The political war aimed at delegitimizing Israel, and at preventing the IDF from acting to stop terror attacks, is now recognized as a major threat. These are not the sentiments of alarmists; this is the conclusion drawn by Eitan Haber, a close advisor to prime ministers, including Yitzhak Rabin ("IDF isn't enough in face of global de-legitimization campaign faced by Israel.")

Haber's analysis only scratches the surface of the de-legitimization campaign waged against Israel. These efforts are not new; since the 2001 UN "World Conference Against Racism" in Durban, South Africa – international NGOs and some within Israel have introduced into the public lexicon slogans referring to Israel as an "apartheid state" guilty of "war crimes" that does not have the right to exist. ...

NGOs orchestrate these incidents, stripping away the context of terror and hate, and placing Israel and its supporters on the defensive. This strategy is coupled with ongoing efforts, such as the boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, to single out and isolate Israel. A parallel tactic, promulgated by Israeli-Arab NGO Adalah (funded by the New Israel Fund -NIF and the European Union) portrays "Israel as an inherent undemocratic state." Similarly, NGO "lawfare" cases against Israeli officials in foreign courts attempt to delegitimize the Israeli justice system.

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 Gordon

Israeli 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 Dror Yemini defends the Rights of Critics of Academic Leftists - The real McCarthyists are Those who Try to Silence Critics of the Left

(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

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

Joel Golovensky, President of The Institute for Zionist Strategies, states that denial of Academic Freedom by Anti-Zionist McCarthyists in Israeli Academia is now a documented fact

The phenomena and dynamics of academic conformism have been well investigated and do not need revelation by the Institute for Zionist Strategies (see, for example, "The Politically Correct University," edited by Robert Maranto, Richard E. Redding an Frederick Hess, and the writing of Harvard University professor Harvey Mansfield). ...

This is the anti-Zionism found to govern Israel's sociology departments. Wouldn't it be important to know if this is in fact the case? Haaretz's editors may be the only reputable people in the country who genuinely believe that there is no serious anti-Zionism bias in the sociology departments - a bias now thoroughly researched and documented. ...

The study by the Institute for Zionist Strategies finds that works reflecting a Zionist viewpoint are discouraged, and that students are effectively denied a fair presentation of the Zionist perspective. If these facts are true - even in part - academic freedom and excellence is being thwarted, impeded and seriously undermined. This situation cannot be swept away by epithets and gestures - certainly not by a serious journal of news and opinion.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

When Naiveté Becomes Sedition - How the Left has Crossed the Line

That a growing number of Israeli leftists regard their own country as a paragon of evil is bad enough. Also growing, however, are the manifestations of open anti-Semitism among Jewish Israeli leftists. Their intellectual nexus is Israel's professoriate (exposed in detail at www.isracampus.org.il).

Israeli tenured academics are the sponsors and initiators of campaigns all over the world to boycott Israel, including boycotts against the very universities that pay their salaries.

Hundreds of Israeli university professors have been involved in organizing mutiny and insurrection among Israeli soldiers, and some have even been arrested for violence. Israeli university authorities wink at such faculty behavior and sometimes condone or promote it.

Israeli students are increasingly complaining about being harassed by leftist faculty members if they dare express dissenting pro-Israel opinions in the classroom, and some claim their grades were lowered as punishment for this felony.

In-classroom anti-Israel indoctrination is becoming more common at Israeli universities. Israeli extremist academics have misused their classroom podiums to force-feed their students anti-Israel libel and anti-Jewish venom. Some courses consist of little more than North-Korean-style one-sided political indoctrination. "Academic" conferences held weekly on Israeli campuses are often anti-academic exercises in one-sided advocacy of leftwing positions.

Faculty hiring and promotion decisions are often subordinated to political bias and gestures of leftist political solidarity. Authors of tracts as openly anti-Jewish as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are granted tenure automatically. Israeli extremists with mediocre academic records are hired and promoted as acts of solidarity by other leftists within the university system. University officials often pretend that anti-Israel political propaganda is serious scholarship and research.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Anti-Israel Israeli Radicals again whining about "McCarthyism"

At the front line of the conflict are a handful of academics, such as Rachel Giora, professor of linguistics at Tel Aviv University, who support international calls for a campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel.

Pointing to “the growing number of Israeli assaults on Palestinians’ cities, towns, villages and refugee camps both within and outside the occupied territories”, as well as events such as the attack on Gaza during the winter of 2008-09 and the deaths on the “Freedom flotilla” in May this year, Professor Giora argued that “the state’s legitimacy has been gradually undermined”, leading to “waves of vocal criticism” across the world.

International condemnation has also created a far less comfortable environment for internal critics, she said, having led to “massive defence tactics aimed particularly at bashing academics supportive of boycott initiatives”.

Professor Giora said: “Repression of protest was no longer implicit. All hell broke loose.”

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

“Academic Freedom” and a Tale of Two Professors

The absurdities surrounding the leftist take on academic freedom have never been so glaring as in a pair of events, involving two very different professors in Israel, both allegedly involved in “sexual insensitivity.”

… The tenured extremism at Ben Gurion University has long been defended by the university officials on grounds of “academic freedom.” But that just made the recent firing of Professor Yeruham Leavitt all the more outrageous. Leavitt is actually a retired professor who was retained by Ben Gurion University to teach an ethics course to students in the Clinical Pharmaceutical Department. Alas, Leavitt, was guilty of political incorrectness, and was fired for that. The very same President of the University, Rivka Carmi, who defends having dozens of radical tenured traitors on her academic staff, defended the decision to fire Leavitt because he had made “offensive” and “insensitive” statements.

… For the second of our Tales, let us introduce Eyal Ben-Ari. He is a far-leftist full professor of sociology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, a department famous for employing far-leftist and Marxist anti-Israel radicals. He claims to know something about the sociology of the military. He is an anti-Zionist extremist with a track record of turning out anti-Israel propaganda, such as claims that Israel is an ultra-militarist society. … He is now famous for two things – his supervising a ludicrous thesis claiming that Jewish soldiers are racists because they do not rape Arab women, and for himself being arrested under suspicion of multiple counts of rape. From his role in that now famous “rape thesis,” it was already known that Ben-Ari had goofy ideas about sexual (mis-) behavior. But it turns out that the ultra-feminist Israel-bashing professor of sociology practices what he preaches.

… Ben-Ari has not been dismissed for his “sexual insensitivity.” Unlike Leavitt, Ben-Ari is a far leftist. Could that have anything to do with the difference in his treatment?

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Asher Maoz, TAU Professor of Constitutional Law, decrees Academic Boycott as "the greatest threat to Academic Freedom"

'Yet another lecturer calls for a boycott of Israel because of the occupation. His colleague calls for an academic boycott of Israeli universities, including the one that employs him. Another lecturer's students claim he silences them when they disagree with him. ... But the greatest threat to academic freedom is the academic boycott. This weapon - even if those who preach it are trying to target government policy - strikes a mortal blow at the freedom to research and develop, because it cuts the scholar off from sources of funding for his research and from colloquy with colleagues, which is essential to academic research.

Nor can we ignore the fact that those who call for a boycott will not be harmed by it themselves. They will enjoy the best of both worlds - both the rights conferred by belonging to the boycotted university and the right to exemption from the very boycott they advocate.'

[Note how many articles are suddenly appearing in the Israeli press about academic freedom – and this one actually appeared in Haaretz and was actually written by a TAU prof! And it actually favors academic freedom!]

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 Aviv

As 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

Dan Illouz clarifies the Goals of Im Tirtzu through Examples of Leftist McCarthyism on Israeli Campuses

Rachel Avraham, a student at Ben Gurion University, published two critical academic exposes on the content of a lecture given by Ben Gurion University's Dr. Oren Yiftachel, entitled "Selected Topics in the Geography of the Middle East". After publishing these exposes, Rachel Avraham was summoned by the head of the Geography department, Prof. Avi Rubin, “to discuss the possible ramifications” of her “defamatory” exposes. An email communication between the two was then started. Rachel Avraham felt threatened by the tone and nature of these emails. Fearing she would be discriminated against for having disagreed with her professor, she hired a lawyer to deal with further communications with the university. Defending Rachel Avraham’s right to disagree with her professor is not an affront to Dr. Oren Yiftachel's right to free speech. It is not McCarthyism. It is nothing other than the defence of free speech.

In November 2009, Professor Nira Hativa, who was responsible for the computerized feedback provided by students to their professors, wrote that “there are a lot of students that complain and report that they feel significantly hurt by the presentation of facts from a perspective which is contrary to their views but that they are worried to express opposing views because they feel such an expression might reflect badly on their marks or other things which professors have control over.” Professor Hativa continued and wrote: “I was exposed to many complaints from students of professors who express extreme leftist positions in their lectures and attack the State of Israel, the Israel Defence Forces, the Zionist movement and other, even worse, things”.

A PhD student at Hebrew University testified that he was once told that “anything “right of Meretz” was best not spoken aloud or it would have a serious detrimental impact on my career in Israeli academia”.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Emmanuel Navon accuses The Left of being too busy delegitimizing "Im Tirtzu" to hear what they have to say

Instead of relating to what they have to say, Leibowitz is “warning” us that he will end up in a concentration camp if we don’t shut them up. Similarly, Hebrew University historian Dmitry Shomsky wrote an op-ed in Ha’aretz on June 22 to dismiss the book of Ronen Shoval, Herzl’s Vision 2.0, as a fraud. But rather than addressing Shoval’s thought-provoking points, Shomsky’s critique boils down to “don’t listen to him.” .... The reaction of Shoken, Shomsky, Leibowitz & all is both pathetic and encouraging. They know that they are losing a power they artificially hold via manipulations.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

"Academic Freedom" does not include threatening Israel's Legitimacy or Existence through Boycott

Academic freedom does not grant academicians the right to risk their colleagues’ place of employment, and should such academicians believe their university deserves to be boycotted, they should be honest with themselves and start the boycott themselves by resigning and shunning their salary and the research budget they received.

There is no reason that would require a State, just like any other organization, to fund and sponsor people who travel the world and call for boycotts and sanctions against it, as such people threaten the State’s legitimacy and thereby its existence as well.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Knesset at Long Last Taking Action against Tenured Traitors; Plans to Impose Large Fines on Academics calling for Boycott of Israel

According to the proposal, a group or a person who was harmed by a boycott on behalf of Israeli elements will be able to sue the boycott organizer or party promoting it for NIS 30,000 ($7,756.35) without the burden of proof of damage. In addition, the party will also be able to gain an additional sum through a civil suit in accordance with the level of damage it sustained.

The bill's initiators noted a similar law exists in the United States which forbids American citizens from taking part in boycotts of friendly countries, including Israel. The bill aims to target elements in the Arab sector which participate in the economic boycott imposed by the Palestinian Authority on goods manufactured in Israeli factories in the settlements and Israeli territory. The bill also aims to deter academics who participate in international academic boycotts of Israel.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Benny Morris' radical retreat helps expose where New Historians disseminate "propaganda or even falsehood" instead of history

As noted, Morris speaks openly about his failed expectations regarding the Palestinians' aims in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Probably, in addition to his learning process on the roots of the conflict, he could not ignore the fact that there are virtually no "new historians" on the Arab or the Palestinian side who could inquire into how the religious factor was so detrimental in perpetuating the conflict and how radical Islam was instrumental in inciting against the acceptance of a Jewish state. Hence, he ends his study on 1948 with a clear "J'accuse" against those historians who fail to understand the Arab rejection of the Jewish state and disregard clear facts and statements of religious hatred.

In his more recent books and articles, Morris has become the leading and most effective voice in exposing how the remaining New Historians cling to their unfounded and false messages. Morris's journey and his radical retreat from his earlier publications constitute an unusual testament to the thin line separating history from propaganda or even falsehood. When the recording of events is motivated by a determination to create a postmodern political narrative, it may end up escaping from history altogether.

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."
…
This episode demonstrates how a cabal of post-Zionist and far left academics have succeeded to create an environment in which tenured staff are conscious that they have a license to debase the State - and even call for the destruction of their own University in the name of academic freedom - whilst suppressing any views that are politically incorrect from their bigoted perspective. It is truly reminiscent of the universities in the former Soviet Union approved by Stalin.

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

Ronen Shoval, Chairman of the Im Tirtzu Movement, condemns the Academic Left for “the attempt to escape” public debate on the over-representation of post-Zionism in Academia

The attempt to escape a matter-of-fact discussion on the anti-Zionist bias in some departments, and the feeling of exclusion and humiliation felt by many students will come to naught. Throwing around swearwords like "McCarthyism," "fascism" and "Stalinism" a dozen times a day won't stop the public and the students from asking over and over the following questions.

Is there, in some parts of academia, an over-representation of post-Zionism in complete disproportion to this worldview's representation in the overall population? How did this situation come about? Is it true that academic achievement is limited to these circles, or could it be that academics of such persuasions promote their fellow post-Zionists? Is it right for academics, people with a clear vested interest, to be the only ones marking the boundaries of "academic freedom" - or rather, deciding that such freedom means that everything is allowed? Don't the public, the education minister and NGOs have a right to help mark the borders of academic freedom? Is merely raising this question equivalent to censorship and a witch hunt? Could it be that the cries of McCarthyism are the real attempts at censorship?

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Education minister Gideon Sa'ar vows to punish Israeli professors who back academic boycott

A few days after saying he intends to take action against Israeli professors who call for an academic boycott of Israel, Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar is scheduled to appear on Monday before the Knesset Education Committee to discuss the limits of freedom of expression in schools. … "Israeli academia apparently suffers from 'Palestinomania,' a mild psychological illness whose symptoms include self-hatred, an affinity for Israel's enemies, Jewish anti-Semitism and/or anti-Zionism," Shamalov Berkovich said in the Knesset. "The spread of 'Palestinomania' demands the immediate and painful treatment for all of our sake, and the sooner the better."

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Israel Hayom Reports about Leftist Harassment of Students

The main article appears here. The headline is: “If you think like me, then you will get your grade.” The news story cites the latest report distributed by the Zionist student group Im Tirtzu in which they document the anti- and post-Zionist bias that exercises hegemony over Israeli academia. The story cites several people, including Prof. Eli Pollak from the Weizmann Institute, charging that Far Leftists control academic dialogue in Israeli universities. He describes how right-leaning professors are harassed at Israeli universities and fear for their careers. The article also cites anti-Semitic extremist Neve Gordon from Ben Gurion University, the Israeli Norman Finkelstein, as saying that complaints about leftist harassment is all hooey and the Im Tirtzu report is not reliable. You know, unlike Gordon’s propaganda books.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

David Solway, World Renown Poet, on self-hating Jewish "Intellectuals"

The same is more or less true of another Jewish luminary, Avishai Margolit, feted as Israel’s “foremost philosopher.” A founding member of Peace Now, which should tell us all we need to know, Margolit insists that Israel should lift the “siege” of Gaza, forgetting that the so-called siege allows thousands of tons of supplies, medicines and electrical power to transit from Israel into Gaza, except when the crossings are closed owing to Hamas sniper fire and mortar bombardments or when the Ashkelon generator comes under attack. The great philosopher also appears untroubled by the prospect of suicide bombers and guerilla fighters sifting into Israel as students, laborers and patients. Further, Margolit does not seem aware of the fact - he has much company here - that Israel is under no obligation, neither domestic nor international, neither legal nor moral, to victual and replenish an uncompromising enemy. What other nation on the planet would commit a folly of this nature? Margolit may be an acclaimed “thinker” but he is neither wise nor street-smart; the fatuousness of his proposals is exceeded only by the dangers they would unleash. In short, Margolit is a typical Jewish savant of emeritus caliber, crowned with laurels and showered with awards, dispensing nuggets of pseudo-sagacity, and completely irrelevant.

Then there are the Jews who embody the yetzer hara, the propagators of lies and harms. These are Jews like Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University, famous for describing the country that pays his salary, which he is apparently in no hurry to forgo, as an “apartheid state,” and for having raised his arms in solidarity with Yasser Arafat in his Mukataa compound during the last intifida. Or Bard College professor Joel Kovel who has published a book titled Overcoming Zionism in which he condemns the creation of Israel, places the term Islamo-Fascism in scare quotes, traffics in barefaced lies (“Israel’s bombing of ambulances,” its deliberate targeting of “humanitarian aid workers and UN observers,” its causing of ecological disasters, etc.), and opts for the one-state solution beloved of closet antisemites. Or poet Aharon Shabtai who in his volume J’Accuse vilifies Israeli soldiers as killers from the egg. Or author Shlomo Sand, celebrated in Europe for his recently published The Invention of the Jews which argues that the Jewish “nation” is a late social construct without historical or biblical warrant. Or Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, who solicits funds from the Saudis and flagrantly tilts HRW reports to excoriate Israel and “parrot Palestinian testimonies.” Or filmmaker Shimon Dotan whose documentary Hot House sympathetically profiles Palestinian terrorist Ahlam Tamini who murdered fifteen Israelis, eight of them children. Or the leftist daily Haaretz’s literary critic and belletrist Yitzhak Laor who champions the late, fiercely anti-Israeli Palestinian laureate Mahmoud Darwish (who compares Jews to “flying insects”) and considers Israel as a country fighting a “dirty war,” a killer of “unarmed Palestinians.” Or Middle East prof Mark LeVine who believes Israel needs to be saved from itself and that the Gaza war was unjustified, and cites highly contaminated sources like “a joint Tel Aviv University-European study,” Jimmy Carter, a Hamas spokeman in the Los Angeles Times, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), revisionist Avi Shlaim, Haaretz Israel-bashing lefties Gideon Levy and Amira Haas, and of course the redoubtable Neve Gordon, to support his bias. Of despicables like Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Naomi Klein and Ilan Pappe, nothing more need be said; the very names are sufficient.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Gerald Steinberg, NGO Monitor Chief, condemns Leftist manipulations of Freedom of Speech by David Newman, Daniel Bar-Tal, and others

'Others involved in this ideological trench warfare include Prof. Daniel Bar-Tal. In a conference at Tel Aviv University, allegedly focused on academic free speech in the context of conflict, Bar-Tal condemned imagined “right-wing” McCarthyite threats to Israeli democracy and freedom of speech. The list of speakers also included, Prof. Galia Golan (Peace Now), Newman and Prof. Naomi Chazan, head of the controversial New Israel Fund. Chazan passionately wrapped herself in the bandages of victimization, while saying nothing when I presented the examples of how the NIF and partner organizations seek to silence their critics.'

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Isi Leibler uses Tel Aviv University as an Example for Anti-Israel Academics who have Crossed The Line

Regrettably, the TAU scenario represents a microcosm of how the loony left have imposed a regime of madness in this country. It is noteworthy that Anat Kam, who exulted in stealing classified IDF military information in the name of freedom of expression and attempted to present herself as a heroic figure, was educated at TAU, in a philosophy department in which professors called for a global boycott against Israel.

Examples of unacceptable behavior abound: the Chair of the Philosophy Department, Professor Anat Biletzki, is a close supporter of Asmi Bishari ,the Arab MK calling for the dismantling of Israel; Biletzki also gathered signatures for a high school student petition justifying the right to refuse to serve in the army; Anat Matar, another lecturer at the philosophy department, initiated an (unsuccessful) campaign to deny the right of Col. Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, who headed the international IDF law division during the Gaza war, to lecture at its law school on the grounds that she would “justify the killing of civilians, including hundreds of children”; the Law School convened a conference on the subject of the alleged mistreatment of “political prisoners” at which one of the principal speakers was a former terrorist who had been sentenced to 27 years for throwing a bomb at Jews on a bus; Professor Adi Ophir campaigned to lobby embassies in Tel Aviv to impose sanctions against Israel to prevent atrocities in Gaza; TAU academics were prominent signatories in a petition backing the US Berkeley boycott against Israel; two professors, Anat Matar (who earlier participated in a London conference promoting a general and academic boycott of Israel) and Rachel Giora recently signed a petition denouncing The Boston Museum of Art for sponsoring an exhibit of Israeli medical and high tech achievements; etc etc.

Freedom of expression is a treasured feature of democracy but the dividing line must be drawn between academic freedom and breaching the law or indulging in subversive activity

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Dershowitz vs. Tenured Extremists

Suddenly, academic freedom of speech is the leading topic of discussion in Israel. Suddenly, the local newspapers and TV shows are filled with debates about "censorship" in academic institutions. Suddenly, everyone in Israel can see the anti-democratic nature of Israel's academic fifth column. And Israel owes Prof. Alan Dershowitz a debt of gratitude for exposing the damages of Israel's anti-Israel academic far Left, the academic copperheads who support the enemies of their country in time of war!

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Alan Dershowitz attacks Israeli Far-Left who partake in “legal terror” against Israel

According to the prominent lawyer, these acts are "legal terror" aimed at slandering Israel's name. He went on to explain that Israel's greatest enemies were not radical Muslims, who he said only strengthened its claims, but rather Jews and Israelis worldwide using their descent in order to boost their unrestrainable attacks against Israel. ... Dershowitz said that Israel must launch a real war against incitement, in any place possible

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A Governor at Tel Aviv University attacks Israel's Academic Fifth Column

To what extent are governors conscious of the hatred resulting from those Israeli academics that promote BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) against Israel? Is it not strange that they are able to travel abroad calling for the boycott of the very universities from which they receive their livelihood?

Do governors recognize the devastating effect of this Israel-bashing on students in their respective countries? For example, a number of Israeli academics spearheaded the recent “Israel Apartheid Week” (now in its sixth year) aimed to show the country as an apartheid state like South Africa was. London was the scene of major anti-Israel activity during this “Apartheid Week,” led by an associate professor from Tel Aviv University. The prime objective was to isolate, delegitimize and dehumanize the one Jewish state. This is particularly disturbing when seen in conjunction with Jewish students who feel unable to stand up to the increasingly virulent anti-Israel bombardment on campus.

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Dr. Yitzhak Klein gives reasons for Israeli Academics justifying Terror; suggests counter-measures

In an interview given to Arutz Sheva TV, Dr. Yitzhak Klein, director of the Israel Policy Center, explains about the motives for anti-Israel Israeli Academics supporting terror against Israel. According to Klein, who gave a lecture titled “Darkness at Noon: Israeli Academics Justify Terror against Israel” (extract can be seen here) at the three-day seminar - Intellectuals and Terror: the Fatal Attraction - being held at the Ariel University Center, some of these public statements by the anti-Israel Academics are criminal offences that should be prosecuted under Israeli Law.

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Hebrew University Professor Elhanan Yakira (Dept of Philosophy) denounces the Academic Fifth Column in Israel

Who are the big names in the Israeli community of opprobrium?

There are so many, and no doubt most of them are unfamiliar to English readers. Haifa-born Ilan Pappe, who now teaches in England, completely embraces the Palestinian narrative. There is Yehuda Shenhav, who has a new book out challenging the right of Israel to exist even within the 1967 "Green Line." I devote part of my book to Adi Ophir, former editor of the post-modernist Hebrew journal Theory and Criticism and an academic at Tel Aviv University and the Shalom Hartman Institute. There is also Oren Yiftachel at Ben-Gurion University, who speaks of Zionism as a "colonialism of refugees" and "creeping apartheid." Then there is the Haaretz crowd, including Amira Hass and Gideon Levy. Outside Israel, a key name is the historian Tony Judt, with his advocacy of a bi-national state.

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The Israeli Far Left congenitally disposed to treason?

After the assassination of Rabin, every Israeli newspaper and leftist commentator denounced Bar-Ilan University, where Yigal Amir had been a law student. Many even called for shutting the university down. Not one of those same people has called for closing down Tel Aviv University, where Kamm was a student in the history and philosophy departments and where, together with the sociology and political science departments at TAU, one would have to search long and hard to find faculty members who are not leftists or out and out communists.

Not a single mainstream media outlet in Israel is denouncing the radicals at Tel Aviv University for inspiring and breeding Anat Kamm, nor are pundits calling for the university to undertake a complete "critical self-examination" to understand its own guilt, which is what they had demanded of Bar-Ilan.

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Leftist anti-Israel Academics whine about "McCarthyism" and about Isracampus

Hardly a week goes by here without the claim, usually by groups on the Left, that people are being silenced and censored by McCarthyism. In an October 2009 article, Benjamin Pogrund claimed that university groups such as Isracampus and Israel Academic Monitor were attacking leftist professors in “classic McCarthyite style.” David Newman of Ben-Gurion University has written that “the academic McCarthyism of the right endangers Israeli democracy and society. It threatens the very basis of freedom of speech.”

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Professors fuel fire of anti-Israel propaganda

Radical Israeli Jewish academicians that condemn Israel’s right to exist fuel the fire of anti-Israel rhetoric, said Dr. Yitzchak Mansdorf, former director of the pro-Israel campus advocacy David Project, at the recent Jerusalem Conference. He was referring to the anti-Israel propaganda war on college campuses, saying that the new form of antisemitism challenges Israel’s legitimacy on a political, ideological and academic level. ...Ignorance of Jewish history – by non-Jewish and even by Jewish-Israeli professors – is another reason cited by Mansdorf.

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Prof. Amnon Rubinstein exposes how "University Publishers" outside Israel promote the Israeli Academic Fifth Column:

"The latest product in the flourishing bash-Israel literature is Iranophobia. The book debunks Israeli and Western anxieties about the Iranian dangers. The author, Prof. Haggai Ram of Ben-Gurion University, argues that Israeli anti-Iran phobias are largely projections of perceived domestic threats to the prevailing Israeli ethnocratic order. In plain language, he holds that Israel has to demonize Iran so as to identify the Islamic Republic with its suppressed minorities in Israel: the Mizrahi and the haredi communities. Iran, on this theory, is the hated "role model" with which these suppressed minorities can be associated: "the production of Iran as a radical external other in Israeli imagination is to be understood in relation to the emergence of ("Iran-like") ethnic and religious internal others that violated the Jewish state's self-image as 'the West.'"

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Israel's Academic Fifth Column and its "Post-Colonial" Disgrace

Gadi Taub on YNET denounces Israel's extremist anti-Israel academics: “Israel’s radical leftist academicians promote false, immoral notions.”

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The Pathology of Jewish Anti-Semitism

" Jewish-anti-Semitism is a modern disease. In the twenty-first century the world is experiencing an explosion of it, a virtual plague. Among the most malicious and venomous of all bigots, the Jewish anti-Semites are at the forefront of each and every smear campaign against Israel and other Jews. Jews today are leaders in the campaigns to boycott and "divest from" Israel, including the "Solidarity with Terrorists" groups. They make pilgrimage to the terrorist camps of the Hamas and the Hezb'Allah, cheering on terrorist atrocities against Jews. They pioneered the smear campaign to paint Israel as an apartheid regime and denouncing Israel as equivalent to Nazi Germany is their favorite pastime. Western campuses are crawling with them. Some of the Jewish anti-Semites even hold leadership positions in Hillel houses. Many others are tenured professors. An anti-Semitic Jewish judge chaired a UN commission demonizing Israel. A Jewish member of Britain's Parliament (Gerald Kaufman) compared Hamas terrorists to Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto and denounced Israel as a Nazi entity. And a shockingly large number of Jewish anti-Semites are Israelis or ex-Israelis. "

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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.

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The IDF shows discrimination: ignores the insubordination of 350 academic “rabbis” and the anti-Israel ALEF forum at Haifa University

The IDF also has a hesder (arrangement) with the University of Haifa, where some 40 staff members signed a petition calling for insubordination. At that university, senior officers from the National Security College study for a master's degree (Ilan Pappe also taught in that program). In addition, naval cadets and officers from Military Intelligence study there for bachelor's degrees. And lo and behold, in the university's central computer, in a file entitled "war criminals," a group called Aleph published photographs of dozens of officers and by doing so blacklisted them. (The list includes Gabi Ashkenazi, Yohanan Locker, Yigal Slovik, Yoav Mordechai, Avi Blot, Yuval Halamish, Herzi Halevi and Gur Rosenblatt, as well as former foreign minister Tzipi Livni.)

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A Call by Isracampus for the Immediate Dismissal of Shai Nitzan as Israel Deputy Prosecutor

We at Isracampus would like to ask you to take a few moments from your Hannuka week to strike a blow against anti-democratic Thought Control in Israel. We would like to ask you to take a few moments to demand the immediate dismissal of Israel’s worst politicized Inquisitor, Israel’s leftist thought policeman and enemy of democracy, Mr. Shai Nitzan, operating as the Deputy Prosecutor in the Ministry of Justice. Nitzan, who has a track record of partisan political decision making as the Deputy director of Israel’s Prosecution Office, must be immediately dismissed because of his campaign of persecution and harassment against Dr. David Bukay, for the crime of incorrect thinking and speaking. … Last week, the leftist Deputy Director of the Israel Prosecutor’s Office, Shai Nitzan, ordered Dr. Bukay to come into his office as part of an investigation into incorrect thinking and speaking by Dr. Bukay in his classroom. The story is reported in full in detail (in Hebrew only, alas) in the weekend issue of Maariv, and can be read here: http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/977/492.html and here: http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/977/491.html

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The Israeli “Academics” doing the Dirty work for the Alternative Information Center (AIC)

Few Israelis and even fewer Americans know much about the Alternative Information Center (AIC) which is located both in the West Bank in Beit Sahour and also in downtown Jerusalem. The Alternative Information Center was set up by an Arab physics professor from Bir Zeit University named Ghassan Andoni. It was a precursor for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), an extremist pro-terror anti-Israel group, previously going under the name Alternative Tourism. Andoni and his organization represent the Christian communist terrorist wing of the PLO, George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Andoni’s Center has become a major source for anti-Israel propaganda and disinformation. … Just as wars are fought not only directly on the battlefield between soldiers, but through economic warfare, this latest report from the AIC is designed to cut the line of supply to the IDF of educated personnel. Recall that the AIC itself grew out of the PFLP terrorist movement. It still has the destruction of Israel in mind.

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The Chronicle of Higher Education reviews IsraCampus and the debate it hopes to create

Left-right tensions are rising on Israeli campuses over the complex legacy of Zionist ideology and the place of Zionism in Israeli society, with a call for students at one university to report on "Thought Police" professors, a campaign that is being likened to "McCarthyite" tactics in the United States. … Things came to a head at University of Haifa with the publication this fall of an advertisement in the new student calendar by IsraCampus, a watchdog modeled on Campus Watch in the United States. … "There's a group of Israeli professors who are misusing the classroom for political indoctrination," said Steven Plaut, an associate professor of business administration at Haifa, who paid for the IsraCampus advertisement. "They are using their positions within Israeli academia to basically promote an anti-Israel political agenda. Other people have the right to know what they're doing."

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Many Israeli Academics are “disconnected” and “unsure of their place” in Israeli society

It is apparent that the central problem with too many of Israel's academics is that they are unsure of their place in society, they misunderstand their relevance and they are embittered and hysterical in their pronouncements to the point of having a childlike "crying wolf" mentality when discussing the conflict in the Middle East. … There was a time in history when academics understood that their role in society, shaping its culture, encouraging it along a proper course, developing the national narrative. The academy knew that its life was intricately linked to that of the society it lived in. It was the highest level of that society and had a responsibility to it. Israeli academics who call on European powers to invade the country to "save it from itself," those who call the country "Nazi," those who call for boycotts of their own country, those who go into "exile" abroad or those who encourage the murder of citizens in the country simply do not view themselves as responsible for the country at large. They are so disconnected from the society that they no longer feel any responsibility to be decent and mature in their rhetoric toward it.

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Erez Tadmor, Im Tirtzu Director, warns about the Anti-Zionist “thought police” at Israeli Universities and Colleges; cautions about the harm to Israel’s international image

“Anti-Zionist professors have created an informal “thought police,” he said. Those academics who hold different political views are passed over for promotion, he charged. “This is cynical exploitation of the system by professors... there is a general atmosphere meant to frighten those with different views.” … Another problem created by the existing situation is that of poor public relations, he noted. When many Israeli academics are openly critical of the state of Israel, their views become fodder for anti-Israel activists abroad, and the result is harm to Israel's image in the international community.

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Im Tirtzu Poster invites students to report Anti-Israel Faculty

Attached here (in Hebrew) a poster the Im Tirtzu student organization is displaying on all Israel campuses this week. It calls on students who witness political indoctrination in class or in course syllabi to bring the matter to their attention.

To see the Im Tirtzu poster, go here

Hebrew University - Ze'ev Sternhell (Dept of Political Science) insists Israel is guilty until proven innocent and maybe even after that

'Everyone understands that the army's opposition to a probe of the accusations against it can have only one reason: There is something to hide. It is not the Goldstone report that has opened another painful phase in the erosion of Israel's credibility, but rather the cavalier attitude here toward the heavy Palestinian losses. In broad circles of Western European and American intelligentsia (sic) - in the universities and among cultural and media figures - Israel arouses ever-deepening hostility.'

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Monitoring sites, like IsraCampus.Org.il, have the Israeli Tenured Left hysterical

Haaretz today [23/10/2009] ran in its English web site a hysterical column attacking the monitoring groups and web sites, including Isracampus.org.il, for daring to expose the political activities of Israel’s Tenured Left. As you know, these include open advocacy by tenured academics in Israel of terrorism against Jews, of boycotts against Israel, and of Israel’s annihilation. The Haaretz column is a hysterical attack on those who cite verbatim what anti-Israel leftist academics write and say. That constitutes “McCarthyism,” according to the writer, Benjamin Pogrund. The writer is not an academic but is a leftist journalist from South Africa living in Israel, known mainly for once having ties with Nelson Mandela and for his writings against apartheid when he lived in South Africa. Today he is a leftist Zionist of sorts, and has made some speaking tours overseas with Palestinians to tout the Left’s agenda.

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Tel Aviv University – Summary of the Anti-Israel Activity in the Philosophy and Political Science Departments

In all, Tel Aviv University’s department of Philosophy has two major activists who have signed the most radical petitions and supported the most radical anti-Israel activities, including calling on soldiers to have the “courage to refuse,” and requesting international boycotts of their own university. A further three have supported international involvement against Israel and signed more benign petitions. In total only 15 faculty have not signed any of the petitions while 13 have, meaning the department appears to be about equally balanced, however this ignores the fact that several of the faculty who are not activists are retired or visiting lecturers. Removing them brings down the number of faculty not signing petitions to 10. Thus the youngest faculty, particularly the up-and-comers, as well as the chair of the department, are at the forefront of “activism” in the “peace movement,” which means, many times encouraging soldiers to break the law and refuse orders. … The activism of TAU’s philosophy department might be seen to be relatively within the bounds of what an average department might produce, a few radicals and numerous other academics, were it not for another related philosophy department known as The Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas. It is this institute that might be considered TAU’s school of radicalism, where its most extreme voices have gathered and where almost every single faculty member has been active in radical Israel-critical petitions. … In Contrast to the Philosophy Department and the Cohn Institute, the Political Science Department at TAU’s faculty are relatively tempered in their criticism of the state which supports their research. Only three signed the “academic freedom” petition and only one has shown a consistent pro-Palestinian agenda. … The importance of Philosophy and Political Science to the continuing functioning of the state is apparent. The two disciplines help provide needed analysis, critique and ideas for the development of politics and political theory. Many of the ideas central to the Western World and its embrace of citizenship and democracy have originated in these disciplines. However at Tel Aviv University an increasing number of academics no longer embrace these ideas. In their political activism on behalf of the Palestinians they have come to support a radical Islamist regime where citizenship, democracy and an open society are non-existent. … This is an unfortunate and irresponsible conclusion and one that has a continuing worrisome impact on the state of Israel and the training of its up and coming minds.

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Isi Leibler, retired Senior Vice President of the World Jewish Congress, calls for legislation to “deny tenure” for tenured Anti-Israel Academics

Regrettably, successive Israeli governments failed to respond even when professors at universities funded by Israeli taxpayers and Diaspora Zionists began exploiting their positions to delegitimize their country. They identified with Israel's enemies, calling on the world to boycott Israeli institutions, including their own universities. Israel prides itself on being the only country in the region in which genuine freedom of expression reigns supreme. … To tolerate such abominations in the name of freedom of expression is taking an ideal to a lunatic extreme. Besides, it is hard to visualize the authorities adopting such a laissez faire approach had the offenders been racists, fascists or even radical right-wing extremists. In fact, when senior academics like Ben-Gurion University's Neve Gordon, call Israel an "apartheid state" and encourage the world to boycott Israeli institutions, they are the ones abusing academic freedom. It is thus high time for the Knesset to set up a non-partisan commission to recommend legislation to deny tenure at state-sponsored institutions to those indulging in such activities.

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Isi Leibler, retired Senior Vice President of the World Jewish Congress, asserts its time to “expose” and “marginalize” tenured Anti-Israel Academics

It is thus surely time to stop ignoring the self-loathing Jews and Israelis who now occupy key roles in the campaigns to delegitimize and demonize our people. Freedom of expression enables them to continue articulating their vile attacks on their own people, but it is high time that they be exposed and marginalized from mainstream Jewish life. It is an absolute scandal that some of the worst culprits, including those calling for boycotts of their own country, retain tenure in Israeli universities funded by Israeli taxpayers and Diaspora Zionist philanthropists.

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Dr. Emmanuel Navon accuses the Academic Left of creating "dogmatic" and "intellectually boring" students

What is anchored on Israeli university campuses, however, is not true power, but true weakness. I have … always been struck by the fact that my students are confused when I ask them to think. This confusion confirms what I experienced as a graduate student in Israel. We were asked to learn, but not to think. To repeat, not to be critical. All the professors were on the same political wavelength (guess which one), and they did manage to produce formatted and dogmatic students that knew their field but had no culture and critical mind. Israeli campuses introduced me to something new: intellectually boring Jews. Faced with uncritical and ignorant 20-somethings who just finished the army and only care about getting a degree and a job, Israel's most radical professors have it easy. And what they have to say hardly makes our universities a source of national strength: Young Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria are like the Hitlerjungen (Moshe Zimmerman, Hebrew University); Israel's policy toward the Palestinians is one of politicide (Baruch Kimmerling, Hebrew University) and ethnic cleansing (Ilan Pappé, formerly from Haifa University); the very existence of a Jewish people is a "myth" invented by Zionism (Shlomo Sand, Tel-Aviv University); there never was a unified Israelite monarchy in biblical times (Israel Finkelstein, Tel-Aviv University); Israel is an apartheid state that should be boycotted by the world community (Neve Gordon, Ben-Gurion University), etc.

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Prof. Uriel Reichman of the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center Denounces anti-Israel anti-democratic members of the Israeli Academic Fifth Column

The most extreme allegations against Israel are often made by a small anti-Zionist group of Israeli university professors. … Recently, in an article published in the Los Angeles Times, an Israeli professor called his audience to boycott Israel on all levels, to "save that apartheid state from itself." How should a university respond to such writing? Is it a case of constitutionally protected free speech or academic freedom? There is a difference between internal democratic debate, what course should a nation adopt, when being called in for sanctions by other countries. The professor who wrote the L.A. article would probably support the use of international military forces, in case the sanctions fail its "save Israel from itself" campaign. Calling other nations to take action against your own country - be it by economic sanctions or military force – means turning your back on the internal democratic system. … it is very odd that such a professor is requiring a salary from a state university funded by the tax payers' money. Freedom of speech is guaranteed to enable free debate in a society; it does not extend to calls for force, which will actually terminate debates. Such calls have also nothing to do with academic freedom. It is a joke to regard a call for academic boycott as being part of academic freedom.

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The Orwellian Lobby for Neve Gordon

Neve 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

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Uri Davis – the token Jew on the Fatah Council; reduces Zionism to “land grab based on ethnic cleansing”

He has been here before, not least as the man who first proposed the critique of Israel as an "apartheid state" in the late 1980s. Davis's involvement in the first UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban in 2001 was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League. During a career of protest he has been described – inevitably – as a "self-hating Jew". He calls himself an "anti-Zionist". And his personal history is a fascinating testimony to the troubled history of the postwar Israeli left and forgotten trajectories in the story of Israel itself. The man elected to the Revolutionary Council in 31st place from a field of 600 has been as much shaped by the tidal forces of recent Jewish history – not least his own family's sufferings in the Holocaust – as any fellow citizen of Israel. But he disputes a largely manufactured account of that experience that he believes has been used deliberately "to camouflage" its "apartheid programme". Now he enjoys an extraordinary mandate to explain his own views. And he hopes, too, that just as the small number of white members of the ANC widened its legitimacy during the apartheid era in South Africa, other Jews can be attracted to participate in Fatah, transforming it into a broader-based movement that stands for equal rights for both Arabs and Jews in a federated state. ... His own self-description is a case in point, fine-tuned over the decades. "It has gone through a number of stages. In my autobiography in the mid-1990s I described myself as a Palestinian Jew. That has now changed to a Palestinian Hebrew of Jewish origins." How he frames his own identity is part of his attempt to impose an "alternative narrative" to the one that has dominated Israel since its foundation in 1948 by what he describes as "a settler-colonialist" strand of Zionism built on a massive act of "ethnic cleansing". That moment – known as the "Nakba", or the catastrophe to Arabs – saw the flight of 650,000-750,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes by Jewish forces. Davis is careful with his definitions of both "Zionism" and his own "anti-Zionism". The Zionism that he opposes is the "political Zionism" of Israel's founders, the Zionism that amounts, he says, to land grab based on ethnic cleansing.

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Academics lining up to endorse or condemn Neve Gordon's call for a worldwide Boycott against Israel

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 20:48:47 GMT
From: Niza Yanay <niza@bgu.ac.il>
….

Personally, I don’t believe that Dr. Gordon will be fired. Rather, the university seems intent to do whatever it needs to make his life at BGU unpleasant so that he will leave of his own accord… and then pretend that academic freedom in Israel has not been compromised at all. …

-Sydney Levy

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Bemoaning the Plague of Self-Hatred at Israeli Universities

The Israeli university reflected Zionist ideals. It maintained the continuity between the traditions of the past and the country taking form in the present without foregoing the secular-pioneer mission of building a sovereign independent state without waiting for divine intervention. However, as enlightened freedom of thought is replaced by a politically correct agenda, over-emphasis of secular anti-religion remains and paves the way for self-hating revisionism. For instance, one of the "new historians" "proved' that Jewish self-awareness as a nation and their continued connection to the Land of Israel are inventions meant to justify Zionist ideology retroactively. A well-known archeologist, who was awarded a prestigious award, regurgitated this claim and applied it to biblical times. According to him, the kingdom of David and Solomon never existed and was only invented to justify control of the Palestinian territories with a claim of historic right. A third "new historian" went far enough to say that the Jewish people are an invention, saying that Jews are all converts from other nations. With this kind of curriculum to rely on, it is no wonder that students are staying away from Jewish university studies.

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University of Exeter – Uri Davis, the “Palestinian Hebrew” and convert to Islam, is the first Jewish nomination for the Fatah Revolutionary Council

Dr. Uri Davis told Ma'an that one of Fatah's weakest attributes has been its failure to establish ties with international parties, movements and human rights organizations, and promised to step up efforts, if elected. Born to Jewish parents in Jerusalem, Davis describes himself as a Palestinian Hebrew. Davis has written a series of books and articles that classify the State of Israel as an apartheid state, alleging that Israel's policies towards Palestinians, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, are comparable to South Africa's apartheid policies.

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Attack on Homosexuals triggers Massive Orthodox Bashing by Israeli Bigots

In other words, the McCarthyists are claiming to enjoy powers of clairvoyance. The police have not indicated that there is the slightest piece of evidence that the perp or perps were even Jews, yet the politically correct postureurs “KNOW” that Orthodox Jews are behind it! Would it not be interesting if it turns out that the murderers were Arab terrorists who happened to take note of the club in Tel Aviv? Or, even more plausibly, that the murderers were from the Fat’h or Hamas, groups whose intolerance of homosexuality is notoriously murderous. Homosexuals are routinely tortured and murdered by Palestinians groups, and the situation is no better in most Moslem countries. You will hear very little about that from the pro-intifada gay militants.

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Im Tirtzu Activists protest anti-Semitic one-sided “conference” on the conduct of IDF combat soldiers during Operation Cast Lead hosted at the Van Leer Institute

A group of activists from the student organization Im Tirtzu held a demonstration outside a Rabbis for Human Rights conference at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem on Wednesday. The conference is focusing on the conduct of IDF combat soldiers during last January's Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip. Holding up signs that decried "Blood libels against IDF soldiers for the sake of European cash," the activists heckled participants arriving at the conference and explained to curious passersby that they were unnerved by the one-sided testimonies being given inside the conference and the apparent lack of factual data backing up the claims.

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PsychoActive conference at Tel Aviv University - Yet another TAU "academic" exercise in one-sided Israel-Bashing

These people live in another universe; they fail to recognize that the Arabs are ‘playing’ the ‘liberal’ Jews. It was a touchy-feely group. Feelings are everything, even if they are phony, Facts and reality are meaningless. … I think that many of the participants do not consider themselves to be Israel bashers or that they are a threat to the State.

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A Litmus Test For Opponents of the "Nakba Law"

There are two types of people posturing their outrage at the proposed "Anti-Nakba" law. One consists of free speech absolutists. The other consists of anti-democratic haters of Israel, many of them people with a neo-fascist disdain for freedom of speech. The first group truly believes in freedom of speech, even for radicals, traitors, and extremists. The second group consists of people who are fighting against the "anti-Nakba law" because they agree with the "Nakba nuts" that Israel's very existence is a catastrophe, something that should be corrected by means of exterminating Israel.

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The IsraCampus challenge to Israeli Law Professors

Isracampus hereby challenges the professors and lecturers in law schools in Israel to speak out against the McCarthyist suppression of freedom of speech and the anti-democratic firing and political persecution, in the case of Rabbi Israel Shiran at the Moriah-Barkai high school in Haifa, Israel. He was fired and demonized by Minster of Education Yuli Tamir because he dared to express a political opinion of which she disapproved, namely, his belief that Yitzhak Rabin's political ideology should not be a matter for indoctrination in Israeli schools.

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Israeli communist academics to participate in new Stalinism Days

Tel Aviv University has not yet recovered from its Stalinism Day a few weeks back and now yet another Stalinism Day, or days, May 15 and May 16. Among the participants will be a host of communist party officials, plus convicted terrorist spy Udi Adiv, plus Hebrew University math professor Emanuel Farjoun, BGU sociologist Uri Ram, and others.

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Anti-Zionist and Post-Historians Pose an Existential Threat to Israel’s Continued Autonomy

As Israel's new prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a recent interview, "Politicians, whether they know it or not, are guided by ideas. Right now, in Israel, they are starting to be guided with the wrong ideas." These wrong ideas stem from the current post-Zionist discourse promulgated in the media and academia. … Today, though, the majority of Zionist students on Israeli campuses remain silent while a small but vocal minority of anti-Zionist and post-Zionist students are taking control of the public discourse. This creates a tragic reality as Israel's future leaders are being inundated with anti-Zionist and post-Zionist ideas as part of the education upon which they presumably will base their eventual leadership.

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The Israeli Left just awarded to itself the Israel Prize once again

A panel of people appointed by Labor Party Minister of Education Yuli Tamir, all of whom had personal ties to the Israel Democracy Institute and had received money from it, decided to award this year's Israel Prize to - (drumroll) - the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI). The IDI is a leftist political SWAT team, promoting the Left's agenda.

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Israeli academics collaborating with the Boycott Israel efforts of the anti-Israel "FFIPP"

Koby Snitz and Hannah Safran participated in Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace’s (FFIPP) campaign with the Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine, Amherst, MA to push for the boycott of Israel by the Hampshire College.

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When it Does not Add Up: Anti-Israel Mathematicians at Israeli Universities

Israeli far-leftist anti-Israel academics in the mathematics field may have their own abstract ways of looking at things, but they are paid by the Israeli taxpayers, and then promote an anti-Israel agenda that sometimes involves terrorist attacks against those same taxpayers.

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Tel Aviv University to be Converted to a Gulag (for a day)

Many of us have long suspected that Tel Aviv University (TAU) often serves as a communist re-education gulag, dominated by its post-Zionist anti-Israel far-leftists in whose classrooms no Zionist or non-leftist opinion may ever be expressed. But this coming March 25, 2009, it really will be a gulag! At least for one day! Israel's pro-terror communist party MAKI will hold its "congress" that day in the TAU law school, which has been much in the news recently for attempts at suppressing academic freedom there, gulag-style.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here
To see the "congress" flyer (Hebrew), go here

The Israeli Academy and the Gaza War

Many of the Israeli scholars who opposed the war in Gaza did so under the increasingly fashionable guise of being ‘lone voices,’ standing up the oppression of their own country. In the English language environment (including the internet) in which many of them published, this claim was used as an all-purpose calling card and publicity gimmick. The most common themes in their writing are that of Gaza being a ‘prison’ and the need to compare Israel’s actions to some other ultra-evil regime. The favorite regimes for comparison have been the Nazis, but sometimes apartheid south Africa, Russian pogromists, or European colonizers can be recruited. The theme of Gaza being a colonized ‘prison’ is used in order to justify the ‘resistance’ of Hamas, meaning its terror and rockets. This recycles the dialectic of Albert Memmi’s Colonizer and Colonized or Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. Under the logic of "post-colonialism," the colonized is always allowed any extreme so long as he is opposing what can be dismissed as colonialism.

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Site that collects the Who's Who of the anti-Israel Academic Israeli Left

Get to know your anti-Israel Academic Extremists
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Anti-Zionists and Post-Historians exposed gleefully rewriting history in an attempt to prove that Jewish labor and love of the land was really just a reason to destroy another people

The rewriters, like Benny Morris, Ilan Pepe and Baruch Kimmerling, mostly publish first in English to gain the praise of the West's "justice seekers." Their works are then quickly grabbed for translation into Arabic and displayed in marketplaces in Damascus, Cairo and Tunis. Their conclusion is almost uniform: that in practise Zionism amounted to an evil, colonialist conspiracy to exploit the people dwelling in Palestine, enslave them, steal their land, and disinherit them. … Such calumny is not new: the doctrine that Zionism is a colonialist movement serving imperialism by exploiting and enslaving Arab peasants and laborers was formulated and disseminated in Soviet propaganda organs since the 1920s, embellished with "scientific" terms from the Marxist-Leninist lexicon. … Ze'ev Sternhal, Yigal Eylam, Yehoshafat Harkabi and many other academics, slavishly imitated by journalists and politicians, regard stressing religious, cultural and emotional affinity to the land - the most important rationale for our existence here - with sheer contempt. They see it as contaminated by nationalism, fundamentalism, fetishism ("a pronounced national fetish, like the Land of Israel," wrote Eylam) - and even fascism.

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Israeli student protest group - Im Tirtzu - publishes statistics on anti-Zionist studies in Israel

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Israeli Academics join in supporting Palestinian lies

Israeli support for the Palestinan call for action

We the undersigned Israeli citizens support the urgent appeal issued by Dr. Heydar Abdel-Shafi, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, Dr. Azmi Bishara, Rana Nashashibi, Dr. Eyad Sarraj, Khader Shkirat and Raji Sourani on 29 March, entitled: "Break the Conspiracy of Silence, Act Before it is too Late" [published by Al-Ahram Weekly last week]. We hereby call upon our fellow citizens to join us:

Prof. Aharon Eviatar, Hoffit
Dr. Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin
Prof. Avraham Oz, Tel Aviv
Prof. Baruch Kimmerling, Jerusalem
Dr. Daphna Levit, Tel Aviv
Dr. Daniel Amit, Rome
Dr. Edeet Ravel, Toronto,Ca.
Haim Hanegbi, Journalist, Tel Aviv
Dr. Ilan Pappe, Haifa
Dr. Lev Grinberg, Jerusalem
Pnina Feiler, Kibbutz Yad Hanna
Dr. Ruchama Maton, Tel Aviv
Adv. Tamar Pelleg-Sryck, Tel Aviv
Dr. Tikva Honig Parnass, Jerusalem
Yehudith Harel, Ramat Hasharon
Dr. Yossi Amitay, Kibbutz Gvulot
Uri Avnery, Journalist, Tel Aviv

Please send your signature to: &ltRaji Sourani-pchr@pchrgaza.co.il> and cc to: &ltye_harel@netvision.net.il>

PLEASE circulate this appeal as widely as possible.

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Hypocrisy of the Israeli Left

For Sternhell and those of his mindset on the Israeli Left, though, the main charge against the settlements was that they supposedly perpetuated Israeli rule over the Palestinians -- in their view the crux of all evil. And it was when the positions of such left-wing academics, writers, and cultural figures seeped into the mainstream, being adopted by politicians like Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, that Israel created the PA, dismantled most of the “occupation,” and replaced it with direct Palestinian rule.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Sternhell and his friends to do some soul-searching about the result -- a reign of horrific abuses inconceivably worse than the few instances of settler misconduct they keep harping on.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

About that Attack on Prof. Sternhell

Beyond that, several other rather tame observations might be mentioned. These include:

- Sternhell's political outlook and opinions were repugnant before the attack and did not become any less repugnant because of the attack.
- Radical Leftist sedition does not become legitimized because of the attack on Sternhell, no matter who carried it out.
- Critics of the radical Left do not become delegitimized because of the attack on Sternhell, no matter who carried it out.
- Critics of Prof. Sternhell's opinions have as much right to express their criticisms as Sternhell himself has to express his.

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The Two Societies: the university and the security services

When the state calls upon its men and women to serve, and if needs be die, those called upon deserve recompense from the state. If that comes in the form of discounts and decent pay and a good education at a top ranked university that is only fair. To claim that the university owes them nothing, to claim that the ivory tower exists in a vacuum may sound nice today, but one day that vacuum may be rudely punctured, as it was by the July 2002 terrorist attack at Hebrew university. Then suddenly the civil society begs for protection.

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Post Zionist Uri Davis shows true colors, abandons Judaism

Just two months ago, Davis took part in an Arab-sponsored "Haifa Conference," billed as "defend[ing] a secular democratic state in historic Palestine." A summary of the conference written by Yoav Bar states that the Conference "was our moment to raise our heads from the exhausting daily struggle and promise ourselves and the world that the suffering of the Palestinian people may be brought to an end and there can be a bright future for everybody in Palestine after we get rid of the racist Zionist disorder." ... Dr. Davis gave one of the three Hebrew speeches at the Conference; the others were delivered by Yehuda Kupferman of the "Committee for a Secular and Democratic state in the Whole of Palestine," and Dr. Anat Matar, a leading supporter of the rights of Palestinian prisoners and the rights of Israeli youth to refuse to serve in the IDF.

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Israeli University Heads Join Leftist anti-Israel Group in Demanding that All Controls be Removed from Palestinians entering Campuses

The Israeli university system is not only corrupt and mediocre but dominated by leftist politicization. While university officials often shrug their shoulders when listening to complaints about the many tenured traitors operating out of their campuses, insisting that it is all just a price that needs to be paid if academic freedom is to be preserved, they generally insist disingenuously that politicization of the campus leadership by the Left does not exist at all.

Oh no? Consider the petition to the Israeli Minister of Defense sent by the members of the Council of University Presidents this week, as reported on the YNET news web site (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3574835,00.html). These are university PRESIDENTS, not rank and file Post-Zionist academic quacks!

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Does Yuli Tamir want to be education minister for the Palestinian Authority or Israel?

Yuli Tamir as Education Minister on July 22, 2007 approved a school text for Israeli children describing the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 as a 'Nakba', or catastrophe, for use in Israeli Arab schools. Asked her reasoning, Tamir replied on Israel Radio that "The Arab public deserves to be allowed to express its feelings.” ... Simply put, the Nakba is a myth perpetuated by the education ministries of the totalitarian Arab world to justify taking back Israel from the Jews.

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Pluto Press, outlet for anti-Israel academics, scrapped by the University of Michigan

Pluto Press lost its American source of distribution through the prestigious University of Michigan Press due to poor scholasticism and a pattern of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish books said to counter “Zionism” (a.k.a. Jews). StandwithUS, a Jewish and Israel advocacy group, showed U. Michigan that material that was not scholastically accurate was being disseminated by U. Michigan Press as scholastically accurate material and included downright polemical tomes against Israel that were not even subject to peer review before dissemination as with other books. This was damaging the University’s academic prestige.

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Israeli academics lobbying against Israeli security control of movements and in favor of "freedom of movement" for Palestinian terrorists in the name of academic freedom. See the role call of signatories:

The initiators of the petition:

Prof. Menachem Fisch, Tel-Aviv University

Prof. Raphael Falk, The Hebrew University

Prof. Eva Jablonka, Tel-Aviv University

Dr. Snait Gissis, Tel-Aviv University

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Israel Academics Participate in Conference that promotes "ending the Occupation"

The following Israeli academics participated in FFIPP-International Conference that promotes "ending the Occupation":

Menachem Klein, Bar Ilan University - Dept of Political Studies
Kenneth Mann, Tel Aviv University - Dept of Law
Eyal Wiezman, University of London - Dept of Visual Cultures

It has been almost two years since the last FFIPP conference in Ramallah.
Since then, the situation in the Occupied Territories has deteriorated with the
rapidly worsening conditions in Gaza, the continued construction of the Wall
and the settlements, continued violence— mainly against the Palestinians- and
the lack of any progress in the ‘negotiations’. The tensions between Hamas and
Fatah continued as well and the isolation of Hamas contributed to the general
deterioration. The Annapolis conference has failed to produce any positive
change in the region and the occupation of Iraq is now threatening to escalate
into, potentially, a major confrontation with Iran.

For more details and to see the full original article, go here

Israeli Academics threaten the future of the Israeli State

A 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:

“I want people to boycott Israeli institutes.”
“I think the de-Zionisation of Israel is a pre-condition for peace; I have no doubt about that.”

and Ben-Gurion University politics lecturer Neve Gordon who went to Ramallah in February 2002 and clasped hands with Yasser Arafat.

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Good Morning, Elijah: Amos Oz Does The Peace Tour

Oz is at his silliest when he tries to distinguish between stark unequivocal moral choices and complex ambiguous ones. “You Europeans have a tendency to frame everything in simplistic good vs. bad terms,” he says. “This is OK for some conflicts, like that between fascism and anti-fascism, or that between colonialism and anti-colonialism, or that between the U.S. and Vietnamese, but the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not that.”

Of course, the allegedly simple moral conflicts offered by Oz tell us more about him than about the conflict. Anti-fascists have at times been worse than fascists; anti-colonialists generally were far more savage and brutal than European colonialists; and Oz’s insistence that the U.S. was the unambiguous evil power in Vietnam is little more than the attempt of an Israeli leftist to pander to fashionable anti-Americanism, to ingratiate himself with those who imagine Europe is the moral superior of the U.S. – something Oz tries to do repeatedly throughout the evening.

The other problem with Oz’s silly characterization of moral clarity vs. ambiguity is that the Arab-Israeli conflict is actually as morally unambiguous as was World War II. Yes, Allied troops sometimes conducted acts of injustice and, yes, German and Japanese civilians were often killed as the war was fought out, but that changes nothing about the moral unambiguousness of that conflict.

The Arab-Israeli conflict exists because the Arab world, controlling 22 states and territory nearly twice that of the United States (including Alaska), is unwilling to allow the Jews to enjoy any self-determination or control over even a tiny piece of territory. Ultimately, the tremendous damage that Oz and his kind have done has been in muddying what should be a clear moral understanding of the Middle East war, all in the name of the sanctity of moral symmetry, and this muddying has undercut Israeli willingness to resist and fight.

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Israeli State Radio Outs the Academic Fifth Column

Until now, Israel's state-owned media have generally never done any investigative reporting on Israel's Far left and Academic Fifth Column. The TV and radio stations are owned by the Israel Broadcasting Authority, and the IBA has always been a poorly-disguised promoter and guardian of the Left. Its heads have never hidden the fact that they think their mission in life is to advance the Left's agenda.

That is why the decision to run a series of radio shows viciously attacking the academic far Left and the "Post-Zionists" is so significant, and why it has the far leftists in Israel soiling themselves in anguish.

Recently the first of what is promised to be a series of two-hour radio shows on the subject was aired on Reshet Bet, one of the large state-run radio channels in Israel. It can be heard via the internet in Hebrew at this URL:, where you need to click the program entitled "The Anti-Zionist Congress." (or listen directly here or download the program as a file here) These shows are part of the wider state-media coverage of Israel's 60th independence anniversary celebrations.

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The Fate of Jewish Anti-Zionists

by Ami Isseroff

Israelenews.com

March 31, 2008

http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/4939

Anti-Zionist Jews and those whose views amount to anti-Zionism are an unpleasant fact of life. This article was not written to condemn them, or to refute their ideas in detail, but rather to point out that they will eventually find themselves isolated by the people whose cause they are championing. This is already happening.

Anti-Zionist Jews are among the most vociferous, visible and effective opponents of the existence of the state of Israel today. Who has done more to advance the myth of Zionist "ethnic cleansing" than Ilan Pappe? Who has done more to combat the "Holocaust Myth" by his subtle and effective "Holocaust Industry" campaign than Norman Finkelstein?? Who has been at the forefront at spreading the libel of "Apartheid Israel," if not Jeff Halper? Who has made hatred of Israel respectable in US Academia if not Joel Beinin? Who has done more to advance the image of Israel as a tool of the colonialist imperialist warmongers than Noam Chomsky? Who has been the ideological soul of the British boycott campaigns, if not Jacqueline Rose? Who has done more to discredit the IDF and demoralize Israeli youth than Dorothy Naor with her "New Profile" movement? It is the Golden Age of anti-Zionist and anti-Israel Jews. All over the world, the watchword is "Just Peace in Palestine." Jews are leading the fight to brainwash the world into thinking that genocide is justice. Anti-Semitism was abandoned by the respectable right; now it is the Jews who must lead the anti-Zionist fight, the struggle to deny the rights of the Jewish people. Surely it is absurd that Jews lead the anti-Zionist movement!

Homemade Israel-bashers

By Amnon Rubinstein

'Incitement against Israel can be found on the lowest level in some of the social science departments in Israel's universities. A well-known philosopher in Tel Aviv University called Israel the dustbin of Europe - and students, as we know, are influenced by their teachers, even when the latter are seized by a frenzy of hatred toward the state that provides their livelihood, and at the expense of which, thanks to their attacks on it, they make their names.'

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Professors of hate

By Isi Leibler

The flow of new initiatives from academics throughout the world seeking to delegitimize Israel continues unabated. Now the emphasis is directed towards anti-Israeli boycotts as exemplified by the recent outrage from the British Association of University Teachers.

Sadly, in many universities, academics of Jewish origin have assumed key roles denigrating Israel often claiming to do so out of "a sense of Jewish justice."

But the most harmful academic purveyors of hatred against the Jewish state are located at our own universities. They demonize their own country and try to persuade their students that Israel was born in sin. Their negative impact abroad is devastating.

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