Tuesday, October 30, 2007

What You Can Be Taught at the Hebrew University

Here's how one Jewess, Daphna Golan-Agnon, set out to undermine the Zionist-Jewish state of Israel, in her own words and thanks to Israel Academia Monitor:

"My PhD thesis focused on the reconstruction and use of history in South Africa...The first Intifada was at its peak when I completed my PhD and I became
actively involved in establishing B'Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, established in February 1989. I was its founding Research Director, in charge of establishing the data collection, research, and publication of the organization. I also researched and wrote some of the reports myself.

"I felt that my contribution to a human rights culture in Israel was more important than my research on South Africa...In 1989 I applied and was accepted for an international intensive program on Human Rights and International Law at the International School for Human Rights in Strasbourg...[later] I received a research grant from the Washington based International Human Rights Internship Program...I returned to Israel with the idea of creating an academic center like the Center for Applied Legal Studies. I envisioned and helped design a Center that would be an academic home for both human rights activists and scholars. This became the Hebrew University Center for Human Rights, later the Minerva Center for Human Rights.

"Shortly after the signing of the Oslo accord in December 1993, I became the Founding Director of the Israeli Center Bat Shalom which, with the Palestinian Jerusalem Center for Women in East Jerusalem, was entitled the Jerusalem Link - A Women's Joint Venture for Peace...On the invitation of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford University and supported by a research grant from the Ford Foundation...I focused on Israeli human rights activists protecting Palestinian rights and the relationships of the activists with the legal system. I examined why Israeli human rights activists challenge Israeli policies using universal values and the language of human rights...In 1999-2001 I was appointed by the Minister of Education to design and coordinate a national plan to reduce gaps in the education system. The recommendations of the committee led to a reform in the distribution of
funding in all Israel's schools, the establishment of research groups to change curriculum in history and civil education for Arab schools, and the celebration of International Human Rights Day in all parts of the Israeli education system...

..."Since 1999, I have established and taught two Fellowship Programs at the Hebrew University: The Human Rights Fellows Program of The Minerva Center for Human Rights, at the Law School, and the Fellowship Program for Gender Equality and the Prevention of Violence against Women...I began to examine what the students learn from this experience of being able to contribute to advancing human rights, their use of the universal language of human rights, as well as their motivations and passion to
change...In June 2004, I and Salim Tamari, Director of the Institute of Jerusalem
Studies established an Israeli-Palestinian research group to study models of Reconciliation and Transitional Justice for Israel and Palestine. I hope that this group will now focus its efforts both on publication of a book as well as on the formation of a public process of acknowledgement and reconciliation."


Israeli academia at work.

1 comment:

Izgad said...

You disappointed me. I was waiting for Daphna to actually call Israel an apartheid state.
Protecting human rights is an important issue and that includes protecting the human rights of Palestinians. Human rights apply even to criminals on death row.