Wondrous are the ways of the Israeli establishment. The criteria by which it bestows rewards and penalties are completely inconsistent with any conceivable standards of logic or fairness.
Nowhere is this more starkly manifest than in academia.
It is difficult to forget how, in the period of giddy optimism and lofty hopes in which Oslo was conducted (or rather concocted), the overwhelming majority of Israeli academics rallied enthusiastically behind it.
This phenomenon was particularly pronounced in the spheres of the humanities and the social sciences. These disciplines allegedly comprise the professional skills needed for erudite analysis of processes such as Oslo, and for sober assessment of the elements which are likely to impinge on their chances of success - or failure.
Across the country, in faculties and institutes of political science, international relations, history, strategy, and Middle Eastern studies, senior staff praised and lauded, almost without exception, the farsighted prudence and daring of the architects of the Oslo edifice. Prestigious lecturers, renowned researchers, and authoritative experts all repeatedly recited the long list of impressive benefits that would supposedly result from this bold vision.
Time after time they explained, in detailed arguments, how a glowing future of peace and prosperity was about to be ushered in by this inspired initiative.
By contrast, there were others, usually those exiled to the margins of the academic establishment (and usually because of the disconcertingly dissenting opinions they expressed) who warned that the process was ill-conceived and ill-considered; that it was too hasty and too hazardous. But these warnings were dismissed with scorn, and those who issued them were blackballed and belittled - especially by colleagues of more senior academic status, and thus by implication, of purportedly higher qualifications.
However, a decade later, during which the opposing assessments underwent the test of time, the realities that prevail in Israel are far closer to the dire warnings of the spurned skeptics than to the rosy prognoses of the prominent (and popular) pundits. Today it is clear beyond any shadow of a doubt whose views were well-founded - and whose were unfounded.
BUT MIRACULOUSLY, despite the miserable failure of their professional evaluations, despite their proven inability to understand the events and processes which occurred within the field of their alleged expertise, the professional, public and economic standing of the nation’s senior academic echelons seems virtually unscathed.
These false prophets continue to occupy the most prestigious - and best-paid - posts in the country’s leading institutes of higher learning; they are frequent participants in the media, appearing as authoritative experts to interpret current events and to explain to the public the significance of emerging realities, realities which only a short time ago they dismissed - as authoritative experts - as totally unimaginable.
At the same time, there is surprising little change in the status of their dissenting colleagues, despite the fact that their predictions proved to entirely accurate, and despite the fact that they had demonstrated superior professional competence and greater comprehension of the developments. They remain in marginalized positions within the academic establishment, largely devoid of material or other benefits. They continue to be largely ignored by the media for commentary on, and explication of, ongoing events and emerging realities which they had forecast with chilling precision.
These facts point to the existence of unacceptable social and ethical criteria for rewards and penalties. Such criteria threaten the very fabric of the system in which they are applied. For there can only be two explanations for the colossal fiasco of those who purportedly comprise the elite echelons of the nation’s intelligentsia: either they suffer from a woeful lack of professional proficiency in their claimed sphere of expertise, or they opted to subordinate their professional integrity to the exacting dictates of political correctness - despite its ever-widening divergence from political truth.
By contrast, in adhering to their beliefs - even when this clearly entailed tangible costs in terms of social standing and career prospects, the maverick dissenters who resisted succumbing to these rapacious PC demands showed not only a substantial measure of professional competency, but also of professional integrity.
These are standards which portend ill. For under them, the untalented and the unscrupulous can expect to thrive, while the proficient and principled - who do not shrink from challenging false conventions, however popular or profitable - can expect to be penalized.
Academic freedom and the right to free expression without fear of retribution are, of course, indispensable for the progress and development of any society - especially in today’s tumultuous and changing world. But when these freedoms are abused and exploited to propagate, with impunity, political agendas that defy established criteria of reason and responsibility, disaster will inevitably loom. Indeed, it is inconceivable that a professor of engineering would continue to enjoy unimpaired prestige and status if a new revolutionary theory of his regarding bridge construction resulted in a series of calamitous collapses. But this is precisely what has occurred with the Oslo-phile experts in the social sciences and humanities.
Academic accountability is a difficult topic to broach, and even more difficult to implement. It is, however, one that must be tackled in the light of the experience of the last decade. For those who reject some form of accountability in the name of academic freedom, and claim for themselves immunity from consequences of their failures, are confusing liberty with licentiousness. This interpretation of freedom is unacceptable and unsustainable; it will lead to certain ruin.
The writer lectures in political science at Tel Aviv University.
