Asa Kasher

Education Minister Naftali Bennett speaks to students at Bar Ilan University on January 01, 2013. (Flash90)

Is it ‘unethical’ to oppose the occupation in academia?

A new ‘code of ethics’ commissioned by Israel’s education minister seems to target left-wing politics in universities. The Israeli Education Ministry, headed by far-right politician Naftali Bennett, recently commissioned an ethical code for political conduct in higher education in Israel. The resulting document (Hebrew) is a highly invasive set of political thought controls portrayed as…

By Dahlia Scheindlin June 12, 2017

Israeli professor Asa Kasher attends a Foreign Affairs and security meeting in the Israeli parliament. November 3, 2014. (Miriam Alster/Flash 90)

Former IDF ethicist tapped to censor ‘political speech’ in Israeli universities

Professor Asa Kasher, whose code of ethics for the IDF found expression in the devastation of the 2014 Gaza war, is set to decide what lecturers at Israel’s universities and colleges can and can’t say. Education Minister Naftali Bennett intends to lay down new “ethical rules” for what lecturers at Israel’s centers of higher learning can and can’t say regarding politics,…

By Natasha Roth-Rowland December 9, 2016

Gaza Strip under Israeli attack, Jan. 2009 (Yossi Gurvitz)

Does Israel intentionally target civilians?

Israeli policy (unlike Hamas or Hezbollah) is not intended to maximize civilian casualties. Yet it does intentionally target civilians: it is intended to produce maximal civilian distress, while avoiding mass civilian casualties. In discussions about the Israeli-Arab conflict, one of the perennial issues is the targeting of non-combatants. The reactions to the brutal murders in…

By Roi Maor April 22, 2011

Latest