Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Call to Action! Please help! Demand immediate criminal indictment of traitors on the ALEF list who are inciting to murder IDF officers!
1. Please take action!!! - Incitement to Murder IDF officers at
University of Haifa chat list
Please write, and pass on this information to others who will write!
Isracampus hereby issues a public call to the Attorney General of Israel
and to the University of Haifa to investigate whether the publication of
the names and photos of senior Israeli army officers on the ALEF chat
list, together with (false) allegations that these people are war
criminals, constitutes incitement to murder!
The names and photos of Israeli military officers who participated in
.Operation Cast Lead. are posted on the ALEF anti-Semitic chat list,
operated under the auspices of the University of Haifa, so that these
officers can be persecuted and harassed legally in Europe. We at
Isracampus have decided not to publish the officer names as a public
service. (The names and photos were originally gathered by the Uruknet
web site, a site run by exiled Iraqi Baathists loyal to Saddam Hussein)
The names were posted by Dorothy Naor, a notorious anti-Semitic Israeli
communist, on ALEF on Jan 25, 2009. She claims that .we and others will
continue doing whatever is possible..
If you wish to join us in this call, please contact:
Attorney General of Israel
Salah-a-Din 29
P.O.Box 49029
Jerusalem 91490
Tel 02-6466521/2
Fax 02-6467001
- 29
91010
': 02-6466521/2
: 02-6467001
To whom can you complain at the University of Haifa:
President of the University of Haifa
Prof. Aaron Ben-Ze.ev
University of Haifa
Mt Carmel, 31905 Haifa Israel
Tel: 972-4-8240101
Fax: 972-4-8240281
E-mail: abenzeev@univ.haifa.ac.il
Rector of the University of Haifa
Prof. Yossi Ben-Artzi
University of Haifa
Mt Carmel, 31905 Haifa Israel
Tel: 972-4-8240405
Fax: 972-4-8342101
Email: yossib@univ.haifa.ac.il
Chairman of the Board of Governors
Mr. Leon Charney
Law Office of Leon H. Charney
Broadway 1441
New York, NY 10018
Phone: 212-819-0994
E-mail: charney@lhcharney.com
University "Friends of" Offices Outside Israel are listed here:
http://www.haifa.ac.il/html/html_eng/friends.htm
On the original unedited posting, full names with photos appear. Those
have been removed as a public service.
The message as posted by Dorothy Naor:
For circulation and use as you see fit to put them behind bars [that is on
original posting - proof that the goal is to see these heroic officers
persecuted and harassed]
I have decided
Journalist Attacked During Islamic Demo Against Israel (click on pictures
to see them bigger) Names and Photos of Israeli War Criminals in Gaza
I have decided to publish some names and photos of the Israeli military
personnel who participated in the so-called .Operation Cast Lead., the
offensive launched by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) on the Gaza
Strip between 27 December and 18 January 2009. The names of these
criminals called my attention since the first day of their criminal attack
against the Palestinian civilians in Gaza. I consider each person who took
part in this IOF and each one whose name appears in this report as a war
criminal who should be requested by an international court of justice,
just like all other war criminals who were persecuted before.
My decision is a challenge to the State of Israel, to the Israeli attorney
general Mazuz and the military headquarters, who forbade the media from
publishing the names of the Israeli officers who lead .Operation Cast
Lead. in Gaza, murdering 1310, and wounding over 5600, over 90% of these
casualties being civilians, destroying public and the private property in
many parts of towns and cities, and completely razing several areas
completely to the ground.
The Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz is conniving with others to
cover the war crimes committed in Gaza. These others are Ehud Barak, Ehud
Olmert and his cabinet of criminals, and the military counterpart,
Brigadier General Avihai Mandelblit. Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi is
equally involved in the war crimes in Gaza. The Attorney General of Israel
asked his military counterpart to open a quick investigation among the
military as an .alternative. measure to hinder potentially .hundreds. of
international lawsuits against Israeli officials alleging war crimes
against the Gaza population during the operation has been widely
anticipated. There is growing concern in the offices of the Israeli
justice and war ministries because they expect a massive wave of lawsuits
for human rights violations against Israeli officers and politicians.
The criminal intentions of Menechem Mazuz, namely helping to cover up war
crimes of the State of Israel by giving an advice to the military, and by
opening a "formal and internal investigations" is a clear fraud planned by
the Israeli ministry of justice. Such a behavior is not that of a state,
it is the behavior of a criminal organization trying to escape their well
deserved punishment.
The military censor of Israel is preventing the media from identifying
officers who participated in the Gaza Strip IOF, and divulging information
about them which could be used in legal proceedings against them in courts
of justice abroad. There is great concern at the defense and the justice
ministries that Israeli officers will be singled out in a massive wave of
suits for human rights violations.
In recent days the censor has forbidden publishing the full names and
photographs of officers from the level of battalion commander down. It is
assumed that the identity of brigade commanders has already been made
known. The censor also forbids any reports tying a particular officer of
battlefield command rank (lieutenant to lieutenant colonel) to destruction
inflicted in a particular area.
The Israeli war criminal number one, Ehud Barak, stated that the State of
Israel bears the responsibility for sending IOF troops on missions in
Gaza, as well as for defending civilians, and as such it is obligated to
grant its full support to these officers and soldiers who participated in
the IOF in Gaza. Barak said that no harm should come to officers and
soldiers as a result of their involvement in the operation.
The war criminal Barak ordered the IOF to set up a team of intelligence
and legal experts to collect evidence related to operations in Gaza that
could be used to defend military commanders against future lawsuits
abroad.
Here are Some Names of the Israeli War Criminals who Operated in Gaza
[What follows and not included here is a list of 20+ officers who are
labeled individually as .war criminals.. Various vague descriptions of
their past .crimes. are also included for most of them. Calls the Chief of
Staff a .moral degenerate.. Also names Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak, Tzipi
Livni and Shin Bet Chief in this list]
The names of many other war criminals from the infantry, tanks, combat
engineers, artillery, and intelligence who participated in the war crimes
in Gaza are still unknown. They should not feel safe either. War crimes,
crimes against humanity and genocide are proscribed and prosecuted in all
countries of the world in one way or other, and there exists no statute of
limitations for such crimes. The .protection. offered by Mazuz and his
cronies is weak, first of all because the fact that such .protection. is
offered is a implicit admission of guilt, and because national and
international statutes specifically address the issue of sham .proceedings
which are instituted to protect the guilty., and because since the
Nuremberg proceedings against the German army, following orders is no
excuse and does not absolve of culpability. We and others will continue
doing whatever is possible to find out the names of as many of the
criminals who participated in Gaza as possible, and any information which
will put them behind bars.
Want to tell the heads of Haifa University, through whose auspices and
computer the above was disseminated, what you think of this?
To whom can you complain?
University of Haifa:
President of the University of Haifa
Prof. Aaron Ben-Ze.ev
University of Haifa
Mt Carmel, 31905 Haifa Israel
Tel: 972-4-8240101
Fax: 972-4-8240281
E-mail: abenzeev@univ.haifa.ac.il
Rector of the University of Haifa
Prof. Yossi Ben-Artzi
University of Haifa
Mt Carmel, 31905 Haifa Israel
Tel: 972-4-8240405
Fax: 972-4-8342101
Email: yossib@univ.haifa.ac.il
Chairman of the Board of Governors
Mr. Leon Charney
Law Office of Leon H. Charney
Broadway 1441
New York, NY 10018
Phone: 212-819-0994
E-mail: charney@lhcharney.com
University "Friends of" Offices Outside Israel are listed here:
2.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=27E4F605-20B3-4C2B-BE22-FA2C21C824D6
Israel, Gaza and International Law
By Alan M. Dershowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, January 27, 2009
3.
http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=D125218D-B3E9-4367-B1CA-E30630260339
Anti-Zionism and the Abuse of Academic Freedom
By Tammi Rossman-Benjamin
FrontPageMagazine.com | 1/27/2009
. Since 2001, anti-Zionist discourse has found its way into
classrooms and academic events at the University of California, Santa Cruz
(UCSC). At an academic conference held on that campus in 2007, the
speakers claimed that Zionism was an illegitimate ideology and argued for
the elimination of the Jewish state.
. The unscholarly, political, and anti-Semitic nature of the
conference raises questions about whether events of this kind are a
legitimate exercise of academic freedom or an abuse of it.
. Although the recently revised University of California rules do
not specify the limits of academic freedom, they do presume that faculty
and administrative agencies will define those limits and impose sanctions
on faculty who violate them. However, despite a system of shared
governance, in which faculty are responsible for ensuring the scholarly
integrity of academic programming and administrators for making sure all
programming accords with university regulation, abuses of academic freedom
have been allowed to flourish at UCSC.
. Members of the UCSC chapter of Scholars for Peace in the Middle
East have documented numerous cases of faculty-generated anti-Zionist
political advocacy and activism on that campus, and they have presented
evidence of academic-freedom abuse to the faculty senate and
administration for further investigation. These efforts have largely been
unsuccessful, however, as neither governing body has been willing to
address the problem, or even acknowledge that it exists.
Under the mantle of academic freedom, falsehoods and distortions about
Zionism and Israel-claims, for example, that Zionism is racism, that
Israel perpetrates genocide and ethnic cleansing, and that the Jewish
state should be dismantled-are heard in classrooms and at
departmentally-sponsored events on many university campuses. This essay
will analyze the problematic nature of academic anti-Zionism,[1] the
factors within the university that allow the problem to flourish, and the
attempts of a small group of concerned faculty to address the problem
within the university-governance structure. It will focus on one
campus-the University of California, Santa Cruz-where the problem is
particularly acute, and present an analysis of an academic conference on
Zionism that took place there in March 2007.
Anti-Zionism at the University of California, Santa Cruz
Over the past several years, faculty members at the University of
California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) have injected anti-Zionist rhetoric into
their courses and departmentally-sponsored events.[2] For example, a
community-studies class designed to train social activists was taught by
an instructor who described herself in her online syllabus as an activist
with the "campaign against the Apartheid Wall being built in
Palestine,"[3] and whose recommended readings included such unreferenced
statements as: "Israeli massacres are often accompanied by sexual assault,
particularly of pregnant women as a symbolic way of uprooting the children
from the mother, or the Palestinian from the land."[4]
The previous summer, the same lecturer taught a community-studies course
on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in which she used the class email
list to encourage students to participate in a demonstration against
Israel's "destructive actions" in Lebanon and Gaza outside the Israeli
consulate in San Francisco.[5] UCSC students also report that some
professors insert into class lectures anti-Israel or anti-Zionist
materials unrelated to the course, as when a full class period in a course
on women's health activism was devoted to a lecture on the allegedly
ruthless treatment of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers.[6]
At the departmental level, since 2001 more than a dozen events dealing
with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been sponsored by a number of
UCSC departments and research centers, and all of these have been biased
against Israel.[7]
"Alternative Histories Within and Beyond Zionism": An Academic Conference
Perhaps the most egregious expression of academically-legitimized
anti-Zionism at UCSC was a conference entitled "Alternative Histories
Within and Beyond Zionism," which took place on 15 March 2007 with the
sponsorship of eight university departments and research units.[8] Four
professors and a graduate student presented papers whose primary goals
were the deconstruction, delegitimization, and elimination of Zionism and
its realization in a Jewish state:[9]
. David Theo Goldberg, director of the University of California
Humanities Research Institute, delivered a paper on "Racial
Palestinianization," in which he claimed that Israel has been from its
inception a racist entity, which has used its racist state policies to
protect the purity of the Jewish race and exclude and oppress the
Palestinians. He further suggested that such a state does not deserve to
exist and that, like the antiapartheid resistance in South Africa, suicide
bombings are a legitimate means for bringing about Israel's justly
deserved downfall.
. Judith Butler, professor of rhetoric and comparative literature at
UC Berkeley, presented a talk on "Hidden Histories of Post-Zionism," in
which she revived the pre-state Zionist critiques of Jews such as Hannah
Arendt and Martin Buber in order to argue that the Jewish state should be
replaced by a binational secular state. She claimed that besides
redressing the "longstanding issues of legal injustice and political
violence" perpetrated by Israel, binationalism had the added advantage of
being able "to subject nationalism to a deconstruction" and in this way
defeat Zionism on the battlefield of ideas rather than through Israel's
violent destruction.
. Hilton Obenzinger, associate director for honors and advanced
writing at the Stanford Writing Center, presented a personal account of
his experiences as a Jewish anti-Zionist activist in a talk entitled
"Jewish Opposition to the Occupation since 1967: A Personal and Public
Journey." He portrayed Israel as an imperialist and colonial-settler state
in partnership with the United States, and encouraged members of the
audience to take responsibility for "ending this empire."
. Terri Ginsberg, adjunct professor at Purchase College, delivered a
paper on "Holocaust Film and Zionism: Exposing a Collaboration," arguing
that Holocaust films have facilitated and justified the propagation of a
racist Zionist ideology and its realization in a state that perpetrates
ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinians. She called on
fellow members of the Left to confront the Holocaust-Zionist conspiracy
head-on, in order to "transform radically the ideology and institutional
structures of Zionism as we know it."
. Ryvka Bar Zohar, a graduate student at New York University,
presented a talk on "A History of Zionism and the Politics of Divestment,"
in which she argued that Zionism grew out of the attempt of East European
Jews to recover from the "shame of the Diaspora" and the Holocaust by
finding "pride in domination." She claimed that Zionism was a racist
doctrine that led to the creation of an apartheid state, and she used her
analysis to argue that the movement to divest from Israel was a justified
and effective strategy for mounting an opposition to the Jewish state.
Although advertised as an academic event, the conference violated
well-accepted norms of scholarship and university protocol. Most
conspicuously, rather than providing a forum for the presentation of
legitimate scholarly research in order to advance knowledge in the field
and educate participants and audience, the conference was an exercise in
political indoctrination, dominated by the promotion of an anti-Zionist
agenda and directed toward the goal of encouraging activism against the
Jewish state. Moreover, the speakers left little room for doubt about
their partisanship: most identified themselves in the course of their
talks as anti-Zionists, and two of them, Obenzinger and Ginsberg, openly
expressed their solidarity with the Palestinian people.
In addition, most of the speakers were explicit about their political
motivation and advocacy efforts. The talks by Obenzinger and Bar Zohar
were wholly devoted to justifying and promoting their anti-Israel
political efforts; and Ginsberg said her goal was "to transform Zionism in
the better interest of social justice." It is hard to imagine that the
conference organizer, who herself had publicly acknowledged her opposition
to Zionism and Israel, was unaware of the fact that all of the speakers
she had selected had previously identified themselves as anti-Zionists and
were actively engaged in efforts to undermine the Jewish state.[10]
Given the highly politicized nature of the conference, it is not
surprising that much of the discourse was tendentious and unscholarly. For
example, numerous unsubstantiated claims about the illegitimacy of Zionism
and Israel were made:
. All of the speakers expressed the idea that Zionism is racist in
its formulation and realization in a Jewish state.
. Goldberg, Obenzinger, Ginsberg, and Bar Zohar claimed that Zionism
was a brand of European colonialism and imperialism.
. Bar Zohar called Israel "an apartheid regime," and Goldberg called
Israel's actions "worse than apartheid."
. Butler, Obenzinger, and Bar Zohar claimed that Zionism is
discontinuous with Jewish historical experience and is therefore a
historically and religiously illegitimate ideology.
In addition, some of the speakers made claims that were either untrue or
gross misrepresentations of the facts:
. Goldberg, Ginsberg, and Bar Zohar accused Israel of ethnic
cleansing.
. Goldberg and Ginsberg accused Israel of genocidal intentions and
insinuated Israel's use of Nazi-like practice to achieve this end.
. Butler, Obenzinger, Ginsberg, and Bar Zohar stated or implied that
Zionists have engaged in a vicious, immoral campaign to silence all
criticism of Israel.
. Ginsberg claimed that Holocaust film scholar Alan Mintz "commits
the shanda [disgrace] of dedicating his book to Baruch Goldstein, the
right-wing Orthodox Jewish settler who, in 1994, murdered twenty-nine
Palestinians in cold blood while they were praying in a Hebron mosque." In
point of fact, the Baruch Goldstein to whom Mintz dedicated his book is
not the same individual whom Ginsberg describes in her comments.[11]
Finally, much of the discourse at the conference was anti-Semitic
according to the U.S. State Department, which has adopted a broad working
definition of anti-Semitism that focuses on the commonalities of its
contemporary manifestations, including the targeting of the state of
Israel. Numerous statements made by the speakers, which challenged the
legitimacy of the Jewish state or called for its elimination; which
demonized Israel out of all proportion to reality; which compared Israel's
treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazis' treatment of the Jews; and
which accused Israel of exaggerating the Holocaust for immoral purposes,
correspond to the following examples given in the State Department's 2008
report on contemporary global anti-Semitism:[12]
. Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination
. Applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not
expected ordemanded of any other democratic nation
. Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the
Nazis
. Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing
or exaggeratingthe Holocaust
Academic Freedom and Its Abuses
"I want to welcome everyone to what I consider to be a historic event on
our campus.This is a conference-the Alternative Histories Within and
Beyond Zionism-that I think exemplifies the highest ideals of academic
freedom: the ability to debate and discuss and have dialogue on
controversial issues. That, I think, is the highest ideal of academic
freedom. So I'm very happy to see all of you participating in this
historic event."
Lisa Rofel, conference organizer
In her brief introductory remarks, the conference organizer indicated that
the presentations to follow were not only protected by academic freedom
but were in fact exemplars of the highest ideals of that freedom. However,
given the academically questionable, politically motivated, and
anti-Semitic quality of the five presentations, these remarks beg the
question: do the conference presentations constitute bona fide expressions
of academic freedom, or are they rather abuses of it?
The academic-freedom rules that governed the University of California from
1934 until 2003 conceived of competent scholarship as a dispassionate duty
hostile to attempts at ideological conversion: "Where it becomes
necessary...to consider political, social, or sectarian movements, they
are dissected and examined-not taught, and the conclusion left, with no
tipping of the scales, to the logic of the facts." Also included in this
older version of the rules is an assertion of university policy, by which
the university "assumes the right to prevent exploitation of its prestige
by unqualified persons or by those who would use it as a platform for
propaganda."[13] Judged by the standards of competent scholarship and
university policy set forth in this statement, the conference
presentations analyzed above constitute clear abuses of academic freedom.
But things are far less clear when the conference is viewed through the
lens of the current academic-freedom rules. These were revised by legal
scholar Robert Post in 2003 at the request of the then UC president
Richard Atkinson, following the failure of both faculty and administrators
to apply the longstanding rules to a contentious UC Berkeley course, "The
Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance," whose course description
indicated that the instructor would engage in unabashedly pro-Palestinian
polemics.[14] As a result of these revisions, all references to standards
of competent scholarship that existed in the previous document, including
the requirements of "dispassionate" scholarship, which eschews making
ideological converts, and a concern with objectivity and "the logic of the
facts," were removed. Similarly deleted was all language asserting
university policy proscribing the use of the university as "a platform for
propaganda."
Although the new statement acknowledges that academic freedom "requires
that teaching and scholarship be assessed by reference to the professional
standards that sustain the University's pursuit and achievement of
knowledge," these standards are no longer spelled out in the rules. And
while the new regulation mentions that "the exercise of academic freedom
entails correlative duties of professional care when teaching, conducting
research, or otherwise acting as a member of the faculty,"[15] the reader
must refer to another document, the Faculty Code of Conduct (APM-015),[16]
in order to determine what these duties are, as well as to deduce how they
may serve to limit academic freedom.
However, by excising from the original rules those sections whose purpose
was to define the limits of academic freedom with respect to competent
scholarship and university policy, Post was not denying that academic
freedom had limits, but only shifting the responsibility for defining
those limits to other agencies within the university, namely, to faculty
and administration. How, then, do these bodies monitor academic freedom
and ensure that it is legitimately exercised and not abused?
The University's Two-Headed Monster
The governance of each campus of the University of California is shared
between faculty and administration. For its part, the faculty directly
controls all academic matters through its representative body, the
Academic Senate, whose responsibilities include the authorization,
approval, and supervision of all academic programming.[17] Often, as in
the case of new-course approvals, academic programming is first vetted by
faculty at the departmental level and then sent to an Academic Senate
committee made up of faculty from across the university for final review
and approval. Both reviewing bodies must determine whether a given course
or program meets a variety of criteria, which in theory include "the norms
and standards of the profession."
In practice, however, these norms and standards have been selectively or
wholly ignored by both reviewing bodies. For example, even before the UC
academic-freedom rules were emended in 2003 to exclude standards of
scholarly competence, both the UC Berkeley English Department and the
Academic Senate Committee on Courses of Instruction reviewed and approved
the remedial writing course, "The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian
Resistance." Yet the course's egregiously tendentious, unscholarly, and
anti-Israel course description included the contention that the "brutal
Israeli military occupation of Palestine, an occupation that has been
ongoing since 1948, has systematically displaced, killed, and maimed
millions of Palestinian people," and it ended with the exhortation,
"Conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections."[18]
Moreover, although statements about standards of scholarly competence were
removed from the revised academic-freedom rules, the UC-wide Committee on
Academic Freedom, in a recent document entitled "Academic Freedom: Its
Privilege and Responsibility within the University of California," warns:
"Professors who fail to meet scholarly standards of competence or who
abuse their position to indoctrinate students cannot claim the protection
of academic freedom."[19] Nevertheless, as noted previously, courses in
which faculty overtly promote anti-Zionist perspectives, and even
encourage students to engage in activism against the Jewish state, exist
at UCSC and on other UC campuses.
While the content of all academic programming falls within the purview of
the Academic Senate, ensuring that its implementation meets the standards
set by university policy is one of the responsibilities of the chancellor,
chief administrative officer of a UC campus, though it may be delegated to
a divisional dean.[20] Based on a statute in the California State
Constitution, which provides that the University of California "shall be
entirely independent of all political and sectarian influence,"[21] there
are several university regulations that effectively limit the freedom of
faculty to promote a personal or political agenda while implementing
academic programming. These include:
Directive issued by Clark Kerr, president of the University of California,
September 1961:[22] "University facilities and the name of the University
must not be used in ways which will involve the University as an
institution in thepolitical...and other controversial issues of the day."
(emphasis added)
The Policy on Course Content of the Regents of the University of
California, approved 19 June 1970 and amended 22 September 2005:[23] "[The
Regents] are responsible to see that the University remain aloof from
politics and never function as an instrument for the advance of partisan
interest. Misuse of the classroom by, for example, allowing it to be used
for political indoctrination...constitutes misuse of the University as an
institution." (emphasis added)
Directive issued by Charles J. Hitch, president of the University of
California, 18 September 1970, "Restrictions on the Use of University
Resources and Facilities for Political Activities":[24] "The name,
insignia, seal, or address of the University or any of its offices or
units...equipment, supplies, and services...shall not be used for or in
connection with political purposes or activities." (emphasis added)
Academic Personnel Policy (APM) 015-Faculty Code of Conduct:[25] Types of
unacceptable conduct: "Unauthorized use of University resources or
facilities on a significant scale for personal, commercial, political, or
religious purposes." (emphasis added)
Although the word political, which occurs in each of the above policies
and directives, can be narrowly construed as limited to supporting or
opposing candidates or propositions in elections, a consideration of the
wording of the regulations and the context in which they were written
suggests that their authors intended a much more expansive interpretation.
President Kerr, for example, linked "political" with "other controversial
issues of the day" in his 1961 directive. And both the Regents policy
proscribing "political indoctrination" in the classroom and President
Hitch's directive prohibiting the use of university resources and
facilities for political activities were issued in 1970 in the wake of
campus protests against the Vietnam War that spilled into the classroom
and university-sponsored events.
In a letter that President Hitch wrote to all UC faculty just three weeks
before the Regents issued their Policy on Course Content, he noted that
faculty involvement with anti-Vietnam War activism had led many California
legislators to "believe that the basic academic purposes of our campuses
are being distorted and subverted, that academic credit is being given for
work that is not appropriate, and that the atmosphere of the campuses has
become politicized, with freedom for some views and not for others."[26]
According to such an interpretation of "political," courses, academic
conferences, and other departmentally-sponsored events that permit
anti-Israel propagandizing are in clear violation of these university
regulations, and yet these violations are routinely ignored by
administrators.
Failure of Efforts to Address the Problem
In response to the rising incidence of anti-Zionism in classrooms and at
departmentally-sponsored events at UCSC and on other UC campuses, a few
concerned faculty, including this author, established a local chapter of
Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) in 2004. Since then, our
group has sought to document the problem, to use our evidence to raise the
awareness of the faculty, the administration, and the public, and to
encourage each of these university stakeholders to address the problem
with the means available to them.
Our earlier efforts within the university focused on influencing the
highest levels of UC governance, both administrative and faculty. In
September 2006, we presented an open letter with more than three thousand
signatories to the UC Regents, asking them to address the growing problem
of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism on UC campuses.[27]
Although the Regents did not respond to us, in November 2006 we received a
letter from then-UC president Robert Dynes recommending that we discuss
our concerns with the then head of the UC Academic Senate, Professor John
B. Oakley, and in early 2007 we met with him to discuss the problem and
how the UC Academic Senate could address it.
We presented Professor Oakley with a report in which we documented
numerous examples of faculty-sponsored anti-Zionism on several UC
campuses. We argued that such faculty behavior violated UC policies,
eroded the core academic values of the university, and created a hostile
environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students, and we recommended that an
independent Academic Senate taskforce be established for examining the
problem.[28] Professor Oakley refused to have the UC Academic Senate
consider our concerns, and instead suggested that we build our case on
individual UC campuses.
Following Professor Oakley's suggestion, we decided to focus our efforts
on one campus, UCSC, where we had documented the problem most extensively.
Furthermore, in analyzing the unresponsiveness of both the UC systemwide
administration and Academic Senate, we concluded that we would be most
effective if we formulated our concerns more precisely, addressing
academic matters to the UCSC Academic Senate and matters of university
policy to the campus administration.
Our first opportunity to test our two-pronged strategy at UCSC came soon
after, with the March 2007 anti-Zionist conference. A week before the
conference, we began a correspondence with the UCSC chancellor, in which
we argued that the event, sponsored by eight departments, was politically
motivated and directed and therefore violated several UC policies
proscribing university-sponsored political activities. Furthermore, we
urged the chancellor to address these violations.[29]
We did not hear from the chancellor directly, but in May received a letter
from the UCSC counsel in which she contended that the conference did not
violate any university policy, in part because it was not "political"
according to her very narrow interpretation of that term, as limited to
supporting or opposing political candidates or ballot measures. She
concluded that the conference was a perfectly legitimate exercise of the
faculty's academic freedom and should not be censured in any way.[30]
Despite subsequent letters and emails that we sent to the chancellor and
counsel demonstrating that the UC presidents and Regents who authored the
regulations prohibiting university-sponsored political activities intended
the word political to be understood quite broadly,[31] and that even the
California Supreme Court had determined that the term political included
the espousal of any cause,[32] we received no further response from either
office.
We had a similar experience with another administrator, the dean of social
sciences, after we shared with him our concerns regarding a
community-studies course that we believed violated both state law and
university policy in promoting an anti-Israel political agenda and
encouraging students to engage in political activity. The course in
question, "Violence and Non-Violence in Social Change," was taught in
summer 2007 and its course goals included training students to be
nonviolent activists in "a current social conflict." Included in the
course's online syllabus were the instructor's biography, indicating that
she was an activist "with the nonviolent joint Palestinian-Israeli
campaign against the Apartheid Wall being built in Palestine," and a
reading list weighted with books and articles on the Palestinian-Israeli
conflict written from an unambiguously anti-Israel perspective.[33]
Moreover, a student who had taken a previous community-studies class with
the same instructor reported that she had used her classroom as a platform
for politically biased and unscholarly instruction, and that she sought to
indoctrinate students to her anti-Israel perspective, stifle dissenting
opinions, and inappropriately encouraged students to engage in anti-Israel
activism.[34] Before and during the more recent class, we sent letters to
the chair of the Community Studies Department explaining why we believed
there was a very good chance the instructor was using her classroom as a
platform to indoctrinate students rather than educate them, and we
requested that the department chair look into our concerns.[35] When the
chair did not respond to our letters, we turned to the divisional dean,
who, after consultation with the department chair and campus counsel,
reported that no state laws or university policies had been violated.[36]
Addressing the faculty's responsibility for ensuring the integrity of all
academic programming at the university, in May 2007 we submitted to the
Senate Executive Committee (SEC) of the Academic Senate a letter
documenting a pattern of political bias and advocacy-predominantly, though
not exclusively, anti-Zionist-in classrooms and at
departmentally-sponsored events since 2001. We argued that such bias and
advocacy were antithetical to the academic mission of the university and
urged the Academic Senate to investigate this problem.[37]
The SEC agreed to look into our inquiry and sent it to the Committee on
Academic Freedom (CAF) for consideration. In May 2008, we received the CAF
report[38] along with a letter indicating that the SEC fully endorsed it.
Unfortunately, the report ignored our primary concern and instead twisted
the committee's charge into an investigation of members of our faculty
group for alleged violations of academic freedom. This is made clear in a
letter sent by the chair of the CAF to eight UCSC professors soliciting
reports on their negative interactions with members of our group, which
was included as part of an appendix to the CAF report:[39]
Our committee does not plan to investigate incidents of this allegedbias,
but seeks rather to determine if, connected to the complaintin any way,
including the activities of those making the complaint,there is anything
that threatens academic freedom on our campus.
Also included in the appendix are testimonies from four professors
accusing members of our group of infringing on their academic freedom.
Although the CAF report ultimately upholds "the right of SPME, on freedom
of speech grounds, to make their opinions and viewpoints heard," it is
apparent that including an investigation of our group in the report was
intended to both discredit us and stifle further inquiry into this matter
by members of our group or other faculty members.[40]
Conclusions
The foregoing analysis has amply demonstrated that anti-Zionist and
anti-Semitic discourse has found academic legitimacy on at least one major
university campus and is allowed to flourish because faculty and
administrators are unwilling to address, or even acknowledge, these abuses
of academic freedom. Needless to say, university students are the true
victims of such discourse, whose one-sided, tendentious nature not only
limits their access to vital information about complex topics of global
importance but also violates their fundamental right to be educated and
not indoctrinated. In addition, for many Jewish students, the academic
legitimization of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism has helped to foment an
atmosphere on campus, both inside and outside the classroom, that is
intellectually, emotionally, and at times even physically threatening.
On some campuses, the situation has become intolerable. For example, the
Orange County Taskforce, an independent body established to investigate
anti-Semitism at UC Irvine (UCI), recently determined that "acts of
anti-Semitism are real and well documented. Jewish students have been
harassed. Hate speech has been unrelenting."[41] While much of the problem
at UCI is linked to the Muslim Student Union (MSU) and the
administration's unwillingness to condemn that group's anti-Semitic hate
speech, the taskforce also implicates faculty "who use their classrooms as
a forum for their anti-Israel agenda" in contributing to the hostile
campus environment: "The anti-Israel bias on the part of many in the
faculty provides a fertile environment for the MSU and its anti-Israel and
anti-Semitic rhetoric and actions."[42]
Unfortunately, the situation on college campuses is not likely to improve
until faculty and administrators acknowledge the seriousness of the
problem and commit themselves to solving it. Given their intransigence
until now, it is clear that new strategies need to be found to achieve
this goal. In this regard, the Orange County Taskforce offers two
promising ideas. Among the recommendations in the taskforce's report are
the following:[43]
. Students with a strong Jewish identity should consider enrolling
elsewhere unless and until tangible changes are made.
. The Jewish organizations and the Jewish benefactors should be
aware that their continued support of an anti-Semitic campus is, in the
end, counterproductive and works against their own interests.
Fear of losing their student and donor base, along with the stigma of
being labeled an anti-Semitic campus, may be just the impetus faculty and
administrators need to solve this alarming problem.
* * *
Notes
[1] For the purposes of this paper, "anti-Zionism" refers to an opposition
to Zionism, understood either in its classic sense as a belief in the
centrality of the land of Israel in Jewish historical and religious
experience, or in its modern manifestation as a movement to reestablish a
Jewish homeland in the historic land of Israel. Anti-Zionist criticism
denies the legitimacy of the Jewish state's founding ideology and, by
extension, the legitimacy of the Jewish state itself.
[2] Leila Beckwith, Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, and Ilan Benjamin, "Faculty
Efforts to Combat Anti-Semitism and Anti-Israel Bias at the University of
California-Santa Cruz," in Academics Against Israel and the Jews, ed.
Manfred Gerstenfeld (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,
2007), 122.
[3] Syllabus for Community Studies class "Violence and Non-Violence in
Social
Change,"http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/Anti-Israel%20Course_files/CMMU%20124%20Syllabus.pdf.
[4] Nadine Naber, "A Call for Consistency: Palestinian Resistance and
Radical US Women of Color," in Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology,
ed. INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence (Cambridge, MA: South End
Press, 2006), 75.
[5] See Appendix 1 in letter to UCSC Community Studies Department
Chair,http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/Anti-Israel%20Course_files/Letter%20to%20Prof.%20Pudup%206-18-7.pdf,
3-4.
[6] See Appendices 2 and 3 in letter to UCSC Senate Executive
Committee,http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/UCSC%20Academic%20Senate_files/Report%20to%20SEC.pdf
, 6-8.
[7] See Appendix 4 in ibid., 9-10.
[8] The following UCSC departments and research units sponsored the
conference "Alternative Histories Within and Beyond Zionism": Feminist
Studies, Anthropology, Community Studies, Sociology, Politics, History,
Institute for Humanities Research, and the Center for Global,
International and Regional Studies.
[9] All direct quotations from the conference presenters and organizer
were taken from a transcription of a recording of the event.
[10] For example, Goldberg, Butler, and conference organizer Lisa Rofel
all signed a University of California petition for Divestment from Israel,
and Obenzinger has been part of divestment campaigns at Stanford and with
the Presbyterian Church; Butler, Obenzinger, and Ginsberg all signed a
petition for U.S. Jewish/Muslim Solidarity calling for cutting off all
military and economic aid to Israel; Butler signed a petition boycotting
Israeli academics and research; Ginsberg is a member of Jews Against the
Occupation; and Bar Zohar helped organize "Israeli Apartheid Week" in New
York City.
[11] In a personal communication, Mintz wrote: "The Baruch Goldstein to
whom I dedicated my book was a rabbi and Hebrew school teacher who taught
me in Worcester, MA, in the late fifties and early sixties; Rabbi
Goldstein is now quite old. He is the first Holocaust survivor who told me
his personal story."
[12] United States Department of State, "Contemporary Global
Anti-Semitism: A Report Provided to the United States Congress," 2008,
www.state.gov.documents/organization/102301.pdf.
[13] See:
www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/assembly/jul2003/jul2003ii.pdf,
Appendix A.
[14] See Martin Trow, "Reflections on Proposed Changes in the University
Regulations Bearing on Academic Freedom in the University of California,"
NoIndoctrination.org, 24 July 2003, www.noindoctrination.org/uc_cas.shtml.
[15] See: www.ucop.edu/acadadv/acadpers/apm/apm-010.pdf
[16] See: www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/manual/apm015.pdf.
[17] See: www.universityofcalifornia.edu/aboutuc/governance.html.
[18] Robert C. Post, "Academic Freedom and the 'Intifada Curriculum,'"
Academe Online, 89, May-June 2003.
[19] "Academic Freedom: Its Privilege and Responsibility Within the
University of California" was presented by the University Committee of
Academic Freedom to the UC Academic Council on 16 February 2007, and
distributed to UC campus Academic Senate offices.
[20] See: www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/bylaws/so1006.html.
[21] Article IX, Section 9 of the California Constitution establishes the
constitutional autonomy of the University of California.
[22] See:
content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=kt900015wg&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00028&toc.id=0&brand=calisphere.
[23] www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/policies/6065.html.
[24] www.ucop.edu/ucophome/coordrev/policy/9-18-70.html.
[25] www.ucop.edu/acadadv/acadpers/apm/apm-015.pdf.
[26] From a letter by UC president Charles J. Hitch to all UC faculty,
discussing the actions taken by the California legislature to deny salary
increases for UC faculty, dated 29 May 1970.
[27] SPME Open Letter to the Governor of California, University of
California Board of
Regents, Board of Trustees of the California State Universities,
Chancellors of the University of California, and the Presidents of the
California State
Universities:http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/Home_files/Open%20Letter%20to%20the%20Govern.pdf.
[28] Executive Summary of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
Presentation to John B. Oakley, Chair, Academic Senate, University of
California, 29 January
2007:http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/Home_files/Executive%20Summary.pdf.
[29] Our first letter to the chancellor, dated 9 March 2007, was sent
before the
conference:http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/Anti-Zionism%20Conference_files/Letter%20to%20Chancellor%203-9-7.pdf.
Our second letter, dated 20 March 2007, was sent the week after the
conference and includes a report of the
event:http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/Anti-Zionism%20Conference_files/letter%20to%20chancelor%203-20-7.pdf.
[30] Letter from UCSC counsel Carol Rossi, dated 30 April 2007, in
response to our letters about the conference:
http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/Anti-Zionism%20Conference_files/From%20UCSC%20General%20Counsel.pdf.
[31] Letter from SPME at UCSC to the chancellor, in response to the UCSC
counsel's letter:
http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/Anti-Zionism%20Conference_files/letter%20to%20Chancellor%205-11-7.pdf.
[32] Gay Law Students Assn. v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., 595 P,2d 592, 610
(Cal. 1979).
[33] Beckwith, Rossman-Benjamin, and Benjamin, "Faculty Efforts."
[34] Naber, "Call for Consistency."
[35] Our first letter to the chair of the Community Studies Department
regarding the course was sent on 18 June 2007, approximately one week
before the course began:
http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/Anti-Israel%20Course_files/Letter%20to%20Prof.%20Pudup%206-18-7.pdf.
Our second letter to the chair was sent on 2 July 2007, a few weeks into
the course:
http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/Anti-Israel%20Course_files/letter%20to%20Prof.%20Pudup%207-2-7.pdf.
[36] Our letter to the dean of social sciences, dated 4 September 2007, in
response to the
course:http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/Anti-Israel%20Course_files/Dean%20Kamieniecki%209-4-7.pdf,
and the dean's response:
http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/Anti-Israel%20Course_files/from%20Dean%20K.%209-21-7.pdf.
[37] Letter from SPME at UCSC to Senate Executive Committee of the UCSC
Academic Senate, dated 20 May 2007, regarding a pattern of political bias
and advocacy in academic
programming:http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/UCSC%20Academic%20Senate_files/Report%20to%20SEC.pdf.
[38] CAF report in response to SPME
inquiry:http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/UCSC%20Academic%20Senate_files/CAF%20report.pdf.
[39] Inquiry email from CAF chair to eight UCSC faculty regarding threats
to academic freedom from SPME, and four faculty
responses:http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/UCSC%20Academic%20Senate_files/emails%20to%20CAF%20re%20SPME.pdf.
[40] In a letter dated 29 May 2008, we expressed several points of
dissatisfaction with both the CAF's report and the SEC's endorsement of
it:
http://web.mac.com/spme_at_ucsc/iWeb/Site/UCSC%20Academic%20Senate_files/letQuentinSEC.pdf.
[41] Report of the Task Force on Anti-Semitism at the University of
California, Irvine, 2008,
26:http://octaskforce.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/orange-county-task-force-report-on-anti-semitism-at-uci.pdf.
[42] Ibid, 26.
[43] Ibid, 27-28.
________________________________________
Tammi Rossman-Benjamin is lecturer in Hebrew at the University of
California, Santa Cruz, and a Jewish educator who teaches widely in the
local Jewish community. She is cofounder of the UCSC chapter of Scholars
for Peace in the Middle East.
4.
http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2009/01/27/california_college_student_terror_is_the_new_communism
California college student: Terror is the New Communism
by Dennis Prager
5.
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/21/antisemitism-jews-un-oped-cx_cr_0122rosett.html
Freedom's Edge
The New Anti-Semitism
Claudia Rosett, 01.22.09, 12:00 AM ET
6. More Oslo success:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1058555.html
7. YOU JUST MIGHT BE AN ASSIMILATED JEWISH LIBERAL...
By: Steven Plaut
Friday, June 27 2003
Those who watch the Tennessee Country Music Network or
Comedy Central have come across comedian Jeff Foxworthy. Foxworthy's
shtick, based on an exaggerated hillbilly accent and mannerisms, revolves
around his making pointed observations followed by his standard joke
line, 'then you just might be a redneck.' (Example: 'If you have eight
motor vehicles in your yard and none work...then you just might be a
redneck.')
If Foxworthy were Jewish, he could do a similar shtick based on
the refrain (all together now) 'then you just might be an assimilated
Jewish liberal.' It would go something like this:
1. If you spend more time worrying about whales and dolphins than
about Jews, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
2. If you think that the essence of Jewish ethics is supporting the
political agenda of the left wing of the Democratic Party, then you just
might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
3. If you think Michael Lerner and Arthur Woodstock of Tikkun
magazine are really sensitive or deep thinkers, then you just might be an
assimilated Jewish liberal.
4. If you think the highest priority for your 'Temple' is to have a
good recycling program, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish
liberal.
5. If you think Clinton was the most pro-Israel president ever, then
you just might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
6. If you think that American pressure on Israel to make peace is
necessary and valuable, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish
liberal.
7. If you think Jews should support affirmative action programs,
even though they discriminate against Jews, then you just might be an
assimilated Jewish liberal.
8. If you disapprove of the Rev. Al Sharpton but think he has a
good point about Jews being racists, then you just might be an assimilated
Jewish liberal.
9. If you oppose voucher programs for schools and school choice,
then you just might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
10. If you think Anthony Lewis and Leonard Fein make a lot of
good points, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
11. If you approve of the Religious Action Center of the Reform
synagogue movement, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish
liberal.
12. If you do not understand why America still needs a strong
military, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
13. If you still believe the US should have just let sanctions work
in Iraq, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
14. If you still think Nelson Mandela is a hero, then you just might
be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
15. If there's even the slightest possibility you might vote for Jesse
Jackson for any public office, you just might be an assimilated Jewish
liberal.
16. If you like to complain about how tough people have it in
America, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
17. If you send your kids to a Quaker day school, then you just
might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
18. If you think all that talk about political correctness suppressing
free expression is a myth, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish
liberal.
19. If you seriously doubt that the media are dominated by liberals,
then you just might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
20. If you donate to the New Israel Fund, then you just might be an
assimilated Jewish liberal.
21. If you think the courts and police are riddled with institutional
racism, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
22. If you think Jews should practice zero-population growth
because the world is so crowded, then you just might be an assimilated
Jewish liberal.
23. If you think the Israeli settlements are the main obstacle to
peace, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
24. If you think that Oslo was basically a sound idea that was
applied incorrectly, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
25. If you think Shimon Peres is basically a decent guy with the
right agenda, then you just might be an assimilated Jewish liberal.
