Home > All News Items and Articles
As late as 2023, secular Jews in pre-1967 Israel were seeking to defend the liberal democratic character of their country – for its Jewish citizens. But as Professor Ilan Pappe and others have long argued, the attempt to maintain a liberal democratic regime within Israel alongside a repressive military occupation of majority Palestinian territories was bound sooner or later to fail and lead to the violent authoritarian values of the occupation dominating the whole country. No better example of this outcome can be found today than the website of Tel Aviv University (TAU). Not only does it leave no room for the suggestion of a wider context to the Hamas attack on 7 October in single-mindedly focussing upon the Israeli “martyrs” of this attack and the TAU student “heroes” who have gone to fight Hamas, but its President, who compares Hamas to the Nazis, calls for it to be crushed with “the utmost severity” and promises to expel the small minority within the University community who dissent from the call for repression. The statement by the President, Ariel Porat, can be found in the first 8 minutes of the interview with Professor Uzi Rabi on The Middle East Today and What the Future Holds here.