Right-wing groups creating climate of fear at Israeli universities

Jonathan Cook, The Electronic Intifada
Right-wing groups in Israel want to create a climate of fear among left-wing scholars at Israeli universities by emulating the "witch-hunt" tactics of the US academic monitoring group Campus Watch, Israeli professors warn.

The watchdog groups IsraCampus and Israel Academia Monitor are believed to be stepping up their campaigns after the recent publication in a US newspaper of an Israeli professor's call to boycott Israel.

"I have no hesitation in calling this a McCarthyite campaign," said David Newman, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University, in Israel's southern city of Beersheva. "What they are doing is very dangerous."