IsraCampus.Org.il

In recent years Israel's airhead leftist professors have taken to demonizing the officers of the Israeli Defense Forces. It goes well beyond the silly "Boycott ROTC" campaigns on American campuses, in which anti-American students and faculty demand that the military be kept off campus while at the same time demanding federal funding for themselves.

Over the past few weeks the anti-military behavior of the Campus Left in Israel was in the headlines because of a petition of professors and lecturers at Tel Aviv University to prohibit a woman army colonel from the IDF's international law section from lecturing at the Law School at TAU. In response to a public outcry against the leftists and open threats from Olmert to block funding for any academic institution that persecuted or boycotted army officers, Tel Aviv University repudiated the petitioners, hired the colonel, and the Dean of the Law School defended the decision. The far Left's First Amendment, which holds that you have the right to freedom of speech if and only if you agree with them, crashed.

Previous to that there were numerous other attempts by the tenured Left in Israel to demonize and boycott the military. There were petitions against allowing police and military intelligence officers to study at the universities. An Arab professor at a college refused to allow a student wearing a reserves uniform to enter the classroom. A Hebrew University professor of history threatened sanctions against students who serve in the army. Petitions of hundreds of Israeli tenured leftists called on students to refuse to serve in the IDF.

But now the campaign of the tenured Left against the military has escalated to attacking and smearing a general who is a candidate for President of the Hebrew University.

The current President of the Hebrew University, Prof. Menachem Magidor, is about to end his term (he has held the job for 12 years). Among the contenders to replace him is an IDf general, Eliezer Shkedi (sometimes written Shkedy), who had been commander of the Israeli Air Force. (The other contenders include two professors and a couple of business moghuls.) Shkedi personally shot down two Syrian planes in the 1982 Lebanon War. He led Israel's task force on Iran and also holds a degree from the US Naval School. He is outspoken about Iran and Israel's security needs. So naturally the Friends of the Hamas around the world consider him to be a war criminal.

And that is what has upset the Tenured Left. A group of Hebrew University leftist faculty members are lobbying to prevent Shkedi from even being considered for the post. They are led by far-leftist Yaron Ezrahi, a political science professor at Hebrew U and the main personality at the Far-Leftist think tank, the Israel Democracy Institute. He is all in favor of freedom of speech for the Left, he promotes affirmative action for Arabs, and he denounces Israel for its "war crimes." He was joined by Prof. Ruth Hacohen, who teaches musicology there.

Now let me clarify that in general I do NOT think that generals make good heads of universities, but that is because they understand the command and control style of management that works in the army but cannot work in universities. THAT, however, is NOT why the moonbats are opposing Shkedi. In any case, the Technion in Israel has been managed by generals, so there is ample precedent.

The leftist moonbats oppose Shkedi because they oppose Israel exercising military force to defend its civilians and they oppose anyone who dares to do so.

The Tenured Left opposes Shkedi because the Israeli Air Force under his command actually killed terrorists without reading them their Miranda rights and defended Jewish children from genocidal terrorists. No one who is involved in "using force" should be the head of a university, they whine. The leading contender to replace Magidor is not even Shkedi but rather Professor Menachem Ben Sasson, except that HE was until now a Knesset Member from Olmert's Kadima. Now that Kadima is considered to be the leftist opposition to Netanyahu, the campus leftists see no problem with having a politician from it serve as university chief.

In any case, if Shkedi were to get the job, it is hard to believe that he could muck things up worse than Magidor did over the past 12 years. Beside leading the Hebrew University into a financial nosedive, Magidor made headlines by endorsing the most incredible atrocities of the campus Left, including that infamous thesis that claimed that the reason IDF soldiers do not rape Arab women is because the Jews are so racist, and also circled the campus wagons around a leftist professor of sociology accused of raping his graduate students.