The legislation that the National Union of Students is advocating, which seeks to harm any university lecturer who dares to express criticism of Israel and its policies, testifies to the fact that the heads of the organization lack a basic understanding of the principles of democracy.
The legislation that the National Union of Students is advocating, which seeks to harm any university lecturer who dares to express criticism of Israel and its policies, testifies to the fact that the heads of the organization lack a basic understanding of the principles of democracy.
According to a letter addressed to Education Minister Yoav Kisch, the proposed bill would require academic institutions to “immediately” fire, without compensation, faculty who express themselves “in a way that includes the denial of Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state.” If an institution does not obey the law, the chairman of the Council for Higher Education can cut its budget.
The letter’s signatories have volunteered to lead an assault on freedom of expression and academic freedom to threaten faculty and prevent them from expressing themselves, researching and acting in accordance with their principles.
Last year, Elchanan Felhimer, the union’s chairman, opposed any expression of protest against the judicial overhaul even after other big organizations – ranging from the Union of Local Authorities to the Histadrut labor federation – took a stand. Among other things, Felhimer claimed that the student union was not a political organization.
Now the mask has been removed: The union has joined forces inside the government and with organizations under its influence who seek to silence dissent.
Felhimer and his partners are caricatures of students living in oppressive countries who see their jobs as hounding and “reeducating” their teachers. Their initiative is perverse and serves to show just how precarious its backers’ civic consciousness is in what is supposed to be a source of the country’s future leadership. If as students they want to silence other voices, one can only shudder at the thought of what they will do when they occupy positions of power in government and society.
The populist bill has been accompanied by an inflammatory billboard-placard campaign, “Get terror out of the academy.” The young McCarthyists swear that “we’re here to eradicate the phenomenon.” But this is another lie: This is not about terrorism or support for terrorism in academic institutions. If anything, too many in Israel’s institutes of higher education have turned a deaf ear to reality.
On Monday, the committee of university heads rightly condemned the student union’s campaign of persecution. Along with research and teaching, one of the tasks of higher education is to serve as a moral compass. It is no coincidence that the Netanyahu government treats higher education as a chronic threat that must be subdued, just as it does gatekeepers and other independent bodies. The student union has revealed its position by joining the muzzling campaign.
The Knesset’s representatives of Jewish supremacy cannot be expected to send the bill back from where it came. Therefore, the other factions must act as a bloc to stop it.
The above article is Haaretz’s lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.
- Photo: Elchanan Felhimer, the head of the Israeli National Union of Students.Credit: Sagiv Cohen