Last day of my holiday :-(
posted by Imshin 07:43

That AUT thing again
I’m continuing to turn over Stephen Howe’s article in my head. It seems to me that he is victim to that failing common to specialists, whether they are plumbers or nuclear physicists -- yes, he has “read many hundreds of articles, interviews and documents relating to the controversy;” and he has “talked in detail to many of those most closely involved at Haifa”; he has “even written a little about it” himself, but still, or maybe because of this, he is quite unable to see the wood for the trees.

NEW YORK, April 28 (AScribe Newswire) -- ”The Committee on Human Rights of Scientists of the New York Academy of Sciences has released the text of a letter to the Association of University Teachers (AUT) of the United Kingdom calling upon the organization to "rescind and withdraw its call for a boycott of Israeli universities, passed by AUT delegates on April 20, 2005."”

An excerpt of the letter:

We call attention to the "Commentary" in Nature (vol. 421, 23 January 2003) by four prominent UK academics: Colin Blakemore, Richard Dawkins, Denis Noble and Michael Yudkin entitled "Is a scientific boycott ever justified?" This commentary reaffirmed the importance of the UNESCO-ICSU protocols in the most emphatic manner. It points out, that short of preventing (sic) a nuclear war, even extreme circumstances do not support boycotts.

More specifically, Efraim Karsh puts the affair in perspective beautifully. (HT: Roger Simon)

Saad al-Din Ibrahim is one of Egypt's foremost sociologists and founder of the respected Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies at the American University of Cairo. He is also an outspoken pro-democracy activist ... Professor Ibrahim was peremptorily sentenced to seven years of hard labor and his center was shut down and ransacked. He was released three years later as a result of heavy American pressure.

Professor Hashem Aghajari is a prominent Iranian historian and political dissident. In 2002 he was convicted of blasphemy and sentenced to death for stating that people should not blindly follow the teaching of religious leaders...

As a longstanding member of the British Association for University Teachers (AUT), I cannot recall a single motion to boycott Egypt or Iran for these appalling human rights violations. Nor, for that matter, do I recall the AUT lifting a finger to ease the abysmal denial of academic freedoms and human rights in the Middle East, where repressive leaders supersede state institutions, where citizenship is largely synonymous with submission, and where physical force constitutes the main instrument of political discourse.

Need we say more?

Update: Yes, we need

To: Sally Hunt,
General Secretary, The Association of University Teachers
United Kingdom

Dear Sally Hunt,

Regarding the AUT recent decision to boycott Haifa University and Bar Ilan University in Israel, I am shocked to learn that, in addition to a call for boycott, the AUT is ready to offer a waiver to scholars on condition that they publicly state their willingness to conform to the political orthodoxy espoused by the academics who sponsored your motion.

Oaths of political loyalty do not belong to academia. They belong to illiberal minds and repressive regimes.

Based on this, the AUT's definition of academic freedom is the freedom to agree with its views only. Given the circumstances, I wish to express in no uncertain terms my unconditional and undivided solidarity with both universities and their faculties. I know many people, both at Haifa University and at Bar Ilan University, of different political persuasion and from different walks of life. The diversity of those faculties reflects the authentic spirit of academia. The AUT invitation to boycott them betrays that spirit because it advocates a uniformity of views, under pain of boycott.

In solidarity with my colleagues and as a symbolic gesture to defend the spirit of a free academia, I wish to be added to the boycott blacklist. Please include me. I hope that other colleagues of all political persuasions will join me.

Sincerely,

Dr Emanuele Ottolenghi
The Middle East Centre
St Antony's College
Oxford University

posted by Imshin 07:07

Howard Jacobson, who appears to be a regular contributor to the left wing UK publication, the Independent, if it’s the same guy, has written a very powerful piece about anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Via Harry’s Place.
posted by Imshin 11:23

posted by Imshin 15:07

Here is the full statement of Haifa University. I gave a few excerpts of this yesterday.

And here, if you are feeling openminded, is an interesting article about the AUT affair. Its author, Stephen Howe, claims to be impartial. I wouldn't know about that because I don't know who he is or what his connection to the affair is, although I suspect he is not nearly as impartial as he claims.

For instance, I fail to see the relevance of the details he gives about the percentage of Arabs and Druze in Israeli universities and among university teaching staff compared to their percentage in the general population to his discussion on the boycott (And if he brings it up, why are only Arabs worthy of a mention in this respect? Why not Ethiopian Jews? Why not women? Why not the descendants of Jews from Arab countries living in development towns in the South of the country? Are they not under-represented in Israeli universities?). He does point out that Haifa University does actually have a more than fair representation of Arabs on its student body, and in some faculties their percentage is even higher than in the general population.

I also fail to see the relevance to the discussion of the mention of Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin Yigal Amir having attended Bar Ilan University, other than as a snide underhanded attack on that university.

Howe supplies intricate details of the Ilan Pappe/Teddy Katz affair which are worth reading, albeit with a very critical eye. Although he doesn't say so, reading between the lines it looks like one of his sources of information is Katz’s MA thesis supervisor, who apparently was not Ilan Pappe after all, but Druze historian Kais Firro.

His description of the highly publicized Teddy Katz libel court case is short and low on detail, and again he links only to a questionable Palestinian information source. He cites the reason for Teddy Katz's signed apology in court for libeling Alexandroni soldiers in his MA thesis (by claiming they had committed a massacre in 1948) being Katz's poor health and the pressure he was apparently under from family and friends. I fail to see the relevance of this, although it is a popular explanation on pro-Palestinian websites. To even things out, he also cites the claim of political pressure as the reason for Katz’s subsequent retraction of the apology, which was not accepted by the court.

I refer again to Haifa University's official statement, this time on the Teddy Katz affair:

After a thorough examination, the committee members concluded that, in fact, the quotes in the written text did not match the taped comments of the interviews and that the text was grossly distorted. Therefore, they disqualified this MA thesis. This decision, it is important to note, matched a court decision given on the same matter.

Howe doesn’t deny any of this but the way he writes it is somehow misleading in my opinion. He plays it down. He takes great care, however, to minutely detail the treatment given to the amended version of the thesis, submitted in 2002, the grading process it received, and the politics of the graders.

Howe’s bottom line is this:

I have read many hundreds of articles, interviews and documents relating to the controversy; I have talked in detail to many of those most closely involved at Haifa; I have even written a little about it myself. Even now, I don’t feel I know for sure what happened – either at Tantura in 1948 or at Haifa University in 2000-2005. How can the members of the Association of University Teachers after just a few minutes’ hasty and apparently one-sided debate, seem so confident that they do know?

Alan Dershowitz puts it best:

It's a good thing Israel has only to make peace with its Palestinian neighbors and not European university professors.

posted by Imshin 08:04

I am enjoying the reactions to this decision by an organization of British lecturers to boycott two Israeli universities. The affair has created a lot of interesting reading material, much of it by people as much opposed to Israel’s policies as they are to the decision to boycott Israeli universities. I’m hoping that this is a good sign because it means is that there are still a few of intelligent, learned people in Britain who do not think Israel is an illegitimate state. I’m hoping it means that they really are interested in peace in this country, and not in smashing the Jewish state, unlike the people responsible for promoting the boycott seem to be. Perhaps one or two of the people who voted in favor of the boycott, without bothering to check the facts, are starting to feel like real idiots by now. Well, perhaps not.

Douglas Davis is amusing as always:

Pay attention, British professors. If you support the boycott of Israel proposed by some of your fellow academics -- and if you are to remain intellectually honest -- prepare for a radical lifestyle change. Firstly, unplug your computers. Good. Now switch off your interactive digital television sets. Well done. And now throw away your mobile phones. Excellent.

You see, Professors, these machines are not only the engine of the globalized, capitalist world but they also depend on technologies that have been produced by Israeli academics in the Zionist entity.

Also, I'm afraid you may not use the British Library because it has been computerized by Ex Libris, a Zionist company that was spawned by the odious Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

And if, God forbid, you develop problems of the small intestine, you may not pop the Zionist-invented "video capsule," which passes naturally through your body as it monitors this delicate piece of your anatomy.

Etc.

Jpost offered some reactions by Haifa University among others:

"In lieu of evidence to support the singling out of Israeli academia, the authors of this campaign have chosen to adopt a three-year-old urban legend," the University of Haifa said in a statement. "We are astounded by the fact that the AUT never requested our response prior to adopting their resolution, and did not allow our position to be presented by members of the AUT who are familiar with the facts.

The case against Israeli academia, in general, and the University of Haifa in particular, is devoid of empirical evidence and violates the principle of due process. Driven by a prior and prejudicial assumption of guilt, the AUT has refused to confuse itself with facts."

And University of Haifa president Aaron Ben-Ze'ev also had something to say:

"I think that a person who calls to boycott his university should join the boycott and resign immediately from the university," Ben-Ze'ev said. "It is difficult to describe a greater moral injury to academic freedom than the behavior of someone who has been bullying his colleagues and calling to boycott them. It is bizarre that he has chosen to attack the very same university that has exercised such a policy of tolerance towards him."

During the past few years, according to members of the university's faculty and administration, the only measure taken against Pappe was a complaint lodged with the internal faculty disciplinary committee, which focused on Pappe's unethical behavior towards his peers and his efforts to disbar them from international forums for contradicting his views. Contrary to Pappe's claim, the university said it had made no attempt to expel him.

There’s more:

"I learned how to write history, including Middle Eastern history, from the British," Prof. Amatzia Baram, a University of Haifa faculty member in the department of Middle Eastern studies, told the Post on Monday. "They have first-class scholars. For them to vote on a matter like this without bothering to invite a single university representative, without checking the facts and listening to both sides before making up their minds – is the worst infringement of intellectual and academic integrity. I find it difficult to express in words the degree of my disappointment." Baram also wondered about The Guardian's decision to publish Pappe's letter, which contains factually false accusations, without checking them in advance.

Baram recalled how, in 2002, he received a letter from a prominent British scholar who turned to him to intervene against Pappe's expulsion from the university.

"I told him that no expulsion had ever been contemplated," Baram said. "Ilan had simply lied to him – nor was there any international campaign in his support, as he claimed there was in his letter to The Guardian."

Prof. Benny Morris, Israel's most prominent "new historian" (a historical movement questioning early Zionist narratives), also told the Post he found Pappe's call to boycott his own university "immoral." "If he doesn't want to be paid by a university subsidized by the state he is hostile to, he should resign and find another place to teach," Morris said.

In a review of Pappe's latest book, which was published in The New Republic last year, Morris pointed to a series of false statements it contained, ranging from basic facts and wrong dates based on careless research, to politically slanted mistakes meant to prove how evil Israelis are.

"It is a totally distorted book, it's badly written history," he said. "His entire campaign is illogical and immoral. He presents himself as a politically persecuted scholar, yet his contribution to Israel's 'new historiography' is pretty marginal."

Thank you to Harry for some of the links.

By the way, I was going to link to what I thought at first was a good editorial in Haaretz on the issue, until I got to the obligatory ‘However’ opening the last paragraph. They just couldn't help it.
posted by Imshin 16:05

Old monkey mind, new monkey mind
Have I told you I’ve rejoined my meditation group? I came back from my weekend knowing for sure that if I want the feeling of wellbeing to remain with me I was going to have to keep at it. I find it difficult to meditate on a daily basis but once a week can also do me good.

So I managed to weasel out of a Bar Mitzva celebration one Tuesday and a ‘brita’ (celebration of the birth of a baby girl) the next, and I’ve asked the other participants of my art class, and the teacher, to move it permanently to another day. From now on, Tuesday evenings will be spent on my cushion on the floor, watching my breath.

Tonight the meeting is in Kfar Saba, a bit of a schlep, but I don’t want to miss it.

It’s a strange experience going back. I was a founding member of the group in 1998 and was very active for a time. Now there are a lot of new participants who aren’t really new -- they’re just new for me. And it’s all the same but very different. I know it is me that has changed.

The woman who is having the meeting at her apartment asked if I would like to facilitate. I thought this was a bit strange. I’m a newcomer, I said. And she said I wasn’t. But one is always a newcomer to meditation, I think, every time one sits down it is for the first time. Maybe that is why I stopped. It got stale because I was grasping at it.

I'll just make some matza brei before I leave.
posted by Imshin 18:40

It could have been me.
It could have been me keeping my Star of David hidden under my blouse, lying about why I couldn’t work on Seder Night, telling people I was going for a holiday to America when really I was going to visit my family in Israel. And if it had been me, I too, like them, wouldn’t even know I was doing it. I too would not be able to see that anything was wrong.
posted by Imshin 17:34

It's so nice being on holiday. I spent the morning strolling around the old Neve Tzedek neighborhood of Tel Aviv with a friend. It's so lovely there. Next time we want to do a guided tour. They have them all the time, but you have to book in advance.

Then we had a light lunch in a restaurant, under a tree.
posted by Imshin 15:52

The ultimate ‘Hevr’e-man’.
Ezer Weizman has died. The morning newspaper is full of eulogies, I leafed through them as I ate my bowl of matza and agristada, but I didn’t really feel like reading any of them.

Mum knew Ezer Weizman. She met him when she was giving some talks about Israel in England. He was guest speaker or something. I think it was shortly after we had moved to Israel. I was only small but I remember she found him very charming. She told him which school we kids were going to in Haifa and he recounted the tale of how he was expelled from that very same school when he was a lad. He was like that. He knew everyone, and everyone felt comfortable with him.

I think they kept up some sort of contact and, as former chief of the air force, he gave her advice when Our Sis was having a hard time in the army. Then he became a minister in Menahem Begin’s government and Mum didn’t like to keep in contact, she was too modest to feel comfortable. (How do you say ‘lo haya la na’im’ in English? Somehow it doesn’t sound the same).

He was dughri, was Ezer, straight-talking. He always spoke his mind, even when it got him into hot water, and it often did, especially when he was president. The archetype of the Israeli Sabra, he had that quality some people have -- you couldn’t dislike him, even right after he had just made the most outrageous comment. And now he’s gone, but he will continue to be part of Israel’s collective psyche.
posted by Imshin 12:12

There are two guys I see on a regular basis whom I assume are street dwellers but I can’t be sure. For a long time I thought they were the same person. Both are in their mid-thirties, I think, bearded, blue-eyed and always dressed similarly, with a sort of nerdy tidiness, only shabby and sad. They don’t smell bad, neither of lack of washing nor of drink. It crossed my mind recently that both are very good looking, but I doubt very much if women would find them attractive.

The reason I mix them up, I think, is because of something they transmit, or don’t transmit, something about the way they interact with the world. You can never catch their eye. They walk on the inner side of the sidewalk. They look down. I get the feeling that they don’t want people to notice them, that they are trying to be invisible.

On Seder Night, after the meal was over, I went round taking orders for coffee and tea. For some reason, everyone found it amusing that I wrote it all, like a waiter (okay, okay, I do know I’m not supposed to be writing on hag), so I wouldn’t forget who wanted what. Later when I brought Our Sis her tea before everyone else she said I shouldn’t bring hers first – FHB (Family Hold Back). But everyone in the room was family, close family, all nineteen of us (We were only nineteen in the end because our soldier had to stay on the base and our chef had to work – he is employed by one of the major Tel Aviv hotels).

And now I’m wondering where the two bearded men with the blue eyes spent Seder Night, and if they were surrounded by family, and if anyone asked them how many sugars they would like in their lemon tea.

Maybe this is why there is a tradition to invite a stranger to share the Seder. There is so much warmth and family feeling, not to mention food, it is only right to share it all with those who don’t have any of their own.

(Cross posted on Israelity)
posted by Imshin 10:31

Our living room is currently a bit like a wild life film on the Discovery channel. Billy is gorgeous – tiny, skinny and lovable (by the way, it isn’t so much that Bish’s arm is so hairy, more that Billy is really really teeny). I’m so glad we took her in, poor little mite.

Shoosha has got over her shock at the entrance of a new feline scent into her territory. She also seems to have got over most of her jealousy. Now she is mainly left with her curiosity. It is fascinating to watch the first interactions between the two.

Billy rushes over to say hello when Shoosha regally enters the room, then stops dead as she realizes that Shoosha is not going to gush all over her like we do (regents don’t gush, you little squirt). Shoosha moves away. Billy starts feeling threatened and edges back carefully. And then the amazing thing happens – Shoosha starts following her, the famous Shooshy inquisitive look on her face. She follows her all around the room. Billy hides under a table and then under another table and then behind the couch. Finally she gets tired, climbs up onto the couch, and crawls into a blanket and goes to sleep.

Bish and I have become quite the zoologists, pretending we’re part of the furniture so as not to upset the balance.

Talking about zoology, this British academic boycott is also an interesting phenomenon. I must say their timing is particularly intriguing, not to mention their choice of institutes to boycott.

Karen Alkalay-Gut has some interesting observations on this issue, as always (second post on 24th April).
posted by Imshin 19:06

Pesach chores are over! Now I can start enjoying myself. But actually, the Seder was great fun. The reason I like having it at our place is because then we can invite both sides – my family and Bish’s. And they all get on great. Who would believe it?

This year I finally remembered to invite my cousin from the north and her family enough time in advance (in previous years I left it so late I was eventually too embarrassed to call her), and the best thing was having my aunt, Dad’s sister, who was over from England.

I don’t know how we always manage to have so much food. When it’s still in list form, it seems like there isn’t going to be enough. I made an extra zucchini pie, just in case, and I had contingency plans – extra stuff stashed in the freezer – for a starvation disaster. Even when everyone had arrived, and the food was all set out on the kitchen table (I remembered to clear space on the table this year – I’m getting better at this), it seemed like it couldn’t possibly feed everyone. It was only when it was all finally on the table and people were digging in that we realized, yet again, that there was an obscene amount.

The good thing is that there is plenty left over. I’m not going to have to do any cooking all week, which is a waste really, seeing as I’m home anyway.

I’m home anyway. Wow, I’m finding it hard to get used to that. This is the first Pesach I’ll be home all week for fifteen years, besides when I had Youngest, of course, and that doesn’t really count, because I spent most of hol hamoe’d (the ‘weekdays’ of Pesach, which are regarded as a sort of half holiday) in the maternity hospital worrying about matza-(unleavened bread)-induced constipation (as if childbirth-induced constipation wasn’t enough).

We always worked half days in Pesach so it was a waste to take time off. I’d have had to pay for a full day off, although if I worked I would only be working till twelve thirty every day, so it wasn’t worth it. This year they’ve sent us all home to save money and we only have to pay two and a half days of leave for the four work days we’ll be off. With Hag days, Shabbats and Fridays I’ll be home for a full nine days!

The only thing wrong with last night’s Seder is that we didn’t manage to get things back on track after the meal. I love the songs, and R.T., Our Sis and I always have a royal time with the food blessing and the songs. R.T. is hilarious after a glass of wine or two, or four, but it just didn’t happen this year. The kids got their afikoman pressies and that was that. Never mind. Next year.
posted by Imshin 09:43

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