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Yuri Pines is a Hebrew University professor, who wishes all settlers' homes would be destroyed, including that of Lebanon's IDF hero Major Roi Klein, is a self-confessed anti-Zionist. He is disgusted by "Israeli propaganda" that portrayed Palestinians as terrorists. He justifies the Intifada violence and dreams of its success. He is also a supporter of traitor-spy Azmi Bishara. As a soldier he refused to serve in the territories and called students and lecturers to do the same. "An Israeli soldier in the West Bank is a criminal…" he once said. The Ukraine-born lecturer of Early Imperial Chinese History is a member of the Communist Party and even defends China's record of human rights.

Many Israelis may still recall Major Roi Klein who saved his soldiers' life by shielding them from a hand-grenade lobbed at them during the second Lebanon war. Many of them were also shocked when they learned that the High Court ruled that his home in the Settlement of Eli, where his widow and two children live, would be demolished, alongside 11 other homes deemed to be built illegally.

But when Yuri Pines (his last name is pronounced like the male sex organ), a Jerusalem associate professor of imperial Chinese History, received an email it which he was asked to add his name to a petition against the demolition, he went ballistic. "I hope that not only his house would be destroyed, but also the entire settlement!" And for a good measure he added, "And that the terrorist-settlers will be dispersed into the four corners of the world.” He was using the Hebrew term "mitnahablim," which is a coined word that rhymes with “settlers” but means terrorists.

One of the students at his department, who distributed the petition but preferred to maintain his anonymity, was outraged. "He is entitled to his views and could erase the email, but we were shocked by a reaction of an academic whose salary is paid by a public institution.” Pines himself was unrepentant. He told Ma'ariv: "This is my position. I replied not as a lecturer, but as a person who holds a political opinion. I am in favor of a complete annihilation of the settlements' project and a return to the Green Line. The Hills Youth are my enemies.”

Pines is proud of his ideological convictions. When he lived in Kiev, the town of his birth, he did not at first believe Soviet propaganda about Israel. But he was quick to change his mind and "adopted anti-Zionist stands" upon his arrival to his parents' adopted new country. In the early 1970's, at the age of 15, he realized that "much of the Soviet criticism was not based on lies, but had a solid background,” as he once claimed on a website called "G21.”

On the other hand, he claims he was "wise enough" not to be brainwashed by Israeli propaganda. "I was – and remained heretofore – disgusted with official propaganda which portrayed Palestinians as a backward nation incapable of producing anything but coward terrorists.” And he went on: "I was even disgusted and astonished by the belief in Jews being the 'chosen people', in the 'eternal Jewish rights' and the need of all Jews to gather in Palestine."

In his disgust, the Hebrew University senior lecturer concluded that he must be a member of the worst anti-nationalistic organization in the country and joined the Stalinist Israeli Communist Party. Before he started his military duty he had informed the IDF that he would never serve beyond the Green Line or 1967 border. Pines elaborated: "A French soldier in Algeria, a US soldier in Vietnam, an Israeli soldier in the West Bank or Lebanon may claim that he is serving the country, but in fact he is a criminal, and serves criminal ends.” He added that he "would never join forces that shoot demonstrators, and would never perform any other kind of dirty job, such as serving at the checkpoints aimed to prevent Palestinians from moving on to their land…" He obviously does not see any other use for the checkpoints that have foiled so many suicide bombing attempts.

"The future of Israel is evidently post-Zionist"

As a conscript Pines served six months in military jails and then two more prison terms when he was a reservist. He also refused to participate in the 1982 Lebanon war. He confessed to have demanded longer jail sentences as part of a public opinion stunt, but the IDF avoided the trick and eventually sent him to serve in the Negev, before dropping him from the service role altogether.

Pines was a "trouble maker" not only as a soldier, but also as a student. In the 1980's he was twice put on disciplinary probation following his participation in "massive violet protests" and "assaults on security guards," which he organized on Mount Scopus.

As a lecturer, he did not miss any opportunity to urge his colleagues and students to follow in his footsteps. He was one of 287 Israeli academics who signed a petition in which they expressed "admiration and support of those of our students and lecturers who refuse to serve as soldiers in the occupied territories." Army service was described by them as "carrying out orders that have no place in a democratic society founded on the sanctity of human life." In other words, the army has nothing to do with preventing Arabs from massacring Jews.

In June 2001 he signed a petition in support of arch-traitor Azmi Bishara's infamous speech in Damascus, the same Bishara that expressed his loyalty to the Hizbullah and fled the country following his support of the terror organization during the second Lebanon war. Bishara fed the Hizbullah intelligence information to assist it in shooting rockets at Israeli targets.

As a true believer in Bolshevism, Pines accepted unchallenged not only Soviet propaganda, but also the Chinese disinformation. The oppression of Tibet? The persecution of the Falun Gong sect? Human right abuses? Those are all "pure fiction,” insists the learned Hebrew University scholar! During the Olympic Games in Beijing last year he wrote an article in Haaretz in which he accused the West of envy. And why? Because China is different, yellow and threatening, above all successful. The critics of China are nothing more but "cynical racists" and "ignoramuses" that spread "half truths" and "unexamined clichés.” He even rebuked those who condemn China's assistance of Sudan’s actions in Darfur. The real villains are of course the Americans in Iraq and the Israelis in the territories.

He adds: "The Americans are white, and therefore are entitled to speak in the name of democracy and Christian compassion. It can not be helped that the Chinese are too different and therefore always guilty.” And as for Israel, he has no doubt that its future "is evidently post-Zionist.” He believes that it is about time to dismantle the settlements that threaten to cut economic ties with her. All for the "long-term interest of the country.”

And this is a university professor, promoting Stalinist anti-Zionism, at an Israeli university funded by the Israeli taxpayer…

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