Zionist Conspiracy

The Sociology department at Tel Aviv University has been engaged in subsidized sedition. It has offered a course in one-sided propaganda and leftist indoctrination. And Tel Aviv University students got PAID to sign up and be indoctrinated in the course! Really!

The course, which is evidently not offered this year but was offered as late as 2007-8, was entitled “Bureaucracy, Governmentality, and Human Rights.” It was group-taught, mainly by Tel Aviv University Marxist sociologist and far-leftist anti-Zionist Professor Yehouda Shenhav, together with far-leftist non-academic political activists. The latter were two lawyers, Yael Berda from the extremist “Machsom Watch” political group, specialized in interfering with Israeli military checkpoints in the “territories,” and Michael Sfard, the attorney for the far-Left “Association for Civil Rights in Israel.” The ACRI believes that Jews have no civil rights worth defending but Arabs have the right to use violence to evict Israel from “occupied territories.”

The course was also offered by Shenhav and friends to visiting students from Tufts University (see this). The syllabus of the course shows that it consists only of leftist anti-Israel propaganda. No pro-Israel speakers or writers were included in the course materials. Students in the course were taken around to visit various Israeli far-leftist groups like the extremist “Yesh Din,” and also Palestinian propagandists. The lectures included diatribes against Israeli imperialism and colonialism. Israel is denounced throughout the course as racist and as an apartheid regime. Occupation of Palestinians is denounced as a horrible atrocity, with never a word as to how and why the “occupation” came about and what the costs have been to Israel from attempts at ending the “occupation." Go here to see the entire course outline.

So here we have the spectacle of Tel Aviv University not only offering a one-sided propaganda and indoctrination program in anti-Israel extremism all dressed up as a course in “sociology,” but also making payments to students who agree to be subjected to the indoctrination. Each student was paid about 1450 NIS plus additional expenses.

Well, my friend and comrade Seth Frantzman, a Phd student at the Hebrew University and a writer for Isracampus.org.il, the watchdog group that monitors and exposes Israeli extremist academics, has come up with a brilliant idea. He (and I second his call) would like to challenge the heads of Tel Aviv University. We would like to ask the heads of Tel Aviv University whether in the name of pluralism and balance they would be willing to approve in principle the following course as a new one to be offered to students in the sociology department. We would like to know if the following course content, which largely parallels the course offered by Shenhav and his buddies, is acceptable. And we would like to ask how much money Tel Aviv University is willing to pay the students who sign up for the course.

Here is the course outline as prepared by Seth Frantzman:

Tel Aviv University
Faculty of Social Sciences
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Yearly Course
Two weekly hours

Bureaucracy, Governmentality and Individual Rights – Alternative Course Syllabus
Prof. Benny Alon
TA: Adv. Itamar Ben-Gvir
Guest lecturer: Baruch Marzel

The course will discuss managerial theory and practice, with an emphasis on mind control mechanisms that Palestinians developed to train terrorists in the context of the West Bank. We will examine the historical sources of these mechanisms and attempt to situate them within the Islamist context, particularly as envisioned in Wahhabism and the writings of Said Qutb. We will then demonstrate how the Hebrew freedom fighter is reflected, within the spaces of sovereignty he creates, in the NGO-funding practices of European countries, their agents and executive authorities. In addition, we will demonstrate how the Palestinian Islamist culture creates lawless spaces, where people's lives become exposed to violence or the threat thereof. Simultaneously, we will analyze the political and cultural implications of historical anachronism, relating them to questions of morality and religion, politics and sovereignty, and political theology. We will place special emphasis on the relationship between radical Hamas interpretations of religion and Fatah bureaucracy and their ties with violence, in all forms. Through the course, we will familiarize ourselves with the complexity of maintaining the human rights of the Hebrew, particularly in the unusual yet daily events in which they are most crucial. We will learn to listen to testimonies and stories from the points of view of different actors in the event, and primarily "look over the shoulder" of those working in service of the Yishuv, in order to try and understand the mechanisms and the networks of events operating in reality.

Course structure

The course is a seminar combining theory and practice. In addition to Prof. Alon's lectures, Activist Itamar Ben Gvir and his friends will accompany the course as a guest lecturer. Every two weeks, the students will take part in Yesh Yehudut's project of observing Palestinian militancy, and in Yad L’Achim's project of assistance to Jewish women trapped in the houses of their abusive Arab husbands in the Palestinian territories. Under the direction of these organizations, the students will be involved in documentation, building a Jewish outpost, advocacy and coordination while maintaining a journal documenting their activity. The students will be guided by Itamar Ben-Gvir, both individually and in groups. Students will receive transportation expenses and a yearly scholarship of NIS 1450. At the end of the year, each student will submit an article based upon her activities and experiences, with reference to the course's theoretical content. Some of the articles will be collected in a book edited by Prof. Alon, Baruch Marzel and Adv. Itamar Ben-Gvir, in cooperation with the organizations.

Schedule and outline
October 24 – Lecture 1: Introduction of the course, group guidance
Prof. Alon, Adv. Ben-Gvir, Adv. Marzel
October 31 – Field work
November 7 – Lecture 2: Development of bureaucratic thought, managerial revolution and rationalism
as an ideology
November 14 – Field work
November 24 – Islamism and terrorism – Guest lecturer: Baruch Marzel
November 28 – Field work
December 3 – Lecture 3: Bureaucracy and political catastrophes
December 12 – Field work
December 19 – Lecture 4: Sovereignty, governance and power
December 20 – Field work
January 2: Testimony of suicide bombers and confession. Guest lecturer: Seth Frantzman
January 9 – Field work
January 16 – Field work
February 27 – Lecture 5: Political theology and the state of emergency
March 6 – Lecture 6: Islamism – occupier and occupied: from co-dependency to
"exposed life"
March 13 – Field work
March 20 – Field work
March 27 – Racialization and Wahhabism
April 10 – Field work
April 17 – Lecture 7: The security paradigm
April 24 – Field work
May 8 – Lecture 9: Bureaucracy of Hamas’ Shariah judicial system
May 15 – Field work
May 29 – Lecture 10: Globalization of terrorism, disaster management and humanitarian organizations
June 5 – Concluding meeting