Wednesday, February 28, 2007
The Ward Churchill of the University of Haifa
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/6950
(see web page for links)
The Ward Churchill of the University of Haifa
10 Adar 5767, 28 February 07 10:40by Prof. Steven Plaut(IsraelNN.com) Over
the past few years, Ward Churchill, an instructor at the University of
Colorado, has become the best-known symbol of academic lunacy in the
United States. In an essay and then in a "book" authored by Churchill,
both with the title On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: Consequences of
American Conquest and Carnage, published by the "radical and anarchist"
publisher AK Press, Churchill wrote that the victims of the 9/11 Al-Qaeda
attacks on New York were "the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile
sanctuary of the Twin Towers."
Instead of repudiating Churchill's lunacy, many on the fringes of the
Western Left embraced and endorsed him, not only supporting his "right of
free speech," but agreeing with the content of his statements.
Churchill has a long history of turning out anti-American hate screeds. He
has long tried to pass himself off falsely as an American Indian, a victim
of "white Amerika." He has a long track record of defending terrorism and
playing apologist for Holocaust deniers.
Churchill teaches "ethnic studies" at the University of Colorado at
Boulder. Since the "little Eichmanns" incident, a movement led by the
Governor of Colorado has sought to get Churchill dismissed from his
university job, and those efforts are expected to be successful very
shortly.
A bit less well known than Ward Churchill, the University of Haifa has its
own faculty member who makes a practice out of Eichmann metaphors, whose
comments denouncing Israeli soldiers closely resemble those of Churchill
endorsing the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers.
In the Haifa weekly Kolbo, dated February 1, 2002, page 30, Professor
Avraham Oz, a far-leftist anti-Israel associate professor of theater at
the University of Haifa, denounces Israeli soldiers as "little Eichmanns."
The news clipping above cites Oz as saying in his classroom, in the middle
of a lecture that was part of a university course, that "in each of these
people [evidently meaning Israeli soldiers] is hiding a little Eichmann."
Oz then went on to compare the actions of Israel's military in the
"occupied territories" to those of Nazi Germany. Students listening to him
were outraged and complained. (That is probably how the newspaper heard
about the incident.)
Oz has a long history of denouncing Israel inside his classroom and
utilizing his classroom for purposes of political indoctrination. He was
earlier denounced for this by Limor Livnat when she served as Minister of
Education, who also demanded that Haifa University officers take action
regarding Oz.
Oz's credentials to issue fatwas in judgment of Israeli soldiers are that
he teaches courses in theater. When contacted for a reaction by the paper,
Oz admitted the comments about Eichmann and added that he even was
including questions on them in his course exam. Pity the student who does
not provide him with the political answers he is seeking in those exam
questions.
Oz has long been a defender and ally of Ilan Pappe, denouncing his own
dean and drumming up support for Pappe in the infamous "Tantura Affair"
fabrication. (Pappe and a student invented a non-existent "massacre" of
Arabs by Jews, and had their legal defense fees financed in part by the
PLO.) Like Pappe, Oz has also been active in promoting international
boycotts of Israel and even of his own university.
He falsely claims his own university "discriminates against Arabs" and he
has tried to organize "Nakba Day" on his campus together with Pappe. On
Nakba Day, Israel's catastrophic creation would be mourned.
Among Oz's extra-curricular activities is his running an anti-Israel,
anti-Semitic chat list named "ALEF" ("Academic Left"), whose members
include some of the worst neo-Nazis and anti-Semites on the planet, some
of them Jewish. ALEF operates under the auspices of the University of
Haifa and is hosted on the University of Haifa computer. A good idea of
the nature of ALEF can be derived from the fact that its members engage in
debates over whether or not Hitler was "guilty" of anything, and also post
praise there for David Irving. Oz only intervenes in the list debates when
pro-Israel material is posted there inappropriately.
Because of his devotion to denouncing his own country and hosting
neo-Nazis and anti-Semites on his chat list, Oz is celebrated by them,
ranging from Al-Ahram to communist web sites and neo-Nazi web magazines.
2. The Brokeback Sheep:
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=27120
3. From Tom Gross
Kibbutz where Seinfeld picked bananas goes capitalist:
* Seinfeld, who volunteered in 1971: "I didn't like the kibbutz. Nice
Jewish boys from Long Island don't like to get up at six in the morning
to pick bananas."
* Film star Sigourney Weaver: "On the kibbutz, I dreamt we'd all be
working out in the fields like pioneers, singing away. Not at all. We were
stuck in the kitchen. I operated a potato-peeling machine."
* Bob Hoskins during the 1967 Six-Day War: "I was very good at
ploughing. I loved it .. and the birds [girls] were amazing. I was happy
being
a kibbutznik but they said to me 'You gotta join the army' and I said
'But I'm not Jewish', and they said 'It don't matter', so I left."
After nearly a century, Israel's first kibbutz calls time on communism
By David Sharrock
London Times
February 24, 2007
When Eliezer Gal arrived at Israel's first kibbutz he had already
served in the Red Army as a platoon tank commander at the siege of
Leningrad, escaped to West Berlin after being marked down by Stalin for
the
labour camps and been turned away by the British when he arrived in
Palestine aboard the Jewish refugee ship Exodus.
Mr Gal took a lowly job in the cow shed for 18 years and married
Michal, a daughter of the kibbutz's founders, raising his family in the
pastoral version of Zionist communism.
Now, aged 82, he is living one final adventure, which he and the other
members of Degania call Shinui (The Change). The kibbutz has just voted
to privatise itself and assume the trappings of capitalism.
4. Moments after the US announces it will conduct "talks" with the Syrian
and Iranian fascists, the US stock market drops in the worst crash since
911. Coincidence?
