I do agree with freedom of expression and I believe democracy is very important, but the BG University atacks the state and should be restricted funding unless it stops hiring "professors" who promote boycott against Israel. Maybe this is not too democratic a desicion, but it is better than feeding your enemies.

Rivka Carmi said the department is "well-known throughout the world - Yes, as a strongly left wing biased department. Non of this is news.

We need a German professor (heading the committee) to tell us that the department may be biased. If there is really much ado about nothing? I doubt it.

The politics department is home to neo-fascists like Neve Gordon and David Newman, people striving to suppress freedom of speech and academic freedom while seeking Israel's annihilation!

There are lots of us who want to support the good work BGU does - in the sciences, in agriculture, desert and water studies, etc. - but are turned off by the left-wing stench coming out of its Humanities and Social Studies departments - the Political Science department in particular. Here's an idea. Spin off all those departments currently under David Newman's authority into a self-sustaining institution. No more government funding; let them raise money based on their own accomplishments. Then the rest of us can happily support BGU without worrying about our money, it being so fungible, going to Neve Gordon and his friends. Full disclosure: To date I've supported Weizmann and Technion, along with a handful of other Israeli institutions, but not BGU, TAU or HU.

to be used like "Human Rights" as a political metaphor? We have seen in the States for example "the pillar of higher education" used to indoctrinate several generations of political scientists in the progressive left ideology and it has appeared here over the years turning several into not just anti-Israel but anti-Jewish.

It is precisely because of these censorious and anti-humanistic responses that BGU must prevail and hold steadfast to its excellent standards which are very high.

no university can claim to be unbiased when it allows only one idea (Left and Lefter is not both sides) to dominate discourse. Unfortunately I have seen this happen in my own University within the Middle eastern department when myths are more important than facts. This is why self proclaimed higher education is nothing more than indoctrination. aka asking the same questions to get to the same answers. Its like learning Torah from a Hasidic rabbi rather than opening the books and simply reading what (Torah) scholars have written (and contradicted each other) because it is easier.

The idea of government telling educators what they can or can't think is draconian to the extreme and must not be accepted.

Strange with the isrealis leftist...thinking of Israel as an apartheid state (am I wrong?). they sure would love to be sent to ANY muslim country and experience the islamic apartheid states, almost everyone actually are!!

Th eproof is that Neve Gordon was hired and promoted on the basis of an "academic record" consisting entirely of Bash-Israel hate propaganda. There is no clearer proof that academic standards do not exist at BGU!

Gosh, let’s pretend that we do not know what the panel is talking about. Gosh, we never heard that academic standards are dead in the politics department at BGU. Gosh, we did not know that faculty members get hired there enttirely on the basis of their producing anti-Israel hate propaganda. Gosh, we did not know that Zionists and non-leftists are prevented from teaching in that department and that the faculty there harass non-leftist students who speak their minds. We just have no idea what the panel is talking about. And no idea why the entire world looks at the politics department at BGU as an anti-Israel pseudo-acadmic joke. We have never heard about Neve Gordon’s “academic record and his ties to Holocaust Deniers.”

let's also pretend that the faculty at BGU, in respect of it's namesake ben-gurion who really feared facism. and no wonder, and his alliances, blind-eyes (israel be'er anyone?), the sword and sickle of nahal ( n.b. obsolete), the kibbutzes themselves. one could go on and on, though they also conveniently forget his orders in operation hiram, that the galilee should be naki and raek. anyway, with therir links to the bbc, and many other similar orgaisations in the free world, they have produced a force multiplication far beyond their status, and a lot of damage to both israeli and or jewish interests. the jews who do work for the bbc, well, so many are in boycott organisations. their ideological foundations are, though they might not know it, political scientists at ben gurion. this is probably common in the rest of free world. finally i think ben gurion the realist, would have despised them.

Neve Gordon and David Newman do not hate Israel. They hate war. They hate policies that lead to Israeli youth serving in that unnecessary war. All they have done is engage in a debate over how the Israeli government can end the conflict with Palestine. They approach that debate from the perspective of humanity. That is all.

And don't start another department -- the leftists will takeover that one too, unless that law requires ideological affirmative action so that students are guaranteed balance and a reasonable competition of ideas.

The BGU leadership ignored the 2011 mandate that it seek "diversity."