Friday, May 22, 2015

Tel Aviv University's Leftist Sexual Predator gets a Wrist Slap

Tel Aviv University's Leftist Sexual Predator gets a Wrist Slap

By Steven Plaut

 

 

Meet Ronen Shamir, a far-leftist sociology professor from Tel Aviv University.  (https://depts.washington.edu/class/all_posters/shamir_poster.pdf ).   Strongly anti-capitalist and fond of denouncing Zionist "colonialism."    One of the tenured Ultra-Left who demanded that Israeli soldiers engage in mutiny and insurrection and refuse to serve (http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/Petitions%20-%20Anat%20Biletzki%20-%20refuse%20to%20serve.htm ), and signer of other anti-Israel petitions.  He is 58 years old, and has often served as chairman of the Department of Sociology at Tel Aviv University, the same department that features Stalinist stars like Yehouda Shenhav.  He likes to publish in "Critical Sociology," where the word "Critical" is code for Marxist.

 

And Ronen Shamir has just become the latest tenured Leftist to be convicted of sexual misconduct with respect to his own students.  As in so many other cases, the Israeli university circled its wagons and attempted to protect him from prosecution.   Shamir just got off with a resounding wrist-slapping reprimand.

 

In recent years Israel has seen a whole spat of far-leftist professors, many of them sociologists, who got caught with their pants down while harassing their female students.  The most notorious was no doubt Eyal Ben Ari, a far-leftist sociologist at Hebrew University, who was accused of raping a student.  Ben Ari was eventually fired.  Before that he had been the thesis supervisor for that now-notorious MA thesis in which it was claimed that the fact that Israeli soldiers do not rape Arab women proves how racist the Jews are.  As I say, the thesis supervisor was later himself involved in raping and harassing a student.   Maybe he just did not want to be considered to be a racist.

 

Anyhow, now along comes Comrade Ronen Shamir and he gets indicted before a Tel Aviv University ethics committee for sexually harassing one of his own students, an Arab woman.  I guess he REALLY wanted to prove he was not racist.  Curiously, Haaretz broke the story (there had been rumors of a major sexual scandal at TAU for a few months but Shamir's name was not released until the Haaretz scoop - here http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/law/.premium-1.2642661 ).  Haaretz decided to let its radical feminizt inclinations trump its otherwise love of circling the wagons to defend radical anti-Israel leftist faculty members.

 

The ethics code at TAU prohibits faculty members from dating or having relations with their own students (although this is relaxed after the student is no longer the professor's student).  Comrade Shamir had pursued an Arab woman student, his own student, whose name has not been released.  He eventually persuaded her to move in together.  All the other sociology department tenured leftists knew about the affair and kept quiet.  After a year, Shamir tired of his trophy Arab and left her.  The student complained about the prof to various other people, and word reached the TAU official for sexual harassment.   To retaliate, Shamir kept sending the student bizarre "anonymous" email messages that were signed by the name of a character from a Salman Rushdie novel (seems that Shamir is a Rushdie aficionado). 

 

The official for sexual harassment investigated the matter, eventually bringing it to the attention of the faculty ethics committee, composed of three law school profs.  (TAU's law school is probably the most leftist law school in Israel.)   Shamir was accused of harassing the student sexually and of behavior unbecoming a faculty member.  The ethics committee investigated the matter for four years (!!!).  Shamir evidently pressured the hapless student to come in and testify in his favor!   At one point he broke into her cell phone to extract personal private information.  The ethics committee found that Shamir had engaged in verbal and physical violence against the student.   The ethics committee did not convict Shamir of sexual harassment but it did convict him on several charges of conduct unbecoming a faculty member.  In the end it gave the professor a reprimand, and it did so in secret, refusing to publicize the verdict.  It became known only when Haaretz broke the story.

 

The ethics committee also ruled that Shamir cannot be department chairman in sociology for a few years, a ruling with which Shamir probably was delighted, since serving as department chair in a university department is a thankless royal pain in the butt.   The ethics committee basically put the Arab student on trial, accusing her of accusing Shamir out of a sense of hurt feelings and desire for revenge.  The University administration had demanded that Shamir be ordered to retire, but the committee refused to go along with that.  After all, when it comes to far-leftist Marxist sociologists, boys will be boys!  Where were all the radical feminist faculty members at Tel Aviv University?  I guess they were busy planning Nakba mourning commemorations. 

 

The tenured Left ordinarily is militantly feminist, demanding that women always be believed when they make charges against men, and even more so it is compulsively pro-Arab.   But when an Arab student makes charges against a tenured far-Leftist, all the campus Left is willing to do is to allow the perp to receive a resounding wrist tap.  

 

 


Thursday, May 21, 2015

So much for Kahlon the liberal reformer....

 

 

1.  Q: Quick, what is the difference between "Breaking the Silence" and "Breaking Bad."
A: One of them involves unemployed drugged-out urchins and ignoramuses spouting off their crazed fantasies. The other one takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

http://eipa.eu.com/2015/05/breaking-the-silence-report-on-gaza-conflict-lacks-credibility-and-objectivity-says-watchdog-group-citing-foreign-funding-of-the-organization/

 

 

2.  Quick: Which ethnic minority is the least discriminated against and the best treated out of all ethnic minorities in the Middle East?
A: If you answered anything other than Arabs in Israel you have been watching the non-Fox media for too long.


Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is NOT an apartheid regime.

 

So let us see if we have this straight. Putting Palestinians in the West Bank in separate buses so they do not murder Jews is "apartheid," claim the caring Leftists. But the PLO demand that in any future Palestinian state not a single Jew will be allowed to reside there is NOT apartheid and any attempt to characterize it as such is just people being divisive. That clear now? Naturally, firing rockets at Jewish children and intentionally running over Jews with cars is never racism either.

 

And why is no one protesting the anti-Jewish apartheid that is being maintained on the Temple Mount to prevent Jews from visiting and praying there?

 

 

3.  I have been warning for two decades that the failure by so many in the Israeli Right to separate themselves from the infantile conspiracy "theories" about the Rabin assassination was serving to harm the electoral chances of the "Right" and convincing many in Israel that Rightists are loons. 
There is now one additional proof that I am correct. Shlomo Filber is the nominee to be director of the Ministry of Communications in Israel. However in the 1990s he proliferated the infantile conspiracy fiction invented by the deranged conspiracy nut Barry Chamish, a UFO-logist who publishes his "articles" on Holocaust Denial web sites. The "Rabin conspiracist theories" make the nonsense put out by the 911-Troofers almost appear logical. There is now a media campaign against Filber for his dabbling in Chamishist bullcrap. Filber says he no longer believes in the conspiracy nonsense, but the damages are already done.

 

 

4.  So after all the hoopla about how the new Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon would be a champion for economic reform and economic liberalism, along he comes and announces his maiden reform for the Israeli economy - rent controls. Meaning he is an economic illiterate who has never bothered to learn what markets are and what price controls do.

 

 

5.  Breaking news: Vatican to recognize Atlantis.

 

 

6.  Nomination for the very stupidest Israeli Leftist of the Century:
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.656330

Israeli Haaretz columnist and Animal Rights nut proclaims that eating meat is a Holocaust, equivalent to Nazi Holocaust

 

 

7.  A Nakba a day keeps the terrorists away!

 

 

8.  Hebrew U Lefty: Ethnic cleansing of Jews is the way to prevent apartheid!

http://isracampus.org.il/third%20level%20pages/HebrewU%20-%20Amiram%20Goldblum%20-%20Outlandish%20FB%20Posts.htm#Gaza_Judenrein

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Recognize the Rights of the Visigoths

1.        Recognize the Legitimate Rights of Self-Determination Now!!

 

By Steven Plaut

 

 

Friends, Comrads, Zionists!

 

It is time we acknowledge Alaric I and his descendents as the true and rightful rulers of the Vatican. 

 

As you recall, the good Alaric took control of the Vatican on August 24, 410 CE, and turned it into a city of Visigoths.  Ever since then, the rights of the Visigoths to self-determination and freedom in the Vatican have been denied by Church authorities.   But these rights to the eternal city are eternal and must at long last be acknowledged.

 

Indeed, Visigoth rights stem directly from the Nakba that the long-suffering Visigoths suffered at the hands of Theodosius and the Eastern Empire based in Constantinople and also from the Huns.   Thousands of Visigoths were brutally murdered in the year 400 in Constantinople.  Clearly a two-state solution is called for whereby the Church can retain its control of Roman Ravenna and the Visigoths exercise their legitimate rights in the Vatican! 

 

Now obviously the Visigoths held hegemony over the Vatican many centuries before anyone even dreamed of inventing a "Palestinian people."   While "Palestinians" are nothing more than Arabs from neighboring areas who migrated into "Palestine" to take advantage of the rising standards of living produced by the influx of Zionist migrants and capital, the Visigoths are a bona fide ancient people having their own rich culture.  Indeed their culture was the foundation for that of Spain and Portugal.  They produced masterpieces of art and architecture.  And they were progressive reformers; their laws were the first in Europe to recognize the legal rights of married women and of community property of couples.  They were religiously tolerant and pluralistic.  Unlike the Vatican.

 

So now that the Vatican has decided to "recognize" the "Palestinian people," the only logical response from the world must be to recognize the legitimate rights of the Visigoths to the Vatican.   No justice – no peace.

 

 

2.     Eyal Megged is an Israeli far-leftist columnist and a "poet." Somewhat amazingly, he is a son of the great Israeli author Aharon Megged, a man who was decidedly non-leftist.

Eyal often writes in Haaretz. In his column today in Haaretz, the Palestinian newspaper printed in Hebrew, http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.656330, he argues that there is no difference at all between the Nazi Holocaust of Jews in WWII and the killing of animals for food by humans.

I attach the entire atrocity below but it may suffice to read just a few of his comments:

There's no difference between what those who took control of the Jews did to us and what we do to the animals we have taken control of.
(I)n the animal's eyes, every man is a Nazi and every day is Treblinka
Anyone willing to open his heart to the monstrosity (of killing animals) cannot deny – there is no difference.
*****

If a Holocaust survivor can admit there's an animal holocaust - we can too
There's no difference between what those who took control of the Jews did to us and what we do to the animals we have taken control of.
By Eyal Megged | May 14, 2015 | 
The comparison between the extermination of the Jews in WWII and the extermination of animals, day by day and hour by hour, repels and outrages most people. Speak freely about animal rights, they tell me, but leave our Holocaust alone, they say when I dare use the holy of holies to demonstrate my point. Mentioning the "Holocaust" is a deterrent, it undermines your just arguments.
It's of no help to me that Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer said, "in the animal's eyes, every man is a Nazi and every day is Treblinka," and that Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee's disturbing novel Elizabeth Costello deals with the animal holocaust. Every time I insert our holy holocaust into the argument, the faces shut down, at best, and I usually turn from attacker to attacked.
In other words, the Holocaust is actually a fast and effective way of deflecting the argument from the horrific crimes we are responsible for to the comfortable meadow of what was done to us. Or, in short, a way of turning from criminal to victim.
Dr. Alex Hershaft, a chemist by trade, is a Holocaust survivor who devotes his life to this issue – justifying the forbidden equation. Hershaft, a herald for whose steps people like me have waited breathlessly, is holding a series of meetings in Israel these days. This man, who experienced the horrors on his flesh, whose childhood landscape is the Warsaw Ghetto, cannot be told: "how dare you compare?"
In Hershaft's lecture, the Holocaust is not only a metaphor, it's the point. Most of it is dedicated to his personal story – how he survived and was saved – and only in the last part do the animals come in. The impression is indisputably overwhelming. Hershaft's tone is the opposite of Gary Yourofsky's – it is moderate, balanced, extraordinarily reserved, as though he is forcibly blocking the storm inside him. But it is no less shocking for all that.
His angle is the forbidden one. His resolute message is unmistakable. Hershaft says, even if not in so many words: as one who was there, I have the right to determine that there's no difference. There's no difference between what those who took control of us did to us and what we do to the animals we have taken control of.
Until we're convinced, until we internalize this, the Holocaust's lesson will not be learned. We keep declaring "never again" and mean that the evil that has been done to us will never recur. But the real lesson is the opposite: we will never again do to others the evil that has been done to us. We will never again distinguish between one living creature and another, we will never again see any living creature as inferior to ourselves. We will not deny it its feelings, its suffering and especially not its desire (which is as strong as ours) to live.
For years, Hershaft harbored the well-known guilt for having been saved. For years, he asked himself what was the point of his staying alive and what value could he give this life. Until he visited an abattoir and saw the looks of the cows and calves before their death. Since then, his soul can only find peace in the struggle for their right not to be stuffed into carriages and sent helplessly to the slaughter; their right not to be murdered in horrible ways. Hershaft dares to show us lines next to lines, limbs next to limbs, eyes next to eyes.
Anyone willing to open his heart to the monstrosity cannot deny – there is no difference.

 

 

3.    Those with good memories may recall the name Ram Cohen. He is a Stalinist who serves as school principal in a high school in Tel Aviv called Tichon.net, based partly on computer distance learning. Before that he was principal of a real school, the Aleph high school of the arts. He has been in the news repeatedly for misusing his position as principal to call for support for Israel's communist party HADASH (see http://isracampus.org.il/…/HebrewU%20-%20Orit%20Kedar%20-%2…). The Ministry of Education investigated him for this. As principal, he is expected to keep his political opinions to himself. Let us note that high school teacher Yisrael Sharan was fired altogether when he wrote a letter to the Minister of Education that the Minister considered to be ideological, opposing the manner in which "Rabin's Legacy" was being taught.

In his new post Ram has been jihading against mezuzot. He ordered that no mezuza be affixed to entrances into classrooms in the school.http://www.mynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4583366,00.html

After all, the mezuza offends the sensitivities of Stalinists.

 


Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Divine Bacon

 

1.   Cut the crap!

Not every set of difficulties in integrating a group into Israeli society constitutes "racism."

Those who have problems integrating themselves into Israeli society are not suffering from "discrimination."

Read my lips. The fact that a group is disproportionately among those arrested and jailed for crime does not show racism on the part of the police but rather heterogeneous rates of criminality. Have you learned nothing from the US?

Violent and disruptive protesting, including blocking traffic arteries, will only create hostility to the group perpetrating these things.

If you hold violent protests together with communist and other extremist demagogues, do not expect to get any sympathy from us.

A million immigrants from the ex-Soviet Union all faced severe problems and challenges of integration and they underperform in the labor market compared with other Israelis, yet they have never engaged in violent protests. Instead of complaining, they sought education and opportunity. They expressed their agenda by setting up political parties. Learn from them.

If your agenda is to demonize Israel as racist, fuggedaboudit.

If you have bona fide hard evidence of discrimination, let's see it.  Your general feelings of frustration and resentment and being disrespected do not count.

 


2.  Alternative hypothesis: What do you think? The real reason Lieberman did not join the Netanyahu government is that he figures if he does the bidding of the leftist establishment in the prosecutors' office and undercuts Netanyahu, then - like they did back when Olmert adopted the agenda of the Left - they will freeze all criminal investigations of him and his party.
Just paranoia?

 

 

3.  In the Haaretz weekend magazine from May 8, on page 52, the Palestinian newspaper printed in Hebrew runs a recipe for making "Divine Bacon." One would think that the editors would have been reluctant to run such a thing in the paper lest it offend Moslems, but there it is, with a nice large photo for all to see the culinary delight that the recipe prepares for all devoted readers of this pseudo-newspaper.


Tuesday, May 05, 2015

The Oudist on the Roof

Oudist on the Roof

By Steven Plaut

 

 

The peace partners from the Palestinian Authority have announced that they have had enough of the Jews misappropriating Palestinian culture and folklore and claiming it as their own.  In order to set the record straight, the Palestinian Authority has decided to clear the air and stage the true musical play about the roots of Palestinian culture that was later distorted into Fiddler on the Roof, reclaiming what the Jewish colonialists have attempted to steal from the Palestinians.   American chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine will be holding amateur presentations of the play and the New York Metropolitan Opera announced plans to stage it after the play about Klinghoffer completes its run.

 

This new project is to show the real theatrical work that was later misappropriated by the Jews and misrepresented as based upon the writings of Shalom Aleichem.  Palestinian President Abu Mazen has greeted the new production with a call to restore the play to its original pristine Palestinian form, before it underwent Zionist distortion.

 

The new play is called Oudist on the Roof.  It shows the traditional Palestinian Oud player in various scenes breaking out in spontaneous song and music to accompany the singers and actors. 

 

The central figure in the play is Itboch, the humble village milkman.  He lives in a traditional Palestinian village before the Zionist colonialists conducted their ethnic cleansing of Arabs.  Itboch lives with his wife Jihada and their various unmarried daughters. 

 

In the first song of the play, Itboch comes out on stage and sings the new words to the Fiddler song "Tradition."  They go like this:  "Explosion, explosion, explosion":

 

 

Who, day and night, must scramble for a living,
Feed a wife and children, and pay the bills?
And who has the right, as master of the house,
To have the final word at home?

The Baba, the Baba! Explosion.
The Baba, the Baba! Explosion.

 

 

Itboch adorably likes to toss out citations from the Holy Books that do not actually appear there, to make himself appear to be learned.  After introducing other members of the Palestinian village, he breaks into song:

 

 "If I were a Shaheed, ya-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba die-dle-deidle, diedle diedle dum, all day long I'd detonate for fun, if I were a Shaheed guy."

 

 

Much of the plot concerns Itboch's efforts to marry off his daughters.   One of them refuses to marry an old man that her father has picked out for her because he is demanding no bride-price, so Itboch murders the girl in an honor killing.

 

Itboch sings the song "To Life" from Fiddler with a few editing changes to make it appropriate for a Palestinian musical.  The new words go like this:

 

 

To death! To death! Biladi!
Biladi, Biladi, to death!
If you've been lucky, then Monday was No worse than Sunday was,

Drink Biladi, to death.

To death, Biladi!
Biladi, Biladi, to death!
One day it's baklava cake,
Next day a stomach ache,
Drink Biladi, to death!

 

 

Another of Itboch's daughters decides to marry a communist.  But Itboch makes his peace with the idea since the local Palestinian Communist Party told him that the communists are really pro-Islam and not anti-religion.   Another daughter is to marry a nerdy guy who wheels out his new acquisition on a sewing machine table into the village square.  The "new arrival" is an al-Qassam rocket fastened to the top of the sewing machine.

 

At the end of the show, the Zionists enter the village dressed as Cossacks and order the poor Palestinian villagers to pick up and move out, to Jericho and Gaza.  The United Nations UNESCO has announced it is awarding the production a special subsidy.  Tel Aviv University will be the first institution in Israel to stage it.

 


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