About a week and a half ago, an ad was published with 100 professors who came out with a petition in support of the justice system reform of the Minister of Justice, Yariv Levin, last Friday another list of 100 more signatories was published. The petition has so far been signed by 200 professors from all universities in Israel and hundreds of other academics have expressed support for the petition.
In a conversation with Kipa News, the person who heads the initiators of the petition, Prof. Elisha Haas, Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar Ilan University and formerly of the Professors’ Circle for Political and Economic Resilience, explains what their purpose is in publishing this petition and claims that the current struggle is not about reform but about the identity of State of Israel.
Elisha Haas Photo: Courtesy of the photographer
“The fight going on here today is not about reform but about the identity of the State of Israel”
At the beginning of his remarks, Prof. Haas talks about the “Professors’ Circle for Political and Economic Resilience” organization, many of whose members signed the petition supporting the reform. “We are an organization that has existed since the 1980s whose main goal is to show the national public that there are academics who are national within the universities. Secondly, we want to give intellectual backing to the elected representatives of the national camp.”
According to Prof. Haas, the current struggle is over the identity of the State of Israel. “The current crisis is a profound crisis in Israeli society and the struggle that is going on here today is not about reform but about the identity of the State of Israel. The decision that was in the elections endangered the control of the hegemony and they realized that it is irreversible, it is not an accident, it is a big change in the Israeli public. I Claims that the change resulted from the strengthening of traditionalism and nationalism over the years.”
“This mobilization together with the left with a lot of resources, created great confusion in public opinion”
He also added that the left and external parties are interested in canceling Israel’s status as a Jewish state. “The left understands this and, together with it, external parties are interested in Israel ceasing to be a Jewish state and becoming a small, weak state, threatened in the Middle East. This mobilization together with the left, with a lot of resources, created great confusion in public opinion and people became anxious and told them that we are dangerous and will establish a Halacha state. All kinds of nonsense designed to scare.”
Levin and Rothman “that there are also sane, intellectual, rational voices within the academy” Photo: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90
“The public is beginning to understand that there are also sane, intellectual, rational voices within the academy”
Prof. Haas told what made them come out with a petition in favor of the reform. “In the academic fields, they have mobilized in favor of the propaganda of the left in a destructive way that defiles the universities in terms of their political cleanliness and objectivity, and this is a situation that is intolerable. We are coming out against this mobilization. There is democracy, there is a decision at the ballot box and the government will do what it has to do because it has a parliamentary majority. And it turns out that there are people who dispute this. The struggle includes a call for refusals and the mobilization of the universities that made us come out with the petition. Within a few hours, 120 signatures were collected and after that another 80 signatures were added last week.”
He also added that “among us there are people whose academic status and professional status cannot be contested by anyone. The public is beginning to understand that there are sane, intellectual, rational voices. The president of the country invited us to a meeting and we explained our opinion as it is written in this itself, the reform is necessary to stop the rampage of The judicial system is intolerable. We will continue to voice the national academic voice.”