Post by Moses on Mar 29, 2005 9:36:48 GMT -5
The Threat to Academic Freedom in Israel-Palestine
by David Newman
Tikkun Magazine
July/August 2004
www.tikkun.org/magazine/index.cfm/action/tikkun/issue/tik0407/article/040725.html
....The New McCarthyism
The political atmosphere in both the United States and Israel during the past two to three years has brought, in its wake, an emerging McCarthyism aimed at preventing pro-peace and left-of-center academics from expressing their opinions. This is reflected both in the right-wing takeover of most of the main media outlets (often on the back of their criticism of the media for being too left wing and pro-Oslo), as well as in a concerted attack against faculty who express their views in media and other forms of popular debate.
In the past, academic political activity in Israel has had the kind of free rein one would expect in a democracy. Though politicians have been known to express their dissatisfaction with what some of them perceive to be excessive intervention of faculty in the public debate, the academic system itself—particularly the promotion system—has been relatively free of any direct political intervention... There have been a small number of well-publicized cases where political intervention in the process has been more blatant. For example, specific members of the Israeli academic community who are known for their strong political critiques of Israeli government policy, over and beyond what are normally considered acceptable levels of criticism, such as revisionist historian Professor Ilan Pappe at Haifa University and education professor Haim Gordon at Ben Gurion University, have been targets of much political and public criticism. In the case of Pappe, there was even an attempt to formally censure him for his activities which, it was argued, discredited the name of his university. While the accusations against him dealt with a series of procedural matters, it was commonly believed that the underlying factor behind the attempt at censure was Pappe's outspoken political positions—including his support of the proposed international boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
The attacks on left-of-center views have come from two sources: from within academia itself and from political circles. The critiques focus on two areas of discussion: first, support for what is euphemistically known as "post-Zionism" debate; and second, support for the peace process despite the return of terror to the streets of Israel.
In the former case, well known academics such as Kimmerling and Sternhell (at the Hebrew University) and Oren Yiftachel and Uri Ram (at Ben Gurion University) have been at the forefront of the so-called "post-Zionist" debate, which posits Israel as a "State of all its citizens" rather than as a nationally defined Jewish State in which one national or religious group has preferential status. This has become the core of post-Zionism, drawing on notions of post-nationalism as a framework for a critical analysis of Israeli statehood and society. Critique of this post-Zionist approach has come not only from the right wing, but even—in some cases most specifically—from the left-of-center, liberal academic establishment, including some of Israel's best known professors of history, political science, and sociology. This Left has traditionally based its critique of Israeli society and institutions within the accepted framework of the raison d'être of the Jewish State, while the post-Zionist critique takes the debate beyond these accepted discourse boundaries. As such, the more traditional Left see their own analytical hegemony being challenged by a younger, more globally influenced, more critical group of scholars.
....The critique of this new post-Zionist analytical approach has been adopted by many politicians, including some government ministers, most notably—and most dangerously—the current radical Minister of Education in the right-wing Likud government, Limor Livnat. She has attacked critical scholars for being anti-ideological and anti-Israel and, as such, has attempted to use her political influence to intervene in the free academic debate which has traditionally taken place in Israel. Some of the younger scholars have been warned that their future promotion, especially their tenure process, could be affected by their involvement in the critical political debate. In some cases, right-wing academics and media polemicists have used their own forums to "name" the so-called anti-State academics, to accuse them of accepting research funding from anti-Israel organizations (of which the European Community tops the list).
In one case, a young political philosopher and human rights campaigner from Ben Gurion University, Dr. Neve Gordon, was accused by an extreme right-wing polemicist from Haifa University, Dr. Stephen Plaut, of being a supporter of Norman Finkelstein, whose book, The Holocaust Industry, led many on the Right to associate him with Holocaust deniers. When Gordon decided to sue him for libel, Plaut subsequently disseminated articles attacking Gordon on the Internet, including on some extreme right-wing Kahanist sites. Morton Klein, the head of the Zionist Organization in America, also weighed in against Gordon by writing to the President and the Rector of Ben Gurion University questioning the continued employment of Gordon and protesing his libel case which, Klein argued, was an intervention in the civil liberties of Plaut because it denied Plaut's right to freedom of expression! Klein's letter included citations and sources taken from extreme right-wing websites including the outlawed Kahane organization.
Writing under assumed names, Plaut has a long history of attacking, labeling, and targeting left-wing scholars in Israel. One anonymous article appeared under the name of Socrates in the Middle East Review of 2001. He is joined on the pages of the neo-conservative magazine Azure by fellow right-wing polemicist Alek Epstein.... Extreme websites such as the outlawed Kahane site have become full of right-wing polemical attacks on anything seen as constituting a liberal critique of Israel or Israeli government policies. American neo-conservative academic Daniel Pipes is responsible for the creation of a website which asks students to report on any lecturer perceived as being critical of Israel. Pipes' hardline positions on Islam and his blind support for the Bush Administration and its policies, along with his critique of Israeli peace plans aimed at the eventual creation of two States, have pushed him into a position of prominence in the post-9/11 era. He has recently been named by President Bush as a member of the advisory board of the United States Institute of Peace.
This overt political intervention in academic freedom of expression came to a head with a letter sent by right-wing Minister of Education Limor Livnat to Ben Gurion University President Professor Avishay Braverman, in which she stated that she would not be attending the annual meeting of the university's Board of Governors since the university continued to employ faculty who, she argued, were anti-Israel. Livnat singled out an article by Dr. Lev Grinberg which was published in Belgium and which used the term "symbolic genocide" to characterize the Israeli government policy of political assassinations, such as that of Sheikh Yassin in Gaza. This attempted intervention on the part of the Education Minister resulted in a strong letter of protest on the part of the Israeli Association of Civil Rights, as well as a number of petitions signed by Israeli academics, supporting the refusal of university heads to cave in to these political demands.Self-appointed super-patriots in the United States have written to donors and supporters of the university, urging them to withhold their support as long as these "seditious" members of the faculty are not fired. Such pressure has not been applied to faculty members at the same university who adopt extreme far-right positions, reflecting perhaps on the political preferences of some of the more activist elements of the North American Jewish community.
....In the post-9/11 era in the United States, and in the post-Oslo period in Israel, attempts to silence the voices of criticism have become even stronger. Barely a week goes by without an anti-academic opinion column in one of the country's newspapers. The Jerusalem Post has become the home for writers representing neo-conservative and extreme Republican perspectives on Israeli society, with alternative opinion columns relegated to a marginal position or ceased/stopped altogether. In some ways, this is seen as a counter-balance to the liberal opinions reflected in the country's main quality and intellectual paper, Haaretz (in some ways the equivalent of The Guardian or Le Monde). But it has become increasingly polemical, radical, and threatening in the past eighteen months—using the collapse of the Oslo peace process as a reason for supporting the Sharon government, opposing any form of Palestinian statehood, and attacking all of critical, alternative analyses of Israeli society or the peace process. and critical authors who are not Israeli or Jewish are, more often than not, simplistically labeled as anti-Semites, while others are refered to as "self hating Jews."
Israel still enjoys a relativity free and open public and academic debate. But the forces of McCarthyism are at work in their attempt to silence alternative opinions. Voices calling for the trial of the "Oslo criminals" (meaning Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin) and posters in the streets calling for "Transfer Now" (meaning the transfer of Palestinians out of Israel—a play on the slogan "Peace Now") have become an accepted part of public discourse, where once they would have been labeled as radical and fringe....
by David Newman
Tikkun Magazine
July/August 2004
www.tikkun.org/magazine/index.cfm/action/tikkun/issue/tik0407/article/040725.html
....The New McCarthyism
The political atmosphere in both the United States and Israel during the past two to three years has brought, in its wake, an emerging McCarthyism aimed at preventing pro-peace and left-of-center academics from expressing their opinions. This is reflected both in the right-wing takeover of most of the main media outlets (often on the back of their criticism of the media for being too left wing and pro-Oslo), as well as in a concerted attack against faculty who express their views in media and other forms of popular debate.
In the past, academic political activity in Israel has had the kind of free rein one would expect in a democracy. Though politicians have been known to express their dissatisfaction with what some of them perceive to be excessive intervention of faculty in the public debate, the academic system itself—particularly the promotion system—has been relatively free of any direct political intervention... There have been a small number of well-publicized cases where political intervention in the process has been more blatant. For example, specific members of the Israeli academic community who are known for their strong political critiques of Israeli government policy, over and beyond what are normally considered acceptable levels of criticism, such as revisionist historian Professor Ilan Pappe at Haifa University and education professor Haim Gordon at Ben Gurion University, have been targets of much political and public criticism. In the case of Pappe, there was even an attempt to formally censure him for his activities which, it was argued, discredited the name of his university. While the accusations against him dealt with a series of procedural matters, it was commonly believed that the underlying factor behind the attempt at censure was Pappe's outspoken political positions—including his support of the proposed international boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
The attacks on left-of-center views have come from two sources: from within academia itself and from political circles. The critiques focus on two areas of discussion: first, support for what is euphemistically known as "post-Zionism" debate; and second, support for the peace process despite the return of terror to the streets of Israel.
In the former case, well known academics such as Kimmerling and Sternhell (at the Hebrew University) and Oren Yiftachel and Uri Ram (at Ben Gurion University) have been at the forefront of the so-called "post-Zionist" debate, which posits Israel as a "State of all its citizens" rather than as a nationally defined Jewish State in which one national or religious group has preferential status. This has become the core of post-Zionism, drawing on notions of post-nationalism as a framework for a critical analysis of Israeli statehood and society. Critique of this post-Zionist approach has come not only from the right wing, but even—in some cases most specifically—from the left-of-center, liberal academic establishment, including some of Israel's best known professors of history, political science, and sociology. This Left has traditionally based its critique of Israeli society and institutions within the accepted framework of the raison d'être of the Jewish State, while the post-Zionist critique takes the debate beyond these accepted discourse boundaries. As such, the more traditional Left see their own analytical hegemony being challenged by a younger, more globally influenced, more critical group of scholars.
....The critique of this new post-Zionist analytical approach has been adopted by many politicians, including some government ministers, most notably—and most dangerously—the current radical Minister of Education in the right-wing Likud government, Limor Livnat. She has attacked critical scholars for being anti-ideological and anti-Israel and, as such, has attempted to use her political influence to intervene in the free academic debate which has traditionally taken place in Israel. Some of the younger scholars have been warned that their future promotion, especially their tenure process, could be affected by their involvement in the critical political debate. In some cases, right-wing academics and media polemicists have used their own forums to "name" the so-called anti-State academics, to accuse them of accepting research funding from anti-Israel organizations (of which the European Community tops the list).
In one case, a young political philosopher and human rights campaigner from Ben Gurion University, Dr. Neve Gordon, was accused by an extreme right-wing polemicist from Haifa University, Dr. Stephen Plaut, of being a supporter of Norman Finkelstein, whose book, The Holocaust Industry, led many on the Right to associate him with Holocaust deniers. When Gordon decided to sue him for libel, Plaut subsequently disseminated articles attacking Gordon on the Internet, including on some extreme right-wing Kahanist sites. Morton Klein, the head of the Zionist Organization in America, also weighed in against Gordon by writing to the President and the Rector of Ben Gurion University questioning the continued employment of Gordon and protesing his libel case which, Klein argued, was an intervention in the civil liberties of Plaut because it denied Plaut's right to freedom of expression! Klein's letter included citations and sources taken from extreme right-wing websites including the outlawed Kahane organization.
Writing under assumed names, Plaut has a long history of attacking, labeling, and targeting left-wing scholars in Israel. One anonymous article appeared under the name of Socrates in the Middle East Review of 2001. He is joined on the pages of the neo-conservative magazine Azure by fellow right-wing polemicist Alek Epstein.... Extreme websites such as the outlawed Kahane site have become full of right-wing polemical attacks on anything seen as constituting a liberal critique of Israel or Israeli government policies. American neo-conservative academic Daniel Pipes is responsible for the creation of a website which asks students to report on any lecturer perceived as being critical of Israel. Pipes' hardline positions on Islam and his blind support for the Bush Administration and its policies, along with his critique of Israeli peace plans aimed at the eventual creation of two States, have pushed him into a position of prominence in the post-9/11 era. He has recently been named by President Bush as a member of the advisory board of the United States Institute of Peace.
This overt political intervention in academic freedom of expression came to a head with a letter sent by right-wing Minister of Education Limor Livnat to Ben Gurion University President Professor Avishay Braverman, in which she stated that she would not be attending the annual meeting of the university's Board of Governors since the university continued to employ faculty who, she argued, were anti-Israel. Livnat singled out an article by Dr. Lev Grinberg which was published in Belgium and which used the term "symbolic genocide" to characterize the Israeli government policy of political assassinations, such as that of Sheikh Yassin in Gaza. This attempted intervention on the part of the Education Minister resulted in a strong letter of protest on the part of the Israeli Association of Civil Rights, as well as a number of petitions signed by Israeli academics, supporting the refusal of university heads to cave in to these political demands.Self-appointed super-patriots in the United States have written to donors and supporters of the university, urging them to withhold their support as long as these "seditious" members of the faculty are not fired. Such pressure has not been applied to faculty members at the same university who adopt extreme far-right positions, reflecting perhaps on the political preferences of some of the more activist elements of the North American Jewish community.
....In the post-9/11 era in the United States, and in the post-Oslo period in Israel, attempts to silence the voices of criticism have become even stronger. Barely a week goes by without an anti-academic opinion column in one of the country's newspapers. The Jerusalem Post has become the home for writers representing neo-conservative and extreme Republican perspectives on Israeli society, with alternative opinion columns relegated to a marginal position or ceased/stopped altogether. In some ways, this is seen as a counter-balance to the liberal opinions reflected in the country's main quality and intellectual paper, Haaretz (in some ways the equivalent of The Guardian or Le Monde). But it has become increasingly polemical, radical, and threatening in the past eighteen months—using the collapse of the Oslo peace process as a reason for supporting the Sharon government, opposing any form of Palestinian statehood, and attacking all of critical, alternative analyses of Israeli society or the peace process. and critical authors who are not Israeli or Jewish are, more often than not, simplistically labeled as anti-Semites, while others are refered to as "self hating Jews."
Israel still enjoys a relativity free and open public and academic debate. But the forces of McCarthyism are at work in their attempt to silence alternative opinions. Voices calling for the trial of the "Oslo criminals" (meaning Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin) and posters in the streets calling for "Transfer Now" (meaning the transfer of Palestinians out of Israel—a play on the slogan "Peace Now") have become an accepted part of public discourse, where once they would have been labeled as radical and fringe....