1. As you know, Ben Gurion University has long been controlled by members of the radical Left, who have sought to turn the campus, or at least the Social Sciences and Humanities there, into a North Korean-style indoctrination camp in leftist anti-Zionism. Originally this was the vision of BGU President Avishai Braverman, who headed the university for years and is now a Knesset member from the left-wing of the Israeli Labor Party. He was followed by Rivka Carmi, the current BGU President, who is determined to preserve the role of the University as an instrument of leftist indoctrination. While repudiating the calls by pseudo-academic anti-Semitic lecturer Neve Gordon for a worldwide boycott againstf Israel, she has nevertheless repeatedly defended the fact that BGU is filled with anti-Zionist faculty members, where in at least one department (political science) there is not a single non-leftist teaching. She also in the past endorsed Neve Gordon’s anti-democratic SLAPP harassment suit against me. While defending the extremists at BGU in the name of “academic freedom,” she was also the main player who got Prof. Yeruham Leavitt fired because he dared to voice a politically unfashionable opinion.
The University has paid a price for all this. It has alienated many of its overseas donors and supporters. It has lost tens of millions of dollars in support and possibly hundreds of millions. The strategy of the University officials and of Rivka Carmi in particular has been to stonewall, to insist that BGU is in fact a pluralistic and balanced university, where it is only Neve Gordon by himself who is the campus voice of lunatic anti-Zionist bigotry. In reality, most of faculty members in the Social Sciences and Humanities at BGU are somewhat more reserved Neve Gordons, or people just marginally less seditious.
All of this puts into perspective the weekend column (December 31, 2010) in Maariv by Kalman Liebskind, one of the best publicist journalists in Israel. The column is so important that my translation of it follows here. Liebskind has revealed that Ben Gurion University is intentionally lying and providing disinformation to its supporters and prospective donors from all around the world and in different languages.
Here is his column (my translation):
A Lesson in Politics
By Kalman Liebskind
Ben Gurion University is in stress. The recent reports published by the “Im Tirtzu” student movement about the Post-Zionist political control dominating important parts of the university have had their effect and impact. They have managed to attach labels to the university’s name in the world with which it is uncomfortable. In the (leftist) media, in which “Im Tirtzu” was denounced as “censors,” the university was enjoyed seeing itself defended by journalists. But it turns out that “Im Tirtzu” managed to get out its message in dialogue with the wider public, talking to them over the heads of the official commentators on the TV news shows.
The vast majority of citizens, those who serve and whose children serve in the Israel Defense Forces, have no affinity for faculty members calling for worldwide boycotts of Israel, who denounce Israeli soldiers, and who call on their own students to refuse to serve in the army. An official statement issued last week by the country’s Council on Higher Education (the public body that overseas Israeli universities and colleges) was yet another slap in the face for large swaths of Israeli academia. The Council proclaimed: “Situations must be prevented where students or faculty members face rejection, silencing, penalization or discrimination because of their personal views or characteristics, including their political opinions.” (Clearly the Council meant the harassment of non-leftists by leftist faculty members SP)
The donors to Ben Gurion University also saw the reports and started asking questions. Many of these people, who live abroad and send their generous contributions to the institution of higher learning that bears the name of David Ben Gurion, had not been aware of the atmosphere of political extremism that dominates large parts of the university.
The university learned that it is possible to peddle clichés about academic freedom from Beer Sheva to as-far-away-as Paris, but ultimately the facts take charge. When large numbers of faculty members from the extremist Left sign their names to petitions publicly denouncing Israeli soldiers, it is hard to keep the facts hidden. And it is precisely at that point, where all excuses are exhausted, that the falsehoods begin.
Ben Gurion University, like the other schools, operates a network of overseas emissaries and representatives all over the world. These people are responsible for developing connections with donors. And when the donors start asking questions, these serve as the official front line troops of the University.
One such representative of Ben Gurion University is Elise Donat (see http://web.bgu.ac.il/Eng/
Donat did everything she could to reassure them. Including lying. The letter she sent them is a masterpiece of disinformation, an Israeli Bluff. “As you well know,” writes Donat in her letter - translated here from the French, “The Radical Right has a very large representation in the Israeli government and on the Council of Higher Education.” (Actually to my knowledge there is not a single Right-winger on the Council SP)
The Council on Higher Education, for those who are not familiar with it, is a professional academic body composed of 16 professors from academic institutions, two representatives of the general public, and the chairperson of the national students union. Politicians have no say at all there and cannot enter the Council. But that did not prevent Donat from selling her snake oil to the donors about how SHAS and Israel Beiteinu (Lieberman’s party) themselves, no less than they!!, had grabbed control of the Council.
Donat then challenges those donors who had complained that in the BGU Department of Politics there are many anti-Israel faculty members. That claim is utterly false, Donat writes them. There is only one radical anti-Israel extremist there, Prof. Neve Gordon. Donat then decides to take the argument further, well beyond the boundaries of intentional misrevebeen. In the politics department, she writes, There are professors from the radical Right wing like Renee Poznanski,* David Newman,* and Dani Filc”. Now just in case there are any out there who do not know who these three are, they are all far-leftists who signed those petitions proclaiming, “We support and appreciate our students who are refusing to serve as soldiers in the conquered territories.”
Actually, the above-mentioned Filc is Chairman of the extremist Far-Leftist Organization “Physicians for Human Rights” (which used to be run by Neve Gordon himself and which in the past circulated anti-Semitic caricatures of Jews SP). Donat was convinced that she had managed to convince the donors to BGU that the University is in fact the bastion of “Im Tirtzu.” She concludes her letter thus: “As can be seen, in this department (Politics) there reigns pluralism of opinion and diversity of views.” One line before the end, this representative of the University adds that Prof. David Newman,* the same one who signed that petition mentioned above, is not only a right-winger but someone “notorious for expressing extremist right-wing opinions.” (!!!!!)
Ben Gurion University sent us the following response: “Donat is on a private vacation in India until February 24 and so we cannot reach her to clarify the matter.”
*A personal note from SP: Both Newman and Poznanski, named in the article, submitted false court affidavits on behalf of Neve Gordon to the Nazareth court in their efforts to assist him in his neo-fascist SLAPP suit against me. After the Israeli Supreme Court issues its verdict, it is conceivable that one or both of these could face perjury charges.
2. A number of people wrote me and disagreed with what I had posted earlier about the Katsav Affair.
As I noted, I believe that Katsav was a skirt chaser who often behaved improperly, including using his position to pressure women to engage in hanky panky with him, in many ways behaving similarly to Bill Clinton. I was skeptical about whether Katsav was really a violent rapist.
And now I am far more skeptical. Over the weekend I read the court verdict in Hebrew carefully, which was reprinted word-for-word in full by Maariv. In the verdict the judges clearly admit what really happened.
It seems the court had enough evidence to convict Katsav for various acts and cases of sexual harassment and sexual misbehavior, but ALL those acts transpired long enough before the prosecution so that they were covered by the Israel Statute of Limitations (Hok Hityashnut). So the prosecutors were faced with letting Katsav go altogether, or charging him with rape (which, like murder, is not covered by the Statute of Limitations). But they themselves did not believe Katsav had raped, nor that they had enough evidence to charge him with rape. Instead, they offered him the plea deal to try to get him “convicted” of something. Katsav evidently understood the situation, knew that he was protected by the Statute of Limitations, and believed they would not charge him with rape. SO he rejected the plea.
So the Prosecution was faced with the dilemma of being unable to charge him with what they knew he did. But were reluctant to charge him with rape, not believing he committed rape, something with which in principle he could still be charged because the Statute of Limitation would not apply. So they decided to prosecute him for what they COULD still prosecute in court, and filed rape charges against Katsav.
This is not MY take on what happened, but what is spelled out in black and white in the Court Verdict!!
Other parts of the verdict point to a court out for blood against their man. Otherwise, the verdict would not debate at length whether Katsav had sniffed the perfume on the neck of an employee when hugging her for a birthday, or whether he had merely breathed while hugging her.
