Thursday, January 29, 2009
Haaretz Declares war on Academic Freedom
of far-leftist anti-Zionist extremist faculty members at Tel Aviv
University to prevent the appointment of an Israeli army woman colonel to
teach in the law school. (See report here:
http://www.isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Editorial%20-%20Steve%20Plaut%20-%20Assault%20on%20Academic%20Freedom.htm
) The Dean of the Law School properly dismissed the "petition" of the
academic moonbats.
Well, now Haaretz, the Palestinian newspaper printed in Hebrew, has
announced the launching of its OWN jihad against academic freedom. It has
come out AGAINST the appointment of the colonel and in support of the
moonbats, in an official editorial (see following). Like most far
leftists, Haaretz believes that you have the freedom of speech to agree
with it, but none otherwise.
Here is the Haaretz version of academic freedom:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1059758.html
Last update - 01:55 29/01/2009
Inappropriate appointment
By Haaretz Editorial
Tags: israel news
The Tel Aviv University faculty members who oppose the appointment of Col.
Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, head of the international law division (ILD) in the
Military Advocate General's office, to a post at the university's law
faculty, are right.
This faculty, the spearhead of academic legal research in Israel, now has
a public responsibility of the first order - to examine in depth Israel's
conduct during the war in Gaza, to distinguish between what is permitted
and what is not, and to offer an alternative and objective set of rules to
the self-serving ones formulated by Sharvit-Baruch during her time as head
of the ILD.
One of the important reasons not to appoint Sharvit-Baruch to the law
faculty is her sanctioning, as head of the division, of the killing of
hundreds of Palestinian civilians, many of them children, women and
elderly people, during the three weeks of the war.
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The division headed by Sharvit-Baruch gave the go-ahead for the criminal
killing of dozens of Palestinian policemen by the air force - which bombed
them during their graduation ceremony on the war's first day - with the
knowledge that these policemen were nothing more than civilian
law-enforcers, and on the grounds that they might become participants in
the fighting with Israel (as reported in a story that will appear in the
Haaretz English edition Magazine tomorrow).
The legal appendix that the division attached to the military orders of
Operation Cast Lead did indeed demand that caution be employed in the
field, but it did not rule out the use of cluster bombs, phosphorus bombs
or anti-personnel mines.
The appendix even stated that it was possible to avoid warning the
civilian population that was near a target slated for attack.
Severe criticism is being voiced about the conduct of the ILD. A long list
of experts in international law and the laws governing the war on
terrorism, including the former head of the division, Daniel Reisner, have
expressed their objections to the way Sharvit-Baruch made possible such
trigger-happiness during the Gaza campaign.
Hanoch Dagan, the dean of TAU's law faculty, is misleading in the
demagogic argument he employs to justify Sharvit-Baruch's appointment. He
says that it is better to expose students to a wide range of opinions and
points of view, so long as they are within the framework of the law.
Dagan is misleading, both because Sharvit-baruch's opinions - which are
acceptable among the general public and, one can assume, in the corridors
of the law school - already enjoy wide expression, to a level far beyond
that received by opposing points of view; and also because the reason
Sharvit-Baruch's opinions fall within the framework of the law is because
she is the one who formulated the law, in her capacity as head of the ILD.
2. Please join in this trench war:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3663679,00.html See also this:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3661269,00.html
3. Aumann and friends on the clash of civilizations:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/129654
Clash of Civilizations: Is Israel at War with Islam?
Shevat 3, 5769, 28 January 09 05:10
by Hana Levi Julian
(IsraelNN.com) Nobel laureate Professor Yisrael Aumann of the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem went head to head with colleague Professor Shlomo
Avineri on Wednesday over whether Islam is at war with Israel.
The verbal sparring match came during a panel discussion held Wednesday at
the Jerusalem Regency Hotel during the annual Jerusalem Conference over
which threats are facing Israel and the West, and whether there is in fact
a .clash of civilizations.. The two were joined on the panel by Likud MK
Silvan Shalom and former Prisoner of Zion and minister, Natan Sharansky,
currently the chairman of the Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies.
As did most of the other speakers at the conference, as well as the others
on their panel, both focused on Israel.s current security issues as well
as its past.
.I want peace,. proclaimed Aumann, .but the truth is, we are the
terrorists. We have brought the terrorism upon ourselves.. Aumann blamed
the past three years of rocket fire from Hamas terrorists on the 2005
Disengagement from Gaza.
.We expelled thousands of Jews from their homes in response to the last
intifada,. said Aumann. .We destroyed synagogues. We destroyed homes,
families.
.We left Gaza, and that brought Hamas to Gaza, and increased the rocket
fire to the south,. he stated flatly. .It hurts me terribly over our sons
that died, and it hurts me terribly over the Arab residents that died. We
are to blame,. he continued, .because we told them, keep pressuring, keep
up the fight . we will fold. And they understood. They got it right..
Aumann, whose main focus was the issue of how to achieve a lasting peace
in Israel, underscored the view that one must be ready for war in order to
avoid it.
.The way to bring peace is not to yell .Peace, Peace!., it.s not with
arguments, and concessions and all these things. All these things bring us
to war. You only need a little straight intelligence and knowledge of
history to understand; they knew it 2,000 years ago, they understood how
to be ready for war, not only with armor and weapons, but also with the
soul.
.If you are not spiritually ready for war, you bring war,. he warned. .You
don.t even need to go back 2,000 years. Just take a look at the Soviet
Union, and look at our own people these days.
.Enough! Enough!. he declared, striking his hand on the podium sharply.
.Come! Let us prepare for a struggle . and real peace..
Within 15 seconds of taking the podium, Avineri had expressed his strong
disapproval of Aumann.s words.
.With all due respect to my colleague, I do not recommend to anyone to say
that we brought upon ourselves the terror,. he stated. .I do not recommend
that anyone say that, the words of Jewish confession during the Yom Kippur
prayers notwithstanding. We did not bring upon ourselves the terror..
Avineri contended that the concept of the struggle itself, however, is
misunderstood by most of Israel.s leadership, if not most of the Jewish
population.
.The fact is, there is a struggle, and there is a war, but it is not
between civilizations,. he said. .The struggle is not with another
civilization. It is not with Islam. We have no war with Islam..
According to Avineri, Islam is not at war with democracy but rather at war
with itself. .There is a war within Islam,. he maintained. .It went
through a change. It is worth remembering that there is very deep
frustration and deep change taking place.
.One of the biggest enemies of fundamentalist Islam at the current time is
Hosni Mubarak, the president of Egypt, who is not at all democratic or
liberal in any way. Another enemy of fundamentalist Islam is the secular
Fatah faction,. he said, noting that Hamas.s rival, led by Palestinian
Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is also not known for its gentility.
.It is important to remember who the enemy is,. said Avineri.
4. Recent materials From Isracampus.org.il:
On the anti-Semitic web site Counterpunch, Ben Gurion University's Neve
Gordon and Tel Aviv University's Yigal Bronner smear Israel using Hamas
propaganda "statistics" verbatim
'This latest assault underscores that Israel, not unlike Hamas, readily
resorts to violence and does not distinguish between civilians and
combatants (only the weapons at Israel's disposal are much more lethal).
No matter how many times the Israeli government tries to blame Hamas for
the latest Palestinian civilian deaths it simply cannot explain away the
body count, especially that of the children. In addition to the dead,
1,855 Palestinian children were wounded, and tens of thousands of others
have likely been traumatised, many of them for life.....Israel's masters
of war must be happy: the seeds of the next wars have certainly been
sown.'
http://www.isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/outside%20Israel%20-%20East%20London%20U-%20Yosefa%20Loshitzky%20-%20Hasbara%20wins.htm
University of East London - Yosefa Loshitzky (Dept. of Film Studies)
claims that Operation "Cast Lead" is a victory of "disinformation" and
"lies" by Israeli hasbara (public relations)
Oxford - Avi Shlaim (Dept of History) calls Israel's right to defend
itself .propaganda. and .a pack of lies.
Amy Goodman: Professor Avi Shlaim, Israel says the reason it has attacked
Gaza is because of the rocket fire, the rockets that Hamas is firing into
southern Israel.
Avi Shlaim: This is Israeli propaganda, and it is a pack of lies.
University of Haifa - Yuval Yonay (Dept. of Sociology) writing on the
Segel-Plus list on 18 January 2009, endorses the smears of Israel as a
Nazi country made by anti-Semitic British Member of Parliament. Yonay
writes:
'He also mentioned that an Israeli spokeman (sic) replied that many of the
Palestinian victims (800 at the time, climbing to 1245 as of this morning)
were militants "was the reply of the Nazi" and added: "I suppose the Jews
fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as
militants." If someone can find a logical flaw here, I am interested in
seeing it.
University of Exeter - Ilan Pappe (Dept. of Political Science) justifies
Hamas kassam missile war crimes; hangs the war crime .albatross. on
Israel.s neck
Between 1967 and 2005, Gaza.s land and water were plundered by Jewish
settlers in Gush Katif at the expense of the local population. The price
of peace and security for the Palestinians there was to give themselves up
to imprisonment and colonisation. Since 2000, Gazans have chosen instead
to resist in greater numbers and with greater force. It was not the kind
of resistance the West approves of: it was Islamic and military. Its
hallmark was the use of primitive Qassam rockets, which at first were
fired mainly at the settlers in Katif. The presence of the settlers,
however, made it hard for the Israeli army to retaliate with the brutality
it uses against purely Palestinian targets. So the settlers were removed,
not as part of a unilateral peace process as many argued at the time (to
the point of suggesting that Ariel Sharon be awarded the Nobel peace
prize), but rather to facilitate any subsequent military action against
the Gaza Strip and to consolidate control of the West Bank. . Israel
justifies its conduct in Gaza as a part of the fight against terrorism,
although it has itself violated every international law of war.
