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Israel Academia Monitor Follows
Anti-Israel Activities of Israeli Academics
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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
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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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We are happy to announce the publication of the study Academic Freedom in Israel: A Comparative Perspective; it compares academic freedom in Israel with that enjoyed by faculty in three academic leaders- Germany, Great Britain and the United States. This first of a kind research, is systematic, detailed and meticulously referenced.
The study indicates that, contrary to the view of radical scholars and their liberal supporters, the Israeli academy has enjoyed far greater freedom than its counterparts in the comparative cases. Indeed, in all three countries a combination of case law, ethic codes and strong oversight by boards of directors and politicians who appointed them have prevented radical faculty in public universities from abusing and subverting academic privileges to push an activist political agenda.
Not countervailed by academic duties and a need to account to the public and its elected representatives, the expansive sense of academic freedom has hurt Israel’s academic standing in the world. Liberal arts and social science, in particular, have been trending well below global averages, jeopardizing Israel’s overall competitive quest.
We hope that the study will spur a long-overdue debate on how to restore much- needed balance between academic freedom and the broader interests of the society and the state. |
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Click to view whole articles:
(Extract)
18.06.13
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| Bias at the Hebrew University Social Science Network |
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Following IAM's Roundtable on "Academic Freedom in Israel" Dr. Rami Kaplan posted his Hebrew review on the Social Science Network, a Hebrew University service for the social science community. As is acceptable in academic discourse, IAM posted on the Network a response to Kaplan, (see below) but our second effort to respond to the burgeoning discussion engendered by Kaplan's post were denied. Instead, the following day in an unprecedented move Dr. Amir Tal, the Network moderator, wrote a letter apologizing for allowing the IAM response to Kaplan in the first place. Tal accused IAM of using "harassing" and "intimidating" language and reminded all network users that they should refrain from ad hominem attacks and disrespectful language. Needless to say, there was nothing "harassing" nor "intimidating" in any of our posts.
Tal's position reflects what IAM has known for years, namely that the Social Science Network is heavily biased toward leftist scholarship. For instance, our posts have been rejected on many occasions; after agreeing to post our invitation to the Roundtable, the moderator rejected a reminder, while organizers of events whom the moderators find more palatable are allowed to post a second or even a third reminder.
The moderators of the Network have allowed plenty of disrespectful and even slanderous language to be used in causes they do not like. For example, posts about Im Tirtzu and Ariel University have included questionable assertions and disrespectful language.
The practices of the moderators of the Hebrew University Social Science Network reflect the lack of pluralism in the social sciences in Israel. Voices that do not tow the "party line" are stifled and silenced. As IAM demonstrated, the social sciences in Israeli universities pay a high price for this state of affair; they trend well below their counterparts in the West and contribute little to academic excellence that Israel needs in the highly competitive global economy. |
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16.06.13
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| Yaacov Bergman addresses Michael Walzer [HUJ Governor]: You were dead wrong on the facts! |
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Dear Michael Walzer,
On October 2, 2012, you wrote a letter to then Education Minister Gidon Saar and to the vice chairman of the Council for Higher Education (CHE), Dr. Shimshon Shoshany, urging them to prevent the CHE from discharging its duties as the Israeli regulator of higher education with regard to the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University. Your letter is copied below within my detailed public response to you of October 21, 2012, which you have not had the integrity to answer. In your public letter, you wrote:
There doesn’t seem to be any plausible academic reason for the decision, which is not consistent with the reports of your own committee of international experts [ ]. The closing of the department looks like a political purge by a government that doesn’t understand what universities are for.
Well, Michael Walzer, you were dead wrong on the facts!
On October 30, 2012, the CHE sub-committee on quality assurance heard the appeal by the Ben-Gurion University administration during which procedure the chairman of the committee of international experts, Prof Thomas Risse, said thus, according to the minutes (protocol) of that session:
Prof. Thomas Risse: "When the news broke in the newspaper, I immediately went to the press and said that it is an academic issue. The evaluating committee had no intention of getting into a political fight." [ ] "The university hired people who are essentially "more of the same". Most work in one cluster of topics, and political science should be broader. It has nothing to do with politics. They need people in core fields."
Moreover, an investigation that I personally conducted into the matter revealed that the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University was founded and has been maintained by deplorable methods. I wrote an investigative article, which "Haaretz" newspaper published, that summarizes my findings. I urge you, Michael Walzer, and the other recipients of this letter to you, to read the translation into English of that published article which I am copying below. When you read it, please notice the role played in the dishonest plot by your host at the Hebrew University next week, Avner De-Shalit. I should also mention that the Editor in Chief of "Haaretz" newspaper Aluf Benn promised to let De-Shalit respond to my findings, but De-Shalit has never done so, even when he was personally invited to speak at a conference devoted to the issue. Indeed, the facts in the article speak for themselves.
You should also know that following the rejection of its appeal to the CHE and following my revelations in the published article below, the Ben-Gurion administration submitted a letter to the CHE in which it agreed to perform according to all the CHE directives concerning its Department of Politics "precisely as phrased by the CHE and according to their spirit."
More importantly, you and others who wrote baseless protest letters concerning this affair should know that your uncalled for involvement has damaged the academic quality assurance process in Israel, as will soon become clear with regard to that process as it has been applied to the Israeli sociology departments, some of which share the characteristics of the substandard BGU Department of Politics. This is, indeed, the main reason that I am writing to you and to the many other recipients; to inform you that baseless protests are not innocuous. They can and do harm! |
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13.06.13
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| Letter to the Hebrew University Board of Governors |
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*Moshe Zimmerman (HUJ, German History) has engaged in a long standing effort to compare Israel to Nazi Germany. He is a favorite among the anti-Semitic left in Germany that uses his work and public appearances to legitimate their own radical stance against Israel. Zimmermann appeared on April 16, 2012 at a meeting sponsored by a radical Palestinian organization "The Palestine Initiative" in Hanover which blames Israel for the Arab-Israeli dispute. On Sept 09, 2012 he wrote to Haaretz equating Israeli treatment of Eritrean refuges to the forced deportation of Polish Jews from Germany in 1938. It is noted that the European Union Monitoring Center (EUMC) had declared that such comparisons - defined as "nazification of Israel” - are part of new form of anti-Semitism. Israel is currently the only Western country in which faculty can engage in "nazification of Israel" under the flag of academic freedom.
*Nurit Peled-Elhanan (HUJ, Education) has "testified" in South Africa on October 08, 2012 before the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, a self-appointed group of radical leftists who accuse Israel of apartheid and advocate boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). In 2012 Peled Elhanan published a book of dubious academic value that accused Israeli text-books of widespread racist depictions of Arabs and Palestinians. During the tour to promote her work she told BBC Brazil on August 20, 2012 that the Israeli "education system teaches children to hate Arabs." On June 02, 2013, the Teheran News Agency quoted Peled-Elhanan stating that Israel is a real global threat, "Islam like Judaism and Christianity is in itself not a threat to me or to anyone, but American imperialism is, European indifference is … and Israeli racism and its cruel occupying regime is."
*Amiram Goldblum (HUJ, Medicinal chemistry) is among the organizers of an Israeli anti-apartheid movement; the proposed organization plans to replicate the popular Israel Apartheid Week on Western campuses. On February 20, 2013 in an article for "On the Left Side" he quoted a finding from a poll he had commissioned to "prove" that Israelis are racists and likely to support an apartheid regime.
*Amos Goldberg (HUJ. Holocaust Studies) and Asaf Angerman (HUJ, Rosenzweig Minerva), have been busy promoting the Holocaust - Nakba equivalency. A popular topic among radical faculty, equating the Holocaust and Nakba is a variant of the "nazification of Israel" theme. On October 29, 2012 Goldberg lectured in New York "The Holocaust and the Nakba: Traumatic Memories and (Bi)National Identities in Israel-Palestine." On February 09, 2013 Angerman participated in a seminar entitled "Israel and Palestine: Zionism and Nakba - Two narratives mutually exclusive?" In 2009 during his stay in Germany, Angerman who described himself as "German Jew" signed a petition titled “German Jews Say No to Murder by Israeli Army."
*Ofer Cassif (HUJ, Rothberg), the head of the international committee of the Communist Party of Israel, wrote an article for the CPI on March 14, 2012 which defined Zionism, "Zionism is a surname: A family of racism and nationalism, exclusion and oppression, occupation and warmongering, class exploitation and imperialism." Cassif teaches a course "Capital & Government," an extension of his political views. By offering a syllabus composed of readings depicting Israel as a racist and imperialist society, Cassif contravenes the 2010 decision of the Council of Higher Education (CHE) mandating a balanced discussion of the topic at hand.
*Avner de-Shalit (HUJ, Political Science) has played a key role in the scandal surrounding the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University. According to Dr. Yaacov Bergman, de-Shalit hindered the CHE efforts to improve the substandard department dating back to 2002 when a renowned political scientist reviewed the department and filed a scathing report recommending its closure. De-Shalit served as a second evaluator and filed a favorable report; He was nominated a year later to head a new committee that issued a favorable evaluation. De-Shalit had no moral right to accept this appointment. This unethical and possible illegal behavior should have disqualified him from serving on the Executive Committee of the University. |
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11.06.13
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| Tehran News Agency: HUJ Nurit Peled Elhanan Sees Israel as Real Global Threat |
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The remarks were made by Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan addressing a ceremony marking the International Women's Day in Strasbourg, France.
"Islam like Judaism and Christianity is in itself not a threat to me or to anyone, but American imperialism is, European indifference is … and Israeli racism and its cruel occupying regime is," Peled-Elhanan said.
She noted that the US and the UK are infecting their citizens with a blind fear of the Muslims "despite the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not Muslims".
Peled-Elhanan underlined that Islam is not a threat, but the real threat is Israel and the Israeli army.
Peled-Elhanan is the mother of Smadar Elhanan who was 13 years when killed in a bombing incident in al-Quds (Jerusalem) in September 1997. |
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09.06.13
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| TAU Galia Sabar's Demand to be Promoted on the Basis of her Political Activism - a New Front in Academic Entitlement |
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Prof. Galia Sabar, a senior lecturer and head of African Studies Department at Tel Aviv University is a political activist who promotes rights of African refugees to settle in Israel. For her work she received the Unsung Heroes award by Dalai Lama.
IAM has repeatedly emphasized that academics-like other Israeli citizens - have the right to engage in extra-mural activities. What attracted our attention was her claim to be promoted on the basis of her political work. Sabar did not publicize her award out of fear that it would jeopardize her promotion procedure and lamented that the university does not recognize public involvement as a legitimate factor in promotion. Amir Paz-Fuchs, another high profile activist, who brought the case of Sabar to the attention of the social science network, agreed with her, calling the case "sad."
Sabar's publications are paltry, even by the standard of a third rate college, let alone a respectable research university. Her choice of research topics is even more brow raising: in a recent article she reports on African restaurants in Tel Aviv as a measure of immigrant adaptation. Africa is a vital continent and Israeli students who choose to specialize in Africa studies deserve better than a faculty who chooses to focus on African culinary establishments in Tel Aviv.
IAM has regularly reported on activist faculty that spend their time and energies on political causes of their choice. The case of Sabar stands out because she strongly demands that the Israeli tax payer should fund her activities. Regrettably, such a view is prevalent view among many academics who, like Paz-Fuchs, are genuinely puzzled why this should not be the case.
For all those, here is something that Stanley Fish, a professor and public intellectual with a leftist pedigree, wrote in his book Save the World on Your Own Time: "I am not saying that putting pressure on South Africa or Israel or agitating for workers rights are not legitimate political actions. I'm just saying that political actions are what they are, which means that not everyone (either in the polity or the academic community) would approve them, which means that in endorsing them a university aligns itself with a partisan position, which means that sectors of the general public will come to regard the university as a special-interest lobby and decline to support it."
Indeed, this is what has happened in the United States where the neo-conservative movement rode a wave of public outrage against political activists in state (public) universities. Israeli taxpayers deserve the same consideration than their American counterparts.
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06.06.13
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| Tel Aviv University - A Double Agent |
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On April 2013 the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University issued its annual report on the state of anti-Semitism around the world, "Antisemitic manifestations worldwide 2012". The lengthy document listed a large number of anti-Semitic incidents, but what attracted our attention was a short segment devoted to the growing phenomenon of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. As IAM frequently points out, the European Union Monitoring Center's "Working Definition of anti-Semitism" considers certain anti-Zionist critique to be a new form of anti-Semitism; invidious comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany were termed "nazifcation of Israel."
It was gratifying to see that they mentioned - apparently for the first time - "nazification of Israel.' Sadly, the authors focused their attention on cases of "nazification" abroad.
While some Israeli academics such as Moshe Zimmermann (HUJ) use terms like Judeo-Nazis, pioneered by Yeshayahu Leibowitz and Israel Shahak (HUJ), others resort to sophisticated linguistic manipulations designed to create a link between the two situations. As the article from 2002 "Don't Fence Me In" by Neve Gordon (BGU) illustrates, Gordon seeks to create such an equivalency in a review of a book about barbed wires. He speaks about the "architectural similarity" between the "camps Israel created to hold the Palestinian and the concentration camps Jews were held during the Holocaust. He writes:
“Explicating and trying to understand the continued widespread use of barbed wire could have added an additional dimension to this fascinating book. For example, examining the architectural similarity and differences between the camps Israel has constructed to hold Palestinians and the concentration camps Jews were held in during the Holocaust, urges one to ponder how it is that the reappearance of barbed wire in the Israeli landscape does not engender an outcry among survivors.”
Neve Gordon knows very well that there are no concentration camps for the Palestinians, but he uses this linguistic ploy to add to the "nazification of Israel' theme.
It is not clear why the Kantor Center decided to omit Israeli faculty who have engaged in prodigious efforts to "nazify Israel."
Indeed, they did not have to look too far, as TAU Professors Moshe Zuckermann (Cohn Institute) , Adi Ophir and Ariella Azoulay (Minerva Humanities) have carried the "nazification" campaign for years.
Tel Aviv University plays a double agent, on the one hand it provides information on anti-Semitism but on the other, some of its scholars engage in what the EU considers anti-Semitism. |
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04.06.13
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| To Members of the Board of Governors at Tel Aviv University |
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Radical TAU academics in the past year:
On Feb 21, 2012 in a Berlin conference of Heinrich Böll Foundation "What do Germans and Israelis have in common? What sets them apart?" Gadi Algazi [TAU, History] stated: "One could sum up what we ask of Israel: an end to its colonization politics," he said. "As long as Israel's settlement policy continues, we will not have peace in the Middle East. This is the heart of our tragedy. For that reason, I would call for economic and political pressure on Israel until it agrees to completely stop its colonization."
On 6 April 2012, in a German article "A well orchestrated hysteria" about a poem by Günter Grass, Moshe Zuckermann [TAU, Cohn] agreed with Grass that "Israel is a threat to world peace."
On May 6, 2012 in a conference held at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York, Yoav Peled [TAU Political Science] argued that the Zionist enterprise in Palestine fits the “colonialist thesis.”
On June 25, 2012 in Business Day South Africa, Alon Liel [TAU, Security & Diplomacy] wrote: "I...do my best not to buy Israeli products from the occupied territories. I don’t see why you, living outside Israel, shouldn’t have the same choice."
On June 2012 in Zochrot website, Adi Ophir [TAU Minerva Humanities] wrote about the importance of Zochrot, "the occupation has become a permanent form of control, colonial expansion clearly visible in all its brutality, de-facto Apartheid almost declared and often even formally enshrined, the integration of the Jewish space in the OPT almost complete....The dogs that barked at the Nakba commemoration event at Tel Aviv University, however, belonged to the right and were extremely loud, but our caravan went on nevertheless." (Zochrot was created to "educate Israeli citizens about the Nakba and restore the memory of Palestinian presence before 1948." In its mission statement "recognizing the tragedy is a prerequisite for ending the conflict, which also includes a return of Palestinian refugees and their resettlement in Israel.")
On June 2012 & June 2013 in TAU's LGBT conference "Sex Acher" Merav Amir and Leehee Rothschild are panelists; both are renowned BDS activists.
A journalist Ishai Friedman revealed that a TAU student named Anat Levy - one of the organizers of Nakba Memorial Day 2012 at TAU - admitted in an interview that Aeyal Gross, Anat Matar and Anat Bilezki sponsored the Nakba event.
On Sept 4, 2012 Theater director Peter Brook admitted that Anat Matar [TAU Philosophy] convinced him to cancel his participation in the International Festival for Plays of the Cameri Theatre. In her letter to him Matar wrote "I believe that decisions about cultural and academic boycott need to be taken after due discretion and not blindly...The issue with the Cameri is its decision...to support the oppression of the Palestinians by performing on their occupied land."
On Oct 10, 2012 in the German Junge Welt "Resist the zeitgeist: About Jews, German, the Middle East conflict and anti-Semitism" Moshe Zuckermann [TAU, Cohn] wrote: Israel's "act of Colonization...had led in the 1948 war for the national catastrophe of the Palestinians, the Nakba, and continues to this day."
On October 25, 2012 in the Independent Studies Program at the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Ariella Azoulay [TAU, Minerva Humanities] said: "Israel's creation was a catastrophe for both Jews and Arabs." Azoulay urged Israelis to take a number of steps. "First, past history needs to be rewritten to make clear that Jews were only a tiny minority in Palestine - only six percent- and did not deserve a state of their own. Second, the term Palestine rather than Israel should be used. Third, Jews must start the process of "forgiveness" by acknowledging that they made Palestinians into refugees by violence."
On Nov 16, 2012 in the Munich Salam Shalom Palätina-Israel Working Group event "Israel's occupation is a colonial project: the settlements as a business;" Gadi Algazi [TAU History] lectured "The lucrative connection of Colonialism and capital in occupied West Bank."
On Nov 18, 2012 in Haaretz (Hebrew) Shlomo Sand [TAU, History] wrote "Why are they shooting missiles at us?"They "are refugees and the descendants of refugees of those lands on which we live. 65 years have passed and they still remember... What's more, the injustice done to them has never been recognised by us...the force of the memory of their disaster."
On Nov 21, 2012 in an email to members of Coalition of Women for Peace from Rachel Giora [TAU, Linguistics] "The world cannot stand by when Palestine is once more battered to death," Giora and Yehouda Shenhav [TAU Sociology] circulated a petition "The inaction of the Western governments is further proof of their indifference to their electorates’ wish to stop Israel from perpetrating yet another massacre against the Palestinian people."
On Dec 15, 2012 in Truthout "Starving for Recognition: The Plight of Palestinian Political Prisoners" Anat Matar [TAU Philosophy] complained that "in Western media reports Palestinians are portrayed as security risks rather than political prisoners, and as “militants” and “terrorists,” rather than resistance fighters." |
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02.06.13
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| "Poor return on investment" - Israel Academia Monitor responds to the Times |
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Regarding “Israel Academia Monitor fears the enemy within” (News, 16 May): your article misses an important part of our round-table debate on academic freedom in Israel.
Radical scholars who use their positions to advocate a political agenda short-change students and taxpayers. The former are deprived of a sound liberal-arts education that values the fair comparison of ideas and the latter are forced to pay salaries to faculty engaged in political propaganda.
As the round table heard, this state of affairs would not be tolerated in public universities in Germany, the UK or the US.
Israel’s expansive definition of academic freedom has hurt the comparative standing of its social science, which trends below Western averages (in contrast, hard sciences and engineering in the country, free from political distortion, score well above average). In a highly competitive global economy, human capital matters: by any measure, Israeli taxpayers receive a poor return on their investment. |
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30.05.13
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| The Shlomo Sand (TAU) Chronicle: How to Profit from Outrage? |
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Shlomo Sand, professor of history at TAU has hit on a very profitable formula; write an outrageous book guaranteed to be picked up by every pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic websites, travel widely to spread the "gospel" that Jews are an invented people (The Invention of the Jewish People) that have never existed in the Middle East (The Invention of the Land of Israel) and become an international star.
Dressed in his customary black outfit, the short but highly self-assured and pugnacious former postal clerk and Matzpen member, has treated us to yet another self-revelatory book How and When I Stopped Being Jewish, If anything his latest creation is even more muddled and convoluted than the previous ones. In an interview for the book, he laments that "I suffer from people who don't understand me" because of his alleged deep revelations about the Jewish non-history. Still, Sand is resigned to such misunderstandings as he cannot write "like Yair Lapid."
Sand explains the decision to stop being Jewish by claiming that there is no such thing a Jewish secular identity - an argument that he purportedly proved beyond reasonable doubt. He goes so far as to argue that none of the things that scholars and popular culture label Jewish, including the so-called "Jewish sense of humor" are not really Jewish.
Be it as it may, Sand's real goal in renouncing the Jewish identity is political. Continuing the Matzpen line, Sand declares that Israel is a racist state subjugating its Arab citizens; he compares it to the apartheid state of South Africa and even to Nazi Germany.
Sand denies that Israel would kill its "unwanted Arabs" the way Germany exterminated its "unwanted Jews", but asserts that Hitler won because the Nazi racial theory is used by many Jews in contemporary Israel: "Yesterday it was simple physical characteristics such as blood or facial structure. Today it’s DNA." Worse, in his view, using the Holocaust to bolster Jewish identity and the standing of the Jewish state, is the ultimate victory of Hitler.
Sand's pseudo scientific concoctions would have been laughable, if it was not for the fact that they are made possible by the Israeli taxpayers. His faculty position gives him legitimacy and the free time needed to write and travel abroad, a fact that he readily admitted in his recent talk in Tel Aviv.
Once again, it is Sand who is laughing all the way to the bank, but it is the Israeli academic community, whose scholarly standards have been downgraded here, who is paying a heavy price. |
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28.05.13
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| HUJ Professor Avner de-Shalit and the Debacle of the BGU Department of Politics and Government |
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IAM has published a number of editorials on the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University, exposing the corruption that allowed a substandard department to continue to exist in spite of professional opinion. Dr. Yaacov Bergman (HUJ) has done extensive research and used the Freedom Information Act to obtain most of the available documentation. As should be clear by now, Professor Avner de-Shalit, a former dean and professor of political science from HUJ, has played a leading role in this sordid affair.
Until the expose of Bergman, de-Shalit could play the role of a highly- principled and objective social scientist. Incidentally, the 2005 article below reflects this carefully cultivated persona, a self-portrayed that could not be further away from the truth. Even more astounding is his article "A Blow to Students in the South," a highly misleading piece of writing.
In the IAM roundtable on Academic Freedom in Israel: A Comparative Perspective held on May 5, 2013, at the ZOA House Tel Aviv, Bergman, using a Power Point presentation displaying the relevant documentation, told the real story.
In July 1997, the Council for Higher Education (CHE) approved the Department of Politics and Government as a dual-minors program; in 2001, the Department sought accreditation for its BA program. The CHE appointed Professor Zeev Maoz, the renowned political scientist from Tel Aviv University and a year later, Professor Avner de-Shalit, of the Hebrew University, to evaluate the Department. On January 2, 2002 Maoz submitted a scathing report, writing that there was a “shocking” lack of core political science classes and that faculty members specialized in topics that were marginal to the discipline, as a result, a large number of them taught courses that had little to do with their academic training and research. Among the faculty listed was David Newman, a political geographer who taught a class on electoral system, Rina Poznansky, a historian by training, who offered a class on political parties and Dani Filc (at the time a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at Tel Aviv University and a former MD) who instructed a course in Israeli government. Maoz was especially concerned with the absence of courses in methodology and quantitative methods; he noted that the sole instructor (a doctoral candidate) had no background in the field. Since virtually all senior members did not research in core political science subjects, Maoz asserted that it would be hard for the Department to provide qualified instructors for core course. In conclusion, he urged the CHE to reject the request for accreditation.
But de-Shalit felt that the Department should not be denied accreditation. Given the split decision, in November 2003, the CHE created another committee. In a shocking breach of ethics de-Shalit was appointed, along with Gad Barzilai from the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University and Ella Belfer, a historian from Bar Ilan University, to consider anew the accreditation request. In a March 2004 report, the committee praised the Department for offering a “unique program” – a reference to a course in applied political training (hitmachut politit). A co-operative program, the hitmachut students were expected to work for NGOs and participate in workshops and field trips organized by faculty; the report recommended to make the course mandatory. The committee had also formed a favorable opinion of the faculty, praising the “special relations” with students and the collegial atmosphere in the Department. Ignoring Maoz’s concerns, the report recommended adding a slot in political philosophy and Israeli government. Acting upon its recommendation, the CHE agreed on a temporary accreditation; by 2009, fully-accredited, the Department was allowed to offer an MA program.
“The Report of the Committee in Charge of Evaluating the Accreditation Request of the Department of Politics and Government at BGU University,“ obtained through Freedom Information Act by Dr. Yaacov Bergman.
By giving its blessing to a “unique program” as part of a ”pluralistic approach to political science,” the de-Shalit committee accepted the Department’s right to offer a political science program closely modeled on Antioch College in Ohio, a small liberal arts school known for embracing radical causes. Rather than standard political science education, Antioch proffers courses geared toward political activism, which students then use in a co-operative program for what was termed “progressive political activism.” Had de-Shalit and his colleagues bothered to review the co-operative program in the Department, they would have learned that the field work – reflecting the activist makeup of the faculty - was heavily skewed toward left wing activism.
In 2011 the International Evaluation Committee chaired by Thomas Risse issued a report on the Department as a routine CHE evaluation of political science departments around the country. The Risse Committee (RC) echoed the misgivings of Maoz; it identified serious problems with the weak political science core and a virtual absence of quantitative method training. The RC noted the imbalance of views in classroom curricula which were heavily weighted toward a critical perspective. This was hardly surprisingly since the Department practiced hiring and promoting instructors based on paradigmatic similarity or previous political connection. The RC found that, as result, there was a paucity of mainstream political science approaches, a “rather eclectic set of courses that…lack a coherent focus,” and a tenure-track faculty that had no background in political science.
The criticism proffered by the RC was also a resounding rejection of the de-Shalit recommendation that praised the “unique vision” of the Department. Moreover, the same committee noted that even de-Shalit's own Political Science Department at the Hebrew University lacked a strong offering in quantitative studies. Writing as Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, de-Shalit promised to address this problem, consequently hiring new faculty with a strong background in rational choice theory, a cutting -edge discipline in contemporary political science.
Yet when it came to Ben Gurion University, without revealing his role, de-Shalit was among the first to accuse the CHE of McCarthyism, a theme used to mobilize a huge internal and international protest. De-Shalit also penned a deceptive article on the alleged role of the Department in helping the disadvantaged population of the Negev region to graduate college. Full of cheap sentimentality, the article (below) gushed about how the faculty took a poor Mizrahi student under its wings, turning his life around. Nowhere in the article did this Dean in prestigious university mention merit or academic excellence that both rich and poor students deserve when enrolling in a university. Regrettably, de-Shalit is not the only member of the academic elite that harbors a patronizing attitude towards institutions that serve the less privileged sectors of the society.
Given de-Shalit’s unethical behavior in accepting the 2003 appointment, his failure to defend his decision was less than surprising. However, he did much more than that. As detailed in the article by Bergman, de-Shalit claimed being unaware of the Maoz report and, even more egregiously, denied that he was the second expert on the 2001 committee.
The lessons of the de-Shalit story are complex. To begin with, de-Shalit talks the talk but does not walk the walk. This is not surprising, as so many others have engaged in this all too human behavior. What helped de-Shalit to project the aura of moral professionalism are the opaque ways in which the academy operates. Sailing under the flag or academic freedom, the Israeli faculty resists all efforts to force accountability and transparency. Without a serious reform the academic abuse and corruption will continue.
The Hebrew University can take a first step in reforming the academy by removing de-Shalit from its Executive Committee where he now serves. |
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26.05.13
| Boycott Calls Against Israel |
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| Localized Academic Boycott Initiatives Are Spreading |
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For months now, IAM has reported on a number of localized initiatives spurred either by Palestinian academic activists or their supporters. So far this activity was limited to liberal arts.
The tactics have now spread to engineering, threatening to politicize this formerly neutral field.
Dr. Ran Ginosar, an associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Technion was invited to keynote the IEEE MCSoC Workshop, an International Symposium on Embedded Multicore/Manycore System-on-Chip in the Embedded Multicore SoCs Software, in Japan in September 2013 that is sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
After accepting the invitation extended by the chair of the event, Professor Tomohiro Yoneda from NII, Tokyo, his keynote role was canceled; the chair of the Steering Committee of the IEEE, Professor Abderazek Ben Abdallah from Aizu University in Japan, a Tunisian- born, overruled Yoneda as he did not want the conference website to show a prominent speaker from Israel. |
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23.05.13
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| The Lament of the "Good Israelis" in the Academia - Continuation |
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IAM has recently commented on the bewildered reaction of left-wing Israeli faculty and students who find themselves shunned by their peers on Western campuses.
The Haaretz article below is the latest case in point. The author, an Israeli postgraduate student in Goldsmiths University of London, laments that, in spite of her credentials as left-wing peace supporter, she is shunned because of being an Israeli. In other words, her interlocutors do not care that she is a "good Israeli."
To those who know history, this should sound familiar. Delegitimization always starts with a seemingly rational goal of targeting just the "bad" element; at the end though the distinction between "good Jews" and "bad Jews," or "good Israelis" and "bad Israelis" evaporates. |
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21.05.13
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| Answering Dean Newman's Appeal to Increase Spending on Liberal Arts: Fix the System First |
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David Newman (Dean of Social Sciences, BGU) has been in the public eye lately, mostly because of the sordid affair pertaining to the Department of Politics and Government. As is its first chair, he was responsible for hiring a group of faculty who, according to Thomas Risse, the head of the International Committee for Evaluation, had only a tangential connection to core political science subjects. Moreover, as the Risse report indicated, the apparent reason for their recruitment and promotion was radical leftist activism.
Following his reelection as dean, Newman took to describing himself as a crusader against the "forces that would squash academic freedom." To defend the Department that he created, Newman appealed to the international community of scholars to protest the alleged political witch hunt; in an unprecedented response some forty professional associations and hundreds of individual scholars wrote letters of protest to the government.
Now Newman is lamenting that the government is not investing enough in humanities and social sciences. He quotes figures from high-minded European reports to prove that Israel is below the curve on spending. However, there are a few numbers that he should bear in mind.
First, Israeli social sciences have been trending well below Western averages, as Dr. Yaacov Bergman had repeatedly indicated. Among the reasons for this state of affairs is the fact that Israel is lacking on cutting edge social science fields such as rational choice theory and advanced quantitative methods. The Politics and Government department is a case in point: the Risse Committee pointed out that, while there was an abundance of neo-Marxist, critical faculty, there was virtually no one teaching quantitative methods. The Risse report also noted that, by definition, critical scholarship, is published in marginal journals and self-proclaimed critical presses, which do not make in ISI or other common ranking.
Grants offered by the European Research Council (ERC) are a good indicator of the current trends in social sciences and humanities (SSH). The ERC grants are not just highly competitive but have a clear preference for cutting edge social science such rational choice theory and allied quantitative methods. For instance, Israeli universities garnered 17 grants in the 2007-2012 cycle; 7 in the social sciences and the rest were in law and humanities. Whatever Newman's preferences, it is rational choice scholarship that gets recognized. All of seven involved research in rational choice and quantitative analysis.
Second, more than a decade ago, the Maltz Committee suggested that government spending on universities should be augmented by private donations. Indeed, the Committee urged the universities to develop a large donor base to compensate for shrinking public funding. But here again, the type of radical activist faculty that Newman sponsored had made matters difficult. Haifa University has still to recover its donor base after the fire storm created by Ilan Pappe in the early 2000s. At Tel Aviv University, an important donor quit the Board of Governors in a very public protest over the radical faculty; others left more quietly.
Things were not much better at BGU. Upset by Neve Gordon and other radical professors, a donor who promised to fund the extension and modernization of the library withdrew his offer.
Next time Newman complains about lack of funding for libraries he should look at his own back yard. Unlike Israeli taxpayers that are forced to subside a radical cadre under a spurious claim of "academic freedom" donors give selectively. The small and cramped library at BGU is a testament to this fact. |
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19.05.13
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| Im Tirtzu as Rivka Carmi's Savior: The Real Story behind the Department of Politics and Government at BGU |
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Professor Rivka Carmi (president of Ben Gurion University) is a very lucky lady; she can blame the problems at her university on Im Tirtzu, described as a corporate reincarnation of Senator Joe McCarthy. Indeed, Im Tirzu has become the favorite bogeyman of radical scholars and their liberal supporters in the academy.
All this smoke and fury obscures the real problems with the Department of Politics and Government at her university, which actually predates her tenure as president. While radical faculty have attracted public attention by comparing Israel to an apartheid state and/or to Nazi Germany and repeated calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), the troubled academic record of the Department has been less known.
In July 1997, it was approved by the CHE as a dual-minors program; in 2001, the Department sought accreditation for its BA program. The CHE appointed Zeev Maoz and Avner de-Shalit, professors at Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University respectively, to evaluate the Department. In January 2, 2002 Maoz submitted a scathing report, writing that there was a “shocking” lack of core political science classes and that faculty members specialized in topics that were marginal to the discipline. As a result, a large number of them taught courses that had little to do with their academic training and research. Among the faculty listed was David Newman, a political geographer who taught a class on electoral system, Rina Poznansky, a historian by training, who offered a class on political parties and Dani Filc (at the time a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at Tel Aviv University and a former MD) who instructed a course in Israeli government. Maoz was especially concerned with the absence of courses in methodology and quantitative methods; he noted that the sole instructor (a doctoral candidate) had no background in the field. Since virtually all senior members did not research in core political science subjects, Maoz asserted that it would be hard for the Department to provide qualified instructors for core courses. In his conclusion, he urged the CHE to reject the request for accreditation.
But de-Shalit felt that the Department should not be denied accreditation. Given the split decision, Ben Gurion University was notified that changes were needed in order to receive formal recognition. The then rector, Professor Noah Finger, wrote to the CHE acknowledging that the absence of the core courses was an impediment and promised to correct the problem. In November 2003, the CHE appointed de Shalit, Gad Barzilai from the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University and Ella Belfer, a historian from Bar Ilan University, to consider anew the accreditation request. Though Finger’s promise to institute a core political science curriculum was not followed up, the new committee was highly positive. In a March 2004 report, the committee praised the Department for offering a “unique program” – a reference to a course in applied political training (hitmachut politit). A co-operative program, the hitmachut students were expected to work for NGOs and participate in workshops and field trips organized by faculty; the report recommended to make the course mandatory. The committee had also formed a favorable opinion of the faculty, praising the “special relations” with students and the collegial atmosphere in the Department. Ignoring Maoz’s concerns, the report recommended adding a slot in political philosophy and Israeli government. Acting upon its recommendation, the CHE agreed on a temporary accreditation; by 2009, fully-accredited, the Department was allowed to offer an MA program. “The Report of the Committee in Charge of Evaluating the Accreditation Request of the Department of Politics and Government at BGU University“ - obtained through Freedom Information Act by Dr. Yaacov Bergman.
By giving its blessing to a “unique program” as part of a ”pluralistic approach to political science,” the de-Shalit committee accepted the Department’s right to offer a political science program closely modeled on Antioch College in Ohio, a small liberal arts school known for embracing radical causes. Rather than standard political science education, the College proffered courses geared toward political activism, which students then used in a co-operative program for what was termed “progressive political activism.” Had de-Shalit and his colleagues bothered to review the co-operative program in the Department, they would have learned that the field work – reflecting the activist makeup of the faculty - was heavily skewed toward left wing activism. Further empowered by the recommendation, the Department expanded the range of its workshop to include rights of the Negev Bedouins, “exploited workers,” illegal immigrants and Palestinians. An English - language graduate program for international students featured trips to Hebron where students met with representatives of Breaking the Silence, an NGO monitoring the IDF, Land Day activities in the West Bank and the Separation Barrier, among others. According to complaints from some participants, there was no effort to balance the “Palestinian narrative,” making the program an ideal took for educating anti-Israel activists. But Dahlia Scheindlin, an adjunct faculty and a high profile pro-Palestinian activist, stated that following the Antioch model should be considered a source of pride for the Department.
That the CHE allowed a public university to run a program suitable for a small private college was, as noted, clearly at odds with academic practices of Germany, Great Britain and public universities in the United States. Though the activist faculty attracted public attention, there was no scrutiny of the Department’s offerings until 2008, when the CHE ordered a routine evaluation of political science departments. Thomas Risse, a professor at the Free University of Berlin, was asked to chair the five- member International Committee for Evaluation of Political Science and International Relations Programs. In 2011 the Risse Committee (RC) issued a report that echoed the misgivings of Maoz; it identified serious problems with the weak political science core and a virtual absence of quantitative method training. The RC noted the imbalance of views in classroom curricula which were heavily weighted toward a critical perspective. This was hardly surprisingly since the Department practiced hiring and promoting instructors based on paradigmatic similarity or previous political connection. The RC found that, as result, there was a paucity of mainstream political science approaches, a “rather eclectic set of courses that…lack a coherent focus,” and a tenure-track faculty that had no background in political science.
The RC determined that the excessive “community activism” of the faculty was detrimental to the idea of a classroom as a marketplace of ideas. It recommended that “political science instructors should see to it that their own opinions are expressed as personal views, so that students can take critical perspectives and so that there is broad exposure to alternative perspectives, in order to widen and deepen their own understanding.” In yet another concern, the RC urged to improve the research and publication of faculty, noting that most had not published in mainstream presses and journals. It recommended “spelling out more clearly individual performance for tenure and promotion criteria, in line with MALAG [CHE] criteria.”
In its concluding section, the RC report counseled the Department of the need to practice “common standards of scholarly achievement and excellence are emphasized in the process of hiring and promotion.” In an unprecedented move, it advised that “if these changes are not implemented, the majority of the Committee believes that, as a last resort, Ben Gurion University should consider closing the Department of Political Science and Government.” Common standards of scholarly achievement and excellence are emphasized in the process of hiring and promotion.” In an unprecedented move, it advised that “if these changes are not implemented, the majority of the Committee believes that, as a last resort, Ben Gurion University should consider closing the Department of Political Science and Government.”
Yaacov Bergman was one of the few to welcome the CHE’s decision to undertake a new evaluation of the Department. He was joined by Maoz who revealed in Haaretz his 2002 negative evaluation of the Department. To preempt criticism, Maoz proclaimed himself to be a leftist in good standing and assured readers that his concerns were not political but academic. But such assurances did not quell the protest of radical scholars and their liberal supporters in the academy who accused the CHE of a political witch hunt. Carmi went so far as to appeal to the international community of scholars to intervene in the name of academic freedom.
Using Freedom of Information Act material, Bergman was able to prove that the process of accreditation was tainted by ethical lapses and deception on a number of counts. First, against evidence to the contrary, de-Shalit denied receiving the Maoz report when appointed to head the 2003 committee. Second, Barzilai who served on the 2003 committee that did not see the need for a core curriculum, was picked by BGU to evaluate the changes ordered by the RC. In spite of the fact that the Department hired a prominent political activist and leading practitioners of critical theory- a group that was, according to the RC over presented- Barzilai determined that the changes were in compliance with the report. Third, according to rector Zvi Hacohen, Barzilai was instrumental in recommending his graduate student to one of new slots.
Of course, none of these details appear in Carmi's article below. She prefers to use the Im Tirzu bogeyman of McCarthyism to tout the liberal values of her institution. |
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17.05.13
| Boycott Calls Against Israel |
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| Jerusalem Post: BDS’s aims, a response to the whitewashing of the BDS movement by BGU David Newman |
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The whitewashing of the BDS movement by David Newman (“Fighting on two fronts,” Borderline Views, May 14) cannot go unchallenged.
Who are the main advocates of this movement? Democratic, left-wing, liberal, pro-peace groups, as suggested? Factually, look at the supporters – a coterie of communists, Marxists, anarchists, simpletons and a sprinkling of do-gooders. Their last interest is democracy. If it were not, they would be up in arms concerning the slaughter in Muslim lands.
BDS advocates have one aim: the destruction of the Jewish state and its replacement with another Arab “democracy.” Thus it is also with Stephen Hawking. His negative influence counts for more than that of the numerous great people who will be attending the President’s Conference.
The so-called Right is the only movement defending Israel against those who by all means and with the most radical associates are trying to replace our embattled democracy with something that has never existed – a democratic Arab government for all. |
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16.05.13
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| Times Higher Education on Israel Academia Monitor's round table: Israeli campaigners fear enemy within campus walls |
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Debate on academic politics in Israel has been reignited by Stephen Hawking’s decision to boycott a presidential conference after lobbying from Palestinian colleagues.
Meanwhile, a campaigning Israeli organisation has claimed that universities in the country - and the state itself - are being undermined from within by academics with pro-Palestinian viewpoints.
Introducing a round-table event on academic freedom in Tel Aviv on 3 May |
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