This article (in Hebrew) was published recently on the private but
official website of Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, the former Israeli PM and the
present Minister of Finance.
Please pay attention to the terms used.


 A Stab in the Back



Israeli university profs are indulging in an orgy of sickening vilification. It's about  time we cleaned the Augean stables of academe



Shaul Tsadka



This is an appeal to clean the Augean stables of academe. It runs counter to the conclusion of my colleague, Ben-Dror Yemini who, after leveling strong criticism against a large group of Israeli professors who'd disseminated falsehoods about their country, nonetheless objected to any measures being taken against them.



The story concerns a series of statements, which culminated on September 24, when 167 faculty members at Israeli universities came out with a defamatory pronouncement in the pro-Arab British newspaper, The Guardian. They warned against a government plot to use the war in Iraq as an excuse to purge the Occupied Territories of Palestinians. But lo and behold - the war is over and not a single Palestinian has been forced to leave.



Their despicable move was made in broad daylight, in full view of everyone. While it did not create much of a stir in Israel, it did make waves in the US and Europe. It flooded the web, it was adopted by Moslem organizations, and it attracted 1,242 university professors in other parts of the world. Israel was described as a country that commits crimes against humanity. There was not a word of sympathy for the cafes, the discotheques, the pizzerias, the buses, the wedding halls, the billiards clubs and the malls where hundreds of Israelis have been massacred over the past two years.



Their repulsive and treacherous declaration was the embodiment of depravity and stupidity. Depravity - because those academics who signed the document must have known that a plan for the mass deportation of millions of people from the West Bank and Gaza was inconceivable. Stupidity - because this group has already shown itself in the past as one that enjoys subscribing to delusional conspiracy theories, like some peddler in the Kasbah of Nablus or some plunderer in downtown Basra.



And I am not referring only to those loathsome academics who think that Israel as a Jewish state has no right to exist. We have some of those too in the rarefied heights of Israeli academe, and they too have signed the declaration and are among the ones mentioned by Yemini. But while he argued that we ought to simply ignore their lies and accept them on our campuses, I maintain that it's time to give them hell. Here's a random list. At Tel Aviv University: Miriam Shlesinger, Linda Ben-Zvi, Freddie Rokem, Hillel Shoken, Hannah and Zeev Herzon, Eva Yablonka, Zvi Razi (who holds that Israel have become a near-Nazi state), and Aharon Shabtai. At Haifa University: Yaakov and Tamar Katriel, Micha Leshem, Henry Rosenfeld and Hannah Safran. At the Hebrew University: Shalom Bar, Galit Rokem, Hanan Hever and the various Kimmerlings and Zimmermans.



I feel physically ill when I reread the petition - not because of their vituperations against Israel but because of their mendacity. Through their cynical exploitation of their "academic freedom", this clique colludes with Israel's most nefarious enemies in infesting western universities with their fabrications and contumely. They are the kind of people who believe that Israel is responsible for the events of the past few thirty months, that the Camp David talks failed because of Ehud Barak and that in trying to protect its citizens Israel is committing war crimes. They're the kind of people who feel at home in Arafat's bed, who identify with the tyrants of the Arab world, who may still be hoping for an Iraqi victory and who think of the Taliban as nothing more than a humane liberation movement. These academics, whose wet dreams focus on the Qaddhafi & Saddam Hussein Prize for Human Rights and Civil Liberties, are indeed worthy of such a tribute.



I would invite them to attend Bir-Zeit University or to visit the An-Najah campus, stronghold of the West Bank's suicide bombers, except that those institutions do not distribute fat salaries, tenure, sabbaticals and conference trips. This is their true face. In their hypocrisy, they get a good grip on the national udders and milk it for all it's worth, while seizing every opportunity to stab it in the back. The time has come, therefore, for the silent majority to give them their due. This majority cannot simply stand by idly and watch a libelous orgy in which Israel is turned into the universal  pariah. And the universities too must ask themselves whether to continue employing such people. The students should refrain from attending their lessons. A truth that is whispered in the corridors ought to be sounded loud and clear.



In their unspeakable gall, some of them continue to insinuate that right under our noses, without our even being aware of it, an ethnic cleansing is taking place. Let them continue with their harangues. But don't let them use their academic freedom and the pocket of the Israeli taxpayer for their baseless mudslinging. It is time for us to demand that the Council of Higher Education and the Minister of Education take up the challenge.