Brev til rektor for Haifa Universitet
Rector of Haifa University
Prof. Aharon Ben Zeev
I am amazed to learn that Associate Professor Ilan Pappé is called for trial at your university (for his support of the research of M.A. student T. Katz) and that the research of T. Katz (about the Tantura massacre) is called in question as a result of a court trial.
Does Haifa University consider to decide historical facts by intimidating the researchers whose discovery was published?
As Bertrand Russell has expressed: scientific truth cannot be decided by voting.
In a society adhering to free speech and to academic freedom the questions about the Tantura massacre april 1948 must settled by documentation and scientific arguments not by court trials against the researcher Katz or the professor Ilan Pappé.
Where is the freedom of thinking and expression of the academia – so important to uphold as Zygmunt Bauman describes so clearly in his book Modernity and Holocaust?
I appeal to you to defend the respect of historical documentation (truth) and of the academic freedom to discover facts.
cc: The Dean of Humanities at Haifa University
Minister of Education, Limor Livnat