Academic Freedom under Political Duress: Israel

Itzhak Galnoor Academic Freedom under Political Duress: Israel POLITICAL DURESS WITHIN THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY IS A STRONG sense that there is a threat of external interference with core academic values and freedoms such as free inquiry, free speech, institutional autonomy, and personal safety. Of course, a “strong sense” is subjective and not easily measurable and a certain degree of duress is probably part and parcel of academic life. Political duress in academia, however, is somewhat more focused because it relates to intended attempts to curtail the freedoms mentioned above, or at least to restrain them. Consequently, when we say “political” we need to specify the world­ view and the interests involved. After a short introduction on the background of Israeli Higher Education Institutions (HEI), this article will focus on two current threats to academic freedom in Israel. First, political intimidation origi­ nating from extreme nationalistic and religious groups aimed at silenc­ ing “ nonloyal” voices inside as well as outside the universities; second, a process of “commodification” in the form of political-administrative pressures on HEI, and the enforcement of “management” and privatiza­ tion policies. Academic freedom is under duress in Israel because of the combination of these two different forces. They have been persistent for quite some tim e and now share a general attitude and goal; the “tam ing” of HEI. The result has been a m ajor crisis in Israeli higher education, both morally and financially. social research Voi 76 : No 2 : Summer 2009 541 BACKGROUND Education and learning, including higher education, were a top public priority among Jews in British Mandate Palestine and those in the diaspora concerned with Jewish settlement in Palestine before Israel was established in 1948. The Institute of Technology (Technion, 1924), the Hebrew University (1925 ), and the Weizmann Institute (1934) were established in the prestate period and achieved international reputa­ tion early in their existence. In the first years o f the state most spheres of life—health services, housing, and primary and secondary education—were highly politicized, and some of these services were run by organizations directly affiliated with political parties (Galnoor, 1985: 154-165). One area which was surprisingly saved from partisan politics was Higher Education (HE). This was surprising for three reasons. First, it would have been very tempting to try and harness HE to the pioneering collec­ tive endeavors of the new state by political interventions in the curricu­ lum and in other ways. Second, HEI, which required relatively heavy investments (tuition was very low, almost free), were financed by the state and donations from abroad. Third, although in the highly central­ ized state of that period the opposition to the policies of the dominant party was weak, some of the most vocal opposing views to government policies in the area of security and foreign affairs could be heard from a few rather influential professors at the Hebrew University. The most famous among them were Judah L. Magnes, Martin Buber, and later Yeshayahu Leibovitz. Thus one would have expected an attempt by the government to curtail this opposition and even set up a legal and organizational structure capable of doing so. It should be noted that the right-wing opposition parties in the Knesset would have not objected, since the dissenting academics were considered to be on the left as far as national issues were concerned. To be sure, all of the above occurred to some extent: there were pressures to be” relevant” to nation-building (for example, the high priority given to setting up a Faculty of Agriculture at the Hebrew University); attempts to delegitimize dissenting academ­ 542 social research ics; and some attempts to control HE administratively. In retrospect, however, we can see and appreciate that none of these measures were pushed relentlessly or actually succeeded. The best example of this fail­ ure of political intervention in the early years of the state is the Higher Education Law of 1958. In the deliberations in the Knesset on this bill there were suggestions to put HE under tight control of the Ministry of Education, or to set up a supervising council composed of represen­ tatives of the political parties (Volansky, 2005: 31-63). In the end, this law...