A specter is haunting the Israeli Academic "Post-Zionist" extremists in
Israel, and it is ISRACAMPUS (www.isracampus.co.il). Modeled in part on
"Campus Watch" in North America, ISRACAMPUS monitors and exposes the
anti-Israel (and sometimes anti-Semitic) political activities, writings,
and pronouncements of Israel's far-leftist academic extremists.
Israeli universities contain hundreds of faculty members who ar e active in
promoting boycotts of Israel, in organizing army soldiers for mutiny and
refusal to serve, in promoting law breaking, and in collaborating with
anti-Israel groups attempting to delegitimize Israel as a fascist,
terrorist, racist, apartheid entity. Students, professors, donors,
alumni, journalists and others participate in ISRACAMPUS and help it
gather materials.
Until ISRACAMPUS came upon the scene, few in Israel and fewer still
outside Israel were aware of the anti-Israel activities of these Israeli
academic radicals. That is now changing. The past two years, when there
were numerous attempts to adopt boycott of Israel resolutions in the UK,
Canada, in the US, and elsewhere, it was ISRACAMPUS that exposed the fact
that most of these resolutions have Israeli academic initiators and
sponsors, faculty members who draw salaries paid for by the Israeli
taxpayer, calling on anti-Semites all over the wor ld to boycott Israel.
The Israeli media and the Jewish press around the world are increasingly
discussing and reporting about the shenanigans of "Israel's Academic Fifth
Column."
Israeli academic institutions have been misused in recent years as
platforms for radical anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic propagandizing,
often by tenured radicals with embarrassing academic records and dubious
research credentials. These include Israeli faculty denouncing their own
country in the foreign press as "genocidal" and supposedly perpetrating
Nazi-like war crimes, professors who publish articles proclaiming Israel a
fascist apartheid state engaged in "state terrorism," lecturers who
endorse Arab terrorism against Jews, applaud the Hizbollah, and call for
Israel to be dismantled entirely.
While its web site has been in operation for only a relatively short
period, the impact of ISRACAMPUS is already being widely felt. A gro wing
number of reports are appearing in the mainstream media about Israel's
academic extremists, "New Historians," and "Post-Zionists." Israel's
Channel One television channel recently devoted a full hour to Israeli
academic extremists and their role in promoting boycotts of Israel.
Israel's Maariv daily has been particularly courageous in condemning these
things. Countless blogs cite and link to our web site.
Israeli university officials are being faced with growing calls to enforce
academic standards and put a stop to the political biases operating in
campus hiring and promotion. Classroom indoctrination and one-sided
anti-Israel courses taught by extremists are increasingly being exposed
and triggering public outrage.
And the extremists are themselves growing wary. While no one is calling
for restricting academic freedom and freedom of expression, even for the
worst anti-Israel academic radicals , nevertheless these folks are feeling
pressure as their activities are exposed to the sunshine. They know
someone is looking over their shoulders. Over the past two years there
has been a dramatic drop in the number of Israeli radical academics
turning out anti-Israel propaganda for Bash-Israel organizations and web
sites. While anti-Israel petitions, containing the names of hundreds of
Israel academics, appeared in the past every few weeks on the internet,
almost nothing of this sort has been initiated more recently. And in
radical political "chat rooms" Israeli academic extremists are
increasingly complaining about the fact that ISRACAMPUS is exposing what
they write and do.
It is getting harder for Israeli university administrations to turn a
blind eye to on-campus politicization, classroom indoctrination, and
subordination of hiring and promotion to politically biased decision
making. People a re asking campus officers tough questions about how it is
that so many Israel haters with insipid, sometimes downright embarrassing,
academic records are being hired and promoted as faculty members and using
their podium to demonize their own country. Voices expressing outrage
against one-sided indoctrination, such as in courses purportedly about
"the occupation," are growing.
ISRACAMPUS is the best way to "keep Israeli universities honest," and to
ensure that their faculty engage in research and educating, rather than in
Israel-bashing, sedition, and anti-Zionist political propagandizing.