A TIME TO SPEAK

Vol. III:3 (No. 27)

March 2003 - I & II Adar 5763

SCENES FROM ACADEME

Webster's Definitions:

"ACADEME" -- the site of an academy

 "ACADEMY" -- school or college of higher education;

 society of learned persons organized to advance

 art, science or literature

The original Academy was in the grove of Academos in Athens, where Plato and his friends and students gathered to discuss, explore and exchange knowledge and ideas. On this model, the modern academy is meant as a place for the pursuit of learning, the discovery of new knowledge, the stimulation of thought and the open -- preferably civil -- debate thereon.

1] San Francisco State University, California:

Jewish students leaving a meeting assembled to forward and pray for "Peace in the Middle East" were surrounded and physically assaulted by a mob of Arab and pro-PLO students. Members of the mob shouted slogans such as  "Die, you racist pigs", and "Hitler Did Not Finish The Job" and waved placards accusing Jews of eating Arab babies.

The trapped and threatened Jewish students were eventually rescued by San Francisco police.

2] Concordia University, Canada:

Israeli statesman Binyamin Netanyahu was invited to deliver a lecture On 11 September 2002, the anniversary of the terror attacks on New York and Washington.

A howling mob of pro-PLO students blockaded the building where the lecture was to be held. Plate-glass windows were deliberately shattered in an outburst of wrecking.

Visitors who came to hear the lecture, including members of the faculty, were physically attacked, struck and pummeled. An elderly man who had survived the Nazi death camps was held against a wall and beaten.

The cowed administration of Concordia University cancelled the lecture and defended academic freedom by announcing a ban on any and all events relating to the Middle East.

Soon thereafter, the Student Union of Concordia expelled Hillel, the inter-university society for Jewish students, and denied it any use of university premises or any share in the fees students are required to pay for the Student Union.

3] The University of California at Berkeley:

When a lecture by Binyamin Netanyahu was scheduled on campus, hundreds of pro-PLO students perpetrated violent riots that induced the administration to cancel it.

4] Columbia University, New York

The faculty of this University is so top-heavy with advocates of terrorism and the destruction of Israel, that it is sometimes referred to as "Bir-Zeit-on-the-Hudson".

[Comment: Bir-Zeit University is a PLO stronghold in Judea that is proud of the number of jihad-bombers among its students and alumni. Neither Bir-Zeit nor any other Arab university ever existed west of the Jordan River until Israel founded them.]

When Columbia sponsored a PLO Film Festival on campus, the notices and banners for the event featured a map of "Palestine" that included the entire State of Israel as PLO territory. It is not known if these maps got a grade from the Department of Geography.

Columbia hired for its faculty the Irish literateur Tom Paulin of Oxford University. thereby elevating him to colleague of Columbia's fantasy-writer Professor Edward Said. Paulin composes poems, appears on the BBC, and had recently been an honored guest at Harvard University, where he delivered a speech and received a award.

This poet publicly expresses his yearning to shoot dead American Jews who live in the biblical Land of Israel, because "I think they are Nazis, racists, I feel nothing but hatred for them". He "never believed that Israel had the right to exist at all", and understands "how suicide bombers feel".

Columbia has reportedly decided not to renew Paulin's contract. It cannot be said whether this decision came after the Department of English read his poems, or after the Accounting Office estimated a likely drop in alumni/alumnae contributions.

5] University of Colorado:

Students desecrated an Israeli flag and chalked anti-Semitic slogans on the main campus walkway.

The administration of the university organized a symposium on terrorism to be held on the anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center destruction. For its special guest speaker on this occasion, it chose Madam Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, official mouthpiece of the PLO and reliable defender of terrorism. After considerable comment that this was an inappropriate choice of keynote speaker for the occasion, the university administration permitted Dr. Daniel Pipes, a scholar of the Middle Eastern affairs who does not approve either terrorism or the destruction of Israel, to be present and "answer" her remarks.

6] York University, Canada

Dr. Pipes was scheduled to give a lecture at this university, bringing down upon it the wrath of faculty, students and outside agitators, demanding that he be banned because of his "racist agenda" -- their term from his positions against terrorism and in favor of the continued existence of Israel.

The university administration at first complied and placed the ban, then reversed itself and allowed him to enter the campus and speak there. The event was under the protection of 100 policemen with 10 police horses. It went ahead only after an official of the government of Canada delivered an entirely superfluous warning to Dr. Pipes about the penalties for "hate speech".

7] The Université du Québec à Montréal banned Israeli Professor Gideon Kouts from speaking to the Jewish students' chapter of Hillel. This was because there had been two anonymous threats to security. After this ban was criticized locally, the administration dropped it and permitted Professor Kouts to speak. He thanked the administration " for generating publicity that increased his audience".

This incident [prompted the editorial "An Ugly Infection", The Montreal Gazette,

15 December 2002:

Common sense has prevailed at a Montreal university, but that should lull no one into blissful ignorance about the ugliness infecting campuses across North America.

The ugliness is anti-Semitism. Voices as learned and restrained as that of the president of Harvard University are warning of its virulent renewal in places of higher learning.

[. . . .] As The Gazette has written, UQÀM officials were right to reverse their ban. Yet the initial, reflexive administrative silencing of Kouts remains deeply troubling, shaking us awake to the reality that anti-Semitism is never incidental. It is always insidious. It is insidious because it's not just an action but also a habit. As much as it is acts of insult or violence, it is even more the habit of minds schooled to ignore clear patterns of hatred.

UQÀM officials would doubtless protest - without question truthfully - that they haven't an anti-Semitic bone in their bodies. And yet they evidently failed to discern the larger pattern: Kouts, after all, is not the only prominent Israeli recently prevented from speaking at a Montreal (read: Canadian) university. In September, glass-smashing thugs silenced former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Concordia.

Apologists quickly absolved the pro-Palestinian hooligans responsible for the window breaking. Blame, they argued, belonged to Mr. Netanyahu for being so controversial. Concordia, they maintained, was at fault for letting such a controversial politician speak. No violent controversy would have occurred, they insisted, had the university foreseen the security risk inherent in Mr. Netanyahu's appearance.

Mob violence, in other words, wasn't the fault of the violent mob. Responsibility, rather, was placed on those who saw no reason for a mob or violence. Windows were smashed because the university failed to install glass strong enough to resist pounding fists.

Such insidious logic, once accepted, quickly replicates. Gideon Kouts is a journalist and professor, not a controversial politician. Yet he is also a Jew, invited to Montreal by a Jewish student organization. He is a Jew kicked out of Lebanon last fall for the crime of being a Jew in Lebanon.

Two threatening phone calls later, he - not the callers - became a security risk. And so those who had silenced Mr. Netanyahu through violence needed no violence to stop - temporarily at least - a second Jew from speaking. Thus are habits of mind developed. Thus is the pattern of intolerance -- notably anti-Semitism -- bred.

Lawrence Summers [President of Harvard University] was correct that not every cross word between Jews and non-Jews is the start of a new Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass. But we have heard glass breaking on the streets of Montreal. Our response must not be the silence of blissful ignorance.

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Those who organize, take part in, or defend these demonstrations, riots, attacks and threats are not at all interested in defending academic freedom or freedom of speech or debate. The purpose is not to express their own views, to argue against the views they hate or to rebut them. The purpose is simply to drown out the views they hate, silence them, ban them, banish them from the realm of discourse. The speakers they fear the most are those who are most knowledgeable and effective, and so riots, violence, threats, slanders and libels are raised to the highest pitch to stop them from being heard.

In this negation of all that the "academy" is meant to be, the haters take advantage of nervous and sometimes even sympathetic administrations and faculties -- that include graying hippies who were student agitators and rioters of the 1960s and 1970s.

* * * * * * *

On the faculties of American universities the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) has established a virtual academic monopoly in its field. The members hold the bulk of university chairs in Middle East Studies (which may be financed by Middle Eastern governments). It is common for them to loathe Israel as an intrusion on their turf, and they are not always inhibited by normal academic standards of accuracy or fairness when they indoctrinate their students. They are a tight enough a body to keep out academics who do not share their views, and to intimidate dissident students, thereby stifling any diversity on the campus. When the exercise of the monopoly is exposed or criticized, MESA is prone to consider itself persecuted.

* * * * * * *

In one extreme example of the perversion of academe, the English Department of the University of California at Berkeley offers a course entitled "The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance" in which students are to examine "the brutal Israeli military occupation of Palestine that has been ongoing since 1948". The use of the date "1948" means that since its rebirth the existence of the State of Israel has been in "occupation of Palestine".

The announcement of the course also states that "conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections", a rather odd way of saying that the professor does not want anyone in his class who might question or debate his thesis.

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       "Some ideas are so preposterous that only an intellectual can believe them."

                                                                               -- George Orwell

        Non-Webster definition: "phudnik" -- a nudnik with a Ph.D

Not all academics need to express their hatred of Israel by such unrefined methods as throwing furniture through plate glass windows, or beating up aged survivors of the Holocaust. A less strenuous tactic is the academic-scientific boycott of any work that originates in Israel or is perpetrated by a citizen of Israel.

No exemption is granted for Israelis whose own political pro-PLO views cannot be distinguished from those conducting the boycott.

The fad of shunning all things from the banned nation began as the inspiration of a British couple, Professor Steven Rose, born a Jew and noted for his research on the human brain and his radical politics, and his Professor of Sociology spouse.

The idea of the boycott was submitted to and eagerly taken up by The Guardian, favored newspaper of the intelligensia. Soon, some 700 academics in 13 European countries had taken the pledge to eschew all contact with universities, research institutions, cultural matters, scholars and scientists in Israel. (This number includes 10 Israelis, somehow managing to boycott themselves.)

All the signatories of this pact are impelled by what one of them defines as "good conscience".

1] Mona Baker, Egyptian-born Professor of Translation Studes at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, and proprietor of two professional journals on translation, fired two Israeli academics from the staff of her journals. She assured them, in the letters of dismissal, that the action was purely political and should not be taken as anything personal.

It is reported that Professor Baker and her husband use the same political criteria in selecting manuscripts for their Manchester St. Jerome publishing house.

2] According to Professor Paul Zinger of the Israeli Science Foundation, Israeli scientists send out about 7,000 research papers a year to fellow scientists abroad. Some of those colleagues in the pursuit of knowledge bounce back the research papers with the notation "We refuse to look at these".

3] An Oxford University Professor Physiology remarks with satisfaction that he does not know of any British academic who still attends scholarly conferences in Israel.

4] Dr Oren Yiftachel of Ben-Gurion University, identified as himself "left-wing", wrote an article in co-authorship with a Palestinian Arab, and submitted it to the British journal Political Geography. He reported receiving it back unopened, with a note that "Political Geography could not accept a submission from Israel".

5] The Goldeyne Savad Institute in Jerusalem requested a DNA clone sample from the Norwegian Veterinary School. Such requests are usually routine among researchers. This one was rejected by Professor Ingrid Harbitz in Oslo, who found it "impossible for me to deliver any material to an Israelitic [sic] University."

6] The Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris announced an academic boycott of Israeli universities. It is attempting to extend the ban to other universities throughout the European Union.

* * * * * * *

There is also opposition to the boycott within academe -- though rarely on the grounds that it is unjust. Some deem it ineffective. Some fear that ignoring the work of Israeli researchers and scientists, which is on a very high level, impedes the progress of science and medicine throughout the world.

1] Baroness Greenfield, Professor of Pharmacology and Director of the venerable Royal Institute, foresees that "the obvious implication of the boycott is that if this is stopping medical research from being propagated, then the development of treatments and people's lives could be affected. If it continues it will harm people in every sphere... in medical research lives are potentially at risk."

2] Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, on the edge of the Negev Desert, is a major world-center for research on desert conditions and the development of arid zones. A boycott of discoveries and advances here impedes development in other countries, not in Israel.

3] Even the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization, an organ of the ever-hostile United Nations, admits the loss to its work "if the boycott of work by Israeli academics continues".

* * * * * * *

The moral issue of the boycott is indeed addressed with a defense of Israel's right of defense, by many of the world's foremost scientists and scholars:

A group of leading professors at the University of Chicago, joined by scientists from around the world, has initiated a petition in response to calls for a European boycott of research links with Israel. The anti-boycott petition condemns the boycott calls and urges scientists to foster and develop further scientific ties with their Israeli colleagues. By now, more than 1900 professors and researchers from all over the world have signed the anti-petition and signatures continue to arrive.

The list of signatories includes many world class scientists, respected leaders in their fields of research, among them Nobel Laureates, Fields medalists (the most prestigious prize in mathematics), members of American National Academy of Sciences and members of national academies of sciences in other countries. This is an astonishing show of unity and support for Israel among scientists. [. . . .]

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a leading Jewish human rights NGO, with 400,000 constituent families has endorsed the counter-campaign led by distinguished academicians and is carrying the petition online at www. wiesenthal.com 'Unfortunately the European-led efforts to sever research links with Israeli Institution of Higher learning, is only part of a more sweeping effort to isolate and delegitimize the Jewish State', said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center."

THE ANTI-BOYCOTT RESPONSE: "WE ARE CONCERNED":

The nation of Israel is going through a difficult time. Its very existence is being targeted by daily murderous terrorist attacks. Hundreds of innocent people, women and children have been killed by homicide bombers in the recent months. At the same time anti-Semitic attacks have become a daily occurrence in Europe. These developments pain us and concern us.

We are aware that some European academics have called for a cultural and scientific boycott of Israel. We believe that this call is immoral, dangerous and misguided, and indirectly encourages the terrorist murderers in their deadly deeds. The government of Israel has the right and the duty to protect its citizens against terror.

We sincerely hope that upon further reflection these scientists will understand the dangers of their request. We also call upon all our colleagues to express their support of the people of Israel in these trying times by fostering and developing scientific ties with their colleagues from the State of Israel."

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Professor Julio César Pino, of the Department of History at Kent State University, Ohio, published an ode to a Palestinian suicide bomber, lauding her courage and calling on Allah to "elevate your place in paradise."

END