IN FASCIST DOMAINS THE STUDENTS TAKE THE LEAD
Opinion |
Haaretz Editorial
Editorial |
Why All Israelis Should Worry About the University Witch Hunt Bill
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Tel Aviv University campus.Credit: Aviad Bar-Ness
Haaretz
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Jun 30, 2024 8:42 am IDT
The Ministerial Committee for Legislation is scheduled on Sunday to discuss a bill, sponsored by Likud MK Ofir Katz, that seeks to allow and encourage the persecution of university lecturers and faculty members for their words.
To its disgrace, it was the
National Union of Israeli Students that proposed the bill – which deserves to be called the witch hunt bill – on the basis of false claims about lecturers who support terrorism.
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The bill would require administrators of academic institutions to take action to dismiss faculty members for "incitement to terrorism" or "support for a terrorist organization, an armed struggle or an act of terrorism by a terrorist organization, an enemy state or an individual against the State of Israel," after the legal advisers of the institution and of the Council for Higher Education in Israel submit their opinions.
The faculty member would also be ineligible for severance pay. In addition, the bill gives the council's supervision and enforcement subcommittee the authority to reduce funding to institutions that do not fulfill their obligation to persecute, silence and fire faculty members.
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The proposal will do nothing to advance the fight against terrorism. The Counter-Terrorism Law is sufficient for this purpose. It applies to the entire public and contains the proper balance both in substance (for example, the offense of identification requires a concrete possibility that the expression will lead to the commission of an act of terrorism) and in process (the opening of an investigation is coordinated with the state prosecution, the filing of an indictment must be approved by the attorney general and conviction is in a court of law).
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Katz's bill seeks to bypass all of these through an administrative procedure conducted by people who are not experts in this field, and to impose a very harsh sanction – dismissal –
for speech. The entire purpose of the bill, therefore, is to advance a threatening regime of gagging and silencing in higher education.
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Coalition chairman Ofir Katz in February last year.Credit: Emil Salman
It is worth stressing that the law will also apply to statements made within the lecturer's private life. This means that academic freedom of expression, which is supposed to be particularly broad, will be severely restricted, also compared to the freedom of expression for the general public.
The proposal is also selective, since support for a Jewish terrorist organization or a terrorist act by such an organization in the territories will not be grounds for dismissal (on the grounds that these are not organizations that act against the State of Israel), which further underscores the bill's unacceptable objective.
Supreme Court Justice
Anat Baron, who retired a few days after October 7, warned that "under the cover of the war, the
judicial overhaul continues to rampage in other ways, … under the radar, in a series of measures, each of which erodes democracy," adding that this is an "existential danger" (Gidi Weitz, Haaretz, June 28). The bill to be submitted Sunday is exactly the kind of measure that Baron warns against. It must not be allowed to advance.
The above article is Haaretz's lead editorial, as published in the Hebrew and English newspapers in Israel.