Wednesday, January 03, 2007
A Letter to the Editor of the Jewish Voice and Opinion
From http://jewishvoiceandopinion.com/pdf/200701.pdf
From January 2007 Letters to the Editor
The Jewish Voice and Opinion, Englewood, NJ
Boycott BGU
As a recent immigrant to Israel from Northern NJ, I just finished reading with uncontrollable disgust and revulsion your December feature on the disgraceful and treasonous behavior of Neve Gordon ["Accusations of Slander, Plagiarism, and Holocaust Revisionism, Beyond Chutzpah: A Tale of Steve, Neve, Alan, and Norman," Dec 2006]. But my outrage was less directed at him than at the University that endorses and defends his antisemitic and anti-democratic behavior.
The fact of the matter is Ben Gurion University (BGU) is increasingly earning its nickname as the "Israeli University of Treason" and the "Bir Zeit of the Negev." While all Israeli universities have some anti-Israel and antisemitic lunatics on their faculties, all the other schools openly repudiate theirs!
The heads of the University of Haifa have long been quite candid about the disgust they feel towards Ilan Pappe and have repeatedly repudiated him. They have even attempted to get him dismissed (alas, unsuccessfully).
The other Israeli universities have also distanced themselves from their treasonous extremists and have publicly repudiated them. BGU is the only Israeli school that has consistently backed and endorsed the rabid anti-Israel extremism of its seditious faculty members, first and foremost Neve Gordon himself (whose "academic career" consists of little beyond turning out anti-Israel hate propaganda and running his classroom as an anti-Zionist indoctrination camp). The school is also home to Lev Grinberg, Oren Yiftachel, and dozens of others.
That such people are employed at a university named after the great David Ben Gurion is disgraceful enough, but it also dramatically illustrates the fact that in most of the social sciences and humanities departments at BGU, academic standards have simply been trashed and people are being hired and promoted entirely on the basis of their fashionable anti-Israel politics and ability to turn out anti-Israel hate propaganda.
In other words, BGU today is less interested in being a serious research institution than it is in being at the forefront of the movement to see Israel destroyed!
Those of us who care about Israel must draw the logical conclusion. We want our donations to Israel to be used to build up the Jewish state, not tear it down. And that is why not a single dime should be contributed to BGU as long as Neve Gordon and his seditious cronies are employed there.
Parents of college-age students should be urged to send their children elsewhere to study. Representatives of BGU coming to our communities should be treated as persona non grata.
Ben Weinstein
Herzliya, Israel
From January 2007 Letters to the Editor
The Jewish Voice and Opinion, Englewood, NJ
Boycott BGU
As a recent immigrant to Israel from Northern NJ, I just finished reading with uncontrollable disgust and revulsion your December feature on the disgraceful and treasonous behavior of Neve Gordon ["Accusations of Slander, Plagiarism, and Holocaust Revisionism, Beyond Chutzpah: A Tale of Steve, Neve, Alan, and Norman," Dec 2006]. But my outrage was less directed at him than at the University that endorses and defends his antisemitic and anti-democratic behavior.
The fact of the matter is Ben Gurion University (BGU) is increasingly earning its nickname as the "Israeli University of Treason" and the "Bir Zeit of the Negev." While all Israeli universities have some anti-Israel and antisemitic lunatics on their faculties, all the other schools openly repudiate theirs!
The heads of the University of Haifa have long been quite candid about the disgust they feel towards Ilan Pappe and have repeatedly repudiated him. They have even attempted to get him dismissed (alas, unsuccessfully).
The other Israeli universities have also distanced themselves from their treasonous extremists and have publicly repudiated them. BGU is the only Israeli school that has consistently backed and endorsed the rabid anti-Israel extremism of its seditious faculty members, first and foremost Neve Gordon himself (whose "academic career" consists of little beyond turning out anti-Israel hate propaganda and running his classroom as an anti-Zionist indoctrination camp). The school is also home to Lev Grinberg, Oren Yiftachel, and dozens of others.
That such people are employed at a university named after the great David Ben Gurion is disgraceful enough, but it also dramatically illustrates the fact that in most of the social sciences and humanities departments at BGU, academic standards have simply been trashed and people are being hired and promoted entirely on the basis of their fashionable anti-Israel politics and ability to turn out anti-Israel hate propaganda.
In other words, BGU today is less interested in being a serious research institution than it is in being at the forefront of the movement to see Israel destroyed!
Those of us who care about Israel must draw the logical conclusion. We want our donations to Israel to be used to build up the Jewish state, not tear it down. And that is why not a single dime should be contributed to BGU as long as Neve Gordon and his seditious cronies are employed there.
Parents of college-age students should be urged to send their children elsewhere to study. Representatives of BGU coming to our communities should be treated as persona non grata.
Ben Weinstein
Herzliya, Israel
# posted by Steven Plaut : 11:54 PM
