Site Index

 

Home

 

About IsraCampus

 

Search

 

עברית

 

Русский

 

Israeli Campuses

 

  Ben Gurion U

  Hebrew U

  Tel Aviv U

  U of Haifa

  Other Schools

 

Gallery of Rogues

  A-C

  D-G

  H-K

  L-N

  O-R

  S-V

  W-Z

 

Israeli Academic Extremism

 

Israeli Academic Extremists outside Israel

 

Anti-Israel Petitions Signed by Israeli Academics

 

ALEF Watch

 

IDI Watch

 

IsraCampus Essays

 

How to Complain

 

Contact Us

 

Editorial Article

The Immaterial Girl: Tel Aviv University’s Linguistics Professor Rachel Giora attacks Madonna for performing in Israel

Lee Kaplan www.IsraCampus.org.il
18/9/2009

“All the little loonies
With a salient obsession
Come out from the boonies
With their sharpies and their guns
And we're loaded with questions” - lyrics from Madonna song, Guilty by Association

The newswires have been ablaze with the tabloid-quality news story that the “Material Girl,” Madonna, was being attacked by anti-Israel leftist extremists for performing in Tel Aviv. After being made aware of the protests, Madonna, at her concert, draped herself in the Israeli flag, which inspired an even louder brouhaha.

Leading the charge against the singer was Tel Aviv University’s Israel-hating Professor Rachel Giora.  With her purple hair contrasting with Madonna’s blond, Giora leads an Israeli anti-Israel group, Call From Within, evidently dedicated to promoting the next Holocaust of the Jews by encouraging the boycott of everything and anything in Israel.

At first, it was the Arabs who launched into a tirade against the pop singer because of her support for Israel and the flag.  They were joined by the anti-Semitic Left.  Using the same boycott formula as that of the Nazis started in 1933, BDS = boycott, divestment, and sanctions is their way to achieve the extermination of Israel and its population. Even Madonna isn’t exempted if she lets Israelis hear her music.

Giora told the media that Madonna should have refused to perform in Israel because it is an “apartheid” state.  Never mind that Israel is the only state in the Middle East that does not practice apartheid and never mind that the Arabs routinely practice apartheid against all non-Arabs.  In the “mind” of this “academic,” Israelis must not enjoy Madonna’s music because this somehow contributes to the “oppression” of the Palestinian Arabs.

I’ve written here before at IsraCampus about TAU’s Linguisitics department in which Giora works or at least holds a post.  Heavily influenced by the anti-Semitic Stalinist linguist Noam Chomsky, almost the entire Israeli taxpayer-supported department is rigidly Old Left.  Chomsky himself, their guru, visited with the Hezb’allah in Lebanon and called for Israel’s destruction on Arab TV there. With the exception of Professor Gary Cohen, who bravely serves as a reserve officer in the IDF, the majority of linguistics faculty at TAU works assiduously as accomplices in the Arab efforts to dismantle the Jewish state in a new genocide of Jews.

As a linguist paid by the Israeli taxpayer, Giora, of all people, should know the harm of irresponsible language.  Her writings in favor of boycotting, divesting from and sanctioning Israel go well beyond any rational protest of the policies of the country.

Below is a quote from Rachel Giora in a letter in praise of the British academic boycott movement:

“…Israeli academic academia is no different from any other Israeli institution and in many cases it plays an active if not vital role in supporting Israeli apartheid practices against the Palestinians. For example, the R&D (Research and Development) Directorate of the Israel Ministry of Defense is currently funding 55 projects at TAU (Tel Aviv University): Military R&D would not exist without the universities. They carry out all the basic scientific investigation, which is then developed by defense industries or the Army; People are just not aware of how important university research is in general and how much TAU contributes to Israel’s security in particular.”

Giora goes on to call for the boycotting of her own university.  But, of course, she does not resign her position or forego her salary as a professor there as part of her denunciation.   And the heads of Tel Aviv University are too pusillanimous to give her the bum’s rush.   Instead she draws her TAU salary and voices support for Hezb’allah and Hamas:

“These are only shreds of evidence testifying to the complicity of Israeli academic institutions in the state’s apartheid polices against the Palestinians. In light of Israel’s widely documented disregard for international laws exercised in our area for so many years, culminating in two recent wars against civilians in Lebanon and Gaza, it is left for us citizens of the world to attempt to hold up a mirror to Israel’s real face in the hope that it will give it a chance to choose justice and peace over occupation. The growing numbers of Israelis who are now supporting cultural and academic boycotts will rejoice in our achievements.”

Giora signs her anti-Israel fatwas with the hardy communist-inspired closing salutation “In solidarity” instead of the normal “sincerely yours.”  Read this letter if you can stomach it.  It’s a real eye opener.

Rachel Giora also works with the pro-terror International Solidarity Movement (ISM, which some say stands for “I Support Murderers”) and that may also explain why she uses their rhetoric about international law, civilians killed, etc. ad nauseum to promote the boycott of her own university.

Last January, “Call from Within” initiated a petition that actually was good enough to appear on the ISM’s website, supporting its flotilla of boats that tried to run the IDF Navy’s control of the sea lanes into Gaza. The ISM leadership, especially Huwaida Arraf,  publicly bragged that the ISM works with and supports Hamas.  Apparently, the Gaza flotilla’s organizers feel “Call from Within’s” goals match their own.

There is more than meets the eye to Madonna’s appearance in Tel Aviv than her draping herself in the Israeli flag during her performance than just entertainment.  Madonna and her husband, film director Guy Ritchie, both study Kabbalah and - while not Jewish - have a well-recognized love for Israel.  Madonna came to Israel to attend a Kabbalah symposium.

Isn’t it ironic that Madonna, a non-Jew, should feel love and concern for the people and land of Eretz Yisrael, while Tel Aviv University’s Rachel Giora seeks their destruction?  And she does so from a bully pulpit paid for by the Israeli taxpayer.  Madonna seeks to immerse herself in Jewish learning, whereas Rachel Giora wants to destroy the very Jewish state that employs her.

========================================

Op-Ed articles appearing on IsraCampus.Org.il are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the opinion of IsraCampus.Org.il