{"id":195214,"date":"2019-09-23T07:30:54","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T07:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=195214"},"modified":"2019-09-26T06:34:08","modified_gmt":"2019-09-26T06:34:08","slug":"on-the-liberty-to-teach-pursue-and-discuss-knowledge-without-restriction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=195214","title":{"rendered":"On the liberty to teach, pursue, and discuss knowledge without restriction"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gilad Atzmon \u2013 gilad.co.uk Sept 23, 2019<\/h1>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/protect-academic-freedom.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-195216\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/protect-academic-freedom.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"540\" height=\"348\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/protect-academic-freedom.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/protect-academic-freedom-300x193.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h5>It didn\u2019t\u00a0 take long for the American Administration to crudely interfere with an open society\u2019s most sacred ethos, that of academic freedom.\u00a0 We learned this weekend that the US Department of Education has ordered Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to remake their joint Middle East studies program after concluding that they were offering students \u201ca biased curriculum that, among other complaints, did not present enough \u201cpositive\u201d imagery of Judaism and Christianity in the region.\u201d<\/h5>\n<h5>Academic freedom is a relatively simple principle. It refers to the \u201dliberty to teach, pursue, and discuss knowledge without restriction or interference, as by school or public officials.\u201d<\/h5>\n<h5>This principle seems to be under attack in America.\u00a0 The American administration has\u00a0openly interfered with the liberty to freely teach, pursue and discuss knowledge.<\/h5>\n<h5>The <span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><a style=\"color: #ffff00;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2019\/09\/19\/us\/politics\/anti-israel-bias-higher-education.html\">New York Times writes<\/a><\/span>:\u00a0 \u201cin a rare instance of federal intervention in college course content, the department asserted that the universities\u2019 Middle East program violated the standards of a federal program that awards funding to international studies and foreign language programs.\u201d<\/h5>\n<h5>According to the NYT the focus on \u2018anti Israeli bias\u2019 \u201cappears to reflect the views of an agency leadership that includes a civil rights chief, Kenneth L. Marcus, who has made a career of pro-Israel advocacy and has waged a years long campaign to delegitimize and defund Middle East studies programs that he has criticized as rife with anti-Israel bias.\u201d<\/h5>\n<h5>One may wonder why America is willing to sacrifice its liberal ethos on the pro Israel altar?\u00a0 Miriam Elman provides a possible answer. Elman is an associate professor at Syracuse University and executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, which opposes BDS. Elman told the NYT that this \u201cshould be a wake-up call\u2026 what they\u2019re (the Federal government presumably) saying is, \u2018If you want to be biased and show an unbalanced view of the Middle East, you can do that, but you\u2019re not going to get federal and taxpayer money.\u201d<\/h5>\n<h5>In Elman\u2019s view academic freedom has stayed intact, it is just the <em>dollars <\/em>\u00a0that will be\u00a0 withheld unless a university adheres to pro Israel politics.<\/h5>\n<h5>Those who follow the history of Zionism, Israeli politics and Jewish nationalism find this latest development unsurprising. Zionism, once dedicated to the concept of a \u201cpromised land,\u201d morphed decades ago into an aspiration toward a \u2018promised planet.\u2019\u00a0 Zionism is a global project operating in most, if not all, Western states. Jewish pressure groups, Zionist think tanks and Pro Israel lobbies work intensively to suppress elementary freedoms and reshape the public, political and cultural discourse all to achieve Zionism\u2019s ambitious goal. After all, Jewish power, as I define it, is the power to suppress criticism of Jewish power.<\/h5>\n<h5>This authoritarian symptom is not at all new. It is apparently a wandering phenomenon. It has popped out in different forms at different times. \u00a0What happened in the USSR\u00a0 provides a perfect illustration of this\u00a0 symptom. In the early days of Soviet Russia, anti-Semitism was met with the death penalty as stated by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marxists.org\/reference\/archive\/stalin\/works\/1931\/01\/12.htm\"><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">Joseph Stalin<\/span><\/a>\u00a0 in answer to an inquiry made by the Jewish News Agency: \u201cIn the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.\u201d<\/h5>\n<h5>Germany saw the formation of Jewish anti defamation leagues attempted to suppress the rise in anti Jewish sentiments.* There\u2019s no need to elaborate on the dramatic failure of these efforts in Germany. And despite Stalin\u2019s early pro-Jewish stance, the Soviet leader turned against the so- called <strong>\u201c<\/strong><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><a style=\"color: #ffff00;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rootless_cosmopolitan\">rootless cosmopolitan<\/a><\/span>s.&#8221; This campaign led to the 1950s <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Doctors%27_plot\"><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">Doctors&#8217; plot<\/span><\/a>, in which a group of doctors (mostly Jewish) were subjected to a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Show_trial\"><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">show trial<\/span><\/a> for supposedly having plotted to assassinate the Soviet leader.<\/h5>\n<h5>In Britain and other Western nations we have seen fierce pro Israel campaigns waged to suppress criticism of Israel and Jewish politics. Different lobbies have been\u00a0 utilizing different means amongst them the adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism by governments and institutions. In Britain, France, Germany and other European countries, intellectuals, artists, politicians, party members and ordinary citizens are constantly harassed by a few powerful Jewish pressure groups. In dark Orwellian Britain 2019, critics of Israel have yet to face the death sentence, but they are subjected to severe reprisals ranging\u00a0 from personal intimidation to police actions and criminal prosecution. People have lost their jobs for supporting Palestine, others have been expelled from Corbyn\u2019s compromised Labour Party for making truthful statements. Some have even been jailed for satirical\u00a0 content. And as you might guess, none of this has made Israel, its supporters or its stooges popular. Quite the opposite. <strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5>I learned from the NYT that the administration \u201cordered\u201d the universities\u2019 consortium to submit a revised schedule of events it planned to support, a full list of the courses it offers and the professors working in its Middle East studies program.\u00a0 I wonder who in the administration possesses the scholarly credentials to assess the academic level of university courses or professors? Professor Trump himself, or maybe Kushner &amp; Ivanka or Kushner\u2019s coffee boy <span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><a style=\"color: #ffff00;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.vanityfair.com\/news\/2019\/09\/jared-kushner-avi-berkowitz\">Avi Berkovitch<\/a><\/span>, or maybe recently retired \u2018peace maker\u2019 <span style=\"color: #ffff00;\"><a style=\"color: #ffff00;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jewishpress.com\/news\/us-news\/retired-israeli-diplomats-warn-greenblatt-against-recognizing-jerusalem\/2017\/12\/05\/\">Jason Greenblat<\/a>t<\/span>?<\/h5>\n<h5>It takes years to build academic institutions, departments, libraries and research facilities. Apparently, it takes one determined lobby to ruin the future of American scholarship.<\/h5>\n<h5>*In his book Final Solution David Cesarani brings the story of the Centralverein deutscher Staatsb\u00fcrger j\u00fcdischen Glaubens (Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith) that operated in Germany since the late 19th century \u201csuing rabble rousers for defamation, funding candidates pledging to contest antisemitism\u2026\u201d You can read about the association and its activity <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org\/antisemitic-songs\"><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">here<\/span><\/a><\/h5>\n<h5><strong>My battle for truth and freedom involves some expensive legal and security services. I hope that you will consider committing to a monthly donation in whatever amount you can give. Regular contributions will enable me to avoid being pushed against a wall and to stay on top of the endless harassment by Zionist operators attempting to silence me and others.<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5>To assist Gilad in his work <a href=\"https:\/\/gilad.online\/writings\/2019\/9\/22\/on-the-liberty-to-teach-pursue-and-discuss-knowledge-without-restriction\"><span style=\"color: #ffff00;\">scroll to the foot of the source page to make a donation<\/span><\/a>.<\/h5>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/gilad.online\/writings\/2019\/9\/22\/on-the-liberty-to-teach-pursue-and-discuss-knowledge-without-restriction\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zionism, once dedicated to the concept of a \u201cpromised land,\u201d morphed decades ago into an aspiration toward a \u2018promised planet.\u2019\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,42,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-controlling-the-news-andor-the-free-exchange-of-ideas-and-information","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=195214"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195223,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195214\/revisions\/195223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=195214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=195214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=195214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}