Witch-hunt begins in Israeli schools and colleges - Jonathan Cook

[azurnoir]

Hundreds of Israeli college professors have signed a petition accusing the education minister of endangering academic freedoms after he threatened to “punish” any lecturer or institution that supports a boycott of Israel.

The backlash against Gideon Saar, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, comes after a series of moves which suggest he is trying to stamp a more stridently right-wing agenda on the Israeli education system.

The education minister has outraged the 540 professors who signed the petition by his open backing of a nationalist youth movement, Im Tirtzu, which demands that teachers be required to prove their commitment to right-wing Zionism.

Saar’s campaign to “re-Zionise” the education system, including introducing a new right-wing Jewish studies syllabus and bringing soldiers into classrooms, has heightened concerns that he is stoking an atmosphere increasingly hostile to left-wing academics and human-rights activists.

Neve Gordon, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva who called for an academic boycott of Israel last year, has reported receiving death threats, as has a school teacher who refused to participate in Saar’s flagship program to encourage high-school recruitment to the Israeli military.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=298800

[sui generis]

1. that's sad

but it's a proven method that the Khmer Rouge used, the Taliban, and even fundies in the U.S.

They oppose change, and unfortunately more of the same public policy merely makes Israel more fragile. The really frightening thing here is the blatantly "fascist" idea of proving that you are aligned with an idea that underpins Saar's policy. The Zen of Israel is that whatever Israel has done so far is exactly enough to give it what it has, and nothing more. If Israel as an idea wants something better it has to do something better.

As in life more of the same only begets the same.

[azurnoir]

2. there is a US organization that monitors universitys and collages

in the US for antiIsrael bias

http://www.campus-watch.org/