Isracampus Digest
Summer 2010
Dear Readers -
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IsraCampus.Org.il
Isracampus has a question for Ben Gurion University President Rivka
Carmi
In the interview you gave to the Jerusalem Post, published on Aug
21, 2010, you said, and we quote, "I can't stress this enough. I
want any student who feels threatened to come directly to me. I
promise them complete protection. If anyone feels that a faculty
member is silencing them, belittling their opinions, putting them
down or intimidating them, I want them to tell me about it
immediately. I am sorry that there are students who instead of
approaching the university management with their concerns or
complaints, choose to go to a group like Im Tirtzu."
Well, we at Isracampus
would like to know what you did in the case of the overseas woman
student threatened by BGU Geography professor Oren Yiftachel when
she refused to submit to his ideological diktats, reported to you in
detail.
In the same interview,
you are asked whether there is any truth to the claim that the
politics department at BGU is a treasonous indoctrination camp into
anti-Israel extremism. You said that answering that question is
beneath your dignity. We nevertheless would like to hear your
answer. We think you are insulting the dignity of every citizen in
Israel by NOT answering!
Interdisciplinary
Center (Herzliya) - Galia Golan (School of Government) pulls the
following Orwellian Inversions:
Those who Challenge the Leftist Hegemony
over Israeli Academia are like Marxists in the Old Soviet Union
Those who Maintain Leftist anti-Zionist
Hegemony over Large Swaths of Israeli Universities have no
Resemblance to Soviet Marxists at all
Challenging Leftist Uniformity of
Thought amounts to demanding Zionist uniformity of thought
"One wonders, then, why
has this witch-hunt begun against academia and civil society? One
explanation may be that it is a reaction to the increasing criticism
and delegitimization of Israel from outside, causing a drawing in of
ourselves, xenophobia and fundamentalism that demand, as in
McCarthyism, clear signs of loyalty lest the enemy gain from our
weakness. It could, however, be something else, as in the Soviet
Union perhaps, and that is a confidence and mania that comes from
power."
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Dror Yemini defends
the Rights of Critics of Academic Leftists - The real McCarthyists
are Those who Try to Silence Critics of the Left
(IsraCampus.Org.il
translation from Maariv)
But there is something
else that is permitted: to publicize the existence of these courses,
their contents, their motivations and political bias, and to
publicize their use of brainwashing. ...
It is also perfectly
permissible to disclose that the vast majority of professors from
the Political Science and Sociology Departments hold extremist
anti-Zionist views. Anyone who claims otherwise really wants leftist
academics to be allowed to do whatever they wish without criticism.
Yet at the same time
anyone who so much as dares to think differently from the leftist
Canon is not permitted to utter a word. It is prohibited to
criticize, expose or refute. The reason for that is that the
"sanctity of the academia" is reserved exclusively for the radical
Left. Every word of criticism is met with screams about
"McCarthyism", "Fascism", and other "isms" from the bla bla of the
academic First Amendment.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben
Gurion University - Lev Grinberg (Dept of Sociology) Demands Israel
Stop being a Jewish State
Why isn't Israel a
modern, democratic nation-state? I suspect that the secular Jews are
not ready to relinquish the special privileges that the Jewish state
grants them. With no other definition for Judaism, they are ready to
accept the yoke of the religious establishment and give up democracy
and equality. In my view, that is the meaning of the continued
impossible defense of a Jewish and democratic state.
Woe to such Zionism:
conservative and complacent, lacking imagination and vision. After
such a bitter failure, we should start thinking of tikkun, of
repair. Tikkun is a kosher concept; it's both Jewish and democratic.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Moshe Kaveh, President of
Bar-Ilan University, Calls for Dismissal of Tenured Traitors who
Support the International Academic Boycott
The president of Bar-Ilan
University has called for Israeli professors who support an academic
boycott of their country to quit or be fired.
The statement comes as
Israel's parliament
debates legislation that would allow lawsuits against academics
and others who support various boycotts of the Jewish state. The
bill is not expected to become law, but it is generating questions
about the role of scholars at public universities in Israel.
Bar-Ilan's Moshe Kaveh, a
former chairman of Israel's Committee of University Presidents, is
the first leader of an Israeli university to back the dismissal of
the handful of Israeli professors who publicly expressed support for
a boycott. Last year the president of Ben-Gurion University of the
Negev
had no kind words for Neve Gordon, a professor of politics and
government, for advocating an international academic boycott, but
did not fire him.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
Ben Gurion University -
Sedition and Nazi hand salutes at BGU
If, for example, a senior
lecturer (Neve Gordon) in that department dares travel to
Palestinian government headquarters in Ramallah (while blatantly
violating the law) a day after one of the most terrible massacres
we've ever seen here, in order to support Yasser Arafat and pose
next to him in a photo where both hold their arms up, does this
constitute academic freedom? Is this about the freedom to explore,
or about a despicable act by someone who under false pretenses holds
on to a job in a publically funded academic institution?
And if this department
includes students who take part in an illegal rally at campus
following the Turkish flotilla raid, while being photographed
(knowingly) giving the Nazi salute, does this have anything to do
with academic freedom? Are Nazi salutes a part of the education
offered to politics and government students?
I saw the photographs,
both of the lecturer alongside Arafat and of the student giving the
Nazi salute; I also saw the photo of a female Master's student who
climbed up a campus building in order to post a libelous,
outrageous, provocative anti-Israeli banner, and I contend that we
must put an end to this "academic freedom."
Those interested in this
kind of "academic freedom" should go ahead and become lecturers
elsewhere. There are many "academic research institutions" abroad
funded by anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi, Holocaust-denying elements that
would be happy to establish a politics and government department to
be run by "refugees" from the Beersheba university.
For more details and to
see the full original article,
go here
end of summer 2010
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