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Israel Academia Monitor Follows
Anti-Israel Activities of Israeli Academics
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IAM supports the universal tradition of academic freedom that is an indispensable characteristic of higher education in Israel. At the same time, it is concerned by the activities of a small group of academics--sometimes described as revisionist historians or post-Zionists, among other labels--who go beyond the “free search for truth and its free exposition” (to quote the American Association of University Professors) that is the hallmark of academic freedom. Exploiting the prestige (and security) of their positions, such individuals often propound unsubstantiated and, frequently, demonstrably false arguments that defame Israel and call into question its right to existence.
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Endorse Israel Academia Monitor Petition to Condemn Neve Gordon's Attack on Israel
עצומה מטעם מוניטור האקדמיה הישראלית לגינוי מתקפתו של ניב גורדון נגד מדינת ישראל
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We call upon Ben Gurion University to:
1. Fully condemn Gordon's call for the boycott of Israel
2. Dismiss him as chair of the department of Politics and Government
3. Dismiss him from membership in any university committee
4. Make all his courses non-compulsory
5. Deny him any travel and research funding
We advise students to refrain from enrolling and attending Neve Gordon’s courses.
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Reprints of anti-Israel articles do not represent the position
of IAM, and they are being reproduced as a public service
Click to view whole articles:
[Excerpts]
| Academic Boycotts Against Israel |
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| 08.02.10 |
| Items on Israel's enemies from within: Prof. Rachel Giora, Dr. Anat Matar & Dr. Kobi Snitz of "Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS call from within" |
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We are a group of Palestinians and Jews, citizens and residents of Israel, who are struggling to end Israeli apartheid and the decades-long occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. We are writing to express our unequivocal support of SAIA's admirable divestment campaign at Carleton University. We will stand by you, as SAIA struggles to insure that the Carleton University pension fund disinvests initially from five companies deeply involved in Israel's subjugation of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, in gross violation of universal human rights and of International Law. Four of these five companies went as far as supplying the crucial means of destruction for the Dec. '08-Jan. '09 Israeli onslaught on Gaza.
Since the beginning of the "peace talks" period, we watch with dismay the charade in which Israel and its backers abroad attempt to portray oppressor and oppressed as two equal sides in a conflict to be remedied if they would simply straighten out their mutual differences. International Law is crystal-clear but Israeli policy openly flouts the law, in grave violation of universally recognized conventions and basic human rights. In addition, the faux peace negotiations lend no voice to Palestinian refugees, who are still forbidden to return home and denied proper compensation for their land and property. This empty "peace process" likewise ignores Palestinian citizens and residents of Israel, who are not and never have been equal citizens under Israel's ethnocratic regime.
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| 07.02.10 |
| [BGU, Politics] Neve Gordon's Course on "Occupation" at BGU & US tour Feb 18, 19, 22 in Sabeel etc., on "just peace" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict |
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What are the formal and informal structural barriers to Jewish-Arab equality in Israel? How do segregation, racism, and biased allocation of state resources affect access to opportunity and advancement for Israel’s majority and minority communities? What are the prospects for coexistence within Israel, and what projects currently exist to pave the way for a positive future? As an active participant in the development of a bilingual Arab-Jewish school in Beersheva, Israel, Neve Gordon’s personal experience offers a hopeful, if sobering, view of what lies ahead as Israel—inevitably—grapples with the aspirations of its Palestinian minority for full equality in a democratic society Neve Gordon is widely respected for his brilliant and original dissection of the evolving nature of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian population in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Gordon is the chair of the Department of Politics and Government, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, and author of Israel’s Occupation (University of California Press, 2008). He has been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; and the Watson Institute at Brown University. During the first intifada, he was the director of Physicians for Human Rights–Israel. Gordon is the co-editor of Torture: Human Rights, Medical Ethics and the Case of Israel, the editor of From the Margins of Globalization: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights.
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| 05.02.10 |
| IAM Friday Special: [Open University, Social Sciences] New 60 mins film: "Udi Adiv, A broken Israeli myth" What led a Kibbutz member to spy for Syria? |
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The sensational espionage story of Udi Adiv – first grandson of the Gan Shmuel Kibbutz and paratrooper from among the Western Wall liberators during the Six-Day War, who was accused of spying for Syria – was one of the most exciting events in Israel during the early 70s.
During the 1950s, a friend of the Adiv family, Uri Ilan, emerged from the same kibbutz (Gan Shmuel). He was one of the heroic figures of the Israeli myth surrounding the issue of spying in Syria. He was caught and tortured and when his body was returned to Israel, a note bearing the mythological sentence “I was not a traitor” was found between his toes.
Udi Adiv and the other members of the Jewish-Arab network headed by Daud Turki (Udi Adiv’s instigator) and an Israeli Arab resident of Haifa’s Wadi Nisnas were accused of secretly traveling to Damascus to plan a Marxist revolution in Israel under the auspices of Syria.
The network members’ trial was the most widely discussed event in the State of Israel in those days. For the first time, an Israeli court of law allowed television cameras into the courthouse. Some claim that from this moment on, the image of the kibbutzim began to deteriorate in the eyes of the Israeli public. Udi Adiv and Daud Turki were sentenced to 17 years of imprisonment. Daud Turki was released 12.5 years later during the famous Jibril deal and Udi Adiv was released by the prison service release committee further to a public campaign to reduce his sentence.
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| 04.02.10 |
| [Hebrew U, Education] "Israeli Racist Education: Discussion with Nurit Peled-Elhanan" was on Feb 2nd, 2010. Alternative Information Center |
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The AICafé
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
Israeli Racist Education:
Discussion with Nurit Peled
Nurit Peled-Elhanan is an Israeli peace activist and professor at Hebrew University.
She's one of the most prominent critical voices against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
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| 03.02.10 |
| [Hebrew University, Political Science] On the attacks on the New Israel Fund and its chair Prof' Naomi Chazan |
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Washington – Ma'an – Israel's Peace Now movement and Americans for Peace Now on Monday condemned attacks on the New Israel Fund, which has come under fire for funding human rights organizations whose reports appeared in South African jurist Richard Goldstone's UN report on Gaza.
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| 02.02.10 |
| "Israel Destroyed Palestinian Books" - According to a doctoral thesis to be submitted next month by a Ben-Gurion University researcher |
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Israel plundered and destroyed tens of thousands of Palestinian books in the years after the State's establishment, according to a doctoral thesis to be submitted next month by a Ben-Gurion University researcher.
In an interview with the researcher published on al-Jazeera's website Thursday, he claimed that Israel destroyed the Palestinian books in the framework of its plan to "Judaize the country" and cut off its Arab residents from their nation and culture.
According to the doctoral dissertation, Israeli authorities collected tens of thousands of Arab books in Jerusalem, Jaffa, Haifa, Safed, and other towns that were home to Arabs. Israeli officials proceeded to hand out about half the books, while destroying the second half, characterizing them as a "security threat," the researcher said.
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| 01.02.10 |
| [Tel Aviv U] Rafi Greenberg and colleagues lead a strugle to take “City of David”, most important archeological site, out of the hands of Jews |
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Needless to say, the excavations run by Elad and the IAA violate professional rules of ethics concerning "equitable partnerships and relationships" between archaeologists and indigenous peoples (as stipulated by the World Archeological Congress) as well as the universally accepted convention on excavation, including excavating in occupied territories (the New Delhi Agreements). That science is being sacrificed to serve a narrow political agenda can be seen from the fact that not one of the historical Muslim buildings in the national park has been preserved, and some were not even documented.
Many Israeli archeologists are unhappy with this situation, though most of them are unwilling to openly criticize the IAA, their main source for jobs and funds. Still, a small group of Israeli archeologists led by Dr. Rafi Greenberg (Tel Aviv University) has established ties with the residents of Silwan and has been lobbying for Elad’s removal from the site. Renowned scholars throughout the world, including many senior historians and archaeologists, have signed a petition to the same effect.
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| 31.01.10 |
| [BGU, Politics] Audio & notes of talk by Dani Filc at Harvard: Israel's use of health care as a potent tool for occupation and control over Palestinians |
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However, he allowed himself an excessive criticism of Israeli government and Israeli people without praising them for bringing a “German-like” health coverage to the third world's Africans and Arabs including Beduins who continue to benefit tremendously from the presence of Israel. Such a negative stance guaranteed his book publishing.
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| 29.01.10 |
| IAM Weekend collection on some Israeli academics associated with anti-Israel Israeli organizations |
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Last summer, as the United Church met at its national conference, reports revealed it had provided IJV with a startup grant. IJV is harshly critical of Israel, and one of its latest postings on its website, an article from Israel by Nurit Peled Elhanan “is similar to the racist garbage we had to put up with in the 1980s and ’90s by [Holocaust denier] Ernst Zundel, that Israel is evil, malevolent and conspiratorial,” Farber said
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| 28.01.10 |
| [BGU, Politics] Ahmad Sa’di in: 1) "Palestine and the left" with Israeli academics SOAS 27 Feb. 2) Ahmad Sa’di fabricates racist encounters by BGU |
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We, Israeli, Palestinian and British academics, are writing to express our deep concern at the treatment of Dr Ahmad Sa’di, a Senior Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University’s Department of Politics and Government, who was subjected to racist treatment on 3 January 2010 when he arrived at Ben-Gurion University train station, as he does every teaching week. He was humiliatingly searched, yelled at and embarrassed by the security staff at Mexico Gate, which we find offensive and unacceptable.We believe that Dr Sa’di’s reaction on the date was exemplary; he did not block the entrance nor did he insult the security staff.
Following the incident Dr Sa’di complained to the university authorities on 3 January 2010 and again on 10 January 2010. Dr Sa’di strongly believes that his treatment at Mexico Gate on 3 January was only the last in a whole series of racist encounters and harassment he has faced in the past ten years of his employment at Ben-Gurion University.
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| Anti-Israel Petitions Supported by Israeli Academics |
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| 27.01.10 |
| Rachel Giora, Roni Hammermann, Iaroslav Youssim, Eyal Nir, Nurit Peled-Elhanan: Germany’s blanket support for Israel is 'harmful and immoral' |
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When President Shimon Peres lands in Berlin, an honest person should not lavish him with automatic praise, but ask, politely yet firmly, why he has been a member or a senior propagandist for Israeli governments which have used cluster munitions , flechette artillery shells and white phosphorus bombs in densely populated civilian areas in Gaza and Lebanon, have built more settlements in the OPT and have imposed separate legal systems for Israeli settlers in the OPT and their Palestinian neighbors. One can also ask him why he authorized the kidnapping and ill-treatment of an Israeli citizen in Rome (Mr. Mordechai Vanunu, September 1986), a clear violation of international law, and why it should be acceptable for one state in the Middle East to acquire nuclear weapons, a situation which necessarily brings about a dangerous arms race in this volatile region. One can ask him why he authorized, as Prime Minister in April 1996, the mass bombing of villages in Southern Lebanon, explicitly aimed at creating a wave of refugees flooding Beirut. We suspect that Mr. Peres has not learned that it is illegal to inflict lethal collective punishment on a civilian population.
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| 26.01.10 |
| [Hebrew University, School of Social Work & Social Welfare] Prof' Muhammad M. Haj-Yahia Blames Palestinian Wife-Beating on Israel |
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Their study is titled: “Association between exposure to political violence and intimate-partner violence in the occupied Palestinian territory: a cross-sectional study.” And yes, they have found that Palestinian husbands are more violent towards Palestinian wives as a funct'ion of the Israeli “occupation”—and that the violence increases significantly when the husbands are “directly” as opposed to “indirectly” exposed to political violence.
...This study was funded by the Palestinian National Authority as well as by the Core Funding Group at the University of Minnesota. The Palestinian Authority is not a disinterested party. But even worse: The data was collected by the Palestinian Central Bureau. These are the people who told the world that Israeli soldiers shot young Mohammed al-Dura, committed a massacre in Jenin, and purposely attacked Palestinian civilians (who just happened to be jihadists dressed in civilian clothing or hostage-civilians behind whom the jihadists hid).
...this study wishes to present Palestinian men as victims, even when those men are battering their wives. And, it wishes to present Palestinian cultural barbarism, which includes severe child abuse, as also related to the alleged Israeli occupation.
Third, therefore, the study has purposely omitted the violence, including femicide, which is routinely perpetrated against daughters and sisters in “occupied Palestine” and has, instead, chosen to focus only on husband-wife violence and only on couples who are currently married. The honor murders of daughters and sisters by their parents and brothers is a well known phenomenon in Gaza and on the West Bank. |
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| Academic Boycotts Against Israel |
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| 25.01.10 |
| New threats of academic boycott against Israel due to the upgrade of the status of Ariel College to a university |
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Left-wing Israeli academics protested that a new university would siphon away funds earmarked for other educational institutions and possibly hurt their relations with foreign academics, especially in Europe, where university groups have threatened to boycott Israel in the past over settlement policy.
Neve Gordon, a political scientist at Ben-Gurion University and member of a group that sought a court order to cancel the Ariel College decision, called it "another instance of Israel deepening its roots in the West Bank".
"You create facts on the ground, then say we can't return these areas. It's a part of the old wall-and-tower approach to building settlements," Gordon told Reuters in a reference to the Zionist strategy of building outposts to claim territory.
He also criticised Barak personally, saying he was ignoring his own left-wing Labour party's past commitments to a deal on Palestinian statehood: "I thought Barak was for a two-state solution," Gordon said. "But apparently he is not." ... Yaron Ezrahi, a professor at Hebrew University, called the decision the “academisation of the occupation”.
Amal Jamal, the head of political science at Tel Aviv University, said the upgrade would also highlight the extent to which universities inside Israel colluded with the West Bank college. “There is strong support for the college among some academics at Israeli universities, which co-operate with it in holding conferences, conducting research, supervising doctoral students and teaching,” he said.
LONDON – Israeli-British Professor Haim Bereshit, one of the initiators of the British academic boycott against Israel more than two years ago, had slammed Defense Minister Ehud Barak's decision to recognize the Ariel College as a university.
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| 24.01.10 |
| [TAU, Liguistics] Prof' Rachel Giora: Milestones in the history of the Israeli Boycott, Divestment & Sanction (BDS) movement: A brief chronology |
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The emergence of the Israeli boycott, divestment, and sanction (BDS) movement has been influenced by a number of factors. In essence, however, the movement in Israel has been basically reactive - a response to (a) international calls following traumas, and to (b) ideas, primarily those introducing the South African model into the international and Israeli discourse; and perhaps most significantly, it has evolved in response to (c) calls by Palestinians to the international community to boycott Israel, divest and disinvest from it, and sanction it.
Although the history of the BDS movement in Israel is reviewed here chronologically, the assumption is that all these factors have worked interactively and in tandem to influence the development of the BDS movement worldwide as well as in Israel.
The major role of the Israeli BDS movement has been to support international BDS calls against Israel and legitimize them both as clearly not anti-Semitic, as not working against Israelis but against Israeli governmental policies, and as supporting a legitimate nonviolent means by which Palestinian civil society can reclaim and re-own its people’s rights and freedoms. Alongside solidarity with the Palestinians, the driving force behind the Israeli BDS movement has been the realization that the criminal occupation and repression of the Palestinian people, as practiced by Israeli governments, will not be redressed without significant international pressure.
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| 21.01.10 |
| [BGU, Politics] Dani Filc speaks in the U.S: Israel's use of health care as a potent tool for occupation and control over Palestinians. Jan 24-25, 2010 |
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Filc explores how Israel’s adoption of a neoliberal model has pushed the system in a direction that gives priority to the strongest and richest individuals and groups over the needs of society as a whole, and to profit and competition over care. Filc pays special attention to the repercussions of policies that define citizenship in a way that has serious consequences for the health of groups of Palestinians who are Israeli citizens — particularly the Bedouins in the unrecognized villages — and to the ways in which this structure of citizenship affects the health of migrant workers.
“The health care situation is even more dire in the Occupied Territories, where the Occupation, especially in the last two decades, has negatively affected access to medical care and the health of Palestinians. Filc concludes his book with a discussion of how human rights, public health, and economic imperatives can be combined to produce a truly equal health care system that provides high-quality services to all Israelis.”
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| Anti-Israel Petitions Supported by Israeli Academics |
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| 20.01.10 |
| "BOYCOTT! Supporting the Cairo Declaration" Israelis sign petition to Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions, to end Israeli crime of Apartheid & occupation |
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Tel Aviv University: Merav Amir, Dr. Anat Matar, Prof. Rachel Giora, Tirtza Tauber.
Marcelo Svirsky [Cardiff School of English, Communication, and Philosophy] , Dr. Dalit Baum [University of Haifa] , Prof. Uri Davis [Al Quds University]
As citizens and residents of Israel, we understand that acting from within Israel itself to end the criminal policy which is carried out in our name, is not enough. It is vital at this juncture that the international community and its civil society undertake the needed complementary actions of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. It is time to suspend ongoing international normalization with Israeli institutions until they end their complicity in the brutal military occupation of Palestine, in the crime of Apartheid and in daily violations of International Law and basic human rights.
In light of previous baseless attacks on supporters of BDS, it is important to stress that the Palestinian campaign, which we fully support, is neither anti-Semitic nor is it targeting individual Israelis. Rather, it calls on all of us to stop glossing over Israel's crimes, to cease lending a hand to normalization with those responsible, and instead to actively insist on the promotion of true democracy, equality and respect for human rights in this land, for the benefit of all.
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| 19.01.10 |
| [Hebrew U, Education] Yoel Elizur who analysed "atrocities" committed by soldiers during the first Intifada, is chairman of the psychologists council |
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The psychologists council recommended Yoel Elitzur of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's School of Education.as chairman, Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman's office was pressured to nominate Elitzur.
Paper
Participation in Atrocities Among Israeli Soldiers During the First Intifada: A Qualitative Analysis
Yoel Elizur
School of Education, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Nuphar Yishay-Krien
Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Atrocities committed by soldiers are a common occurrence that harms not only victims, but also perpetrators, armies, and nations. However, censorship, limited access to information, and the tendency to deny one's evil and project it onto the other impede investigation into how ordinary soldiers cross the line between legitimate fighting and excessive violence. This study examined processes associated with Israeli soldiers' brutal behaviors during the first Intifada. Participants were 21 male combat veterans of two companies stationed in Gaza whose sampling reflected diversity in Israeli society and a wide range of behaviors in the Intifada. Situational factors and social—psychological processes (i.e. modeling, moral disengagement, dehumanization, and deindividuation) were powerful inducers of brutality. The data also showed individual differences in violence, inner—outer directedness, and moral standards. Consequently, five subgroups were identified: Callous/Impulsive, Ideologically Violent, Followers, Restrained, and Incorruptible. The use of these categories to examine the soldiers' unfolding experience over time generated a unique perspective into two less studied dynamics. The first was a synergistic interaction between dispositional and situational factors, manifested in level of brutality and differential subgroup stability of violent behaviors over time. The second was the company as a family-like primary social system that developed inner culture and structural patterns characterized by alignments and social power. Initially, there evolved a culture of brutality with an associated leadership that escalated the violence. A later clash with soldiers who adhered to the army's professional culture transformed the company's culture and structure. This analysis has implications for preventive measures, including the development of morally committed and resolute leadership at both lower and higher echelons of command.
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| 18.01.10 |
| The Price of Ignoring Reality: The Example of Hebrew University’s Professor Daphna Golan-Agnon |
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In sum, for Professor Golan, Israel is a renegade “apartheid” state, and she does not hesitate to draw an odious parallel with the former struggle of the Black population of South Africa against their White oppressors. And, while she opposes academic boycotts--giving the reason that this might affect her own foreign funding--she has no problem with boycotts that would deny Israel material required for its defense or equipment such as bulldozers that could be used to bolster the occupation.
Toward the end of the interview, Professor Golan responds to questions about the nature of Israel and the outlook for the future. “Why is a Jewish majority important?” she asks. She goes on, “When was it a Jewish state? Who invented [this] notion?“ And more: “It cannot be a Jewish state, certainly not Jewish and democratic.” Perhaps, she ponders, what is called for is “a federation” of Jews and Arabs.
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| 17.01.10 |
| [U of Haifa, Arabic] Reuven Snir, an Arab Jew against the hegemonic Hebrew-Zionist establishment: "The Arab Jews: Language, Poetry & Singularity" |
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also completely reject the legend, carefully fostered by the Zionist establishment, that the Jews of Iraq had been in terrible danger, from which a brilliant rescue operation saved them. Without downplaying the attacks on the Jews, it is a fact that they refused to emigrate till the early 1950s, when the government passed a law allowing Jews wishing to immigrate to Israel to renounce their Iraqi citizenship. The option was available for only one year, and the response was not strong – until bombs went off in synagogues and other Jewish institutions.
Who threw the bombs in Baghdad? I do not know, in fact maybe nobody now knows, but I can safely say that many of the Iraqi Jews have no doubt about who did it and who reaped the great benefit when more than one hundred thousand Iraqi Jews hastened to immigrate to Israel.
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All articles are Israel Academia Monitor COPYRIGHTS unless stated otherwise
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Israel Academia Monitor P.O. Box 920 Kfar Shmaryahu 46910 Israel
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Tel: +972-54-4283749 e-mail@israel-academia-monitor.com
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