Academic Witch-Hunt in Israel

[reprehensor]

Academic Witch-Hunt in Israel

by Neve Gordon
www.dissidentvoice.org
December 31, 2004

“Are you a donor to Israeli universities?” the anonymous writer asks. “Learn what is happening on Israeli campuses. Be informed about what is being done with your gifts and generosity.” These are the opening lines to a preposterous and dangerous new website called Israel Academia Monitor.

Presenting itself as a human rights movement of sorts, it declares that its aim is to bring to light abuses of academic freedom. Its nameless perpetrators consider themselves to be not only defenders of free speech but anti-McCarthyist campaigners.

The McCarthyists here are Israeli professors like myself who are critical of Israel’s rights-abusive policies while being inspired by a deep concern for Israel’s population and the occupied Palestinians. Apparently, our offence against free speech is that we do not allow zealous nationalists to voice their views – an absurd allegation considering that for some years now the balance of power within Israel has been tilted firmly towards the right.

At first sight only a twisted logic augmented by historical ignorance could draw a parallel between relatively powerless academics and those well orchestrated, government sanctioned redbaiters of 1950s USA. Indeed, the Monitor’s Instigators would have failed introductory courses of both logic and twentieth century history. In this corner of cyberspace, the law of contradiction – that antithetical P and not-P cannot be true simultaneously – ceases to exist, allowing the site to intimate that donors should boycott all universities that employ professors who criticize state policies while at the same time denouncing those who favor a boycott of Israeli institutions.

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[Igel]

1. I have no problem with people putting non-copyrighted

stuff on the web, as long as they do it in a way that preserves enough of the context for the stuff to be intepretable fairly.

They do the same in the US, and faculty. Many professors have been proud of their statements because they believe in them and find them defensible; some have argued that the context wasn't preserved; but most dislike the idea strongly, even if it's in context. I've never understood that--they're willing to argue in the classroom, but not in public.

Then again, I'm a linguist. Few of my statements in class have been politically charged, and those that have been were usually targeted at demolishing some boneheaded PC bits of ignorance.