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Without a doubt the most amusing news item this week is the decision by Omar Barghouti to relieve his bladder all over Tel Aviv University as reward for the President of Tel Aviv University, Professor Zvi Galil, coming out in support of Barghouti.

Just to bring you up to speed, Omar Barghouti is a non-Palestinian Arab pretending to be a Palestinian, who has organized campaigns for boycotts and divestment against Israel and against Israeli universities. Barghouti claims Israel carried out genocide against Arabs. The same Barghouti was admitted to Tel Aviv University's Department of Philosophy as a PhD student in "ethics." The fact that Barghouti falsely claims that Israel carried out genocide should be enough to convince anyone that he is no scholar and no researcher and does not belong in any university. But the Department of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University is one of the school's wall-to-wall anti-Israel leftist extremism departments. If there is a single non-leftist in that department it is news to me. Department faculty members are leaders in the campaign to end the existence of the Jewish state.

When news got out, petitions calling for TAU to expel Barghouti garnered tens of thousands of signatures. But meanwhile, the Leftists for a Second Holocaust started a campaign to support Barghouti and defend his "right" to get into TAU. In other words, Barghouti has the right to promote a boycott of TAU but TAU does not have the right to boycott Barghouti.

Then, the President of TAU, Prof. Zvi Galil, responded to the outrage against his university by DEFENDING the decision to admit Barghouti in a public pronouncement. This is the same Galil who recently defended Stalinism Day at Tel Aviv University as a serious academic conference, and generally can be counted on to defend other instances of TAU leftist indoctrination. Galil said that Barghouti's politics were not at issue in his admission to studies, only his academic credentials. But the truth is exactly the opposite. Barghouti should have been barred thanks to his lack of any academic credentials and the proof he is a charlatan from his claims about "genocide." In truth Barghouti was admitted ONLY thanks to his anti-Israel agitprop and anti-Semitism, because being anti-Israel seems to be both a necessary and a sufficient condition to get into the TAU Department of Philosophy!

Meanwhile, Barghouti has issued his own statement about Galil's pusillanimous statement defending the idiocy of the Department of Philosophy admitted this pro-terrorist clown as a scholar and researcher. It appears here:
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/05/omar-barghouti-tel-aviv-student-on-the-universitys-failure-to-expel-him.html
I bring it to you unedited, so you can draw your own conclusions:

Dear all,
As widely expected, TAU has issued an official statement confirming that they "cannot and will not" expel me based on my political views and activism. The anti-boycott lobby will now jump to use this as a weapon in their increasingly desperate attempts to fend off the growing threat of academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions, arguing that these institutions respect the academic freedom "even" of boycott advocates.
Other than the evident trivialization of academic freedom implied in such a claim (ignoring all the arguments about suppression of real academic freedom in doing academic work on "problematic" topics, as Oren Ben-Dor, Ilan Pappe, Tanya Reinhart and many others have argued), it misses the point completely on why PACBI, BRICUP, USACBI, among many other small academic boycott groups in France, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Australia, South Africa, etc., have called for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. The well documented complicity of Israel's academic institutions in the state's colonial and racist policies remains THE main factor standing behind the boycott call. Whether TAU expels me or not, this compelling factor remains true. Expelling me would have added just a bit more fuel to an already blazing fire!
For one of the earliest refutation of the "academic freedom" argument against the boycott, see:
Omar

The official position of TAU is that whenever Barghouti relieves his bladder on the school, it must really just be raining.

Here is Comrade Galil's earlier statement on this matter:

May 3, 2009
Dear Governors and Friends,
I am writing to you to clarify the University's standing on the recent debate regarding Omar Barghouti, a Tel Aviv University master's student of philosophy. Mr. Barghouti is leading an international campaign to boycott Israeli universities, despite being a student at one of those universities.
A university campus should be a place that encourages and tolerates free speech, no matter how offensive the expressed opinions may be to the majority of students and Our university has adopted a faculty at that institution, or indeed to the public at large. similar policy also in previous occasions.
Moreover, if legal issues are involved, a university does not have the authority to prosecute individuals. Rather, such a matter should be pursued by the State through legal channels.
In response, therefore, to the petition calling for the expulsion of Mr. Barghouti that will be submitted to us in the near future, the University cannot and will not expel this student based on his political views or actions. He will be assessed only on the basis of his academic achievements and excellence.
I thank you for your time, and look forward to seeing many of you in May at the annual Board of Governors meeting.

Yours faithfully,
Zvi Galil

We remind you of the attempt by the tenured Left on the faculty at TAU to block the appointment to the law school of an Israeli woman army colonel because she believes Israel has the right to defend itself.

Well, now Tel Aviv University has accepted Omar Barghouti as a PhD student in "philosophy" (he is now actually completing his MA thesis before he officially starts his PhD thesis) Barghouti identifies himself as a "Palestinian," despite the fact that he was born in Qatar and grew up in Egypt. (Reminds us of Edward Said the Egyptian pretending to be Palestinian.) Barghouti is an Arab cheerleader for terrorism who runs one of the larger groups promoting an international boycott of Israel, the so-called Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, PACBI (www.PACBI.org). That is correct, Tel Aviv University evidently considers Palestinian anti-Semitism and terrorism "ethical." He is also a militant supporter of Israel's extermination under what the anti-Semitic Left these days calls the "one-state solution." His group has made headlines for demanding that Israeli universities themselves be targeted for boycott (see http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/879/667.html?hp=1&loc=4&tmp=7980 ).

He is on record as claiming that Israel is conducting genocide against Arabs (see http://www.counterpunch.org/barghouti01212008.html ). Anyone who thinks Tel Aviv University has retained any academic standards at all will now have to think again.

Naomi Ragen has done an expose of Omar Barghouti here:
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/879/667.html?hp=1&loc=4&tmp=7980

Omar refuses to answer questions about his family connections to arch-terrorist and mass murderer Marwan Barghouti. This is the most idiotic idea to emerge from an Israeli institute of higher learning since the Open University accepted Samir Kuntar, the baby murderer released from Israeli prison to buy back corpses of IDF soldiers murdered by the Hezbollah, as a student.

A petition is being collected that demands that TAU expel their resident doctoral student of terrorism. Go here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/expelOB/petition.html

To tell the heads of Terrorism Aviv University what you think of their admission of Barghouti, contact

President, Professor Zvi Galil
Email spiegelr@post.tau.ac.il
zg1@post.tau.ac.il
and galil@post.tau.ac.il
Tel Aviv University
P.O. Box 39040
Tel Aviv 69978
ISRAEL
Fax: 972-3-6422379 and 972-3-642-2752

Rector: Prof. Dany Leviatan
Email: leviatan@post.tau.ac.il
and rector@post.tau.ac.il
Tel Aviv University
P.O. Box 39040
Tel Aviv 69978
ISRAEL

American Friends Offices of Tel Aviv University:
http://www.tauac.org/site/PageServer?pagename=contact_us and
http://www.tauac.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_tau

Other "Friends of" Groups: http://www.tau.ac.il/friends-eng.html