Friday, February 11, 2011
The Speech that Netanyahu Refused to Give
Citizens of Israel. It is the job of a leader to resist populist
demagoguery. Israel's government is now being targeted by populist
demands that will destroy the economy. As a leader it is my job to
lead and so I refuse to capitulate to these populist idiotic demands,
even when they are backed by the Histadrut crime family and by the
Bolshevik wing of the Likud party itself.
Israel is now into its 6th dry year with low rain. Not only will
we not lower water prices, but we will raise them by 400% across the
board. It is the only way to make the public use water efficiently.
World grain prices are rising because of events in the world market.
Not only will we not lower their sales prices in Israel but we will
raise them. Energy prices are rising in the international market.
Not only will we not lower them in Israel, as the demagogues are
demanding, but we will raise them. The demogogues are demanding that
we raise the minimum wage. But as anyone who ever took first year
economics knows, raising the minimum wage increases unemployment and
prices low-skilled people out of jobs. Hence we will lower the
minimum wage and then eliminate it altogether. Let cynical hacks like
Avishai Braverman from Labor call for raising the minimum wage, the
Likud is a party of national responsibility and will resist populist
pressures.
For to do otherwise would be to demonstrate to all of Israel that
I, Bibi Netanyahu, am no leader at all, but rather am a gutless
demagogue and a weenie.
Afterword: Netanyahu yesterday announced he was lowering energy and
water prices inside Israel, subsidizing them in pre-Mubarak style
policy, and was calling for an increase in the minimum wage.
2. UK physician and Jewish Leader denounces Tel Aviv University for
coddling its traitors
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?ID=207585&R=R1
The Jerusalem Post
Excerpt
A Jewish community leader and prominent physician has written to the
rector and president of Tel Aviv University, calling for the school to
take a stand after two of its lecturers called for support of a
boycott of Israel in a British newspaper last week.
Prof. Stuart Stanton, president of the British Society of
Urogynecology and chairman of Hadassah UK, wrote to TAU rector Prof.
Aron Shai and president Prof. Yossi Klafter after Prof. Rachel Giora
and Dr. Anat Matar, along with 10 other Israeli activists, wrote a
letter that was published in the Guardian, calling for British author
Ian McEwan to turn down the Jerusalem Prize.
… Last year, Matar, from TAU's philosophy department, was the guest
speaker at an event advocating a boycott of Israel at London
University's School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), a campus
renowned for anti-Israel activity. Her talk was entitled "Supporting
the Boycott of Israel: Campaigning from Within."
Both Giora, of the university's linguistics department, and Matar are
active in the BDS campaign and are members of a group called "Boycott!
Supporting the Palestinian BDS call from within." In 2009, they both
stood in solidarity with Ben-Gurion University academic Neve Gordon,
who was criticized for an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times
calling for a boycott of Israel.
3. Special Report on Channel 10 Documentary this Evening on Israel's
Academic Extremists
Channel 10 is one of Israel's three TV channels and I think the second
largest viewership.
This evening on its "Makor" investigative show, which is kind of an
Israeli 60 Minutes, Channel 10 ran a half hour documentary on the
politicization of Israeli universities, on its tenured radicals, and
on the "Im Tirtzu" student movement. About half of the 30 minutes
were on the tenured radicals, with focus on Ben Gurion University.
Prof. Israel David from BGU, an Isracampus insider, was the star of
this segment. They let him speak freely and at length in detail, and
he was filmed in front of his computer on which he was screening and
commenting on BGU faculty members participating in anti-Israel
demonstrations supporting suicide bombing and terrorism. He did a
superb job. He had actually given much longer interviews before the
show, which were edited, but what was left was extremely powerful and
effective. The fact that a professor was making the charges and not
students was devastating. In addition, Michael Gross, the wonderful
rebel governor from BGU, was given (shorter) time to speak about how
the university is circling its wagons around the anti-Zionists and
trying to block governors from demanding corrective action regarding
the tenured extremists. Michael also spoke well.
The show attacked by name and by photo Neve Gordon, and then mentioned
7 other radical anti-Israel faculty members in BGU's politics
department, including David Newman, with short citations of things
they say and write. The show had scheduled a meeting with BGU
President Carmi, but (so they announce in the show) she cancelled on
them at the last minute and instead sent them a bland letter (which
the show announcer mocked and attacked) about how important academic
freedom is and how awful Im Tirtzu are.
The show then reported Knesset committee initiatives investigating the
radicals and spoke with some members of the Council on Higher
Education, who were allowed to speak but then attacked and mocked by
the announcer. The BGU Rector Cohen made a few nasty comments there,
filmed from his Knesset hearing appearance. This entire half of the
program was not balanced at all, but in the good sense. It was
strongly biased in OUR FAVOR! It was clearly and unambiguously a
broadside against BGU and against the "Post-Zionist" left in the
universities! It even mentioned harassment of students by leftist
faculty. It was the best thing yet on our cause to appear on Israeli
TV.
The second half of the program was basically on Im Tirtzu. It was
more "balanced," by which I mean it was only 75% supportive of Im
Tirtzu and 25% was attacking them. The net effect of this segment was
also extremely beneficial for our cause. They allowed the Im Tirtzu
student leaders to speak at length. These all appeared well dressed,
in sports jackets, and came across as serious and intelligent. The
announcer revealed that they had equipped Im Tirtzu students with
hidden cameras to film radical faculty members in classrooms, adding
that the results were a little disappointing, as the faculty members
filmed were not saying outrageous things. But the impression they
gave was that this is probably because the tenured radicals are
themselves afraid and intimidated and wary. Even more important, the
entire country now knows that Im Tirtzu students are prowling the
classrooms with cameras, and that will have an enormous impact on the
radicals.
Im Tirtzu was painted as a spontaneous effective mass movement
operating now on 12 Israeli campuses. Part of the segment though
attacked Im Tirtzu for demanding transparency in finances of the Left
while not providing it regarding their own finances, and for accepting
some donations from groups with radical-Right credentials. The show
went to lengths to show that several Im Tirtzu leaders live in Efrat
in the West Bank. The show also tried to paint them as arm-in-arm
with the Likud, mentioning that Bibi and "Bogie" Yaalon had spoken at
their conferences. That, by the way, may have worked to the advantage
of Im Tirtzu.
My take on all this is that the students came across on net quite
well, if perhaps a bit naןve, and as people having their own
right-of-center agenda. But all publicity is good publicity, so even
the slaps at them by the show editors (Channel Ten is notoriously
leftist!) will serve to increase their effect and power. Ronen
Shoval, the chair of Im Tirtzu, came across extremely well in
particular. He speaks well, has a sense of humor, is charismatic.
Slightly less but ditto for the other Im Tirtzu leaders and members
interviewed. (A few rank and file members of Im Tirtzu were also
allowed to speak.) The Im Tirtzu students were also cited as planning
to go to Israel's Supreme Court against Rivka Carmi and Ben Gurion
University.
The show also interviewed the one-time ultra-moonbat professor and the
now somewhat-conservative born-again-Zionist, Haifa U's education prof
Ilan Gur Zeev. He snipped at the Im Tirtzu research report on
political science departments, saying their "methodology" was flawed
(a claim the academic Left and Rivka Carmi have been chanting), while
conceding that the bottom line is correct and that these departments
are full of bias. He was introduced as a sort of neutral observer,
which he is not, but the net effect was not harmful and to some extent
supportive.
In a sense, the program was even more effective because of its slaps
at Im Tirtzu alongside its praises of them. Thus the show came across
as neutral, balanced and objective, willing to slap all sides, even
though it was really 80% or so supportive of us good guys and our
cause, and indeed was making our case for us.
My guess is that the Op-Eds in the print media will be chattering
about all this over the next few weeks.
The bottom line is that the TV coverage was the most valuable and
powerful presentation of the case against leftist indoctrination and
abuses in Israeli universities to appear yet in the Israeli media!
Have a glass of champagne!
The full program can be seen in Hebrew here
http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleId=779349&sid=126
4. The Secret Love Letters to a Holocaust Denier from Noam Chomsky:
http://www.countercontempt.com/archives/1185
5. Bruno makes aliya?
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4026813,00.html
6. Treason du jour from Tel Aviv University:
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Petitions%20-%20TAU%20-%20Rachel%20Giora%20and%20Comrades%20demand%20Poland%20Boycott%20Israel.htm
And from the University of Haifa:
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/HaifaU%20-%20Micah%20Leshem%20-%20The%20World%20according%20to%20Micah%20Leshem.htm
7. Academic leftist rot in Israel, from Prof. Kenneth Levine,
Harvard Dept of Psychiatryl:
http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Israeli%20extremism%20-%20Harvard%20-%20Kenneth%20Levine%20-%20Israeli%20Academic%20rot.htm
