Ben Gurion University
Ben Gurion University - Professor Ze’ev Maoz
(University of California & Interdisciplinary Center (Herzliya))
endorses the Calls for The Complete Shutting Down of the
Department of Politics at Ben Gurion University; Insists it is a
bunch of substandard pseudo-academics
He begins by proclaiming that
he is a proud member of the Israeli Left. … He then reveals that he
himself had been recruited nine years ago by the Council on Higher
Education to evaluate the very same department at BGU. At the time
he proposed shutting down the entire department for essentially the
same reasons as those in the new panel report. He claims his reasons
were entirely academic, not political, just as the current panel’s
recommendations are academic.
Back then, Maoz found that
there are no serious academic standards in place in that department.
Most of the faculty members have no serious credentials in political
science. He says that not only was the Council on Higher Education
not conducting a witch-hunt against the Politics department at BGU,
but it even refused to implement Maoz’ own recommendations, treated
the department with permissive (his word) kid gloves, allowed it to
go on functioning and even to develop new programs for students, and
refused to apply the same rigorous standards to the department of
Neve Gordon and David Newman that it was applying to all other
departments across the board.
He concludes that the
Department of Politics at BGU is an academic disgrace and the
petitions of support for it are motivated by the most dubious of
motives. Translation: those petitions consist of anti-Israel
extremists seeking to defend other anti-Israel pseudo-academic
extremists from criticism and accountability.
http://zioncon.blogspot.com/2011_12_01_archive.html
Professor Ze’ev Maoz (University of
California and the Herzliya IDC) endorses the Calls for The Complete
Shutting Down of the Department of Politics at Ben Gurion
University; Insists it is a bunch of substandard pseudo-academics
By Steven Plaut
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
I must tell you that I am not generally
a fan of Prof. Ze’ev Maoz. He is a leftist and his written some
obnoxious anti-Israel articles and expressed some anti-Israel
opinions (here is one:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/morality-is-not-on-our-side-1.193739
I will cite some others below). He is currently on the faculty of
the University of California at Davis and teaches at the Herzliya
Interdisciplinary Center. He used to be a professor at Tel Aviv
University and at the University of Haifa.
But the fact that he is left of center
makes what he has published today even more important and
newsworthy. Maoz has an Op-Ed in Haaretz today endorsing the calls
for the shutting down of the Department of Politics at Ben Gurion
University!
As you know, a recent international
panel appointed by Israel’s Council on Higher Education denounced
the Department of Politics at Ben Gurion University for being a
radical anti-Israel indoctrination center and a Bash-Israel
propaganda operation, with no serious academic credentials and
standards, an “unbalanced” (meaning anti-Israel) group of
pseudo-scholars. The panel proposed shutting the department down
altogether. Israel’s radical anti-Israel tenured Left and their
foreign Bash-Israel amen chorus raced to defend the department,
while a rising chorus of pro-Israel voices have echoed the call of
the international panel.
Well, Prof. Maoz has chimed in on the
controversy and he has issued his own unambiguous call for closing
the entire department of politics at Ben Gurion University.
You can see Maoz’ Op-Ed (in Hebrew)
here:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/1.1602889.
Haaretz is not running the piece in English (we wonder why)
but I will sum it up for you here.
His Op-Ed is entitled, “Yes, Shut it
Down!”
He begins by proclaiming that he is a
proud member of the Israeli Left. He then goes on to tell how the
tenured Left has been lobbying him to oppose the recommendations of
the panel, and asking him to recruit international support behind
the Department of Politics at BGU in the name of “academic freedom.”
He then reveals that he himself had
been recruited nine years ago by the Council on Higher Education to
evaluate the very same department at BGU. At the time he proposed
shutting down the entire department for essentially the same reasons
as those in the new panel report. He claims his reasons were
entirely academic, not political, just as the current panel’s
recommendations are academic.
Back then, Maoz found that there are no
serious academic standards in place in that department. Most of the
faculty members have no serious credentials in political science. He
says that not only was the Council on Higher Education not
conducting a witch-hunt against the Politics department at BGU, but
it even refused to implement Maoz’ own recommendations, treated the
department with permissive (his word) kid gloves, allowed it to go
on functioning and even to develop new programs for students, and
refused to apply the same rigorous standards to the department of
Neve Gordon and David Newman that it was applying to all other
departments across the board.
He concludes that the Department of
Politics at BGU is an academic disgrace and the petitions of support
for it are motivated by the most dubious of motives. Translation:
those petitions consist of anti-Israel extremists seeking to defend
other anti-Israel pseudo-academic extremists from criticism and
accountability.
Here are some previous items I posted
about Ze’ev Maoz, to convince you that he is no raving Right-winger:
Ze’ev Maoz, Tel Aviv University
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/742257.html
There's practically a holy consensus right now that the war in the
North is a just war and that morality is on our side. The bitter
truth must be said: this holy consensus is based on short-range
selective memory, an introverted worldview, and double standards.
This war is not a just war. Israel is
using excessive force without distinguishing between civilian
population and enemy, whose sole purpose is extortion. That is not
to say that morality and justice are on Hezbollah's side. Most
certainly not. But the fact that Hezbollah "started it" when it
kidnapped soldiers from across an international border does not even
begin to tilt the scales of justice toward our side.
Some more pearls from the mouth of Ze’ev Maoz: In October, 1996
he said: “chance of army coup now possible.” And in August 1996: “If
the political deadlock continues for a long time, and
Syria reaches the conclusion that there is
no solution in the political option, it may reconsider the military
option as a viable one,” he [Ze’ev Maoz] wrote. In March 2002 he was
interviewed saying: “Any initiative that comes from the Arab world
makes me considerably more optimistic,” says Ze’ev Maoz, an Israeli
political scientist, “because it has the potential... to lower the
psychological barriers that many Israelis have in terms of making
concessions for peace.” At the same article it said: “Tel Aviv
University professor Maoz says Israeli supporters of a negotiated
solution are “regrouping because they are starting to realize that a
policy of applying force just for the sake of applying force,
without any sort of political vision, doesn’t lead anywhere.”
Further reading on Ze’ev Maoz:
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/4768/edition_id/87/format/html/displaystory.html
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/4316/edition_id/78/format/html/displaystory.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0308/p06s01-wome.html
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/sep96/basch.htm
(half way down the page)
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