נאום כתוב (באנגלית) – נטיה פוליטית פוגעת ברמה האקדמית של חוגים למדע המדינה

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening.

 

It is an open secret that political science departments in Israeli universities have a left-leaning disposition. Over the years, this tendency to adhere only to radical leftist views has dealt a mortal blow to the level and nature of teaching in these respective tertiary educational institutions. I will present to you two irrefutable arguments underpinning this contention. Firstly, this dominant and dogmatic doctrine stifles students’ critical thinking processes. Moreover, this phenomenon within Israeli academic circles plays a crucial role in the erosion of the patriotic spirit among students in particular and the Israeli public in general.

Suppression of free thought

Israeli universities’ political science departments are the bastion of the political left. Like political elites that have ruled kingdoms and nation states since time immemorial they have no tolerance to streaks of thought that fall short of toeing the preponderant line of what they perceive as the objective truth.

As a consequence, they fail to live up to the key goal of research institutions, namely, the promotion of a wide spectrum of opinions based on deductive arguments or empirical evidence. Ofra Gracier, a doctoral student in Tel-Aviv University’s humanities faculty explains the process to Caroline Glick, a reporter for the Jerusalem Post. She says: “It starts with the course syllabus. In a class on introduction to political theory for instance, you will never see the likes of Leo Strauss or Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman… You will only get Marx and Rousseau and people like that… say you want to dispute your professor.

I was taught this class by Yoav Peled, an avowed communist. He was explaining why capitalism is evil. I mentioned the Asian economic miracle — South Korea, Japan, Singapore. He went nuts and spent the rest of the class screaming at me.” This example illustrates a dire state of affairs where fear and tyranny are the modus operandi in reining in undesirable standpoints. A side effect of this narrow mindset results in an acute dearth of scholarly books whose pivotal thrust gives a voice to right-wing world views. Thus, Dr. Martin Sherman of Tel-Aviv University’s Political Science Department was unable to get the university’s Jaffa Center for Strategic Studies to publish his original work whose lynchpin was that the establishment of a Palestinian state will transfer 70% of Israel’s water sources to it.

Eating away at the patriotic spirit

The high-handedness of leftist-oriented intellectuals in political science departments is not limited only to the campus but has far greater ramifications. Many of these scholars have imparted their biased doctrines to thousands of would-be policy makers during the latter’s formative years in the academic world. They promote their views in opinion pieces in mass circulated newspapers, in electronic media outlets and in parliamentary fora, thus casting the national psyche in accordance with their own parochial vantage point. 

This has an effect on the Israeli public’s sense of legitimacy over the land of Israel and their identification with the state. According to an opinion poll conducted by Israel Democracy Institute on Israelis’ attitudes toward the state, 58% of Israelis are proud of being Israeli while 97% of Americans and Poles are proud of their national identity. According to the survey, many other peoples entertain higher degrees of pride to their own countries than Israelis. It is obvious that Israeli political scholars contribute to these lamentable figures.  

Conclusion

In conclusion, the crisis in political science departments emanates from the disproportionate weight of the leftist metanarrative within their folds. Teaching is the main victim as critical thinking is not nurtured, to say the least, and this injurious process undermines the national identity of students and the general public.