Tel Aviv — An Israeli academic’s call for an international boycott of Israel has set off threats of donations being withheld from his university and sparked a fierce debate over academic freedom.
In an August 20 Los Angeles Times opinion article, Neve Gordon, chairman of the politics and government department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, called Israel “an apartheid state” and wrote that an international boycott is “the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.”
Gordon has long been an outspoken critic of his country’s policies toward the Palestinians and writes regularly for left-wing publications abroad. The publication of his call for a boycott in one of America’s leading newspapers, however, struck a nerve — and has drawn fierce denunciations from his university’s administration, as well as from its American fundraising arm.
“Academics who entertain such resentment toward their country are welcome to consider another professional and personal home,” said BGU’s president, Rivka Carmi, in an August 23 statement.
The American Associates of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev goes further. “He should be brought up for disciplinary action — whatever is legally possible,” AABGU spokeswoman Ronni Strongin told the Forward on September 1. Asked to clarify what she meant, she replied: “If it were legally possible and a disciplinary committee thought it appropriate, we would like to see him dismissed” from the university.
In her statement, Carmi announced that the university was “exploring its options concerning Gordon’s actions.” Since Carmi’s initial statement, university officials have ruled out dismissal and have been noncommittal on the issue of disciplinary action, saying only that they are “considering options.” They have made it clear, however, that they want him to step down as department chairman.
Carmi’s initial statement provoked outrage from some Ben-Gurion University faculty members. Forty-eight BGU academics signed a letter to Carmi demanding that she safeguard Gordon’s academic freedom. “Dr. Gordon has the right to publish his views on any matter, has done nothing wrong and should not be censored or sanctioned,” Isaac Nevo, a senior lecturer in philosophy at BGU and the organizer of the letter, told the Forward.
The row quickly spread to other Israeli universities. Alon Harel, a Hebrew University law professor, coordinated a petition demanding that BGU not punish Gordon for expressing his views. It was signed by 180 academics from across Israel. “The issue here is academic freedom and the ability of academics to write articles reflecting their views,” Harel told the Forward. Harel and Nevo both said that they oppose efforts to boycott Israel.
On August 27, BGU’s rector, Jimmy Weinblatt, met with signatories to Nevo’s letter and reportedly said that the university will not attempt to revoke Gordon’s tenure. But he is said to have raised the issue of Gordon’s departmental chairmanship and to have asserted that it is inappropriate for Gordon to stay on in this post. University officials maintain that support for a boycott is incompatible with a chairman’s responsibility to promote his department in the international arena.
Nevo said he felt that Gordon “may consider stepping down” from the chairmanship, though he cautioned that he was not pressuring him to do so. “I do think that his chairmanship is not covered by academic freedom,” Nevo said. “There is no right by an academic to hold an administrative position of power.”
In an interview with the Forward, Gordon admitted that there is “a contradiction” in his chairmanship and that it could cause “some problems.” He said that he has reservations about academics visiting Israel for conferences — terming it “extremely problematic,” unless their visit somehow highlights what he regards as the injustices of the Israeli occupation.
But he insisted that his backing for a boycott will not affect his day-to-day work. He said that the department will continue to draw international visitors for an overseas program, which is headed by a colleague, and for conferences, which for several years have been organized by colleagues and not by him. He added that he will support members of his department in whatever way they ask, including by attending conferences that attract international contingents.
He said, however, that the prospect of him stepping down as chair has “become an impossibility.” He said that the chairman job, which brings only a small salary bonus, “is not something I like doing — it’s an administrative job and I prefer doing my research — but to [step down] now would be to bow down and seen as punishment for expressing my views.”
Gordon said that pressure to get him to step down from department chair is fueled by fundraising considerations. He said that AABGU operates on the premise “that when you elect someone for department chair you have to think about what the donors like.” This is a “very dangerous assumption” and could lead to “the destruction of a university as you know it,” he said.
University officials denied Gordon’s charge that fundraising considerations were driving their response to the controversy. Faye Bittker, BGU’s director of public and media relations, said that the university would welcome his resignation as department chairman irrespective of the fundraising factor. That position was echoed by AABGU’s Strongin. “No university can have donors demand who is hired and who is fired, and we are not saying that,” Strongin said. “This is a case where we are in agreement with some donors who find his comments reprehensible.”
This is not to say, however, that the fundraising fallout from the controversy has not been a matter of concern for university officials.
“We’re doing everything we can to limit the fallout of Dr. Gordon’s latest editorial in terms of lost resources to BGU. This is an increasingly difficult task,” wrote AABGU’S executive vice president, Doron Krakow, in an August 27 e-mail to David Newman, a BGU politics professor. The e-mail, which was obtained by the Forward, was sent in response to a message from Newman criticizing AABGU’s conduct in the controversy.
BGU, like other Israeli universities, is funded mostly by the Israeli government. But almost 60% of all private donations to BGU come from the United States. In the 2007-2008 fiscal year, donations to BGU totaled $51.5 million.
The Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Israel’s consul general in Los Angeles, Jacob Dayan, wrote to Carmi that he had been contacted by donors who were “unanimous in threatening to withhold donations.”
Bittker said that AABGU has “genuine and real concerns about the effect of this on fundraising.” She said there is also concern about the university’s “brand.”
“Today people aren’t canceling checks,” she said. “But people getting direct mail or considering a Ben-Gurion event could say, ‘That’s the university with *that guy.’”
The Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, the Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, the Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason.
Copyright © 2013, Forward Association, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Gordon demonstrates the arrogance and hypocrisy of the left. If he is calling for a boycott of Israel, which includes his university, he should start with himself. The fact is he enjoys the credibility and soapbox provided by his university association, not to mention the salary he draws from the state he wishes to boycott.
For those interested, here is a report of the class he conducted at the University of Michgan: http://www.israelbehindthenews.com/bin/content.cgi?ID=3709&q=1
Full disclosure: I was involved in teaching this same course some 30 years ago. I and my colleagues brought our own experiences and biases into the class, but in my time such blatant propaganda wouldn't have been tolerated.
Professor Gordon's statements ( and those of like minded Israeli academics ) make it impossible for those of us who wish to, to defend israel abroad against our critics. Therefore I believe Ben Gurion University should boycott him by removing him as chairperson from his department and cancelling his tenure, since that is what he is asking the rest of the world to do to Israel
Suppose an employee of the Forward wrote a letter to another newspaper charging that the Forward was dishonest and should not be read. Would that person keep his or her job? Academia is different and tenure does and should protect academic freedom so firing is not an option but dismissal from an administrative position seems appropriate.
So far, the posters on this Blog have been generous to Neve Gordon in that they call for his relenquishing his Posistion as Chairman of the Department.
They forget that Israel is at WAR. In Wartime the rights of Citizens even in a Demorcracy change drastically. In most Democracies they would recognize that Neve Gordons pronouncements are be considered TAITOROUS, and he would be subject to drastic reprisals for his actions.
Abraham Lincoln abbrogated the Supreme Court of the United States in violation of our written Constitution when it came to preserving the Nation from destruction. In these perilous times many of the freedoms should be modified to protect the Nation from destruction.
Neve Gordon should not only leave his posistion, or be dismissed, for his traitorous staements that prove to be fodder for the enemies of Israel. In my opinion he should be banished from the State and sent to live amongst his Leftist allies such as JStreet and peace now.
Israels liberalism may prove to be its demise if people of Gordon's ilk are allowed to preach for Israels destruction without interference.
I heard Neve Gordon on the radio http://www.beyondthepale.org/
He pointed out that when the donors to Ben-Gurion University threaten to withhold their contributions if he is not dismissed as chairman, the donors themselves are calling for a boycott of Israel.
Some of Gordon's supporters are encouraging donors to withhold their contributions, as part of a boycott of Israel.
Ben Gurion University has long been notoriously referred to as the "Berkeley of the Negev." One of its more notorious graduates was Vanunu the traitor who should have been left in confinement for life.
Whatever Ben-Gurion University does to Gordon, a university in another country can do to its Zionist professors.
If a right-wing Zionist was a department head in the U.K. or some other country, the faculty could demand that he step down because it was inappropriate to justify human rights abuses. They could point to Gordon to show that it was appropriate to remove someone for his political ideas.
The fact is that the Liberal Left and Far Left is firmly in control of the academies in the UK and the US. Not only are Conservative professors routinely denied tenure but, if hired as the token department conservative, they risk suspension or firing if they make public any statements, opinions or research which does not follow the Left's party line.
Name one professor who has been fired for making a statement which doesn't follow the left's party line.
When Israel strangles the WB and Gaza with it's own boycott, academic and otherwise, its called self-defense; when others wish to boycott Israel for its brutal and illegal actions in the WB and Gaza it's called anti-Semitism.
The Jewish State is its own worst enemy.
Grif, you're right. Israel has restricted academic freedom of Palestinians in many ways.
They refused to allow four Palestinian Fullbright scholars leave Gaza to study in the US. The ZOA and other organizations call for academic boycotts whenever a professor says something they disagree with.
Then when somebody tries to boycott Israel in the same way, they cry anti-Semitism.
Hypocrisy.
Grif misses a major point in his fallacious syllogism. When Israel is battling terrorists whose murder originates in the territories, they are acting in legitimate self-defense against a merciless aggressor whose people have been killing Jews in the Middle East since the late 1800's, a population which had apotheosized such actions into religious duty by the 1920's when they answered the calls to kill the Jews proclaimed by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hitler's Imam.
When people boycott Israel, they do so because antisemitism underlies and facilitates their irrational sympathy for the "underdog" Arabs. They patronize these "primitives" who have actually been the aggressors for many decades, and whose lot, while tragic, is the logical consequence of their flawed theosophy and their violent but fortunately so far defective efforts to once again attempt world domination.
Grif sees an irrational parallel where none exists. The Arabs are trying to kill the Jews (and Christians, and Druse, and Copts, and each other) while the Jews are trying to protect themselves and their fellow citizens. Much of the world, particularly the mindless Left, are determined to join in assisting the Arabs intractable efforts at Jewicide. The left disdain directly soiling their own hands in such a task, but are enthusiastic about deviously assisting the Arabs to do so while those Leftists congratulate themselves on their grotesquely misplaced humanistic impulses and their irrational support of the violently atavistic Arab populace.
Not at all. I'm saying that the liberals are irrational in their absurd and unjustifiable actions, continually trying to sacrifice the Israelis and others. I accuse the "Liberals" of uncritically saying what you suggest, and blame them for excusing the ongoing, barbaric, violent attacks by the Arabs as originating in a primitive culture whose anachronistic, murderous violence derives from an authentic, however outdated, culture. They apparently believe that such genuine primitive cultures should be respected even if inconsistent with modern human values. This is not unlike the creation of a 30,000 square mile protectorate for the Pygmies who are allowed to continue their pre-modern culture because we don't want to disturb their museum-quality lives.
In the case of the Pygmies I can actually see some justification. After all, we put tigers in zoos. Why not humans? And we don't allow those tigers - or Pygmies - to hurt anyone. But given the case of violent pre-modern cultural traditions (including beheading, be-handing, murder of converts, honor killing and mutilations of women, etc.) I can see no value whatsoever in admiring and sustaining the retrograde Islamic aggressive, egocentric, intolerant social structure whose focus is only to perpetuate such violence. Yet supporting such anti-human violence is exactly what the "Liberal" claque does when they do their best to aid the century-old efforts of the Arabs to kill the Jews and to continue all of their other violent and backward-looking traditions.
In further response to Norman, it's not that Arabs want to kill Israel "for no reason at all"; it's that their "reason" is often Jew-hatred or antiSemitism. Look at Hamas' charter, and its citation of the Protocols of Zion and its clear hatred of "Jews," not "Israelis." In addition, Israel has repeatedly tried to make peace with the Palestinians, only to be answered with violence. See, e.g., Barak's 2000 offer, met by Arafat with the Second "Intifada" -- a war of suicide bombings and, yes, savage killings of Israeli innocents. For another example of Arab rejectionism, look at the three no's of Khartoum in '67.
Richard,
So how many Arabs do you know?
Norman, are you an academic, or do you hold a civil service posistion?
Your take on the situation in Israel today is that of someone who has either depended on Government or Teaching Institutions for your ability too put bread on the table. Consequently, since these type of Institutions have been Leftist Bastions for as long as I can remember and I am a good deal older then you, your thinking is skewerd to ideas that have failed since the the Ruissian Revolution.
You seem to have no sense of what the real world is all about so you preach for solutions that have failed utterly since Israel was declared a State.
As for me Arabs are the bararians. There Religeon and policies are of there origin some 1500 years ago when the world was trying to emerge from it barbaric past. For me there are no good Arabs, unti they make peace with Israel and recognize it as a Jewish State. Of course this is coming from what you consider a bad Jew.
This is a puzzlement, what is legally correct, and what is morally correct?
Jane Fonda is now part of a group which has written a protest to a film exhibition in Montreal which will feature Tel Aviv as part. She, and others, claim Tel Aviv is inappropriate to feature, it being a Zionist propaganda vehicle. ( Using the same old tired reasons of occupation,, aparthied state, etc.).
Of course she seems to have forgotten WHY Israel is in the so-called territories..whose borders are really "disputed land", not occupied. She should have read "The 67 War" by Michael Oren, a detailed account of not only the actual battles, but of the politics involved, most especially in Israel.
Lets be honest, had the Arabs won that war, or ANY war with Israel, there would be no discussion about "freezing construction" today, or of returning Jews to Israel. (Right of Jewish return).
Israel itself seems to have put these wars aside, in making policy UNFORTUNATELY.
What is the proper response to Miss Fonda? I recall her husband's anti-Israeli views years ago. Apparently, they still resonate.
Should we all boycott her? Maybe? Would it help? Maybe, but I doubt it would change her mind.
I read Mr. Gordon's screed in the LA Times (my local newspaper) and was shocked to learn he is part of a worldwide groups efforts to harm the Jewish state. With friends like that, who needs Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syrian missiles?
He is a naive jerk..(excuse the 4 letter word). How else can we describe him? Those people who he is trying to aid, in less than a NY minute, would behead him..the way they did his co-religionist reporter, Pearl. Every terrorist groups has targeted Jews, and Israelis. Every terrorist captured in the USA had admitted to targeting Jewish institutions. Hamas, Hezbollah, the DFLP, the PFLP, Fatah and the PLO in parts, talk the talk and walk the walk re: Israel's demise.
Now we see in Iran, a defense minister who orchestrated the bombing of that Jewish community center. The chutspah of these Iranians.
I am against boycotts in general..they usually backfire.
Here in California, I personally bought at Trader Joes, letting them know any boycott of Israeli products was unacceptable. I will not buy Venezuelian gasoline. I have written the LA Times my dismay at printing Gordon's personal attitudes about his own country. ( That same paper today had an article about Israel's decision to build a few hundred apartments, in spite of Obama's saying it will harm the peace process. Harm the peace process?
We have Jane, Israel has Neve. But no one will boycott the USA, w/o regretting it. Israel is not so fortunate.
Is there an answer to Israel's quagmire..freedom of speech, yet not to a fault.
Perhaps it is in their treason laws, I don't know?
Boycotting the University is also boycotting Israel...as one poster commented. Firing him...over his views..might be imitated elsewhere as another commented.
Perhaps Israel has given this too much publicity. I am reminded of the Passion of the Christ..which was severely criticized by some US Jewish group. It grossed over 600m.
Sometimes it's just better to leave things alone..and not make waves.
But if Israelis want to, boycott HIM, (shun him), perhaps that might be effective? If I meet him, I will call him a name he won't like.
One poster says Israel is at war. If so, then why not declare marshal law or a limited marshal law? But then again, who do you close down, and arrest?
Maybe it's better just simply to move on..with the real problems, Obama's naivety, and the demand for a freeze on nursery schools in the so-called occupied territory and Jerusalem, not to forget Iran is 1 year from having a few nukes.
BTW, Russia sent Egypt 200 planes..and was threatening to join the war against Israel in 67. In 73, it was known to be loading transport planes to ferry troops to the Sinai.
Now that would have been something...
I have just heard an interesting American lecturer here in Oz about the libertarian Left in the USA & Israel, where the BGU prof's anti-Israel boycott article has created similar waves as everywhere else in the Jewish world.These guys like Gordon,- he is not unique, there are others of similar ilk in other Israeli Universities who seem to think that 'academic freedom of speech' gives the right to this arrogant minority of academics to articulate 'hate speech', i.e. overt hatred of their country in line with its enemies. If that is not traitorous, I don't know what is.
They advocate the dismantling of the Jewish State to accommodate an Arab majority inimical to the acceptance of an Israel with a Jewish majority. We in the Jewish diaspora who live as minorities in our countries will only support an Israel which is Jewish,- not an entity that favours a majority of the Moslems or other faiths. We already have our own countries for that. The students who would attend Prof.Gordon's classes, should give him a bit of his own medicine and boycott him, as well as boycotting the others like him. On the other hand, the Arab students at these universities will flock to their lectures, thus creating some nice 5th columnists for Israel. Whichever way you look at it, they are traitors to their country and to their fellow citizens. I wouldn't give my money to them,- there are worthier causes in Israel than 3rd rate unis. with 4th rate academics in cushy jobs to support.
Thanks Miriam. Your comments are very well taken.
Here in London we fight to give Israel equal time to put her case -- only to have Israeli academics and other Jews here spearhead boycott campaigns, giving the public the prospect of Israelis and Jews condemning Israel. I get the impression that British Jews are more committed to Israel than the large number of Israeli yordim who live in London.
If a right-wing Zionist was a department head in the U.K. or some other country, the faculty could demand that he step down because it was inappropriate to justify human rights abuses. They could point to Gordon to show that it was appropriate to remove someone for his political ideas.... This has already been done Mona Baker is an Egyptian professor of translation studies at the University of Manchester (UMIST) in England,[1] and a signatory of the 2002 open letter to boycott Israeli institutions. She received much criticism and created great controversy when she removed two Israeli academics, Dr. Miriam Shlesinger of Bar-Ilan University and Professor Gideon Toury of Tel Aviv University, Israel, from the editorial boards of her journals Translator and Translation Studies Abstracts, based on their affiliation to Israeli institutions.[2][3] It was suggested by Judith Butler that Baker had "engaged established anti-semitic stereotypes," [4] and Theodore Dalrymple criticised her for engaging in the antisemitism of the Left. [5] According to Prof. Jon Pike, "Mona Baker's policy is, in effect, anti-semitic: she doesn't want to have contact with any individuals who are affiliated with Israeli institutions, and those people will largely be Jews. And we know, of course, that Mona Baker thinks these actions are "appropriate" (and, when criticised, complains bitterly about the Jewish press)." [6]
Baker is also an editor of "The Translator" and editorial director of St. Jerome Publishing. Her personal website provides commentary on the Middle East conflict, and research in translation and intercultural studies. The site also has sections on the boycott of Israeli academic institutions, Israel and Palestinian universities, general opinions on the Middle East and calls for boycott of Israeli products and services.
I think that Ben Gurion "university" has outlived its usefulness. I cannot think of a single advance that has come from this "university" I propose that BGU be converted to a facility to study the genetics of olive production. Mr Neve is free to call for a boycott of Israel, or even calling for burning synagogues, but if he does so, he should not take a salary from BGU. This indicates a major character flaw, in that he wants to cultivate Israel hating friends at the same time he benefits from the occupation.
"We use the tools of democracy to defeat democracy" Hermann Goering, 1933
BRAVO TO GORDON!!!!! BRAVO!!!! BRAVO!!!! Gordon is ABSOLUTELY CORRECT in asking for an international boycott of Israel and in claiming Israel is an apartheid state. Not only that, he is the ONLY one with enough genuine professional and personal integrity to have the guts to stand up and speak out for what is RIGHT. There will NEVER be any excuse nor justification whatsoever for the countless DOCUMENTED human abuse atrocities which Israel continues to deliberately and intentionally inflict upon innocent Palestinian people. I am beyond shocked, appalled, disgusted and outraged that ANYONE in Israel or America or anywhere else in the international community would even think to defend and thereby support these criminal and inhumane acts which are a blatant defiance and clear breach of international humanitarian laws.
Israel's Cast Lead offensive was the epitome of human abuse in its most evil form. There are no human words that exist to articulate such horrific murderous crimes against humanity. What Israel did to the Palesinian people in Gaza, and what they continue to do to all Palestinians is exactly what the Nazis did to the Jews. How can anyone NOT see this???? IT IS EVIL AND CRIMINAL!!! Israeli IDF and the Israeli government are documented MURDERERS...PERIOD! There is no question, this is FACT, meticulously and carefully investigated, cross referenced through multiple, top level resources and repeatedly documented by indedpendent international groups!!! WAKE UP!!! Anyone turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the evidence and truth has the blood of innocents on their hands and is equally guilty for every single death as much as the IDF and Israeli government. I thank God for Gordon's spirit of justice to halt the ongoing genocide and torturous siege which continues to result in the death of innocent Palestinians daily who would otherwise be alive if they were allowed access to BASIC human needs of medical attention, food, water, etc etc!
Gordon points to the dangerous corruption in his country's government and negative, beaurocratic academic fallout he's received as a result of his outstanding bravery. I WELCOME his reporting! The Israeli government is paranoid, manipulative, and ego-centric, they are the most wicked example of humanity on the planet today. BRAVO to Gordon!!!!! Thanks to Gordon, I can now confidently say not all Israeli's are Nazis, there's at least ONE who isn't!
There's also Leah Tsimmel.
Here's some more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llc977kNO7c&feature=related
Hi everyone! I do not know where to begin but hope this site will be useful for me. I will be happy to receive any help at the beginning. Thanks in advance and good luck! :)