WSJ oped: The Haifa and Bar Ilan Boycott

[question everything]

The Haifa and Bar Ilan Boycott

By FANIA OZ-SALZBERGER
May 2, 2005; Page A18

(snip)

The University of Haifa -- my university -- is a different story. This model Jewish-Arab institution, a most unlikely candidate for boycott, was declared to be untouchable by the AUT "until it commits itself to upholding academic freedom, and in particular ceases its victimization of academic staff and students who seek to research and discuss the history of the founding of the state of Israel." The story embedded here is well worth telling, but not in the way the AUT tells it. "On May 15, 2002," the AUT boycott document declares, "Dr. Ilan Pappe, senior lecturer in Political Science at Haifa University, was sent a letter notifying him that he faced trial and possible dismissal from his position . . . . hese accusations related to Dr. Pappe's efforts to defend a 55-year-old graduate student, Teddy Katz, whose Master's thesis was under attack by an Israeli veteran's organization because it documented a massacre of 200 unarmed civilians by the Haganah (the pre-state army of Israel) at a village called Tantura, near Haifa."

This, to put it plainly, is false. Mr. Katz's thesis was based almost solely on transcriptions of oral interviews he conducted with elderly Palestinian former residents of Tantura, who allegedly witnessed a massacre of their kin by Jewish soldiers. When veterans of the Israeli army force that attacked Tantura sued Mr. Katz for libel, a district court ruled that the empirical evidence was grossly manipulated in the course of transliterating the tapes. Mr. Katz had put words in the mouths of his interviewees that were never uttered. He agreed to apologize to the veterans, telling the media that radical activists -- including Dr. Pappe -- had led him astray. On the basis of this ruling, the University of Haifa decided to reverse the impressive "97" grade already awarded to the thesis, and, in a mood of appeasement, asked Mr. Katz to rectify and resubmit his work. It was then sent out to five external examiners, a majority of whom failed it. It is fair to note that all examiners wished to remain anonymous.

(snip)

All this seems to have escaped the fact-finding capabilities of our British colleagues. The AUT disregarded not only the methodological nature of the decision to fail Mr. Katz's thesis, but also the meticulous judicial investigation. (In fact, the AUT ought to have called for an international ban on contact with the Israeli judiciary, for having ruled that Mr. Katz had libeled Israeli veterans.) What is worse, the AUT never sent anyone to check out the facts at Haifa, and, I am told, never asked the university for its response. Minimal standards of due process were not met. No one in the AUT has acknowledged the plain fact that Haifa University's classrooms, dozens of its approved and published theses, and long shelves in its library, display a broad array of historical and sociological research of modern Israel -- work that is often as critical as Mr. Katz's, yet far better substantiated.

(snip)

The AUT got it wrong in just about every possible way. First, by opting for an academic boycott. They say it worked in South Africa, which is, in the very least, doubtful. But South African universities practiced apartheid. At Haifa, a fifth of the student body consists of Arab-Israeli citizens. A growing number of faculty, including former and present heads of departments and the new dean of research, are Arabs. Are they facing boycott, too, or does the AUT wish to see certified proof of non-Jewish denomination with every article submitted for publication in a British academic journal?

(snip)

Secondly, there is the issue of singling out Israel. Oh yes, Israel is occupying the West Bank and -- until August -- also the Gaza Strip. The occupation has lasted 38 years, and it has caused Palestinians much suffering. Their human and civil rights are being breached. About 60% of Israelis who answered the most recent polls are willing to end occupation in return for a secure peace. True, a large minority of Israelis still wishes to keep some of the West Bank under Israeli rule, and the University of Bar Ilan sends lecturers to settlements there. That is apparently a sin.

(snip)

Ms. Oz-Salzberger is senior lecturer in the School of History and the Faculty of Law at the University of Haifa.

URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111499921857221877,00.html (paid subscription)

[Coastie for Truth]

1. ... does the AUT wish to see certified proof of non-Jewish denomination

Interesting --

"...At Haifa, a fifth of the student body consists of Arab-Israeli citizens. A growing number of faculty, including former and present heads of departments and the new dean of research, are Arabs. Are they facing boycott, too, or does the AUT wish to see certified proof of non-Jewish denomination with every article submitted for publication in a British academic journal?

Been done before -