Steven Plaut |
Original articles on Israel and related issues written by Steven Plaut, a professor at an Israeli university. |
Friday, September 28, 2012
Anti-Israel Indoctrination in the Tel Aviv University Law School
In his weekend column in Maariv Sept 28, 2012, deputy editor Ben Dror Yemini reports the latest abomination from Tel Aviv University. It seems the TAU law school this year is offering a special new course entitled, "Is a Just Zionism Possible?" The question mark appears in the course description and we bet you can guess on your own what the answer to this question will be. The lecturer "teaching" this course is the anti-democratic radical leftist anti-Zionist law professor Chaim Gans. You may remember Gans as the fellow who organized a petition to prevent a woman Israeli army colonel from teaching in the law school because he disliked her opinions and the fact that she had served in the military during the Gaza anti-terror operation. Yemini then asks if anyone can imagine a similar course in France, Slovenia, Czech Republic, or anywhere else in the democratic world devoted to questioning the very existence of the country. "In the name of supposed academic freedom," comments Yemini, "The Israeli academic institutions cross all the red lines, excuse me for generalizing. It is not as if we were unaware that there are plenty of academics with anti-Zionist agendas. There are. But it is no longer enough for them to urinate into the pool in which they swim. They mean to do so now from the diving board (he is referring to a popular Israeli joke -- SP) and we all will pay the price." Yemini then reviews the academic record of Gans himself, reminding readers that while Gans claims to consider "ethno-cultural communities" legitimate things, he is opposed to any of them having their own country, although he only applies his opposition to the existence of Israel. "The approach of Gans," writes Yemini," will lead us to a slaughterhouse more commonly called a Bi-national State." He adds that dismantling Israel would produce genocide of Jews. Yemini reminds his readers that Gans also has a long track record of endorsing and supporting mutiny and insurrection among Israeli soldiers, and was the initiator of the anti-democratic petition to prevent the army colonel from teaching. Yemini concludes by reminding everyone of how the radical academic Left calls everyone who disagrees with itself "McCarthyists" and "fascists." "So when the wall of academic freedom collapses, and collapse it will, do not blame anyone but yourselves." Want to tell Tel Aviv University what you think? Write to President, Professor Joseph Klafter Email klafter@post.tau.ac.il Tel Aviv University P.O. Box 39040 Tel Aviv 69978 ISRAEL Tel: 972-3-6408254 Fax: 972-3-6406466 Rector: Prof. Aron Shai Email: aashai@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.aftau.org/site/PageServer?pagename=about_contact Other "Friends of" Groups: http://www.tau.ac.il/friends-eng.html and The Council for Higher Education in Israel (governmental body that funds and supervises Israeli universities and colleges) Prof. Manuel Trachtenberg Chairman, Council on Higher Education Email: manuel@post.tau.ac.il POB 4037, Jerusalem 91040, Israel Aharon Beit-Halahmi Planning & Budgeting Committee Chairman Council for Higher Education Email: betha@eurofund.co.il P.O.B. 4037, Jerusalem 91040, Israel Tel: 02-5679911 Fax: 02-5679969 E-mail: info@che.org.il Ministry of Education The Honorable Gideon Sa'ar Minister of Education Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem Email: gsaar@knesset.gov.il Additional Email: sar@education.gov.il Phone: 972-2-6408131 Fax: 972-2-6753525 Shalomit Amichai Director General of the Ministry of Education Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem Email: mankal@education.gov.il Thursday, September 27, 2012
1. http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Letters/Article.aspx?id=286259
Letter to the Editor Shut down the disgrace Sir, – The leftist geographer who single-handedly built the politics department at Ben- Gurion University of the Negev into the worst anti-Israel indoctrination and propaganda center in the country is simply unable to find anything wrong with it ("Prof. David Newman defends BGU's politics department against Council on Higher Education registration ban," September 24). In fact, he denies that the department is a totalitarian extremist advocacy center at all, saying that characterizing it as far-left is "just not based on reality." Newman's dissimulation is of course familiar nonsense. The simple fact of the matter is that every single member of the Ben-Gurion University politics department, including the three new recruits supposedly hired to create diversity there, are radical leftists. The main activity of the department is anti-Israel agitprop, as the international panel appointed by the Council on Higher Education (CHE) also reported. Departmental conferences there consist entirely of anti- Israel and Marxist indoctrinations, where no dissident nonleftists are invited or permitted to speak. And this takes place under the noses of BGU president Rivka Carmi and other BGU officials, including, of course, Newman! It is not a coincidence that those rallying in "solidarity" with this department and defending it against the CHE include communists, anti-Semites and other anti- Israel bigots. This is not only the most openly anti-Israel (and sometimes anti-Semitic) academic department in all of Israel, it is also the least pluralistic, least tolerant and least diversified. It is also one with the very lowest academic standards, as the CHE panel found. No pro-Israel opinion is permitted! A PLO intifada poster used to hang in the department's lounge. It is really not an academic department at all but an anti-Israel activism center. Students daring to express pro-Israel opinion tell of being harassed. Academic standards died years ago in the department built by Newman. The fact the Neve Gordon, Israel's Norman Finkelstein, was hired and promoted by Newman on the basis of an "academic record" consisting almost entirely of churning out anti- Israel hate propaganda illustrates how academic standards there are dead. Finkelstein was fired by DePaul University for being a pseudoacademic bigot and hate monger, but then again DePaul has some academic integrity. The BGU department's worst anti-Zionists continue to use the school's name while churning out anti-Israel propaganda for Holocaust deniers and jihadist newspapers. And it is not the only problem department at BGU. Yes, by all means, it is time to shut down this pseudo-academic taxpayer-funded disgrace. STEVEN PLAUT Haifa University 2. To anti-Semitic Quakers: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/quakers-divest-from-israel/ Up Thine!!! Monday, September 24, 2012
1. Occupy Story I:
http://www.alternet.org/hot-news-views/occupy-rosh-hashanah-kicks-jewish-new-year-zuccotti-park Occupy Rosh Hashanah Kicks Off Jewish New Year in Zuccotti Park Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish calendar and one of the two High Holidays (along with Yom Kippur) this year fell on the anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. And since the faith community has been a big part of Occupy and last year's Yom Kippur ceremony in Zuccotti was such a memorable experience (described to me by two different people this week as the most meaningful Jewish experience they'd had), Occupy Judaism took this opportunity to once again celebrate in the park. The barricades were up and had been for days as NYPD drilled in expectation of Occupy's actions for September 17. But they let people in from two sides, and they trickled in slowly, then streamed in chanting as 7:30 got closer. As has become customary with Occupy reunions of a sort, people milled around hugging and recounting what they've been up to since the last time we were all in a public space together. But this time instead of the noise being silenced by a mic check, it was quieted by a shofar. Well, a shofar and a mic check. This was an Occupy service, after all. Conducted by multiple celebrants invoking multiple traditions, men and women, the service held special resonance because it was held right under the watchful eyes of NYPD--physical and virtual, as a spy tower rose above the corner of the park where a few hundred people gathered, sitting and standing at the traditional points in the service, some huddled over prayerbooks, others huddled over smartphones. The mood was joyous and prayerful but certainly less solemn than an actual synagogue (and the NYPD hustling to harass and arrest folks just outside the barricades provided a sharp reminder that we were occupying contested space with this spiritual ceremony). As some of the celebrants put less-familiar spins on segments of the service, the call-and-response faded away and little side conversations sprang up, but when Daniel Sieradski (for more on Sieradski - see this: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Blogs/Message.aspx/2091 --sp), who helped organize last year's Yom Kippur service, launched into a barnburner of a sermon, evoking the Torah and the teachings of hundreds of years of Jewish theologians on the issues of poverty and wealth, taxes and wages, he drew everyone's attention back. Ahead of me, one participant, who'd been reading a prayerbook with a headlamp, sliced apples with a pocketknife and handed out pieces to friends, along with a plastic cup of honey for dipping. On the other side, Occupiers handed around a bottle of red wine for the blessing. The crowd was dotted with the bright green hats of the National Lawyers Guild legal observers, but the police didn't encroach into the park--even allowing the Occupy medics to handle a young man who appeared to be sick. Right outside the barricades was another story, as at least one arrest was reported and riot police brandishing batons strolled down the sidewalk. But as the crowd slowly dispersed, the tension in the air was mostly for the morning. What will happen before the bell rings on Wall Street on Occupy's official anniversary? 2. "Occupy" Story II: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/steven-plaut/occupy-berkeley Occupy Berkeley! Posted By Steven Plaut On October 11, 2011 @ 12:02 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 34 Comments The focus of the country has lately been on the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, or "OWS." You know, the people who claim to speak for the 99% of Americans who are not wealthy capitalists and who think they can create social justice and equality by marching around the New York Stock Exchange and other centers of capitalism, like Greenwich Village. Here is how the leaders of the leaderless OWS describe themselves on their Web site: "Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants." They go on to promise: "We are growing. Block by block – city by city. We will see change in this country, in this world. It will happen sooner than you can imagine." Now it occurs to me that there is only one appropriate and sensible response to the "Occupy Wall Street" anarchists and street urchins. And that is to create a competing grassroots mass movement that will challenge the attention OWS is receiving in the media, while offering a rational and constructive alternative agenda for real social change. I propose that the alternative mass movement be called "Occupy Berkeley." OB will be a mass movement holding protests and street demonstrations in Berkeley, California. Its first order of business will be to occupy Telegraph Avenue. The slogan of OB should be, "We are the other 99.999999%," referring to the fact that people who despise Berkeley street hippies and "anarchists" represent exactly that proportion of the general population. OB will specialize in civil disobedience and street theater. Among its initiatives will be a mass roundup of Berkeley hippies who will be conducted to the central facilities of OB, where they will all be given free baths. A special re-education campus will be set up in Orange County, California, where all Bay Area communists and drug users will be sent to learn about the disadvantages of communism. OB will also rid Berkeley of those asking passersby for spare change. Instead, OB will promote entrepreneurship for panhandlers and for homeless youths. Anyone in the Bay area stopping passersby and asking for spare change will be ordered to do pushups, where the first 40 are unpaid but after that, payment will be made to the panhandlers at the rate of 20 cents per pushup. Tax free. Pregnant panhandlers and those over 70 will be permitted to do their pushups from the knees. Telegraph Avenue will be renamed "Wall Street West" and Shattuck Avenue will be renamed "Milton Friedman Boulevard." The area within 4 miles of the University of California (CAL) campus will be declared a tie-dye-free zone, where no tie dyed clothing may be worn. Discounts to the BART and other forms of public transit will be offered to Berkeley residents wearing ties and jackets. All the "head shops" selling drug paraphernalia along Telegraph Avenue will be converted into barber shops and Bible stores. When not using public transit, travel in SUVs will be not only permitted but made mandatory. Special retreats will be held for Berkeley residents still believing in communism. There they will be housed in Gulag barracks, woken up at 5 AM, and ordered to do physical labor without getting paid. Berkeley socialists can also be sent to the retreats, but they will only be woken up to work at 5:30 AM. Non-competitive sports will be prohibited during leisure time, only competitive sports allowed. Afternoon breaks at the camp will be devoted to generating greenhouse gases. On Saturday nights, "Dirty Harry" movies will be screened. Attendance will be mandatory. Vegan foods will be absolutely prohibited there. Berkeley is of course only the beginning. After Berkeley is occupied by masses of marching conservatives, it will be the turn of Madison, WI; Amherst, MA; and of course San Francisco. Any city or state approving of medical marijuana will be targeted next. Cities undergoing occupation by OB will see reverse affirmative action implemented, whereby anyone who was harmed in the past by affirmative action programs will be entitled to preferences, compensation, and reparations. Occupy Berkeley is growing, town by town, block by block, taser by taser. We are drawing bipartisan support from people sick and tired of the selfish indulgence of leftwing radicals and hippies. Unlike OWS, the only genders we represent are men and women. And we are accepting donations because we believe in materialism and selfishness. We chant: "The world is watching!"; "This is how democracy looks!"; "We are the ones we've been waiting for!"; and "It is never too late for a spanking!" Saturday, September 22, 2012
1. The Leftist scum in Israel is organizing a petition of solidarity
with the anti-Israel indoctrination center calling itself the Department of Politics at Ben Gurion University. As you recall, the Israeli Council on Higher Education wants to shut down this anti-Israel abomination. If you would like to help sabotage this petition, go to http://www.atzuma.co.il/academyunderattack and in the three spaces to the left near the top, write an offensive or insulting Signing Name in the first slot (such as Al-Qaeda Loves BGU or Suha Arafat's Girdle or Send Leftists to Gulags), the second slot is for your location (Pakistan? Yemen?) and the third is for the name of your academic institution (I suggest writing BGU) You can do the same mischief at a second petition here in English: http://www.change.org/petitions/malag-the-israel-council-for-higher-education-reject-threat-to-prohibit-student-registration-to-bgu-politics-department?utm_campaign=petition_created_email&utm_medium=email&utm_source=guides 2. Yom Kippur is nearly here and on that day of course we read the Book of Jonah. In the first chapter of the Book the sailors cast lots that point to Jonah as the cause of the terrible storm and they ask Jonah what should be done about it. Jonah answers (verse 12 of Chapter 1): "Sa-ooni v'Hateelooni el Hayam," which means "Lift me up and Toss me into the Sea." Anyway, just in time for Yom Kippur, it occurs to me that this one verse is pretty much the sum total of the political program and peace plan of the Israeli Left, something it has engraved as its banner and flag. 3. Those who tried to send emails to Rivka Carmi, the president of Ben Gurion "University," no doubt discovered that she has closed and blocked both of her email addresses, or you got a message that her box is "over quota." Probably because she is being inundated with our emails. If you are willing, please take a moment and send your letter instead to BGU's Public Relations officer: Amir Rozenblit, University Spokesman rosenbli@bgu.ac.il Ask HIM to pass it on to Madame Carmi. 4. As noted in recent posting from this corner, Haaretz, the Palestinian newspaper published in Hebrew, has been leading the campaign to admit hundreds of thousands of African infiltrators into Israel to make sure Israel is no longer a Jewish state. Haaretz has denounced as malicious racists all Israel politicians calling for blocking the infiltration or criticizing the presence in Israel of the Eritreans and Sudanese infiltrators. Well, in his weekend column in Maariv, Ben Dror Yemini (who is from a Yemenite Jewish family) recalls the campaign many years back by Haaretz AGAINST the admission and absorption of Jews from North Africa into Israel. After all, those North African Jews were by and large poor, poorly educated, lacking skills. A Haaretz editorial in those days demanded to know what Israel could possibly do with "such people." It demanded to know what sort of country Israel would be if so many North African Jews came to live here. It demanded to know how such people could possibly be integrated in Israel. And if they were to be admitted, then all the other Jews living in Arab countries will want to come and live in Israel! Heavens to Stalin! Yemeni also tells a story about how when the Air France jet was hijacked to Uganda in 1976, the government called a special press briefing of newspaper editors in Israel. Yemini was there. The spokesman giving the briefing was Yitzhak Rabin. Gershon Shoken, the father of the current generation of Haaretz Shokens, the guy who ran the paper back then, kept demanding to know just how many of the hijacked passengers were North African Jews, I guess because he considered them racially inferior and not worthy of national concern. Rabin answered that he had no idea. But no, insisted Shoken, there are plenty of well-off North African Jews who might be on the plane (note how that contradicts the diatribes cited in the previous paragraph). Shoken's obsession with the ethnic identity of the hijacked is echoed today in the Haaretz obsession about uncovering daily mistreatment of Arabs by Jews but rarely reporting the daily terrorist attacks by Arabs against Jews. Friday, September 21, 2012
We need your help!
Israel's Tenured Left is organizing a petition and letter writing drive to bully the members of the Israel Council of Higher Education into changing their plans to shut down the Department of Politics at Ben Gurion University. As you know, that "department" is nothing more than a totalitarian pseudo-academic anti-Israel Far Leftist indoctrination and propaganda center. You can see the web site set up by the moonbats here: http://isacademyunderattack.wordpress.com/ They want to preserve the department as an anti-Israel indoctrination center. Patriotic Jews must fight this! I would like to ask you to take a moment and write to the members of the Council on Higher Education and urge them to shut down the Department of Politics at Ben Gurion University immediately and permanently. The email addresses of council members are these: gsaar@knesset.gov.il, vaya@migal.org.il, Rivka_wad@smkb.ac.il, razhari@braude.ac.il, fadia@post.tau.ac.il, sahaim@colman.ac.il, yonina@ee.technion.ac.il, office@tarazistudio.com, Haim-bibas@modiin.muni.il, manuel@post.tau.ac.il, LishcaSec@che.org.il, ella.belfer@biu.ac.il, orali@openu.ac.il, lboehm@iai.co.il, rbz@jce.ac.il, zilla@bgu.ac.il, obartana@netvision.net.il, ffares@sci.haifa.ac.il, Gadaypninag@hillelisrael.org.il, keidar.uri@gmail.com, shmuelh@isa.gov.il, kalcheim@cc.huji.ac.il, ofirh@shalem.org.il, shoshaniys@gmail.com, itzik.shmuli@facebook.com, office@nuis.co.il You should emphasize that you are aware that this "department" is nothing more than an anti-Israel advocacy center, one with zero pluralism and diversity of ideas, one in which Zionist students are harassed, one with no serious academic standards and it is a disgrace and embarrassment for all of Israeli academia. Send a CC copy of your email to ivka Carmi, President P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel, rcarmi@bgumail.bgu.ac.il and president@bgu.ac.il Tel: 972-8-6461211/9 Fax: 972-8-6472991 Zvi HaCohen, Rector P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel rector@bgu.ac.il and cohen@bgumail.bgu.ac.il Tel: 972-8-6596801 Fax: 972-8-6596802 Thursday, September 20, 2012
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/BGU%20-%20three%20NEW%20leftist%20radicals%20in%20Sci%20Pol%20Dept.htm
Special Isracampus Report: Rivka Carmi's new "Diversity" in the Department of Politics at Ben Gurion University. Special Isracampus Report: 20/9/2012 Carmi is telling the whole world that she has introduced "diversity" into the Department of Politics at BGU in response to the calls from the Council on Higher Education to shut down the anti-Israel department. Carmi is proud that there are three new "recruits" in this department. But who are these recruits? Every single one of the new recruits is a Far Leftist! That is correct. Rivka Carmi is diversifying the worst anti-Israel propaganda department in Israeli academia by adding three NEW leftist radicals to it! The first and the worst of the three is a radical anti-Israel historian, who is not even a political scientist at all. She is Michal Givoni, and she was a "researcher" at Tel Aviv University until offered a position in the Carmi cosmetics fix-up. Givoni may be even more anti-Israel than the existing members of the Department. You can read all about her here (or posted in full below). She will be joined by Gad Arieli, who evidently is also a far leftist, this based on the fact that he has been on the staff of the leftwing Israel Democracy Institute and also that he is an author of these (and other similar) articles: • Zemlinskaya, Y. (2009) "Cultural Context and Social Movement Outcomes: Conscientious Objection and Draft-Resistance in Israel." Mobilization: An International Journal, 14(4):449-466 • Zemlinskaya, Y. (2010) 'Gendered Protest: Social Movements through the Gender Lens', Sociology Compass 4(8):628-641 • Zemlinskaya, Y. (forthcoming) 'Political Conscience in Israel: Draft – Resistance and Conscientious Objection', Aldershot: Ashgate His PhD is from the University of Haifa. The third new "recruit" is actually now doing a Post-Doc at UCLA and has not yet joined the department. She is Ayelet Harel-Shalev, and she is also a far-leftist. She works with and turns out propaganda for the extremist anti-Israel Arab nationalist Adalah group (see this report on it - http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/adalah). She claims to be an expert on Israel's oppressed Arab minority (she calls them "Israeli Palestinians"). She was singled out for criticism for the anti-Zionist content of her courses in a report by the Im Tirtzu student group. Her PhD is from the very same department of politics at BGU. So she is a product of Neve Gordon, Dan Filc, and David Newman. http://isracampus.org.il/third level pages/Editorial - Lee Kaplan - TAU - Michal Givoni - New Polysyllables to Eliminate Israel.htm Tel Aviv University (Dept of History) and UC Berkeley (Townsend Humanities Lab): Michal Givoni Strives for New Polysyllables that Can help Eliminate Israel By Lee Kaplan IsraCampus.org.il 24/2/12 Michal Givoni is a mistress of one-sided anti-Israel propaganda disguised as academic work. She completed her Ph.D. at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at Tel Aviv University in 2008. Her work purportedly deals with transnational humanitarianism, contemporary practices of "witnessing," and "testimony" and "governmentality" (a nonsense polysyllable she likes to use). Givoni was a researcher at the fiercely anti-Israel semi-Marxist Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, where she co-directed (together with Adi Ophir and Sari Hanafi "a research project on the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories." She was one of the editors (again together with Ophir and Hanafi) of a volume on the subject, entitled The Power of Inclusive Exclusion: Anatomy of Israeli Rule in the Palestinian Territories (Zone Books, 2009). She and her colleagues' editing churn out one- sided propaganda against Israel and its control over the "Palestinian territories." She loves to rely on Arab "witnessing" and "testimony" about alleged abuses of the Arab population by Israel. These should be better termed "bearing false witness" and simply "lying." She speaks of the "Governmentality of emergencies," a pompous way of describing how government intervenes in cases of such "witnessing" and "testimony" that something injurious has happened. Her interest in witnessing is restricted to accusations against Israel by Arabs. Givoni has a new book on the "contemporary ethics of testimony" with the Van Leer Institute / Hakibutz Hame'uchad Press. Givoni's "research" at The Minerva Humanities Center concerns "ethical practices in the political sphere" and "focuses on a genealogical investigation of the concepts of testimony and of indifference." She developed her skills at Israel bashing while teaching in the uniformaly anti-Israel department of politics at Ben Gurion University, the home to such objective academics as arch-anti-Semite Neve Gordon. These days she is a visiting fellow at the University of California at Berkeley, where anti-Israel activism long ago replaced frat partying as the main campus recreation activity. My fellow IsraCampus contributor Seth Frantzman has done an excellent review of Michal Givoni's first edited book. Ms. Givoni is one of those "scholars" who substitute politics and advocacy for hard research. She is particularly fond of mind numbing silliness in rhetoric and nonsense polysyllables. In Star Wars movies, Yoda always reversed what he had to say to sound like a wise inscrutable guru ("Going to visit Luke Skywalker, today, we are"). But Yoda had it over Givoni because at least we could figure out what Yoda was saying. Someone should give Givoni a good language checker as a Nakba Day gift. Here's an example of her writing. In an abstract she wrote, in which she argues Israel is a violator of human rights because it controls the Arabs in the "Palestinian territories" she wrote: "This article seeks to analyze contemporary humanitarianism as an advanced-liberal formation of global governance. It tracks the emergence in the 1970s of the French humanitarian organization Mיdecins sans Frontiטres and shows that its care for and control of distant victims has been commingled with and dependent upon care for Western selves. The article contends that humanitarianism 'without borders' was the outgrowth of the legitimacy crisis of the medical profession, and that its practice of witnessing has ultimately been a mode of ethical self-cultivation by means of which physicians could fashion themselves as more enlightened personae. It further shows that the recent concern with the detrimental side effects of humanitarian action should be deciphered as the culmination of the practices of the self in which global humanitarianism has been embedded since the 1970s." Huh? Ok, so we had to read it three times. And THAT was one of her clearer paragraphs. It should be noted that "Doctors Without Borders" is not pro-Palestinian enough for her. Ms. Givoni finds fault with them for being self-serving and egotistical ("practices of the self") even though the NGO routinely sides against Israel. Alas, a la Michal, they are in it solely for Western ego gratification. Givoni, who loves to identify with dead Marxist killer Michel Foucault, despises the democratic West. Medecins sans frontieres has a long track record of attacking pro-Israel voices. Including me! For example, In July 2010, MSF worked "closely with an Israeli team of burn specialists" to treat victims of a fuel tanker crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to a Haaretz report, one of Israeli doctors described negative interactions with the MSF volunteers, who "did not want to be around him or the other team members." In response, MSF denied that "cooperation was difficult due to alleged anti-Israel sentiment from MSF staff," or that it "places politics above the best interests of our patients." MSF accused Israel of "devastating disregard" for civilians during the 2009 Gaza war, alleging that Israel conducted "indiscriminate bombings" during the fighting. In 2007, an MSF employee from Gaza was arrested for allegedly plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The NGO responded that "We are very sad for Bashir, but we want to make it very clear that we make a distinction between his professional work and what he does on his personal time. I don't think our organization can be held liable for every aspect of its staff's lives." Medecins sans Frontiers also frequently recounts other ISM propaganda on their blog. Givoni likes to use the term "witnessing" but sees no reason why witnessing has to involve truth. To this end, she relies in some of her work on the Goldstone Report, repudiated even by Goldstone himself. She treats it as fact. She also relies on the discredited extremists from the tiny Israeli treasonous "Breaking the Silence," an ISM group that lied to the Media about Operation Cast Lead. Givoni praises their "witnessing" even though it rarely if ever has any evidence to back things up.. NGO Monitor has said about Breaking the Silence (which is funded by the EU): "Breaking the Silence (BTS) collects testimonies of soldiers who served in the Occupied Territories during the Second Intifadah." It continues: "The NGO was active in promoting "war crimes" charges against Israel after the Gaza fighting in January 2009. These charges were based on anonymous and unverifiable hearsay 'testimonies.'" Just the way Michal Givoni likes it. She produced a paper in which she compared the treatment of the Arabs in Gaza with that of Jews during the Holocaust, citing Breaking the Silence and the Goldstone report. Several of the soldiers who supposedly revealed "war crimes" had not actually witnessed any of the events they described, and in at least one case, had not been in Gaza at all at the time the alleged events were said to have taken place. Even Haaretz, the Pravda of the radical anti-Zionist Left, has seen fit to condemn the "witnessing" by Breaking the Silence. For Givoni, all the proof needed that Israel is evil is for an Arab fascist or a Jewish communist to allege so. Givoni cut her teeth at the anti-Israel Van Leer Institute, where she started as a researcher. A description of an abstract by her about the Biafra tragedy reveals how she started her bash Israel academic "research" titled "Who Cares [What's to be Done?]? Israel Responds to Biafra.": "The first reports on the Biafran outrages, which appeared in the Israeli press in July 1968, prompted an outcry. From the outset, the Biafrans were viewed as an extension of the Jewish-Israeli self; their distress and armed struggle against the Nigerian forces were seen in analogy to the Jewish holocaust and the Jewish people's fight for independence. The forms of moral-political discourse manifested in the Israeli public debate about the appropriate responses to the Biafra crisis are examined. It is juxtaposed to the sans-frontieres humanitarian discourse that emerged in France during the same crisis. The distant suffering of the Biafrans was understood as falling under the jurisdiction of the Israeli sovereign, hindering the establishment of a civil-society force to deal with similar crises. The structural equivalence between humanitarian sovereignty and the Israeli form of political sovereignty, which is also maintained as a paradoxical authority to protect an endangered population, is stressed." What? You don't understand what she is saying? Well, it's all pretty simple. Israel back in 1968 (a year after the Six Day War, in which the Arabs sought to wipe out the Jewish state) was concerned about the people in Biafra who were suffering, even despite its own problems. But Ms. Givoni can only find things to complain about Israel so she faults the Jewish state's government for controlling whatever aid it gave the Biafrans because this somehow in her mind hindered the ability of non-governmental groups to render aid in similar crises. A report back then by the American Jewish Congress showed that giving aid to the people of Biafra had international security considerations. Those darned Israelis, they can't do anything right and they mix politics into everything, with ulterior motives that prevent the proper protection of "an endangered population" (guess who she is really alluding to? The Palestinians!!!!). Givoni is among faculty teaching a program at Bard College in New York, part of a consortium of colleges teaching about "international human rights." We suspect the leading human right they defend is the right of Arabs to murder Jews. Bard has the only officially sponsored and campus funded chapter of human shields for terrorists (better known as the ISM) in the United States that actually trains ISM human shields to go to the West Bank and who were involved with the Flotillas. That chapter will be part of a massive march to "take back Jerusalem" led by the PFLP on March 30th this year. Perhaps Michal Givoni will help the marchers with their propaganda about Israeli "human rights violations." To complain, write to The Council for Higher Education in Israel (governmental body that funds and supervises Israeli universities and colleges) Prof. Manuel Trachtenberg Chairman, Council on Higher Education Email: manuel@post.tau.ac.il POB 4037, Jerusalem 91040, Israel Aharon Beit-Halahmi Planning & Budgeting Committee Chairman Council for Higher Education Email: betha@eurofund.co.il P.O.B. 4037, Jerusalem 91040, Israel Tel: 02-5679911 Fax: 02-5679969 E-mail: info@che.org.il Ministry of Education The Honorable Gideon Sa'ar Minister of Education Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem Email: gsaar@knesset.gov.il Additional Email: sar@education.gov.il Phone: 972-2-6408131 Fax: 972-2-6753525 Shalomit Amichai Director General of the Ministry of Education Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem Email: mankal@education.gov.il Wednesday, September 19, 2012
1. Please help shut down this anti-Israel atrocity:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12195 Shut Down Ben Gurion U. Politics Department Israel's Council of Higher Education called to close the Politics Dept. at Ben Gurion University. It has not been closed, but this writer feels strongly that it should be. From Prof. Steven Plaut Some departments in the liberal arts universities in Israel operate as anti-Israel indoctrination centers. In the departments of the humanities and softer social sciences, college "education" includes anti-Israel propagandizing and the preaching of Marxist pseudo-scholarship. Functioning as the occupied territories of the anti-Israel Left, these departments seem to hire and promote faculty members on the basis of their anti-Israel activism. Many of the leaders of the "BDS Boycott Israel" campaigns are faculty members at Israeli universities. Sociology and political science departments, law schools, and education schools are homes to the these offenders. Many of these are exposed and documented at Isracampus.com. Since the lion's share of the operating budgets of Israeli universities comes from the government, Israeli taxpayers are being forced to finance anti-Israel propaganda and anti-Zionist political initiatives of tenured extremists, who in some cases openly seek the annihilation of Israel itself. Academic freedom of speech is also frequently suppressed by the self-anointed defenders of Post-Zionist enlightenment. Invariably, the tenured radicals demand "diversity," but never in the arena of ideas. They seem to seek a diverse academic institution in which men and women, Jews and Arabs, Ashkenazim and Mizrachim, all denounce Israel and Zionism, promote Palestinian nationalism and socialism, and unanimously boycott the academics working in the newly proclaimed Ariel University located in Samaria. The anti-Israel mischief of the academic Left is documented at length in my article "Israel's Tenured Extremists," in the Fall 2011 issue of Middle East Quarterly. Let me emphasize that all this has nothing at all to do with questioning "academic freedom," but merely with asserting the right of taxpayers to refuse to pay for anti-Israel agitprop. Arguably, the worst institution in the country when it comes to anti-Israel agitprop (misrepresented as academic performance) has been Ben Gurion University (BGU), although Tel Aviv University is a close runner-up. And the worst anti-Israel department in all of Israel has been BGU's Department of Politics. An international panel of prestigious experts appointed by Israel's Council on Higher Education (which oversees and funds Israeli universities) last year called for shutting down that Department of Politics altogether due to its openly extremist "activism," its absence of pluralism and diversity of ideas, and its low academic quality. A few days ago an Inspections Subcommittee of the CHE submitted a report on the department that repeated the demand that it be closed down. Meanwhile, the anti-Israel Left has been racing to close ranks with the BGU extremists. Haaretz has stepped in to defend preserving the Department. The reason for this is that Haaretz itself is as extremist and anti-pluralistic as BGU's Department of Politics. There is about as much pluralism at Haaretz as there was in Pravda back in the days of Brezhnev. No doubt the most notorious among the tenured anti-Israel faculty in the Department of Politic Science at Ben Gurion University is Neve Gordon. Most of his academic career has consisted of churning out Bash-Israel propaganda with some Marxist diatribes, all represented as scholarly research. Strongly opposed to freedom of speech for non-leftists, Gordon is best known for his denunciations of Israel as a fascist apartheid regime, one that behaves in some ways like Nazi Germany, a state in need of dismemberment. Gordon has been leading the campaign for a worldwide boycott of Israel. Denounced even by BGU's own president, he serves as a columnist for the Iranian state Holocaust-Denying newspaper and for the jihadist Al-Jazeera. His articles also appear on Neo-Nazi and Holocaust Denier web sites. His students have gone public and complained that in Gordon's classrooms no pro-Israel opinion is tolerated. Gordon's mentor at BGU is David Newman, the Dean of Social Sciences and Humanities (and sometime Jerusalem Post columnist). Newman, who has granted Gordon control over budgets in the school, thus built the Department of Politics at BGU into a monolithically homogeneous center for leftist activism, one in which no Zionist nor non-leftist may teach. A lone Zionist faculty member in the department was fired several years back. Newman is not a political scientist, but a geographer. He may be best known for having helped produce an anti-Semitic documentary for British Channel 4 Television about the cabals of the Zionist Lobby. Newman has been the leading voice in Israeli academia calling for the suppression of the freedom of speech of critics of the radical Left. Newman joined BGU President Rivka Carmi and Rector Zvi Hacohen in circulating a memo a few days ago to all university students and faculty pledging to defy the decisions of the Council on Higher Education. Carmi responded to the CHE demands with a few cosmetic changes. The bottom line is that failure to close down BGU's Department of Politics would signal the lowering of academic standards at BGU and thus endanger the reputation of all of Israeli higher education. To express an opinion, write to: Ministry of Education The Honorable Gideon Sa'ar Minister of Education Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem Email: gsaar@knesset.gov.il Additional Email: sar@education.gov.il Phone: 972-2-6408131 Fax: 972-2-6753525 Shalomit Amichai Director General of the Ministry of Education Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem Email: mankal@education.gov.il and The Council for Higher Education in Israel (governmental body that funds and supervises Israeli universities and colleges) Prof. Manuel Trachtenberg Chairman, Council on Higher Education Email: manuel@post.tau.ac.il POB 4037, Jerusalem 91040, Israel Aharon Beit-Halahmi Planning & Budgeting Committee Chairman Council for Higher Education Email: betha@eurofund.co.il P.O.B. 4037, Jerusalem 91040, Israel Tel: 02-5679911 Fax: 02-5679969 E-mail: info@che.org.il 2. From the Wall St Journal: GLOBAL VIEW Updated September 17, 2012, 7 .Stephens: Muslims, Mormons and Liberals Why is it OK to mock one religion but not another? By BRET STEPHENS 'Hasa Diga Eebowai" is the hit number in Broadway's hit musical "The Book of Mormon," which won nine Tony awards last year. What does the phrase mean? I can't tell you, because it's unprintable in a family newspaper. On the other hand, if you can afford to shell out several hundred bucks for a seat, then you can watch a Mormon missionary get his holy book stuffed—well, I can't tell you about that, either. Let's just say it has New York City audiences roaring with laughter. The "Book of Mormon"—a performance of which Hillary Clinton attended last year, without registering a complaint—comes to mind as the administration falls over itself denouncing "Innocence of Muslims." This is a film that may or may not exist; whose makers are likely not who they say they are; whose actors claim to have known neither the plot nor purpose of the film; and which has never been seen by any member of the public except as a video clip on the Internet. 'The Book of Mormon' performed at New York's Eugene O'Neill Theatre .No matter. The film, the administration says, is "hateful and offensive" (Susan Rice), "reprehensible and disgusting" (Jay Carney) and, in a twist, "disgusting and reprehensible" (Hillary Clinton). Mr. Carney, the White House spokesman, also lays sole blame on the film for inciting the riots that have swept the Muslim world and claimed the lives of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three of his staff in Libya. So let's get this straight: In the consensus view of modern American liberalism, it is hilarious to mock Mormons and Mormonism but outrageous to mock Muslims and Islam. Why? Maybe it's because nobody has ever been harmed, much less killed, making fun of Mormons. Here's what else we learned this week about the emerging liberal consensus: That it's okay to denounce a movie you haven't seen, which is like trashing a book you haven't read. That it's okay to give perp-walk treatment to the alleged—and no doubt terrified—maker of the film on legally flimsy and politically motivated grounds of parole violation. That it's okay for the federal government publicly to call on Google to pull the video clip from YouTube in an attempt to mollify rampaging Islamists. That it's okay to concede the fundamentalist premise that religious belief ought to be entitled to the highest possible degree of social deference—except when Mormons and sundry Christian rubes are concerned. And, finally, this: That the most "progressive" administration in recent U.S. history will make no principled defense of free speech to a Muslim world that could stand hearing such a defense. After the debut of "The Book of Mormon" musical, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints responded with this statement: "The production may attempt to entertain audiences for an evening but the Book of Mormon as a volume of scripture will change people's lives forever by bringing them closer to Christ." That was it. The People's Front for the Liberation of Provo will not be gunning for a theater near you. Is it asking too much of religious and political leaders in Muslim communities to adopt a similar attitude? It needn't be. A principled defense of free speech could start by quoting the Quran: "And it has already come down to you in the Book that when you hear the verses of Allah [recited], they are denied [by them] and ridiculed; so do not sit with them until they enter into another conversation." In this light, the true test of religious conviction is indifference, not susceptibility, to mockery. The defense could add that a great religion surely cannot be goaded into frenetic mob violence on the slimmest provocation. Yet to watch the images coming out of Benghazi, Cairo, Tunis and Sana'a is to witness some significant portion of a civilization being transformed into Travis Bickle, the character Robert De Niro made unforgettable in Taxi Driver. "You talkin' to me?" A defense would also point out that an Islamic world that insists on a measure of religious respect needs also to offer that respect in turn. When Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi—the closest thing Sunni Islam has to a pope—praises Hitler for exacting "divine punishment" on the Jews, that respect isn't exactly apparent. Nor has it been especially apparent in the waves of Islamist-instigated pogroms that have swept Egypt's Coptic community in recent years. Finally, it need be said that the whole purpose of free speech is to protect unpopular, heretical, vulgar and stupid views. So far, the Obama administration's approach to free speech is that it's fine so long as it's cheap and exacts no political price. This is free speech as pizza. President Obama came to office promising that he would start a new conversation with the Muslim world, one that lectured less and listened more. After nearly four years of listening, we can now hear more clearly where the U.S. stands in the estimation of that world: equally despised but considerably less feared. Just imagine what four more years of instinctive deference will do. On the bright side, dear liberals, you'll still be able to mock Mormons. They tend not to punch back, which is part of what makes so many of them so successful in life. Sunday, September 16, 2012
Israel Will Never Be Small Enough
By: Steven Plaut A view from the year 2017: As we know, a unique new peace program was proposed six years ago, in 2012, and implemented in 2014. The plan was based on the principle of Two States for Two Peoples and it received near-unanimous support from the Israeli Left. Among those celebrating the breakthrough and endorsing the plan were Peace Now, Physicians for Human Rights, Meretz, Yesh Gvul and many other like-minded organizations. A number of European governments decided to provide generous funding for all groups endorsing the proposal. The new Two States for Two Peoples plan was very simple. The Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and large areas of Israel-within-the-Green-Line (that is, inside Israel's pre-1967 borders) would become a new Palestinian Arab state. At the same time the Jews would be allowed to retain their own Jewish state in Mini-Israel. Mini-Israel was a miniature city, similar to the Madurodam in Holland, Lego-Land in various countries, and other mini-cities in European countries. Located in a beautiful park near Latrun in the Ayalon Valley, with easy access to and from Yasir Arafat International Airport in Lod (the name was changed from Ben-Gurion Airport in 2014), it was a most exciting tourist attraction. First opened in 2002, it featured over 350 beautifully crafted exact-replica models of historical, religious, archeological and modern sites. Mini-Israel presented visitors with a one of a kind introduction to Israel, all in one magical site. Everything was to exact scale, where each 4 centimeters represented a full meter of pre-liberation Palestinian territory. The sites in Mini-Israel depicted different traditions and the ethnic groups associated with them – Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Druze, Bedouin and others. The idea of relocating the real Israel inside Mini-Israel was "simply outstanding," enthused longtime leftist nuisance Yossi Beilin. "After all, Mini-Israel captures all aspects of Israel and all of its cultures and traditions. There are religious and secular themes, arts, music, archeology, antiquities, and so on." "We have been insisting for decades that land has no real importance in the modern world," added Shulamit Aloni and Zehava Galon from Meretz. "Under this peace plan, we prove that Israelis may preserve all aspects of their heritage without occupying lands that properly belong to others." Mini-Israel, liberals and leftists were quick to point out, had everything Jews needed to operate their own state. Kosher food and supplies were available in the souvenir shop. The grounds contained 30,000 figures, 50 animals, 15,000 trees (real bonsai, cultivated and planted by the Agronoy nursery), 4,700 cars, 100 motorbikes, 14 trains, 3 helicopters, 32 aircraft, 175 ships and 230 trucks. The building in Mini-Israel resembling Ben Gurion University were all flying the Palestinian flag. The park was loosely shaped like a Star of David, with each of the six triangles representing an area or city – Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Galil, Negev, etc. – though once the real Israel retreated into Mini-Israel, the shape was modified so as not to offend non-Jewish residents. The underlying principle for achieving peace with this plan was based on egalitarian reciprocity. All Jews were to be expelled from the area to become Palestine, while Arabs would be allowed to exercise their right of return to Mini-Israel. Progressive Jews in other countries – J Street, the Religious Action Center of the Reform movement, Jewish Voices for Peace, Rabbis for Obama, etc. – all joined their Israeli ideological soul mates in enthusiastically supporting the plan, urging President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to embrace it as U.S. policy. The only opposition to the plan came from some who believed it did not go far enough. "The proposal still does not resolve the fundamental injustice of Mini-Israel being an apartheid regime in which Arabs are denied equal rights," insisted uber-leftist anti-Zionist Uri Avnery. Several editorials in Haaretz, newly renamed Al-Ard, agreed. At the initiative of the departments of political science at Ben-Gurion University and Tel Aviv University, 637 Israeli professors and lecturers signed a statement demanding that Mini-Israel be boycotted because not all the signs there were in Arabic. The progressive academics also called upon the EU and the U.S. to intervene in the conflict and send troops to Mini-Israel to prevent the Jews there from charging Arab visitors admission fees for tickets. But criticism of the new Jewish state of Mini-Israel began to spread almost as soon as the new plan was implemented. As the six-month anniversary of Two States for Two Peoples approached, Toronto's York University became the first of 27 universities in North America to hold scholarly conferences on apartheid, injustice and discrimination in Mini-Israel. Things only got worse. The government of Mini-Israel decided to put up a security wall to keep out visitors who tried to get in without buying tickets. "Tear down this Apartheid Wall," screamed members of Anarchists against the Wall and the International Solidarity Movement. Israel's left-wing parties held rallies in Rabin Square – the small one in Mini-Israel of course, not the big one in liberated Palestine. Under the banners "We Now Have a Peace Partner," and "It Won't be Over Until We Negotiate," they protested against talk in the Mini-Knesset about retaliation by Mini-Israel against Palestine for the mortars and rockets being fired into Mini-Israel from nearby liberated Latrun. The ayatollah of liberated Palestine meanwhile responded to an emergency request from residents of Mini-Israel to be allowed safe passage to Arafat Airport where they could catch flights to safety overseas. "Use your own airport in Mini-Israel," came the perfunctory response. "Just don't fly over our air space." Saturday, September 15, 2012
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/other%20-%20Ramat%20Gan%20Academic%20Center%20-%20Indoctrination%20Brainwashing%20&%20Politicization.htm
Special Isracampus Report: Open Political Indoctrination, Brainwashing, and Politicization at the Ramat Gan Academic Center Special Isracampus Report 14/9/2012 The Ramat Gan Academic Center of Law and Business is a third-rate community college that operates in Israel. It consists of a third-rate business school and a fourth rate law school. It also has a new official approach to higher education. It is seeking to indoctrinate its students officially into far-leftist Marxist violence and anti-Israel radicalism. The college has announced (source: Makor Rishon Sept 14, 2012) that it will be granting large fellowship grants to all students in the college who sign up to work as members of extremist anti-Israel "activist" groups. Among the eligible groups a student may join to receive the fellowship is the violent pro-terror "Anarchists against the Wall," the pro-terror Communist Party front group "Machsom Watch (Checkpoint Watch)," B'Tselem (in the news this week because Hussein abu Hussein, a member of its board, insists Israel is more evil than Nazi Germany), a group seeking to force Israel to admit unlimited numbers of African infiltrators, and a few other extremist organizations. No Zionist or conservative organizations are included in the list of eligible activist groups. The fellowships given to these leftist activists are for 10,000 shekels, which is almost as high as annual tuition at a major Israeli university. (It is not stated in the news story what the source for the funds is, but I figure you can guess that -- SP) Organizations from the non-Left, including the Im Tirtzu student organization and the "Legal Forum for the Land of Israel," have sent letters of complaint to the officers at the college, who responded by stonewalling. They see nothing wrong with their college serving as a North Korean style camp for anti-Israel political indoctrination. Curiously, not a single one of the tenured leftists lobbying against Ariel University has had a single word to say about all this. Given the open indoctrination into anti-Israel leftism and Marxism, not only does the Ramat Gan College deserve to receive no public funds, but it should not be accredited at all as an institution of higher learning in Israel. To express and opinion about that, write to: The Honorable Gideon Sa'ar Minister of Education Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem Email: gsaar@knesset.gov.il Additional Email: sar@education.gov.il Phone: 972-2-6408131 Fax: 972-2-6753525 Shalomit Amichai Director General of the Ministry of Education Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem Email: mankal@education.gov.il Make sure to send a copies to the following functionaries at this "Academic Center" and you can tell them what you think of all this: Prof. David Menashry (whose home base is Tel Aviv University) President of Ramat Gan Academic Center menashry@post.tau.ac.il Nitza Mazar CEO of Ramat Gan Academic Center nitzam@clb.ac.il As well as Prof. Manuel Trachtenberg Chairman, Council on Higher Education Email: manuel@post.tau.ac.il POB 4037, Jerusalem 91040, Israel Aharon Beit-Halahmi Planning & Budgeting Committee Chairman Council for Higher Education Email: betha@eurofund.co.il P.O.B. 4037, Jerusalem 91040, Israel Tel: 02-5679911 Fax: 02-5679969 E-mail: info@che.org.il Friday, September 14, 2012
1. A few days ago we reported about the lawyer that represented the
parents of Rachel Corrie in their ridiculous suit against the state of Israel, which was recently tossed out of Haifa court. The lawyer is one Hussein abu Hussein, a radical anti-Semitic pro-terror Arab shyster. Abu Hussein not only denounced Israel for the Corrie verdict. He gave a recent interview with the serial liar "film producer" Mohammad Bakri, the guy who produced "Jenin Jenin." Abu Hussein there denounced Israel as worse than Nazi Germany. He said, "Nazi Germany's founding was legal while Israel's founding was theft (http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=7296)." Well, it turns out that the very same Abu Hussein is on the board of B'Tselem, the far-leftist anti-Israel pro-terror "human rights" group. It is a group that does not think Jews are entitled to any human rights. In his weekend column, Maariv editor Ben-Dror Yemini reports that Abu Hussein sits on the board alongside such luminaries of progressive dovishness as Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua. When Yemini asked reps of B'Tselem what they have to say about Abu Hussein sitting on their board, their response was that they are proud that he serves there. If there were any doubts that B'Tselem is essentially an anti-Israel terrorist group, one funded by the way by the New Israel Fund, then these are no more. 2. Ben Gurion University's Marxist Yossi Yonah (education) has been serving as the Sugar Daddy of the anarchist "social justice" tent protesters. Now he is also serving as the public relations apologist for Iran: http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/BGU%20-%20Yossi%20Yona%20-%20Iranian%20rhetoric%20is%20only%20spin%20from%20Bibi.htm 3. SO first the anti-Semitic media spread the message that the producer of the film that mocks Mohammed was an Israeli Jew. Then it turns out he is an Egyptian gentile. Then the guttersnipes murder some Americans in Libya. PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat blasted the murder as an "ugly act of terror." From http://www.israellycool.com/2012/09/13/joke-of-the-day-12/: "He was a really close friend of the family, and I was really shocked," (PLO "propaganda minister" Saeeb Erekat told Ma'an news agency. "He was murdered in a very ugly act of terror, and it's so despicable." This coming from a man who has referred to Palestinian terrorism as "resistance." This cartoon pretty much sums up the whole incident: http://www.israellycool.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/offensive.jpg Finally it turns out that the murdered Israeli Ambassador in Libya had long been promoting the Islamists and Islamofascist agenda, as a typical State Department "Arabist." See these: http://www.debbieschlussel.com/54308/chris-stevens-friend-of-hamas-us-amb-to-libya-was-islamopanderer-to-extremism-nbc-video-the-male-lara-logan/ and http://frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/christopher-stevens-feeds-the-crocodile/ Doesn't this sort of make him a male Rachel Corrie? 4. Old geezers among you may recall the book in the 60s "Black like Me," about a white dude who makes himself look black and tours the sourt. Well, here is the 2012 analogue in Ramallah: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/frontpagemag-com/undercover-in-ramallah-%e2%80%93-on-the-jamie-glazov-show-tuesday-september-4-2012-8-9-pm-pacific/ 5. Selichot for the Oslo Left by Steven Plaut The Israeli and American Jewish supporters of Oslo have been asked to say special Selichot prayers this year in light of the terrible catastrophes inflicted upon Israel by the policies they have forced upon the country. The new Oslo Selichot go something like this: For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured the world that Arafat would pursue peace, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured the world that Hamas would be more of a threat to the PLO than to Israel, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured the Jews that Arafat would fight the Hamas and Islamic Jihad with no Supreme Court or B'Tselem (to quote Rabin), Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that hostility to Jews in the Arab and the Moslem media would decrease, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured the Israelis that trade between Israel and Arab countries would flourish, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel us that the Palestinian Authority would be disarmed, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the PLO would cooperate strategically with the Israeli Defense Force, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel there would be an economic peace dividend, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that Israeli Arabs would demonstrate increasing moderation due to the "peace process," Please forgive us.. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the Hamas and Jihad would be persecuted and suppressed by the PLO, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that PLO arms would never again be used against Jews, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the PLO leadership would speak in terms of peace with the Jews, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the PLO would cease its efforts to delegitimize Zionism and Israel, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel the PLO would denounce and renounce anti-Semitism, Nazism and Holocaust Denial, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the PLO would introduce democracy into the Palestinian zones, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the PLO would be forced to spend all its energies on resolving domestic social and economic problems, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the US would back Israel if the PLO reneged on its obligations or displayed duplicity, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the US would cease to pressure Israel to endanger its security and fundamental interests, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the Europeans would rush forward to support Israel, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the Japanese and Saudis would pour money into regional investments, including into Israel, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the Egyptians would end all animosity towards Israel, Zionism and Jews, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the non-Arab Moslem countries would gush friendship for Israel, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that Arab military expenditure would drop significantly, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that Arab verbal threats against Israel's existence would end, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that Nazi-like propaganda in Arab countries would end, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the Israeli Left would lead the retreat from the Oslo experiment it if proved to be not working, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the PLO would never show itself as a tin-cup Third-World kleptocracy if granted power, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that Jews remaining in Moslem countries would see their treatment dramatically improved, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that Russia would act as a stabilizing force for peace, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that the majority of Palestinians would denounce violence and terror, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that Israel Arabs would cease to support political parties dedicated to eliminating Israel, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we forced Israel to commit Oslo and assured Israel that Palestinian chants of "In Fire and Blood will We Redeem Palestine," "Death to the Jews," and "Massacre the Jews" would end, Please forgive us. For the sin we committed when we assured the world that Oslo would NEVER lead to demands for negotiations concerning Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem, that Israel would never be asked to return to its 1949 Auschwitz borders, that the Jordan Valley, and Golan Heights would remain Israel's security borders forever, Please please please forgive us!! Tuesday, September 11, 2012
1. New Poll:
The poll was conducted by the leftist Israel Democracy Institute, but even the IDI cannot hide the truth. Right-leaning and centrist Israelis outnumber left-leaning Israelis (doves?) by around five to one. "More than 50% of Israelis defined themselves as rightwing, 30% as centrist and just 17% as left-wing." (Note: Poll includes Arabs! What does all this say about the size of the JEWISH LEFT??) Full news piece: http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=284014 Israelis optimistic despite Iran threat, IDI finds By GIL HOFFMAN 06/09/2012 Israel Democracy Institute: 85% of Jews say Israel can defend itself militarily, 22% believe peace deal will be signed soon. More than three-quarters of Israelis are optimistic about their country's future, despite security, socioeconomic and other serious challenges that lie ahead, the Israel Democracy Institute found in its annual Democracy Index published on Thursday. The index is an extensive annual public opinion poll project, which has been conducted by the IDI's Guttman Center for Surveys since 2003. The 57-question survey of a representative national sample of 1,025 Israeli adults (834 Jews and 191 Arabs) was taken by Tel Aviv University's Cohen Institute for Public Opinion between April 16 and May 17. It had a margin of error of only 3.1 percentage points. According to the index, the overall ratio of optimists to pessimists is 75.6% to 21.8%. Among Jews, 78.8% are optimistic about Israel's future and only 18.1% pessimistic. Among Arab respondents, 60.2% are optimistic and 39.3% pessimistic. "It is important to note that most Israelis view the country's future optimistically," said IDI Prof. Tamar Hermann, who oversees the project. "Our national resilience rests heavily on the fact that even though people are negative on Friday evenings at their family dinner table and the zeitgeist is discouragement, when you scratch a little deeper, people are not really depressed here." The overall figure is almost exactly the inverse of the United States, where a sample of 1,441 American registered voters surveyed by the Ipsos marketing research firm recently found that 76% believe their country is on the wrong track. Israel is eighth out of 36 countries surveyed in life satisfaction rate according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's recent Better Life Index. The US is 12th. When asked why they are optimistic, 21.5% of Jewish respondents gave a general answer; 18.2% said security and the IDF; 13.7% the solidarity of Israeli society; 12.2% patriotism and Zionism; 8.4% their family; 8.2% the economy and technology; 7.1% their religious faith; 6.4% said politics; and just 2% said future peace. Among Arabs, the main reasons cited were general optimism, politics and Israel's economy, technology and higher education. When asked about the near future, 85.4% of Jewish respondents said Israel would be capable of defending itself militarily and 84.9% said the country would maintain its status as a leading hi-tech nation. Only 17.1% think Israel will lose its Jewish character and only 32.7% believe Israel will be more isolated internationally than it is today. Just 22.5% of Jewish respondents believe a peace agreement will be signed with the Palestinians. The proportion of Israeli Arabs who believe a peace deal will be reached is much higher, 38.7%, and the percentage who consider Israel capable of defending itself is lower, 62.8%. When asked if they want to live in Israel long-term, the numbers for Jews and Arabs both hovered around 90%. When asked what tension in Israeli society they see as the most glaring, Israelis said the Jewish-Arab divide, followed by the religious-secular split and the rift between rich and poor, and only then the dispute between the Right and Left on diplomatic and security issues. The percentage who answered ethnic tension between Ashkenazim and Sephardim was so small it was within the margin of error. The index asked varying Jewish groups whether Israel being a Jewish or democratic state was more important to them. Among haredim, 80.4% said Jewish and 19.2% said both. Zero percent said democratic and not Jewish. Among Israelis defining themselves as secular, 35% said democratic, 20% said Jewish and 43.3% said both. More than 50% of Israelis defined themselves as rightwing, 30% as centrist and just 17% as left-wing. When asked how the government was handling the state's problems, 14.1% of leftists said well and 83.6% said not well. Among centrists, 32.3% said well and 64.4% not well. The Right was divided, with moderates in a statistical tie between those saying the government was handling the state's problems well and those saying the opposite, and those who define themselves as far-right saying not well by a wide margin, 56% to 41%. Asked which institutions they trust, Arabs put the Supreme Court first, followed by the police and then the media. The institutions they trust the least are political parties and the prime minister. Left-wing Israelis also said they trusted the Supreme Court the most and the parties the least. Right-wing and centrist Israelis trust the IDF and the president the most, and political parties and the media the least. The poll was taken well before controversial statements President Shimon Peres made about the government's handling of the Iran issue. The majority of respondents feel that the protests of summer 2011 succeeded in raising media interest and public awareness regarding social and economic issues but were less successful in changing government priorities and failed to weaken the status of the wealthiest tier. Jews were three times more likely than Arabs to say that the Arab political leadership was more extreme than Arab citizens of Israel. A majority of Jewish respondents (58.3%) believe that Israel's Arab citizens are not discriminated against, while a majority of the Arab respondents (74.9%) hold that they are. Hermann said the divides on many issues revealed by the survey proved the strength of democracy in the Jewish state. "I believe that Israeli democracy is alive and kicking," she said. "It's a vivid and lively democracy, even more so than the democracies in the West. The average citizen is interested, knowledgeable and opinionated on politics while in other states they are seen as the purview of the upper echelon. It's a good sign for a democracy when people are engaged." 2. Need a reason for optimisim? Try this: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/left-leaning-israeli-university-department-again-threatened-with-closure.premium-1.464137# 3. Israeli tenured leftwing fascists planning a boycott (an illegal one) against Arien University: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/159856 Academics' Plan to Boycott Ariel U Revealed In email exchange, academics plot to boycott Ariel University and its staff, deny them advancement. AAFont SizeBy Gil Ronen First Publish: 9/11/2012, 10:08 AM Prof. Ruth Gavison Israel news photo: Flash 90Some of Israel's leading academic figures who identify themselves as protectors of democracy have revealed their intolerant side in an email exchange regarding Ariel University Center, which is poised to be recognized as Israel's eighth university. In a new webzine called Mida, Akiva Bigman quotes from an e-mail message board that serves Israeli lecturers on social sciences. Prof. Emanuel Sivan of Hebrew University wrote thus to his colleagues: "We can use our international connections to prevent publications by researchers from Ariel. We simply need to avoid discussing their proposals for research and publication, especially in the periodicals where we serve as members… In addition we should not present papers, not take part in conferences and not give lectures together with lecturers from that supposed university." Sivan added that it is possible to avoid "accepting their researchers to post-doctorates programs, research scholarships and visits as guest lecturers in universities in Israel and abroad." Apparently aware of the illegality of his call, Sivan adds that "all of the above is, of course, is up to the personal decision of each and every one of us." The widely admired Prof. Ruth Gavison writes that the struggle against Ariel's recognition should be taken to the High Court – as it subsequently was – and explains: "What we are witnessing now is the culmination of a long five-year process, that there was no organized protest against. Maybe we hoped, then, that history is moving in a direction opposed to the Occupation. Now it appears that history is going in the opposite direction." Prof. Chaim Ganz suggests drastic measures: "Stopping our work at the universities for at least one day in the course of the first or second week of studies while holding protests and informational gatherings, seems to me to be a minimum. We can also think about stopping studies for one day a week in each of the first six weeks. As a minimum." Prof. David Levy-Faur of Hebrew University encourages his colleagues to take heart: "Do not despair. We gave back Sinai, we left Gaza, we will solve the problem of the other territories as well… but unfortunately it will cost another war or two. We are in the midst of a change in the tactics of the struggle. From a civil protest that characterized our actions since 1967, to civil resistance. The goal should be to bring all of the settlers home by the fiftieth year of the occupation, 2017." Prof. Menachem Hofnung suggests that everyone resort to calling the institution at Ariel a "college" even if "the government" decides to approve it as a university. Prof. Alon Harel of Hebrew U. suggests that Ariel's academicians and degrees be treated as those of "a foreign country." Dr. Julia Chaitin of Sapir College suggested that Ariel U. be made to accept lecturers and students from the Palestinian Authority (PA). She may have been unaware, writes Bigman, that it was the PA that jailed several lecturers who participated in a conference at Ariel several months ago. Chaitin has another creative idea: Lecturers who leave Ariel will be rewarded with two articles in his name for his CV, and anyone who persuades another lecturer to leave will receive three such articles for his CV. "If this is the behavior of the men of science who are in charge of promoting tolerance and education in the general public," sums up Bigman, "Ariel is the least of our problems. The big problem lies within the other five universities." Monday, September 10, 2012
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/BGU%20-%20Revolt%20in%20ScofflawU.htm
The Mutiny by Ben Gurion President Rivka Carmi against the Israeli Council on Higher Education Special Isracampus Report: Rivka Carmi, the president of Ben Gurion University, has announced her intention to defy the Council on Higher Education (CHE) in Israel and, in effect, to break the law and convert Ben Gurion University into an outlaw institution. Special Isracampus Report 10/9/2012 Her campaign to turn her school into Scofflaw University is in response to the recommendations by an Inspections Sub-Committee set up by the CHE Council to follow any reforms or changes that Carmi and BGU take in response to the recommendations by an international panel of experts regarding the University's Department of Politics (political science). The prestigious international panel, commissioned by the CHE, had turned in a devastating report about the low standards, open extremist politicization, and classroom indoctrination that characterize the Department of Politics at the university. The panel of experts proposed that the politics department be shut down altogether unless major significant changes and reforms are made. The CHE then set up an Inspections Sub-Committee, to follow up and oversee BGU's behavior and decisions in response to the panel's demands. This sub-committee reported a few days ago that little of substance has been changed, and it repeated the demand that the Department of Politics be shut down altogether starting in the 2013-14 school year. (It would allow students already in the department to complete their degrees.) The Department of Politics at BGU consists of far-leftist anti-Israel radicals who use their classrooms for anti-Israel and Marxist indoctrination. The only Zionist and non-leftist in the department was fired a few years ago for incorrect thinking. Now the News1 web site, a news service in Hebrew, carries a report here (http://www.news1.co.il/Archive/001-D-309321-00.html) entitled "Ben Gurion University Mutinies against the CHE." It reports that Carmi and other officials at Ben Gurion University distributed a letter to all faculty and students in the university this week, announcing their intention to defy the CHE and ignore the demands and the call to shut down the Department of Politics. The letter of defiance, which can be read in its original in Hebrew here: http://www.news1.co.il/ShowCurrentFile.aspx?FileID=11060, is signed by Carmi, the BGU Rector Zvi Hacohen, and Dean of Social Sciences and Humanities David Newman, himself a geographer who is a member of the Department of Politics. After announcing that a few cosmetic changes have now been made in the department, the letter denounces the report by the Inspections Sub-Committee, calling it unfounded and unprecedented and devoid of facts. It also threatens to take legal measures against the CHE (which provides the bulk of BGU's funding), to make sure that the recommendations are not implemented. In the letter these BGU officials insist that the demands of the Sub-Committee are an assault against academic freedom and are politically motivated and undemocratic. Evidently it is undemocratic for taxpayers to be able to expect accountability and serious standards of academic excellence from a university they pay for! (How amusing that the very same BGU people insist on the right to maintain a one-sided department of anti-Israel indoctrination within Ben Gurion University!!) The letter adds that BGU is "proud of the faculty members in the Department of Politics," which evidently includes their pride in Neve Gordon denouncing Israel as a fascist apartheid state whose existence should be ended, and who calls for a world boycott of Israel. The letter concludes with the proclamation by its signers that the Department of Politics will continue to operate unimpeded. 2. About those Africans: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/12162 Sunday, September 09, 2012
1. About those Israeli "social justice" protesters:
http://m.jpost.com/Headlines/Article.aspx?id=91284052&prmusr=KsI%2foWEDCAM4pU%2ffxJ0JZr3a8xfo991isX%2fwN5q5YZo759Po79yjDm81Z8%2bf8acD "Protesting Too Much" 2. You all may remember the rabidly anti-Israel far-Leftist professor of German History at the Hebrew University, Moshe Zimmerman. He has a long track record of comparing Israeli soldiers with Nazi stormtroopers and denouncing the children of Jewish settlers as "Hitler youth." He also has compared the Torah with "Mein Kampf": see http://www.isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Editorial%20-%20Phyllis%20Chesler%20-%20hate%20and%20criticism.htm Well, Comrade ZImmerman is in Haaretz September 9 where he lectures Israelis about being insensitive. Regarding whom? Regarding the Eritrean infiltrators trying to break into Israel. After all, pouts Herr Zimmerman, Jews were refugees before and during World War II, so why shouldn't Israel allow millions of Africans to enter the country en masse today? You can read his whole diatribe here: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/between-the-fences-1938-and-2012.premium-1.463598 That is right - the guy who has made a public career out of running around the globe denouncing Zionists as Nazis is suddenly concerned that Israelis are not showing enough sensitivity to the tragedies of the 1930s!! But you will especially love this excerpt from his tantrum in Haaretz: "A professional historian avoids comparisons between past and present events. In the present example as well, we miss the main point if we focus on the question of whether the Israeli interior minister learned from the Polish or the German minister, or if we focus on the details of the events that led the unfortunate people to a border between two racist states." And he then compares the Eritreans to those Jewish refugees. So the Israel-bashing pseudo-academic who loves to compare Zionists and Jews with Nazis now thinks that professional historians must avoid historic comparisons? I think the only conclusion is that - based upon Zimmerman himself - Moshe Zimmerman is no professional historian!! Why Zimmerman is employed by the Hebrew University rather than the University of Damascus is something you will have to ask the officials at the Hebrew U. Zimmerman by the way also has a long track record of filing SLAPP suits against people, suits he loses, while he himself has been sued by others for calling them Nazis and Zimmerman lost those also. For details, see this: http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1728 Have you noticed though that no court ever hit him with damages for "using Holocaust era rhetoric in political discourse"? Want to ask the heads of the Hebrew University why Zimmerman has not been fired for his crude anti-Semitism? Write to: President of the Hebrew University Prof. Menachem Ben-Sasson Email hupres@cc.huji.ac.il The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905 Tel. 02-6584143, 02-5881905 Fax. 02-5811023 Rector of the Hebrew University Prof. Sarah Stroumsa Email stroums@vms.huji.ac.il Sarah.Stroumsa@huji.ac.il stroums@huji.ac.il The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905 Telephone: 02-6719698, 02-5883676 URL: http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~stroums/ Hebrew University "Friends of" Offices: http://www.huji.ac.il/huji/eng/friends_e.htm
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