
campus under her reign of error] one day received an email message
out of the blue from one of President Rivka Carmi's underlings,
saying that he was under investigation for "sexual harassment." …
Israeli universities claim to take sexual harassment
seriously, at least when non-leftist faculty are involved. Leftist
faculty are another matter. It took years for the Hebrew University
to take disciplinary action
against the far-leftist professor of sociology Eyal Ben Ari
after evidence was presented that he
had been raping his own students…
…
The plaintiff was not a student at all but a middle-aged divorced
female departmental engineer in his school... And the basis of her
complaint to the authorities was that the good professor had entered
her office after he had used the gent's and, Oh the Humanity, he had
forgotten to zip up… A forgotten zip code.
…
BGU's Prez Carmi ordered a commission of investigation more than a
year after the "incident" took place. Prof. David insisted it was
part of Carmi's campaign of harassment against faculty members who
dare to criticize her...
So the leftist Ben Gurion University president who
refuses to take action against her own far-leftist faculty
members when they issue calls for murder or when they
align themselves with neo-nazis and
call for Israel to be annihilated or when they
cheer on terrorist atrocities against Jews has suddenly
discovered her inner Amazon. She has launched a merciless campaign
against zippers
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Ben Gurion University -
Defeatist Lev Grinberg (Dept of Sociology)
Promotes Capitulation to Hamas' Demands as a Means to Stop Gaza
Terror
The fundamental problem with Israel is that it is able to think
only in terms of force… At best, the problem is identified in time,
which leads to negotiations. But usually it takes a strong blow to
pave the way to negotiations, or simply to run away.
…
Israel was willing to negotiate with Egypt only after the 1973 war,
which was a military victory but a political defeat. The 1982
Lebanon war was both a political and a military defeat, eventually
leading Israel to recognize the Palestinians in the early 1990s,
following the First Intifada, when the Chief of Staff declared there
was no military but only political solution. Only then did the
politicians get the message and begin negotiations.
…
Operation Pillar of Cloud reveals that Hamas gains the upper hand in
any situation, even if an unconditional ceasefire agreement is
signed, because it has survived the Israeli attack and will be able
to continue arming itself for the next campaign. It is therefore the
only partner for preventing violence.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Ben Gurion University - David Newman (Dean of Social
Sciences), who set up a university department in which no
non-leftist opinion may be expressed, complains that the Israeli
government is "McCarthyist" and Suppresses Pluralism
Newman bemoans the fall of the Left, pines
for the periods of Mapai hegemony, and supports the right those who
participate in attacks on Israeli soldiers to also participate in
the determining the laws of the country.
Leading Israeli government figures, not least
former foreign minister Avigdor Liberman and Education Minister
Gidon Sa'ar, have demonstrated, time after time, that they do not
understand the basic principles of what a true democracy is about.
In his attempt to shut down an academic department at a university,
Sa'ar has been exposed as an enemy of freedom of speech…
In their boycotting of leading Israeli
philosopher Rivka Feldhai, preventing her from taking part in the
meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, German Chancellor
Angela Merkel and a group of leading Israeli and German scientists,
the government has demonstrated to the world that it does not
understand the distinction between legitimate debate and criticism
of government policies, and the dangers of a 2012 version of
McCarthyism, where dissenting voices are targeted and threatened, or
prevented from being heard in important international meetings and
conferences.
…
It is 35 years since the first right-wing government, under Menachem
Begin, came to power. Begin and his government set about altering
the previous ideological and institutional hegemonies of the Left,
which had been controlled by the Mapai party ever since the
establishment of the state. During the ensuing 35 years, there have
been more right-wing governments than left-wing ones, but this has
not prevented these political leaders from continuing to accuse the
newspapers, the TV, the universities and the courts of being
controlled by the Left, and thus justifying their continued attempts
to target as many as possible as they impose their own version of
contemporary newspeak.
This oft-repeated mantra flies in the face of
reality as one looks at the composition of such bodies as the media
agencies (the right-wing Makor Rishon and Israel HaYom instead of
the left-wing Davar and Al-Hamishmar), the politicized Council of
Higher Education (which under Gidon Sa'ar has become a right-wing
watchdog of the country's universities) and increased political
intervention in the appointment of High Court judges. And yet they
continue to target any form of dissenting opinion as though they,
the country's leaders and government, still belong to a minority who
continue to be disenfranchised, despite their gradual takeover of
the country's institutions in a way unsurpassed even during the
periods of Mapai hegemony.
…
One small glimmer of hope for Israel's democracy in the coming year
was Sunday's High Court decision to allow MK Haneen Zoabi to contend
in the forthcoming elections, after her candidacy was vetoed by the
right-wing-dominated election committee.
The High Court, even with its political
appointees under the Netanyahu administration, has sent a clear
message to the government about the inherent dangers in the
continued erosion of Israel's democratic values. It is to be hoped
that this message will not be lost on the next Israeli government
which is likely to be even more right-wing than the outgoing
administration.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Ben Gurion University - Yonatan Mendel (Dept of
Political Science) Asks a Stupid Question
Acting as a reporter for Walla News, Mendel
utilizes his ultra-leftist powers to deem himself more knowledgeable
about Iran than a panel of experts on the Iranian Conflict.
The crowd applauded. It isn't every day that Israelis and their
American supporters get to hear that they have nothing to do with
the instability of the region. The US invasion of Iraq? Israel's
forty-year occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip? Israel's
continual refusal to reply to the Syrians' proposals for
negotiations? All of these are part of the past. Fortunately, a new
demon had been found to take everybody's sins on himself:
Ahmadinejad.
…
The professor returned to his seat. I held my pen tight, as if it
was my last friend on earth. After a few seconds I started
breathing. The crowd was still applauding. I couldn't understand why
such a distinguished professor was not willing to lift the fog over
Iran by supplying even the most basic facts. Why didn't he mention
that Ahmadinejad has no control over Iran's nuclear programme, or
its army, or any of its security forces, or any of its strategic
plans; and that even if he was both stupid and crazy he would still
be unable to make these kinds of decision? Why did Lewis, an expert
on the Middle East, not find it appropriate to mention that power
over Iran lies entirely in the hands of the supreme leader Ali
Khamenei? Was it because such an explanation might put paid to the
unity of the panel or stand in the way of the audience's notion that
a pre-emptive attack was needed? We wanted a war so much.
…
I waited a few seconds and said: 'My name is Yoni Mendel and I am
from Walla News Israel. I would like to ask Mr Woolsey a question,
because it deals with US foreign policy. The four of you represent
the same point of view. But there are also other views. Professor
David Menashri, the head of the Tel Aviv Iranian Studies Department,
and Ephraim Halevy, the former head of Mossad, have argued on
various occasions that a dialogue with Iran, or even a secret
negotiation channel with the US, could be the solution to the
crisis… Well, the question is: don't you think that American policy
is not helping to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, but
contributes to the exact opposite?'
There was giggling around me. Woolsey didn't hesitate. 'I think
that's nonsense,' he said. The crowd applauded: an easy knockout. …
[H]e concluded, 'I don't believe that anybody who knows anything
about Iran, frankly, believes that serious negotiations are
possible.'
…
I phoned my boss and shamefully reported that among a pro-war
audience with pro-war experts in a pro-war country I had asked a
stupid question. Rottem told me not to worry too much. I was cheered
to think I hadn't lost my job.
…
The worst of it is that – among the audience, the media, the
participants, the politicians, the academics – almost no one felt
that something or someone was absent… How can an audience go on
clapping their hands at a discussion that is discussion-free? On the
eve of a war with Iran, a war with unknown consequences, Israelis
refuse even to consider an option that does not involve violence. A
country that has lived by the sword refuses to question it, even
when its own future is at risk.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Ben Gurion University - Yonatan Mendel (Dept of
Political Science) gets turned while in England
While a PhD student
at Cambridge, Mendel's ultra-leftist heart bleeds during Operation
Cast Lead, however is hard pressed to find any time to write about
the suffering of the children in Sderot.
Since I was a soldier myself ten years
ago, I worry I might be called up as a reservist. If I were to
refuse now, when Israel is at war, I would be sent to prison. But
still, I tell myself, that would be so much easier than being part
of what my country is doing…
…
[B]ear in mind that in Israel every man is a soldier, either in
uniform or in reserve, there is no avoiding the conclusion that
there are great pressures for it to act as a military society. Not
acting is damaging to the IDF's status, budget, masculinity, power
and happiness, and not only to the IDF's. This could explain why in
Israel the military option is almost never considered second best.
It is always the first choice.
…
I have problems speaking to my closest friends and family these
days, because I can no longer bear to hear the security
establishment's propaganda coming from their mouths. I cannot bear
to hear people justifying the deaths of more than 200 children
killed by Israeli soldiers. There is no justification for that, and
it's wrong to try to find one. Usually I feel part of society in
Israel. I feel that I am on one side of the political map and other
people are on the opposite side. But over the last few days, I feel
that I am not part of this society any more. I do not call friends
who support the war, and they do not call me. The same with my
family. It is a hard thing for me to write, but this is how it is.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Letter Cheering the
Imprisoned "Hunger Striking" Arab Terrorist Circulated on the Israel
Social Science Chat Forum of Israeli Professors
Anti-Israel "activist," Noam Hoffstater (Ben
Gurion University,
Israeli Center for Third-Sector) posted the letter below (in
Hebrew) endorsing the imprisoned "hunger striking" Arab terrorist
Samar Issawi. The letter was distributed on the 'Israeli Social
Science Chat List' to the great applause of many professors on the
list.
When Roni Shtarkshall from the Hebrew U
expressed outrage that it had been posted on an Israeli academic
list, he was attacked in numerous emails by the usual tenured Left
for expressing his "anti-democratic" objections, including Gal Levy,
Julia Chaitin (from Sapir College), and Iris Agnon (who runs the
censored leftist-only "public education" forum at Ben Gurion
University).
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Yonatan Mendel (Dept of
Political Science) Promotes Nakba Awareness
While a PhD student at Cambridge,
Mendel also slandered Israeli Democracy and the IDF in unfounded
dismissing statements typical of the Ultra-Leftist's Demonization,
Double-Standard, and Delegitimization
campaigns of Israel.
Tel Aviv University showed the power of its imagination when, in
May 2008, the student council decided to hold the fun and enjoyable
annual Day of the Student on the exact day that Palestinians
commemorate the Naqba. The excuse given by the student council was
that 'we were not told of the problematic timing of the
celebrations.' This is arguably even more dangerous than saying that
it was done on purpose: it makes it plain that for the Jews in the
country, even the educated and 'liberal' citizens of Tel Aviv, the
Palestinian people are invisible. The bill that would make it
illegal for Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel to
commemorate the Naqba was initially approved by the Ministerial
Committee for Legislation in May this year. I don't know if the bill
will become law, but the Naqba undoubtedly took place; it is not a
day of celebration for many people. A recognition of the Naqba,
taking responsibility for the fate of the 700,000 Palestinians who
escaped or were expelled in 1947-48, a willingness to try and
compensate these refugees, now numbering several million: these
gestures, even if symbolic, even if too late, would mean the
beginning of the end of Israeli denial. But soon, the bill suggests,
anyone who dares to express their feelings on this day will be
imprisoned, in the 'only democracy in the Middle East'.
The claim to be the 'only democracy', as well as to have 'the
most moral army in the world': these phrases are great examples of
the Israeli fantasising project... This 'liberal' terminology acts
like a sleeping pill for a society that wishes to dream about being
liberal and democratic. Maybe it is time for someone to wake it up.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Ben Gurion University - "Rabbi" Yonatan Mendel (Dept
of Political Science) Complains how Zionism "Hijacked" Judaism
While a PhD student at Cambridge, Mendel
surmised that Israel ignore basic tenets of Judaism - moral basis
for State policy - in order to satisfy his ultra-Leftist reflexes.
Mendel also alludes to Zionism being a racist movement, however,
conveniently ignores that the phrases 'Hebrew labour' and 'Hebrew
market' were born in a time when the Jews of the Ghettos were denied
the right to own land and thus could not be farmers.
This attitude enabled the founders of Zionism and the majority of
Israelis today to pull out of the sea of Jewish knowledge religious
precepts that support their agenda. Like skilful pearl divers,
Israeli society has brought up to the surface only those glowing
stones which have Zionist purposes, and kept those which do not
(including those in which God himself is mentioned) deep at the
bottom of the ocean. Consider some of the more popular
Israeli-Jewish 'moral validations' of state policy. These
validations, drawn exclusively from Jewish tradition and texts, have
become part of the political consensus, and secure the place of
religion not just in the 'secular' political debate but in wider
Israeli-Jewish society.
Ha-Ba le-Horgekha Hashkem le-Horgo is a
teaching of increasing popularity among Israelis. Taken from the
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 72:1, its most precise translation is:
'If someone comes to kill you, get up early to kill him first.' It
seems that every online newspaper Comment section will include this
sentence when discussing Israeli aggression: the Gaza offensive?
'Kill him first'. The Second Lebanon War? 'Kill him first' again. A
Google search for the expression 'kill him first' and 'flotilla'
yields more than 4,200 Hebrew results, confirming the centrality of
this narrative. This convenient license to kill extends beyond the
online community to Israeli decision makers and politicians.
…
Almost as popular as these two precepts is 'Aniyei 'Irkha Kodmim,
loosely translated as 'the poor of your city take precedence over
the poor of a different city.' Taken from the Babylonian Talmud,
Bava Metzia 71:1, this is used by Israelis to justify the
preferential treatment of Jews. It is quoted almost every time human
rights organisations highlight the inferior treatment of Palestinian
citizens of Israel or the living conditions for Palestinians in the
Occupied Territories. The use of this quote has intensified lately
due to the debate about the thousands of refugees and migrant
workers threatened with deportation. The fact that many of them have
children who were born in Israel, or that deporting them would
endanger their lives, does not convince large parts of the Israeli
public, who cleave to principle of the 'precedence of our poor'…
"The poor of your city take precedence"' Six weeks later, the poor
people of Gaza had buried 1,400 men and women. These three verses,
overused in Israeli-Jewish discourse, exemplify the hijacking of
'Judaism' to suit the Zionist programme.
…
Zionism's basic separationist aspirations—Hebrew labour, a Hebrew
market, a Hebrew state—have been nurtured and protected by the
belief that 'the poor of your city take precedence over the poor of
a different city'. In contemporary Israel, this verse provides a
pseudo-religious justification for racist practice, while in its
original context it is closer to our own 'charity begins at home'.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Ben Gurion University - Yonatan Mendel (Dept of
Political Science) Accuses the Government of Israel and the Zionist
Movement of Discrimination
This debate is nothing short of
astounding. There's the Israeli government sitting on top of
private Palestinian land, and negotiating with the Jewish
settlers such details as the compensation level, the number of
houses that will be built instead for them…
It seems as if the Arabs, the ones who
actually own the land, are not a party to the dispute. Nobody offers
to build ten buildings in the West Bank to compensate them for any
building constructed on their land illegally. Nor has anybody
suggested them an even fairer compromise proposal… Not only does
Israel never compensate Palestinians for construction it mainly
talks to them in the language of destruction. But the absence of
such proposals from the Israeli discourse, and the general absence
of Arabs in the discussion, indicate that something in Epstein's
critique has not faded yet, despite the 105 years that have elapsed.
The Zionist movement, and now Israel, still do not see the Arabs. So
even in 2012, it still seems to have remained the "hidden question";
it remains and annoying buzz that there is really no need to
address.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Tenured anti-Israel Extremists
Produce Headlines from the recent 'Apartheid Conference' held under
the Auspices of the Van Leer Institute:
Ben Gurion University - Oren Yiftachel (Dept
of Geography) abandons the term 'occupation' for the term
'apartheid'.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Ben Gurion University - Call for Yair Green's
Resignation
Prof. Geoffrey Alderman, British Jewish
Historian and Journalist, advises Green to step down, based on the
principles of integrity, selflessness, accountability, and honesty,
until his name is cleared from illicit Madoff funds.
But the matter that I now bring to your attention
reaches far higher up the executive chain of command than a mere
academic department. It touches upon BGU's board of governors, and
in particular upon the man who currently chairs the executive
committee of that board, Israeli lawyer Yair Green and Mr Green's
alleged relationship with the infamous American-Jewish financer
Bernard Madoff.
…
But the Madoff scandal is far from over… The American authorities
are determined to track down the criminal profits these frauds
generated… A court appointed "trustee," Irving Picard, has been
authorized to unravel Madoff's schemes.
And in furtherance of his mandate, Picard has indicted Yair
Green. Green has been a generous benefactor of Ben Gurion
University. The fact that he sits on its board of governors should
therefore come as no surprise, nor is this fact of itself troubling.
But questions are now being asked about the ultimate source of the
moneys he so charitably disbursed. Some months ago Channel Ten aired
a disturbing documentary focussed on Green, his friend Madoff and
their financial dealings. But he has so far rebuffed every call for
him to resign his governorship of BGU. Scarcely less shocking, BGU
is supporting him in his obstinacy.
Yair Green is innocent unless and until a court of law finds him
guilty. Meanwhile, he should show us all that he is a man of
integrity and selflessness and do the decent thing by retiring from
BGU so that he can concentrate on preparing his defence.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - David Newman (Dean of Social
Sciences) justifies BDS
The Ariel recognition has provided new
ammunition for the pro-boycott and BDS movements which, until now,
have been unable to justify their calls for academic boycotts inside
Israel (largely unsuccessful and not implemented) due to the
government's policies with respect to the Palestinians.
Many Israeli academics undertake their own
personal boycott of Ariel, refusing to take part in joint scientific
work with Ariel faculty. Nor do they attend seminars or conferences
which take place at that institute.
Based on the academic criteria used for
the recognition of Ariel, there are a number of large colleges of
higher education in Israel which are no less deserving of full
university status. But the country is not seeking to recognize new
universities, and the only reason for the recognition of Ariel is
the fact that it is located in the West Bank.
Many international faculty who actively
oppose and fight against all attempts at academic boycott, and who
promote scientific collaboration and research between the two
countries, are telling us how this latest decision removes the very
basis and justification for their antiboycott activities. Some have
made it clear that they are no longer able to defend Israel's
universities in front of their colleagues. For their part, those who
actively promote and support boycott are now able to prevail upon
their dithering colleagues, who until now have hesitated from taking
such action. They are able to show them that the Israeli government
makes no distinction between civilian activities inside Israel and
those operating in the West Bank.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Ben Gurion University - Political Science Dept to
Remain Open
On Tuesday, the council [of Higher Education]
decided to
overturn the decision [to close the Political Science Dept] and
recommend that new students be admitted to the program next year,
provided that the faculty hire an additional two or three faculty
members by the end of the year.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Scandal at Ben Gurion University
Ben Gurion University - Yair Green,
BGU's Chaiman of Executive Committee Who is Under Investigation in
the Madoff Scandal, Might Have Donated Illicit Funds to BGU
Monies dispensed by
Green awarded him his BGU position, an honorary PhD, and political
contacts in the Labor Party, including Israeli President Shimon
Peres. Has the salary for Neve Gordon been paid in part with stolen
funds?
Ben Gurion University
in Israel is probably best known for being home to many of the worst
far-leftist anti-Israel radical faculty members in the country,
people like
Neve Gordon,
Oren Yiftachel, and
David Newman… Now it has been learned that the University is
also up-to-its-neck involved in the Bernard Madoff mega-scandal.
Indeed, it appears that part of the salaries for Neve Gordon and his
ilk come from funds stolen by Bernard Madoff from his victims and
transferred to BGU.
In recent months many
details have emerged about the connections between Ben Gurion
University and the Madoff scandal. In particular, attention is
focusing on the role of Israeli lawyer Yair Green, who currently
serves as the
Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors of
Ben Gurion University. BGU was a major beneficiary of donations
transferred to it by Green, whose source was money stolen by Madoff.
The University has indicated no plans or willingness to return any
of the stolen funds.
Green is being
investigated in the United States and in Israel; he has been
indicted in the United States by the court-appointed trustee Irving
Picard, who is in charge of unraveling and cleaning up the disaster
left over by the Madoff Affair. That Affair involved the largest
Ponzi scam in human history, in which losses to investors amounted
to more than $50 billion. While Madoff's victims came from across
the spectrum, a
very large portion of them were
Jewish institutions, philanthropies, and individuals. Green is
suspected of being involved in several funds with close ties to the
Madoff operations, and also operating a "charity fund" in Israel
that made donations to Israeli universities and other institutions
using funds stolen by Madoff from his victims.
…
Green not only ran "Magnify," but also some other funds or
operations in which Igoin was involved, including Primero and
Strand, based in the Virgin Islands. In 1988 Green set up with Igoin
the so-called Yeshaya Horowitz Association, which funded
applied
research projects in Israel. It is named after an 18th century
kabbalist and Rabbi. Its stated purpose was to channel donations to
Israeli universities, hospitals and other institutions.
…
Green was also the direct beneficiary of funds handled by his
operations, including a payment of over three million dollars from
the "Magnify" fund. Green's children also received cash "gifts."
Green claimed that some of these came from the daughter of Albert
Igoin, who now lives in Europe. But when contacted by
Israel's Channel Ten, she denied even
knowing who Green is or having met him. Igoin himself died in 1995.
Green began raising
funds for Ben Gurion University while the Madoff scheme grew. In
exchange, he was first granted an honorary PhD by the University and
later appointed chairman of the executive committee of the
University's Board of Governors by
its leftist President Rivka Carmi, a post he still fills. Green
also developed political ties with Israeli politicians, especially
from the Left. He has close ties with Israeli President Shimon Peres
and with assorted Labor Party activists and leaders, including
Avishai Braverman, past president of BGU. The Labor Party's one-time
Minister of Education
Yuli Tamir
appointed Green to sit in the country's Council on Higher Education.
Peres received funds from Green and granted him honors in exchange.
If you
would like to demand that Ben Gurion University return all the
stolen funds it received out of the Madoff Affair, then please write
to
The
Council for Higher Education in Israel
(governmental body that funds and supervises Israeli universities
and colleges):
Prof.
Manuel Trachtenberg
Chairman, Council on Higher Education
Email:
manuel@post.tau.ac.il
POB 4037, Jerusalem 91040, Israel
Aharon
Beit-Halahmi
Planning & Budgeting Committee Chairman
Council for Higher Education
Email:
betha@eurofund.co.il
P.O.B. 4037, Jerusalem 91040, Israel
Tel: 02-5679911
Fax: 02-5679969
E-mail:
info@che.org.il
Ministry of Education
The
Honorable Gideon Sa'ar
Acting Minister of Education
Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports
Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem
Email:
gsaar@knesset.gov.il
Additional Email:
sar@education.gov.il
Phone: 972-2-6408131
Fax: 972-2-6753525
Shalomit Amichai
Director General of the Ministry of Education
Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports
Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem
Email:
mankal@education.gov.il
For more details and to see the full original
article,
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Israel's Tenured Left
Rallies to Support anti-Israel Violence and Child Abuse
Once again the Israel dual justice system has
showed its ugly face. This is the court-cum-prosecution system that
promotes the agenda of the Left and refuses to convict leftist
criminals of anything, while at the same time refusing to defend the
freedom of speech and other basic constitutional rights of
non-leftists.
The Jerusalem District court just overturned a
conviction of the far-leftist child molester Ezra Nawi for calling
an army officer a war criminal. Seems that this is protected speech,
unlike - say - saying that people who want to enjoy rights should
also comply with duties and obligations (THAT slogan was just banned
as "racist" by the leftists on Israel's elections commission because
it was thought to offend the delicate sensitivities of Arabs).
Nawi is a violent leftist hooligan who has been
involved in a long series of violent confrontations with soldiers
and police, as he pursues his promotion of Palestinian violence. He
was arrested in 2007 for violence and hooliganism. He was convicted
of assault and sentenced to a month of hard jail time plus 3 years
of probation.
In 2009 he was in a protest in which he called
a military officer a war criminal. Nawi was part of a violent
anti-Israel demonstration there that the soldiers were dispersing.
He was charged in 2010 with insulting a public official, which is a
crime in Israel. The problem is that it is a crime that the courts
are only willing to convict Jewish Right-wingers for. As far as I
know, no Arab or leftist was ever convicted for it.
Nawi was convicted, but appealed and the
Jerusalem appeals court just overturned the conviction. After all,
under the dual justice system, laws for the geese never apply for
the ganders.
…
Because he is both anti-Israel and gay, Nawi became the hero and
mentor of some of the worst anti-Semites on earth. He has been
celebrated by Neve Gordon and Noam Chomsky, among others. For
example, here is Gordon proclaiming Nawi his idol, in the
anti-Semitic Neo-Nazi web magazine Counterpunch:
http://www.counterpunch.org/gordon05082009.html. Gordon also
raised funds for Nawi. As you can see, Gordon claims Nawi was
arrested for "caring about people's homes." Sure and Gordon was
hired and promoted at Ben Gurion "University" thanks to his being a
serious scholar. The Hebrew University's tenured leftist David
Shulman has also spent years beatifying Nawi.
…
And while we have the conscripted judicial Left in our sites, let us
also mention that today's Israeli press carries large paid ads of
solidarity with Hanin Zoabi, signed by leading leftist law
professors. Zoabi was the Arab woman Knesset member who personally
participated in violent attacks against Israeli troops in the
"Turkish Flotilla" terrorist incident. She was also running for
re-election to the parliament of the state which she does not
recognize and which she seeks to destroy. Except the Knesset ethics
committee voted to bar her from running, due to her participation in
violence (and open support for terrorism).
A group of tenured law dons are unhappy with
this. After all, they insist, why should Zoabi be any less entitled
to run for the Knesset than Bin Laden would be to run for the US
Senate?
Well, 17 of the worst leftist law dons in
Israel signed the petition, opposing the banning of the terrorist
form running for the parliament.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
The BGU Tanzim Tag Team - Neve Gordon (Dept of Political
Science) Teams up with Niza Yanay (Dept of Sociology) in an
interview for Al-Jazeera
Most people consider
"suicide bombings" as motivated by hate, while very few people
consider air strikes on populated areas to be hate crimes. The media
often describes the suicide attack as a hate crime, but I have never
come across a report describing the US drone attacks in Pakistan -
that have killed over 3,500 people - as hate crimes. This suggests
that hatred as ideology is at work. And this ideology helps
determine who is blamed for being the initiators of hate, who
becomes the target of hatred, and, in fact, when hatred counts as
hatred at all.
...
Yet, my contribution
has to do with my examination of the ideology of hatred. I believe
that by excavating the ideology of hatred we can reveal how the
political unconscious operates in the current political climate -
through desire and its repression, through love and its disavowal,
and through attachment and its elision. Once the unconscious
workings of the ideology of hatred are laid bare then other future
discourses, which recognise their ambivalence towards the other,
suddenly become possible.
Let me give another
example. The Israeli government forces the Palestinians to declare
loyalty to the state of Israel as the condition for entering
dialogue. No matter how many times Palestinians in Israel declare
loyalty to the state or denounce terrorism, their words will not be
heard and accepted because for Jewish Israelis this is not enough;
they want the Palestinians to love them. Without love it is
difficult for them to maintain their moral superiority. But at the
same time the Jews in Israel will never ever admit to this.
So for me, the
discourse of loyalty and betrayal, and particularly the repetitious
demand that the Palestinians be loyal signifies that something else
is going on here. It is about something the Jews want and will not
get, or want and will never acknowledge. The repetition suggests
that unconscious forces are at work here and in this case they are
not individual but political.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Ami Vatury (Dept of German
Studies) defends the militant Islamofascists who beat him
unconscious in Swedish slum
However, the Swedish 'hospitality' was not
enough beat the Marxism out of him. Defends the 'Immigrants' of the
Scandinavian Socialist Utopia that inhabit the neighborhood in which
he was mugged.
Well, Comrade Social Democrat [Ami Vatury] was
in Malmo, Sweden a few weeks back. Malmo is perhaps the worst city
in Europe these days when it comes to violent assaults against Jews
by Moslems. There is a large, violent, and militant local Islamist
population there. There have been countless incidents in which Jews
from the small and disappearing Malmo community were beaten.
Comrade Vatury had gone there in person to make
friends with the local Islamists and write about how misunderstood
they are. As he relates in his own words in an entry in the far
leftist Haokets web site (in Hebrew
here),
he got the Marxist stuffing beaten out of himself there, when two or
three "locals" jumped him, did a Sopranos routine upon him, and left
him unconscious in the street…
Vatury was taken to a local hospital, and the
rest of his article is devoted to singing the praises of the
socialist Swedish medical system. He notes that he was mugged near
one of the low-income slums of Malmo, and then goes to extreme
contortions in order to try to explain how his beloved Swedish
socialism can even have low-income slums and poverty. He tries to
claim that it is all somehow the fault of the rising Far Right in
Sweden, but fails to notice the contradiction in having a growing
Far Right in a socialist utopia.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
CHE questions
David Newman's (Dean of Social Sciences)
Public Money Spending
Habits
No cow is too sacred
for Newman in his resistance to Academic Pluralism in his Faculty.
He crosses all red lines to defend the little
fiefdom he created in the Politics and Government Dept
The founder of Ben-Gurion University's
Politics and Government Department, Professor David Newman, has
called for international pressure and other measures to prevent the
department from being shut down by the council.
"I am in favor of exerting measured
international pressure, coupled with a trickle of letters from a
number of world-famous organizations, some of which will be leaked
to the media," Newman, now the dean of the university's Humanities
and Social Sciences Faculty, wrote in an internal memo. "At the same
time, we will begin legal proceedings against the Council of Higher
Education through our attorneys and actions by the [university]
president and the rector."
The council has threatened to prevent
potential students from applying to study at the faculty in the
coming academic year. The dispute began about a year ago when an
international committee of experts appointed by the Council of
Higher Education to evaluate political science departments at
Israel's universities, issued a report harshly criticizing the
department for a series of failures. The committee voiced concern
that the "study of politics as a scientific discipline may be
impeded by such strong emphasis on political activism" at the
department, and recommended "major changes," such as diversifying
the faculty's views and approaches and altering key programs.
The
staff and the department's curriculum were criticized by Israeli
officials as being radically left-wing and anti-Israel. The
committee did not, however, recommend shutting the department down
or blocking registration.
…
On the steps Newman plans to
take, another senior member of the Council for Higher Education
said, "We wonder about the behavior of the institution. Instead of
investing their academic efforts in education, the university is
spending public funds on private attorneys, strange conduct, to say
the least."
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Faculty at BGU Call for the
Closure of the Political Science Dept
Ben-Gurion University's Prof. Israel David
of the industrial engineering and management department, and Prof.
Dan Censor of the electrical and computer engineering department
have openly criticized the department and its administration over
the past month.
Censor published a letter on the Internet
over the weekend where he wrote that the new faculty that the
department had brought in on the CHE's first suggestions were just
"more of the same" and that because of this, no other, more
appropriate faculty will want to join the department, according to
him.
"In my opinion, it follows that the
department must be closed down, and persons transferred to other
departments, according to their areas of activity," he wrote.
"What I don't want to happen is for the
CHE to drag their feet, and maybe say that they'll close it next
year or leave the issue hanging," David said. "That would be the
worst."
Ronen Shoval, the head of Im Tirtzu,
explained he is waiting for the decision in the hope that "the CHE
does its job as academic investigator and does not surrender to the
campaign of fear and threats that BGU is conducting."
Shoval further explained that in his
opinion, since the department did not make the changes that the CHE
demanded at first, he sees no option other than to shut down the
program.
"I think it's very important to have a
political science program at BGU just like there is one at every
respected university. However, the university refused every
opportunity to a solution, lied to the CHE, and tried to trick and
manipulate it," he said.
"At this moment, it needs to close down
and be reopened later, when it is ready to incorporate pluralism and
academic freedom into its curriculum," Shoval added.
He also said that he holds Rivka Carmi,
the president of Ben-Gurion University, responsible for "tarnishing
the name of the institution."
"She needs to go home. She's the
president, she's responsible for not taking the CHE seriously. She
basically has just been laughing in its face," he said.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Prof. Ziva Shamir Exposes
the Eradication of Free Speech and Academic Freedom by the Extreme
Radical Left in the Social Sciences
Explains the processes in which Departments
like BGU's Political Science Dept are allowed to form. Laments the
loss of Academic Standards that Leftist 'discourse' has brought
about.
She says, "Very few will dare admit openly that
several departments in Israel's largest universities, like many
places around the world, are now on the most radical fringe of the
political map, and quite a few fields of study long ago gave up
solid research for fashionable 'discourse.'" In certain departments,
says Shamir, it is impossible to express all opinions freely because
the "defenders of free speech" will set up an immediate outcry and
boycott any 'non-standard' speech without delay. They will condemn
the speaker vociferously and delegitimize him publicly.
"Nobody will even admit that in quite a few
departments, many of the lecturers can no longer be trusted, since
they are tainted by extreme radical thinking. They use the objects
of their research and the subjects they teach as nothing but a
platform on which to proclaim their extreme political axioms,"
Shamir says.
...
There are lecturers who commit political harassment. Sometimes it's
hard to tell the difference when it comes to the fine points of what
is allowed and what is not, but it's important to know that
political harassment is like sexual harassment. Lecturers in classes
have authority over their students. Add to that the fact that
low-ranking staff members are dependent on their superiors for
years.
"This leads to phenomena that are similar to
cloning. A department head collects people around him who think as
he does. Sometimes, the staff member behaves at first like one of
the anusim [the Jews of Spain who were forced to convert to
Catholicism during the time of the Inquisition, also called Marranos].
Later, they end up 'converting' because they have no choice. When a
language teacher gives the class a sentence for analysis such as 'IDF
soldiers at checkpoints act like neo-Nazis,' what is there to talk
about? Israeli academicians call abroad for the boycotting of Israel
and its educational institutions and then they're astonished when
the rug is pulled out from under them."
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - BGU Faculty Come Out Against
the Politics Department
Claim that taking the Council of Higher Education to court "would
be taken at the expense of other important university initiatives"
Disagreement with the department's
teaching methods does not only come from external groups, however.
BGU Professors Israel David, of the industrial engineering and
management department, and Dan Censor, of the electrical and
computer engineering department, have openly expressed their
critiques of the program.
"I don't want the department to close, but
I am in favor of kicking out malignant elements," said David,
specifically pointing to Prof. Neve Gordon, who is known for his
radical left-wing political opinions and is currently on sabbatical
at Princeton University in the US.
According to David, Gordon has often
mentioned the term "apartheid" when talking about Israel. "I'm not
against the department because I'm Zionist, that's not what makes me
get involved in this at the age of 50-something. The reason is, and
I hope this will be heard, that I am fed up with people pissing on
my head. There are a few people here that piss on everyone, on this
university," he said.
David also said that the department's
website states its goal as helping students bring about "economic
and political change."
"That is not the mission statement of a
university program," he said. "It's the platform of a political
party."
He further discussed the department's
threat to take the issue to court, saying the money that would go
toward such an action would be taken at the expense of other
important university initiatives.
Censor, for his part, said: "I see the
whole department as accomplices in the offense. I think they are in
a status of 'useful idiots,' they are contributing in destroying
their own environment."
Whatever the MALAG's decision, he said, it
will be significant and "will change the face of Israeli academia in
Israel for the better."
Censor added that the idea to sue CHE is
"absurd" and "surrealist."
David and Censor agree that the program's
methods and persistence in contradicting MALAG hurts the
university's reputation – and their jobs. Censor noted that he had
been denied the opportunity to present research at a conference, and
he is convinced it was due to the controversy.
"It's a bleeding wound that will never
close," he said of the program.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Breaking News
MK Gideon Saar, Minister of Education, calls for the firing of BGU’s
Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science)
A Major Breakthrough at Last with regard to
Tenured Treason in Israel
Over this past weekend Israel’s Minister of
Education Gideon Saar gave an interview in which he formally called
for the firing of Ben Gurion University’s Neve Gordon.
…
Gordon is the tenured extremist in the Department of Politics at Ben
Gurion University who this week is the keynote speaker in a
conference in Canada endorsing Arab terrorism against Jews.
…
In the Maariv report, Saar is cited as mocking the claims by BGU
president Rivka Carmi that she cannot legally fire Gordon. Saar, who
is a lawyer, dismisses the claim.
…
This is the first time that an Israeli politician has openly called
for the firing of an anti-Israel tenured extremist.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
The Campaign by the Totalitarian Left to Preserve Ben
Gurion University's Center for Radical Indoctrination
There is a species of radical Leftist that believes that it is
the main purpose of taxpayer-funded universities to engage in
indoctrination of students into radical left-wing ideology. Such
people believe that the only legitimate form of scholarly research
and teaching is to force upon students the ideas and agendas of the
radical Left, because only these represent correct
thinking.
…
The totalitarian Left believes that taxpayers are morally obligated
to fund the teaching of extremist ideology in the classroom,
including by people advocating the demise of those same taxpayers
and of their country. It is the job of citizens to sit back
passively and pay for the far Left to operate propaganda centers,
while the radicals collect their cushy salaries as payment for
advocating their anti-Israel agenda…
Nowhere is this ideological extremism so clearly on display as in
the Department of Politics at Ben Gurion University (BGU), a
pseudo-academic propaganda and indoctrination center disguised as an
academic department. It is not the only such department in Israel
nor at BGU, but it may well be the worst.
…
In recent weeks, the totalitarian Left has been circling its wagons
in solidarity with the Department of Politics at BGU.
Leftist-dominated academic associations are flooding the press and
the CHE with angry demands to defend the right of the
Department of Politics at BGU to engage in "advocacy" and leftist
indoctrination. Recruited by the members of BGU's politics
department, foreign members of the academic Left and Israeli tenured
radicals, even some notorious members of the communist party, have
been leading the campaign to defend the BGU propagandists.
The campaigners demand that the right of BGU leftists to
indoctrinate and propagandize at taxpayer expense be defended
against CHE criticism and interference. The defenders of the
department insist that "positivism," meaning actual scholarly
research, is only one legitimate strand of academic activity in
political science, meaning they really want ideological
indoctrination to be the "alternative" function of academics…
And so the Orwellian inversions continue. Under the campaign to
defend the right of BGU radicals to indoctrinate students into
anti-Israel ideology, pluralism and diversity are achieved by
maintaining a department in which only far leftists may teach.
Academic freedom is achieved by suppressing the right to criticize
anti-Israel extremists. The highest form of scholarly research is
the promulgation of hate propaganda and anti-Zionist advocacy.
Diversity of ideas is achieved by suppressing all non-leftist
thought. And the highest form of public responsibility and
accountability is when taxpayers are coerced into paying for the
inculcation of extremist ideas, those which the taxpayers themselves
reject and abhor.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Politicians from the Far Left rallying to support the
anti-Israel propagandists in the BGU department of politics
As the debate over Ben-Gurion
University's politics department continues, Meretz head Zehava
Gal-On declared on Saturday that "the Likud wants to scalp the
academia and show it off to [Likud activist] Moshe Feiglin's camp
during the primary."
BGU's political science department
has strongly divided the Left and Right, as the issue has been very
much politicized in the past few weeks.
The department has been criticized
for the radical left-wing opinions of some of its faculty members,
by rightwing organizations such as the Zionist NGO Im Tirzu – which
called the program "unbalanced" and "very disturbing."
...
Prof. Dan Censor, who specializes in electrical engineering at BGU,
called the comment by Gal-On "pre-election farting" and said it has
"nothing to do with any factual issue."
"In her statement there is no fact
other than that Gideon Sa'ar is the minister of education," he
added. "If anything, Gal-On pretends to help in putting out the fire
by dousing it with fuel."
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept of Political
Science) to be Keynote Speaker in Conference in Canada endorsing
Palestinian Terrorism
Here is how the conference is
advertised:
Not in Our Name: Jews in Solidarity
with the Palestinian Resistance:
Independent Jewish Voices, Canada
Annual General Meeting
18-20 October 2012
Steelworker's Hall
25 Cecil Street -- Toronto
This year's Annual General Meeting of
Independent Jewish Voices, Canada will focus on issues of Jewish
solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.
Keynote Speakers: Yafa Jarrar and
Neve Gordon
All Are Welcome
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - David Newman (Dean of Social
Science and Humanities) complains that Israel's Scientific
Reputation will be destroyed if the Council of Higher Education
maintains academic standards and shuts down pseudo-academic
propaganda centers
BGU underhandedly tries
to
increase the uniformity of critical thought in Newman's
Political Science Dept under the cheap political façade of adhering
to the CHE recommendations. In a typical belligerent left-wing
response, Newman threatens the CHE to change or be ignored.
It is even more troubling that this chorus
of international opinion is a direct result of the policies of the
CHE itself, resulting from the recommendation of its Quality
Assessment subcommittee to prevent further registration of new
students in the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion
University. This recommendation appears, to most observers, to have
been influenced by political, rather than professional,
considerations, and raises serious questions concerning the role of
the CHE in overseeing Israel's universities.
...
And what has been the response of the
CHE to this global and unanimous condemnation? In a response which
is so typical of the right wing in
Israel,
they have accused the university of orchestrating an international
campaign against the CHE as part of the "radical leftist" attempts
to delegitimize Israel.
A university which bears the name of
Ben-Gurion, which is at the forefront of developing the Negev and
whose social and national agenda brings credit to the State of
Israel, now stands accused by the CHE of joining forces with
Israel's enemies. The CHE totally ignores the professional criticism
of its recent recommendations and, instead of congratulating the
university on meeting almost all of the professional recommendations
in the original report, has resorted to a cheap political response
to a problem which they created in the first place.
…
The CHE must return to being a professional body, free from
political ideologies and pressures. It must seek a new way of
ensuring the highest scientific and academic standards at all of
Israel's universities. Failure to do so will make the CHE
irrelevant, to the detriment of both the Israeli and the global
scientific community.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
The Assault by the Totalitarian
Left against Academic Freedom on Israel
Sharp criticism of the "Solidarity
with Ben Gurion University" movement
In recent weeks
the very worst assault upon academic freedom in
Israeli history has transpired in the
form of a growing campaign of
"solidarity" with the Department of Politics at Ben Gurion
University. This "department"
is nothing more than an anti-Israel far-leftist
propaganda and indoctrination center,
containing pseudo-academics,
misrepresented and disguised as a university academic department. It
is also a department in which freedom
of speech and academic freedom
are brutally suppressed.
The department
is the epitome of the ideal of the Far Left
regarding what they think
universities should be, namely totalitarian
indoctrination centers in which
students are brainwashed into Marxist
and Far-Leftist ideology, in which no
non-leftist dissent is
tolerated.
…
The nature of the Department of Politics as a pseudo-academic
taxpayer-funded anti-Israel agitation
center is well known by now. An
international panel set up by
Israel's Council on Higher Education
investigated things and recommended
that the department be shut down
altogether. Since then, the
anti-democratic totalitarian Left in
Israel and abroad has been circling
the wagons in solidarity with the
department and denouncing the Israel
Council on Higher Education as a
fascist oppressive tool of the
"Right." In typical Orwellian
inversion, these enemies of academic freedom and freedom of speech
demand that the BGU department of
politics be preserved as a
totalitarian anti-democratic indoctrination center, one in which no
pluralism or diversity or dissent
from leftist dogma is permitted.
…
Anyway, today (5/10/2012) the Deputy
Editor of Maariv, Ben Dror Yemini, who is
himself left of center but is a bona
fide Zionist patriot, takes on
the "Solidarity with Ben Gurion University" movement. He does so in
Hebrew
here:
The academic world has found itself
in the heart of yet another
storm in response to the recommendations to end all registration of
new students in the degree programs
of the Department of Politics at
Ben Gurion University. Hundreds have
signed petitions demanding that
this "assault against academic
freedom" be stopped. As usual, the
outward impression is supposed to be
of the forces of enlightenment
battling against the forces of darkness, meaning those seeking to
silence "critics." This impression is
worth a closer look!
…
While failures exist in many
departments, the only one for which
the panel issued a call that it be
shut down was the politics
department at Ben Gurion University, at least unless major changes
and reforms were to take place
in it. The CHE unanimously adopted the
panel's recommendations. It is worth
noting that the members of the
CHE are NOT political hacks or apparatchiks and they were NOT
appointed by the Right or even by the
Minister of Education. The
panel included two prominent and distinguished political scientists
from Germany….The "reforms" were
supposed to be two-fold, first in the
area of recruiting faculty who could
teach sub-disciplines not
currently taught in the department [meaning anything other than
Marxist leftism – SP] and
introduction of diversity of points of view,
so that not only "critical" [meaning
Marxist – SP] ideology was being
taught.
The department did hire three new
people. [All three were also
far-leftists; what grand diversity!! – SP]. No one checked up on
their political opinions or
challenged their credentials. The problem
was with regard to the second goal.
Two of the three [Yemini is wrong
– actually all three – SP] were hired
in direct defiance of the
instructions of the CHE. The panel had criticized the fact that most
of the existing departmental faculty
members belong to the "critical"
[meaning Marxist – SP] strand of
political science, considered fringe
in academia. These are people who
toss out conjectures that cannot be
tested or disproved in a scientific
manner. The CHE ordered the
department to diversify away from its monolithic "critical" makeup.
So what did Ben Gurion University do?
It hired MORE "critical"
faculty members. One of these is not even a political scientist at
all… Meaning that the department
simply defied the CHE.
This is the background to the
recommendation by the CHE to shut
down the department! But that
recommendation served as the spark for
a new campaign (by the anti-Israel
far Left). So instead of carrying
out the CHE instructions, BGU and its
department of politics launched
a political campaign.
…
Those are the facts, but the
"campaign" has been launched,
impervious to facts and truth. Academics and journalists from around
the world are sending swarms of angry
messages to the CHE. Petitions
inside and outside Israel are being collected. The signers are
unaware of the fact that this is a
battle by the CHE AGAINST those who
seek to suppress pluralism and
restrict academic freedom [the
department of politics at BGU and its supporters – SP]. The CHE is
the agency SEEKING diversity and
pluralism! But it is always such fun
to proclaim that Israel is a
reactionary backward primitive entity
that censors and silences its leftist
academic critics. This is an
unprecedented campaign of intimidation and distortion directed
AGAINST the members of the CHE
by these who would coerce them into adopting
the political agenda of the Far Left.
This is no academic campaign. …
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Prof Steve Plaut helps to enlighten David Newman (BGU,
Dean of Humanities),
the man who could find no wrong, as to where his Politics Dept
is flawed
Sir, – The leftist geographer who
single-handedly built the politics department at Ben- Gurion
University of the Negev into the worst anti-Israel indoctrination
and propaganda center in the country is simply is unable to find
anything wrong with it ("Prof. David Newman defends BGU's politics
department against Council on Higher Education registration ban,"
September 24).
…
Newman's dissimulation is of course familiar nonsense. The simple
fact of the matter is that every single member of the Ben-Gurion
University politics department, including the three new recruits
supposedly hired to create diversity there, are radical leftists.
The main activity of the department is anti-Israel agitprop, as the
international panel appointed by the Council on Higher Education (CHE)
also reported.
…
This is not only the most openly anti-Israel (and sometimes
anti-Semitic) academic department in all of Israel, it is also the
least pluralistic, least tolerant and least diversified. It is also
one with the very lowest academic standards, as the CHE panel found.
…
Academic standards died years ago in the department built by Newman.
The fact the Neve Gordon, Israel's Norman Finkelstein, was hired and
promoted by Newman on the basis of an "academic record" consisting
almost entirely of churning out anti-Israel hate propaganda
illustrates how academic standards there are dead.
…
Yes, by all means, it is time to shut down this pseudo-academic
taxpayer-funded disgrace.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Oren Yiftachel battles
against Israeli Sovereignty and Democracy by Urging World
anti-Semites to Pressure the Israeli Council of Higher Education to
Preserve BGU's anti-Israel Indoctrination Center
The Israeli Council of Higher Education (CHE known also in Hebrew
as MALAG) is on the verge of ordering the closure
of the Politics and Government Department at Ben-Gurion University (BGU),
Beersheba, Israel.
…
Any thinking person can clearly see that the intervention is
blatantly political. The government and its satellite
nationalist organizations have made this department a test
case in their quest to silence critical academics. To this
end, we should do all we can to save this department, and with it
critical and free research, particularly as regards the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Against the worrying scenario of a Mccarthyist purge, we would
like to ask for your help. Israeli officials and professors are
sensitive to their international image. Hence we ask you to express
grave concern about the possible closure of the department. A
particularly effective way may be writing directly to the
members of the CHE listed above (under the "Act to Protect
Academic Freedom in Israel" heading). Most of them are professors
and may be swayed by Israel's international reputation and by the
need to protect academic freedom.
Of course, you may also write to journalist, blogs, petitions,
electronic media, to your politicians, your governments and to heads
of Israeli universities with a clear message – closing an
academic department through blatant political intervention will
gravely stain Israel's standing in the a academy, and hinder future
contact and status with academics worldwide!
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - David Newman (Dean of Social
Sciences) Can Find No Wrong in the Dept of Politics and Government;
Attacks the Council of Higher Education
The geographer who single-handedly built the
Politics Dept denies the far-leftist reality of the department,
where every faculty member is a radical leftist, including the
political leanings of the rumored
three new recruits to be hired to create "diversity".
Prof. David Newman, dean of the Faculty for Human and Social
Sciences at BGU in Beersheba, said on Sunday, “As a person who
spends half his time involved in combatting boycotts in Europe, I
can tell you that from responses we are receiving from friendly
academics throughout the world, the Council of Higher Education is
doing more damage and harm to name of Israel’s universities than all
of our enemies put together.”
Claims that the politics and government program was left-wing
oriented were “just not based on reality,” Newman, a Jerusalem
Post columnist, said.
…
Newman also said the faculty at the department was of varied
personal political positions… “This is clearly a question of
political interference in academic freedom,” he said.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Special Isracampus Report:
Rivka Carmi's new "Diversity" in the Department of Politics at Ben
Gurion University.
The new "Diversity" is the old "Diversity" – three NEW far-leftist
radicals added
Carmi is telling the whole world that she has introduced "diversity"
into the Department of Politics at BGU in response to the calls from
the Council on Higher Education to shut down the anti-Israel
department. Carmi is proud that there are three new "recruits" in
this department. But who are these recruits? Every single one of the
new recruits is a Far Leftist! That is correct. Rivka Carmi is
diversifying the worst anti-Israel propaganda department in Israeli
academia by adding three NEW leftist radicals to it!
The first and the worst of the three is a radical anti-Israel
historian, who is not even a political scientist at all. She is
Michal Givoni, and she was a "researcher" at
Tel
Aviv
University until offered a position in the Carmi cosmetics fix-up.
Givoni may be even more anti-Israel than the existing members of the
Department. You can read all about
her here.
She will be joined by Gad Arieli, who evidently is also a far
leftist, this based on the fact that he has been on the staff of the
leftwing Israel Democracy Institute and also that he is an author of
[extreme leftist] (and other similar) articles…
The third new "recruit" is actually now doing a Post-Doc at UCLA and
has not yet joined the department. She is Ayelet Harel-Shalev, and
she is also a far-leftist. She works with and turns out propaganda
for the extremist anti-Israel Arab nationalist Adalah group (see
this report on it -
http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/adalah).
She claims to be an expert on
Israel's
oppressed Arab minority (she calls them "Israeli Palestinians")… Her
PhD is from the very same department of politics at BGU. So she is a
product of Neve Gordon, Dan Filc, and David Newman.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Shut down the anti-Israel
Department of Politics at Ben Gurion University
Arguably, the worst institution in the country
when it comes to anti-Israel agitprop (misrepresented as academic
performance) has been Ben Gurion University (BGU), although Tel Aviv
University is a close runner-up. And the worst anti-Israel
department in all of Israel has been BGU's Department of Politics.
An international panel of prestigious experts
appointed by Israel's Council on Higher Education (which oversees
and funds Israeli universities) last year called for shutting down
that Department of Politics altogether due to its openly extremist
"activism," its absence of pluralism and diversity of ideas, and its
low academic quality.
A few days ago an Inspections Subcommittee of
the CHE submitted a report on the department that repeated the
demand that it be closed down.
Meanwhile, the anti-Israel Left has been racing
to close ranks with the BGU extremists.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
Thabet Abu Rass
(Dept of
Geography) among the Gaggle of anti-Israel Activists trying to
help the Bedouins Seize Control of the Negev illegally
The director of Adalah's Negev bureau, Dr.
Thabet Abu Rass, commented on the decision, saying that "achieving
recognition by the European Parliament that the Israeli government
practices the same policies of displacement and dispossession
against Palestinian citizens of Israel as it does against
Palestinians living under occupation is a tremendous step forward."
…
All the usual suspects, NGOs which work to weaken the State
of Israel in their so-called post-Zionist world, such as Adalah,
Rabbis for Human Rights, Bimkom and ACRI, back the Beduin claims.
They not only support the usurping of land, they take clear aim at
pillars of our Zionist establishment such as the JNF, which they
claim is a racist, colonial entity that should be shut down....Their
goal for the Beduin is no less than the establishment of facts on
the ground, as Pnini Badash – the mayor of Omer states, "to create
an autonomous region" that will eventually be contiguous with the
oft-promised Palestinian state to be created only a few kilometers
to the north.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Yossi Yonah (Dept of Education)
Pooh-Poohs the Threats from Iran
The dire Iranian rhetoric is only
PM Netanyahu spin to divert attention
from Social Justice Issues.
So, while he
exerts so much effort in providing an answer to the military threats
on his citizens, Netanyahu does not hesitate to abuse them with an
unrestrained capitalist policy. He fails to understand that these
socio-economic wrongs pose a real strategic threat to the resilience
of Israeli society, just as much as the external threats do.
Even now, after
we have learned of the huge hole in the state budget, Netanyahu
refuses remains adamant in his refusal to change his priorities.
Instead, he places the burden on the middle class and on the weaker
sectors of society, which are asked to pay the price for his failed
economic policy.
…
Therefore, now is the time for the Israeli public to display
political maturity and refuse to fall victim to Netanyahu's
diversions. Now is the time for the Israeli public to clarify to its
leaders that society's internal resilience is just as important as
the country's military capability to face external threats, as grave
as they may be.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept of Political
Science) compares Israel's use of Barbed Wire to the Nazi
construction of Dachau
While this analysis appears accurate when
thinking of the Nazi concentration camps, it does not ring true in
relation to World War I. It is precisely the diverse historical
roles barbed wire has played—both as sign and as action—in the
modern process of separating and homogenizing society that needs to
be exposed, analyzed and explained.
Explicating and trying to understand the
continued widespread use of barbed wire could have added an
additional dimension to this fascinating book. For example,
examining the architectural similarity and differences between the
camps Israel has constructed to hold Palestinians and the
concentration camps Jews were held in during the Holocaust, urges
one to ponder how it is that the reappearance of barbed wire in the
Israeli landscape does not engender an outcry among survivors.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Special Isracampus Report:
Rivka Carmi, the president of Ben Gurion University, has announced
her intention to defy the Council on Higher Education (CHE) in
Israel and, in effect, to break the law and convert Ben Gurion
University into an outlaw institution.
Her campaign to turn her school into
Scofflaw University is in response to the recommendations by an
Inspections Sub-Committee set up by the CHE Council to follow any
reforms or changes that Carmi and BGU take in response to the
recommendations by an international panel of experts regarding the
University's Department of Politics (political science)…
[The Inspections] sub-committee reported a few days
ago that little of substance has been changed, and it repeated the
demand that the Department of Politics be shut down altogether
starting in the 2013-14 school year…
Now the News1 web site, a news service in Hebrew,
carries a report here (http://www.news1.co.il/Archive/001-D-309321-00.html)
entitled "Ben Gurion University Mutinies against the CHE." It
reports that Carmi and other officials at
Ben
Gurion University distributed a letter to all faculty and students
in the university this week, announcing their intention to defy the
CHE and ignore the demands and the call to shut down the Department
of Politics. The letter of defiance, which can be read in its
original in Hebrew here:
http://www.news1.co.il/ShowCurrentFile.aspx?FileID=11060,
is signed by Carmi, the BGU Rector Zvi Hacohen, and Dean of Social
Sciences and Humanities David Newman, himself a geographer who is a
member of the Department of Politics.
… [T]he letter denounces the report by the
Inspections Sub-Committee, calling it unfounded and unprecedented
and devoid of facts. It also threatens to take legal measures
against the CHE (which provides the bulk of BGU's funding), to make
sure that the recommendations are not implemented. In the letter
these BGU officials insist that the demands of the Sub-Committee are
an assault against academic freedom and are politically motivated
and undemocratic. Evidently it is undemocratic for taxpayers to be
able to expect accountability and serious standards of academic
excellence from a university they pay for! (How amusing that the
very same BGU people insist on the right to maintain a one-sided
department of anti-Israel indoctrination within
Ben Gurion University!!)
… The letter concludes with the proclamation by its
signers that the Department of Politics will continue to operate
unimpeded.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Isracampus Special Report:
Yediot Ahronot Reports that Ben Gurion University's Political
Science Department is about to be Closed
Israel's daily Yediot Ahronot reports on Sept.
6, 2012 that the Department of Political Science at Ben Gurion
University is on the verge of being forcibly shut down by the
Israeli State Commission on Higher Education, the public body that
oversees and regulates (and funds) Israeli universities.
According to the news story, an independent
balanced international panel of experts investigated the department
and found it extremely politicized (meaning uniformly far leftist
and anti-Israel) and with abysmally low academic standards. The
Council on Higher Education adopted and approved the panel's
proposals. Among these was the demand that mainstream ideas and
methods also be taught in the department, in contrast with the
current situation in which only Marxism and "post-colonialist"
post-Zionist rhetoric are the main forms of analysis. The panel
spoke out most forcefully against the open political activism (most
of it anti-Israel) that dominates the activities of the department.
The panel expressed skepticism over whether the students were
actually learning anything scholarly besides being indoctrinated in
"activism"…
The international panel proposed that no new
students be admitted for studies in that department in the 2013-14
school year unless serious reforms are first undertaken.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Lee Kaplan Takes Neve Gordon
(Dept of Political Science) to Task; Provides Rebuttal to Gordon's
Attacks on Kaplan and the Haifa Court's Credibility
Gordon celebrates
Rachel Corrie's "martyrdom" as one unconsummated Human Shield for
Terrorists only can. Kaplan fills in the blanks about the
terrorist-accomplice Rachel Corrie that Gordon conveniently wishes
others to ignore. "The Nation" itself refused to run Lee Kaplan's
Rebuttal, showing that its one-time Stalinistic Tendencies are still
alive and well!
One
such victim of the demise of academic standards [in the Social
Science and Humanities, particularly in History and Political
Science and Communications Departments] was the young woman Rachel
Corrie, who died while trying to interfere with the work of an
Israeli army earth mover operating in Gaza…
…
Gordon recently wrote an Op-Ed piece in the extremist anti-Semitic
"The Nation," magazine, which celebrated the "martyrdom" of Rachel
Corrie and questioned my own journalistic integrity. This coming
from someone whose main venue for venting his opinions is the
Neo-Nazi "Counterpunch" web site and whose Bash-Israel diatribes are
also published on the site of Holocaust Denier Ernst Zundel.
Gordon specifically attacks me for submitting a photograph that
was cited in the 145 page transcript of the trial in which ISM
activists in the West Bank are shown waving terrorist-provided
machine guns in the presence of an Al Aksa Martyrs Brigade terrorist
and a Palestinian policeman.
…
Gordon is supposed to be a college
professor so one might assume he knows how
to do research. Well, one would be
wrong. Gordon's academic record consists almost entirely of churning
out anti-Israel hate propaganda misrepresented as research. The
photos, he claims, attempted to impute guilt of the ISM by
association. My article
here names the people in the photos
and discusses the ISM at length…
Before I
parse the rest of Gordon's "article" in the Nation, let me show you
another photo, this one of Neve Gordon:

The above
photo was taken shortly after the Passover Massacre in Netanya,
Israel in 2002, where 31 people, some Holocaust survivors, were
murdered by a suicide bomber who was dispatched and paid by Yasser
Arafat himself. Gordon, in the photo, was acting as a human shield
for Arafat who was surrounded in the PLO's headquarters by the IDF.
Gordon entered Ramallah illegally, a bit like Rachel Corrie in Gaza, in order to interfere with Israeli army anti-terror operations.
The ISM was
founded by similar "human shields." You can see why Gordon embraces
them. In the photo, Gordon is clearly making a victory and
solidarity salute in support of Arafat.
…
What Neve Gordon conveniently left
out in his column in the Nation was that Rachel Corrie was recruited
and trained by the ISM. She was even
given a training manual, one that I
furnished to the Haifa court, showing that the organization prepares
all volunteers before going into combat zones to interfere violently
with the anti-terrorist activities of the IDF. Marxist Gordon tries
to suggest that Rachel Corrie may not have agreed with ISM teachings
about terrorism as "legitimate resistance," when she made
statements to the contrary. Actually, Rachel Corrie wrote home to
her mother in praise of the "martyrs" (suicide bombers) who were
fighting the Israelis and in support of "legitimate resistance" (ISM
Newspeak for terrorism). Gordon did not mention in his article in
The Nation that Rachel Corrie wrote copious emails home to her
mother, in which she described entering the weapons smuggling
tunnels dug by Hamas to bring out the dead bodies of terrorists
killed in them by the IDF.
…
"Professor" Gordon, like Rachel
Corrie, likes to pose in front of cameras with terrorists and to aid
international murderers, while claiming to be a peace activist. It
therefore comes as no surprise that he writes such an article in The
Nation, insisting justice was not done for the Corrie family. Since
the Corries were not jailed by Israel for their role in abetting
terrorism, in a sense we agree that justice was not done. The judge
even ordered the Israeli taxpayer to pay the state's cost for the
trial for another ISM propaganda stunt.
The Corries
are touring the world promoting the goals of the Hamas. The trial
was just another publicity stunt by them to damage Israel. Gordon
tries to beget countless other Rachel Corries in his lectures when
he calls upon his students to emulate this young woman who died for
the Hamas.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion Univeristy - Neve "SLAPP SUIT" Gordon (Dept
of Political Science), who illegally interfered with IDF anti-terror
operations, defends the right of terrorist-accomplice Rachel Corrie
to do the same
Defends the harassment suit by her parents
against Israel, and condemns the judge who tossed it out. Questions
Lee Kaplan's journalistic
integrity and dismisses any responsibility that Rachel Corrie had in
her own death that Kaplan's photos implicate.
In the days leading up to the ruling, I wondered how the state
was going to make the case that Corrie was to blame for her own
death; I therefore read the 145-page summation submitted by the
defense. The document appeared convincing at first. Indeed, if read
on its own—ignoring the political context and the plaintiff's
summations and response—one might easily be persuaded that Corrie
was a reckless human being who was fully responsible for her own
demise.
…
Let's consider the photographs, since they were brought forth as
markers of unadulterated truth.
Corrie's face is directed upwards, mouth wide open; she is
screaming as she looks at a piece of burning paper held with both
hands against the sky. She is portrayed here as the paradigmatic
extremist whose fanatical behavior is influencing a group of young
children huddled around her. The caption for this photo reads:
"The deceased, Rachel Corrie, burning an American flag during a
protest in Rafah."
Directly under this photo of Rachel is a picture of four people,
three of whom are holding guns and one wearing a uniform without a
gun. The two standing figures appear to be foreigners, the person in
uniform appears to be Palestinian, while the face of the second
person sitting is intentionally blurred. (Why? We are not told) The
title of this photo and of another one next to it (with several
people posing in a similar manner, two with guns) reads,
"Photographs of organization members holding guns, disclosed by the
American journalist Lee Kaplan."
Let's set aside the question of whether the so-called journalist
Lee Kaplan—whose claim to fame are [sic] articles he writes for the
academic monitoring website
IsraCampus—is trustworthy and think about what these images are
meant to prove.
The fact is that we are not told where and when the two
additional photos were taken, who the people in the photographs are,
whether Corrie knew them or what their affiliation is. Yet this
uncertainty is obscured by the placement of these suggestive photos
adjacent to the one of Corrie. Through this crude juxtaposition, the
state attempted to impute guilt by association.
…
Due to a deeply ingrained institutional bias that has been
documented by law professor David Kretzmer of Hebrew University,
the judge did not ask the defense team such questions. He was not
disturbed by the fact that the state failed to produce a military
order declaring the region a closed military zone, or by the fact
that the state's expert witness had been the IDF spokesperson at the
time of Corrie's death, or by the fact that several minutes were
missing from the military tapes that recorded the incident. Nor was
the judge at all disturbed by the state's twisted presentation of
the political context in which Corrie's killing took place.
The defense team used these statistics against Corrie, claiming that
she put herself in harm's way, but one could, more persuasively I
think, say that she was an incredibly courageous human being who
believed that all people should enjoy basic rights, such as freedom,
self-determination and security. And Rachel was willing to struggle
for such rights.
Haifa District Court Judge Oded Gershon showed no
empathy toward this line of thinking, and on August 28 handed down
his verdict: the State of Israel and the Defense Ministry were not
responsible for Rachel Corrie's death.
Tragically, the judge's dismissive attitude mirrors the
attitude of the US State Department from the time of Rachel's
killing up to the verdict.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon (Dept of
Political Science) Outed Along with Other Jewish Anti-Semites
Among its many critics, there is a startling
number of Jews who calumniate Israel and, in some cases, champion
those threatening its existence.
Noam Chomsky heads this list, but he is hardly
alone. Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe, Richard Falk, Tony Judt,
Howard Zinn, Eric Hobsbawm and many other Jews have joined in this
project. Neve Gordon, head of the Department of Politics and
Government at Ben-Gurion University, claims that "Israel resembles
Nazi Germany."
Gabriel Schoenfeld's explanation of this in The
Return of Anti-Semitism is straightforward: amid a rising tide of
anti-Semitism, Jewish enemies of Israel are out to save their own
skins, aiming "to deflect the poisonous arrows coming at their
fellow Jews."
In The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People
Under Siege Kenneth Levin asks: "Why are Jews so self-destructive?
So suicidal?" He argues that constant oppression can lead to a
variant of the Stockholm Syndrome: "empathy for and emotional
bonding with the aggressor." The logic of this "embrace by members
of an abused community of the indictments of their abusers" is that
this allows the possibility of "salvation [through] self-reform and
concessions."
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
Danny Rubinstein (Dept of Communication Studies) can't help but
slander the settlers and complain about the "Judaization of
Jerusalem"
Creates a Pre-1967 Palestinian Independence
Movement out of thin air
There is no doubt that Fayyad, supported by
Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), is attempting to create a new
reality in the West Bank… His success has been limited for the
simple reason that without progress on the political front, there is
no possibility of establishing a serious infrastructure for a
Palestinian state. For example, in keeping with the Oslo Accords,
Israel continues to rule over 60 percent of the West Bank—"Area C."
This includes all the settlements, the main roads, and the whole of
the Jordan Valley and the Judean Desert. In these areas, the
settlers and the Israeli Defense Force have almost complete control,
and within Area C are "reserved tracts" through which Israel
regulates the water supply and the flow of traffic on the roads.
Without control over these lands, the Palestinian Authority cannot
construct a physical infrastructure (for example, the national
airport that Fayyad wants to establish in the Jordan Valley). In
fact, there is no possibility of establishing Palestinian control,
and Fayyad knows this. In consultation with Abu Mazen, he arranged a
series of demonstrations and protests against the separation
barrier; against the provocations of the settlers, whose produce the
Palestinians ban and burn; against the strengthening of the Israeli
hold on East Jerusalem (which the Palestinians refer to as the
Judaization of Jerusalem); and against the continuing expansion of
the settlements.
…
From its beginnings at the start of the twentieth century, the
Palestinian movement has had one clear goal: to free itself from
foreign occupation, first from the British and then from the
Israelis. The demand to create a Palestinian state does not appear
in the national covenant that the PLO proclaimed in the 1960s. And
in the short period in which most Palestinians lived under Arab rule
(from 1948 to 1967), they did not work for the establishment of a
state in the West Bank and Gaza.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David Newman (Dean of
Social Sciences and Humanities) making excuses for the
Boycott-Israel Assault Mob!
Why is it so difficult for Newman to understand
that his opinions and activism Must Lead to Israel being inundated
with tens of thousands of rockets fired from his beloved proposed
Palestinian State?
We can go on contesting each other's right to
be here, or we can – each of us – make those painful compromises
which require each of us to make do with only part of the territory
between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. We each require
guarantees that the other side will no longer threaten our safety
and security, and that the human rights and democracy of both
peoples will be respected.
This will almost certainly require a clear line
of separation, a border...
There will now be renewed calls for sanctions,
BDS and boycotts by those groups who are continuously seeking ways
to delegitimize Israel. Only this time they will no longer be forced
to make a distinction between sovereign Israel and the "occupied
territories." By trying to justify an unjustifiable situation, all
we will have managed to do is to weaken even further the foundations
on which the sovereign state exists.
For all those of us out there in the battle to
deflect and defuse the boycott attempts, this report has just made
our task a hundred times more difficult. It has simply played into
the hands of our detractors, weakened even further our international
standing, and reflects the failed policies of a right-wing
government which is doing its best to lead Israel into a new era of
international isolation.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University's Assault against Jewish Studies
Dean David Newman slashes Jewish Studies
Dept while adding to his Pol Sci Dept; Neve Gordon gets to control
the funds
[A]ccording to
Makor Rishon, Dean Newman has a new cause and that is slashing
and reducing the departments in the university in which Jewish
Studies are taught. The university has departments of "Jewish
Thought," Jewish History, and Hebrew literature. Dean Newman thinks
that is far too much. He wants to reduce the sizes and number of
those departments, slash their budgets and merge them into a single
small department. Is he upset because so few students and faculty in
these departments participate in campus pro-Hamas rallies and call
for world boycotts of Israel?
Newman, whose own department was denounced for
its academic standards, likes to call these Jewish departments
"mediocre" in terms of academic quality. They do not publish enough
in English, he says, you know – unlike the books by Neve Gordon
calling for world boycotts of Israel and denouncing Israel as an
apartheid regime. Of course, at the same time Newman is struggling
to ADD slots and budgets to his OWN political science department!
Newman, whose department runs "conferences" every few weeks in which
only leftists may speak, including conferences devoted to Marxist
indoctrination, criticized the Jewish departments for running
conferences whose academic quality was not "high enough"!
The newspaper notes the atmosphere of
suppression and terror introduced by Newman, manifested in the fact
that none of the faculty members of the departments being targeted
by Newman were willing to be interviewed. The newspaper also notes
that while the commission appointed by Israel's Council on Higher
Education demanded that BGU's department of political science not
run a PhD program or accept PhD candidates (because of the
department's low quality), not only is the department still doing so
but the chap in CHARGE of the doctoral program is none other than
Neve Gordon. Gordon's own PhD is from the sixth rate Notre Dame
University, where he was associated with the Kroc Institute…
According to Makor Rishon, Newman has also appointed Gordon to be in
charge of the School's budgets.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Ofer Neiman (Dept of
Math/Computers) Lobbies for Arab Violence against the Jews
In exposing the behavior of
Israel's academic leftists, Isracampus reports in most cases about
well-educated people who like to define themselves as "peace
activists," who believe they think beyond the curve, and as
"humanitarians" who are concerned about abuses of the Arabs by
nationalistic Jews. Most of course seem to view the world in a
Manichean mindset, that is, all is good or bad and there is no gray
in-between. They often claim that Israel is the embodiment of evil,
of oppressive colonialism and apartheid. These people gravitate to
Academia where they can get tenured and be sheltered from
accountability. Political Cronyism among other faculty and staff
converts Israeli academia into a self-perpetuating bureaucracy
misinterpreted as "academic freedom."
This describes tenured treason superstar in Math
and Computer Science Professor Ofer Neiman at
Ben Gurion University. He is an
open advocate of Palestinian violence against Jews.
…
Neiman is one of the leaders of the Boycott Within movement,
which consists of Israelis urging world boycotts of their own
countrymen. They promote these boycotts from within
Israel,
even against the University that employs Neiman:
Quoting Neiman: "There are Israelis -- not just a
few -- who think this is equivalent to treason. I disagree… Ours in
not a violent campaign… And another thing about BDS is that it gives
a voice to people all over the world…"
Sorry, but no, Ofer, it is treason when someone
lobbies for those who want to harm one's fellow countrymen and one
aids and abets a genocidal enemy.
Economic aggression under the guise of "BDS"
or "Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions," ultimately directed at
Israeli children, is violence. Indicting those engaged in
BDS
treason is resistance.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Breaking News – Ben Gurion University loses
multi-million dollar contribution because of the anti-Israel
activities of Neve Gordon conducted under BGU's auspices
Maariv June 23, 2012 reports (
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART2/380/004.html) that Ben Gurion
University's cabbagehead president Rivka Carmi has just announced
that the university lost a multi-million dollar contribution that
was intended for development of the university library and other
infrastructure investment because the donor was outraged at the
treasonous activities being conducted by Neve Gordon, a lecturer in
political science at the University, including his open calls for
world boycotts of Israel. According to the story in Maariv, the
donor conditioned his or her contribution on Gordon being dismissed.
Carmi refused to initiate dismissal proceedings against Gordon.
Carmi claims there is no "legal basis" for firing Gordon. She failed
to note the academic basis for doing so, namely, that Gordon's
"academic record" consists largely of Bash-Israel hate propaganda.
She also failed to note that Gordon's track record of law breaking,
including his illegal interference with the IDF's anti-terror
operations, is itself sufficient legal justification for his being
fired.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University runs yet another biased
anti-Israel "conference," one in which BGU Professor Aref Abu-Rabia
(Middle East studies) engages in Slander and Libel
It was in the midst of my reply to some of
these comments that BGU Professor Aref Abu-Rabia interjected, "But
you are a collaborator, aren't you?" His outburst didn't end there;
he then said "collaborator" again and mumbled something about the
Holocaust.
In an academic setting, one might think that
accusing people of being connected to the Nazis or of being
"collaborators," a term also associated with Nazism, would be
considered inappropriate. But the conference organizers, (BGU's) Avi
Rubin and Iris Agmon, were mum.
...
The misbehaving academics are not solely to blame. It is the culture
of extremism as well. One conference attendee told me, "I've gotten
used to this harassment and lack of respect."
WHEN THE university becomes the equivalent of a
cross between a football locker room and extremist political rally,
where decorum is at its lowest level, the culture of the academy has
sent the message that this hostile environment is acceptable.
It is a shame that in a university named after
Israel's first prime minister, a person who dares to question
whether the Beduin do in fact have indigenous rights to much of the
Negev – a right they don't have in any other country in the Middle
East – is condemned as a "collaborator." We know what that implies.
The collaborators with the Nazis were killed after the war.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
BGU Would-be Murderer not to be Prosecuted - Political
Corruption in Israel's Attorney General Office
Leftist Attorney
General Circles the Wagons to defend Leftist Anti-Israel Lecturer
Eyal Nir (Dept of Chemistry) from BGU who Incited to Murder
For those who think I am exaggerating when I
say that Israel has a corrupt politicized dual justice system, one
for leftists and the other for everyone else, then just consider the
following news item:
You may recall the reports here about one Eyal
Nir, a far-leftist anti-Israel lecturer in chemistry at Ben Gurion
"University," the Bir Zeit of the Negev. Nir posted calls and
threats to murder non-leftists on his Facebook page. The same
Attorney General's Office that rounds up and arrests Rabbis by the
bushel if they dare to recommend that people read a book of which
the Leftists disapprove was petitioned to prosecute Nir. Today it
was announced that Nir will not be prosecuted.
And don't hold your breath waiting for Rivka
Carmi, the Cabbagehead president of Ben Gurion "University," to do
anything about Nir either.
'Case Closed Against Inciting Lecturer
The State Attorney's Office announced,
Thursday, that it was closing the file of a Ben Gurion University
lecturer who had called, on his Facebook page, to "break the necks"
of right wing participants in last year's Jerusalem Day Flag Dance
parade. The announcement cited lack of evidence. The Legal Forum for
the Land of Israel, which filed the complaint has announced that it
will appeal the "surprising" decision. "Law enforcement cannot
ignore such a blatant incitement to murder, said Forum Director,
Nachi Eyal.'
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Hysterical attack on
Isracampus by David Newman (Dean of Social Sciences) in JPOST
Bemoans increased involvement of
Board of Governors' dealing with Traitorous Academics who abuse
their positions; Boasts the increased attention of the Council of
Higher Education but fails to mention that the Council almost closed
the department Newman founded.
In recent years, spurred on by extremist
right-wing groups, members of the Boards of Governors have also
become increasingly involved in the political debate surrounding
Israeli universities and their academic staff. Many of them have
blindly supported the false assertions of well-oiled and funded
groups, such as Im Tirtzu, NGO Monitor, IsraCampus and Academic
Monitor, that the universities have become hotbeds of "anti-Zionism"
without ever bothering to check the facts on the ground.
…
The crisis of the humanities, which was all too apparent during the
past decade, has finally been recognized by the Council of Higher
Education (the MALAG) which is beginning to redirect resources to
this field. In financial terms, the liberal arts and the humanities
will not always stand up to the stringent measures of economic
feasibility. [nor to
the stringent measures of Academic standards – Isracampus]
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - David Newman (Dean of Social
Sciences) Denounces "exclusion of critical voices" by Israel while
excluding all Non-Leftist Critical Voices from his Own Department at
BGU
In his Op-Ed, David Newman complains about
Israel attempting to "exclude those who think differently," such as
Israel's barring entry into the country for Gunter Grass, a man who
would be welcomed with open arms by Newman's politics department at
BGU as a fellow hater of Israel and Zionism. Newman is opposed to
preventing "critical voices" from entering Israel. This coming from
the fellow who has spent recent years demanding that critical voices
of critics who criticize the anti-Israel Left be silenced and
suppressed.
Of course this article about how terrible it is
to exclude those who think differently is written by a professor who
built up the entire politics department on the principle of
excluding all those who are pro-Israel or non-leftist. Zionists and
non-leftists are rigidly prevented from teaching in Newman's
department!
"This is part of a policy which Israel has
adopted in recent years in relation to many who are critical of the
country and its policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians. It is a policy
which is causing immense damage to Israel's reputation as a
democracy where free speech is allowed. Outspoken critics of Israeli
government policies, such as Noam Chomsky, the noted Jewish linguist
and philosopher, Norman Finkelstein, the American political
scientists and activist who has been critical of the way in which
the Holocaust has been manipulated for political gain, and, most
recently, Gunter Grass, the German novelist and Nobel prize winner –
have all been denied entry into Israel.
…
Preventing these critical voices from entering the country only
draws added attention and headlines to their views. It is a policy
which reflects a cowardice to engage in debate with people whose
opinions do not fall in line with those of a state which has become
increasingly hard-line in both its domestic and international
positions in recent years. It raises questions concerning the very
definition of the state as an open democracy. It makes us look
pretty stupid in the eyes of the world, including those who strongly
support and promote Israel within the international arena, but who
believe that Israel has to justify its policies rather than simply
shut the debate down because the views expressed are unpopular at
the best, or indefensible at the worst."
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Special Isracampus Report
Harvard Prof. Alan Dershowitz denounces BGU's Neve Gordon (Dept of
Political Science) as a Fifth-Rate Pseudo-Academic and Traitor,
Compares him with Holocaust Denier
On April 27, 2012 the Right-leaning daily
Makor Rishon ran an extensive in-depth interview with the legendary
professor of law Alan Dershowitz...
Dershowitz fires his most devastating
ammunition in the interview against three anti-Semitic Israelis.
They are Neve Gordon from Ben Gurion "University," Ilan Pappe, once
at the University of Haifa but today a full-time Israel Basher in
Britain at the University of Exeter, and the demented Holocaust
Denier, ex-Israeli sax player Gilad Atzmon.
In the interview, Dershowitz is asked
about a comment of his cited last year in Globes in which he said
that some of the worst enemies of Israel are themselves Israelis.
Dershowitz responds by saying that not only are these anti-Israel
Israelis among Israel's worst enemies, but also they are among
Israel's most dangerous enemies. He then says that he has in mind
(in this order) Neve Gordon, Ilan Pappe and Gilad Atzmon. ...Dershowitz
says that these three and people like them are "People who wrap
themselves in the Israeli flag only for the purpose of burning it.
The only time these people claim to be Israelis at all is when they
wish to wave this as a certificate to legitimize their own malicious
and unreasonable attacks against Israel." While insisting that
criticism in and of itself is something positive, Dershowitz says
that these people are not "critics" but rather are seeking the
demonization and delegitimization of all of Israel in the most
hypocritical manner.
Dershowitz is then asked about the
ulterior motive of these people. He replies: "Most anti-Israel
Israelis are fifth rate academics incapable of finding themselves
professionally or academically in Israel. Hence they try to find
themselves positions in Europe, even though they generally are also
too inferior to get work there. But they believe if they market
themselves as anti-Israel Israelis, the novelty will boost their
standing and they just might find jobs. I realize this may sound
like I have a personal grudge against them, but in fact this is the
simple truth."
It is notable that Dershowitz lumps Neve
Gordon (and Pappe) together with Gilad Azmon, an open Holocaust
Denier...
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Oren Yiftachel (Dept of Geography)
Dictates the End of the Jewish State of Israel as the Only Route to
Achieve Peace
Either by Suicidal
Territorial Concessions or by the "Rwandan" One-State solution
The first is a
political-geographical partition perceived as legitimate and just by
both sides, with UN decision 242 as a basis. Israel would then
retreat from all occupied territories, except for very small areas
mutually agreed upon by the Palestinians. Most Jewish settlements
would be evacuated, and would form an important infrastructure for
the resettlement and rehabilitation of Palestinian refugees, while
the large near-border settlements (such as Gilo or Ramot in the
Jerusalem region) may stay under Israeli sovereignty, subject to
territorial exchange.
…
The second option is the granting of equal citizenship to all
residents of the Israeli/Palestinian space, with the establishment
of a binational (as distinct from a "secular") democratic state.
Given the immense problems associated with the very division of
political space (the question of refugees, Jerusalem/al-Quds, and
Jewish settlements, to name just a few), this option appears more
attractive than ever. This solution is favored by many among the
Palestinian citizens in Israel, and by small leftist and religious
circles among both Palestinians and Jews worldwide.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Oren Yiftachel (Dept of Geography)
accuses Israel of "Creeping Apartheid", ethnocratic Judaization, and
creating Ghettos in a rambling rant
In place of movement toward two states or one, there is a process of
"creeping apartheid"- undeclared, yet structural - reordering the
politics and geography of the country between the Jordan River and
the Mediterranean Sea. The colonized West Bank, the besieged Gaza
Strip and Israel proper, each with its own official set of rules,
are in fact merging into one regime system, ultimately controlled by
the Jewish state, which increasingly appears to bear the
characteristics of apartheid, and inhabited by people with
citizenship status akin to "blacks," "coloreds" and "whites."
Repeated statements by Israeli leaders in support of Palestinian
statehood have thus far functioned to lend this process legitimacy,
rather than lead to the end of colonial settlement, military
occupation, minority oppression and resolution of the conflict.
The Israeli regime system has long been "ethnocratic," that is to
say, an overall logic of Judaization prevails in all regions under
Israeli control despite the differences in their legal and political
circumstances. Over time, however, the contradictions of ethnocracy
have led to a deepening of the "separate and unequal" conditions in
Israel-Palestine. Jews enjoy a relatively even and privileged
political and legal position, while Palestinians are divided into
several proto-groups, each having a differently inferior set of
rights and capabilities. Under the process of creeping apartheid,
Palestinians are increasingly confined to a series of what may be
called "black" and "colored" ghettoes, while Jews reside in
relatively open localities, both in Israel and in the Judaized West
Bank.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Special Isracampus Report
Ben Gurion University - Oren Yiftachel: Legacy of Fraud,
Incompetence, and Struggle against the Existence of Israel
Oren Yiftachel is one of the worst anti-Israel "academic" extremists
in Israel… He specializes in trying to paint Israel as a racist
apartheid entity, or – to use his own favorite nonsense word – an
intolerant "ethnocracy." He justified the firing of Hamas rockets
into Israel, even when some landed near his own campus, on grounds
that Israel had "jailed" the entire Palestinian population of Gaza.
This "jailing" consisted of refusing to allow the Gazan terrorists
to import advanced weapons systems. (See
this anti-Semitic smear by him, still carried on the BGU
official web site, and
see also this) Yiftachel churns out anti-Israel hate propaganda
for some of the most anti-Semitic groups and magazines on the
planet. Along with BGU's Neve Gordon and Lev Grinberg, he is part of
the core BGU group of tenured extremists who make no secret of their
endorsement of Arab mass murder of Jews.
…
For the past few years, Yiftachel has spent much of his time
attempting to demonize Israel for supposedly mistreating its Bedouin
citizens. This "mistreatment" consists of Israel's refusal to accept
at face value the fictional and imaginary "legal" claims of the
Negev Bedouins to huge portions of the entire Negev... Yiftachel
also has a long track record of denouncing Israel for allowing Jews
to move to the Negev and the Galilee, or what he calls "Judaizing"
these territories. The term "judaization" has been used by
anti-Semites as a nonsense term to denounce Jews since the Middle
Ages.
In recent weeks, Yiftachel testified in a Beer Sheba Court about
those Bedouin claims in a suit against the state of Israel brought
by the Bedouin lobby. Yiftachel's fraudulent testimony has now
become the matter of public record and of a growing number of media
reports.
Yiftachel gave false testimony to the court. A second geography
professor from Jerusalem, Prof. Ruth Kark, gave non-fictional and
factually correct testimony on behalf of the state, challenging the
fraudulent claims of Yiftachel and the Bedouin lobby. Kark has
published a serious academic book about the Negev Bedouins, along
with her PhD student, Seth Frantzman, currently an editor at the
Jerusalem Post and someone who often writes for Isracampus.
The court ruled against Yiftachel and his lobby. The judge in
question, Sarah Dovrat, went out of her way to denounce Yiftachel
for fabrication and fraudulent misrepresentation of the contents of
a number of historic documents during his testimony, denouncing him
explicitly for testifying about the contents of documents he had
never even bothered to read!
The denunciation of Yiftachel and his fraud has now appeared in
several news venues. Citations from the judge's verdict in which
Yiftachel was denounced were posted on an Israeli chat list by
the distinguished Israeli professor of Geography from Tel Aviv
University, Gideon Biger.
On April 20, 2012, a particularly good expose of Yiftachel's fraud
was carried in Hebrew by the Makor Rishon daily newspaper [paraphrased
in English in the full article]…
A second somewhat similar article
appears this week on the internet at
http://2nd-ops.com/adiby/?p=5658 (in Hebrew). It accuses
Yiftachel of forgery and perjury, when he submitted to the court a
corrected later affidavit carrying the false date of an earlier
affidavit he had submitted.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Writing in anti-Semitic
pro-jihad "Counterpunch," Little Neve Gordon (Dept of Political
Science) is back with a new Blood Libel and Historic Fiction
Under the directives of Israel's first
prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, many of the remaining Bedouin were
uprooted from the lands they had inhabited for generations and were
concentrated in the mostly barren area in the north-eastern part of
the Negev known as the
Siyag
(enclosure) zone. This area comprises one
million dunams [one dunam = 1,000m2], or slightly less
than ten per cent of the Negev's territory. Through this process of
forced relocation, the Negev's most arable lands were cleared of
Arab residents and were given to new
kibbutzim
and
moshavim,
Jewish agriculture communities, which took full advantage of the
fertile soil.
...
Prawer's algorithm is an extremely complex
mechanism of expropriation informed by the basic assumption that the
Bedouin have no land rights. (From this we learn that Gordon does
not know what an algorithm is -- Isracampus)
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Special Isracampus
Report –
Ben Gurion University - Judge Dismisses Oren Yiftachel (Dept of
Geography) as a Charlatan
In an important landmark court case, Judge
Sarah Dovrat in Beer Sheba court dismissed the fraudulent claims
presented by Prof. Oren Yiftachel (Ben Gurion University, Dept of
Geography). Yiftachel has a long track record of granting "academic"
artillery support to fraudulent claims by Negev Bedouins to huge
tracts of land they do not own and to which they have no legitimate
claims. Yiftachel's position has long been that Israel needs to
recognize every imaginary "claim" to land made by any Negev Bedouin.
...
In the verdict rejecting the Bedouin case, the judge repeatedly
blasted Yiftachel and his "research." She accused Yiftachel of
endorsing claims made by Bedouins without even having bothered to
read them. She attacked Yiftachel for relying on the "Palestine Law
Report" without even understanding what it was referring to, and
then trying to twist and turn his way out of his being nailed for
his errors. It would have been far more dignified for Yiftachel to
concede his errors, said the judge in the verdict. The Bedouins were
represented by radical leftist lawyer Michael Sfard and were ordered
to pay 50,000 in court costs.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Rivka Carmi, BGU President,
Staves the Closing of the Political Science Dept with Cosmetic
Changes
As you recall, an international panel had
called for shutting down the
political science department at BGU
because it is nothing but a
pseudo-academic radical anti-Israel propaganda center engaged in
anti-Israel hate and demonization. It
is composed entirely of
far-leftist anti-Israel extremists and no Zionist is permitted to
teach in the department. And it is a
department devoid of the
slightest hint of serious academic standards or scholastic
achievement. It is home to Neve
Gordon, in the news this week for
defending
Iran's right to nuke the Jews, and also to the enemy of freedom
of speech David Newman, Dean at
BGU, who actually is a geographer,
best known for his helping produce
an anti-Semitic documentary for
British TV.
Well, Rivka Carmi proclaimed that the
school would make some cosmetic
changes in the department to get the
international panel off her back.
Israel's Ivory Soviet, the Council on Higher Education, seems to be
buying her spin. It has backed down
from the decision to shut down
this BGU department for jihadist studies.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Writing for the jihadist Aljazeera, Ben Gurion
University's own Mini-Ayatollah Neve Gordon (Dept of Political
Science) Joins the Initiative to Defend Iran's Right to Nuke the
Jews
Preparing Israel for war
Most analysts wittingly or unwittingly
intimated, however, that there were other reasons for initiating the
current cycle of violence, and justifying a major offensive on Gaza
was not one of them.
...
The recent attack is, however, not only about allocating more money
to the military; it is also about
Iran. The
media continuously drew a connection between the Islamic jihad,
which launched most of the rockets against Israel, and Iran. The IDF
spokesperson pointed an accusing finger towards Teheran, claiming
that it is transferring weapons and money to the Islamic Jihad. A
couple of days later a headline in
Yisrael Hayom
declared, "Iran is Behind the Jihad's
Rocket Attack". Hence, another objective was to show the Israeli
public that Iran, by means of a proxy, had already begun attacking
Israel.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Leftist Fascist Academics Exempt from
Prosecution when They Call for Murder
The State Attorney's Office
has refused to file charges against a former lecturer at the Bezalel
art school who wrote "death to the settlers" on his Facebook page.
The man, Tzvi Elhayani,
wrote: "Death to the settlers – because you are a spiritual murder
of the nation of Israel."
Following this publication,
the Legal Forum for the Land of Israel asked the Attorney General
and Government Legal Advisor to initiate an investigation on
suspicion of incitement to murder.
…
Last June, a lecturer at Ben Gurion University [Eyal Nir –
Isracampus]
called for violence against Jewish participants in the Jerusalem
Day Flag March. "I call on the world to come and help
break these
scoundrels' necks," he wrote on his Facebook page, and described the
flag-bearing marchers as "gangs of bandits swarming in our country."
While an investigation was
reportedly launched against Nir four months later, there has been no
report that charges have been filed.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Cabbagehead Rivka Carmi, the
mad cow president, is the star of a sycophantic cover story in the
Haaretz weekend magazine.
The entire first 1/3 is
about the role of the radical Left at BGU, about BGU's loss of
respect and reputation because of the role of the radicals, and
about the criticism of standards in the politics department. Carmi
gives her typical spins. She even manages to bash the donors to BGU.
"It was a routine report," Carmi says drily about the
CHE document [which called for radical changes in the Political
Science Dept or to close the department completely-Isracampus].
"They are always examining a different field across all the
universities. We thought we would adopt the report's conclusions
about strengthening the core subjects, even though there was an
argument about this, because the department was established with a
mandate to be different... But our thinking was that if the
committee says so, then maybe we overdid things a little, and okay,
we accept the conclusions."
…
So, what do you do when a donor says,
"Get rid of a wayward teacher or I will cancel my donation"?
"That has happened on more
than one occasion. I try to put things into context and say that it
is an extreme political approach espoused by fewer than a handful.
We have 800 faculty members, and of them five, maybe ten, espouse
that approach... One of them, a donor to a beit midrash [place of
Torah study] on the campus, became so angry that he stopped
donating. So what? There was also an American who wanted to donate
$7 million to the library."
For more details and to see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Idan Landau (Dept of Foreign
Literatures & Linguistics) claims rock throwing is not a "violent
protest"
Say, Landau, how come there are no photos on your blog of Jewish
children murdered by West Bank Arab terrorists that the Israeli
soldier failed to arrest?
Landau's choices of words resemble those on Hamas web sites.
Everything Israel does is "unlawful", "occupation" and
"dispossession." Hezbollah terrorists are "freedom fighters."
Oh, and here's
more of his take on rock throwing at Jews:
"Just to be clear: throwing stones at an occupying army which prevents
you from demonstrating on your own land does not constitute "violent
protest." It is the expected response to someone who not only steals
your land but also denies you the basic right to protest this. If
the army stops acting against the residents of Nabi Saleh and just
gets the hell off their lands, no one will throw stones at it."
Since Idan Landau claims stone throwing is not a "violent
protest," I think we should have students take stones into Landau's
classes and throw them at him for fifteen months while he lectures.
This could be our protest to his support for those who don't want to
negotiate and settle with the People of Israel, but to really wipe
them off the map.
For more details and to see the full original article,
go here
David Newman (a.k.a. Neve Gordon Lite from the Dept of
Politics at BGU that the international panel of experts called for
shutting down) attacks Isracampus in the anti-Israel pro-LSD hippy
magazine "Tikkun," on whose board of editors he sits; Newman forgets
to mention that he has been leading the McCarthyist campaign to
silence critics of the Radical Left
Or, they are all members of the anti-Zionist,
Israel bashing, self-hating Jews conspiracy who have been targeted
by any one of the three extremist right wing organizations Im Tirtzu,
Academic Monitor and Isracampus in recent years.
And this is but the tip of the iceberg....
Almost anyone who dares to think aloud,
promotes social justice, works on behalf of peace and the cause of
human rights, dares to dream (as did Herzl so many years ago) or
believes in freedom of speech, has a chance of finding himself /
herself on the list. Indeed, anyone reading this column and who
perceives themselves as a law abiding upright citizen of the State
of Israel could well find themselves on this list.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – BGU Prof Israel David
Determines that the Demise of BGU's Imbalanced Pol-Sci Dept is
Inevitable Based on his Insider Information
Ben Gurion University has found itself at a fork in the road, where it is
being required to provide clear and non-evasive answers to Israel's
Council on Higher Education, the public body that oversees higher
education in Israel. As the reader no doubt recalls, this Council
earlier appointed an international panel of professional evaluation
for the department of politics at BGU, and that panel recommended
shutting down the department of politics altogether, unless the
severe academic and professional shoddiness and incompetence there
would be cured.
…
There are indeed quite a few "imbalances" at Ben Gurion University.
Take for example the fact that nine out of the eleven tenured
faculty members in the department of politics at BGU, as well as a
great many of the non-tenured faculty members there, are radical
extremist seditious far-leftist activists. [Actually, all 11 tenured
faculty members are far-leftist activists – Isracampus] The chance
that such a department could have emerged by chance is far lower
than the chance of winning millions in the lottery. It should be
noted that no similar "coincidence" can be found at any other
university! Therefore there can be no doubt that this department was
constructed intentionally using the "One friend brings in another
friend" method of nepotism, and that in turn is the source of the
absence of professional and scientific standards in the department.
…
The imbalance of interest when it comes to the department of
politics is the imbalance of purpose. The bulk of faculty members in
the department have no idea what the mission of an academic
institution is… [The current chairman of the department, Dr. Dani]
Filc believes the mission of the department is advocacy, whereas the
proper mission of an academic unit is research and instruction. Much
more serious is Filc's inability to understand that it is NOT a
proper function for an academic department to persecute and harass
Israeli army officers, smearing them as "war criminals," nor to
vandalize Israeli military security points and checkpoints, nor to
infiltrate illegally into Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah and
there get photographed in warm embrace with Arafat (which a faculty
member in this department has already done), nor to organize violent
illegal "protests" (some of which have already been the subject of
prosecution in BGU disciplinary committees).
…
Shutting down the department of politics at BGU is a matter of great
seriousness. There are precedents in Israel for doing so… And that
is what has to be done at BGU!
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Tenured
Enemy of Freedom of Speech Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science)
sets up a Web Site that Claims to Mock Isracampus
Haaretz (http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/10-percent-of-israeli-academics-labeled-anti-zionist-by-campus-watchdogs-1.408535)
reports that Ben Gurion University’s worst Anti-Semite Neve Gordon
has set up his own little web site called www.blacklist.co.il that
is an attempt to mock Isracampus. The web site purports to invite
radical leftists to sign up to be added to black lists of
anti-Israel extremists. Gordon claims his web site will allow
leftist academics to search the archives of Isracampus and other
watchdog groups to see if they are listed and find what is said
about them there. But we tried out Gordon’s site and it did not do
any of things Gordon claims it does. It does not even locate any
article written about Neve Gordon himself, showing what an effective
search tool it is!
Meanwhile Gordon lists the owners and
initiators of the webs “blacklist” site he runs here:
http://blacklist.co.il/cgi-bin/bl/who.py
Well, we checked that list of names. Aside from
Gordon himself, none of the people in that list except Yinon Cohen
is even an academic.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Haaretz reports on how Isracampus Exposes the
Tenured Left
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. … 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.
…
University of Haifa economist Prof. Steven Plaut, one of the
founders of IsraCampus, said in a statement: "Our main function is
to quote what these teachers say and write ideologically and
politically in order to bring it to the attention of the public. The
issue is not an ideological argument, but rather publicizing the
anti-Israel group that openly supports the enemy," Plaut said.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Discriminating against Jews
Racism and discrimination have suddenly appeared as a
serious problem in Israeli academia. The racism and discrimination
in question is anti-Jewish and is being practiced by Ben Gurion
"University." That is right, 73 years after Kristallnacht Jews are
being discriminated against and barred from attending a university
program in psychology at Ben Gurion "University" because it is only
open to Arabs. And a Jewish victim of this overt discrimination has
filed suit with the Supreme Court.
The program in question is a MA program in psychology
open only to Arabs and particularly to Bedouins. Jews who qualify
are excluded. In addition, the program is secret. Ben Gurion
University has been trying to hide it from the media and from
students and even from the government.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Calls for PolSci Dept to Stop
Ignoring the Recommendations from the Council for Higher Education
or Resign
Back at Ben-Gurion, the
political biases of the politics department are
well-documented. Indeed, though Prof. Newman should be lauded
for his
efforts to combat the proposed academic boycott of Israel in the
UK, they do ring somewhat hollow when the chair of his own
department
supports the boycott, a matter to which one would assume Newman
would urgently attend. Instead of ignoring the report, Prof. Newman
and the rest of the faculty should immediately correct the failings
in their departments. And if they fail to step up, the authorities
should press them to step down.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Additional Calls to Deal with
BGU's Tenured Tanzim
Yaakov
Bergman, a prominent professor at the Hebrew University, has joined
the assault on the Tenured Tanzim who teach "politics" at Ben Gurion
University. He published a response to Neve Gordon and Dani Filc,
the two most extremist Israel-hating faculty members in this
otherwise wall-to-wall anti-Israel far-leftist department.
…
Then, Commentary Magazine adds its voice:
…Back at Ben-Gurion, the political biases of the politics
department are
well-documented. Indeed, though Prof. Newman should be lauded
for his
efforts to combat the proposed academic boycott of Israel in the
UK, they do ring somewhat hollow when the chair of his own
department
supports the boycott, a matter to which one would assume Newman
would urgently attend. Instead of ignoring the report, Prof. Newman
and the rest of the faculty should immediately correct the failings
in their departments. And if they fail to step up, the authorities
should press them to step down.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon (Dept of Political
Science) Writes in Al Jazeera; Suggests Unreasonable Arab Demands
to Bring About the End of the Jewish State of Israel and Unilateral Israeli Comprise
Israel’s continued
unwillingness to fully support these three components is rapidly
leading to the annulment of the two-state option and, as a result,
is leaving open only one possible future direction: power sharing.
The notion of power sharing
would entail the preservation of the existing borders, from the
Jordan valley to the Mediterranean Sea, and an agreed upon form of a
power sharing government led by Israeli Jews and Palestinians, and
based on the liberal democracy model of the separation of powers. It
also entails a parity of esteem - namely, the idea that each side
respects the other side’s identity and ethos, including language,
culture and religion. This, to put it simply, is the bi-national
one-state solution.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Professor Ze’ev Maoz
(University of California & Interdisciplinary Center (Herzliya))
endorses the Calls for The Complete Shutting Down of the Department
of Politics at Ben Gurion University; Insists it is a bunch of
substandard pseudo-academics
He begins by proclaiming that
he is a proud member of the Israeli Left. … He then reveals that he
himself had been recruited nine years ago by the Council on Higher
Education to evaluate the very same department at BGU. At the time
he proposed shutting down the entire department for essentially the
same reasons as those in the new panel report. He claims his reasons
were entirely academic, not political, just as the current panel’s
recommendations are academic.
Back then, Maoz found that
there are no serious academic standards in place in that department.
Most of the faculty members have no serious credentials in political
science. He says that not only was the Council on Higher Education
not conducting a witch-hunt against the Politics department at BGU,
but it even refused to implement Maoz’ own recommendations, treated
the department with permissive (his word) kid gloves, allowed it to
go on functioning and even to develop new programs for students, and
refused to apply the same rigorous standards to the department of
Neve Gordon and David Newman that it was applying to all other
departments across the board.
He concludes that the
Department of Politics at BGU is an academic disgrace and the
petitions of support for it are motivated by the most dubious of
motives. Translation: those petitions consist of anti-Israel
extremists seeking to defend other anti-Israel pseudo-academic
extremists from criticism and accountability.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - David Newman (Dean of Social
Sciences and Humanities) Defames London Professor Efraim Karsh and
the Middle East Forum
Dismisses any criticism emanating from the
Jewish Diaspora as “disgraceful” “verbal terrorism”
The use of “Nazi” slur terminology has also
been used as a means of delegitimizing legitimate criticism of
Israel and its policies. Just this past week, an Israeli emigrant to
the UK, Prof. Efraim Karsh of Kings College at the University of
London, used the right-wing, pseudoacademic journal Middle East
Forum to attribute such remarks, falsely, to the writer of this
column.
The article by Karsh is a pathetic attempt to
falsify facts and portray the intellectual Left (sic), be it in
Israel or elsewhere, as rabidly anti-Semitic and thus to shut down
the debate on any form of legitimate debate and discourse concerning
the situation in Israel.
…
And when it emanates from “patriotic supporters” of Israel who sit
in the safety of their Diaspora homes in the USA or London, it is
not only disgraceful, it is outright laughable. It is a form of
verbal terrorism which must not be allowed to take root in the
debate concerning Israel and anti-Semitism. The issue is simply too
serious for that.
[Isracampus comment: The
Middle East Forum is a far more respectable academic institution
than is the Department of Politics at Ben Gurion University, built
by David Newman as a pseudo-academic jihadist camp in which
uniformity of thought has been documented, and Efraim Karsh’s
academic credentials are countless times stronger than David
Newman’s!
As to the “falsely”
attributed “Nazi” slur terminology, Isracampus would like to refresh
Newman's memory. The forgetful Dean has used such
“Nazi” metaphors to delegitimize Israel in the Jerusalem Post as
recently as Nov 2011:
“These may sound like
strong words and I will no doubt be strongly criticized for making
such a comparison, but we would do well to paraphrase the famous
words of Pastor Niemoller, writing in 1946 about Germany of the
1930s and 1940s: “When the government denied the sovereign rights of
the Palestinians, I remained silent; I was not a Palestinian.”
Prof Karsh reports in
correspondence with Isracampus that the above is the quote that
prompted his Middle East Forum expose.]
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Rallying the International anti-Israel Left on behalf
of the Extremists at Ben Gurion University
…Last year Israel’s Council on Higher
Education, which oversees and funds Israel’s universities (and
is composed of representatives of those same universities)
appointed a special commission to investigate and evaluate the
Department of Politics at Ben Gurion University. That commission
found what everyone already knew, that the department is a
radical monolithic politicized incitement camp, not a serious
academic department, one in which anti-Israel activism had
replaced serious scholarship and in which serious academic
standards have been trashed. The commission proposed that the
entire department be shut down unless radical reform and
restructuring takes place, including complete de-politicization
of and introduction of real pluralism into the department.
Since that CHE report was issued, Israel’s
radical Left, led by its tenured Left, has been leading a campaign
to defend the anti-Israel indoctrination camp calling itself the
Department of Politics at Ben Gurion University… And they are also
being championed by Haaretz, the radical anti-Israel leftist
“newspaper,” better thought of as a Palestinian newspaper published
in Hebrew… Universities must continue to serve to indoctrinate
students into correct leftist anti-Israel ideology. All attempts at
interfering with this sacred mission must be resisted and defeated.
Now the tenured Left in Israel is organizing
petitions of like-minded radical tenured leftists in Israel and
around the world to express their support and solidarity with the
Ben Gurion University indoctrination camp.
…While one could go through the lists of
signers of the petition name by name to document their own
anti-Israel far-leftist biases, it is sufficient to illustrate the
point with one of the leading signers, Berkeley’s Judith Butler. She
is a notorious collaborator with anti-Semites and supporter of
Israel annihilation and can represent the other signers.
…
To remove all doubt, Butler made it clear that she objects to
Israel’s presence not only in the West Bank, where she was
doing her Terrorism Grand Tour. She also wants Israel removed from
within Israel’s pre-1967 borders. Butler has long supported a
worldwide boycott of Israel, and not simply because Israel
“occupies” the West Bank. She has made it clear that she demands
that Israel allow millions of Arabs claiming to be Palestinian
“refugees” to flood into Israel and convert it into yet another
Palestinian Arab state. She wants this even after the
creation of some Palestinian state. … Butler
explained to her terrorist hosts that she opposes the existence
of a Jewish state even alongside some future Palestinian Arab state.
Instead, she favors what she calls a bi-national state, something
along the lines of Rwanda.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
University of London & Middle East Forum Director Efraim Karsh Exposes Ben Gurion University’s
Pseudo-Academic anti-Israel Dean of Social Sciences and Humanities
David Newman
So much so that
an international committee
of scholars, appointed by Israel’s Council for Higher
Education to evaluate political science and international relations
programs in Israeli universities, recently recommended that BGU
“consider closing the Department of Politics and Government” unless
it abandoned its “strong emphasis on political activism,” improved
its research performance, and redressed the endemic weakness “in its
core discipline of political science.” In other words, they asked
that the Department return to accurate scholarship rather than
indoctrinate the students with libel.
The same day the committee’s
recommendation was revealed, Professor David Newman -- who founded
that department and bequeathed it such a problematic ethos, for
which “achievement” he was presumably rewarded with a promotion to
Deanship of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, from
where he can shape other departments in a similar way -- penned an
op-ed in theJerusalem
Post in which he
compared Israel’s present political culture to that of Nazi Germany…
… And therein, no doubt, lies the
problem with BGU’s Politics and Government Department: the only
Israeli department singled out by the international committee for
the unprecedented recommendation of closure. For if its founder and
long-time member, who continues to wield decisive influence over its
direction, views Israel as a present-day reincarnation of Nazi
Germany in several key respects, how conceivably can the department
ensure the “sustained commitment to providing balance and an
essential range of viewpoints and perspectives on the great issues
of politics” required for its continued existence?
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - David Newman (Dean of Social
Science and Humanities Dept) denounces those who "leaked" the fact
that his BGU department consists of Anti-Israel Extremists devoid of
serious academic achievements; He then whitewashes the politicized
hiring process in that department
Comes perilously close
to supporting and advocating BDS
WHOEVER LEAKED the
report to the press clearly had a political agenda. It is unheard of
for such reports to be leaked or publicized before the CHE has an opportunity
to discuss them. And the way in which it was leaked, partially and
with false information and highlights, clearly was intended to
create a hostile public atmosphere prior to the meeting of the CHE.
The report will be the subject of a specially convened meeting of
the Knesset Education Committee tomorrow – and it is clear that this
has very little to do with education, but a great deal to do with
politics.
The idea that
universities appoint faculty according to their political opinions
is the most ridiculous of all the accusations. Anyone who has the
slightest knowledge of the appointment and promotion process (be it
at Ben Gurion or Bar Ilan) will know that this is a tortuous
process, demanding a thorough review of the candidate's academic and
professional competence, his research achievements, his publication
record and letters and recommendations which are received from
academic peers throughout the world. [ROFL!! – Isracampus]
... Their
ongoing, well-funded war of attrition against freedom of debate and
academic freedom is slowly destroying Israel's democracy and
leading academic friends around the world to think twice before
developing research links with Israeli universities and academics.
Academics who have refused up until now to be part of the boycott
campaign are now turning against Israel because of the country's
growing international image as a place where people, and now entire
departments, with the "wrong" political views are being silenced and
threatened by the activities of these extremist right-wing groups.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Amit Barak, 'Im Tirtzu' spokesman, Implores BGU
President Rivka Carmi to Comply with the CHE Recommendations or
Resign
Unfortunately,
however, the university, under your guidance, has chosen to
completely disregard these demands and continues to silence the
student body, while enabling the professors in the Department of
Politics and Government to continue their uniform, anti- Israel teachings.
Professor Neve Gordon
recently announced that the kidnapping of Gilad Schalit was not
terrorism, while, at a conference held by the Department of Politics
and Government last week, terrorists sentenced for the murder of
Israeli citizens were termed "political prisoners."
Professor Carmi, under
your guidance
Ben- Gurion University of the Negev has been the subject of a report
containing severe criticism, degrading the reputation of Israeli
academia.
Today, you have a
unique opportunity to begin leading the university back to
prominence by choosing to adopt the recommendations of the Council
for Higher Education and completely revamping the structure of the
Department of Politics and Government, including lecturers, courses
and syllabi. We implore you to follow this path, in order to restore
the status and reputation of the university.
If, on the other hand,
you refuse to accept the decision of the CHE, you should take
responsibility for these failures and resign immediately.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
The Full report of the International
Panel that called for the dismemberment of Ben Gurion University's
Politics department due to pseudo-scholarship, absence of standards,
and monolithic anti-Israel indoctrination
http://www.scribd.com/doc/74235533/BGU-Report
Ben Gurion University - David Newman (Dept of
Political Science) Claims that One-Sided leftist Classroom
Indoctrination is the highest form of academic pluralism
The Council for Higher Education is set to vote
Tuesday to ratify the external report it commissioned on the
political science faculties at Israel's universities, including
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's Politics and Government
Department, which came under heavy criticism. The document lists a
series of shortcomings at Ben-Gurion University and even advises, as
a last resort, closing down the department entirely if the problems
are not resolved.
The report also refers to the fact that
students at the Ben-Gurion University department are exposed to the
personal political opinions of their professors, noting: "Lecturers
must ensure that their personal opinions are presented as such, so
that the students can judge things from a critical perspective and
be exposed to a wide range of perspectives and alternatives."
… According to Prof. David Newman, the dean of
Ben-Gurion's Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and one of
the founders of its Politics and Government Department, "The
department has become a target for attack by all those who wish to
suppress any pluralist dialogue and trample every piece of academic
freedom. One brief glance at this activity is enough to grasp the
inherent danger it poses for the existence of Israeli democracy."
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Interdisciplinary Center (Herzliya) - Galia Golan (School of
Government) Far Leftist Galia Golan, Founder and Leader of radical
leftist 'Peace Now', cannot seem to Find any Political Bias at Ben
Gurion University; Claims Pluralism in the classroom negates
Academic Freedom
Furthermore, committee member Prof. Galia Golan
refused to sign the report, claiming it was politically-motivated.
Instead, Golan wrote a Minority Opinion (can be read at the end of
the report below), in which she wrote that the demand “for a balance
(of views) in the classroom… runs directly counter to the principle
of academic freedom.”
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
The Whole World now Knows - the Politics Department at
BGU is an anti-Israel Pseudo-Academic Propaganda Group that Needs to
be Shut Down at Once
In an unprecedented
move, an international committee appointed by the Council for Higher
Education has recommended that the Politics and Government
Department at Ben Gurion University be shut down unless it addresses
some of the problems pointed out by the committee.
According to the
Yedioth Ahronoth daily, several of the department's researchers are
considered to be radical leftists. Some of them have even called for
an economic, political and cultural boycott on Israel due to its
"apartheid regime."
The committee, which
is headed by Professor Thomas Risse from the Free University in
Berlin, expressed its concern that the department's political
inclinations may be resulting in what it referred to as an imbalance
between the opinions of the faculty members and the curriculum.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - David Newman (Dept of
Political Science) again attacking the donors to his own university.
THEY are NOT entitled to freedom of speech!
Leads the campaign to
protect the right of the EU to fund and promote treason in Israel
Neither are
the bastions of freedom of expression immune to these pressures.
Universities, where freedom of expression and diversity of opinion
should be the most cherished of values, are proving themselves weak
in the face of these same pressures. Right-wing donors who feel that
their checkbooks give them the right to determine what goes on in a
country they are not even prepared to be citizens of threaten to
cease their funding and influence others to do the same.
In the
tight economic situation of recent years, the leaders of these
institutions are not always prepared to publicly stand up for
academic freedom, as the lure of the donation takes precedence over
the values around which these important centers of science and
education were created in the first place. It has become easier for
university heads to lay the blame for their failure to bring in new
donors at the door of left-wing academics than than to attribute the
drop off in funding to the realities of economic recession or to
their inability to succeed in a highly competitive world of Israeli
institutions (universities, hospitals, yeshivot, welfare
associations) all vying for the evershrinking dollar.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept of Political
Science), writing in the Pro-Terror Anti-Semitic "Counterpunch"
magazine, claims Israel preparing to Attack Iran for no Reason at
all
Regardless of whether
Netanyahu and Barak are already set on launching an assault, the
media hype and the portrayal of Iran as constituting
an existential threat to Israel surely help to produce the necessary
conditions for a military campaign.
What is remarkable
about this saber rattling is its abstraction. Not a single analyst
noted that entering war is easy but ending it is far more difficult,
particularly if on the other side stands a regional power with vast
resources and a well-trained military (unlike Hamas or Hezbollah).
And, of course, no one really talked about the likelihood of a gory
future or what kind of life we were planning for our children. This
kind of abstraction makes war palatable, providing a great service
to the war machine.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Sanity at last at BGU? BGU
docks Idan Landau (Dept of Foreign Literatures & Linguistics) salary
for the period he spent in prison for refusing to do army service
States that 'many
others' in the Foreign Literature Dept spend little time on campus
Dear staff
members of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Executive
Summary
In May
this year I went for a week to a military prison for reserve duty
disobedience. The university has decided to deduct from my salary
the research part (50%) of this week. I protested the decision at
the meeting I had with the President of the university this week,
but to no avail. In light of the President's announcement, I no
longer see Ben Gurion University as my academic home.
And now,
in detail
I am a
military reserve objector since the year 2000. In 2001 I went to
prison for two weeks. I was a Kreitman scholarship recipient in the
Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics. In 2003 I went
back to prison for two weeks. I was already part of the university
staff (as an Alon scholarship recipient). And the last time was in
May this year: I went to prison for a week.
Unlike
previous times, this time a surprise was waiting: the Human
Resources Dept. decided to dock a week's wages from my salary. After
I created a little stir and made it clear that no damage was done to
my teaching (I gave supplementary lessons), or my research (the week
in prison was especially productive, quiet and almost without
interruption) - I was told that the decision had been suspended. It
turned out that someone forgot to update me, and on June 27, the
Management submitted the final decision (Management = president,
rector and CEO) to deduct half my weekly wage due to lack of
research. I received notice only in October, and immediately asked
to meet with the President for clarification.
The
official justification, repeated by the President, is that Social
Security does not cover the period of incarceration. In my defense,
I argued that it is unclear why there is room for indemnification
when there is no evidence of damage; was my research really damaged
because of the week I was in prison? The legal premise here is that
research can only be performed in the physical confines of a
university office. Any intelligent person (especially in our
faculty) knows that it is not so; many others are not present in the
office more than three times a week. Many others come to the
institution only to teach, and perform their research at home.
[IsraCampus
translation of
original letter (in Hebrew)]
Academics Uri Hadar (TAU,
Dept of Psychology) and Oren Yiftachel (BGU, Dept. of Geography)
named as part of a concerted effort to deconstruct Zionism
The
scenes of the Israeli army's attack on Gaza at the turn of 2008
evoked... images of Auschwitz. I came out... saying to myself: Of
course, we found our [sacrificial] lamb – the people of Gaza.
– from The Hermeneutic
Underpinning of Ethnic Brutality: The Jewish Israeli Case, Prof.
Uri Hadar, Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, 2011
...
The sentiments expressed in the citation
from Tel Aviv University's Uri Hadar at the start of this column
dovetail well with those of his colleague Oren Yiftahel of Ben-
Gurion University.
In The Jailer
State (January 18, 2009), the good professor states:
"Palestinian violence, and particularly the shelling from Gaza,
should also be perceived as a prison uprising... suppressed with
terror by the Israeli state."
In her meticulously
researched and documented 'Tenured Radicals' in Israel, Prof.
Ofira Seliktar traces the ongoing activities of academics who
exploit their positions to promote the delegitimization of Israel.
This is becoming evermore prevalent not only in academic research
agendas but also in the content of courses taught and of
conferences/ seminars held, as well as an increasingly weighty
factor in the selection of faculty.
Seliktar describes
how the "Zionist endeavor" is routinely portrayed as a "colonialist
enterprise" in which the Jews have no any more rights to Palestine
than the British had to India.
According to her
study, Israeli academics support petitioning the International
Criminal Court against IDF officers, and Israeli academic
institutions are depicted – by those employed by them – as an
indivisible part of an oppressive state, which has perpetrated
unforgivable crimes against the Palestinian people.
Numerous Israeli
scholars endorse the boycott, sanctions and disinvestment measures
against Israel and even support sanctions against the very
universities paying their salaries – salaries that they are somehow
loath to "boycott," despite the fact that they come from the coffers
of the iniquitous racist state they decry.
Might this
not be cause for the average Israeli to ponder the use being made of
taxes deducted from his hard-earned income?
...
The conceptual foundations underpinning the Zionist enterprise are
being deconstructed; the ideological edifice embodying the notion of
Jewish political sovereignty is being eroded. This deconstruction,
this erosion, is being carried out by those who should be entrusted
with the maintenance of those foundations and the enhancement of
that edifice – those charged with dispensing justice, imparting
knowledge and conveying truth
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Eyal Nir's (Dept of Chemistry)
inflammatory statements against right-wing religious group calls
into question the Academic Freedom in his classroom
Two weeks ago it was reported that State
Prosecutor Shai Nitzan had asked police to investigate Ben-Gurion
University chemistry lecturer Eyal Nir for incitement because of a
call he made to "break the necks" of a right-wing fringe group. The
same week, Kent State University Professor Julio Pino yelled "death
to Israel" during a lecture by Israeli diplomat Ishmael Khaldi. It
is important to examine not only the merits of these cases but also
the wider context of freedom of expression and the "right" of
academics to engage in extremist speech while at the same time
enjoying the presumption that their work with students remains
unbiased and uninformed by their sometimes radical views.
The Nir incident took place in June, 2011,
after Israelis marched through Jerusalem on Jerusalem Day. Some of
the fringe part of the march included a group that chanted anti-
Arab slogans and whose comments were posted on YouTube. Nir saw the
YouTube video and linked to it on his Facebook page, with a comment
in Hebrew that "gangs of bandits are swarming our country. I call on
the world to come and help break these scoundrels' necks."
...
It is worth noting that Eyal Nir is no stranger to radical politics
in Israel. In 2010 he was photographed being arrested by the IDF
during a protest at Nabi Salah in the West Bank. Blogger Alison
Ramer wrote that "Nir was taken into an army jeep for insulting a
soldier with a racial slur."
Ben-Gurion University has seemingly stood by
Nir, noting in a statement: "Dr. Nir published his comments as a
private individual, on his personal Facebook page. The university
does not take a side in the matter, and therefore justice should be
sought in appropriate legal forum."
...
THE PROBLEM with Nir's comments is not whether they constitute
incitement under Israeli law, since the incitement law is, in my
opinion, flawed. The issue that should be raised about Nir's
diatribe is how it impacts the university environment he teaches in.
A review of cases abroad shows that most faculty members who have
been fired for things they said had their jobs terminated only in
connection to comments made in class or which were directly related
to campus activities.
…
Most respected academics know the value of having their students
believe classes are not biased against certain individuals due to
race, creed or gender. Since national-religious students in Israel
clearly constitute a creed it is certainly possible that these
students might feel that Nir's "break their necks" comment was
directed at them and would feel uncomfortable attending his classes.
How can one study in such a hostile
environment? Could a black student feel comfortable in a class where
she knew that the lecturer had written in an op-ed that black
activists should have their necks broken? Furthermore, why do
academics enjoy a special type of free speech that no other
occupation enjoys? Those defending these "outbursts" seem to
misconstrue the notion of academic freedom, which means a freedom to
research, with the idea that academics have the right to behave in
the lowest manner possible, using outbursts that befit
the village drunk more than they do a
holder of a doctorate.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - BGU lecturer Esmail Nashif
(Dept of Sociology) running a jihad against the "Zionist presence in
Palestine" from his cushy Israeli university job
Does the anti-boycott law preclude psudeo-academic
support of the BDS movement?
The boycott, in its diverse forms, against the
colonial regime in Palestine is a welcome step so long as its
objective is to undermine the regime. Presumably, the intentions and
aims of the leaders of the campaigns calling for the boycott are
indeed to weaken the Zionist regime in Palestine, and that they are
based on the contradictions of this regime. However, the boycott
against the colonial rule in Palestine raises some questions that
the horizon of Palestinian collective action has often ignored. Of
particular importance is the question of the relationship between
the tools of resistance and their users. This question is tied to
the vision from which the tools of resistance are derived. From this
perspective, the boycott does not exist in and of itself, and it can
be effective only if it is used in a more general framework that
strives to undermine colonialism. In this article, I shall examine
the relations between the general, theoretical-political framework
of the boycott as a tool of resistance, on the one hand, and the
Palestinian who uses the tool to bring down the Zionist colonial
regime in Palestine, on the other hand.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Eyal Nir (Dept of Chemistry)
to be investigated for incitement after calling 'to break rightists'
necks'; BGU Officials absolve themselves from any responsibility
Will Dr. Nir become the first leftist indicted for incitement
to murder?
Deputy State Prosecutor
Shai Nitzan has asked the police on Thursday to investigate a
Ben Gurion University professor due complaints that have been made
over an inciting web post.
…
"I call on the world to come help break these scoundrels' necks,"
the lecturer wrote. The post was accompanied by a video clip that
showed some of the marchers chanting anti-Arab slogans.
According to a Justice Ministry statement, Nitzan said that the
post warranted an investigation on suspicion of incitement to
violence.
Ben Gurion University responded by
saying that "Dr. Eyal Nir published the post on his Facebook page as
a private citizen. The university has nothing to do with the issue,
which is why the issue must be discussed in the appropriate forum."
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Dahlia Scheindlin (“Conflict
Resolution” lecturer) just Wants To Flotilla Along with the Jihadis
A lot of
Israel’s academic-fifth-column has its origins in the left-wing
Marxist ideology that has taken over humanities disciplines in
American universities… A living breathing example of the product of
this situation is Tel Aviv University doctoral candidate
Dahlia Scheindlin...
She is a “researcher” (meaning political advocate) with the leftwing
Israel Democracy Institute and lectures at Ben Gurion… “Peace and
Conflict Studies”, Ms. Scheindlin’s pseudo-field of research, is an
American university touchy-feely invention that originally emerged
out of marriage counseling. Its underlying fundamental idea is that
in any conflict both sides have to be accepted as having some valid
arguments and they need only to listen compassionately to one
another to settle their differences.
So when Arab hordes scream, “Itboch al Yahud!”
(Massacre the Jews!), they are simply letting off steam and hoping
for productive dialogue and feeling the pain of the Other. Peace is
achieved by always recognizing the legitimacy of at least some of
the grievances of the other side unless the other side is
Israel,
which has no legitimate demands, even the right to exist as a Jewish
state.
... A case in point is Scheindlin’s writing in the
leftwing Huffington Post in an
article titled, “Dismantling Israel’s Myths.” There she defends
the pro-Hamas Gaza flotillas and their bands of violent terrorist
passengers, the “human shields for Hamas” who help keep the conflict
roiling forever... This is a woman who makes her living
“researching” conflict resolution? The fact that Ben Gurion
University would have her lecture students is another example of the
absence of serious academic standards at that school.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Confessions of Political
String Pulling and Hiring Practices at BGU contrast President Rivka
Carmi's claims of Ivory Tower Utopia
[Benny Morris said] '… In fact, I was given a job (at Ben-Gurion
University) only in 1997, and only after the intercession of
Israel's (far-leftist at the time -- SP) president, Ezer Weizman,
years before my allegedly specious "conversion" to pro-Zionism that
Karsh says occurred in or after 2000.'
So
when the president of Ben Gurion University, the cabbagehead Rivka
Carmi, insists that hiring at Ben Gurion University is completely
depoliticized and political ideology plays no role in hiring, we
would like to hear her explain away the hiring of Benny Morris,
which – by his own insistence – took place simply because of the
ideological and political intervention of Ezer Weizmann.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Anti-Israel Crusader Neve
Gordon (Dept of Political Science) claims that the Israeli democracy
is dead because the Knesset defends Israel, writing in the
anti-Semitic "Counterpunch" web magazine
Israeli legislators realise, though, that
in order to quash all internal resistance, the destruction of the
rights groups will not be enough. Their ultimate target is the High
Court of Justice, the only institution that still has the power and
authority to defend democratic practices.
Their strategy, it appears, is to wait
until the Court annuls the new laws and then to use the public's
dismay with the Court's decisions to limit the Court's authority
through legislation, thus making it impossible for judges to cancel
unconstitutional laws. Once the High Court's authority is severely
hamstringed, the road will be paved for right-wing Knesset members
to do as they wish. The process leading to the demise of Israeli
democracy may be slow, but the direction in which the country is
going is perfectly clear.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion
University - BGU Middle East Historians Do their Edward Said
Impressions:
Haggai Ram (Dept of
Middle East Studies), Ahmedinejad's rep in Israel supporting the
Iranian regime and claiming it is all a Zionist plot to paint Iran
as violent and fanatical, and his sidekick Yoram Meital, from the
same department, have an Op-Ed in Haaretz. It is nothing less than a
recycling of the fruitcake "theories" of Edward Said, about how all
western Orientalists are racists who cannot possibly understand the
Arabs. Said was a professor of English literature.
The two BGU "Middle East
experts" start out by slapping Israel's Middle East Studies profs
for not foreseeing the current wave of unrest in the Arab world. Of
course THEY did not foresee it either!
Here is the whole
atrocious piece in Hebrew
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1218078.html
Open Call for Violence at
BGU too
For months the cabbagehead president of Ben Gurion
University, Rivka Carmi, has been telling everyone and anyone
willing to listen that there are no tenured traitors at all at her
university besides Neve Gordon (SHE calls him a traitor!). … There
are no problems at all at BGU, insists Madame Cabbagehead, other
than Little Neve.
Well, let us introduce you to Dr. Eyal Nir, who teaches
chemistry at BGU, at least when he is not busy as an activist in the
HADASH Stalinist Party and other anti-Israel groups. Over the
weekend, the YNET news web site, run by Israel's largest daily
Yediot Ahronot, reported that Nir issued a call for murdering
Israelis who fail to support his far-leftist communist political
positions. Specifically, he called for the breaking of the necks of
Israelis who march with Israeli flags and support the right of Jews
to live in neighborhoods of East Jerusalem where Stalinists like Nir
think that Jews do not belong.
…
The "theory" that "incitement" produces murder has been
embraced by all of the Israeli media and by almost all of the
political establishment. … Preventing "incitement" that will cause
violence is the figleaf of the leftists in the Attorney General's
office when they harass, interrogate, and arrest rabbis and
activists who express opinions of which leftists disapprove. … But
the crusade of the Israeli establishment against freedom of speech
and "incitement" has never extended to incitement to murder by
leftists. Not a single leftist has ever been jailed for expressing
approval of terrorism, of murders against Jews, or for endorsing
anti-Semitic groups, ideas or positions.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - BGU's Anti-Israel Extremist of
the Week - Amnon Raz Krakotzkin (Dept of Jewish History) has a Plan
to Eliminate Israel, replace it with "Binationalism"
On these grounds I believe that a bi-national
framework is crucial for any thought and discussion on the question
of Palestine. The concept of "bi-nationalism" does not necessarily
refer to the one-state solution, as it is commonly understood in the
political discourse. Rather, it involves fundamental principle
elements whose realization should be advanced by any political
process: (a) national and civic equality between Jews and Arabs; and
(b) reconciliation based on historical justice. Considered in this
way, the concept of bi-nationalism does not describe a "solution,"
but rather serves as a crucial point of departure and perspective to
direct the struggle towards democratization and de-colonization,
based upon the recognition of both Palestinian and Jewish rights.
Underlying this point of departure is the recognition that it is
impossible to separate the discussion on the rights of the Jewish
people from the discussion on the rights of the Palestinians.
Bi-nationalism is first of all a description of the reality already
established by the Zionist regime–one obviously asymmetrical and
colonial; it is the reality in which Jewish superiority is exercised
in different ways upon geographically divided Palestinian groups.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Meet Ben Gurion University President Rivka Carmi's
latest little darling, Eyal Nir (Dept of Chemistry)
Remember this is a tenured faculty member at
Ben Gurion University!
Among his many bon mots there are these:
"The rotten corpse calling itself the state of Israel must be
strangulated."
"All of Israel is an entity established on the ruins of the Arab
community."
The state of Israel is "The Zionist monstrosity that can never be
satisfied."
"International sanctions must be placed on Israel to coerce it to
live
up to international standards of behavior and to strip it of its
nuclear weapons."
Doc Jihad also likes to call everyone with whom
he disagrees, notably the Im Tirtzu Zionist student organization,
"Skinheads." Think Israel has the right to exist? You are a
skinhead! He refers to all of Israel as the skinhead nation. He uses
"stormtrooper" as a synonym for Zionist.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion Univeristy – BGU Faculty Members oppose
settling Israel by Jews WITHIN the 1967 Borders
According to YNET (http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4083778,00.html
[in Hebrew]), the tenured leftists are irate because an NGO calling
itself "Ayalim" has been approaching students and asking to speak in
classrooms at the University about their initiative to set up rural
communities in the Galilee and the Negev designed for students. The
tenured Left is upset that Ayalim people are not recruiting Arabs to
move to these settlements. Led by Dr. Hamutal Tzamir, who teaches
Hebrew literature, and who as far as we know has no Arab neighbors,
these "academics" are screaming against the "racism" in the
initiative. Wouldn't it simpler if Tzamir and her friends simply set
up their own organization calling itself Jews Against Jews?
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Eyal Nir's incitement to
murder inspires a petition to get him fired
In response to his incitement to violence and
hateful speech, we the undersigned demand that Eyal Nir be fired
immediately from his position as a professor in the University of
Bar Ilan.
We see no room in an Israeli University for a
professor employed by the University to speak hatred and promote
violence against a group of citizens of our country.
Bar Ilan University should not tolerate such
behavior by one of its professors and should take immediate action
making a statement proclaiming that hatred and violence will not be
tolerated.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/fire-dr-eyal-nir-immediately/
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Left-wing Faculty Member Eyal
Nir (Dept of Chemistry) Incites to Commit Murder of Right-wing
Activists
A lecturer at Ben Gurion University has issued
a Facebook call for violence against right-wing activists who
marched through the capital with flags on Jerusalem Day, urging
people to "break their necks".
"I call on the world to come and help break
these scoundrels' necks," Eyal Nir, a doctor of Chemistry known as a
left-wing activist, wrote on the social networking site. He
described the rightists as "gangs of bandits swarming in our
country".
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon (Dept of Political
Science) Resorts to Boycott after he Can't Change Israeli Policy by
Democratic Means
In a sense, the need for a boycott is
a sign of weakness following the polarisation and
marginalisation of the left in Israel. We are witnessing the
development of a proto-fascist mindset. I am, for example, extremely
anxious about the extent that the space for public debate in Israel
is shrinking.
One of the ways of silencing dissent
is through the demand for loyalty, so that a slogan you hear a lot
now is "no citizenship without loyalty". This reflects the inversion
of the republican idea that the state should be loyal to the citizen
and is accountable for inequities
and injustices.
...
Yet there is also a sense that the pro-government proponents have
gone too far. They are not only targeting people on the far left,
but practically everyone who is even slightly critical of government
policies. A couple of months ago a high-school principal who
objected to military officers coming in to speak to his pupils, was
all but crucified.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Mayor of Omer calls for
boycott of BGU
Well,
Maariv
reports (June 2, 2011) [in Hebrew] that the mayor of Omer has
issued a call for a boycott of Ben Gurion University because of the
treasonous activities of its radical anti-Israel faculty members.
Hizzoner, Pini (short for Pinhas) Badash, is calling upon Jewish
donors in Israel and abroad to halt all contributions and donations
to the University because the university refuses to take action
against its tenured traitors and its faculty members who are
actively working against Israel.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - BGU President Rivka Carmi
Hysterically Attacks groups that "Monitor" anti-Israel Faculty
Members in Israel
Defends the Neve Gordons as "Critical
thinking and alternative perspectives"; Defends anti-Israel NGOs as
"human rights watchdogs"
'The truth is that these monitoring groups
claim to be motivated by a love of Israel, but in fact they have a
clear political agenda which they are willing to advance using the
age-old method of blackmail. Either Israeli universities accept
their conditions and "remove" those people with whom they disagree,
or they will encourage donors to cut off funding.
These are the kinds of attacks that do not
allow for critical thinking or alternate perspectives, and have
created an atmosphere in Israel today such that pro-human rights
groups are being dismissed as "anti-Zionist," only adding to the
polarization of Israeli society.'
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Campus Watch responds to Dean
David Newman's "flawed information," "hackneyed clichés" and
"unsupported attacks"
In
"Bashing the Academic Left," a rambling rant against critics of
left-wing Israeli professors published in today's [14/4/2009]
Jerusalem Post, Ben-Gurion University government professor
David Newman strays far afield in his unfounded, and
unsupported, attacks on
Campus Watch.
… Critics who cannot muster empirical
arguments often settle for ad hominem attacks and hackneyed clichés,
and no cliché is more worn than the charge that off-campus critics
of higher education engage in McCarthyism.
… Newman's information is flawed and his analogy fails.
…More to the point, without naming any donors to CW or the other
organizations he mentions, Newman impugns their reputations by
raising the specter of "extremist right-wing" donors whose views are
"totally unacceptable" to some, and who may even "advocate" breaking
the law. Where is his evidence for this absurd, unfounded charge?
Who are these extremists? If he knows any, surely he would list
their names and thereby embarrass any organization that accepted
their donations. Once again lacking empirical evidence to advance a
reasoned argument, Newman resorts to hollow insults and baseless
charges.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Geoffrey Alderman Demolishes Ben Gurion University
Dean David Newman's Defense of Tenured Treason
TO BEGIN with, no academic is above
the law. An academic who – shall we say – incites violence can
expect both criminal and institutional penalties – criminal because
of the law of the land and institutional because an academic who
incites violence brings her or his institution into disrepute. Even
for those with tenure, the charge of bringing the employing
institution into disrepute can customarily result in dismissal. And
quite apart from this, there is the issue of defamation. Can an
academic legitimately claim that he should be able to – say – libel
or slander a colleague without hindrance? Of course not! So academic
freedom is not academic license.
... (In Britain during war) Academics
most certainly could not say what they liked, if for no other reason
than that the law of the land prescribed draconian penalties
(including hanging) for offenses deemed by the courts to fall within
the definition of treason. This definition included consorting with
the enemy, inciting, aiding and abetting the enemy, and engaging in
any act likely to give comfort to the enemy.
... I must also point out that the
BDS movement is itself at odds with the very concept of academic
freedom, since it seeks to make the espousal of a particular set of
political principles the price for entry into that academic dialogue
which is at the very heart of what we mean by a university.
"Agree with my views" – it says – "or
I will boycott you and freeze you out of the academy."
In this sense I believe that the
movement is essentially totalitarian, and indeed fascist in nature.
It has no place – none at all – in a true university environment.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University –Appeal to BGU's Board of Governors NOT to
support continued employment of Anti-Israel inciters
The news of the massive refusal of Jewish donors to support Ben Gurion
University as long as it continues to operate as Israel's University
of Treason continues to thunder in Israel.
In the Hebrew news web site News1 comes an interesting Op-Ed written by
Yehuda Drori. The writer was once in charge of fundraising for the
Keren Kayemet fund in the American southwest. His article in News1
is entitled, "No Contributions to Slanderers and their Patrons." His
article calls on people to contact donors and supporters of Ben
Gurion University and other Israeli schools, and to call upon them
NOT to support those academics involved in slandering Israel and
serving anti-Semites and Israel bashers.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Maariv Defends the Right of
BGU Donors to Refuse to Support BGU
In recent weeks, a series of malicious media attacks against the donors
to Ben Gurion University have been published by representatives of
Ben Gurion University itself. Evidently these officials believe that
smearing their own donors is a great way to up the level of their
generosity! Some of the most venomous attacks have come from David
Newman, the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at BGU. Newman
accuses the donors to his own university of plotting to suppress
academic freedom at BGU. He calls them McCarthyists and other foul
names. And he also smears every organization and person that dares
to criticize the many far-leftist anti-Israel extremists among the
faculty at BGU. Every conceivable form of treason should be
protected as academic freedom and freedom of speech, insist Newman
and his ilk. But anyone who dares to speak out AGAINST such tenured
treason is a "McCarthyist," someone who must be suppressed and
silenced.
Among those critics of tenured extremists, who have NO right to freedom
of speech and NO right to criticize, are the DONORS, insist Newman
and his friends.
For the first time, a major Israeli newspaper has published a defense of
those donors to Israeli universities who refuse to finance
"academic" treason, and an attack on those who smear such activist
donors.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Fact-free Nevie strikes again! Neve
Gordon (Dept of Political Science) attacks Isracampus on anti-Israel
radical web site "972+"
Claims we are "collaborating with the
government to stifle academic freedom." This from the fellow who
organizes conferences in which no non-leftist and no Zionist may
speak! When asked why that is, Gordon responds: "The whole notion of
'balanced' is now being used as a weapon against the left. If
there's a conference on Darwin we do not need to invite
creationists. For a Holocaust conference we should not be inviting
Holocaust deniers – although one could claim that in the name of
balance we would have to. Why, one might ask, should we invite
people who are against human rights?" In other words, all Zionists
and non-leftists are opposed to human rights.
Gordon says:
"There's an assault on Israeli academia in general. It involves an
alliance between forces such as IsraCampus and Israel Academic
Monitor on the one hand, who try to convince donors to stop giving
money to universities that harbor leftists, and Im Tirzu, which
tries to mobilize government Ministers and Members of Knesset to
pressure the top university executives to discipline recalcitrant
academics. There's an alliance between elements in civil society, a
handful of donors, and the government to stifle academic freedom and
criticism of Israeli policy. The phenomenon is not only in the
academic sphere…it also includes, for example, the attacks on the
human rights organizations in Israel.
"As I understand it, the assault has a twofold objective. The idea
is to prevent the flow of information from Israel abroad, and
because both academics and the Israeli human rights community have
strong networks outside of Israel they are the one's currently
targeted. Simultaneously, there is an attempt to stifle internal
debate, by reducing the limiting discussions about policies that
lead to social wrongs and more violence and aggression....
"We are seeing a totally new phenomenon in Israeli academia:
students sitting in class, filming the classes and then passing
information on to the monitor groups and the media. The recordings
are almost always edited, so the information doesn't reflect what
really went on in class. Such students consider themselves to be
class monitors , rather than people who have come to the university
in order to study, broaden their horizon and expand their
knowledge…not unlike the McCarthy era in the US, some Israeli
student see themselves as agents of the state, as spies."
The interviewer Dahlia Scheindlin is herself a
leftwing anti-Zionist who teaches politics at BGU
(The web site is censoring out talkbacks from
non-leftists under the guise of "trolling". No Academic freedom to
be found here.)
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
The Hysterical Leftist Opponent of Freedom of Speech, David
Newman, Dean of Social Sciences and Humanities at Ben Gurion
University, attacks Isracampus
How dare anyone criticize extremist
anti-Israel academics!!! Newman forgot to mention that Zionists and
non-leftists are prohibited from teaching in his own Department of
Politics at BGU!!
"The thought police of the extreme rightwing
has grown in strength in recent years. It includes sites such as
Campus Watch and Isracampus, well-funded organizations like Im
Tirtzu and NGO Monitor, whose objectives are to prevent freedom of
expression among all those who do not share their fortress view of
the world. For them, anyone who believes in such values as peace,
human rights or the universal values of Judaism are collectively
labeled as traitors, anti-Zionists and enemies of the Jewish State.
In scenes reminiscent of darker days, they send their
representatives into universities to record lectures, which are then
selectively edited, published on their web sites and used as
ammunition to impose an extreme rightwing agenda on public
discourse.
The attempt by my own university to prevent a
conference on human rights from going ahead last week, and its
refusal to allow the conference organizers to use the Senate Hall
for the main session, was a knee-jerk reaction to this form of
pressure."
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science)
is awarded the Qaddafi Human Rights Prize
Members of the Zionist student organization "Im
Tirtzu" crashed the Nuremberg Rally at Ben Gurion University. They
handed out to participants copies of a diploma, announcing the award
to Neve Gordon of the Muammar Qaddafi Prize in Human Rights. As you
recall, Qaddafi's people sit in the UN's "Human Rights Commission,"
and their ideas about human rights are exactly the same as those of
Neve Gordon: namely, that pretend concern for "human rights" is a
great bludgeon to use to destroy Israel.
Maariv cites officials at Ben Gurion University
who expressed unhappiness with the one-sided anti-Israel character
of the "conference." That did not have any effect on the content or
the organizers, who just went ahead and held their Nuremberg Rally
in campus facilities paid for by the Israeli taxpayer. Gordon
himself is cited by Maariv as saying that there is also opposition
in Iran and Syria to human rights conferences. He is wrong. The sort
of conference he ran, consisting entirely of Israel bashing, is
precisely the sort of "human rights conference" that Libya and Syria
often happily host.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Rivka Carmi and the BGU
Nuremberg Rally
Rivka Carmi, President of Ben Gurion
University, insists there is no on-campus anti-Israel propagandizing
and indoctrination at BGU. Not a bit. So read about the one-sided
anti-Israel atrocity BGU is about to host!!
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - The Creative "Logic" of David Newman
(Dean of Social Sciences and Humanities) - The South African Boycott
of BGU is all the fault of BGU's Own Donors!
Meanwhile
Ben-Gurion University will continue to develop. Its 20,000 students
and almost 1,000 teaching and research faculty will continue to push
the frontiers of science.
Its politically
aware [meaning leftist – Isracampus] faculty will continue to take
part in the vibrant debate about the nature of Israeli society.
The boycotters,
whether they be anti-Israel activists such as UJ, or the
anti-democracy activists of Im Tirtzu and the right-wing donors,
will become forgotten footnotes of history, remembered only for
their attempt to manipulate science for their own narrow aims.
A plague on
both of their discriminatory houses.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - A Letter to the Heads of Ben Gurion
University from a Former Director of Its "Friends of" Offices in Los
Angeles
What do Academic rights & freedoms &
Civil-Political Freedoms-of-expression in any Democracy have to do
with lecturing for 10 solid years, (as Neve Gordon has been doing
diligently with impunity and with the Univ. support & Rivka Carmi's
support), specifically calling- lecturing for the delegitimization
and demonization of Israel's, thus directly undermining its very
existence???
How many thousands of Jewish & non-Jewish BGU
students has Neve Cordon brainwashed to detest & hate Israel over
the last 10 years???...
With such Professors blossoming on Israeli
Universities campuses, who needs enemies like Achmadinejad? With
professors like Neve Gordon, who needs to read the "Charters" and
the "Covenants" of the PLO? Fatah? Hamas? and the Hezbullah, that
not only do not recognize Israel and its very rights to exist, but
specifically call for Israel's destruction ??? Does Neve Gordon
teach his students about 1,000,000 Jewish Refugees from the Arab
countries & from Iran that Israel fully absorbed since 1948???
I am astonished, disappointed, enraged and
heartbroken,
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University President Rivka Carmi Complains
that her university is under unprecedented attack thanks to the
"treasonous article" published by Neve Gordon in the Los Angeles
Times
But
less than an hour after my landing in Israel I received a panicky
phone call from the US, in which I was informed that a faculty
member at BGU, Dr. Neve Gordon (since promoted under Rivka's guiding
hand and with her blessings to Associate Professor --- Isracampus)
had just published an article in the Los Angeles Times. This article
calls upon the entire world to boycott the state of Israel, which
Gordon there terms an apartheid regime. From that point and onwards,
I received and continue to receive an unprecedented storm of angry
messages and outraged letters from donors and supporters of the
University, as well as from others who merely heard about the
article. I also was forced to take enraged phone calls from donors
and Jewish public figures in Israel and abroad.
The
university officials and many of you members of the faculty work
hard at raising funding for the University. Unfortunately, without
these donations we simply do not have life (sic), and certainly not
development and progress. This work is particularly difficult during
a period of global financial strife and of intensified competition
for funding from other public bodies, especially other universities.
An article such as this brands our University as an institution
undeserving of global Jewish support. Many of those contacting me
stated that they would never again support any Israeli university
employing people who harm Israel in this way, and indeed that they
would encourage their friends and associates to likewise withhold
donations. I am citing the bottom line from so many letters and
messages that I am receiving these days.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - David Newman's (Dept of Political
Science) latest Smears of Israel - Claims Undemocratic Israel has
mere Democratic "Veneer"
Does BGU's Dean of Social Science have mere Academic Veneer, as
well?
In the Jerusalem
Post, Newman claims that Israel is filled with three anti-democratic
populations: Russian immigrants, Orthodox Jews, and low-income
Sephardim. Why are these anti-democratic? Because they are all
hostile to the Far Left!! David Newman's test of "democratic" is
whether someone agrees with the anti-Israel post-Zionist Left!
"What is fast
becoming an anti 'others' tsunami, is an internal kulturkampf taking
place between the declining and politically inactive old elites, and
those groups who were, for a long time, at the socio-political
periphery.
OVER THE past 20
years, the country has experienced substantial demographic and
political change. This is reflected in the absolute growth of
formerly peripheral groups such as the haredi and national-Orthodox
communities, immigrants from the former Soviet Union and the poorer
Mizrahi groups. These diverse groups now make up more than half the
Jewish population, and hold many key positions in the Knesset and
other decision-making institutions.... The convergence of these
groups at this specific juncture, despite the internal
contradictions and even mutual animosities between their respective
beliefs and interests, has for the first time created a critical
mass which is challenging the democratic ethos of the state."
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Mona Charen exposes Israel's
Academic Fifth Column
Neve Gordon, a professor at Ben Gurion
University of Beer-Sheva, has led international efforts to boycott
the Jewish state. Rachel Giora, a professor at Tel Aviv University,
actively encourages international divestment campaigns. Shlomo Sand,
the son of Holocaust survivors and a professor at Tel Aviv
University (and Berkeley), proclaims that “there is no Jewish people
and no justification for a Jewish state.” Meirav Michaeli, the
leading announcer on the Army radio channel, has urged Israelis to
resist the draft. Israeli professors have cheered the idea of
issuing international arrest warrants for leading Israeli
politicians and army officers — though none has so far volunteered
to renounce his own salary as a contribution to international
sanctions.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Haim Gordon (Dept of Education)
"screams" about "Israel's War Crimes"
We scream at the war crimes that Israeli forces
are daily committing against the Palestinian people. As Jews, as
members of a people who suffered from the terrifying war crimes of
the Holocaust, we believe that we should be sensitive to the freedom
and suffering of others, especially of our neighbours, the
Palestinians. But for thirty-five years, Israeli forces have
oppressed and exploited the Palestinian people, denying them freedom
and respect. The most recent result of these evil policies has been
the al-Aqsa intifada, the latest Palestinian rebellion against
Israel's harsh occupation. Israeli war crimes intensified in
response to this new intifada. Hence our screams, which almost
nobody hears.
For more details and to see the full original
article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Ben-Dror Yemini trashes yet another
Left-wing Fanatic Teaching at BGU - Zvi Bentwich (Dept of Health
Sciences)
Ben Dror Yemini, depity editor of Maariv, Israel's second daily,
blasts Prof. Zvi Bentwich, for his running the treasonous pro-terror
leftwing NGO "Physicians for Human Rights." who is mainly in BGU's
health sciences department but also teaches a leftwing propaganda
course in the politics department.
The article by Yemini demolishing Bentwich is only in Hebrew,
here:
http://www.nrg.co.il/app/index.php?do=blog&encr_id=f2b4c1b55be76d1e6d7b777256ea0370&id=2105
But it puts the lie once again to Rivka Carmi's idiotic claims
that "only Neve Gordon" is the problem, that there are no other
leftwing extremists teaching in the politics department. Now it
turns out that even people teaching there who come from Health
Sciences are leftwing anti-Israel propagandists.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Parents Claim "We Won't Send Our
Children to Ben Gurion U"
Boycotts, incitement, subversion
against the state's foundations, silencing of students who are
afraid to say their opinions when lecturers and their assistants are
within earshot. That, you call pluralism!
We, too, will make use of our right to
freedom of speech. We will send this letter to the Minister of
Education and to the Chairman of the Knesset's Education Committee,
we will send this letter out in mass circulation and we will declare
that we will not send our children to an academic institute that
silences Zionist mouths, incites against the IDF, drips poison and
preaches destruction.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - In the pro-terror anti-Semitic web
magazine Counterpunch, on the same page alongside Holocaust Denier
"Israel Shamir," Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science) Whines that
Making anti-Israel groups reveal what he says they already reveal is
fascist oppression
Considering that the funding of all human
rights organizations in Israel is made public each year and
scrutinized by the state auditor, the idea of creating a
parliamentary commission to inspect their income is merely a
smokescreen. The parliamentary commission's actual goal is to
intimidate Israeli rights groups and their donors and, as a result,
stifle free speech.
[This, from the Neofascist who filed a SLAPP
harassment suit against another professor to stifle free speech!]
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben-Gurion University - Yael Ben-Zvi (Dept of
Linguistics and Literature) - Post-Colonialist BUTCH(er) of Words
Ben-Zvi's dogma of "post colonialist theory" amounts to her
belief that Israel is a conspiratorial concoction of Ashkenazic
Zionists. When it comes to being an anti-Semite, no closet can hold
her!
Pity the poor hapless students at Ben Gurion University
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - BGU Attempting to Control Damage from
its Tenured Extremists
In the past year,
Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba suffered a series of public
statements by staff members which gave it an image of an institution
identified with radical ends of the political spectrum.
One of the most
controversial affairs concerns Prof. Neve Gordon from the Political
Science Department. Gordon had published an article at the LA Times
calling for a boycott of Israel which he described as an "apartheid
state."
The new protocol
states that "In voicing their political or religious opinions,
unlike particular professional views, staff members should refrain
from using the Ben-Gurion University's name." The lecturers were
asked to clarify they were speaking for themselves and not
representing the university's positions
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Tali Latowicki – yet another
pseudo-academic Israel Basher from BGU
The question that lingers is if her job there was
obtained because she spouts the ever present anti-Israel dogma, or
if she became so-against-the-Jewish-state as a result of working on
the
Negev
campus that Neofascist Neve Gordon calls home. …
But nothing can compare with Tali
Latowicki's justification for suicide bombings and terror attacks:
"And between us, it is clear that these
terror attacks, that seem to us like Satanic craziness, are the only
way for the Palestinians to remind the average Israeli of their
existence. Because if it will be quiet here, really quiet, the
average Israeli will not care if several million people are rotting
under closure. He will simply forget that they exist and will
continue to live his everyday life. He will not have any interest in
returning one meter of their land."
Latowicki recites the Arab mantras
about the "stolen lands" (that weren't stolen) and "the right of
return." And she excuses terrorism some more…
This woman is an embarrassment for
Ben
Gurion
University, if BGU is even still capable of being embarrassed by its
anti-Israel pseudo-academics.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben
Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science) with poster in Hebrew and Arabic
denouncing Israeli leaders as "war criminals"; Standing
next to sign in Arabic calling for Terrorist Violence "In Spirit and
in Blood"

BGU Professor Neve Gordon, on far left, is
holding a sign that denounces Israeli leaders as "war criminals". He
is also standing next to a sign in Arabic calling for terrorist
violence "In Spirit and in Blood". Gordon is participating in a
demonstration endorsing the Flotilla Terrorists and condemning the
Israeli Naval Action to stop them.
The
demonstration is undeniably unlawfull as one can see from the
blatant calls for murder and violence. To see more of this
demonstration for terrorism, and the signs and slogans used, you may
view the two clips below:
The first clip
was taken from the first pro-Flotilla demonstration on the 31.05.10.
Professor Neve Gordon is holding a poster in Arabic saying War
Criminals to Trial. Gordon took part in the demonstration that
chanted terrorist slogans supporting suicide bombings against Jews
and endorsing violence, chanting "In spirit and in blood we will
redeem you"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S82WXqUOCY8
The second clip
from 02.06.10 consists of mainly students and staff of Politics and
Government Department. Pro-Flotilla supporters demonstrating at the
heart of the campus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34LcRhZ_hYE
We wish to
thank Professor Israel David of Ben Gurion University who edited the
clips as well as translated them and sent us for distribution.
Ben Gurion University's Official Campaign of Lies
and Disinformation
All of this puts into perspective the weekend
column (December 31, 2010) in Maariv by Kalman Liebskind, one of the
best publicist journalists in Israel. The column is so important
that my translation of it follows here. Liebskind has revealed that
Ben Gurion University is intentionally lying and providing
disinformation to its supporters and prospective donors from all
around the world and in different languages.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Im Tirtzu wants to take
BGU to court for dragging feet in changing their radical anti-Israel
Departments and failing to deal with Profs who support boycotting
Israel
In Sunday's letter to Ben-Gurion University President Prof. Rivka
Carmi, Im Tirtzu leaders Ronen Shoval and Erez Tadmor wrote that in
July, they had pointed out the "gross politicization of the
Department of Politics and Government," as reflected by the fact
that "eight out of 11 tenured faculty members held radical political
views."
The July letter also charged that faculty members were not hired
in a transparent manner, that students' education suffered from "the
presentation of a grossly one-sided view of the course material,"
and that senior faculty members in the department supported an
academic boycott of Israel, in contravention of the CHE's stand.
That letter closed with a threat to work to persuade donors to halt
contributions to the university unless these problems were corrected
- a threat not repeated in the current letter.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Israel-hating Neve Gordon (Dept of
Political Science) insists that Arabs be exempt from obeying the
law, recruits the Bible to demonize Israeli demolition of illegally
built structures, in anti-Semitic "The Nation" magazine.
The viewers are asked to open their wallets in
order to "sow a seed for God." In this case, the donations seem to
have actually been allocated toward sowing seeds, but these seeds
are ones of hate and strife. They are antithetical to Isaiah's
prophecy about the people beating their swords into plowshares, and
their spears into pruning hooks. Indeed, if Isaiah were alive today,
he would probably be among the first to lie in front of the
bulldozers in an effort to stop the destruction of the Bedouin
homes.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – US International exchange student shares
her bad experience with Oren Yiftachel's (Dept. of Geography)
Intimidations and Propagandistic Teaching Style
This past semester [Spring 2010], I took a
course at Ben-Gurion University entitled "Selected Topics in the
Geography of the Middle East," which was taught jointly by Dr. Nir
Cohen and Dr. Oren Yiftachel. The course was part of the MAPMES
program, which is a masters program taught in English that is
designed to teach international students about the situation in the
Middle East. To my dismay, in this particular course, international
students, instead of being educated about the complicated reality in
the Middle East, were instead being taught to be hostile towards
Israel.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Emmanuel Navon accuses
Leftist Israeli Academia of "Scorn and Arrogance"; Rectors of BGU
and TAU stoop to heckling at Knesset hearing
Instead of
addressing the issues raised by the IZS and by Im Tirtzu, the
academic establishment has reacted with scorn and arrogance. At the
Knesset hearing, Ben-Gurion University rector Zvi Hacohen
interrupted IZS's presentation, calling it "nonsense" and claiming
(without proof) that its paper did not meet the most basic criteria
of academic research. Tel Aviv University rector Aharon Shai also
claimed IZS's paper was not a research paper (without explaining
why) and added that adopting an academic code of ethics (as proposed
by Sa'ar at the beginning of the hearing) would "destroy Israeli
academia."
... TWO DAYS after
the Knesset hearing, Haaretz came out in defense of the universities
by claiming that adopting a code of ethics would harm academic
freedom. It wrote that Sa'ar proposed such a code as a result of the
lobbying of Im Tirtzu. But the idea of a code was first proposed by
Prof. Amnon Rubinstein, a renowned academic with impeccable liberal
credentials. Moreover, BGU has such a code (the only local
university to have one).
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Leftist Neo-fascist Neve
Gordon (Dept of Political Science) sees Fascism breaking out all
Over Israel
Some of the bills now going through the
Knesset, which have a good chance of being ratified, would make
support for an alternative political ideology, such as the idea that
Israel should be a democracy for all its citizens, a crime.
A proposed amendment to the existing
anti-incitement bill, for instance, stipulates that people who deny
Israel's Jewish character will be arrested. This extension to the
penal code, which has already passed its preliminary reading,
incriminates a political view. Another bill lays the groundwork for
turning down candidates for membership in communal settlements built
on public land if they do not concur with the settlement committee's
political views or are adherents of a different religion. The point
of this is to make it legal to deny Palestinian citizens of Israel
access to Jewish villages.
Still another bill that has already passed its
first reading stipulates that institutions marking the Palestinian
Nakba of 1948 will be denied public funds.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -Neve Gordon, BGU's Arch-Hater
of Israel, and the Anti-Israel Boycott Movement
Neve Gordon has changed his mind on the campaign to
boycott Israel. In 2003 he wrote a compelling piece under the
headline: "Against the Israeli Academic Boycott" in the The Nation
in which he puts forward some of the central reasons why a boycott
of Israeli academia would be both unjust and also counterproductive.
...
The reason seems to be that things are now so bad in
Israel that 'something must be done'. But what Neve Gordon is unable
to do is to show what is wrong with his previous arguments about
doing this particular 'something'. He offers nothing.
No reason why the boycott campaign no longer contains
echoes of antisemitism.
No reason why he singles out Israel, and only Israel,
for boycott.
No reason why he is willing to overlook the 'biases' of
the boycott movement.
No reason why BDS would no longer bolster the right and
harm the left in Israel.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept of Political
Science) is Upset that a Far Leftist Israel Hater got Turned Down
for Tenure just because she hasn't any Academic Publications
Ariella Azoulay made a career out of collecting
anti-Israel photographs. She got fired even though she is wife of
radical Prof. Adi Ophir. And that has the Israeli Far Left up in
arms! Neve Gordon thinks being anti-Israel is enough to get you
tenure. We wonder if he has anyone else in mind who got tenure that
way!
"There is, however, another fact to be taken
into account: Azoulay's prominent political activism. One of the
exhibitions she curated, for example, Act of State, included
hundreds of photographs exposing the realities of four decades of
occupation."
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – BGU on the Front Line of the
BDS as a consequence of its own faculty
But now along comes the sweetest story of
comeuppance the country has ever seen. A university in South Africa
that used to be one of the main bastions of South African racism and
apartheid is voting this week on a proposal to boycott and apply
sanctions against the very same Ben Gurion University. For being
part of Israeli "apartheid," of course. And where did the South
African anti-Semites hear that Israel is an apartheid regime? From
anti-Israel BGU faculty members, of course.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
Ran Greenstein (University of the Witwatersrand) signs name to a
blatantly Anti-Semitic petition to have Johannesburg U cut ties with
BGU; Criticism of Neve Gordon's treasonous call for boycott cited as
reason enough to boycott BGU
What
goes around comes around. South African University threatened to
boycott Ben Gurion University. Its hordes of tenured treason did not
spare it from accusations of engaging in "apartheid" made by South
African anti-Semites!
"Written
in part by Omar Barghouti:
A true
breakthrough in the academic boycott of Israel!!
A South
African, long brewing, campaign at the prestigious University of
Johannesburg to cut off academic links with Ben Gurion University
due to its complicity and racist practices has won the endorsement
of John Dugard, Desmond Tutu, Breyten Breytenbach, Allan Boesak,
Mahmoud Mamdani and almost 200 other academics from 22 academic
institutions in SA.
Here is
the petition to sever links with Ben Gurion University
SOUTH
AFRICAN ACADEMICS CALL FOR UJ TO TERMINATE RELATIONSHIP WITH ISRAELI
INSTITUTION
http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/boycott-of-apartheid-gets-a%5C-boost-from-south-african-academics/
…
3.
CRIMINALISING DISSENT
…
• BGU has been publicly criticised for disciplining academic staff,
such as Professor Neve Gordon, the head of the politics department,
for supporting the non-violent boycott of Israeli companies and
institutions which profit or are complicit in the Israeli
occupation."
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - What Freedom Of Speech? Zvi
Hacohen, the new rector at BGU, robs from the many to give to the
few
Hacohen is just one of Israel's many
increasingly hysterical radical leftists inside (and outside)
academia who demand that freedom of speech for non-leftists be
suppressed.
Leftists in Israel are free to endorse
violence, to call for Israel to be destroyed, and to endorse
anti-Semites and terrorists. They are free to promote lawbreaking
and violence. They are free to call on the world to boycott Israel
and to impose upon Israel by force an outside "resolution" of the
conflict along lines the vast majority of Israelis oppose. Yes, it
may be upsetting to people, say the leftist poseurs, but offensive
speech needs to be protected in the name of democracy. ...
He is not disturbed that entire departments at
his own university operate as open anti-Israel indoctrination camps.
He is not disturbed that faculty members at Ben Gurion University
are leaders in the international campaign to boycott Israel, to
"divest" from Israel, to place sanctions against Israel. … Prof.
Hacohen is not concerned about reports of leftist faculty members at
BGU harassing and penalizing students there who dare dissent from
the anti-Israel ideology poured out in classroom indoctrinations. He
is not concerned that anti-Israel radicals are being hired and
promoted on the basis of "academic records" consisting of nothing
more than anti-Israel hate propaganda. He is not concerned about BGU
faculty members who endorse terrorist violence. He is not concerned
about Arab and Jewish leftist
students marching about his
campus giving Heil Hitler salutes.
The only thing he seems worried about is that
some Zionist students at BGU wish to express their opinions and
criticize treasonous behavior. He demands that they be silenced. He
insults the students at his own university, calling them "McCarthyists."
He demands that criticism of treason be silenced in the name of
protecting academic freedom.
The academic freedom of which he dreams is the
sort to be found in North Korea.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – a Rankled Reader calls out BGU
President Rivka Carmi's "Elitist Misjudgment"; corrects the Left's
mis-definition of McCarthyism
This letter is in response to your interview
with the Jerusalem Post of August 21 under the inappropriate heading
"McCarthy
vs Voltaire in Beersheba". Inappropriate, because the brouhaha
about the abuse of academic freedom in Israeli universities bears no
resemblance whatsoever to McCarthyism which is defined in The
American Heritage Dictionary as "The practice of publicizing
accusations of political disloyalty or subversion with insufficient
regard to evidence". …
In the circumstances, I am particularly
disturbed by your statement that you did not intend to respond to Im
Tirtzu's letter as you considered that it didn't deserve the dignity
of a response. In all seriousness I ask you to reconsider this
elitist misjudgment. Neither the public, nor the Knesset, nor the
Council for Higher Education consider it undignified to respond to
them.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept of Political
Science), who himself filed a fascist harassment SLAPP suit against
an Israeli professor to silence him because the latter had
criticized Gordon, now is suddenly concerned about freedom of speech
for academics.
Such personal attacks are part of a much
broader assault on Israeli higher education and its professors. Two
recent incidents exemplify the protofascist logic that is being
deployed to undermine the pillars of academic freedom in Israel,
while also revealing that the assault on Israeli academe is being
backed by neoconservative forces in the United States....
Israeli academe, which was once considered a
bastion of free speech, has become the testing ground for the
success of the assault on liberal values. And although it is still
extremely difficult to hurt those who have managed to enter the
academic gates, those who have not yet passed the threshold are
clearly being monitored.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
Dan Illouz, Im Tirtzu Leader, Answers Rivka Carmi
LAST WEEK, the story developed further.
According to Im Tirtzu's research, Ben-Gurion University's Political
Science Department is not only homogeneously anti-Zionist, it is
also the source of the silencing of Zionist students. As such, Im
Tirtzu found it fair to inform donors to the university.
Donors to Israeli universities often find their
donation to be an act of Zionism. Helping academic institutions in
Israel helps Zionism. Im Tirtzu believed many of those donors would
be shocked and dismayed at the findings published in the report.
They would feel their donations have become counterproductive. It is
the right of those donors to be informed of the situation in the
university; a donor is allowed to know where his money goes.
Therefore, Im Tirtzu was ready to inform those donors of its
findings.
However, in a gesture of goodwill toward
Ben-Gurion University, Im Tirtzu sent it a letter giving it a 30-day
warning while asking it to use this time to change its policies and
remove the need for contacting donors.
The university used this gesture of goodwill
against Im Tirtzu, accusing it of threatening it with an ultimatum.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Caroline Glick asserts -
The Israeli Public is fed up with the Academic Left's "Intellectual
Terror" led by the likes of Neve Gordon
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. 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.
...
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.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Lev
Grinberg (Dept of Sociology) Demands Israel Stop being a Jewish
State
Why isn't Israel a modern, democratic
nation-state? I suspect that the secular Jews are not ready to
relinquish the special privileges that the Jewish state grants them.
With no other definition for Judaism, they are ready to accept the
yoke of the religious establishment and give up democracy and
equality. In my view, that is the meaning of the continued
impossible defense of a Jewish and democratic state.
Woe to such Zionism: conservative and
complacent, lacking imagination and vision. After such a bitter
failure, we should start thinking of tikkun, of repair. Tikkun is a
kosher concept; it's both Jewish and democratic.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben
Gurion University - David Newman's (Dean of Social Sciences and
Humanities) Hysterical attack against Isracampus; De-legitimatizes
criticism by Im Tirtzu and the ISZ report
These were not
isolated incidents. The past few years have witnessed a growth in
right-wing activity aimed at delegitimizing the country's
universities and their academic staff. To ISZ and Im Tirtzu can be
added Isracampus and NGO Monitor, both of which have targeted
academics and NGOs which hold views, or promote projects, which are
not in line with their well-funded right-wing agendas.
The objective
of these organizations is clear and has nothing to do with academic
objectivity or balanced research. They are out to impose their own
single-minded view of Israel and Zionism, close down any form of
critical discourse and, given the nature of the present government,
influence the legislators in the Knesset to support their cause.
The main
problem with both the ISZ report and the Im Tirtzu letter is that
they are full of false and highly selective information. ISZ, headed
by former West Bank settlement leader Yisrael Harel, chose to focus
on just a few research projects and courses out of the hundreds
which are taught, conveniently ignoring the diversity of research
which goes on in the country's sociology and anthropology
departments. The Im Tirtzu letter put out false information about a
dynamic and highly popular academic department which promotes social
and political awareness among its students.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Isracampus has a
question for Ben Gurion University President Rivka Carmi
In the interview you gave to the Jerusalem Post,
published on Aug 21, 2010, you said, and
we quote, "I can't stress this enough. I want any student who feels
threatened to come directly to me. I promise them complete
protection. If anyone feels that a faculty member is silencing them,
belittling their opinions, putting them down or intimidating them, I
want them to tell me about it immediately. I am sorry that there are
students who instead of approaching the university management with
their concerns or complaints, choose to go to a group like Im Tirtzu."
Well, we at Isracampus would like to know what you
did in the case of the overseas woman student threatened by BGU
Geography professor Oren Yiftachel when she refused to submit to his
ideological diktats, reported to you in detail.
In the same interview, you are asked whether there is
any truth to the claim that the politics department at BGU is a
treasonous indoctrination camp into anti-Israel extremism. You said
that answering that question is beneath your dignity. We
nevertheless would like to hear your answer. We think you are
insulting the dignity of every citizen in Israel by NOT answering!
Ben Gurion University - Sedition and Nazi hand salutes
at BGU
If, for
example, a senior lecturer (Neve Gordon) in that department dares
travel to Palestinian government headquarters in Ramallah (while
blatantly violating the law) a day after one of the most terrible
massacres we've ever seen here, in order to support Yasser Arafat
and pose next to him in a photo where both hold their arms up, does
this constitute academic freedom? Is this about the freedom to
explore, or about a despicable act by someone who under false
pretenses holds on to a job in a publically funded academic
institution?
And if this
department includes students who take part in an illegal rally at
campus following the Turkish flotilla raid, while being photographed
(knowingly) giving the Nazi salute, does this have anything to do
with academic freedom? Are Nazi salutes a part of the education
offered to politics and government students?
I saw the
photographs, both of the lecturer alongside Arafat and of the
student giving the Nazi salute; I also saw the photo of a female
Master's student who climbed up a campus building in order to post a
libelous, outrageous, provocative anti-Israeli banner, and I contend
that we must put an end to this "academic freedom."
Those
interested in this kind of "academic freedom" should go ahead and
become lecturers elsewhere. There are many "academic research
institutions" abroad funded by anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi,
Holocaust-denying elements that would be happy to establish a
politics and government department to be run by "refugees" from the
Beersheba university.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Saddam-style freedom: Leftist
professor Nitza Bercovitch's (Dept of Women's Studies) concept of
'freedom' is similar to Saddam Hussein's vision
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. ...
This is just one example. It is also no coincidence that most
sociology students are enthused socialists. Just like me, they
studied Marx, and it's absolutely fine for them to study Marx,
because how can one study sociology without studying Marx? However,
there are some strong arguments in favor of capitalism as well, yet
these are not being taught at all.
It's the same story on every front – the
radical thinkers who write about discrimination and exploitation
will be taught and praised. Yet every different opinion that
counters these views and enables the students to realize that there
are other ways is unavailable.
This precisely is the problem that makes the
claims about lost academic freedom laughable. Freedom always has to
do with the liberty to choose between one option to another. Freedom
is impossible when only one option exists to begin with, unless we
are talking about Saddam-style freedom.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Radical anti-Israel leftist
"Women's Studies" lecturer and Neve Gordon Collaborator Nitza
Berkovitch Bleating about "McCarthyism"
Thou Shalt not
Criticize Leftist Traitors!
In recent
months, we have witnessed an unprecedented attack on Israel's
academic freedom. Organizations such as Im Tirtzu and the Institute
for Zionist Strategies publish more and more ephemeral reports that
classifies course curricula, researchers, conventions and research
work, designating them as legitimate or not. Anyone who fails to toe
the line with what they define as the "Zionist consensus" is labeled
as "illegitimate" and hence has no place in academia, in their view.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Im Tirtzu
issues BGU a Set of Demands to Restrain the Anti-Israel Bias in its
Politics Department; the far Left is hysterical
Im Tirtzu has
issued a set of demands (remind anyone of Berkeley in the 60s?)
insisting that Ben Gurion University do something to restrain and
balance the anti-Israel bias in its politics department and in other
departments, or else Im Tirtzu will call upon donors to the
university to withhold funds or put them into escrow until BGU
really does something about the anti-Israel indoctrination there.
The Israeli
mainstream media is hysterical and having a field day. Haaretz runs
the story as its top banner headline on its front page. Every other
Israeli newspaper today (I have not seen Maariv yet but suspect it
makes a full house with this) runs the story. Every radio station in
Israel carried reports and debates about the Im Tirtzu move and no
doubt the evening news shows on TV will also carry reports. The far
Left is hysterical. BGU's David Newman is all over the place trying
it discredit the report.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Eyal Nir (Dept of Chemistry)
Gets Arrested
Lawyers and activists are currently negotiating the
release of 3 men who were arrested for protesting against the states
demolitions of a Palestinian village in the North of the Nakab
(Negev). Mohammad Mahajna from Um Il Fahim and Mohammad Masarna are
both students at Ben Gurion University; Eyal Nir is a teacher at the
university located in Beer Sheba.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept of Political
Science) inventing new Israeli "Ethnic Cleansing"
Writing in The Guardian's
Comment is Free, notorious anti-Zionist academic
Neve Gordon, not even bothering to address the wider context of
the demolition, even went as far as to state that he
suddenly understood how far the state is
ready to go to accomplish its objective of Judaising the
Negev region; what I witnessed was, after all, an act of
ethnic cleansing.
While the rest of the media did not sink to
Gordon's level of vitriol, most of them certainly did nothing to
dispel a one-sided narrative that portrays Israel as the usurper of
Arab land. The status of the Bedouin in Israel is far more complex,
as is this particular case of the demolished unrecognized village.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
A Review of the
Bash-Israel Pre-Conference organized by Far-Leftist Academics prior
to the Prestigious International Geographical Union’s regional
conference held in Tel Aviv
As happens so often, the ideological opinion
offered by Israeli scholars, under the banner of free speech and
pluralism, at these conferences was primarily monolithic,
anti-Israel, and leftist. If scholars were somehow still able to
leave these conferences with a neutral or positive view about
Israel, it was in spite of the best efforts of Israel’s academics
who organized the pre-conferences, not because of them.
... For Newman, only one voice should be heard
in a democratic society, the voice of critique and anti-state
hatred. The only ‘beacon of light’ in Israel are the organizations
and individuals who compare the country to a fascist state and the
only “value” of democracy is the voice of extremism. On the other
side democracy is having a “black day” when other organizations use
free speech to critique those who critique.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Not every form of speech is
protected at BGU
His answer came from
Faye Bittker, director of BGU’s Department of Public Relations
and Media Relations, who was outraged that Prof Levitt not only
believes homosexuality is “a hindrance, defect, deficiency, and an
urge that can be treated and overcome,” but that he also refused to
apologize for his convictions. … Small wonder BGU decided
immediately, “on the basis of academic considerations alone,” to
cancel the course.
Prof Steven Plaut, who teaches economics at
the University of Haifa and heads Israel’s CampusWatch, a monitoring
organization, has been following Prof Levitt’s case. “Now if Levitt
had called for murdering all Israeli Jews or said that Jews drink
gentile blood for Passover, that would have been protected
speech,” said Prof Plaut. The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel has
taken up Prof Levitt’s case and says the next stop will be the
Supreme Court.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Isi Leibler, retired
Senior Vice President of the World Jewish Congress, warns of Stalinism at Ben-Gurion
University (or just behavior in a "degenerate manner")
The firing of Dr. Leavitt exemplifies the absurd and obscene
double standards being imposed by Israeli academic institutions.
Universities are willing to sack a lecturer for expressing a view
not considered politically correct by dominant academic
establishment. Yet the same authorities insist on retaining tenure
for a senior academic like Gordon, described by Alan Dershowitz as a
man "who has gotten into bed with neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, and
anti-Semites... a despicable example of a self-hating Jew, and a
self-hating Israeli."
…
This episode demonstrates how a cabal of post-Zionist and far left
academics have succeeded to create an environment in which tenured
staff are conscious that they have a license to debase the State -
and even call for the destruction of their own University in the
name of academic freedom - whilst suppressing any views that are
politically incorrect from their bigoted perspective. It is truly
reminiscent of the universities in the former Soviet Union approved
by Stalin.
The government and donors to Ben-Gurion University and other
academic institutions should have their heads examined if they
continue providing funds which can be exploited in such a degenerate
manner.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Haggai Ram
continues to serve his Iranian Masters; reported by UAE newspaper
'Haggai Ram, an Iran specialist at Ben-Gurion
University in southern Israel, said: "Placing Gaza under a dark and
ominous Iranian shadow allows Israel to commit the atrocities that
it has committed in Gaza." '
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben
Gurion University – Israel David (Dept of Industrial Engineering) admonishes BGU administration indifference to Far Leftist incidents occurring
under the banner of "Academic Freedom"
The protests
following the Turkish flotilla incident included activists marching
outside the Ben-Gurion University senate building while giving the
Nazi salute and shouting “Heil Bibi.” These were apparently outside
provocateurs, yet members of the university’s teaching staff
participated in the demonstration. ...
Outside the university senate building we have a large poster
bearing Prime Minister Netanyahu’s image, graced with a large
“catastrophe” caption.” Anyone can come and see the display, which
originally was meant to glorify Prime Minister Ben-Gurion. The
protest expressed by about 90% of those signing the exhibit’s
guestbook have not impressed university officials, who responded by
saying this is “artistic freedom.” The management of my university
would do well to stop ridiculing itself and making people fed up
with it, and instead contemplate the complex meaning of terms such
as “academic freedom,” “freedom of speech,” “artistic freedom,” and
“artistic considerations” vis-à-vis its own simplistic perception.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – fires Prof. Yeruham Levitt for
exercising "Free Speech". Why not Neve Gordon?
[Keeping Neve Gordon on the staff turns out to
be an active choice rather than a limitation within the rules of
"Free Speech" at BGU. Another case of "Freedom for me but not
for thee" at BGU:]
'Ben Gurion University has fired a professor
for stating his opinion that the development of children raised by
homosexual parents could be harmed, and that sexual inclinations can
be restrained and chosen.
...
The Legal Forum for the Land of Israel promptly protested, noting
that just a few weeks ago, another Ben Gurion lecturer, Dr. Neve
Gordon, head of the Department of Politics and Government, escaped
being fired even though he called for a political boycott against
Israel. University Rector Prof. Weinblatt said at the time, “We live
in a democratic country in which there is freedom of expression for
all, even for those whose opinions are not appreciated by all.”'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Head of Security at BGU
confirms that Leftist Faculty members there took part in illegal
activities
There is some news at BGU. The head of security
confirmed in writing that leftist professors took place in illegal
political activities on campus including Nazi salutes. See attached
[in Hebrew].
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
President
of Ben Gurion University Discovers some "Verbal Violence"
This week Gordon
ran to Haaretz and claimed ecstatically that he had gotten
a letter threatening to kill him. Haaretz scanned the entire
letter, printed it, and devoted a large news story to this. The
letter was written in a child’s handwriting and said “I will be
coming to Ben Gurion to kill you.” ... Now I cannot prove this but I
nurse a strong private suspicion that Neve Gordon sent that “death”
letter to himself. I have a legitimate reason for suspecting that.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion
University – Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science) bemoans the
arrest of his Communist Rachel-Corrie-Wannabe Friend
In an article in the British journal,
The Guardian, which also appeared on the leftwing anti-Semitic
jihadi website Counterpunch, Gordon takes a swipe at Israel once
again by protesting the supposed gross miscarriage of justice. His
ISM buddy is being sent to jail for a month for lying down in front
of that bulldozer:
“This sentence is not a minor matter,” writes
Gordon. “The Israeli court has basically decreed that the only
legitimate way to oppose the occupation is by standing on the side
of the road with some kind of placard.”
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion
University - On anti-Semitic Counterpunch web site, Neve Gordon
(Dept of Political Science) gives HIS version of Israeli patriotic
student protests (and misrepresents himself as a professor)
Pro-government students interviewed
in the press said they were ’shocked to see faculty members,
together with students from the left and Arab students shouting
slogans against Israel’. Their classmates posted pictures of the
protests on Facebook, asking likeminded students to ‘identify their
classroom “friends”’.
A Facebook group was created to call
for my resignation: by the end of the day more than 1000 people had
joined. As well as hoping that I die and demanding that my family be
stripped of our citizenship and exiled from Israel, members of this
Facebook group offer more pragmatic suggestions, such as the need to
concentrate efforts on getting rid of teaching assistants who are
critical of the government, since it is more difficult to have me –
as a tenured professor – fired.
What is troubling about these
pro-government students is not that they are pro-government, but the
way they attack anyone who thinks differently from them, along with
their total lack of self-criticism or restraint.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion
University - Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science) accuses Israel
of "piracy" in anti-Semitic Counterpunch magazine
Like a group of pirates in the Mediterranean,
the Israeli navy attacked humanitarian aid ships in international
waters, and yet Israeli officials and commentators were totally
surprised when the passengers did not receive them with open arms.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Comeuppance
for Ben Gurion University?
Don’t you love poetic justice? Ben Gurion
University has long been one of the centers of the anti-Israel
academic Left inside Israel and the capital for calls from tenured
traitors for a world boycott of Israel.
Well, Cowabunga! Now it turns out that a South
Africa “University” wants to boycott Ben Gurion University, in
response no doubt to the bleatings of Comrade Neve Gordon and his
BGU friends in mufti:
'The University of Johannesburg (UJ) is
considering cutting academic ties with Israel's Ben-Gurion
University (BGU) in protest against Ben Gurion's alleged
association with Palestinian human rights abuses.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion
University - Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science), the Kommissar
of the Boycott-Israel Movement, complaining again about Israeli "McCarthists"
'There is also a third strategy: to undermine the
reputation of anyone who dares to question Israel’s human rights
record, and to obstruct the flow of unpalatable information that’s
gathered, organised, and distributed by rights groups and circulated
by the international media. Right-wing NGOs and social movements
such as Gerald Steinberg’s NGO Monitor and Im Tirtzu are doing much
of this McCarthyist dirty work. Their blacklist includes not only
individual critics of Israeli rights abuses, like Goldstone, but
also local and international NGOs and their donors, particularly the
European Union, the Ford Foundation and the New Israel Fund. Naomi
Chazan, the former Knesset member who now runs the New Israel Fund,
was recently featured on giant billboards with a horn emerging from
her head because her organisation funded human-rights NGOs that
passed information on to Judge Goldstone.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben
Gurion University - David Newman, the new dean of Social Sciences
and Humanities at BGU, smears and distorts Isracampus
"I think what NGO Monitor is doing is very harmful to Israel's
democracy. We sell ourselves as the only real democracy in the
Middle East, but what it is saying is that in this real democracy
you can't be critical of the state anymore, you can't fund pro-human
rights organizations and so on. I think we are damaging our own
image as a democracy.
"In universities there are a lot of attacks on left-wing
academics, there are all these sorts of sites like Campus Watch and
IsraCampus. You go on to IsraCampus and you just happen to be a
supporter of the two-state solution and you are treasonous and
traitorous. It's just become so absurd. This country can be proud of
the fact that, despite the ongoing conflict and security threats, we
have created human rights organizations such as B'Tselem, Rabbis for
Human Rights [of which his father, Rabbi Isaac Newman, is a former
chairman], and that we promote Jewish-Arab dialogue and cooperation
through grassroots programs, many of them promoted by the New Israel
Fund.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben-Gurion University –
David Newman (Dept of Politics and Government) Ducks the Issues,
Whines about "McCarthyism"
One of the main critics of IsraCampus and other
sites and organizations that monitor anti-Israeli Israelis,
including academics and NGOS, is David Newman, professor in the
Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of
the Negev. He is currently running to be elected Dean of Social
Science and Humanities at Ben Gurion University. Newman has
condemned these monitoring activities in harsh and sweeping terms.
“I have no hesitation in calling this a McCarthyite campaign,” he
told an Abu Dhabi-based newspaper. And he has written of “a
concerted campaign…to silence and delegitimize anyone who holds
pro-peace, pro-human rights positions…,” a “vicious, anti-democratic
campaign,” “the concerted right-wing campaign to silence all
critics,” and even “concerted attempts to delegitimize and silence
more than half of the country’s [Israel’s] citizens”! About donors
who have been disturbed by what the monitoring organizations report
on, Newman also has unkind words, speaking of “donors from abroad
[who] attack any left-wing academic for daring to air his/her views”
and “false supporters who use the power of their pocketbook to
threaten Israeli academics because of their perceived political
views.” The upshot is that Newman sees Israeli democracy as being on
its last legs, writing,: “A country which [sic] ceases to value the
spirit of open debate…is a country whose democracy has much to
fear,” and referring to “Israel’s rapidly fading democracy” and “our
dying democracy.” (The various quotations above are taken from
here,
here,
here, and
here.)
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben
Gurion University – Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science) explains to the
Ayatollahs how evil Israel is, in the Tehran Times. Iran is not
anti-Semitic enough!
Boycott us,
Gordon urges, “For the sake of our children, I am convinced that an
international boycott is the only way to save Israel from itself.”
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Another One-Sided Indoctrination
Course at Ben Gurion University, this time taught by Jonathan Anson
(Dept of Social Work)
For the second course assignment, students were required to write an
essay based on four articles taken from a book edited by two of the
most radical anti-Israel extremists at Ben Gurion University: Uri
Ram and Nitza Berkovitch (who frequently collaborates with Neve
Gordon). The topic is supposedly “Inequality”
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) attacks IsraCampus.Org.il
IN THE past I have
been attacked for daring to suggest, on the pages of this newspaper,
that the politics of delegitimization practiced in recent years by
such organizations such as Campus Watch, IsraCampus and, most
recently, NGO Monitor have been a contemporary brand of McCarthyism.
But if it was unclear until now, this past week’s events have
highlighted the fact that there is a concerted campaign on the part
of these well-funded organizations to silence and delegitimize
anyone who holds pro-peace, pro-human rights positions, views which
uphold the very best of democratic and Jewish traditions and for
which the State of Israel is rightly proud.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Will David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) have the courage of his
convictions and call upon Israel to turn the Western Wall over to
the Palestinian terrorists?
BGU's David Newman opposed to Israel
Preserving the Tomb of the Patriarchs and other Shrines as its
Heritage. He writes:
‘Obviously, places have to be treated with respect and preserved,
especially if they have particular mythical meaning for specific
groups, or if people have given up their lives at these sites as
part of the national struggle. But if they are being promoted as a
way to strengthen the political claims of one side while ignoring
the places important to the other, or as a means of making a
political statement concerning the control of land, then it is
highly questionable whether we are in fact sanctifying or
desecrating these places. If, through our choice of sites, we only
throw additional fuel on the flames of conflict, then we have
achieved exactly the opposite of what the government set out to do.’
We note how he nowhere in his article
calls on the Muslim world to relinquish control of the Dome of the
Rock in the name of relaxing tensions and creating a more peaceful
world.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Oren
Yiftachel (Dept. of Geography) calls Israel an “ethnocracy”
Yiftachel has developed the theory of Israeli ethnocracy in his
own setting. He published a book in 2006 entitled Ethnocracy: Land
and Identity in Israel/Palestine. A mundane description of the book
notes that “the notion of ethnocracy suggests a political regime
that facilitates expansion and control by a dominant ethnicity in
contested lands. It is neither democratic nor authoritarian, with
rights and capabilities depending primarily on ethnic origin and
geographic location.”
In Middle East Report Yiftachel wrote that the development of
Israel was based on “the ‘return’ of Jews to their ancestors’
mythical land” and notes that “I argue that the Israeli polity is
governed not by a democratic regime, but rather by an ‘ethnocracy.’”'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) “reduced to name-calling”
In his classical defense of free speech, John
Stuart Mill imagined a free marketplace of ideas, in which truth
will usually prevail. But Newman could not be bothered to respond to
a single item in Im Tirzu’s meticulously documented report on NIF
funding. Instead of refutation, he offered only name-calling.
... Many on the Left employ a double
standard concerning free speech. They want their own advocates or
professors immunized from criticism – thus Prof. Newman’s outrage at
groups, such as Campus Watch, which publicize what professors say in
and outside the classroom. On the other hand, they develop an
elaborate set of rules to disallow the speech of others as
incitement, Islamophobia, homophobia, sexism, racism, or
McCarthyism. Neve Gordon is an egregious
example. He published a widely disseminated op-ed in The Los Angeles
Times calling for a boycott of Israel, but whines when others point
out what kind of people head Ben-Gurion University’s Political
Science Department and files libel suits to silence critics.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Israel’s taxpayer-supported
academic McCarthyism
'Pogrund
and Newman are incensed that IsraCampus and other campus watch
groups might expose to the public Israeli professors who promote the
academic boycott of Israel’s universities, or who work to support
the dissolution of the Jewish state. Pogrund quotes David Newman
in
an interview on an Arab website based in the EU:
“I have no hesitation in calling this a
McCarthyite campaign. What they are doing is very dangerous.”'
Hmmmmm.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University Senior
Lecturer of Middle East History Haggai Ram (home
page here) claims Israel is inventing the threat from Iran in
order to oppress Palestinians.
'By playing up the purported genocidal threat
issuing from Iran, the Netanyahu government thus hopes to avoid
making any concessions that are likely to bring about a meaningful
breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. "The message is:
Iran is an existential threat to Israel; settlements are not," as an
Israeli official recently told The Guardian.... because such
expressions have thus far enabled the Jewish state to exacerbate,
rather than help to alleviate, the Palestinian problem. It is this
yet-to-be resolved problem - and not Iran - that presents the Jewish
state with the most serious challenge to its survival.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
A Governor of Ben Gurion University
tells Far Leftist politics professor at BGU, David Newman, to "go
perish" for his aiding anti-Semitism
'The British-born philanthropist Michael Gross,
a governor of BGU, had been so incensed at Newman’s contribution to
the Channel Four programme that he had sent him several emails, in
one of which, alluding to Newman’s “disgusting contribution” to the
programme, he had promised to “use whatever influence I have at BGU
to have you thrown out… I hope you perish,” while in another he had
proffered the view that “the sooner you are removed from BGU and the
face of the earth, the better.”'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben
Gurion University – Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science) presents
Arab rioters as part of a “pro-peace” and “nonviolent” resistance
"Why," I have often been asked, "haven't the
Palestinians established a peace movement like the Israeli
Peace Now?" The question itself is problematic… Most important,
though, is the false supposition that Palestinians have indeed
failed to create a pro-peace popular movement. In September 1967 –
three months after the decisive war in which the West Bank, Gaza
Strip and East Jerusalem were occupied – Palestinian leaders decided
to launch a campaign against the introduction of new Israeli
textbooks in Palestinian schools. … Palestinian dissidents …
declared a general school strike: teachers did not show up for work,
children took to the streets to protest against the occupation and
many shopkeepers closed shop. … the message Israel wanted to convey
was clear: any act of resistance would result in a disproportionate
response, which would make the population suffer to such a degree
that resistance would appear pointless. After a few weeks of nightly
curfews, cutting off telephone lines, detaining leaders, and
increasing the level of harassment, Israel managed to break the
strike. ... But over the past five
years, Palestinians from scores of villages and towns such as
Bil'in and
Jayyous have developed new forms of pro-peace resistance that
have attracted the attention of the international community.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University –
David Newman (Dept of Political Science) feels the heat from a
peeved Board of Trustees due to his contributions to an anti-Semitic
documentary on British Channel 4
Prof. David Newman from the
Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University has
already experienced persecution by the Board of Trustees of the
institution where he teaches. A month ago he received an angry
e-mail from Michael Gross,, who sits on the University’s Board of
Trustees, following an appearance on the British Channel 4
television. In the e-mail, Gross threatens to use all of his
influence to fire Newman. He uses very strong language, to the point
of death wishes
Members of the faculty of humanities
at the university are organizing a petition that will be sent to the
Chairman of the Board of Trustees Roy Zuckerberg, who lives in New
York, to protest Gross’s e-mails. “It is an example of how a
university donor who lives abroad (Gross lives in England) is trying
to take over the university’s agenda,” said a faculty member. Newman
would only say this week: “Others are fighting for me, not I for
others, and I prefer not to talk about it.”
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
David Newman (Dept of Political Science) Collaborates in Production
of anti-Semitic Documentary; defends it as "Legitimate Journalism"
So Newman is remorseful, not necessarily because of what he said,
but rather because of the outrage he caused. He was petrified by
people's reactions and he freaked out. He ran all the way to the
Post to clear his tarnished image as an Israeli scholar who appears
to be giving his name to a conspiracy theory that could easily fit
inside the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. But Channel 4 was quick
to refute his righteousness and its spokesman issued a statement
saying: “We are absolutely clear that David Newman understood the
subject matter of the film before being interviewed by Peter
Oborne.” … The programme … [gave] the impression that Jewish donors
are profiteering from the "occupation" in exchange for their
financial generosity to political parties. … The truth was that,
like David Newman, Oborne was “shocked” by some of the comments
made after Dispatches was aired. What shocked him and caused his
outrage was not the programme’s anti-Semitism, however, but rather
the charges of anti-Semitism made against the
programme, Newman defended the programme as legitimate journalism. …
So what did the veteran Channel 4 investigative reporter do? He
fabricated a mountain of rumors and speculations, and then admitted,
after the act, that they have no substance. … Newman also suddenly
"saw the light" after the broadcast, saying the program "wasn’t
balanced in the context of the Middle East and didn’t explain that
lobbying is a legitimate part of the political process.” But he did
enormous damage, not only to Israel, but also to the Anglo-Jewish
community of which he was once a member. He lent his name as a
prominent Israeli academic to baseless anti-Semitic allegations that
accuse perfectly normal political activities as a sinister cabal
orchestrated from Jerusalem against the British people.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
Uri Gordon (Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Ketura),
lecturer in anarchism, has discovered that the ancient Hebrews were
pagans who did not believe in a single deity
How then did this pagan nature religion
transform into abstract monotheism, the basis for Judaism,
Christianity and Islam? The answer lies not in theology, but in
politics. The change took place in two stages, the first of which
came with the sweeping campaign of religious and political
centralization enacted in Jerusalem by King Josiah in 621 BCE. The
chief instigators were the high priest Hilkiah, the royal secretary
Shaphan, and the prophetess Huldah, a prominent noblewoman. During
renovations in the temple, they “discovered” a forgotten manuscript,
the Book of the Covenant, later incorporated into the book of
Deuteronomy. Its centerpiece was the Shema – the passage beginning
“Hear, O Israel, Yahweh our God, Yahweh the One” (Deut. 6:4) – along
with harsh prohibitions on idolatry and exogamy, a stress on one
exclusive temple, and threats of total annihilation of the people if
they worship other gods. Presented to the king, these writings
formed the perfect pretext for a wholesale centralization of
theocratic power in the hands of the House of David and the
Jerusalem priestly caste. Josiah acted swiftly. … Josiah’s coup
created and enforced a patriarchal state religion, to whose
intellectual elite modern scholarship attributes the books of
Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings – a retroactive
historiography which would drastically reshape Judean identity and
collective memory.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science) turns His Own Home into a
Spa for Convicted Terrorist
Dr. Neve Gordon of Israel’s Ben Gurion University is known as one
of the most radical academic Palestinian sympathizers. However, his
activities appear to have peaked this year with a call for an
anti-Israel boycott, and revelations that he hosted a convicted
Palestinian sentenced to house arrest. Despite being the chairman of
the political science department at Israel’s Ben Gurion University,
Gordon wrote an L.A. Times op-ed calling
for a worldwide boycott of Israel, including Israeli
universities, to achieve what he calls “ending our apartheid.“
Gordon’s call was widely seen as an anti-democratic attempt to
undermine Israeli democracy and sovereignty and drew scathing
criticism from his peers in both the academic and activist
communities. … Around the same time as the boycott call, Gordon
turned his own home into a refuge for convicted Fatah organizer
Mohammed Abu Humus, a resident of the Issawiya neighborhood of East
Jerusalem. As a local Fatah organizer, Abu Hums had previous
convictions for several security related offenses including arson
and assault. Despite the latest conviction for directing
demonstrators to throw rocks, Gordon described Abu Humus as a
“political prisoner” and “a Fatah leader.” A Jerusalem district
judge earlier this year convicted Abu Humus and handed down a
nine-month sentence, converted to house arrest. Gordon organized a
group of far-left academics to testify on behalf of Abu Humus, and
Gordon offered the court to host Abu Humus in Gordon’s own home in
Beersheva for the duration of the house arrest. It is evidently the
only case on record of a Palestinian terrorist being released to
house arrest in the home of a Jewish Israeli citizen.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
German Youth/Student Website
attacks IsraCampus.Org.il as “McCarthyite”
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who
arrived on Tuesday for talks in Israel, expressed the impression
that Israel is no longer interested in a peace agreement. Previously
there had been a large peace movement and a left that had stood for
peace. He had the impression that "the desire for peace has
completely vanished, as if the people no longer believe in it." That
ensures that Israel has a kind of "witch hunt" against
anti-government statements that "getting to feel very left academics
in universities. I refer to this as a McCarthyite campaign," said
David Newman, professor of politics at Ben-Gurion University of
Beersheva, in conversation with journalist Jonathan Cook on groups
that specifically denounce professors. On the website of IsraCampus
(www.isracampus.org.il) the photos were published of 100 dissident
professors and academic as a "fifth column called". One of them is
Anat Matar, a professor of philosophy from the University of Tel
Aviv. "Our society has become somewhat fascist," Cook cites him in
his report.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) enlists the help of Jonathan Cook
- a columnist for the anti-Semitic, pro-jihad, neo-Stalinist web
magazine Counterpunch - to attack IsraCampus.Org.il However they
have to go all the way to Abu Dhabi to get it published
“I have no hesitation in calling this a McCarthyite campaign,”
said David Newman, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University, in
Israel’s southern city of Beersheva. “What they are doing is very
dangerous.” Last month, in what appeared to be a new tactic,
IsraCampus placed a full-page advertisement in an official diary
issued to students at Haifa University, urging them to visit its
website to see a “rogues’ gallery” of 100 Israeli scholars the group
deems an “academic fifth column”. “The goal is to transform our
students into spies in the classroom to gather information and
intimidate us,” a senior Israeli lecturer said. “It’s a model of
‘policing’ faculty staff that has been very successful in stifling
academic freedom in the US.”
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon has
his material featured on anti-Semitic web site amid Holocaust Denier
columnists
Neo-Nazi
anti-Semitic web site that insists that the Jews were behind 9-11
attacks on the US and that Jews worship Satan, features, amidst the
Holocaust Denier columnists, Neve Gordon:
http://www.ziomania.com/
Either Gordon
himself asked to be reprinted there, or Gordon has declined to sue
the web site to get his material removed! (He did sue Prof. Steven
Plaut though because the latter dared to criticize Gordon's
political opinions)
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon
(Dept of Political Science) has issues with the “less tolerant”
“Zionist national narrative” in Israeli Schools; contributes to the
“Palestinian People” Myth by calling non-Jewish Israeli citizens
“Palestinians”
Consider the way
Jewish and Palestinian children are educated. Segregation in the
classroom is the rule so that Jewish and Palestinian children only
rarely mix. This strict segregation exists despite the fact that the
Palestinians are citizens of Israel … It is, no doubt, a truism that
public schools in modern liberal democracies inculcate their
students with the dominant national worldview. In the
US, for example, children still recite
the pledge of allegiance and in France children sing La
Marseillaise. But while the public schools in these democracies are
today more willing to provide students with a multicultural
curriculum that includes the historical narratives of those who have
been oppressed and marginalised over the centuries, Israel is
arguably becoming less tolerant to any pedagogy that challenges the
dominant Zionist national narrative.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Oren
Yiftachel (Dept. of Geography) smears the Israeli voter that “voted
for apartheid”; the “democratic bloc” for Yiftachel is composed of
Meretz and the Arab parties
Ironically, the
militaristic mood caused by the Gaza invasion backfired against its
architects-the ruling Kadima and particularly the Labor party, which
at least in rhetoric supports the peace process. The Jewish public
adopted Barak’s hard line against Hamas, but then (logically)
decided to strengthen the “real” militaristic alternative-the
colonialist Right. Another irony was that in the name of “democracy”
the Israeli elections, which were neither general nor free, put in
power a colonialist bloc bent on deepening the “creeping apartheid”
process even while vowing to remove the democratically elected Hamas
government. … The democratic bloc includes mainly the small
leftist-liberal Zionist party Meretz, the mixed Arab-Jewish
socialist party al-Jabha al-Dimuqratiyya lil-Salam wal-Musawa
(the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality; Hadash), and the Arab
parties al-Tajammu‘ al-Watani al-Dimuqrati (the National
Democratic Assembly; Balad) and al-Muwahida (Ra’am-Ta’al).
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University –
Summary of Neve Gordon’s (Dept of Political Science) anti-Israel
activity
One of the most bizarre aspects of this campus
war against the Jews is how numerous self-hating, anti-Semitic Jews
are in the ranks of the movement to achieve the annihilation of
Israel. For reasons that only a psychiatrist could fully understand,
these people use their birthright to give authenticity to the
campaign of delegitimizing and demonizing Israel. … Though he is an
Israeli citizen, Gordon invariably sides with Israel’s enemies in
the ongoing Mideast conflict. During the
siege of Ramallah in 2002, for instance, he barricaded himself
with
Yasser Arafat, the terrorist responsible for the deaths of more
Jews than any human being since Adolf Hitler. For years, Gordon has
been referring to Israel as a fascist, terrorist, “apartheid” state
that “resembles Nazi Germany.” He has posted numerous writings on
Holocaust-denial websites. And he has repeatedly advocated a “one
state” solution, in which Israel, by way of the so-called
Palestinian “right
of return” would be inundated with Arab “refugees” whose
inevitable political supremacy would spell the de facto end of
Israel.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Jerusalem Post readers
comment on Yocheved Miriam Russo’s article on Neve Gordon and Ben
Gurion University's response (updated as of 29/9/2009 11:55pm)
40. Gordon and his anti Israeli
Position
I have been to Ben Gurion University
and met some of the faculty and students and have earmarked a large
contribution. The fact that Ben Gurion University gave Gordon tenure
and promoted him to Department Head is very disturbing. Long ago it
was said freedom of speech does not go so far as to allow a man to
go into a crowded theatre and yell fire. This article is making me
reconsider altering my contribution.
Max Zaslawsky - USA (09/29/2009
11:09)
25. Neve Gordon
Is not the first or the last academic in Israel
to issue such statements of self-hatred, getting in bed with neo-nazis
if necessary to quote A. Dershowitz. He should start his boycott by
resigning from his position and leaving the country that raised him
at once. This kind of individual is counterproductive and a burden
for our society. I hope that BGU's Senate will take the appropriate
stance with this mentally impaired faculty of them. D. Rittel
Professor, Technion, Haifa
daniel rittel - israel (09/26/2009 17:05)
For more details and to
see the full original article,
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Ben Gurion University –
Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science) praises Kobi Snitz’s “civil
disobedience” against the “annexation wall”; laments the
“non-lethal” options the Security Forces use to encourage civil
obedience
Kobi Snitz … is an Israeli anarchist who is currently serving a
20 day sentence for refusing to pay a 2,000 shekel fine.
Thirty-eight year-old Snitz was arrested with other activists in the
small Palestinian village of Kharbatha back in 2004 while trying to
prevent the demolition of the home of a prominent member of the
local popular committee. … Both the demonstrations and the attempt
to stop the demolition were acts of civil disobedience. … that once
a village decides to struggle against the annexation barrier the
entire community is punished. In addition to home demolitions,
curfews and other forms of movement restriction, the Israeli
military forces consistently uses violence against the
protestors--and most often targets the youth-- beating, tear-gassing
as well as deploying both lethal and “non-lethal” ammunition against
them.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University –
The real reason why BGU became a den of treason
Ben Gurion
University
just can't get itself out of the headlines thanks to its
hordes of anti-Israel extremist faculty members. The worst is Neve
Gordon of BGU's political science department, so anti-Semitic that
his articles run on Holocaust Denial and official Iranian
governmental web sites, who has been leading the call for a world
boycott of Israel. So, Want to know the REAL reason why Ben Gurion
University became a den of treason? Ask Avishai Braverman, who
personally set up the Political Science Department there as Israel's
worst anti-Israel anti-Zionist propaganda bureau. Braverman was
president of BGU for many years and was in many ways even worse than
its current President, the clueless Rivka Carmi. Braverman filled
BGU with "post-Zionists" and "New Historians." He allowed the
political science department to fire and refuse to employ Zionists.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University –
Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science) - Jerusalem Post takes on Neve
Gordon and Ben Gurion University; Isracampus.Org.il and Campus
Watch featured
Unless one is a news junkie, an academic,
or closely involved with BGU, the name Neve Gordon may not ring many
bells among mainstream Israelis, either. Even so, within 48 hours,
4,000 emails protesting Gordon's remarks had landed in the inbox of
BGU President Rivka Carmi. Several days later, Carmi responded to
her department head's call for a boycott through her own LA Times
op-ed, admitting that she was "shocked" at what Gordon had written,
suggesting that even she hadn't been fully aware of what she called
Gordon's "destructive views."
NOT EVERYONE was shocked. For years,
watchdog organizations like Campus Watch and IsraCampus had
monitored Neve Gordon's words and activities, even before Gordon
made international news during the "Siege of Ramallah," when, in
2003, he joined Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, holed
up in his Ramallah compound. Defying IDF orders which forbade his
entry to Ramallah, he moved in to protect Arafat, taking up a
position as a "human shield." During the height of the intifada,
when suicide bombers belonging to the military wing of Arafat's
movement were blowing up Israeli cafes and buses, a photo of Gordon
and Arafat, hands joined and held high in solidarity, splashed
across the front pages of Israeli newspapers.
According to documents compiled by
watchdog IsraCampus (www.IsraCampus.org,il),
Gordon's dissident career was politically consistent. Calling Israel
an "apartheid" state had long been part of his anti-Israel rant.
Last December, at the height of Operation Cast Lead, as Hamas
rockets and missiles slammed into Israel - including striking the
BGU campus - Gordon again spoke out, denouncing not Hamas but
Israel.
…
In any communal organization, no one enjoys unrestricted rights,
they note. Just as the right to swing your arms stops where the
other fellow's nose begins, why can't there be some limit on the
things anyone - professor or not - is entitled to say, if his words
will prove detrimental to the community as a whole?
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Even Uri Avnery comes out against Neve
Gordon’s boycott however his argument is that it would be
ineffective
No one who entertains this hope can support
the call for boycotting Israel. Those who call for a boycott act
out of despair. And that is the root of the matter.
Neve Gordon and his partners in this effort
have despaired of the Israelis. They have reached the conclusion
that there is no chance of changing Israeli public opinion.
According to them, no salvation will come from within. One must
ignore the Israeli public and concentrate on mobilizing the world
against the State of Israel. (Some of them believe anyhow that the
State of Israel should be dismantled and replaced by a bi-national
state.)
I do not share either view - neither the
despair of the Israeli people, to which I belong, nor the hope
that the world will stand up and compel Israel to change its ways
against its will. For this to happen, the boycott must gather
worldwide momentum, the US must join it, the Israeli economy must
collapse and the morale of the Israeli public must break.
How long will this take? Twenty Years? Fifty
years? Forever?
Avnery is not arguing that a boycott would be
bad, but that it would be ineffective, that it would eviscerate any
popular support the 'peace movement' has here.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University –
Neve Gordon reiterates call for boycott on NY radio station
IsraCampus.Org.il's Summary of
audio interview:
Neve Gordon repeats claim that Israel is an Apartheid regime.
Lumps all non-Jewish Israeli citizens as “Palestinians”. He wants
the “pre-occupied” middle-class to “feel” the financial pinch to
effect “change”. Claims an obscure sentence from the original
editorial said that his advocacy of BDS was to be “gradual”.
Demands an academic boycott of Ariel College.
Advocates tracking businesses that work in Judea and Samaria.
Believes the BDS is for all: “one-state” and
“two-state” believers as well as “Zionists” and “Anti-Zionists”. BDS
is a tool for which to force Israel to abide by “international law”.
Voices opinion on tenure and BGU President's
comments: Academic freedom is at stake, his right to call for a
boycott has to be protected. Testifies to receiving 5000 emails of
support – 1000 from professors and other Academic Institutions
around the world [Why can’t he go to one of those Universities and
feel more at home?]. Belittles the BGU donors and calls the donor
boycott of BGU “ironic”.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University –
BGU Rector wants Gordon to resign
Ben-Gurion University will not fire Dr.
Neve Gordon, who
endorsed a boycott of
Israel, but officials call on him to resign his post as head of
the Political Science Department. University Rector Professor Jimmy
Weinblatt met Thursday with faculty members who signed a petition
supporting Gordon and told them he thinks it is not appropriate that
Gordon continue on in his position and that he must reach the proper
conclusions.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University –
Gordon’s cry for boycott gets likened to "anti-Semitism"
True, dirty laundry should be washed at
home, but boycotting Israel has long been heard internationally.
Baseless, outrageous, counter-productive and basically a very
valuable weapon, these cries against Israel stem from innate, deeply
embedded hatred. It is purely and simply anti-Semitism. Professor
Gordon’s demand is no different than Prof. Myers’s position that
kidnapping Israeli soldiers is a justifiable weapon. The aftermath
of the LA Times article teaches two things: First, donor revolt is a
very valuable tool and withholding funding garners attention.
Second, the Israeli and Jewish communities have slowly accepted the
realization they are at war. Now they must focus on the Israeli
Public Diplomacy front, where the battle is raging and they are
mounting incalculable losses.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
Even J Street denounces Gordon
J Street believes that calls
for boycotts and sanctions undermine our ability to achieve a
two-state solution and regional, comprehensive peace. … The answer,
however, isn’t to divest, boycott or sanction -
steps that deepen Israel’s sense of isolation and increase the
antagonism that surrounds the issue.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
Jerusalem Post Columnist calls for Sanctions against BGU as answer
to its Academic Fifth Column
Nor do professors' statements become
immune to criticism because they are uttered in a classroom.
Professors, like everyone else, should expect to have their work
evaluated. Just as parents and students have an interest in knowing
which professors have a tendency to get too friendly with female
students, so do they have a right to form judgments about which
professors are using their classrooms for political indoctrination,
not education. Groups like Campus Watch and
IsraCampus.Org.il foster such informed judgments by publicizing
both the published utterances and classroom statements of university
lecturers. In general, it would be foolish to refrain from
contributing to a university based on the views of one faculty
member. Doing so would eliminate every potential recipient. But Neve
Gordon is not a solitary rogue professor on the BGU campus. The BGU
Department of Politics and Government, which he chairs, fits the
description of former Minister of Education Amnon Rubinstein of
academic departments in Israel in which no traditional Zionist could
be appointed.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon
is not the ONLY Anti-Israel Illness at Ben Gurion University
Dr. Neve Gordon has turned David Ben Gurion in
his grave one more time, but who is really to blame for the fiasco
in Beer-Sheba? The answer is obvious. The University president who
helped to create in her midst the mafia that is called "the
department of Politics and Government.” For the last few years Prof.
Carmi ignored all the writing on the wall, but now she is panicking
as American Jewish donors refuse to take her telephone calls. ...
Professor Carmi was certainly aware of this
Gordon-terrorism encounter, which was splashed on many Israeli
newspapers, and yet she did not register any "outrage" at the time,
nor protest, needless to say, in the name of "academic freedom.” But
if the horror show in the Mukata'a might have been dismissed by her
as a one-off display of collaboration with Arafat, she could have
taken a note of more of Gordon’s other recent "misdemeanors" that
made similar headlines. Not in the very distant past Gordon
campaigned for and endorsed the views of the notorious anti-Semite
Norman Finkelstein. He also published articles on Holocaust denials
website, declared that Israel is not a democracy, celebrated
Palestinian bulldozer-murders, defended Azmi Bishara, the fugitive
former MK and Hezbollah agent, labeled IDF officers as war
criminals, called on his students to “resists” military service and
- maybe worst of all - tried to gag his critics by taking them to
court demanding financial compensation.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
The Orwellian Lobby for Neve Gordon
Neve Gordon makes Ilan Pappe look like a
serious academic and a patriotic Zionist. He makes Micah Leshem and
Yuval Yonay look rational and pro-Israel. It is always amusing
watching the Israeli Academic Fifth Column joining anti-Semites from
all over the world, rushing out to defend the right of anyone to
smear Israel and Jews, and to defend the most mind-bogging
falsehoods and blatant fabrications in the name of "academic
freedom." These are invariably the very same people who oppose
freedom of speech for those who disagree with their own political
agendas and, in particular, oppose freedom of expression for those
who think Israel has the right to exist and the right to defend
itself
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
LA Times readers express their dissatisfaction with Neve Gordon’s
call for boycott
-----Original Message-----
From: marion dreyfus
Sent: Tue, Aug 25, 2009 6:32 pm
Subject: letter to editor printed in the LAT (on Neve Gordon)
Gordon has always been quixotic, anti-Israel,
anti-Jewish and now, anti-common sense.
Boycotting his own country is clearly an
extreme and bizarre position for his bizarrely held views, and both
are problematic for his neighbors and co-religionists.
Marion DS Dreyfus
Atlanta
For more details and to
see the full original article,
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Ben
Gurion University Prez Carmi cites Gordon's claim that Israel is an
"apartheid" regime, but never gets around to pointing out that it is
NOT
However, I strongly believe a call for a
worldwide boycott of Israel written by a Ben-Gurion University
faculty member, Neve Gordon, that appeared in The Times oversteps
the boundaries of academic freedom -- because it has nothing to do
with it. Academic freedom exists to ensure that there is an
unfettered and free discussion of ideas relating to research and
teaching and to provide a forum for the debate of complicated ideas
that may challenge accepted norms. Gordon, however, used his pulpit
as a university faculty member to advocate a personal opinion, which
is really demagoguery cloaked in academic theory. Gordon argues that
Israel is an "apartheid" state and that "a boycott would save Israel
from itself." But the empirical facts show that it would destroy the
very fabric of the society that he claims to want to protect. … At
the same time, by calling on other entities, including academic
institutions, to boycott Israel -- and effectively, to boycott his
own university -- Gordon has forfeited his ability to work
effectively within the academic setting, with his colleagues in
Israel and around the world. After his very public, personal
soul-searching in his Op-Ed article, leading to his extreme
description of Israel as an "apartheid" state, how can he, in good
faith, create the collaborative atmosphere necessary for true
academic research and teaching?
For more details and to
see the full original article,
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Ben Gurion University
- Neve
Gordon's LA Times boycott editorial draws reader response
I am a
great believer in academic freedom, but academic freedom does not
mean one has free license to defame ones own country with anti-semitic
and anti-zionist propaganda as conducted by Neve Gordon, not just in
his latest outburst which you have censored but for years in the
past. I agree entirely with the stance taken by the LA Jewish
Federation. You and your predecessor had plenty of opportunity to
impose responsible freedom of speech amongst tenured staff but you
have declined to act responsibly to date. So is it surprising that
your funders have no option to take things in their own hands to
ensure that responsibilities instilled throughout all academic
fields in your University? ... I
have stopped giving donations to Friends of Israel universities for
the same reason ages ago. There are other ways open to me to ensure
that those who are deserving of funding, particularly on the
critical scientific research side (critical for Israel’s
future) do get funding through donations but not the likes of Mr.
Gordon.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
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Ben Gurion University -
Dr. Alex Grobman reflects on why Self-hating Israelis, like Neve
Gordon, Denounce Israel
In an August 20, 2009 editorial in the Los
Angeles Times, Neve Gordon, a professor of political science at
Ben-Gurion University, accused Israel of being an apartheid state.
He said a two-state solution was the “more realistic” way to end
this inequity. Since only “massive international pressure,” will
bring about this state and thus save Israel, Gordon recently joined
the Arab sponsored Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement
founded in July 2005.1 Vilification of Israel by Jews is
not a new phenomenon. … Levin sees an element of arrogance in “this
self-delusion” by Israelis who believe they can affect change. Jews
assume a responsibility for something over which they have no
control, to ward off despair. This is similar to an abused child who
feels responsible for his plight and views himself as “bad.” The
child maintains, “the fantasy that if he becomes good enough,” his
father will stop hitting him, his mother will give him attention and
whatever other form of abuse he suffered will end. 15 In
the same way, some Israelis are delusional when they assume they can
control Arab behavior.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
Martin Sherman (TAU - Dept of Political Science) shreds Neve
Gordon’s logic for boycotting Israel; rejects Alon Harel’s abuse of
“freedom of academic expression” on SocSci List
I should like to place on public record my
unequivocal refusal to attach my name to the proposed letter
distributed by Alon Harel, expressing support for Neve Gordon's
right to call for a boycott of Israel. … While freedom of academic
expression is of course a value of great importance it should not be
exposed to unbridled misuse - even less to cynical abuse – as it has
been in this instance. One might hope that the exercise of such
freedom would be constrained by other values - arguably of no lesser
importance -- such as moral integrity, and moral consistency.
Indeed, one can detect neither integrity nor consistency in Gordon's
continued acceptance of a salary paid in large degree from the
coffers of regime he finds so despicable and iniquitous that he
feels morally bound to work for its downfall. … Moreover, while
there may well be legitimate debate as what is true, there are
clearly claims that are demonstrably false. … Gordon's claim that
Israel is an apartheid state is no less preposterous than these
examples.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
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A Day of Shock in Beersheba
BGU President
Prof. Rivka Carmi says she’s “shocked” by the call to boycott Israel
made in a LA Times op-ed written by Dr. Neve Gordon, the Chairman of
her Department of Politics and Government. ... As for me, I’m
shocked that she’s shocked. ...
As seems apparent, Prof. Carmi has been unaware of
the anti-Israel venom that has, for many years, been spewing out of
her Department of Politics and Government. Not only has she not
taken steps to reprove or reform her wayward Department head, she’s
done precisely the opposite, not only promoting him, but endorsing
him, supporting him, defending him, repeatedly terming his vicious
hate propaganda "serious and distinguished research into human
rights." This can’t go on. So here’s my proposal: In order to save
BGU from itself, I think a boycott is in order. If we want to save
Beersheba’s much-loved Ben Gurion University of the Negev, then we
must boycott it.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University –
Jon Anson (Dept of Social Work) - Among Other Anti-Zionists at BGU backing
Neve Gordon's call for boycott of Israel
He states clearly: this is his opinion, this is
what worries him, as an Israeli, as someone who has chosen to make
Israel his home. He doesn't even call for a boycott, he merely
states his conclusion that only international pressure will get us
out of the impasse we are in, and that only a boycott will create
sufficient pressure to have an effect. His description of the
situation is uncomfortable -- but if what is happening on the West
Bank is not Apartheid, then what is it?
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University –
Yaakov (Yaki) Dayan, Israel's Consul-General in Los Angeles, warns
BGU President Rivka Carmi of pending financial sanctions by
“benefactors of Ben-Gurion University” due to the Neve Gordon's
apartheid editorial and “anti-Zionist lecturers like Gordon”
In the wake of the
publication of the article, Israel's Consul-General in Los Angeles,
Yaakov (Yaki) Dayan sent a letter to the president of Ben-Gurion
University, Prof. Rivka Carmi, in which he said that such statements
may be detrimental to the university. "Since the article was
published I've been contacted by people who care for Israel; some of
them are benefactors of Ben-Gurion University," Dayan wrote. "They
were unanimous in threatening to withhold their donations to your
institution. My attempt to explain that one bad apple would affect
hundreds of researchers turned out to be futile." "I believe that
the definitive answer to anti-Zionist lecturers like Gordon is to
set up a center for Zionist studies, which unfortunately does not
exist in Israeli academia," he continued. "This center would help
dispel the lies disseminated by Gordon in the name of your
university."
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University –
LA Jews threaten to boycott Ben Gurion University to save it from
Neve Gordon
According
to Israel's Haaretz, Aug. 23 2009, a large group of Los Angeles Jews
are launching a campaign to boycott Ben Gurion University for as
long as Gordon works there: … Gordon served as a "human shield" for
wanted terrorists and murderers being hidden by Yassir Arafat. He
has spent much of time in recent years promoting and supporting
Neo-Nazi Norman Finkelstein, who was fired by DePaul University for
his own lack of serious academic work. At DePaul University,
anti-Israel hate propaganda does not count as scholarship, but at
Ben Gurion University it does! He is a leftist Neo-Fascist who
opposes freedom of speech for those with whom he disagrees and has
attempted to use the Israeli court system to suppress democracy and
freedom of speech through SLAPP harassment. He has repeatedly called
for Israel to be eliminated altogether. Gordon's campaign for the
annihilation of Israel is being carried out while Gordon sits in a
cushy academic job paid for by the Israeli taxpayer.
To tell the heads of Ben Gurion University
what you think of all this, write to
Rivka Carmi, President
P.O. Box 653,
Beer-Sheva,
Israel, 84105
rcarmi@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
and
president@bgu.ac.il
Tel: 972-8-6461211/9
Fax: 972-8-6472991
Prof. Jimmy Weinblatt, Rector
P.O. Box 653,
Beer-Sheva,
Israel, 84105
rector@bgu.ac.il
Tel: 972-8-6461223
Fax: 972-8-6479434
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon
(Dept of Political Science) calls in the Los Angeles Times for a
world boycott of Israel. Is there no limit to academic treason even
at Israel's "Bir Zeit" of the Negev?
It is indeed
not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign
governments, regional authorities, international social movements,
faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend
cooperation with Israel. … The most accurate way to describe
Israel
today is as an apartheid state. … It is therefore clear to me that
the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through
massive international pressure. … I consequently have decided to
support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was
launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since
garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to
ensure that
Israel
respects its obligations under international law and that
Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.
Please write
to the heads of
Ben Gurion
University (contact information below) and let them know what you
think of this:
Rivka Carmi,
President
P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel,
rcarmi@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
and president@bgu.ac.il
Tel: 972-8-6461211/9
Fax: 972-8-6472991
Prof. Jimmy Weinblatt, Rector
P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel
rector@bgu.ac.il
Tel: 972-8-6461223
Fax: 972-8-6479434
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) anti-Israel drivel inspires
blogger Taming Korach
It is an irony
that it was Richard Silverstein's anti-Jewish blog that prompted me
to look into Newman's nonsense again after 8 years. It was probably
that initial exchange that was the real beginning of Taming Korach.
Now we are living under the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons-an
Iran that has been the principle supporter of Hezbollah. Newman,
like his American counterpart Silverstein uses a religious cover-a
bluff-to weaken Israel's position and attempt to incriminate the
very nation he belongs to. Newman is the quintessential Hellenized
Anglo Jew. He is "our" version of George Galloway-spending all of
his time and energy plotting against Israel, meanwhile remaining
oblivious to spiritual underpinnings of the Jewish presence in the
Land of Israel.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Amnon
Raz-Krakotzkin (Dept of Jewish History) - arch-hater of Israel and
Zionism - denounces Israel as an apartheid regime for pro-LSD
anti-Zionist Tikkun Magazine
"The vision of separation was realized by
erecting a separation wall between Israel and Palestine. The wall,
and the entire system of apartheid that is gradually being
established in the Occupied Territories, and the suffering that it
inflicts on the Palestinians, is legitimized in the name of the "war
against terror," and as a means of preventing suicide bombers from
entering Israel. But we should remember that the wall was there long
before its present monstrous realization. What we call the
separation wall was actually the Israeli vision of peace."
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Uri Gordon
(Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in Ketura) promotes
“anarchy”; more proof that Academic Standards are dead at Ben Gurion
University
Leadership in anarchist politics is addressed through sustained
attention to the concept of power, proposing an agenda for
equalising access to influence among activists, and an “ethic of
solidarity” around the wielding of non-coercive power. Violence is
approached through a recipient-based definition of the concept,
exploring the limits of any attempt to justify violence and offering
observations on violent empowerment, revenge and armed struggle.
Technology is subject to a strong anarchist critique, which stresses
its inherently social nature, leading to the exploration of Luddism,
the disillusioned use of ICTs, and the promotion of lo-tech,
sustainable human-nature interfaces as strategical directions for an
anarchist politics of technology. Finally, questions of nationalism
are approached through the lens of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
addressing anarchist dilemmas around statehood, and exploring
approaches to “national conflicts” that link multiple forms of
oppression and that employ a direct action approach to peacemaking.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve
Gordon’s (Dept of Political Science) distain for Israeli Democracy
shows him to be “out of touch” and “elitist”
The ever-present calls from within Israeli
society for "greater international involvement and pressure" on the
country are emblematic of a contempt for democracy. … Just after
Israel's 2009 elections, Prof. Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University
declared it was time for the US under Barack Obama to impose a
solution on Israel, and "if such intervention includes sanctions, it
is the only way to secure Israel's existence in the long run." … The
voter casts his vote for Lieberman primarily because the Left is
seen as being out of touch, elitist and incapable of solving the
intractable situation. … The reaction of those in a democracy when
the electorate fails to agree with them should not be to declare
that democracy a failure but to frame their proposed solutions in a
palatable manner.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon
(Dept of Political Science) calls Israel an “apartheid regime”;
ignores Jewish “Right of Settlement” recognized by the British
Mandate; calls all settlements in Judea and Samaria “illegal”
So far Obama's
challenges to Israel have been theoretical, and the only substantive
demand that Washington has made involves the 100 or so Jewish
outposts in the West Bank. Reiterating President Bush's directive,
Obama recently asked Netanyahu to begin dismantling the outposts.
Legally the outposts are just like the 121 settlements (namely, they
are all illegal). Only the outposts were built following the 1993
Oslo Accords, and, as opposed to the settlements, which are now home
to close to half a million Jews - or about 7 percent of Israel's
citizenry - almost all the outposts are extremely sparsely populated
with less than a dozen people in each.
…
If Obama hesitates, Israel will become a full blown apartheid
regime, while if he remains bold he will probably be remembered as
the president who helped save Israel from itself. To do so he will
have to make Netanyahu sweat much more.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon joins Stalinist cheerleader
for terrorism and jihad Noam Chomsky in protesting the arrest of the
criminal Ezra Nawi; concerned about “proto-fascist elements in
Israeli society”
People might
assume that Nawi's impending imprisonment as well as other alarming
developments (like the recent arrest of New Profile and Target 21
activists, who are suspected of abetting draft-dodgers) are due to
the establishment of an extreme rightwing government in Israel. If
truth be told, however, the rise of the extreme right merely
reflects the growing presence of proto-fascist elements in Israeli
society, elements that have been gaining ground and legitimacy for
many years now.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) prettifies and rationalizes the
anti-Israel boycott by British Anti-Semites
'Moreover, many Israeli academics
simply do not buy into the simplistic notions of collective
anti-Semitism as the main argument used by many of the community
groups. No, my colleagues are not naive....But to simply regurgitate
the argument of collective anti-Semitism in response to every
criticism of Israel and its policies is as self-defeating as it is
helpful. In continuous and ongoing discussions with our academic
colleagues in the UK, it is this simplistic charge of anti-Semitism
and the failure to engage with the real issues which pushes the
silent majority and the waverers into the corner of the
pro-boycotters.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
A Conference on "Academic Freedom" At Ben-Gurion
University
Reflecting on the Ben Gurion University politics department conference as
a whole, the main messages were two. First, academics’ right to be
paid to write and teach what they please, even if destructive,
should be regarded as an automatic entitlement. Post-Zionists are
always happy to bring their views to the public’s attention in
newspaper articles and advertisements, to teach them to their
students and to attempt to sway public opinion. The only people they
feel are not entitled to know about their activities
are those who foot the bills. Both private donors and public funders
are supposed to sign their checks behind a veil of ignorance, with
no full picture of how their money is being used. Public political
activities and published writings by extremists should never be
cited by anyone, except those who endorse their extremism. Anybody
seeking to enlighten the general public or university donors should
be shut up. In the name free speech, speech is to be curtailed and
information in which the public has a legitimate interest must be
suppressed!
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) denounces those who demand
accountability by universities
They are a small minority but do great
damage to the image of the universities and are, in turn, partially
responsible for the attempts by external agencies - be they private
philanthropists or public governmental agencies [including the Prime
Minister's Office? - Isracampus] - to intervene in the running of
these institutions.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman’s (Dept of Political Science) tirade continues to provoke
responses; NGO-Monitor.org
Executive Director Prof. Gerald Steinberg shows Newman where he was
wrong
He [Newman] even
invoked the hoary memory of "McCarthyism" - named for the leader of
the anti-communist witch-hunts of the 1950s in the US (that, not
coincidentally, also had anti-Semitic dimensions). And he omits the
role of "the academic Left" in targeting its enemies on the Right
and, more widely, of a wider indulgence in gratuitous
Israel-bashing. His allegations are wrong on many counts, beginning
with the over emphasis on ideology.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Daniel Bar-Tal (Tel Aviv University
- Dept. of Political Psychology) and David Newman’s (Ben Gurion
University – Dept of Political Science) use of “McCarthyism” is
“absurd, intellectually dishonest and immoral” according to
NGO-Monitor.org Executive
Director Prof. Gerald Steinberg
Is the right to criticize restricted to this
elite, while its members have divine immunity from being criticized
when they fail to live up to the universal moral principles that
they exploit? Furthermore, I find ideological claims of "attempts to
restrict free speech" and the absurd use of the term "McCarthyism",
intellectually dishonest and immoral. By screaming "McCarthyism"
whenever critical analyses of their claims or activities are
published, these critics can themselves be accused of trying to
suppress and discredit free speech.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) – Time has proven David Newman
wrong about the Security Wall
The lull in bombings over the past six months has
been taken by most Israelis as proof that the security wall has
served its professed purpose: keeping the bombers out of Israel. The
proponents of the wall, which is still being built even though the
international court of justice has ruled it illegal, point to the
Beersheba bombings as further proof of its value. Why, they ask, did
terrorism move southwards this week? Because, they answer, this is
the only region where suicide bombers can still cross with relative
ease from the West Bank into Israel.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) continues, on the Social Science
Network, his crusade to squash Freedom of Speech and Democracy;
calls University Heads and Rectors to support the Far-Leftist
Treason in the name of Freedom of Speech
It is also time
that University Presidents and Rectors made their voices heard. They
have remained silent for too long, always fearing to annoy their
donors - especially in North America. While we cannot be naive about
the perilous state of finance of our universities, there are times
when the power of the pocket book must be combatteed [sic]
with a principled argument and statement. The failure of the heads
of our Universities to make their position on academic freedom and
right of speech absolutely clear, is not to their credit.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman's (Dept of Political Science) Jerusalem Post Editorial spurs
reader responses
Bashing
critics of the Left, David Newman purports to defend free speech.
But in his April 14 op-ed "Bashing the academic Left," he simply
tries to silence those who disagree with him.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) – Was David Newman's nasty
outburst caused by the refusal of SPME to sponsor a speaking tour by
him as he was demanding?
One of the groups
smeared by BGU leftist and Tikkun columnist David Newman in the
Jerusalem Post a few days ago was the Scholars for Peace in the
Middle East. SPME is a pro-Israel advocacy group, hardly associated
with the "Right." Indeed for years I have criticized its directors
for failure to confront the anti-Semitic Left more vigorously and
for their delusion that such people may be "persuaded" and
convinced. In any case, now it turns out that David Newman's
tantrum against SPME and nasty outburst in the Jerusalem Post was
actually caused by the refusal of SPME to sponsor an
all-expenses-paid speaking tour for Newman, as he was demanding from
them a while back.
For details and
the SPME rebuttal,
go here
Meanwhile, Campus Watch has issued a devastating rebuttal of
Newman's rant,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) – Yet another Enemy of Freedom of
Speech and Democracy at Ben Gurion University
That does not stop Newman from
attacking on the pages of the Jerusalem Post critics of seditious
leftist anti-Israel propagandists pretending to be
academics. Newman dismisses critics of anti-Israel critics as "McCarthyists,"
as people who should be stripped of their right to exercise
THEIR freedom of speech, prevented from criticizing
anti-Israel extremists. Newman
specifically attacks Dr. Daniel Pipes of Campus-Watch.org, Prof.
Gerald Steinberg of NGO-Monitor, and Israeli academic watchdog
groups (such as
isracampus.org.il), for the "crime" of exposing anti-Israel
fanatics serving on Israeli campus faculties. In most cases, these
watchdogs simply cite the malicious hate propaganda produced by
these fanatics in their own words. But in the eyes of the
neo-fascist McCarthyist Left, critics of the Left are not entitled
to freedom of expression.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) has arguments casually shredded
by Winfield Myers of Campus Watch in response to Newman's assault on
critics of Left-wing dogma
Critics who cannot muster empirical arguments often settle for ad
hominem attacks and hackneyed clichés, and no cliché is more worn
than the charge that off-campus critics of higher education engage
in McCarthyism. … But feelings of persecution lend a touch of
authenticity to lives of some academics, providing as they do a
veneer of viability and importance to those who might otherwise be
overlooked and ignored.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) – Extreme Left-wing critic who
can not tolerate criticism from others
The academic
McCarthyism of the Right endangers Israeli democracy and society. It
threatens the very basis of freedom of speech. The self-styled
patriots are causing enormous damage to the country and should be
prevented from assuming the cloak of self-appointed defenders of the
common good, which they are clearly not.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – David
Newman (Dept of Political Science) has long history of claiming
Israeli “McCarthyism”
But many of these
scholars, particularly those who are critical of government policy
on social and political issues - such as the debate around the peace
process and the treatment of Palestinians - have come under
increasing attack since the breakdown of the Oslo agreements and the
return to mutual terror and violence. Attempts are being made to
silence or delegitimize their views in ways that some view as
Israel's own take on McCarthyism.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University "Academic"
Serving as Accomplice for Tehran Holocaust Deniers
That same Neve Gordon has a new job - bashing
Israel as a columnist for the Tehran Times. Yes, Gordon is openly
the accomplice of the Holocaust Denying mullahs of Iran threatening
Israel with nuclear annihilation. See his latest exercising in
anti-Semitism
here.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Oren Yiftachel (Dept. of
Geography) - Anti-Israel Totalitarian Indoctrination at Ben Gurion
University
Current Events Quiz:
Count the number of pro-Israel articles or
writers appear on Ben Gurion University anti-Zionist Oren
Yiftachel's course syllabus for course entitled "ISRAEL/PALESTINE:
THE POLITICS OF LAND AND IDENTITY" (note the discovery of a new
country called Israel/Palestine)
Correct answer: zero (aside from some writers
about America and ethnicity in general under the first topic)
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Lev
Grinberg (Dept of Sociology) laments the use of “horror comedy” in
recent Israeli films; chalks it up to “impotence of Israeli civil
society”
These movies well exemplify the lack of hope and inability to
even imagine a non-violent reality in Israel since 2000, a situation
that became evident to most Israelis as a result of the second
Lebanon War in August 2006. At the end of the most consensual war
since 1967, Israeli public debate became completely apolitical with
only military options discussed. The Winograd Commission of Inquiry,
established by public pressure to investigate the failure of the
war, did not even ask whether there could have been a nonviolent
option following the abduction of two soldiers by the Hezbollah. …
Palestinian filmmakers discovered the hopeless political reality
before the Israelis, apparently after 11 September 2001 and the
re-occupation of the West Bank.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon
(Dept. of Political Science) is an Israeli Disgrace
If western leaders want to be conceived as credible, they must
change their policy and meet with Hamas as well. Otherwise, their
decision to meet Lieberman will be rightly perceived as hypocritical
and duplicitous, and the pervasive perception in the region – that
the United States and Europe are biased in Israel's favour – will
only be strengthened.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon
(Dept of Political Science) - Al Jazeera Columnist article draws
response from IsraCampus.Org.il reader
Rivka I can not
understand why an eminent institution like Ben Gurion University
would continue to employ Professor Neve Gordon. I am appalled to
learn that he has taken up a position as a columnist with the web
site Aljazeera.com. Are you not aware of his anti Israel comment and
activities? He has his articles still posted on Holocaust denial
websites; apparently he thinks Israel is a pariah state. He
certainly has distorted historical facts and turned the classroom
into a propaganda battlefield.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon
(Dept of Political Science) is Al Jazeera's newest Columnist
So here we have
the spectacle of an anti-Semitic Israeli lecturer turning out
Bash-Israel and Bash-the-Jews propaganda for one of the most openly
anti-Semitic group of jihadniks on the planet. Ben Gurion University
regards Gordon's anti-Israel hate propaganda as "scholarship" and
"research" and granted him tenure on its basis, proving that serious
academic standards no longer are upheld at Ben Gurion University.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon
(Dept of Political Science) promotes the re-division of Jerusalem;
calls on Obama to intrude on Israel’s sovereignty and to impose
sanctions
The task might seem greater than it actually
is, since ironically the majority of Jews (despite the elections)
and Palestinians in the region support the two-state solution. The
deadlock has occurred because the Israeli political configuration
has allowed a sizable minority of settlers and their sympathizers to
block all past governments from making the necessary compromises.
This deadlock, however, can be overcome if the international
community, and particularly the US, assumes a more interventionist
role. And while intervention may be conceived by some as
anti-Israeli, particularly if such intervention includes sanctions,
it is the only way to secure Israel's existence in the long run.
Obama should not therefore hesitate to compel the incoming
government to adopt the two-state solution. This would be the
genuine pro-Israeli stance.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Amnon
Raz-Karkotzkin (Dept of History) supports pro-terror Arab Party
Balad
"The ongoing incitement against Balad stems
from a fear of equality, which is why Azmi Bishara is being
persecuted," he stated. "Find someone who seriously thinks that he
spied for Hizbullah. Anyone looking for a spy wouldn't have used
Azmi Bishara," he added. …"Balad doesn't give me an identity and I
don't vote in the elections in order to secure self-identity.
Balad's platform talks about full civil equality "… "I feel
compelled to identify with Balad's demand for a state of all its
citizens," he said.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion
University - Oren Yiftachel (Dept. of Geography) makes his bed
with the Hamas
He points out at the fact that the recent
operation in Gaza has been launched and backed by two outgoing
Governments in Jerusalem and Washington against a "democratically
elected Government". Here Yiftachel excels himself by arguing that
Israel and the USA had no legitimacy to attack Hamas because their
administrations were at their "dying days", while the regime in Gaza
enjoys popular and legal acceptability. And what does the world do,
he cried out, "…it imposed sanctions on the Hamas Government", and
by doing so it "punished the occupied twice: once by the brutal
occupation and a second time for attempting to resist".
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben-Gurion University –
Anti-Israeli Extremists utilize the University closure to publish
additional Israel-bashing materials
Ben-Gurion University, the campus with arguably the largest number
of anti-Israel extremist faculty members, was shut down for weeks as
Hamas rockets bathed Beersheba. Several rockets landed close to the
campus. Public-school buildings in Beersheba were destroyed by
rockets. Yet leftist faculty members at BGU went on the warpath
against Israel and in support of Hamas. In an article titled "Black
January," BGU sociologist Lev Grinberg proclaimed Hamas terrorists
to be the true Maccabees, struggling against the evil empire:
I admit that I find the name "Cast Lead" in bad taste because of
its allusion to Chanukah and the Maccabees who fought against a
mighty conqueror. If indeed there is a struggle here of the weak
against an occupying empire, it is the struggle of Hamas against
Israel, not the other way around. Our self-image as the weak
victim is utterly surreal and trapped in the mythology of the Jews
as the ultimate victims, regardless of reality.... The firing of
missiles by the prisoners in protest against their starvation was
interpreted as aggression, while their oppression by their jailers
was interpreted as self-defense.
Grinberg had earlier denounced Israel's targeting of terrorist
leaders as "symbolic genocide."
Neve Gordon, a BGU lecturer now
serving as the chairman of political science at the university,
turned out one pro-terror anti-Israel article after the next for
anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi websites, denouncing Israel as a criminal
entity. In one, he excoriated Israel for bombing the Islamic
"university" in Gaza that was serving as the storage warehouse for
the very same rockets being fired at his own university campus.
Oren Yiftachel, a professor of
geography at Ben Gurion University who has made a career out of
denouncing Israel for being an "apartheid" regime, cheered the
firing of rockets at the children of Sderot and Netivot as the moral
and just response of Palestinians "imprisoned" by Israel firing at
their "jailers."
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
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.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Lev
Grinberg’s (Dept of Sociology) “Symbolic Genocide” is nothing more
than reversal of culpability - Critique of the original claim
Despite Grinberg’s
carefully formulated language, the term “symbolic genocide”,
represents a false accusation. The main reason why it lacks merit is
that the Palestinians target Israeli civilians, while, in the
exercise of its legitimate right of self-defense, Israel does not
target Palestinian civilians. One may observe that Grinberg has
actually reversed the role of the criminal and the victim,
portraying Israeli society as sick and attributing to it genocidal
intent which does not exist, but which, on the contrary, may be
clearly identified on the other side. During the Cold War, Soviet
propagandists first developed this technique which has later become
known as “the moral inversion of terms” or the “reversal of
culpability”.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Lev
Grinberg (Dept of Sociology), the guy who claims that targeting
terrorist leaders is "symbolic genocide", claims the Hamas are the
real Maccabis fighting the evil empire:
' admit that I
find the name 'Cast Lead' in bad taste because of its allusion to
Hanukah and the Maccabees who fought against a mighty conqueror. If
indeed there is a struggle here of the weak against an occupying
empire, it is the struggle of Hamas against Israel, not the other
way around. Our self-image as the weak victim is utterly surreal and
trapped in the mythology of the Jews as the ultimate victims,
regardless of reality....The firing of missiles by the prisoners in
protest against their starvation was interpreted as aggression,
while their oppression by their jailers was interpreted as
self-defense.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Oren Yiftachel (Dept. of
Geography) promotes the claims of the refugee
expulsion; alleges a conspiracy over Gaza history
If so, the current invasion into Gaza
is not just an operation to halt the rockets, a pre-election effort
to improve political profiles or an attempt to rehabilitate Israeli
deterrence. The invasion is not just another attempt to ‘make
order’ for others and bring down the elected Hamas government, or
an imperial (Israeli-American) effort to control the Muslim populace
by increasingly violent means. The current invasion is of course all
of the above. But it is also the continuation of a long-lived
strategy to deny, erase and smash any mention of this place’s
history over recent generations. Almost everyone – politicians,
artists, the media, university researchers and intellectuals have
joined in this erasure project.
So, against the erasure efforts, let us
remind ourselves: the Gaza strip was formed as a geographical entity
after the 1948 war, when about 150,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were
expelled to it from what is today south-western Israel.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Haim Yacobi (Dept of Politics & Bimkom
Board Member) and Prof. Zvi Bentwich lead an Israeli call to stop
the "disproportionate harm" and investigate "grave violations" by
the military
[You may recall that just before the US and its
allies invaded Iraq to topple Saddam, a group of more than 500
Israeli "academics" disseminated a petition all over the world in
which they announced that the moment the first GI stepped foot in
Iraq Israel was planning to conduct Nazi-like genocidal atrocities
against Arabs. The GIs arrived and no mass murders of Arabs took
place. Not a single one of those 500+ faculty members then issued an
apology. Several explained that Israel really WAS planning to
conduct a genocide but was scared off from doing so thanks to their
petition.
Well, now a smaller number of similar moonbats,
including some of the usual Israeli academics for Hamas, are back,
with a new petition. It is being promoting by a gaggle of treasonous
pro-terror leftist groups, led by Uri Avnery, Israel's Lord
Haw-Haw:]
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon
(Dept of Political Science) gets indignant over arrests of Leftist
Protesters [its good enough for the Settlers but its “intimidation”
when applied to Leftists]
NEVE GORDON: I
have two comments to make, one related to protest in media. 700
Israelis have been arrested since this war began, because they
protested this war. This has not made it to an international media,
and it’s an act of intimidation by the state against those who
protest the war.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon
(Dept of Political Science) continues his PR
campaign on behalf of the Hamas on the anti-Semitic
pro-terror Counterpunch web site; divides
Jerusalem:
'Regardless of how
lethal Israel's military attacks are now, the idea is to intimidate
the Palestinian population by underscoring that the violence can
always become more deadly and brutal. This guarantees that violence,
both when it is and when it is not deployed, remains an ever-looming
threat.
'The message to
the Israelis is a moral one. The subtext is that the Israeli
military could indiscriminately unleash its vast arsenal of
violence, but chooses not to, because its forces, unlike Hamas,
respect human life.
'This latter claim
appears to have considerable resonance among Israelis, and, yet, it
is based on a moral fallacy. The fact that one could be more brutal
but chooses to use restraint does not in any way entail that one is
moral.... Ultimately, the moral claims the Israeli government uses
to support its actions during this war are empty. They actually
reveal Israel's unwillingness to confront the original source of the
current violence, which is not Hamas, but rather the occupation of
the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Oren Yiftachel
(Dept. of Geography) calls Israel an apartheid state and
repeats claims of “ethnic cleansing” as justification for the Hamas'
shelling from Gaza
I have termed this process "creeping
apartheid" — an undeclared yet powerful political order which
creates vastly unequal forms of citizenship under one ruling power.
Rights under such regimes are determined by a combination of ethnic
affiliation and place of birth. This cannot be illustrated more
vividly than by noting the differences in mobility and property
rights — Jews are free to move and purchase land in almost the
entire area under Israeli control, while Palestinians are limited to
separated enclaves — Gazans in Gaza only, Jerusalemites only in
Jerusalem and so on.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science)
defends the rights of the Hamas to bomb Israel, because occupation
itself is a worse form of violence, and never mind that Gaza was
relieved from occupation years ago
NEVE GORDON: ... First of all, I agree with the
idea of a basic right to self-defense. And the right to self-defense
is a right to self-defense from violence. We have to understand that
the occupation itself is violence. It’s an act of violence. Putting
people in a prison, in a prison of one million and a half million
people and keeping them there for years on end without basic
foodstuff, without allowing them to enter and exit when they will,
is an act of violence. Without electricity, without clean water,
it’s all an act of violence. And these people are resisting. I am
against the way they’re resisting, but we have to look at their
violence versus our violence.
About between ten and twenty people, Israelis,
have died from rockets in the eight years that rockets have been
launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel. During the same amount of
time, 4,000 Israelis have died from car accidents. And yet, we don’t
see an outrage against the terrorism on the streets in Israel. But
from these twenty people, we’re allowed to enter into the Gaza Strip
and bomb them from the air into their cage and kill 275 children.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science)
says its ok for Hamas' development of weapons and explosives at Islamic
University to continued unimpeded
Notwithstanding the importance of the Islamic University, Israel
has tried to justify the bombing. An army spokeswoman told The
Chronicle that the targeted buildings were used as “a research and
development center for Hamas weapons, including Qassam rockets. …
One of the structures struck housed explosives laboratories that
were an inseparable part of Hamas’s research-and-development
program, as well as places that served as storage facilities for the
organization. The development of these weapons took place under the
auspices of senior lecturers who are activists in Hamas.” Islamic
University officials deny the Israeli allegations. Yet even if there
is some merit in them, it is common knowledge that practically all
major American and Israeli universities are engaged in research and
development of military applications and receive money from the
Pentagon and defense corporations. Weapon development and even
manufacturing have, unfortunately, become major projects at
universities worldwide - a fact that does not justify bombing them.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion
University - Neve Gordon's (Dept of Political Science) anti-Israel
ravings continues to irritate more University Donors and Fund
Raisers
President Rivka Carmi,
Ben Gurion University:
It is astounding the Dr.
Gordon can continue in his position with your university when he
publicly expresses fervent anti-Israel sentiments. No matter the
position you state regarding the position of your University, his
statements undermine your own. Your support of his right to free
speech is actually an endorsement of hate speech that damages the
image of Ben Gurion University. Perhaps the bombing of the Islamic
University robs him of a future platform from which he can support
the anti-Israel fervor of their own students. There can be no
intellectual benefit for Jewish students who attend Ben Gurion
University and are confronted by Dr. Gordon's hate speech from his
classroom podium. Why would Ben Gurion University expect donors to
pay for him to continue undermining the position of Israel in the
current war with Hamas in Gaza? I hope you will reconsider your
hiring criteria for professors and terminate Dr. Gordon's position
as soon as possible before he can do more damage to the minds of
students and the image of your outstanding University.
Sincerely,
Barbara Moretsky, Michigan, USA
Ben Gurion
University - Neve Gordon's (Dept of Political Science) long term
defamation does not go
unnoticed
A Letter from Prof. Barr:
From:
driheart@aol.com
To:
rstrongin@aabgu.org
Sent: Tue, 6 Jan 2009 8:38 am
Subject: Gordon continues to defame Israel while escaping up north
out of range of Qassams
Dear Ronni Stronin, Here we go again: Three
defaming articles by Neve Gordon in one week. The "chair" of the
university which you support is only expressing his opinion out of
range of missiles. This coward is defaming you and your effort. I
call to AABGU to close your offices and go home. Israel does not
need your support of people like Neve Gordon who work hard to
destroy Israel.
Professor Isaac Barr, Michigan.
Ben Gurion University - The latest anti-Israel diatribe by Neve
Gordon (Dept of Political Science) in the anti-Semitic magazine "The
Nation"
There is something extremely cynical about how
Israel explains its use of humanitarian assistance, and yet such
unadulterated explanations actually help uncover an important facet
of postmodern warfare. Not unlike raising animals for slaughter on a
farm, the Israeli government maintains that it is providing
Palestinians with assistance so that it can have a free hand in
attacking them. And just as Israel provides basic foodstuff to
Palestinians while it continues shooting them, it informs
Palestinians--by phone, no less--that they must evacuate their homes
before F-16 fighter jets begin bombing them.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Yossi Amitay of Ben-Gurion University does the
Shimmy-Dhimmi
Cocoa Pop
Amitay has called openly
for divestment and boycotts against Israel, the country that pays
his salary at Ben Gurion University. He has called for international
involvement to force militarily or otherwise Israelis and Jews in
Judea and Samaria from their homes and
objected to the IDF fighting terrorism as not leading to a solution.
... Something else though that Amitay does not consider in his
analysis of Arab suffering and humiliation is that the anti-Israel,
anti-Zionist carryings-on by the Arabs are also a business, and a
big business it is. Every “Palestinian” Arab created by the Arab
League after 1948 was forced to tithe to Yasser Arafat and the PLO.
This included even so-called “refugees” who were no longer refugees.
The Arabs, whose ancestors were from “Palestine” in Kuwait, for
example, were given Palestinian passports and had their incomes
deducted to pay Arafat regularly, who parlayed those funds into
being the fifth richest man in the world at the time of his death.
The Palestinians are the
biggest moneymaking scam in the history of the world.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon and Jeff Halper denounce
Israel in the leftwing neo-nazi web magazine Counterpunch for
bombing terrorists holed up in an Islamofascist "university" in
Gaza, the very same day that Gordon's own university, Ben Gurion
University, had to shut down because of rockets landing in Beer
Sheba
The notorious Solidarity-with-Terrorism duo
Neve Gordon, Chairman of the Political Science Department
at Ben Gurion University, and Jeff Halper, the latter who used to
teach at Ben Gurion University, denounce Israel in the leftwing neo-nazi
web magazine Counterpunch for bombing terrorists holed up in an
Islamofascist "university" in Gaza, the very same day that Gordon's
own university, Ben Gurion University, had to shut down because of
rockets landing in Beer Sheba. In other words, they are upset that
Israel attacked the very same terrorist "university" in Gaza that
was being used as a warehouse for rockets being aimed at Ben Gurion
University!
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept of Political Science)
has uncovered the reason for Israel's "aggression" and "war crimes"
'The assault on Gaza is also being carried out
to help Kadima and Labour defeat Likud and its leader Binyamin
Netanyahu, who is currently ahead in the polls....Yet, the
government is actively misleading the public, since Israel could
have put an end to the rockets a long time ago. Indeed, there was
relative quiet during the six-months truce with Hamas, a quiet that
was broken most often as a reaction to Israeli violence: that is,
following the extra-judicial execution of a militant or the
imposition of a total blockade which prevented basic goods, like
food stuff and medicine, from entering the Gaza Strip. Rather than
continuing the truce, the Israeli government has once again chosen
to adopt strategies of violence that are tragically akin to the ones
deployed by Hamas; only, the Israeli ones are much more lethal. If
the Israeli government really cared about its citizens and the
country's long term ability to sustain itself in the Middle East, it
would abandon the use of violence and talk with its enemies.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Idan Landau is one linguist who minces words (against
Israel).
Both Chomsky and Rhinehart
cloned themselves with students who not only became linguists, but
carried on the same radical leftist anti-Semitism against Israel and
other such claptrap in our colleges. Hence, today we find
Idan Landau, a student and acolyte of both professors, now a
Foreign Literatures and Linguistics professor at Ben Gurion
University, and another example of an anti-Israel Israeli academic
plying the world with the misuse of language as if he is one of the
Arabs himself, when he could be showing the world how the Arabs use
language to deceive the West to condemn Israel.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept. of Political
Science) appointed to Department Head despite anti-Israel "research"
He barricaded himself with Arafat
during the siege of Ramallah, he has his articles posted on
Holocaust denial websites, he thinks Israel is a pariah state, he
distorted historical facts, he turned the classroom into a
propaganda battlefield, he advocated a one-state solution, and yet,
he was recently appointed as the head of Ben Gurion University's
department of Politics and Government. Will you send your child to
study there?
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Haim Yacobi (Dept of Politics & Bimkom
Board Member) rants that the Acre Riots were a result of a national
“intentional policy” to repress the 1948 “internal refugees” and
ignores that the
Acre Rioters
were not from Acre
More on Bimkom’s
Anti-Israel activities can be seen here
A significant portion of the Arab population in
mixed cities within the Green Line (Israel's pre-1967 border) is
comprised of internal refugees, who were disinherited from their
lands following the establishment of Israel. Not only do they suffer
from the trauma of displacement, but they are also socially and
economically disenfranchised. This status is not coincidental,
evolutional or neutral: It is the product of intentional policy,
mostly implicit but occasionally explicit, operating according to
ethno-national logic. Its main objective has and continues to be
maintenance of the demographic dominance of the Jewish majority over
the Arab minority in mixed cities.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Assassin in Prison but his
Protector (Neve Gordon) is Teaching at Ben Gurion University
The murderers of Ze’evi were kept hidden in the
“Mukata’a”
headquarters of Yassir Arafat in Ramallah, in defiance of all the
obligations of the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo accords.
While hidden there, the Israel Defense Forces attempted to apprehend
the murderers and had the headquarters surrounded. But then a group
of “human shields” and “Solidarity with Terrorism” protesters from
the anti-Israel radical Left entered Ramallah illegally and
interfered with the attempts to arrest the murderers. ... Among
those leading the “Solidarity with Terrorism” human shields that
illegally interfered with the attempt to arrest the murderers in
Ramallah was Neve Gordon, an anti-Israel extremist at Ben Gurion
University. Gordon considers Israel to be a fascist, apartheid
terrorist entity and recently has been calling for Israel’s
elimination altogether as part of the so-called “One-State
Solution,” in which Israel will be enfolded inside a larger
Arab-dominated Islamofascist-controlled state. The “One-State
Solution” of the anti-Semitic Left should better be called the
Rwanda solution to the Jewish problem.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Rivka Carmi, President of Ben
Gurion University, hails anti-Israel activity on her campus
That is an educational system like those of
totalitarian and communist countries, countries where radical
socialism rules what everyone thinks. Whereas, some faculty at BGU -
without protest from Rivka Carmi - have called for the annihilation
of Israel and even served as human shields for Arafat in his
compound after the Passover Massacre, or objected to Israel’s
controlling overseas Arab academics from entering the West Bank out
of security concerns, Rivka Carmi has stated that she considers
American donors objecting to funding of such anti-Israel “faculty”
at BGU constitutes “trying to dictate the agenda of the University.”
She considers donors speaking up as
outside interference, but the boycotting her own university by
outside interests inspired by overseas radicals as perfectly
justifiable.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Uri Ram (Dept. of Sociology) has a
"glaring flaw of logic"
For it takes only
the most elementary analytical skill to identify the glaring flaw in
the logic of post–Zionist positions which - allegedly in the name of
enlightened liberal values - call for the conversion of
Israel from a "Jewish State" to a "state of all its citizens."
It requires no extraordinary intellect to grasp the fact that should
such a change indeed take place, the resulting realities would in
fact be the exact antithesis of the values invoked for making it.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University students strike back at Yakim Silverman
You may recall the incident a few months back
in which an Arab lecturer at the Sapir College in Sderot refused to
allow a student wearing an army reserve uniform to enter his class
room.
Well, this time a radical leftist self-hating
Jewish teaching assistant at Ben Gurion University named Yakim
Silverman did the same thing. A few weeks back he asked a student in
reserve uniform not to enter his class. Silverman teaches in the Ben
Gurion U math department, the same department in which ultra-leftist
Kobi Snitz, head of Anarchists for Attacking Israeli Police and
Tearing down the Security Wall so that Terrorists can Get In, used
to teach. Snitz has since moved to Bar Ilan's math department. On
his Linkedin entry, Silverman describes Ben Gurion University as
occupied Palestinian land. It is not known whether he ever studied
under Ben Gurion University anti-Israel fanatics Neve Gordon or Oren
Yiftachel.
Yesterday a student wearing an army reserve
uniform and a mask entered the classroom in which Silverman sat with
two students and dumped a bucket of paint on him.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University’s Disloyalty Pledge
Several faculty members at BGU openly call for
Israel to be eliminated and replaced by a Rwanda-style bi-national
state run by the PLO with an Arab majority, including Prof. Amnon
Raz-Krakotzkin. BGU sociologist Lev Grinberg made headlines last
year for claiming that Israel was engaging in "symbolic genocide
against Palestinians" when it assassinates arch-terrorists and mass
murderers like the Hamas' Sheikh Yassin. This led the past Minister
of Education in BGU to boycott BGU's Board of Governors meeting.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University
- Neve Gordon, (Dept. of Political Science) celebrates anti-Israel
violence and hooliganism in the West Bank
'Another aspect of Ni'lin that goes against
existing stereotypes is that Palestinians and Jews are not fighting
on different sides of this fray, but rather scores of Jewish Israeli
and international activists are standing beside the Palestinians
residents as they try to stop military bulldozers from destroying
Ni'lin's land. Indeed, among those injured are many Israelis. The
story of Ni'lin is, in other words, the story of a colonized people
resisting colonization.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Dr. Isaac Barr (Michigan) comments on anti-Israel extremism at
Ben Gurion University:
From: DrIHeart
To: president@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
Sent: 7/11/2008 1:32:55 P.M. Eastern Daylight
Time
Subj: Ben-Gurion University is loosing Jewish
support.
President, The fact that
BGU harbors and nourishes a radical anti Israel, anti Jewish person
like Neve Gordon is a disgrace. On his sabbatical in Ann Arbor
University of Michigan he did whatever he could to propagate hate to
Israel and her right to exist. Under the mask of "freedom of speech"
and "academic freedom" he attempted to indoctrinate students to
share his views. He must be doing same in BGU. He ignored homicide
bombers, Qassam missile launching and the plight of Sderot. He does
not allow to be criticized. Students complained. Academic freedom
requires accuracy, fairness, honest, balance and must allow
criticism. University classes cannot be a stage for propaganda. BGU
should not renew the tenure of Neve Gordon.
Isaac Barr MD, 6209
Dakota Circle, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 48301.
Ben Gurion University - Uri Ram (Dept. of Sociology) clashes
with the President of University of Haifa
The President of
Haifa University declared that a certain teacher who supports the
boycott should resign, because one cannot support a boycott of the
university and still "enjoy its delights." It's good to know that
the President is "enjoying the delights" of the university. Maybe
this is why he thinks that the university is his own private
property, or the property of those who agree his stance. It is, of
course, a "non-political" stance - just a simple acquiescence to the
occupation and its horrors, all while enjoying the university's
delights.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University
- Neve Gordon, (Dept. of Political
Science) writes
in the anti-Semitic web magazine "Counterpunch" that Israel is
practicing the "politics of death"
'If in 1968 Israel helped Palestinians in the
Gaza Strip plant some 618,000 trees and provided farmers with
improved varieties of seeds for vegetables and field crops, during
the first three years of the second Intifada Israel destroyed more
than ten percent of Gaza's agricultural
land and uprooted over 226,000 trees.
The appearance and proliferation of the flag on
the one hand, and the razing of trees on the other, signify a
fundamental transformation in Israel's
attempts to control the occupied Palestinian inhabitants. It appears
as if Israel decided to alter its methods of upholding the
occupation, replacing a politics of life, which aimed to secure the
existence and livelihood of the Palestinian inhabitants, with a
politics of death.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Israeli Academics threaten the future of the Israeli State
A list of Anti-Israel statements and actions are laid out in the
following article.
Among those mentioned are Haifa University politics professor Ilan
Pappe, who is quoted saying:
and Ben-Gurion University politics lecturer
Neve Gordon who went to Ramallah in February 2002 and clasped hands
with Yasser Arafat.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion
University - Isaac (Yanni) Nevo (Dept of Philosophy) - Calls kettle black by
mocking mock trial on BGU's "Academia List"
And if they shrug the image of a
mock-trial, in which they are prosecutors, judges, and executioners,
let me rephrase my own point without the image: Criticism is only
effective, if it directs itself to the arguments of the opponent,
and takes upon itself to present these arguments in their strongest
light. Otherwise, it quickly debilitates into a shouting match, or
as in this case of one-sidedness, a shouting campaign of
name-calling and vilification. BGU-Watch and its parent
organizations seem to specialize in this unenlightening genre: they
vilify their opponents, they call them names, they attempt to
suppress them, but they don't do one simple thing. They don't listen
to their arguments, and they don't give counter-arguments.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
University of Michigan - Neve Gordon (Ben Gurion University -
Dept of Political Science) - "Neve Gordon misuses the Classroom to
Conduct anti-Israel Propaganda There"
Eyewitness Student Testimony from University of
Michigan:
"Gordon's playground this fall was Arab-Israeli
Conflict course with over 200 students. Twice a week, Gordon had the
opportunity to fill the fresh minds of University of Michigan
students with skewed history and highly politicized anti-Israel
rhetoric. He consistently embarrassed students who dared to question
or object to his controversial and sometimes offensive claims.
"In a lecture on November 14th, Gordon told the
class that he wasn’t interested in giving an unbiased academic
history of the Arab-Israeli conflict: 'Jeremy asked why I would give
a revisionist history. And I give a revisionist history because I
think it's true. What's said in a textbook is not what it's about."
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Plaut Vs. Israeli Justice
I read with fascination
Steven Plaut’s account of his battle for minimal freedom of speech
in Israel (“How I Beat Israel’s Dual Justice System,” op-ed, April
11).
Israeli universities are
indeed swarming with malignant anti-Israel radical extremists.
Ben-Gurion University, named after David Ben-Gurion, is arguably the
worst institution in Israel in terms of hiring and promoting
anti-Israel extremists. From the start, university officials and
spokespeople backed Gordon in his assault on freedom of speech in
Israel and misuse of the courts, repeatedly describing him in terms
such as “serious and distinguished human rights scholar,” which most
of us would find a repugnant claim.
While BGU does contain
some serious academic departments and scholars, notably in the
natural sciences, when it comes to the “soft” disciplines of the
social sciences and the humanities the school deserves its nickname
of “Bir Zeit of the Negev.”
Donors and supporters in
the United States should draw conclusions from the role BGU played
in endorsing and justifying Gordon’s anti-democratic behavior.
Harvey Schwartz
Passaic, NJ
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Uri Ram - McShande: One of Worst Israeli
Anti-Zionists to be Honored
Uri Ram is a sociologist at the Bir Zeit of the
Negev, er, I mean, Ben Gurion University. You know, the Negev's
"academic" bastion of anti-Zionism.
Now the Association of Israel Studies has
decided to give him an award, I guess for his efforts to see Israel
destroyed and replaced by a "de-zionized" Palestinian state. The
leftist Zionist David Hirsh fiercely told off Ram recently
in Yediot Ahronot in a piece worth reading in full:
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
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept. of
Political Science) fails in court
"Neve Gordon is a venomously anti-Israel
lecturer in political science at Ben-Gurion University (BGU). Gordon
was hired and promoted by BGU largely on the basis of the prodigious
amounts of anti-Israel political propaganda he churns out and
misrepresents as scholarship. He regularly denounces Israel as a
fascist, racist, terrorist, apartheid state, and he openly calls for
Israel.s elimination (in what Israeli leftist extremists these days
call the 'one state solution,' but what should more accurately be
called the Rwanda solution)."
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept. of
Political Science) is told Off
The over-the-top decision attracted the
outrage of Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz.
'It is my opinion that Neve Gordon has gotten
into bed with neo-Nazis, Holocaust justice deniers, and
anti-Semites,' Dershowitz wrote in a Jerusalem Post column. 'He is a
despicable example of a self-hating Jew and a self-hating Israeli.'
Then Dershowitz issued his own make-my-day
challenge to Gordon: 'Sue me, too!' Gordon declined, calling
Dershowitz' challenge 'a cheap dare.'
...
One judge went even further. In his pleadings,
Gordon had asserted that Plaut called him a 'Jew for Hitler' and a
'Holocaust denier.' Plaut claimed he had never said that, but Naddaf
sided with Gordon. This raised the hackles of Appellate Judge
Abraham Abraham, who not only criticized Judge Naddaf, but also went
beyond, saying that based on Gordon's record, even if Plaut had said
Gordon was a 'Jew for Hitler,' he would have been within his
rights.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University – Benny Morris (Department of
Mid East Studies) “fabricates” evidence to promote own political
agenda
"Since Israel's founding in 1948, there have
been two Arab-Israeli conflicts. The first one is military in
nature. Played out on the battlefield, it has heroes, villains,
martyrs, and victims. The second conflict, less bloody but no less
incendiary, is the battle over the historical culpability for the
1948 war and the displacement of large numbers of Palestinian
Arabs."
"In the late 1980s the Palestinian narrative
was bolstered by the advent of a group of Israeli "new historians"
who systematically rewrote the history of Zionism, warping the saga
for Israel's survival."
"Upon close examination, it appears that Morris
and other new historians engaged in systematic falsification of
evidence. They seem to have invented an Arab-Israeli history that
fits with the political agenda they promote. Tactics range from the
"innocent" act of extrapolating incorrect conclusions from
documents, to tendentious truncation of source materials in ways
that distort their original meanings, and even rewriting original
texts to convey things they did not intend."
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Prof Steven Plaut’s Appeal Reverses Earlier Ruling
A five-year-old legal case which pitted a far
left-wing Ben-Gurion University professor against a politically
conservative professor at Haifa University came to a close last
month, when an appeals court in Nazareth overturned an earlier
lower-court ruling that had awarded a legal victory to the
left-winger.
In their decision, the panel of three judges
ruled that Dr. Neve Gordon, a professor of Political Science with an
interest in “Political Theory, Human Rights, and the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” at Ben-Gurion University in Beer Sheva,
had lied in his earlier testimony and that Dr. Steven Plaut’s
description of Dr. Gordon’s academic record as consisting largely of
“anti-Israel hate propaganda misrepresented as scholarship” was not
only protected speech, but entirely legitimate.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Israeli Appeals Court: You Can
Denounce the Radical Left
It was a big loss for Israel’s radical Left,
and a big win for the freedom to criticize it and describe it
accurately.
An appeals court in the Israeli town of
Nazareth overturned an earlier lower-court ruling that had awarded a
legal victory to Neve Gordon, a far-Left Israeli lecturer in
political scientist at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba. Gordon
had filed a SLAPP suit in that court against Prof. Steven Plaut, a
prominent columnist and academic economist, based on articles Plaut
had published denouncing Gordon’s political opinions and public
political activities. Plaut is a critic of Israel’s radical academic
Left and is associated with websites that monitor it, including
www.isracampus.org.il.
SLAPP stands for “Strategic Lawsuit against
Public Participation.” In many parts of the United States there are
serious penalties for filing SLAPP suits, but to date none in
Israel.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Ran Chermesh (sociology) defends the
thesis that claims that Israeli soldiers do not rape Arab women
because the jewish soldiers are such racists. Interesting dialogue
on the "ACADEMIA" chat list of Israeli professors:
'I read it and was deeply impressed by its
scientific value....This is a study which is based on an in-depth
interview with a small sample. It fulfills the frame of reference of
a journal named Qualitative Sociology. Qualitative Sociology is a
major source of current research based on the qualitative
interpretation of social life... It's in a way, an indication for
the need of a more comprehensive research and a complement to
aquantitative research.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
'The MA
itself is available on the net in
http://www.zeevgalili.com/http://zeevgalili.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/military-rape.pdf
Prof. David Newman is One Geographer who can't Figure out Where
he is
It's a peculiar trait of academia that scientists in many academic
fields unrelated to politics are able to dub themselves as "experts"
in political science when the theme surrounds the existence of
Israel and what sacrifices or guilt the Jewish nation must endure in
the interest of "peace," no matter how unrealistic on the ground.
A case in point is Professor David Newman, former head of the
Department of Politics and Government, which he was largely
responsible for building at Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
Newman almost single handedly turned that department into a
monolithic department of far leftism and "Post-Zionism," recruiting
for this purpose such people as Neve Gordon.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
or
go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon (Dept. of Political Science)
declares that Pro-Terror Anti-Semite Norman Finkelstein could get Tenure at Ben Gurion University
"On Oct 12, 2007, a group of
jihadniks and anti-Israel "academics" held a rally to protest the
firing of Finkelstein. Neve Gordon spoke there, declaring that if
Finkelstein had been a faculty member at Ben Gurion University, he
WOULD have gotten tenure. I agree - he would have. David Irving may
have also, as well as Robert Faurisson and Leonard Jeffries and Ward
Churchill."
http://thejewishpress.blogspot.com/2007/10/neo-nazi-professors-would-have-gotten.html
Officers
at Ben Gurion University Repudiate Gordon for making This Assertion:
"Recently, Dr. Gordon chose to
participate on a panel at the University of Chicago with several
American academics who are perceived by many to be anti-Israel. The
student-organized panel, "In Defense of Academic Freedom," was held
on October 12 to protest the tenure denial and dismissal of Prof.
Norman Finkelstein, formerly of DePaul University.
Ben Gurion University has expressed
strong regret regarding Dr. Gordon's decision to participate in this
forum and AABGU shares the assessment of the administration that he
overstepped his authority when he portended to speak on behalf of
the University, claiming that if Norman Finkelstein were at BGU he
would have received tenure."
Link to statements
Neve Gordon's Guru meanwhile has
been cheerleading for the Hezbollah and Promoting anti-Israel
Terrorism: see
http://thejewishpress.blogspot.com/2008/01/guru-of-ben-gurion-universitys-gordon.html
BGU's Neve Gordon (Dept. of Political Science) defames Israel at
the "Palestinian Awareness Week" (also known as Israel Apartheid
Week) at the University of Michigan.
Eyewitness student report:
'In 1981, Israel used force to push
Palestinians out of their homes. As a result, they had to learn to
drive and farm. He also mentions how hard it was to get driver’s
license in Rafa…. Neve Gordon says, “Israel’s actions towards the
Palestinians were for resources and that they had to treat the
Palestinians like this to get these resources.” The separation
barrier and treatment of the Palestinians, according to Gordon,
“were inhumane.” He also addresses why the violence went up in the
Gaza Strip and the West Bank. “Israel put the Palestinians in
ghettos, instituted by one people, and by frontier, which is thinly
instituted, which means, lawless violence occurs.” ….My Reactions:
Neve Gordon is one of the biggest self-hating Jews I have ever seen.
It is no surprise the University of Michigan hired him as a
“Visiting Professor.” This University is really anti-Israel and that
they had to hire a Jewish person to push the hatred on Israel and
Jewish people.'
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Dan Bar-On's (Dept. of Psychology)
Defamatory Psychobabble
"For Bar-On to compare Deir Yassin to
the Holocaust is one step away from Holocaust denial; it is
Holocaust trivialization. To say that "there are fundamental
differences between these human tragedies - and we have no intention
of comparing them" - does not help at all; it does not say what the
differences are, and presumably Prof. Bar-On with his psychological
expertise knew that this was not the sentence that would stay in
readers' minds, but rather his article's clear equation of the two
events and unmistakable message that Jews were Nazis and perpetrated
evil that was the equivalent of Nazi evil." By Joel Amitai
For more
details and to see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
Neve Gordon (Dept. of Political Science) in PLO newspaper claims
Israel is intentionally starving the Palestinians:
"The recent crisis
reveals, once more, that Israel's August 2005 unilateral withdrawal
from the Gaza Strip was not an act of decolonization but rather the
reorganization of Israeli power and the implementation of
neo-colonial rule. Israel realized that in order to maintain
sovereignty all it would have to do is preserve its monopoly over
the legitimate means of movement. Very different from the withdrawal
of British forces from the various colonies of old, it accordingly
continued to dominate Gaza’s borders, transforming the Strip into a
container of sorts whose openings are totally controlled by Israel.
The experiment in Gaza
is, in other words, not really about the bombardment of Israeli
citizens or even about Israel’s ongoing efforts to undermine Hamas.
It is simply a new draconian strategy aimed at denying the
Palestinians their most basic right to self-determination. It is
about showing them who is in control, about breaking their backs, so
that they lower their expectations and bow down to Israeli demands."
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-013008163718.htm
Ben Gurion University - Oren
Yiftachel (Dept. of Geography) incites Bedouins against the Israeli
state in 'Bedouin in Limbo'
"These people are being
denied their basic rights and ignored by the planning system." This
master plan is wrong environmentally, socially and politically,
contends Oren Yiftachel, professor of Political Geography, Planning
and Public Policy at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), who
has contracted with the Council of Unrecognized Villages to produce
another alternative plan for the Council of Unrecognized Villages.
"The real issue here is a planning crime, because the state's
discrimination has caused great suffering."
For more
details and to see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University - Amnon
Raz-Krakotzkin (Dept. of Jewish History Lecturer) - An "academic
conference" in London gives an Israeli quisling a chance to shine
'The panel has its
academic Jewish quislings to lend support to its real purposes. One
of those academics is Israeli history professor Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin
of Ben Gurion University. Raz-Krakotzkin objects to Jews (but not
Palestinian Arabs) seeking a national homeland for both religious
and secular reasons, and has used the Arab term "Nakba"
("catastrophe" in Arabic, meaning the founding of Israel). ...
In discussing secular
Israeli Jews, perhaps the majority of he not only declares the Torah
as replete with Jewish "myths" about the land of Israel belonging to
the Jews, a fairy tale among the religious (who, and in
contradiction by him, if they were true to the faith would not want
a Jewish state), but expands his interpretation to debunk secular
Jews who also feel a connection to a Jewish national homeland as a
result of world genocide and persecution as also being founded on
the same myth. '
For more
details and to see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
Henriette Dahan Kalev (Dept. of Gender Studies) detects a 'Fear of
Arabness in Zionism' in her Post-Zionist Perspective - no Arab
Hatred of Jews though
Dahan Kalev: 'In this
talk I discuss the fear of Arabness of the Ashkenazim, the way in
which it has affected Mizrahim as well as Israeli-Palestinians. I
explore this topic from a post Zionist perspective and examine the
difficulties to trace the roots of the fear of Arabness.
I argued than, that
although Mizrahim and Ashkenazin are Jews, they differ profoundly
from each other. Fear of Arabness is the sediment lying in their
daily encounters amongst themselves and with the
Israeli-Palestinian. I conclude by explaining how this approach
opens new context with new options for the understanding of the
Israeli Palestinian conflict.'
For more
details and to see the full original article,
go here
BGU's Sociologist Uri Ram is
told off - It’s not about Israel, stupid
David Hirsh runs the
pro-Israel Engage Online web site in the UK and is a leftwing
Zionist:
'Uri Ram’s mistake is to
assume that the boycott campaign is really about Israel. But it’s
not about Israel, stupid, nor is it about Palestine; it’s about
Britain. Nationalism can be an insidious temptation and it can
narrow our perspective; it has narrowed Ram’s perspective. He is not
considering the effect or the symbolism of a campaign to exclude a
significant proportion of the world’s Jewish scholars from European
universities; he is not thinking about how the argument to exclude
is made in British public life. Ram seems only concerned with
fighting an Israeli battle against the Israeli government'
For more
details and to see the full original article,
go here
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