Hebrew University
Hebrew University - Dan
Avnon (Dept of Political Science) gets Boycotted
Don't
you just love it when a leftist moonbat gets hoisted with his own
petard?
Well,
meet the pro-Palestinian Professor Dan Avnon, from the Hebrew
University's School of Public Policy and its uniformly leftist
Political Science Department (http://politics.huji.ac.il/avnon.html
[updated link
http://politics.huji.ac.il/en/segel/1194]).
He is a leftist who
objects to the idea that Israel should be a Jewish state,
although he does not seem to have any problem with any Arab Moslem
states.
Well, he
found himself boycotted by an anti-Israel institute in Australia,
one so anti-Israel that they hosted Ilan Pappe. The anti-Israel
crowd is upset because here Avnon is a leftist but he fell victim to
BDS! Boycotting OTHER Jews of course would be no problem.
For more
details, see also
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/across-the-divide-boycott-shocks-unity-professor-dan-avnon/story-e6frgcjx-1226532541040
http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx
Across the divide: boycott shocks 'unity' professor
John
Lyons, Middle East Correspondent
From: The Australian
December 08, 2012
AN Israeli academic who
set up one of the few centres where Jews and Arabs study together
says he felt like ''a fish on a hook'' when he was boycotted by the
University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
Dan Avnon says he still
hopes to study in Australia and has been overwhelmed by public and
academic support after Jake Lynch, director of the Centre for Peace
and Conflict Studies, rejected his request to be a contact person on
an application for the Sir Zelman Cowen Fellowship application.
Associate Professor Lynch
said he and the centre would not assist Professor Avnon's
application because of their support for the campaign of boycott,
divesments and sanctions against Israel, which extends to an
academic boycott of Israeli universities.
The decision prompted the
dean of the university's arts and social science faculty, Duncan
Ivison, to write yesterday to Associate Professor Lynch spelling out
that ''he does not speak for the faculty on visiting scholars and
cannot make decisions about who comes here''.
A spokesman for the
University of Sydney said the institution and Vice-Chancellor
Michael Spence did not support Associate Professor Lynch's position
on Professor Avnon and that the centre director spoke ''on behalf of
himself and maybe one or two colleagues''.
Professor Avnon, who works
at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told The Weekend Australian
he thought it was ironic that a department focused on peace and
conflict would boycott him. ''This is how conflicts start,''
Professor Avnon said. ''This is groupthink at its worst. My attitude
to peace and conflict is 'go meet your enemy'.''
Professor Avnon's career
includes time spent at leading US universities and he is an expert
in the teaching of civics. He received his PhD from the University
of California, Berkeley, and his first job was at Stanford. In 2005
he was part of an EU program, Toward a Culture of Tolerance and
Coexistence, with Palestinian partners. He has been associated with
Hebrew University for 20
years. He will apply for a Sir Zelman Cowen Fellowship, with
references from two other academics at the university prepared to
sponsor him.
He established the only
centre in Israel where students from the three streams of Israeli
state education — secular Jewish, religious Jewish and Arab —
studied together in 2001. ''I'm seventh-generation Israeli and
growing up I was not able to relate to Arabs at an equal level
because we were not at schools together,'' he said.
''The same was true for my
children. I thought: 'I am going to change this', so I started this
program where all three groups in the state system could study
together.''
The drama began when
Professor Avnon decided to study how a diverse community such as
Australia's studied civics. He wrote to six Sydney University
academics. ''Four said yes, one did not reply and one said he'd
boycott me.''
He said Professor Lynch
within 12 hours ''trumpeted his principled stand
across Australia
on a mailing list''. ''It was an opportunity for him to trumpet his
principled stand,'' he said. ''I was strung on the hook of his
fishing line.''
This year the centre
hosted Ilan Pappe, a left-wing Israeli academic attached to Exeter
University in Britain.
Professor Avnon said that
if he met Professor Lynch he would try to change his mind.
''I'd ask him: 'What's
your story, man? Am I your enemy? Is your thought more important
than the person in front of you?' '' Professor Avnon said.
He said his email inbox
had been filled with Australians offering assistance. ''I've never
been there but now I know a lot of people. These are people who
don't know me, don't need anything from me and have said: 'We want
you to know this is not what Australia is about, this is specific to
this person.' This guy Lynch has done me a huge favour.''
The program Professor
Avnon began in Israel has lapsed, partly due to lack of funding, but
it may be revived.
One of Professor Avnon's
PhD students is a Palestinian woman who was a teacher at the school.
A film called Living in Jerusalem has been made about the course.
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