Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Rallying for Derfner, and The Israeli Academic Stalinist of the Day
Derfner, the columnist at the Jerusalem Post who was just fired for
endorsing terrorist murders of Jewish children and civilians. The
Left is suddenly whining that the firing of Derfner is undemocratic
and contradicts freedom of speech. Not a single one of those whining
about it being democratic has come out in defense of freedom of speech
for non-leftists. Not a one denounced the harassments and arrests of
Rabbis who recommended that people read a controversial book. You can
imagine how they would react if someone were to suggest that killing
Arab civilians is a legitimate and justified form of resistance.
Here is one example, written by a clown named Dimi: http://972mag.com/ir5/
I strongly suggest that he start to spell his name Dhimmi.
Derfner by the way never offered to volunteer his own entire set of
family members to be murdered by the Palestinians in legitimate and
justifiable acts of resistance. He only wants to see YOUR children
murdered for peace. It is not too late to write to the Israeli
Attorney General and demand that Derfner be prosecuted. For those who
do not have my original email about this, you can get all the
information about how to do so here:
http://zioncon.blogspot.com/2011/08/call-to-arms-please-help-put-larry.html
Oh, and if you are suddenly feeling sorry for poor little Derfie,
don't. Take a look at this report by himself about his getting
arrested as part of a violent airport protest against Israeli
"apartheid" from a few weeks back:
http://972mag.com/derfner-2017-872011/
2. If you missed your chance to help get Derfner fired, here is
another opportunity to take action against a different moonbat. You
will sleep better after you jot off a note:
Tel Aviv-Jaffa College - Ofer Cassif (Dept of Political Science), the
publication-less "Academic" wonder
We tried to track down the academic publications of Ofer Cassif to see
just what it was about him that inspired the Tel Aviv – Jaffa College
to hire him to teach students in political science. Alas, we could not
find any. All we could find were a handful of anti-Israel Op-Eds in
the internet, mostly in Hebrew. Cassif claims to be some sort of
expert on "Social Justice," whatever that is. But we could not find
anything academic he has published about that either, anywhere.
... Cassif's main "academic contribution" seems to consist of an Op-Ed
that claims that Israel's citizenship law, which requires an oath of
allegiance to non-Israelis who apply for Israeli citizenship, is at
least as bad as German Nazism. The fact that most other countries have
similar oaths of allegiance does not convince Cassif that THEY are
Nazi regimes. Only Israel is so honored in his writing.
Tel Aviv-Jaffa College - Meet Ofer Cassif (Dept of Political Science),
the Proud Stalinist "Academic"
By Ari Ben David
29/8/2011
We tried to track down the academic publications of Ofer Cassif to see
just what it was about him that inspired the Tel Aviv – Jaffa College
to hire him to teach students in political science. Alas, we could not
find any. All we could find were a handful of anti-Israel Op-Eds in
the internet, mostly in Hebrew. Cassif claims to be some sort of
expert on "Social Justice," whatever that is. But we could not find
anything academic he has published about that either, anywhere. He
teaches a course about it at the College, whose reading list is filled
with Marxists and fellow travelers. We could not spot any non-leftists
on his syllabus except Rawls. He also gives courses at the so-called
"Socioeconomic College," which is actually a communist party front
entity that dabbles in Marxist indoctrination for "students" who have
too much time on their hands.
Cassif's main "academic contribution" seems to consist of an Op-Ed
that claims that Israel's citizenship law, which requires an oath of
allegiance to non-Israelis who apply for Israeli citizenship, is at
least as bad as German Nazism. The fact that most other countries have
similar oaths of allegiance does not convince Cassif that THEY are
Nazi regimes. Only Israel is so honored in his writing.
Cassif is a card-carrying member of the Israeli Communist Party, a
member of its "central committee," and is sometimes a featured speaker
at its events. Israel's Arab-dominated communist party has never quite
gotten around to repudiating Stalinism. The party loves having a token
Jew to show off. His PhD thesis was entitled, "On Nationalism and
Democracy, A Marxist Examination." Just in case you want to read it.
Cassif spends his time defending the communist party from its
detractors, including those who criticize the party for not being
quite communist enough. He was a loud voice defending the decision of
the Israeli communist party to support and defend Syria's President
Bashar Asad when the party justified the bloody armed suppression by
Asad of the Syrian protesters against his regime. Cassif appeared at a
party rally alongside Udi Adiv, an Israeli convicted spy who had
undergone training in Syria and served a long jail sentence in Israel
after being apprehended. Adiv today sometimes attacks the communist
party for not being Stalinist ENOUGH! Cassif has been cited in the
media for giving "academic lectures" in which he denounces the Israeli
patriotic student organization "IM TIRTZU" as a fascist organization,
one that should not be allowed to exercise freedom of speech.
Cassif is featured as one of the anti-Semitic worthy "righteous Jews"
selected for honor by a web site of Holocaust Deniers and Neo-Nazis.
Cassif is also on record as favoring the annihilation of Israel and
its replacement with a "secular" Arab-dominated Palestinian state.
If you are confused as we are about why such a Stalinist is teaching
students at the Tel Aviv Jaffa College, why not ask the College's
president, Professor Israel Zang at israelza@mta.ac.il and Director
General Mr. Dror Amir droram@mta.ac.il, with a copy to their PR
officer: Email: liatweis@mta.ac.il
3. There are now a number of "Israel Studies" departments in American
universities. Together they operate as members of the "Association
for Israel Studies." The problem is that "Israel Studies" in some
places is undergoing a transformation similar to what happened to
Middle East Studies. Some such departments are morphing into those
devoted to anti-Israel Studies, that is, to bashing Israel and
Zionism.
Think I am exaggerating?
Take a look at the newest initiative of the Association for Israel
Studies: http://www.aisisraelstudies.org/kimmerling.ehtml
It is awarding "researchers" a special prize, the Baruch Kimmerling
Prize. The first problem with this is that an Israel Studies group
having a Kimmerling prize makes exactly as much sense as an American
Studies Department someplace having its own Admiral Yamamoto Prize, or
Polish universities having a Ribbentrop-Molotov Commemoration Award.
The late Baruch Kimmerling was a Marxist sociology professor at the
Hebrew University, a pseudo-scholar who devoted much of his career to
manufacturing a "history" for the "Palestinian people." Kimmerling
was openly anti-Zionist and openly endorsed terrorist attacks by Arabs
against Jews, Derfner style. You can learn more about Kimmerling
here:
http://isracampus.org.il/Isracampus%20-%20shmootz%20corner.htm
http://www.isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Editorial%20-%20Lee%20Kaplan%20-%20Baruch%20Kimmerling%20-%20illustrates.htm
http://www.meforum.org/1610/politicide-ariel-sharons-war-against
and
http://www.meforum.org/1608/the-palestinian-people
The second thing to notice is that all three "judges" for the award of
the Kimmerling Prize are extremist anti-Israel lefties. The first is
Hanna Herzog, a leftist "feminist" professor of sociology at Tel Aviv
University, one whose name appears on most anti-Israel petitions. The
second is Ian Lustick, the groupie of Norman Finkelstein from Penn, a
notorious collaborator in the war against Israel (see
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/05/collaborators-in-the-war-against-the-jews-ian-lustick-by-steven-plaut/
). He is so anti-Israel that he was one of the founders of the
Association for Israel Studies. The third "judge" is one Mary Totry,
a far leftist instructor in "Women's Studies" at the University of
Haifa (http://multiba.haifa.ac.il/women_study/staff/mary_t.htm ),
awarded her PhD by none other than Ilan Pappe, and an associate of the
radical Arab anti-Israel NGO Mossawa Center. She is part of its
efforts to paint Israel as a racist fascist regime.
(http://www.mossawa.org/default.php?lng=3&dp=2&fl=9&pg=33 )
There are lots of other ideas for special prizes that the AIS
might award. We could have the Haman Prize for creative scholarship,
the Tawana Brawley Award for original research, the Helen Thomas
Award, and of course the Larry Derfner award for journalism.
