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On Wednesday March 23, 2011 Tel Aviv University hosted an "academic conference" with the title of "Nationalism and Morality: The Zionist Narrative and 'The Arab Problem'"

In other words, from the get-go, the conference's basic hypothesis is that Israeli nationalism has a problem with morality, that the history of Israel is just "one narrative," and that Zionists are anti-Arab racists. This hypothesis dominated much of the "discussion" in this day of anti-Zionist on-campus indoctrination.

The conference was pretty boring, filled with many anti-Zionist quotes. So we will not bring you full transcripts here.

The opening speaker was one Hedva Ben Israel, a retired Hebrew University professor of history, who talked about nationalism in general. She said that the British in WWII were "chauvinistic," felt they were superior and had the right to control others, but had nothing at all to say about bigotry among the Germans. Hmmmmm. She spouts her adoration for "liberal multicultural nationalism," whatever that is, but she thinks that multinational "empires" and religions have committed crimes. But she insists that nationalism is not responsible for the crimes of the Nazis, just like socialism was not responsible for the crimes of the communists. And Christianity is not responsible for the crimes of the Inquisition. Instead, these are all crimes of "people in regimes." At least we give her credit for acknowledging that these regimes committed crimes.

Prof. Ze'ev Sternhell, the radical leftist extremist retired professor of political science from the Hebrew University, spoke next about "Jewish nationalism in comparative perspective." Surprisingly, he had nothing to say about the crimes of Zionism. His whole talk consisted of tossing around "big words," nonsense polysyllables, and he came across sounding a bit foolish.

Tel Aviv University leftist extremist law professor Chaim Gans spoke next about "Three Zionisms (sic) and Post-Zionism," with application to the subject of Israeli Arabs. Gans, it will be recalled, led the petition to prevent an Israeli army woman colonel from lecturing law students at Tel Aviv University because Gans does not approve of her opinions. Gans' talk was devoted to painting Israel as a criminal state. Here is what Gans had to say at the conference about Zionism:

"(The philosopher) John Rawls divided nation states into three categories according to their morality. (...) The third category, which is the important one to our topic, is the category of criminal states - states that threaten peace by trying to expand their influence and by harming human rights of the inhabitants of their territory. If to judge by the Israeli politics of the past 40 years, we have a state that is not just, a criminal state. If the founding theory of Israeli politics is Property Zionism (which he earlier defines as based on the historic right to the land -- Isracampus) - then the Post-Zionist criticism is too soft."

Original Gans quote in Hebrew:

"ג'ון רולס חילק את מדינות הלאום לשלוש קטגוריות מבחינת מוסר. הקטגוריה השלישית של רולס - החשובה לעניין שלנו - היא הקטגוריה של מדינות עברייניות - מדינות שמאיימות על השלום בנסותן להרחיב את תחום השפעתן ובפוגען בזכויות האדם של מי שמצויים בטריטוריה שלהן.

אם לשפוט לפי הפוליטיקה הישראלית לפחות ב-40 השנים האחרונות, יש לנו מדינה לא מהוגנת, מדינה עבריינית. אם התיאוריה המכוננת של הפוליטיקה הישראלית היא ציונות קניינית, הביקורת הפוסט ציונית היא רכה מדיי."

The full conference is available online. Here is the link to the Ganz lecture:
http://video.tau.ac.il/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=820:the-arabs-three-zionisms-and-post-zionism&Itemid=56&lang=he

If you forward it to minute 26:20, you can hear Ganz calling Israel a criminal state. Also, Ganz trashes the Israeli Declaration of Independence at minute 10:00:
Quoting the declaration of independence: "After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom."

Then he says: "(These are) things that historians even from the mainstream Zionism think are false. Neither Anita Shapira nor one of the main speakers for Zionism, A.B. Yehoshua, think that the Jews really hoped to return to the land of Israel or that they were expelled from it. So the second and third paragraphs of the Declaration are a fraud."

Original Ganz in Hebrew:

מתוך מגילת העצמאות: "לאחר שהוגלה העם מארצו בכוח הזרוע שמר לה אמונים בכל ארצות פזוריו, ולא חדל מתפילה ומתקוה לשוב לארצו ולחדש בתוכה את חירותו המדינית."

גנץ: "דברים שההסטוריונים גם מהזרם המרכזי של הציונות חושבים אותם למוטעים. לא אניטה שפירא ולא דובר מרכזי של הציונות כמו א.ב. יהושע חושבים שהיהודים באמת ניסו לחתור לארץ ישראל או שהם גורשו ממנה. אז הפסקאות השנייה ושלישית של ההכרזה הן כזבים."

I wonder if this professor has heard of the Arch of Titus.

We thought you would all like to know how Israel tax shekels are being spent at Tel Aviv University!!