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The academic left at work
I found this article eriely similar to reports on Leftist academics at UCAL. EFL
"How could you report the war in Iraq if you sided with the Americans?"

"How can you say that George Bush is better than Saddam Hussein?"

These are some of the milder questions I received from an audience of some 150 undergraduate students from Tel Aviv University’s Political Science Department. The occasion was a guest lecture I gave last month on my experiences as an embedded reporter with the US Army’s 3rd Infantry Division during the Iraq war.

Many of the students were visibly jolted by my assertion that the patriotism of American soldiers was inspirational. The vocal ones among them were appalled when I argued that journalists must be able to make moral distinctions between good and evil, when such distinctions exist, if they wish to provide their readership with an accurate picture of the events they describe in their reports.

"Who are you to make moral judgments? What you say is good may well be bad for someone else."

"I am a sane human being capable of distinguishing good from evil, just like every other sane human being," I answered. "As criminal law states, you are criminally insane if you can’t distinguish between good and evil. Unless you are crazy, you should be able to tell the difference."

When the show was over, and the students began shuffling out of the lecture hall, a young woman approached me.

"Excuse me," she said with a heavy Russian accent.
"How can you say that democracy is better than dictatorial rule?"

"Because it is better to be free than to be a slave," I answered.

Undeterred, she pressed on, "How can you support America when the US is a totalitarian state?"
"Did you learn that in Russia?" I asked.
"No, here," she said.

"Here at Tel Aviv University?"
"Yes, that is what my professors say," she said.
In the weeks that have passed since I gave that lecture, I have not been able to get those students out of my mind.

The student discovered that not only were the professors overwhelmingly self-identified with far left and Arab political parties, most also expressed absolute intolerance for the notion that professors with right-wing or even centrist views should be allowed to teach in their departments. "Over my dead body," said one.

Students speak of a regime of fear and intimidation in the classroom. Ofra Gracier, a doctoral student in Tel-Aviv University’s humanities faculty explains the process as follows:

"It starts with the course syllabus. In a class on introduction to political theory for instance, you will never see the likes of Leo Strauss or Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman. You will only get Marx and Rousseau and people like that. So, if you want to argue with Marx, you are on your own. You don’t know anything else.

"But say you want to dispute your professor. I was taught this class by Yoav Peled, an avowed communist. He was explaining why capitalism is evil. I mentioned the Asian economic miracle – South Korea, Japan, Singapore.

He went nuts and spent the rest of the class screaming at me.

"there is a dire lack of scholarship in certain areas. For instance, if you want to research the issue of Palestinian policies of land discrimination against Jews, you have to go to primary sources.

No one has written a book about it even though it is a huge issue. But if you want to research the question of alleged Jewish land discrimination against Arabs, you have a bookshelf full of books at your disposal."

Indeed, Dr. Martin Sherman of Tel-Aviv University’s Political Science Department was unable to get the university’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies to publish his original work on the hydro-strategic impact of a Palestinian state on Israel. Sherman, with degrees in physics and geology and practical experience as a water adviser in the Ministry of Agriculture, is a recognized expert in the field.

"My paper showed conclusively that the establishment of such a state would involve the transfer of control over 60 percent–70 percent of Israel’s water sources to the Palestinians. They wouldn’t have it. I was strung along by Shai Feldman [the head of the Jaffee Center] for months and months, until it was finally made clear that it wouldn’t be published."
Time for clean out these morons, whether its in Israel, Berkely, or Oxford. Get rid of them all. They are poisonous scum. My brother spent years getting his doctorate at Berkely and I have been there many times. The detachment from the real world of these people is shocking. I’m hoping Arnie does the business in Cal and shows the way for everyone else.
Posted by: phil_b 2003-12-27
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=23409