An abridged version of a longer article about the cover-up scandal at the Hebrew University, with relation to the “Abstaining From Rape of Arabs is Jewish Racism” thesis, came out this evening at the NY Jewish Press under the title Guilty By Reason Of Innocence: New Insanity From Israel’s Academic Leftists By: Steven Plaut and can be read there.

Below is the longer FULL version of the article, which has not yet been published in full length form, but is presented here.

SCOPUSGATE

By Steven Plaut

It began as just another exercise in political academic wackiness at the Hebrew University.

A graduate student claimed that the absence of any history of rapes of Arab women by Israeli Jewish soldiers proves that the Jews are racists and oppressors, people who do not even regard Arab women as sexually desirable. Such silliness is commonplace these days in academia, and ordinarily no one would have taken much notice. But the student at the Mount Scopus campus and her “research” were then awarded a university honor for her impressive “discoveries.” That drew media attention.

The matter has now become the worst recent scandal in Israeli academia because of the attempt by the heads of the Hebrew University to cover it up, in a manner a bit reminiscent of the worst days of Watergate. Maybe it should be dubbed Scopusgate. The scandal now rivals the “Toaff Affair” in Israel last year, in which a now-retired professor at Bar-Ilan University published “research” in which he claimed that medieval Jews used gentile blood for ceremonial purposes.

The very highest officials of the Hebrew University are themselves now implicated in a dishonest cover-up! The President of the Hebrew University, Professor Menachem Magidor, and the Rector Prof. Haim D. Rabinowitch jointly issued a deliberately false “spin” announcement regarding the MA thesis of the student, claiming that the media had incorrectly described what was in it. Instead of repudiating the student and her “academic advisors,” Magidor and Rabinowitch closed ranks with them and insisted that Nitzan’s “research” represents serious scholarship. The Nitzan Affair simply shows how completely devoid of serious academic standards and quality controls parts of Israeli academia are today.

Hebrew University apologists tried to defuse the cries of outrage over the “research” by claiming that reports about it were all part of some sort of vast right-wing conspiracy. The first two media reports appeared on web sites, one Hebrew and one English, both associated with those on the Israeli Right. The apologists suggested that these were misrepresenting the thesis for political reasons. Then Magidor and Rabinovitch proclaimed that reading the entire thesis would show that it is a serious piece of scholarship. They obviously did not read it.

Well, I have now read the entire thesis (in Hebrew). [You can also, if you read Hebrew] It is not a serious piece of research. It is a disgrace and an embarrassment for all of Israeli academia. The descriptions of it on the two “rightwing” web sites were entirely accurate, and the heads of the Hebrew University simply lied about its contents, in a pathetic attempt at cover-up. While University apologists dismissed complaints about the thesis as tendentious misrepresentation of it by a vast rightwing conspiracy, the rallying in defense of the thesis by the Hebrew University administration and some professors looks a whole lot like a leftwing conspiracy to cover up.
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As you know, Ehud Barak, the “most decorated Israeli general”, who dropped 4000 katyusha rockets on northern Israel last summer when he ordered Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, is again running for Prime Minister as the head of the Israeli Labor Party.

Barak is desperately looking for a new campaign jingle. Being a helpful bloke – I thought I would help him out.

To understand it, you need to recall Barak’s declaration in 1998 that if he had been born an Arab he may well have become a terrorist. If you think I invented that citation, check it out at this June 25, 2003 transcript of CNN Live From The Headlines.

ZAHN: I wanted to share with our audience something you said back in March of 1998, and I quote, you said: “If I were a young Palestinian, it is possible I would join a terrorist organization.” Until the settlement issue is resolved, you do understand the mind set then you’re saying of these Palestinian terrorists?

BARAK: No, I just made this remark in kind of relation to the way that the circumstances under which a human being is born influences its frame of mind. I think that even the settlements is an excuse.

My proposed campaign song for Reb Ehud is based on the wonderful “If I Were a Rich Man”, from Fiddler on the Roof. (Unfortunately Tevye is NOT running for Israeli Prime Minister this year).
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When Israel adopted the “Oslo” strategy, instead of killing the enemy, it began a series of endless unilateral “goodwill gestures” and capitulations. Among the countless victims of the Oslo accord was Mohammed Sawirki.

Let me explain.

Mohammed Sawirki was a member of the “Palestinian presidential guard”, a small militia that guards the Palestinian Authority “president” Abu Mazen. Not guarding him from Israelis but from the Hamas and Jihad peace partners.

Israel’s Yediot Ahronot reports that Sawirki was kidnapped by Hamas and tossed out live from an 18th story window in Gaza. Unlike many members of Peace Now he could not fly. Two other Fatah militia men were murdered by Hamas, which carved Jewish stars into their corpses (Hamas claims that Fatah are Israeli collaborators). In retaliation, Fatah killed an Imam at a Gaza mosque, one associated with Hamas. All of this is a direct consequence of Israel turning the Gaza Strip over to the barbarians and evicting all the Jews there.

I have long argued that there is no solution to the situation other than R&D and that everything else is a delusion. By R&D I mean Re-Occupation and De-Nazification. But now the Gaza savages have given the term a new meaning: Repression and Defenestration.

Sawirki paid the ultimate price for the inane foolishness of the Oslo “process”. He will not be the last.

Reprinted by permission of the Author

Support the Boycott! End the Occupation!

A Call for Action against Occupation from the Israel Professors for Justice and Peace.

We, Israeli professors for justice and peace, do hereby appeal to researchers, academics, scholars, and teachers in Israel and throughout the world to take a firm and clear stand against continuing occupation and denial of rights. We are of course referring to the continuing occupation of territories by Britain in which Britain clearly has no right to be. We demand that all British universities be boycotted and all academics at those universities be boycotted until these same people and institutions come out clearly and openly in favor of immediate unconditional removal of all British occupation from these territories. We demand a moratorium on all funding of academic research in Britain by sources for funding everywhere and divestment from Britain in all its forms.

Unlike Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the latter of which is not occupied any longer in any way, which has lasted a mere 40 years, but Britain’s occupations of territories has lasted centuries. Take for example the clearly illegal British occupation of Gibraltar. There Britain maintains an illegal settlement in open defiance of all international accepted standards of legitimacy and concepts of national rights. Moreover, Britain has placed there an illegal security fence that prevents non-British nationals from entering Gibraltar. This apartheid fence is a human rights atrocity and must be torn down at once. And until it is, the entire world should divest from Britain and boycott British universities.
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Ynet News reports that Oprah Winfrey (which probably should be spelled Wingfry) will be waddling into town.

Oprah has a history of running Israel-bashing pro-Palestinian articles in a magazine she publishes: “O” Magazine. She also has made insensitive and ignorant comments about the Holocaust.

Whenever the subject of terrorism is broached on her show, Oprah studiously avoids allowing anyone to link it to Palestinians or the Hizbollah. She interviewed mothers of suicide bombers who were distraught because their houses were bulldozed. There was no mention of Israeli babies murdered in cold blood, pizza parlors blown up, or Jewish teens slaughtered in a Tel Aviv disco. Not even the Jews murdered when two guests of the International Solidarity Movement blew up Mike’s Place in Tel Aviv.

Debbie Schlussel has dubbed her the affable Joseph Goebbels of daytime talk TV. Columnist Naomi Ragen demolished Oprah for her politicized bias. The Anti-Defamation League has denounced her for bias, noting that ‘Palestinian girls will be rescued when their leaders say “No” to the incitement, hate and violence that has permeated their political and cultural landscape for years now.’

Maybe she can analyze the problems of self-esteem among suicide bombers and other terrorists. Israel may need Doctor Phil to treat us after Oprah leaves town, to return to her bored overeating overspending housewives with the closet reorganization crises.

A Japanese politician suspected of accepting bribes just committed suicide. Of course, Japanese politicians have a sense of honor.

If Israeli politicians who take bribes committed suicide, who would be left to run the government?

Yediot Achronot, Israel’s largest daily, reports that in all of Sderot there is only one homeless person. He is a mute and deaf. He does not hear the Kassam rockets that land. So the municipality gave him a vibrating beeper.

Israel’s government is not considering as an alternative to the beeper turning Gaza into a parking lot.