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For years, the American and British university systems have been targets for Palestinian Arab irredentists and their communist/anarchist allies with a similar platform of anti-Zionism. Both were and are aided by a well-funded program from the PLO and Gulf States of buying anti-Israel support and cooperation through the setting up of Middle East Studies centers. These centers preach the gospel that Israel as a Jewish state is the reason for no “peace” in the Middle East.

Interdisciplinary studies and breadth requirements have caused, in turn, such centers to get their message throughout the curriculums of other departments. As such, Israeli academics who seek to advance their careers, prestige and income abroad, who want recognition worldwide, find if they join in the cacophony of Israel bashing on US and UK campuses their places in academia can be assured. Speak against the majority, and one can find invitations to national symposia, publishing and faculty administrative positions with nice perks may not be as available. But if he or she spouts the Arab and old communist propaganda line of “peace” while ignoring Arab terrorism and anti-Semitism, a Jewish academic can do very nicely for himself or herself as a well-paid house clown for the “Arab revolutionary cause.”

At the same time, more and more Israeli professors who have gone through this sort of atmosphere in America, sometimes find themselves back in Israel where they can import that nonsense that goes on back in the USA and UK.

One of the radical leftist programs that took place in American universities since the Vietnam War is something called “Peace Studies” which sometimes also includes “dispute resolution.” Jewish and other academics who strive to aid the goals of the PLO and communist/anarchist wannabes can avoid being seen as simple clowns by saying they are just seeking alternate paths to “peace,” not cloying for the enemies of democracy and human rights. You see, they claim it’s only America and Israel who make war or kill civilians, but it’s the Arabs, the North Vietnamese, the Stalinists who are seeking “peace” all the time and who are the victims of “western colonialist aggression.” The abusers of human rights and democracy become the victims in the eyes of such Israeli intellectuals and their Arab allies.

An interesting case in point for all this would be Haggai Kupermintz, a Professor of Education at the International School at the University of Haifa. A review of Kupermintz’s curriculum vitae shows he did graduate work in Statistics at Stanford that is awash in Saudi money. He then moved on to the do doctoral work in Education at the University of Colorado, one of the most leftist and anti-Israel colleges in the US. U Colorado is Ward Churchill’s old campus and decidedly anti-US and anti-Israel in its atmosphere, being anti-Israel is in fact de rigueur there.

It was while in Colorado that Kupermintz began to delve into “Peace Studies” or as he calls it on his resume’, “Peace Education.” But while pacifism is nothing new, the question becomes if programs such as Peace Education in the US really teach ways to avoid war and conflict or are turning out graduates to embrace America’s enemies and give them support. There’s an even bigger difference when such programs are imported to Israel that has 250 million Muslims and Arabs surrounding the country cheering every time a Jew is murdered in a terrorist attack and considering such activities holy acts. Even when Israel has a “peace” treaty with its Arab neighbors, incitement in the mosques, on television and in the street to kill Jews never ends. Peace Education taught in Israel by the likes of Haggai Kupermintz also encourages Israeli graduates to embrace Israel’s enemies and give them support, but the results will be much more devastating.

Peace Education in the US grew out of programs at some colleges in marriage counseling courses, and we can all see how successful that has been with the current divorce rate. For Israelis facing Hizballah, Hamas and myriad other vicious enemies like Iran the situation is far more serious.(by the way, Peace Studies has been no more successful in the United States in dealing with America’s enemies than it has been or will be with the likes of Haggai Kupermintz in dealing with the PLO).

Kupermintz, the Professor of Education, showed his lack of realistic education right after the Passover Massacre in 2002. Then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was trying desperately to get a “peace” process back on track that was supposed to have been completed with a sovereign Palestinian state by 1998. The Oslo Accords specified that the Palestinians cease terrorism against Israelis and jail all suspected terrorists. Instead, Israel was enduring constant terror attacks in a major preplanned intifada by Arafat and company since year 2000 that left lots of dead Jews. The Oslo Accords signed in 1993 gave Israel the right of hot pursuit of terrorists into the Palestinian Authority if the PLO leadership did not do anything to stop terrorism. If Kupermintz, the Professor of Education, knew his history, he would have known back then that the IDF withdrew from the West Bank fourteen times after going after perpetrators of terrorist attacks against Israelis only to have Arafat personally encourage more attacks to continue.

Then came the Passover Massacre where 31 Israelis, most of them Holocaust survivors, were blown to bits during a Passover Seder in Netanya. The bomber should have been of interest to Professor of Education Haggai Kupermintz because he was a Palestinian Arab youth and a graduate of the then eight-year-old Palestinian hate-education system. The Arab killer was a product of an Arab regime that heralds suicide bombing, pays the families of killers for martyrdom, and even abuses ambulances for the transfer of suicide bombers, all the while promoting anti-Jewish, anti-Israel and anti-US hatred through its education programs in all forms of media.

Where was a letter or petition from Haggai as an educator and supporter of Peace Education to Arafat about such misuse of education? Instead, Kupermintz signed a petition objecting to the taking of the Mukata, an act which provided evidence that the Palestinian leadership under Arafat and Abbas themselves had not only authorized the Passover Massacre attack but that Arafat had personally authorized payment for it. Kupermintz was of course carrying forth the same tired line of “peace educators” that the other side is just misunderstood and that Israel was guilty of overreaction. After all, if Israel would just give the Arabs what they want, there would be peace, or so it goes. If that scenario doesn’t work, Israel must give more, and more and more, such as the recent prisoner exchange for Sami Kuntar where Israel got dead bodies in return. The Arabs called the exchange a great victory and cried for more dead Jews, while the Israeli peaceniks just called for more concessions still from Israel.

University Programs in Peace Education in America generally go by the premise that each side has to recognize the wants and needs of the others no matter how irrational that may be. That premise would seem to exist for Haggai Kupermintz also, as he selectively only criticizes Israeli actions, and particularly those done in self-defense.

Another lesson in this hypocrisy surrounding Kupermintz was his signing a Just and Lasting Peace Petition put out by his fellow egghead professors in academe that demanded “Israel and Palestine will actively engage and support an honest and sincere public process of education and reconciliation that will create mutual understanding, respect and appreciation to cultural diversity, and will enable peaceful coexistence for the two peoples.”

Yet where are the articles, symposium discussions and evidence from educator Kupermintz showing the consistent and worsening incitement of Arab youth to murder Jews? The rest of the petition demanded that Israel unilaterally withdraw completely from an enemy sworn to her annihilation. Can Kupermintz be that obtuse? Were Israel to withdraw completely and do as Kupermintz asks, does he really believe there would be “peace” or what would really happen? That is, would Arabs begin massacring the Jews—again?

The answer based on Arab media is: most certainly.

As a Peace Education expert, surely Kupermintz would acknowledge such a possibility of genocide against Israel’s Jews would occur? He even advocates the unconditional right of return of any Arab who claims he’s a refugee to live inside Israel. The right of return was formulated as a Catch 22 to prevent any possibility of Israel remaining a Jewish state. This was even admitted by PLO leadership in the 1970s, a way to flood Israel with Arabs to demographically conquer the Jews. One of the most virulent groups calling for Israel’s demise from the river to the sea is called Al Awda (the return in Arabic). That organization cheers on terrorism and suicide bombings and boycotts and once even linked to the American Nazi Party.

In short, to “peace educators” like Kupermintz it’s all Israel’s fault and Israel must first capitulate to the Arabs. Then he can wave his petition in front of them as they violate the mutual agreement part as they mow him down with the other Jews. Perhaps Kupermintz isn’t worried because he knows the IDF is ultimately there to protect him along with other Israelis, even if Kupermintz does encourage Israeli youth to resist the draft also. He, of course, can always run to Colorado or Stanford to teach.

Kupermintz would, of course, have Peace Education be regular curriculum for the Israeli taxpayer’s children. As illustrative of how successful his mindset is, we see he is a member of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI). Founded in 1988 (the same year as Hamas) IPCRI claims to be a consortium of Israeli and Palestinian academics in mutual equality seeking a two state solution.

And just like all the other foundations, NGOs, ISM-related, whacked out peace groups in Israel, it is a place where the Arabs can complain about their unending abuse at the hands of the evil Zionists, of those Jews who are not interested in peace but in Jewish domination of the poor, poor Arabs. It doesn’t seem to occur to anyone in the IPCRI that they have been around for 20 years promoting dialogue with the Arabs and the Arabs still teach their children the glories of martyrdom and of killing Jews. The Oslo Accords that came about five years after this institutions founding are an equally big joke and have killed more Israelis through this constant “understanding” of the Arab point of view. Even Ariel Sharon initiated the Disengagement that only resulted in missile attacks on Sderot.

Haggai Kupermintz, the peace educator, has never said die though (the word “die” is an abstract thought to the Israeli peace camp, reserved for other Israelis who dare try to live where an Arab says they may not). Kupermintz participated in a symposium in Turkey where all the Israeli leftist professors met with their Palestinian counterparts to discuss ways to educate toward “peace.” Kupermintz participated in a seminar about peace education that was co-chaired by a representative from Seeds for Peace, a US State Department program where Arab children get to spend time in summer camp with Israeli kids and tell the Israeli kids how abused they are by Israel and its Jews. The Israeli kids are of course supposed to beat their breasts and say mea culpa after every accusation in the interest of peace. Huwaida Arraf and Adam Shapiro, co-founders of the International Solidarity Movement were camp counselors at Seeds for Peace before acting as human shields for Arafat and his terrorist minions in the Mukata and the Church of the Nativity.

Not wishing to neglect his graduate work in Statistics from Stanford, Haggai Kupermintz conducted a poll that told him Jewish Israeli youths think poorly of Arabs, even considering them ignorant and dirty, and are afraid to make contact with them whereas Arab youth do not do the same to the Jewish kids. In fact, says Kupermintz’s survey, the Arab youths are more interested in making dialog with their Jewish counterparts.

Of course they are, Haggai. Because they are educated by the Order of Perpetual Whiners that makes up the PLO and its Iranian-style state-to-be that the world will fall over backwards, particularly Israeli academics, to mollify their constant complaints of abuse by the Jews. No matter how much foreign aid is stolen, no matter how unending Palestinian textbooks are in promoting the end of a Jewish state, they are assured the secular Jewish side will cry tears and run to help them against those Zionist Jews who want to rule the world anyway.

And Kupermintz’s poll also showed that Jewish kids fear Arab kids? Is that all so surprising when many of them may know a fellow classmate or family member who was killed in a bombing or terrorist attack? The Arabs bus their kids to demonstrations where they throw rocks at IDF soldiers, the Israeli kids are not educated to do such things, but they are educated by the likes of Kupermintz to beat their breasts in a sign of Jewish guilt in a country where their lives are threatened daily by the other side.

It is ironic that in preparing this article that at session 5 of this “Education for Peace and Democracy Program” attended by Kupermintz held in 2006, the title of one session was “Mahmoud Abbas: A Preparation Session for Middle East Peace Negotiations - An Interactive Workshop.” Only this week child killer Samir Kuntar was released by Israel in exchange for the dead bodies of two IDF soldiers.

Many people do not remember that the Achille Lauro hijacking was organized by Mahmoud Abbas as an attempt to free Kuntar from an Israeli prison. Leon Klinghoffer, an American Jew, was murdered and dumped into the sea during that event that the Arabs routinely call an “operation.” Abbas in 2006 was no less inclined than he is today to say in Arabic that any concessions from Israel are only a stepping stone to taking the land from the Jews in the future. Kuntar, meanwhile earned a college degree on the Israeli taxpayers' dime while he awaited his ultimate freeing to Hizballah thanks to a peace overture to Syria by Olmert’s government whose education ministry wants to teach Arab Israeli school kids about “the Nakba.” If you wonder how your Israeli tax dollars are spent on Professors of Education in your universities, consider Haggai Kupermintz as money down the drain.

To Kupermintz, the release of Kuntar must have been very rewarding, since peace education to the minds of such educators in Israel involves little understanding of history or the facts on the ground, just constant idiotic calls for capitulation to an intractable enemy bent on Israel’s destruction.

Just think how many more symposia there can be where a Haggai Kupermintz can spend time frolicking with Palestinian Arab academics about what new concessions Israel must make for peace no matter how many dead Jews it costs. Why the peace process can last another 50 years and it will still be only Israel’s fault (if the nation can hold out that long).

Haggai Kupermintz actually makes his living at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer. But, why not? If Samir Kuntar can get a free college degree thanks to Israel’s educational system and its leaders, plus a first class hero’s welcome back to Hizballah, then why not? After all, education is of utmost importance in the Jewish tradition as no doubt Haggai Kupermintz will tell you.

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