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Ben Gurion UniversityBen Gurion University – a Rankled Reader calls out BGU President Rivka Carmi's "Elitist Misjudgment"; corrects the Left's mis-definition of McCarthyismThis 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 CarmiLAST 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 GordonIsraeli 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 StateWhy 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 reportThese 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 CarmiIn 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 BGUIf, 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 visionI 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 hystericalIm 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 ArrestedLawyers 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 AvivAs 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 BGUHis 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." 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. ... 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. 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 activitiesThere 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 FriendIn 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 magazineLike 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:
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.ilIN 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: 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 4Prof. 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 deityHow 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 TerroristDr. 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 columnistsNeo-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: 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 partiesIronically, 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 activityOne 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, go here
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 obedienceKobi 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 treasonBen 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 featuredUnless 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. 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
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 stationIsraCampus.Org.il's Summary of
audio interview: 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 resignBen-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 GordonJ 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 ColumnNor 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 UniversityDr. 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 GordonNeve 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----- 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 For more details and to see the full original article, go here
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 NOTHowever, 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, go here
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon's LA Times boycott editorial draws reader responseI 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, go here
Ben Gurion University - Dr. Alex Grobman reflects on why Self-hating Israelis, like Neve Gordon, Denounce IsraelIn 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 ListI 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, go here
A Day of Shock in BeershebaBGU 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 IsraelHe 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 GordonAccording 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
Prof. Jimmy Weinblatt, Rector 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 Prof. Jimmy Weinblatt, Rector 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 KorachIt 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 UniversityLeadership 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. 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 UniversityReflecting 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 universitiesThey 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 wrongHe [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 SteinbergIs 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 WallThe 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 SpeechIt 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 responsesBashing 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
Ben Gurion University – David Newman (Dept of Political Science) – Yet another Enemy of Freedom of Speech and Democracy at Ben Gurion UniversityThat 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 dogmaCritics 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 othersThe 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 DeniersThat 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 UniversityCurrent 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 DisgraceIf 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 readerRivka 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 ColumnistSo 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 sanctionsThe 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 HamasHe 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 materialsBen-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:
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 claimDespite 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 historyIf 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 GazaI 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 agoNEVE 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 unimpededNotwithstanding 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 RaisersPresident 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,
Ben Gurion University - Neve Gordon's (Dept of Political Science) long term defamation does not go unnoticedA Letter from Prof. Barr: From:
driheart@aol.com 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 PopAmitay 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 ShebaThe 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 AcreMore 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 UniversityThe 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 campusThat 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 SilvermanYou 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 PledgeSeveral 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 HaifaThe 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 StateA 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 JusticeI 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 HonoredUri 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 OffThe 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 RulingA 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 LeftIt 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 isIt'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." 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 thoughDahan 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, stupidDavid 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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