Israeli Professors Accuse Education Minister of Attack on Academic Freedom By HAIM WATZMAN
Faculty members in Israel are accusing the country's education minister of trying to stifle the academic freedom of a University of Haifa drama professor who, in a freshman survey course, reportedly compared Israeli soldiers to Nazis.
The minister, Limor Livnat, sent a letter of complaint last month directing the university's rector, Aaron Ben-Ze'ev, to investigate a news report that Avraham Oz, who heads the university's theater program, had made the classroom comparison.
A student told a local newspaper in Haifa that Mr. Oz had said to the class that Israeli soldiers who serve in the occupied territories are like Adolf Eichmann, a top official in the Nazi genocide program. Eichmann claimed in his trial that he could not be held culpable for the murders of the Jews and others because he had been a soldier following orders.
Mr. Oz denied the charge. He said that in a section of the course on tragedy that he has taught in each of the past 30 years, he states that tragedy is a matter of choice between evils. He uses the example of Antigone, who must choose between obedience to the law and her conscience.
"I refute the case of the tragic villain as evil incarnate, saying that tragedy suggests that everybody, including myself, has a little Iago, Edmund, or, yes, Eichmann in him," Mr. Oz said in an e-mail message he sent to his colleagues about the incident.
Mr. Oz did not deny that he is politically active on the Israeli left, but he insisted that he does not bring his politics into the classroom.
"I sign several petitions a day," he said. "Do I need class to express my views? I'm most objective and professional in class."
Mr. Ben-Ze'ev cited Mr. Oz's denial in a reply to Ms. Livnat. But some other faculty members at the university and at other Israeli universities feel that the rector should not just reply to the charges but protest the minister's attempt to intervene in classroom discussions.
Mr. Ben-Ze'ev defended his reply, saying that the minister, who is the statutory head of Israel's public higher-education system, had asked for information about what had happened in the class.
"I can't say that she is not allowed to ask about what is happening at the university -- but neither can she tell teachers what they can and cannot say," he said.
Ms. Livnat's office confirmed that she had sent the letter but declined to comment further on the matter.
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