FFIPP-UK Newsletters and Past Events Newsletters Fear of the Other and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – a conference held in London 23-24 September 2006 Responding to Censorship: Freedom, speech and action – a workshop organized by FFIPP-UK and sponsored by the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, held on 14th May 2007 at Birkbeck College. Newsletters 19th [...]

Despite having a document from the Israeli Ministry of Interior and obtained a document stating that there was no legal basis to deny her entry into Israel, researcher Anne de Jong was arrested and deported at Ben Gurion airport. Her crime? She had been aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. Others who participated in the flotilla are also being banned…

The anti-liberal and anti-democratic agenda of the American right and the Israeli right are forging closer connections than ever, as Dr. Neve Gordon, a professor of politics at Ben-Gurion University, points out in the following article about threats to academic freedom in Israel…

Chaim Gans looks at how donors try to influence the political content of academic work in Israel…

Yossi Sarid, a former Education Minister in the Knesset, deplores the rise of Im Tirtzu and the softness of current Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar towards them; and the erosion of academic freedom generally…

Mathew Reisz, 2009 winner of the National Education Journalist of the Year award and a former editor of the Jewish Quarterly, draws together the threads of the attack on academic freedom in Israel.

Jeremiah Haber writes: “Faculty, like other employees, may be disciplined for being derelict in their duties. But it is a very big stretch to say that writing an op-ed, or signing a petition, makes one derelict… The real damage to Israeli universities when their faculty members of a given university endorse the academic boycott against Israel is not from the boycotters but from the angry Jewish donors, who threaten to terminate their gifts…”

500 academics, including two former education ministers, have signed a protest petition following recent comments by Israel’s education minister, Gideon Saar, that the government intends to take action against those who support the campaign for BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions). While the vast majority of the signatories do not support an academic boycott of Israel, they have joined forces over what they regard as the latest assault on freedom of expression in Israel…

In the past two years I have been invited to take part in many conferences hosted by the American Anthropological Association …[on] the Israeli-Palestinian conflict… Alas, I have no plans to accept similar invitations in the future. In the past year, I have lost the conviction that I can truthfully speak for the current Israeli government’s suicidal behavior…
Plus a Haaretx story on the same topic: “Education Minister defends decision to penalize Israel professors who back boycott”.

Prof Israel David, an industrial engineer who teaches operations research at Ben Gurion University, publicized internal departmental deliberations to smear a BGU job candidate who happens to be a peace activist. It appears that Dr Oron, a perfect candidate in professional terms, suffers from “personality problems” so the committee making the appointment asked one of the senior members of the department to take advantage of his summer sabbatical in the U.S. to speak to Oron and ask whether he’d be willing to restrain his political activism in order to better assimilate into the department…

Israel’s Education Minister Gideon Saar says he plans to examine in depth a report published by right-wing group ‘Im Tirtzu’ and presented to the Israeli Knesset, according to which Israeli academe is heavily influenced by ‘anti-Zionist and post-Zionist’ positions… Two headmasters summonsed to Knesset debate… Prof Neve Gordon receives death threat…

Alan Dershowitz was awarded an honorary doctorate by Tel-Aviv University. He took the opportunity to slander academics Matar and Giora on the staff there who support an academic boycott of being against academic freedom and imposing their opinion on students. Many, including liberal Zionists were appalled [...]

28 April 2010: Ten Israel Prize laureates and more than 50 academics and intellectuals wrote to the Israeli Defense Minister today asking him to cancel the sweeping ban Israel has imposed, since 2000, on Palestinian students from Gaza studying in the West Bank…

The Hebrew University in Jerusalem has forbidden its Hadash student branch from holding a conference marking one year since the Gaza offensive launched, saying it constitutes ‘incitement against Israel’ [...]
Latest: 29 December, Haifa university joins in!

Rather than address human rights organizations’ criticisms of the policies of the IDF and the Israeli government, NGO Monitor’s reports – like the Knesset conference – attempt to silence the critics through the systematic de-legitimization of their members and sources of funding. [...]

At the centre of the dispute is Michael Gross, a prominent member of Britain’s Jewish community, a long-time donor to Ben-Gurion University (BGU) and a member of its international board of governors.
After seeing the Dispatches programme last month, Gross emailed Professor David Newman – a British-born lecturer who has emigrated to Israel – and wrote: “I saw your disgusting contribution to the Dispatches programme. I will use whatever influence I have at BGU to have you thrown out… I hope you perish.” [...]

Thousands of Palestinians, whose registered address is in Gaza, live in hiding in the West Bank, and the unlucky ones are caught and removed to Gaza. “According to Israel, even if a student from Gaza poses no security risk and seeks to cross to the West Bank for the sole purpose of studying, once in the West Bank, that individual may in theory decide at any moment to engage in terrorist acts – and therefore, he or she should not be permitted to study…”

Despite the fact that the State did not produce the requested documents, Israel’s High Court of Justice accepted the State’s refusal to allow Berlanty to complete her degree. Her crime – the address on her identity card is in Gaza…

As military lawyer gives false promise, Bethlehem University Student is Blindfolded, Handcuffed, and Taken to Gaza by Force Sign the petition of protest to No 10 Downing St Berlanty Azzam, 21, was arrested yesterday while crossing from one part of the West Bank to another – just because her address in the Israeli-controlled Population Registry [...]

Israeli academics are being watched. Vigilantes check what they say or write – and, if they are judged “anti-Israel,” incite donors to the universities and colleges where they teach to act against them. Students are encouraged to spy on their teachers and to report what they say. [...]