Israel Matzav

The attacks on Professor Weiss continue

The hyperbolic attacks on Professor Hillel Weiss continued over the weekend.

Labor party infrastructure minister Binyamin (Fouad) Ben Eliezer compared Weiss to 'moderate' 'Palestinian' Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and compared those who refuse orders in the IDF to terrorists.

In a weekend interview, Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer said that Professor Hillel Weiss, who angrily denounced last week's evictions in Hebron, was “just as bad” as Hamas chief terrorist Ismail Haniyeh. “Refusing orders (in the IDF) is no worse than terrorism,” Ben Eliezer said.

Ben Eliezer added that “the possibility of disbanding the Hesder yeshivot should be considered,” since they foster “loyalty to the rabbis, and not the IDF.”

And if that's not ridiculous enough, Weiss was attacked from the 'right' today. Current Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu, who is 'drifting to the left' according to several advertisements on the JPost home page, accused Weiss of incitement:

"I am not prepared to accept any expressions of insubordination," he told Army Radio. "The second the general gives his order, you carry it out. You certainly don't curse and somehow or other wish tragedies on IDF officers and soldiers. This is intolerable...we need to condemn these things.

University of Haifa professor Steven Plaut points out that the outrage against Professor Weiss is 'selective':

The President of Bar Ilan University, who never quite got around to firing the OTHER professor there who made headlines this year - for endorsing medieval blood libels against Jews (Ariel Toaff), set up a campus committee of inquisition to see if Weiss deserves to be fired for his "crime." No Bar Ilan sanctions were ever implemented against Toaff, and Toaff was allowed to retire and draw his nice pension.

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Now putting aside the questions of taste in the specific words chosen by Weiss in what appears to be a moment of temper and hotheadedness, just what did Weiss do that was so terrible? The media moghuls rolling their eyes and beating the tables with their shoes are demanding action again Weiss, but they are exactly the same people who have never had a word to say about far-leftist professors in Israel endorsing terror, cheering when Palestinians murder settlers, justifying terror, promoting boycotts of Israel, and so on. The late Professor Baruch Kimmerling regularly justified terrorist atrocities against Jews. No reactions from the media. Nor have they ever called for legal actions or sanctions against Arab politicians or other Arabs who publicly endorse terror, call on Israel to be annihilated, deny the Holocaust, or in some cases engage in espionage. SO the outrage being expressed in
such elegant posturing by these people is highly selective.

Ehud Barak's sudden interest in academic extremism in Israel would be much more convincing if he had ever spoken out about the trashing of academic standards in Israeli universities in order to hire and promote leftist traitors and seditious post-Zionists working for Israel's destruction. What about those Israeli leftist professors who not only curse police and soldiers but regularly attack them violently at "anarchist" demonstrations. Prof. Anat Matar from Tel Aviv University, to name but one, has been arrested for assaulting police. Why does Barak have nothing to say about that?

And in another posting Professor Plaut points to another professor who has not been investigated, and recounts an incident of 'incitement' that took place on television last week:

"A veteran, respected Israeli journalist/commentator, Yaron London, said during a television show that the IDF shouldn't have wasted so many soldiers to evict families from their homes. Rather, they should have sent in a small unit and shot the resistors, 'reawakening the spirit of the Altelena.' ''

By the way, among the Bar Ilan University professors NOT being investigated by a commission set up by the president of Bar Ilan (who is investigating Prof. Hillel Weiss for cussing out an army officer . see yesterday's posting), is Dr. Kobi Snitz, a mathematician, very active in the violent "anarchist" attacks on Israel's security wall and on Israeli police and soldiers (I do not know if Snitz himself has engaged in violence).

Arutz Sheva recounts several more incidents in which prominent Israelis were not 'investigated' for doing things as bad or worse than what Professor Weiss is alleged to have done:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s daughter Dana was seen on national television last year calling IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz a “murderer,” taking part in a protest with signs reading ‘the Intifada shall prevail’ and engaging in chants about “how many children Halutz has murdered today” outside the army chief’s Tel Aviv home.

Another Olmert child, Shaul, now living abroad, signed a public petition calling on IDF soldiers to refuse orders to serve in Judea or Samaria.

No legal action was taken against either of the young Olmerts, nor did the leading papers or top political brass call for either of their prosecution. Dana Olmert continues to teach Hebrew Literature at Hebrew University, where she received no disciplinary hearing.

The fact that the uproar over Weiss' actions is so clearly political makes Netanyahu's tagging along with the left look even worse. I was in doubt as to how I was going to vote in the Likud primary on Tuesday. I think I've just made up my mind.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:50 PM