Ha’aretz (Hebrew only) and Ynet (English, short) reported that school officials prohibited a Nakba commemoration on campus at the University of Haifa on Wednesday. The school cancelled the event just three hours prior to the time it was scheduled to begin. This was after the students had obtained all the necessary permissions.
(Note the similar uproar at Tel Aviv University, where a commemoration went off but with massive protest.)
In place of the planned event, students and faculty demonstrated outside the university to protest what they said was suppression of free speech. The number of participants at the demonstration was not reported. Two protesters, a Palestinian student and a Jewish professor, pointed to the hypocrisy of school officials who continually praise the University for being a multicultural institution but actually suppress the rights of minority students.
The school says that it stopped the commemoration because the flyers that were distributed by the students describe an event that was different than the event they had permitted. The student organizers deny this.
A similar last-minute cancellation occurred in December when students attempted to stage a protest on the third anniversary of the Israeli invasion of Gaza. School authorities also cited discrepancies between the proposed plans and the publicity for that last-minute cancellation.
Saar Szekely, the TV reality star from the Israeli “Big Brother” who became an overnight sensation because of his criticism of the occupation, was scheduled to participate. His appearance was cancelled.
Professor Steven Plaut teaches economics at the University of Haifa. He is an American-born Israeli who received his doctorate at Princeton. He posted an anti-Palestinian, Nakba-denying screed at the settler web site, Arutz Sheva. The piece is titled “Happy Nakba Day!”
The following are some of the Professor’s startlingly racist recommendations for Nabka greeting cards:
-One, two, three, MANY Nabkbas!
-A little Nakba never hurt anyone!
-Remove the illegal Palestinian settlements sitting on Jewish land!
-Two-state solution: One for the Jews and One for the Kurds, but none for the Arabs who live down the Lane
-Bulldoze an anarcho-fascist today!
-Help the Palestinian prisoners maintain their hunger strike!
-Don’t wall them out Fence them In!
-When this drone is a rockin’, we’ll come a-knockin’!!
-We switched your 72 virgins with a 72 year -old virgin!
If the University of Haifa wants to discourage speech which is deleterious to the general welfare of the institution, it obviously would be better off reprimanding Dr. Plaut, than obstructing the students and faculty who organized the Nakba event.
One wonders what this piece of filth, Plaut, would say if some neo-Nazi were to make similar comments regarding the Holocaust. It is an absolute shame that these people are justifying Hitler. Not Hitler’s opinions, of course, but his existence. We can now point to Plaut and say that Hilter was not an abberation, or a monster, or even special. He was just able to obtain power. His type of thinking and hate exists everywhere, even in someone like Plaut who is a generation or two from the Holocaust.
It’s guys with Plaut’s sociopathic attitude that made Auschwitz possible.
That is exactly right. And that’s why I laugh when I read braindead morons (like the intellectual midget and would-be shake-down artist Daniel Goldhagen) or those who try to claim something peculiar in Germans or Europeans in general to explain something that exists in every human population.
And guys like Daniel Goldhagen have the same sociopathic attitude like antisemites who want to convince us that there something peculiar in Jews in general.
That is what actually amazes me: Jews who act and talk like an anti gentile aquivalent of an antisemite. Double standards or lack of self awareness?
He would say it was anti-Semitic and he would get Dershowitz to campaign until the person would be fired.
You’re probably right about that.
But they have a tower and an IBM facility: link to mondoweiss.net
Thanks, Shmuel. It’s annoying to say the least to keep covering the same intellectual or merely common sensical territory (once you know facts), so here, as you said:
“What brutality? We’re on the Nasdaq! Critical of the “separation fence”? Wait until you see our patents! Your impressions of Israel are all hearsay until you’ve seen the Intel plant in Kiryat Gat for yourself! The chips, the semiconductors, O rapture! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
Nazi Germany did all this branding to a tee, the type of branding Israel does now–maybe it’s time for Israel to go erect a monument to Goebbels, respecting the creator base of Hasbara, first time around–Israel could even give a kudo to Bernays, the father of corporate PR, whom Goebbels studied. The Germans were so good at technical innovation both the US and USSR grabbed their scientists, without which both would have lagged in air power, rockets, jets, nukes, for one pedestrian example: Both the F-86 Sabre Jet and its opponent, the MIG 15, were derived products of German genius. The list goes on. Did all of that make Nazi Germany a place to admire? Israel is now engaged in the same crapola. In Nazi Germany, foreigners were paraded before special camps made to look like ultra-normalcy; in Israel today foreigners (like the stupid fuck evangelical who has his own show & once had POTUS as goal) are paraded to selected spots, and kept form the reality of the WB & Gaza.
I couldn’t think of his name: Mike Huckabee. He’s been to Israel dozens of times yet has not yet ventured into Gaza or the West Bank even once. He reminds me of Jim Nabors and the characters he played on TV; he just can’t sing. Shazaaam! Sarge.
A professor? Even their intellectuals are madman.
Nice and racist there, especially considering that another professor was on the side of the protesters.
So Fred, Jews are a “race”? Please, tell us about it.
Gosh, is there anything more fungible than Judaism to a Zionist. They think of Judaism as their own personal slave. And after all, they did save Judaism and the Jews from complete extinction, so we have to do what they say.
BTW Fredblogs, when you making Aliyah? I ask this inter-alia of course.
And I forgot to ask you Fredblogs, why are you hanging out at a “racist” website. Since you obviously have not the slightest idea how the internet works, there is no such thing as a “negative hit”. You are just another “hit” driving Mondo’s stats up, and I’m sure the site owners are grateful for it, as they are for almost every “hit”
So, thanks for the help, Fredblogs. you are doing your part. And you can drop the phony accent, everybody knows you are an American with language disabilities. It’s an insult to the Israeli educational system to try and pass yourself off as something else.
@Mooser
The website, unlike some commentors (Woody “Israelis are demons from Hell” Tanaka for one) isn’t that racist. Mostly I hang out because I like to hear from both sides. As for “hits”. So what? This site doesn’t have advertising, it makes its money from donations. Though I suppose I indirectly drive up donations here.
@Mooser
What accent? I’ve been very clear any time one of you guys mistook me for a Settler or what-have-you that I’m an American. I’m pretty sure typed words don’t let accents through. Unless someone spelled “flavor” as “flavour”, then you might think they were Canadian or English.
As for aliyah, that falls into the category of personal questions. I don’t answer those.
@Mooser
We are a people. There are cultural and religious aspects to Judaism that transcend race. However, there are enough aspects of a race for people to be racist against. Nazis killed anyone they could find with a Jewish grandparent, regardless of their own religion. That’s pretty racist.
Fredblogs May 18, 2012 at 8:01 pm //“Israelis are demons from Hell” Tanaka for one) isn’t that racist. //
Israelis aren’t a race, it’s a nationality.
Fred would love to know how you could possibly defend this madman. His racism and that of your pariah’s actions’ speak louder than my supposed racist words.
Not interested in defending him. Just in pointing out that it is racist of you to ascribe the characteristics of one person to an entire nation. If you had said “even some of their intellectuals are madmen” that wouldn’t have been racist.
“If you had said “even some of their intellectuals are madmen” that wouldn’t have been racist.”
Gee, I wonder how Phil gets along without you on the moderator team.
But thank you for giving us the permitted locution in this case. I still don’t know which “race” this “racism” is supposed to slander. Maybe you could tell us?
Fredbonkers: Personally I wouldn’t even call it a “nation” and probably would not get printed if I did say what I thought of it, but you have to be mad to follow the Zionist ideology and believe everything they tell you. You Fred are unable to think for yourself. That makes you part of the madness that is being a zionist.
American professors who speak up for human rights in Israel get smeared and their tenure threatened by bigots like Dersh. Yet out and out fascist professors who use hate speech in Israel, dragging their institution’s reputation into the gutter, are indulged and never challenged. Spot the hypocritical difference.
Plaut was sued for libel by Neve Gordon, a faculty member at Ben-Gurion, for calling Gordon a Judenrat…Gordon won the lawsuit and Plaut was fined $50,000.
@fredblogs, you’re the one assuming Blake is referring to some race when he says “Even their intellectuals are madman.” I don’t know how you know who he’s referring to, it may very well be zionists. I find your assumption presumptive, and probably racist.
@lyn117
Since for Blake the premise that “all Zionists are madmen” goes without saying, he is clearly referring either to Israelis or to Jews.
clearly..not. fred, do you ever wonder why some of your comments do not make it thru? why are you putting quotemarks around something no one said? you do not ask for clarification, you accuse. why don’t you just ask blake who he meant by ‘their’? maybe it was rightwinger nutjob setter supporters.
furthermore, i assume you know there are more christian zionists on the planet than jewish ones. anyway..nice of you to change the subject rather than condemn the real racist here…the one in the article.
Zionists are not Jews (simply hijacked Judaism but have no mandate to speak for all Jews) and yes to be indoctrinated into the insane zionist ideology you can hardly be described as sane.
Avigail Abarbanel, an ex-Israeli psychiatrist in Australia, views Zionism as a mental illness that can be treated. Zionism is just a symptom of a deeper problem, the delusional belief that you have “rights” which do not exist. The inner conflict that arises from these “situational ethics” certainly does create a clinically diagnosable mental inability to process certain types of information that trigger the neurotic or sometimes even psychotic defensive reaction.”
Does a professor of economics count as an intellectual?
RE: “The following are some of the Professor’s [Steven Plaut's] startlingly racist recommendations for Nabka greeting cards: -One, two, three, MANY Nabkbas! -A little Nakba never hurt anyone! ” ~ Ira Glunts
MY COMMENT: This is an excellent example of how über-nationalism can make even an economics professor with a doctorate from Princeton act like a juvenile delinquent.
FROM GEORGE ORWELL, “Notes on Nationalism” (1945):
• SOURCE: “Notes on Nationalism”, by George Orwell – link to literaturecollection.com
“MY COMMENT: This is an excellent example of how über-nationalism can make even an economics professor with a doctorate from Princeton act like a juvenile delinquent.”
As opposed to acting like a high-class confidence trickster or embezzler, or just a pompous know-it-all?
Plaut has been writing such filfth for years. Not only is he morally repulsive, he is a compulsive liar. He repeatedly called for using live ammunition to slaughter the weekly protesters at Bil’in.
I think it is standard settler thinking. Plaut probably lives in a settlement.
And people like him are the only Yanks making “aliyah” to Israel these days.
I’m sure he’ll change his tune when it all goes tits up.
Haifa is a bit far from settlements. Plaut is a think-tanker, editor of Middle East Quarterly, organ of Daniel Pipes. This journal has a highly qualified managing editor, Ms. Goodrobb, who lists the Delaware County Association for Retarded Citizens as one of her previous employers.
If only US Congress had such qualified staff!
The distance from Beit Shean just north of the WB to Haifa is 43 miles.
link to israel-travel-tips.com
Jenin and the settlements of the north west of the OT are closer. Plaut as a hard core ideologue is unlikely to live in a tolerant (by Israeli standards) city such as Haifa.
This kind of stuff is what the settlers specialise in. My best settler friend sends me such vitriol regularly.
link to stevenplaut.blogspot.com
Want to demand that Tel Aviv University be de-funded?
Write to The Council for Higher Education in Israel
(governmental body that funds and supervises Israeli universities and colleges)
Prof. Manuel Trachtenberg
Chairman, Council on Higher Education
Email: manuel@post.tau.ac.il
POB 4037, Jerusalem 91040, Israel
Aharon Beit-Halahmi
Second time in as many days that Seafood has used “tits up” to describe the future of the Israeli economy. How are your Greek utility and Spanish bank investments working out?
Tel
Show me the link to where I said invest in Greek utilities and spanish banks.
I don’t expect integrity from Ziobots but you could at least be honest.
TS has used that lame line at least twice before. You’d think he’d have some shame in complaining about someone else using a phrase twice.
How are your Greek utility and Spanish bank investments working out?
Terry, what wonderful irony it is for you, an Irishman, to be goading Seafoid about the travails of the Eurozone. And of course Terry, you miss the main lesson. Which is that any grandiose project that ignores underlying reality is doomed to failure. A failure that when it comes often comes quickly.
What about another such project? Let’s say an aggressive little nation of 7 million or so people setting itself against neighbours with a combined population of over 300 million. How long do you really think that could go on for before ending badly, Terry?
Terry is as Irish as Danny Danon. He’s also a gay Syrian .
It’s not like Witty (in his glorious reign here) or many of his elk (can’t stand ‘em, you know, bunch of wanna-be’s) haven’t been warning us about this. If all you-all guys who are trying to show the Israelis as a bunch of bastards (we might as well be frank about what this “deligitimasation” is all about) make them too bad, the Israelis will expel or kill all the Palestinians and it’ll be your fault, you deligitimasiserers, you!
Do you want to live with that on your conscience? Than back off, anti-Semites!
Mooser, what I’d like to know is how a significant number of Jews born and bred in the USA, especially in places like Brooklyn, can be conditioned to imbibe the highest American values, e.g., under 1st Amendment, the rest of the Bill of Rights, etc., and then rush to reject them all and move to Israel to be the type of person, or group they would hate, and fight against in the USA? How do they distinguish between Aryan white separatist organizations and the state they moved to? They just can’t see the same principles working like Orwell would? Do they really think that, e.g., Rachel Corrie is a modern day Horst Wessel icon?
how or why?
That’s easy…They’re a bunch of LOSERS…
same as the Nazis…they can’t stand up for the obvious…can’t imagine being left out of the “group”…
imbide people with some absolutely ridiculous notion that they’re the chosen ones and entitled to something grandiose…as in this case DESTINY…Nazis, SS, Israeli Jews…whatever…and they just go nuts…
Should be a requirement that all NYC Jews should be forced to live for 5 years in Nogales or Las Cruces (forget Jerusalem in Palestine)…and attend UTEP…knock some sense into them about getting along in the big world…and introduce them to the next ruling class of this Continent…
link to youtube.com
yeah! i love love love los lobos!
Citizen says:
May 18, 2012 at 5:47 pm
Mooser, what I’d like to know is how a significant number of Jews born and bred in the USA, especially in places like Brooklyn, can be conditioned to imbibe the highest American values, e.g., under 1st Amendment, the rest of the Bill of Rights, etc., and then rush to reject them all”
Because they never imbibed the democratic values to begin with.
“Professor Steven Plaut teaches economics at the University of Haifa. He is an American-born Israeli who received his doctorate at Princeton.”
Reporter: ‘Well, Professor Plaut, looks like all your incitment backfired, and now Israel is a complete wreck, and one the way to massive collapse.’
Prof. Plaut: ‘Can’t interview now, got a plane to catch. Home of the free and the brave, here I come. Maybe I can help America do something about the reconquista threat. By the way, you wanna buy a really nice Tel-Aviv condo, and a place in the settlements? I’ll sell it to you wholesale!’
Anyone who has had the misfortune to read some of the comments from the Jerusalem Post on a daily basis, would find these repulsive comments by the learned Professor mild by comparison. Some truly disturbed people in Israel.
and quite a few in the US too who don’t have the balls to move to Israel. or are not prepared to put their economic future on the line.
Nabka greeting cards
——————————–
That reminds me of a poll in the US in which one item was the question:
“What is the Holocaust?” – Among the possible answers was “A Jewish holiday”.
I can’t remember the percentage of respondents who checked that answer.
Look at the sort of stuff Plaut has been doing:
I’ve been keeping my eye on Plaut now for over eight years. He organized a rather chilling email attack on me and other Alaska artists in early April 2004, in response to my plans to produce The Skies Are Weeping, about Rachel Corrie, at UAA in Anchorage. He may have been the person to have come up with the meme “The Other Rachels,” as it first showed up in April 2004, and he was claiming credit for the idea by 2005, when posters of “the other Rachels” started appearing at events honoring Corrie, and at demonstrations outside the play My Name is Rachel Corrie.
A large cache of his articles from the pre-Neve Gordon Plaut writing rampage can be gleaned here:
link to think-israel.org
Here’s what he had to say about me in 2005, a year into our, uh, relationship:
I have a hunch Plaut created the fictional character “Dr. Pezzati, as some of the word clusters in the rants I received from the fictional music professor in the first week of April 2004 closely match word clusters or strings in some of Plaut’s writing from the same time period.
IMHO Plaut is one serious head case.
The Zionuts were not at all happy about John Adams’s opera The Death of Klinghoffer. Funny they should use his name.
The real Jeff Pezzati is indeed a musician but doesn’t seem to have any connection with USC.
Has anybody contacted him to see if he is any comment on this probable misuse of his name?
The administrative assistant at UAA contacted UCLA about “Pezzati” immediately after I started getting the emails. There was no such prof. Then somebody alerted me to the punk rocker with that name. A friend, another So Cal alternative rocker, got hold of him and he was deeply intrigued. He assured her he was not the person or fictitious character annoying me.
USC is not UCLA. But of course its easy to check whether Pezzati is a professor at either university, since they publicly list their professors and at least USC has a search engine for them.
It’s beyond belief why zios, especially right-wing ones, are such congenital liars.
Philip,
Thanks for posting this.
I agree that Plaut must be a serious head case. I wonder about his relations with other faculty and students, especially the Palestinians.
Philip – fascinating story and I’d love to hear your cantata sometime. I share your suspicions about Plaut. Several years ago, I read an article on frontpagemagazine attributed to some bogus name about the Plaut/Neve Gordon affair. The article argued that Gordon’s defamation lawsuit was an attempt to abridge Plaut’s free speech, etc., and it explicitly solicited contributions to Plaut’s defense fund. There was no doubt (OK, very little doubt – I couldn’t 100% prove it) in my mind that Plaut himself authored the article and was asking gullible readers for financial assistance. Of course, his outright dishonesty is appalling, but pales in comparison to his “honestly” held views in praise of ethnic cleansing and that protesters should be shot to death.
For those interested, here is the fpm article by one “Richard Lakisher,” who apparently does not exist except for this single contribution to world civilization: link to archive.frontpagemag.com The article ends: “Anyone interested in defending free speech through helping defray Prof. Plaut’s legal costs (he is represented by attorney Dr. Haim Misgav) is invited to contact him directly. His email address is steven_plaut@yahoo.com.” What a schmuck.
David:
link to youtube.com
The recording is not very good. I was sitting in the front row, right below the chorus. The producers and I opted against making a commercial grade recording, as the singers’ union wanted over 1,ooo pounds for rights. We chose to instead donate all money to ICAHD – The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and GCMHP – Gaza Community Mental Health Programme. So I recorded it with a little MP-3 recorder under my feet.
Philip Munger I loved the cantata. Congratulations. It was very moving and beautiful and sounded like a very professional production.
I hope it was well received. Just brilliant!
Israei economists could pay attention to other news:
Israel News
Economy
Ynetnews
Israeli exports to EU down 16%
Israel Export Institute notes discontenting trend in Q1-2012; adds overall global exports down 5%
Tal Litman, Calcalist
Published: 05.16.12, 15:15 / Israel Business
Israel’s exports are experiencing a downturn, the Israel Export and International Cooperation Institute (IEI) said Tuesday.
A new IEI report said that Israel’s exports came to $10.9 billion in the first quarter of 2012 – a 6.5% drop from Q4-2011 and a 5% tumble compared to last year’s first quarter.
One disconcerting trend noted by the IEI was a 16% drop in Israel’s exports to the European Union, which came to $3.6 billion. EU exports make up 33% of Israel’s overall global exports.
Exports to Asia, which made up 20% of Israel’s exports in Q1-2012, came to $2.2 billion, a 6% decrease from Q4-2011, but a 7% rise from Q1-2011.
Exports to the US, which made up 21% of Israel’s exports in the first quarter, added 3% and amounted to $2.4 billion. Still, US exported dropped 23% compared to Q1-2011.
IEI Chairman Ramzi Gabay said that should the situation continue, “Exporters may be forced to close down production lines, or opt for overseas outsourcing.
“I urge the government to offer exporters the necessary assistance so they can resume growth.”
Fredblogs writes:
It says a lot about Steven Plaut’s adopted nation that these writings do not jeopardize his job as a professor at a state-supported university.
At Berkeley, the main argument given by the Israeli consul and Stand With Us against divestment from Caterpillar was that it would make Jewish students feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. Well, what would they say about how Prof. Plaut might make Palestinian students at U. Haifa feel?
James Watson was compelled to resign as the head of Cold Spring Harbor Lab because of his comments specifically about black employees not being as intelligent as non-blacks. If I had an opportunity to ask Prof. Plaut one question, I’d ask him what he thinks of the Palestinian students who have been in his classes. I can’t see how he can win:
– He might say he’s never had any Palestinian students. But why’s that? Do they avoid his classes, or does he never let them in?
– He might say that the Palestinian students he’s had have been exceptions. In that case, why is he making these sweeping generalizations about Palestinians?
– He might say that the Palestinian students he’s had really are horrible people. But this is the kind of statement that would get any university professor in trouble with his administration.
The self chosen rosen Zionistas are the only ones allowed an opinion and the only opinions that count in their delusional heads – no matter how twisted or disturbed those opinions are.
Any creditable organisation would sack an employee with such racist views. The pressure on them would be intense. That would be the case in America and Europe. But in Israel it is just another unremarkable piece of hate speech, a discourse that is so routine it hardly raises an eyebrow.
In other OECD countries racists who believe in the superiority of their own ethnicity are confined to negligible percentages of the population but in Israel they come to perhaps one in 2. The whole Israeli education system is about beating racial superiority into young Jews. In Hebrew.
You can contact Prof. Plaut here
link to marvel.haifa.ac.il
Courses this year
Spring
The return of Moshiach
Why Judaism is most favored by G-d
Human rights in Erez Israel – why they don’t work