Haaretz
Adar1 29,5765
For years, Jewish organizations and their
leaders seeking to contend with blatant anti-Israel statements have
encountered the response, "What do you mean? Similar statements are made
in Israel, by Israelis."
A few weeks ago, there was a new precedent
for this phenomenon. Abraham Foxman, national director of the
Anti-Defamation League, sent a letter to Hebrew University President Prof.
Menachem Megidor demanding a public response to statements made by the
head of the university's German studies department, Prof. Moshe Zimmerman.
According to the letter, Zimmerman compared Israel Defense Forces soldiers
to Nazis.
University authorities in effect failed to say a thing to
Zimmerman. Moreover, the university rector, Dan Rabinowitz, demanded that
the former leader of the Jewish community in Berlin, Dr. Alexander
Brenner, apologize for his statement that "there are professors at the
Hebrew University who compare the behavior of IDF soldiers to the behavior
of SS soldiers."
Foxman decided to intervene after the matter was
brought to his attention in repeated requests from one of the university's
lecturers, Dr. Yaacov Bergman of the School of Business Administration.
Bergman, who says that he leans to the political right since the events of
September 11, 2001, is leading a campaign over Zimmerman's statements, not
only on the political front but also mainly as part of a struggle for the
image of universities in Israel. His own university, he says, "acts as a
guild primarily protecting the interests of its own members, as opposed to
the interests of the public."
In applying pressure to Foxman,
Bergman took advantage of the fact that Foxman has been embroiled in a
similar affair in New York in recent months. There, in a scandal that made
waves across the United States, Foxman urged Columbia University leaders
to denounce Arab professors in the Middle East and Asian Languages and
Cultures Department, who regularly question the legitimacy of
Israel.
In the wake of the media storm, Columbia President Lee
Bollinger decided to cancel a controversial course entitled "Palestinians
and Israel," taught by Prof. Joseph Massad. Massad was quoted as having
said in a lecture that "The Jewish state is a racist state that does not
have a right to exist," and that Ariel Sharon "resembles Nazi propaganda
minister Joseph Goebbels."
Another professor, Hamid Dabashi, was
quoted as having said that Israel is "a ghastly state of racism and
apartheid," and called Israel's supporters "Gestapo apparatchiks." Dabashi
later announced that he had decided to exercise caution regarding his
public statements, and canceled several public
appearances.
Foxman writes to Megidor
Foxman did not
enter lightly into the Zimmerman affair at the Hebrew University. Bergman
says that he threatened Anti-Defamation League personnel that if they do
not intervene here, he would "pick up the telephone and call Bollinger's
office to tell him that he does not need to take them
seriously."
In recent months, Bergman consistently leaned on Ken
Jacobson, who heads the Anti-Defamation League's International Department,
to the point where Jacobson angrily responded, "I do not respect your
pressure tactics."
However, the pressure appears to have worked. On
February 16, after a few weeks of correspondence, Foxman wrote a letter to
Megidor. In his letter he notes that, "While any professor has the right
to express his or her views, it seems to me that the university
administration has an obligation to consider when certain views are beyond
the pale and harmful to the institution and the Jewish People. I believe
leaders of institutions have an obligation to speak out when hateful
messages are conveyed, and to consider taking certain actions against
those individuals who are articulating such messages."
As the
letter's tone makes clear, Foxman does not point to specific actions.
"Because of my feelings regarding the question of freedom of expression
and academic freedom, I also did not demand that Columbia University take
specific steps," he told Haaretz. "I only demanded that action be taken in
this matter, and that is what I demand of the Hebrew
University."
Foxman said he indeed approached Megidor with a
measure of hesitation partially because a Jewish and Israeli institution
was involved.
"However, I cannot finally adhere to a
double-standard: One demand of Columbia University and another of Hebrew
University."
The affair began in August 2001, with an article
written by historian Anat Peri for Haaretz. Peri's article investigated
the image of Europe and its relations to Israel. Peri wrote a sentence
stating that while smaller European nations denounced Israel and compared
Israel to Nazi Germany, "Germany, which cannot afford to denounce Israel
as the equivalent of Nazi Germany, supports any Israeli person or group
who compares Israel to the Nazis, from B'tselem to Prof. Moshe
Zimmerman."
Zimmerman filed a libel suit against Peri and Haaretz.
It is not Zimmerman's first libel suit. The late Rehavam Ze'evi sued him
for libel in response to an article in the weekly Jerusalem that compared
members of the right-wing to Nazis. In 2000, Ze'evi won that suit. This
time, too, Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court Judge Yehudit Shevah accepted the
assertions of Peri and Haaretz that Zimmerman did compare Israeli
organizations and individuals to Nazis, on various occasions. She even
cited some examples, "Between Hebron youth and Hitler Youth, between the
motivation and conditions of service in some of the IDF's elite units and
that of the Waffen SS, between Israeli soccer fans and those of the Third
Reich, and between the Old Testament and Mein Kampf."
Zimmerman
writes to Brenner
In January 2004, about two months before
Zimmerman's suit was dismissed, Alexander Brenner was interviewed on
Israel Radio in a program about new European anti-Semitism. "The fact that
Hebrew University professors compare Israel to the Nazis fans the flames
of German anti-Semitism," he complained. A few days later, Brenner
received a letter from Zimmerman demanding an apology, on the grounds
that, "The faculty at the Hebrew University may assume that you were
hinting about me."
He received another request to apologize several
weeks later. This letter, signed by Hebrew University Rector Haim
Rabinowitz, actually included a proposed script outlining the language of
the apology.
Bergman is convinced that the timing of both demands
for an apology is not coincidental. "Zimmerman knew that a judgment in his
case was about to be made public, and believed that Brenner's apology
regarding such an indictment would influence the magistrate."
The
demands made of Brenner were exposed in another article, written by Peri
for Maariv in July, entitled, "The Hebrew University's Disgrace." The
article was accompanied by a response from the university's spokeswoman,
Orit Sulitzeanu. According to Sulitzeanu, "The rector believed, based on
information which he received, that Dr. Brenner was interested in
apologizing to the professors of the university, and, therefore, he was
offered a proposed transcript of a letter which would make it possible for
him to withdraw his general indictment of them. In retrospect, the rector
believes that he should not have become involved in the matter.
Zimmerman's reaction to this reticent response was a letter to Maariv
attacking the rector for his failure to meet his obligation to protect
fellow members of the academic faculty at the
university."
Brenner's response was unavailable this week.
University spokeswoman Sulitzeanu reiterated her claim that the rector
believed, "that Dr. Brenner is interested in apologizing in order to put
an end to the affair."
Even when asked, the spokeswoman failed to
address Foxman's demand that the university administration respond to
Zimmerman's statements. According to Sulitzeanu, the letter reached the
university president's office only this week.
Zimmerman, for his
part, does not hesitate to attack. "Brenner's accusations toward me are
unfounded, even after Judge Shevah's ruling," he said. "Because, with all
due respect, we are talking about the Magistrate's Court, and I have
already filed an appeal with the District Court."
Zimmerman does
not deny the existence of comparisons he has made between aspects of the
Nazi period and present-day Israel, but concludes that they are "The
comparisons of a historian, based on his professional principles.
Comparison does not mean that both sides are necessarily
equivalent."
Regarding the involvement of Bergman and Foxman in the
affair, he says, "I don't have to respond to every barking dog in the
street," and criticizes Foxman's failure to contact him before turning to
university administration. "People have to know the facts before they
start running around," he says.
Foxman, in turn, said: "It is not
my role to conduct a dialogue with this professor. And what could he
possibly tell me? That Israel really does resemble the Nazis? What
concerns me is that the university handle this."
Foxman promises to
continue to confront those who compare Israel with the Nazis in the
future, "exactly as we do in regard to people who are not Israelis or
Jews. We must not say that it is forbidden for some and permissible for
others."