From Steven Plaut via Yisrael Medad
1. The tenured radical Left at the University of Haifa is hysterical
and in panic. It seems that students from the local chapter of the
Zionist "Im tirtzu" student organization have started attending
classes of some of the radicals, taking notes and threatening to cite
what the faculty members say in class. On other campuses, Im Tirtzu
students have already started to tape lectures with small cameras or
cell phones. That has the tenured Left at the University of Haifa soiling itself. In recent days the chat list of faculty members at the
university has been flooded with hysterical postings by leftist
faculty members denouncing the students as fascists and for violating
the "rights" of the professors. Most of the hysterics are coming from
the very same University of Haifa professors who sponsored and
collected a petition a few years back demanding that army officers be
prevented from giving talks to students in high schools. So you can
see they have a very sophisticated appreciation of academic freedom.
One of the posteurs was Prof. Gabi Salomon, quoted in the press last
week as comparing the proposed loyalty oath for immigramns to Israel
to Nazi Germany's genocide of Jews.
I failed to stay out of the conflagration and posted the following,
which so far seems to shut up the tenured Left:
More on Im Tirtzu Students and Their Activities
So let us see if we have this straight.
The Im Tirtzu students are violating the rights of faculty members
by attending the public lectures given by these faculty members in
public institutions paid for by the taxpaying public while drawing
salaries paid for with public funds. The students are threatening to
reveal to the public the public statements made at public lectures.
Taking notes in public lectures at public universities is
suddenly a form of violence and fascism. Moreover the Im Tirtzu
students are suspected of plans to cite the public statements made by
publicly paid faculty members at public institutions. Then the Im
Tirtzu students are threatening to silence those faculty members, but
it is a strange form of silencing, for it consists of granting widest
public circulation, citation, publication, and other forms of
spreading of the words of the silenced faculty members. Just imagine
the dangers to which this could lead! Members of the public learning
about advances in research methodologies, scientific insights, tools
of analysis. The list of dangers is endless.
Moreover, students who attend lectures and cite what they are
told there in forums outside the classroom are fascists because they
might be involved in unauthorized citation of the contents of public
lectures.
People who cite what rabbis say about politics in yeshivas
to their students are great heroes, but tuition-paying students at
universities who do the same are terrorists and fascists. We know
they are fascists because they wear black tee shirts with slogans on
them and black socks and black shoes and none of the guilty students
are wearing Che Guevera shirts to class. Since when do students not
wearing Che Guevera tee shirts (or Abdul Nasser tee shirts) to class
have the right to hold any opinions? Citing what a faculty member
says in his lecture hall is no different from planting a listening
device in the faculty member's bedroom or bathroom and revealing the
utmost intimate sounds coming from in there.
Of course what REALLY has the tenured Left so upset is that they
fear that the public might just learn from these perfidious
unauthorized cases of citations just how many faculty members at
Israeli universities are misusing their classrooms for political
indoctrination and ideological brainwashing and preaching, rather than
for teaching and analysis. And the public might react with
expressions of unwillingness to pay for such things using their tax
shekels.
Now since the Israeli university administrations for years have
refused to put a stop to the in-classroom indoctrinations and abuses,
and indeed wink at them, one might think that the public should
salute the Im Tirtzu students and their efforts. But instead we are
hearing thunderous denunciations coming from the tenured Left about
students who maliciously attend lectures and take notes, since such
abusive behavior has been known to lead to citation. What would come
next – citing in the media the contents of course syllabi carried on
the universities' web sites? Unauthorized break-ins to the reserve
library to read course readings without permission? Unauthorized
citing of Op-Ed articles published by faculty members in newspapers?
Inappropriate unauthorized reading of books written by faculty
members?
And, most dangerous of all, it could actually lead to students
expressing unauthorized opinions and criticism of the political
activism of members of the faculty, especially the extremist ones. If
we do not put a stop to that at once, freedom of speech and academic
freedom could leak out of control in an uncontrolled manner and
actually be practiced by non-leftists!
And then what would we all do? It might even lead to soldiers
having the right to speak when invited to schools!
--
Yisrael Medad
Shiloh
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