“The answer is pretty clear: it is a blunt move meant to intimidate free and critically thinking independent minds.”
A new draft bill that would limit academic speech in Israel is being backed by the country’s education minister and the national union of students, according to media reports.
The Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported that the legislation “would allow the Council for Higher Education in Israel … to order an institution to fire a member of the teaching staff for political remarks.” The Council, chaired by the education minister, supervises all colleges and universities.
Uri Sivan, the president of the prestigious Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, is quoted by The Guardian as saying the law was “McCarthyite”.“
“It is a form of McCarthyism, a very violent form,” he said, “because it is meant to threaten people not to express their mind, in a system that should be free of any intimidation, encouraging free speech, encouraging criticism.”
Existing Laws
The report said the student union “lobbied for the law, including spending 500,000 shekels (more than $136,000) on a billboard campaign to promote it nationwide.”
Sivan questioned by academia was being “singled out” with the law, as Israel “already had laws against incitement to terror.”
“The answer is pretty clear: it is a blunt move meant to intimidate free and critically thinking independent minds,” he stressed.
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He felt it was an attempt to “subject academics to stricter rules than other residents of Israel, where a violation of state laws is not judged in court but rather by a government-appointed administrator, with no process or opportunity for the accused one to defend him or herself.”
“This is an extreme violation of fundamental democratic principles,” Sivan added.
Yoav Kisch, Israel’s education minister, said that although it was not a government initiative, he backed the law.
“It is important that academic institutions have great independence, but there are places that cross a line that must not be crossed,” he said, according to The Guardian.
‘Incitement to Terrorism’
Ofir Katz, a member of the governing Likud party and chair of the ruling coalition, presented the draft as a private bill, which has now passed the first of four Knesset votes, said the paper.
Asked whether existing laws against incitement fell short, Katza reportedly said it “needed additional controls on discourse by people with ‘public platforms’, and denied that the law would limit academic debate.”
He said “The criminal aspect is a separate matter,” adding that “The freedom to express oneself is not the freedom for incitement to terrorism.”
Yair Lapid, the leader of the opposition, reportedly criticized the law, saying “You’re allowing governing politicians to decide what is in favour of Israel and what is against it, what is permissible to say and what is forbidden.”
Late last year, an Israeli high school teacher was fired from his teaching post, allegedly for a series of Facebook posts highlighting the killings of Palestinians in Gaza due to Israel’s military assault on the enclave. The teacher was subsequently detained and placed in solitary confinement for four days.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
Netanyahu is Hitler, Gvir is Mussolini.
The US leads the way with McCarthyite censure of anti-Israel and anti-Zionism discourse, and protects Palestinian racism. Or, was “Israel” ahead? Or are they one?