Israeli Academic
Extremism
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."
http://chronicle.com/article/Zionist-Group-in-Israel-Urges/49167/
Zionist Group in
Israel
Urges Students to Report 'Subversive' Professors
By Matthew Kalman - Jerusalem
November 16, 2009
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.
The tensions pit radical academics, who are being accused of
pursuing a political agenda and silencing pro-Zionist views, against
Zionist groups, accused of a "witchhunt" against professors who
reject the mainstream Israeli narrative.
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.
Under the heading "Warning! Academic Fifth Column!," students are
alerted to "professors and lecturers in Israeli universities and
colleges who are involved in subversive activities." The ad alleges
that the professors "openly support terrorist attacks against Jews,
initiate an international boycott of Israel, make use of their
status in the classroom for anti-Israeli incitement and anti-Zionist
brainwashing, collaborate with known anti-Semites, denounce Israel
as a fascist-colonialist state and an apartheid regime."
Meanwhile, a campus poster published by Im Tirzu — a movement
seeking to reinvigorate Zionism — invites students to call a special
hotline to "Stop the Thought Police in Academia" by reporting
anti-Zionist lecturers or syllabi.
David Newman, a professor of political science at Ben-Gurion
University of the Negev, in Beersheba, called the naming campaigns "McCarthyite."
An internal memorandum written recently by the head of the
department of curriculum and instruction at Tel Aviv University said
some students feared that left-wing lecturers might penalize them
for their political opinions.
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