Oren Yiftachel has just sent me this letter to circulate:

NATIONALIST ATTACK ON ACADEMIC FREDOM IN ISRAEL:  A THREAT TO CLOSE THE POLITICS DEPARTMENT, BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY

Your assistance is needed!

As some of you may have heard, the Israeli Council of Higher Education (CHE known also in Hebrew as MALAG) is on the verge of ordering the closure of the Politics and Government Department at Ben-Gurion University (BGU), Beersheba, Israel.

An important CHE meeting on this matter will take place on October 23^rd. Hence, the many friends of the department, and of academic freedom and critical thought, feel that international pressure may save this very important department.  We are asking you to write and lobby on this matter, as detailed below.

Background: The Politics Dept. at BGU was founded some 12 years ago, and became home to some of the most progressive researchers, several of them dealing with space, planning and human rights.

During the last five years it became the subject of concerted attacks by nationalist organizations (led mainly by west bank settlers), such as “Im Tirtzu” and “Institute for Zionist Strategy” which began a public campaign of incitement and hatred, supported by large donations by the American Jewish and Christian Fundamentalist Right.   We have firm evidence for all this.

Two years ago the Israeli CHE, now under the rightwing minister of education Gidon Sa’ar, appointed an international evaluation committee for the department. The committee was stacked with conservatives and recommended a range of changes to make the department more mainstream, and improve its ‘political balance’.

As an aside let us remind you that many academic departments in Israel are homogenous, usually on the Zionist-conservatist side. But no official body raises with them the issue of ‘balance’. They are safe under the current hegemony.

Regarding the review process –  the Politics Department at BGU has actually implemented the committee recommendation, and received a good ‘bill of health’ from the international committee. Reacting to this, the Israeli Minister of Education recently decided to appoint another evaluation committee, who recommended to close the department!

Notably, this department is academically very solid, and leads all equivalent Israeli departments in publications, impact factors, student registration and grants.

Any thinking person can clearly see that the intervention is blatantly political. The government and its satellite nationalist organizations have made this department a test case in their quest to silence critical academics.  To this end, we should do all we can to save this department, and with it critical and free research, particularly as regards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Against the worrying scenario of a Mccarthyist purge, we would like to ask for your help. Israeli officials and professors are sensitive to their international image. Hence we ask you to express grave concern about the possible closure of the department. A particularly effective way may be writing directly to the members of the CHE listed below.  Most of them are professors and may be swayed by Israel’s international reputation and by the need to protect academic freedom.

Of course, you may also write to journalist, blogs, petitions, electronic media, to your politicians, your governments and to heads of Israeli universities with a clear message – closing an academic department through blatant political intervention will gravely stain Israel’s standing in the a academy, and hinder future contact and status with academics worldwide!

We appreciate your help very much!

Prof. Oren Yiftachel, on behalf of friends of the Politics and Government Department, Ben-Gurion University.

Members of the Israeli Council of Higher Education

MK Minister Gideon Sa’ar, gsaar@knesset.gov.il

Prof. Jacob Vaya, Tel-Hai College vaya@migal.org.il

Dr. Rivka Wadmani Schauman, Kibbutz Teachers college, Rivka_wad@smkb.ac.il

Prof. Rosa Azhari, Ort Braude College, razhari@braude.ac.il

Prof. Fadia Nasser, Tel-Aviv University, fadia@post.tau.ac.il

Prof. Haim Sandberg, Management College sahaim@colman.ac.il

Prof. Yonina Eldar, Technion Haifa, yonina@ee.technion.ac.il

Prof. Ezri Tarazi, Bezalel Design School, office@tarazistudio.com

Mr. Haim Bibas,Mayor of Modiin, Haim-bibas@modiin.muni.il

Prof. Manuel Trajtenberg, Tel-Aviv University, manuel@post.tau.ac.il, LishcaSec@che.org.il

Prof. Ella Belfar, Ber-Ilan University, ella.belfer@biu.ac.il

Prof. Ora Limor, Open University, orali@openu.ac.il

Prof. Leah Boehm, Israel Aerospace Industries, lboehm@iai.co.il

Prof. Moshe Maor, Hebrew University, msmaor@huji.ac.il

Prof. Rachel Ben-Eliyahu-Zohary, Jerusalem College of Engineering, rbz@jce.ac.il

Prof. Zilla Sinuany, Ben-Gurion University, zilla@bgu.ac.il

Prof. Orzion Bartana, Ariel University Center, obartana@netvision.net.il

Prof. Fuad Fares,Haifa Univesity, ffares@sci.haifa.ac.il

Ms. Pnina Felago, Tel-Aviv Hillel Center, Gadaypninag@hillelisrael.org.il

Mr. Uri Kedar, Student Association, Ben-Gurion University, keidar.uri@gmail.com

Prof. Shmuel Hauser, Academic College Kiryat Ono, shmuelh@isa.gov.il

Prof. Chaya Kalcheim, Hebrew University, kalcheim@cc.huji.ac.il

Dr. Ofir Haivri, Shalem Center, ofirh@shalem.org.il

Dr. Shimshon Shoshani, Past director of education ministry, shoshaniys@gmail.com

Mr. Itzik Shmuli, Head of Israeli student association, itzik.shmuli@facebook.com , office@nuis.co.il

Head of the international Evaluation Committee –  Prof. Thomas Risse, thomas.risse@fu-berlin.de

Update: if you want to write to the committee, as I have just done, then copy and paste following text into your email program. It took me a while to delete the non-address parts, so others might as well benefit from that:

gsaar@knesset.gov.il; vaya@migal.org.il; Rivka_wad@smkb.ac.il; razhari@braude.ac.il; fadia@post.tau.ac.il; sahaim@colman.ac.il; yonina@ee.technion.ac.il; office@tarazistudio.com; Haim-bibas@modiin.muni.il; manuel@post.tau.ac.il;; LishcaSec@che.org.il; ella.belfer@biu.ac.il; orali@openu.ac.il; lboehm@iai.co.il; msmaor@huji.ac.il; rbz@jce.ac.il; zilla@bgu.ac.il; obartana@netvision.net.il; ffares@sci.haifa.ac.il; pninag@hillelisrael.org.il; keidar.uri@gmail.com; shmuelh@isa.gov.il; kalcheim@cc.huji.ac.il; ofirh@shalem.org.il; shoshaniys@gmail.com; itzik.shmuli@facebook.com; office@nuis.co.il; thomas.risse@fu-berlin.de