Right-wing Israeli NGO launches new 'witch hunt' site targeting 'anti-Zionist' professors

Right-wing Israeli NGO launches new 'witch hunt' site targeting 'anti-Zionist' professors
A right-wing Israeli NGO previously described as 'fascist' has launched a new Canary Mission-style website to 'expose anti-Israel professors'.
2 min read
15 May, 2019
The right-wing NGO has been accused of being 'fascist' in the past [Know Your Professor]
A new website launched by an Israeli NGO on Tuesday seeks to root out "anti-Zionist" professors within Israel itself by inviting students to complain about lecturers who "preach anti-Israel rhetoric", local media reported.

The site, created by the right-wing Im Tirtzu movement, has been compared to Canary Mission, a pro-Israel website that lists student activists and professors who it labels "anti-Semitic" and "anti-Israel".

The Hebrew-language website "Know Your Professor" already lists 85 academics it says are involved in "anti-Zionist" activity, including accusing Israel of war crimes and promoting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Im Tirtzu describes itself as an organisation that wants to strengthen "Zionist values" in Israel and combat a "campaign of de-legitimisation of the State of Israel".

The right-wing NGO has campaigned against pro-Palestinian Israeli human rights organisations, such as Zochrot - an organisation dedicated to raising awareness of the Nakba in Israel - HaMoked, and Peace Now, which it has accused of being "foreign agents".

Im Tirtzu has been described as a "fascist" organisation by some Israeli activists and even by Likud politician Benny Begin.

The group released a report entitled "Nakba Nonsense" in 2011 which called the 1948 forced displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians during the foundation of the state of Israel a "lie that threatens to drown us like a tsunami".

"Know Your Professor" is active on 20 campuses across Israel, according to Im Tirtzu.

Among those listed on the website are Daphna Golan, a Hebrew University professor who supports youth who refuse to serve in the IDF and has accused Israel of being an apartheid state, and Yehouda Shenhav of Tel Aviv University, who accused Israel of the "slaughter" of "wholly innocent people" in Gaza, according to JNA.

Also included are Ben-Gurion University's Niv Gordon, who promotes BDS, and Haifa University professor Vered Kraus, who called to boycott Ariel University, which is located in an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

The group claims the website is necessary to "protect Zionism".

"There is no parallel in the world to this phenomenon of hypocrisy and ungratefulness, in which these professors earn their living at the expense of the Israeli taxpayer yet at the same time work to boycott and slander them," Im Tirtzu CEO Matan Peleg told The Times of Israel.

Israel's Committee of University Heads has sharply criticised the NGO, calling its new website "a witch hunt run by extremist political organizations serving cynical political interests", according to Haaretz.

Follow us on Twitter: @The_NewArab