In reading this post, please recall all the hot air huffed and puffed by academic hasbarists like Carey Nelson who decry academic boycotts as violations of cherished democratic values like free speech and academic freedom.
They neglect the vast infrastructure of Occupation which pervades every aspect of Israeli life, including the universities. What can be more illustrative of this than a university feeding its students into the maw of the secret police, providing future torturers and agents who will poison the well for peace between these two peoples for generations to come?
So much for all the academic programs promoting peace and reconciliation among peoples which the apologist are so quick to tout. They never seem to address developments like this which would blemish the humanist pretensions of the University-Occupation complex (to adapt Pres. Eisenhower’s phrase).
Why shouldn’t Israeli universities be subject to BDS when they participate willingly and officially in such activities?
The heading of this ad reads:
Shabak seeks people who seek meaning.
“Meaning.” What an interesting word to use to recruit people to do the nation’s dirty work, including torturing security prisoner to obtain false confessions. I suppose what’s unspoken is the “meaning” they’re seeking is to serve the nation, protecting and defending it from its enemies. Not “meaning” in the philosophical sense. Of course, if you’re seeking the meaning of life or ethical values, Shabak shouldn’t be where you’re looking.
Ofer Neiman’s translation of the rest of the ad copy:
The Jerusalem Municipality’s Employment Center for University Graduates and Students and the Hebrew University present a first of its kind event – “Spotlight Day – Open Positions in the Shabak” – Sunday, January 22nd, 17:00
The event will be held under special security arrangements. Early registration is mandatory.
Mt Scopus Campus, Senate Hall.
This goes hand in hand with the post I published last week, which featured a Mossad ad seeking female recruits to serve as honeypots to catch unsuspecting enemies of the Israeli state like whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu. It should also be noted that Mossad honeypot schemes are reminiscent of the FSB blackmail plots which we’re reading about in the compromat compiled against Donald Trump. Secret police birds of a feather…
Related to this story, last year I published an even more shocking post noting that all of Israel’s universities “gave” (i.e. were directed to give) the personal contact information of every alumnus (name, address, phone, and national ID number) to Shabak. The information was to be used for recruitment purposes. Given the opaque nature of the security agency, no one bothered to tell the alumni why they were receiving recruitment notices from Shabak. A number of the recipients were social activists who wondered whether the Shin Bet now considered social justice activism an offense against the state; and that it was recruiting them to inform on their colleagues. Though this wasn’t the case, it didn’t lessen the invasion of the privacy of those alumni who were recruited who didn’t wish to be.
In Israel, all government institutions must provide information on demand to the security agencies. So the schools had no choice but to comply. They may also have been directed not to inform alumni that this information was given to Shabak. Such arbitrary and peremptory procedures are accepted common practice in the Israeli national security state.
H/t to Ofer Neiman.
[comment deleted: the comment threads are not meant to promote IDF hasbara. Maybe Isabel Kershner & other hasbara media find these stories worth publishing. But I think they’re garbage. So go link to them somewhere else. You’re wearing my patience thin. Consider that a warning.]
Israel’s greatest enemy is Israel. The Zionist honeymoon is showing signs of coming to an end.
“This goes hand in hand with the post I published last week, which featured a Mossad ad seeking female recruits to serve as honeypots to catch unsuspecting enemies of the Israeli state like whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu”
This is not what the add the Mossad published had stated. You speculate that the Mossad is seeking feamle agents for that purpose. Lets not confuse speculations with facts. In reality female agents serve various roles. For example, it is not what Sylvia Rafael was doing.
@ Amico: Really. So you think the Mossad would advertise specifically for female recruits because it seeks to make them heads of the major units of the organization? Something it’s never done in the past? And that all of a sudden it’s become enlightened, egalitarian, & women-friendly? No, they’re recruited to be honey pots, to make coffee for the top brass, and do menial intelligence chores the macho guys prefer not to do. Come back to us when the first woman becomes Shabak chief. Then we can talk.
In fact there are women in the Mossad holding senior positions. For example, in the article I once already linked to, the women interviewed are all at a rank which equivalent to colonel and general (Tat Aluf) in the IDF. Which is quite senior.
http://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1000783977
” כל המרואיינות בדרג פיקודי, שהמקבילה הצה”לית שלו היא אלופת משנה ותת אלופה.”
Its not about being inlightened and not about doing anyone a favor. Its about being efficient and thus use good people (“even” if they happen to be women) to perform a difficult job. There is no advantage for a man over a woman when it comes to classic intelligence work such as surveillance and recruiting sources.
BTW, you don’t have to be a great supporter of Israel or its security forces to aknowlege that in some respects they were quite “liberal”. For example, why the USA miliary had the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy, openly gay people served in the IDF as soldiers and officers (including one of my company commanders). Again, such liberal policies are simply useful. Why give up good people just because they happen to have a different sexual identity or tendencies?
There are plenty of aspects the Mossad should be criticized about. recruiting women only to be “honey pots” is just not one of them.
@ Amico: I read the article or one quite similar. It doesn’t matter what their rank is. At least one or more of them justified the honeypot operations. Another, if I recall correctly, said she knew the Mossad would never put her in such a situation. Proving that she’s either lying or doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about.
Further, the Mossad has to have a few token women in senior positions just as most large western companies and political bodies do. It’s for show to prove that they’re no longer as Neandertal as they once were–when in reality they are. Do you know how many sex scandals there are in the Mossad? Do you know how many cases of sexual harrassment there are? I know because I’ve documented them.
You believe women are treated equally acccording to their skills? You are totally deluded. Nor do you know or understand your own country’s security service.
Of course there isn’t. But that’s not what the entire political leadership of the state & the intelligence agencies believe. So when they name you Mossad chief & you implement new policies then we can talk.
“Liberal?” If you mean they use their weapons liberally to kill Palestinians; or that they assassinate insignificant operatives liberally in order to raise their macho factor profile–then yes, they are liberal.
God, you’re only the 18th hasbaroid to use that lame meme. That’s Hasbara 101 bud. Didn’t they dust off any new ones for you to use here? You have the nerve to tell me in a country that murders gays, and whose political leaders denounce gays as animals, and reject the notion of gay marriage–that your country is “liberal?” Oh & by the way, when the IDF names a gay general who is a member of the general staff, let us all know.
We’ll be doing it here for quite some time to come. So don’t tell me what reasons the Mossad should or should not be criticized. When they stop the practice entirely & say that they’ve done so, then we can talk.
And please do not ever post a link twice to the same article. You offered the link once in a previous comment. That’s quite enough.
are reminiscent of the FSB blackmail plots which we’re reading about in the compromat compiled against Donald Trump.
That is a poor comparison to make if you want to convince anyone about your theory, This example is unsupported by any evidence and many rational analysts dismiss it as pure fabrication.
@ ToivoS:
I’m not sure whether you’re referring to the dossier itself or to the specific claim that the FSB ambushes of its vulnerable victims are like the ambushes of Trump alleged in the dossier
If the former, most news media outlets note that no one has yet been able to verify the claims, which would be quite a high bar given the nature of the dossier, its sources, & the issues it covers. However, no one has discredited any major themes or claims (yet some names are misspelled, big deal) of the dossier. Trump & his flunkies have ridiculed it. But that’s different than providing verifiable evidence to rebut anything major in it.
You are asking us to prove a negative. Very difficult to do. However, there is one thing in the dossier that has been established as false; i.e. the Trump aid who visited Prague to conspire with the Russians. This person was elsewhere at the time and apparently had never visited Prague at all.
None of the claims are supported by any evidence. I read your blog because you do make cases by assembling supporting evidence. In the case of the dossier there is zero supporting evidence and one of its assertions has already been established as almost certainly false. You seem to have high standards before making a case. Why accept something as true that falls way short of your own standards? Just because you might hate Russia that is not a good reason the buy into unsubstantiated assertions by obviously partisan players.
@ ToivoS:
You only had to read a few other comments to find that the exact claim you made was advanced by others (twice) and rebutted by me (twice). Do you realize how much I hate having to address this yet a third time? The Prague visit hasn’t been “established as false.” A claim was made by Michael Cohen that he’s never visited Prague. Even if this is true, & he never offered any authoritative proof that it is, that meeting could’ve happened in a different city (and the dossier itself never makes a 100% claim the meeting happened in Prague as I recall). As I’ve said before, you’re attacking things which are relatively secondary regarding the dossier. The main question is whether the Russians conspired with Trump to win him the presidency. I think the evidence is beginning to be persuasive. But it isn’t quite there yet, obviously. But I am open to these claims being true. I am also open to them being proven false if that happens. But overstated claims like yours and the others made here don’t do that for me.
I don’t “hate Russia” any more than I “hate Israel.” I hate Putin. I hate secret police. But hate a people or nation? No. Don’t put words or beliefs into my mouth.
You only had to read a few other comments to find that the exact claim you made was advanced by others (twice) and rebutted by me (twice).
Where is that?? Not in this thread. I see 9 comments here (not counting this one).
I don’t “hate Russia” any more than I “hate Israel.” I hate Putin.
Currently Putin has 80%+ approval rating with the Russian people and he and his party are winning with 60% margins. (the 20% that do not vote for him are the Communists but otherwise they approve of his foreign policy). So therefore you do hate what the Russian people support.
@Toivo: That is such horseshit. Putin, who has assassinated (Politskaya, Litvinenko, Nemtsov, etc.), jailed (Navalny) or eviscerated any person or party to threaten him, has great approval ratings. What does that prove? That he’s a neat and tidy dictator who destroys any serious opposition, then sweeps up the messes he makes?
Italians lived Mussolini for a few yrs because he made the trains run on time. Putin is tough as nails. Russians apparently don’t mind dictators who treat them like a pack of sheep as long as those trains run on time.
Of course the claims others made about the dossier are not in this thread because you’re commenting off-topic in a thread dealing with a Mossad ad!!
Putin is not Russia. If you make the claim again that I hate Russia I will moderate or ban you.
“I suppose what’s unspoken is the “meaning” they’re seeking is to serve the nation, protecting and defending it from its enemies”
Yep, that’s exactly it in the Israeli discourse. No one will read it and think it offers solutions to question regarding the meaning of life….
You are putting way too much importance to this add. The university has a department that is aimed at helpping the graduates finding employment and they are probably happy to allow the Shabac present career opportunities to the graduates. This is nonsense compared to all the academic programs “promoting peace and reconciliation among peoples” and the generally very liberal tone that dominates this university.
I won’t go again into what most Shabac personnel really do and why this organization is important. I will however mentioned that when I arrived to the USA to continue my studies (when the USA was already involved in Iraq) in one of the UC campuses, I noticed 2 surprising things for a university:
There was a program of military studies, with the students belonging to it wearing uniform and performing militery training around the campus and in addition there was a recruiting center there. So, these facts make the UC system (including Berkley, which is part of it) any less liberal or committed to humanistic values? if so, than there is nothing unique with the Hebrew university. So, any BDS for that will be quite hypocritical.
Also, I know of at least one student of an American university that received an email offering him to work for the navy. That was me. How did they get my contact information? how did they know what I was studying and that I was a relevant candidate? Lets not be naive.