Sunday, April 19, 2009

Tenured pseudo-academic crackpot propagandist fired. Why not in Israel?


To Left - Ottawa crackpot Rancourt who got fired
Tenured pseudo-academic crackpot propagandist fired. Why not in Israel?

Universities all over the world are cracking down and firing pseudo-academic hate propagandists.

Down goes another "academic" Anti-Semite, out come the Leftist Complaints about the "Zionist Bogeyman"

An Ottawa anti-Semite professor gets himself fired due to gross insubordination and the Left blames the Jews and the "Zionist Lobby" once again!

Yes, he was an anti-Semitic crackpot at the University of Ottawa who regularly invited Holocaust Denier Michel Chossudovsky to lecture to his classes. So now he blames the Jewish cabal for his getting fired.

Denis Rancourt was fired recently from the University of Ottawa in physics. He had tenure. He describes himself as an "anarchist" and a "true communist," whatever that is. He would rant at length in his classes against the "Zionist Lobby" and against capitalism and against the United States. He had long turned his courses into exercises in one-sided indoctrination and politicization. Hmmm, where on earth have we heard about such things before?

He was removed from teaching this past December and officially fired a few days ago. He first got into legal trouble when he refused to allow a student mother to attend his course, and he was accused of age discrimination. Then the immediate cause of his firing was that he granted every single student in his course an A+ with no basis.

To right - Holocaust Denier Chossudovsky addressing Rancourt's class.

Then the Anti-Israel Lobby, always struggling to preserve the jobs of leftist pseudo-academics and propagandists, kicked in. One third of Rancourt's fellow professors at the university had signed a petition demanding that he be dismissed. So naturally, the Anti-Israel Lobby insists that the Jewish cabal and the Elders of Zion are behind it!

In fact, Rancourt's anti-Semitism had nothing to do with his getting fired. He got fired because he refused to do his job and to carry out his duties as a professor, displaying gross insubordination and defiance of university rules about grades.
Here is a typical Rancourt rant from one of his classes - notice how he cheers terrorism and denounces the United States as the real terrorist. This is NOT a speech from some soap box but rather what he says IN CLASS!

Rancourt is also in the so-called "911 Truth" cult of conspiracy nuts who claim that the 9-11 attacks were an "inside job" of the US or the Jews.

Naturally, Rancourt has been hailed as a martyr by Neo-Nazi Norman Finkelstein, Neve Gordon's guru, who was fired for being a pseudo-academic fraud by DePaul University two years ago. He and his groupie Gordon also blamed the Zionist bogeyman. Finkelstein had never published a single bona fide academic journal article.

But the REAL story here is that a courageous university took a principled decision and fired a tenured crackpot bigot and pseudo-academic. DePaul did the same with Finkelstein. A growing number of universities around the world are cracking down on the pseudo-academic propagandists the anti-Semitic Left adores and that is what has the anti-Israel Lobby soiling itself in outrage.

Unfortunately, Israeli universities, which are also crawling with pseudo-academic hate propagandists, are too cowardly and too lacking in integrity to take similar action against THEIR propagandist quacks and pseudo-academic crackpots!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Yet another Enemy of Freedom of Speech and Democracy at Ben Gurion University


To right, David Newman, enemy of freedom of speech

David Newman, a geographer sitting in the department of political science at Ben Gurion University, has an anti-democratic raving attack on freedom of speech in the Jerusalem Post, April 14, 2009, entitled, "Bashing the Academic Left." Newman is a leftist who once served as chairman of the department of political science at Ben Gurion University and is largely personally responsible for turning it into a monolithic anti-Israel propaganda agency in which not a single Zionist non-leftist teaches. He used to be a regular columnist for the Jerusalem Post, but was evidently not considered up to snuff by the editors. Newman has been a member of the board of editors at the pro-LSD anti-Israel "Tikkun Magazine," published by rabbi-impersonator Michael Lerner. He frequently writes columns for "Tikkun."

That does not stop Newman from attacking on the pages of the Jerusalem Post critics of seditious leftist anti-Israel propagandists pretending to be academics. Newman dismisses critics of anti-Israel critics as "McCarthyists," as people who should be stripped of their right to exercise THEIR freedom of speech, prevented from criticizing anti-Israel extremists. Newman specifically attacks Dr. Daniel Pipes of Campus-Watch.org, Prof. Gerald Steinberg of NGO-Monitor, and Israeli academic watchdog groups (such as isracampus.org.il), for the "crime" of exposing anti-Israel fanatics serving on Israeli campus faculties. In most cases, these watchdogs simply cite the malicious hate propaganda produced by these fanatics in their own words. But in the eyes of the neo-fascist McCarthyist Left, critics of the Left are not entitled to freedom of expression.

To Left, freedom of speech in David Newman's "correct leftist thinking only" department of political science at Ben Gurion University.
Or to sum up Newman's own McCarthyist notion of democracy, it is "freedom of speech for those who agree with me but none for anyone else."


Here is my letter to the editor of the Jerusalem Post concerning Newman's anti-democratic rant:

April 14, 09
Letters to the Editor
Jerusalem Post

David Newman of Ben Gurion University displays in "Bashing the Academic Left" (Post, April 14) a highly selective notion of democracy and freedom of speech. Newman favors the exercise of freedom of expression by those who practice anti-Israel sedition in the guise of academic work, but not for those who criticize such people. He demands freedom of speech for Israel's "academic" enemies, but not for critics of those critics. Those who dare to criticize anti-Israel and anti-Semitic "academic" propagandists, including watchdog agencies like Isracampus.org.il and NGO Monitor, are "McCarthyists," themselves not entitled to the right of freedom of expression in Newman's learned opinion. Never mind that universities all over the world are now cracking down on and firing pseudo-academics whose records consist entirely of extremist political propaganda.

Newman's letter is also notable in what he intentionally ignores. He forgets to mention that there is not a single non-leftist in Newman's own department (political science) at Ben Gurion University, nor that the one pro-Israel dissident who had been there was fired for incorrect thinking. While claiming disingenuously that only 2 or 3 Israeli "academics" support the boycott of Israel, he neglects to mention that his own department chairman, Neve Gordon, is one of many scores of such pro-boycott anti-Israel extremists on campus faculties in Israel. (Newman's frequent co-authors Uri Ram and Oren Yiftachel, both vicious haters of Israel, are also among those Ben Gurion University "academics" supporting boycotts and divestment against Israel.) Gordon, who was recruited by Newman and is his long-time sidekick, is on record as favoring Israel's annihilation and insists that Israel is a fascist apartheid terror regime. Gordon is currently a bash-Israel columnist for the Holocaust-Denying Tehran Times and for the pro-terror Aljazeera.com. Newman in fact supported Gordon's failed anti-democratic attempt to recruit the Israeli court to suppress freedom of speech for critics of the seditious far Left.

If academic hiring and promotion were as quality-based and ideologically neutral as Newman feigns in his letter, why are there so many pseudo-academics in the Israeli university system who have built entire "academic" careers on turning out anti-Israel hate propaganda and misrepresenting it as scholarship? Some of these sit in the very same department as Professor David Newman. Why are there entire university departments in Israel in which no Zionist may set foot?


Sincerely yours,
Prof. Steven Plaut
University of Haifa

Update: Campus Watch has issued a devastating rebuttal of Newman's rant here.
One of the groups smeared by Newman was the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. Now it turns out that David Newman's nasty outburst was caused by the refusal of SPME to sponsor a speaking tour by him as he was demanding?
For details, go here

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Ben Gurion University "Academic" Serving as Accomplice for Tehran Holocaust Deniers


What Ben Gurion University is teaching its students these days?

Neve Gordon is the anti-Semitic lecturer in political science, the democracy hater who suppresses freedom of speech of his students, who attempted to suppress my own freedom of speech when I pointed out that he is a groupie of Holocaust Denier Norman Finkelstein (and he failed), the pseudo-academic who built a career at Ben Gurion University mainly by turning out anti-Israel hate propaganda, the columnist for anti-Semitic media from the Neo-Nazi Counterpunch magazine to Aljazeera.com (for report – see this). Gordon's "academic record" strongly resembles that of his guru Norman Finkelstein. Gordon is so openly anti-Semitic that his materials are published by Neo-Nazi and Holocaust Denial web sites (see this).

That same Neve Gordon has a new job - bashing Israel as a columnist for the Tehran Times. Yes, Gordon is openly the accomplice of the Holocaust Denying mullahs of Iran threatening Israel with nuclear annihilation. See his latest exercising in anti-Semitism here.

The Tehran Times is an official organ of the Islamofascist regime in Iran, and it has published, alongside Neve Gordon's column, scores of articles and columns insisting that there never was any Nazi Holocaust of Jews in WWII, and that reports that there was - are all a Zionist fabrication.

Gordon now has the distinction of being one of the only people born Jewish on the planet openly collaborating with the Holocaust Deniers of Tehran (in good company with the Neturei Karta mentals). Gordon currently serves as the head of the department of political science at Ben Gurion University. The university's president, Prof. Rivka Carmi, has repeatedly endorsed and celebrated Gordon's anti-Israel hate propaganda as "serious and distinguished research into human rights."

To right, Rivka Carmi's distinguished human rights scholar Neve Gordon embracing a friend

Please take a few minutes and tell the heads of Ben Gurion University what you think of this:

Rivka Carmi, President
P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel,
rcarmi@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
and president@bgu.ac.il
Tel: 972-8-6461211/9
Fax: 972-8-6472991

Prof. Jimmy Weinblatt, Rector
P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva, 84105, Israel
rector@bgu.ac.il
Tel: 972-8-6461223
Fax: 972-8-6479434
Other officers listed here: http://cmsprod.bgu.ac.il/Eng/Units/management/
University "Friends of" Offices outside Israel are listed here: http://web.bgu.ac.il/Eng/Units/associates/WorldwideAssociatesOffices

Please also file a complaint with
Minister of Education
The Honorable Gideon Sa'ar
gsaar@knesset.gov.il
FAX 972-2-6753525
Minister of Education
Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports
Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem
Cc: Shalomit Amichai, Director General of the Ministry - mankal@education.gov.il
Additional Email: sar@education.gov.il
Tel 972-2-6408131

The Council for Higher Education in Israel
(governmental body that funds and supervises Israeli universities and colleges)
Prof. Shlomo Grossman
Planning & Budgeting Committee Chairman
Council for Higher Education
Email: grossms@mail.biu.ac.il
P.O.B. 4037, Jerusalem 91040, Israel
Tel: 02-5679911
Fax: 02-5679969
E-mail: info@che.org.il

Gordon by the way is a central figure in the efforts to get the world to boycott Israel.

The World according to Neve Gordon, as cited by Meretz USA, where he spoke:
'A more radical approach could be heard as well: Prof. Neve Gordon of Ben-Gurion University, told us that BDS ("Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions") was the only way that Israel could be prodded into accepting the kind of solution envisioned in the Geneva Initiative - two states, based on the 1967 borders, East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine and an agreed solution to the Palestinian refugee situation based on the Arab League peace initiative.
'Prof. Gordon suggested that, with the alternative to two states most likely being the development of full-blown apartheid, the BDS approach is a pro-Israeli effort - "to save Israel from itself". Most on the Israeli left, it should be noted, still reject this type of strategy.'

Full Meretz piece appears here.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Anti-Israel Totalitarian Indoctrination at Ben Gurion University



Current Events Quiz:

Count the number of pro-Israel articles or writers appear on Ben Gurion University anti-Zionist Oren Yiftachel's course syllabus for course entitled "ISRAEL/PALESTINE: THE POLITICS OF LAND AND IDENTITY" (note the discovery of a new country called Israel/Palestine)

Syllabus appears here


Correct answer: zero (aside from some writers about America and ethnicity in general under the first topic)

(If you check the photo carefully you will see the PLO flag on his lapel)

Ben Gurion University is often called the Bir Zeit (Palestinian college) of the Negev. Now you know why.