Sebastian Ben Daniel, a lecturer in computer science at Ben Gurion University, operating under the nom de hate of John Brown, has been libeling IDF soldiers in ways that make the Protocols of the Elders of Zion look tame.
IDF soldiers are “taught to murder Palestinian children.” Here’s one that would make Der Sturmer proud: "IDF soldiers murder babies, not because of orders, but because they were raised to be baby killers."
Paraphrasing the famous trio of Ivy League Presidents, let’s remember the context. These tweets are happening during a war in which hundreds of thousands of Israelis have answered the call to duty, put themselves at risk, put their lives on hold, and turned their families upside down, all in the effort to protect their nation and their fellow citizens.
While Ben Daniel has been blithely condemning his defenders, they are being treated nearby at Soroka Hospital for wounds incurred on behalf of Israel’s defense.
Not surprisingly, there was a firestorm of criticism that such a lowlife be allowed to continue to be paid by taxpayers while indulging in his hate filled fantasies during his spare time.
Thousands of students signed a petition calling for his removal, and the Mayor of Beer Sheva joined the condemnation. In the post October 7th world, students and citizens have lost their tolerance for and patience with those Israelis who are channeling Hamas’s tropes.
BGU made the obligatory condemnation of the substance of what Ben Daniel has been saying – and what he has been saying has included vile defamation of Mizrachim and religious Jews as well as soldiers – but has relied on the ameliorating excuse that he was not doing this on the clock, or in the classroom, but on his own time.
How much lamer can an excuse get. Martin Heidegger supported Hitler, and while he might not have done so in his philosophy classes, the damage he did was pervasive and clearly impacted those whom he taught.
So it is with Ben Daniel. Did students not realize that their mild mannered computer science lecturer was actually a world class vilifier of themselves? Ben Daniel isn’t claiming that he is beset with multiple personality syndrome. He is who he is, in or out of the classroom.
As if the scenario is not disgusting enough, Ben Daniel has sought to wrap himself in the mantle of political persecution. That he is being hounded by those seeking to trample on his free speech rights.
“The people targeting me are not doing so to punish me personally, but rather to undermine freedom of expression in this country by harming academia, one of the last remaining bastions of independent thought.”
Perhaps we should take up a defense fund crowd funding campaign for this exemplar of democracy.
Ben Daniel in effect undercut his own excuses by issuing the obligatory apologies that were the quid pro quo for his being reinstated following his suspension. “My intention has always been to keep these matters separate,” he stated. “Still, I recognize that my words carry consequences and that this separation is not absolute, regardless of how much I intended it to be.”
This is both naïve and incorrect. Those students of his who were IDF soldiers, he absolutely meant to defame. And of course he would have good reason to believe that a student regarding him as Professor Ben Daniel would have to know how he regarded them, even if his hatred was spewed under the moniker of John Brown.
Ultimately, we have witnessed someone caught in the act of the unspeakable, trying to wriggle, escape, contextualize, and ultimately blame others for his vile behavior.
My favorite quote from Ben Daniel is his sanctimonious invocation of academia as “one of the last remaining bastions of independent thought.” This is laughable, since the independence of thought is purely a function of what kind of thought it is.
Would there be a rallying round the flag of free speech, such as was done by the Israeli Law Professors Forum for Democracy if another academic was, say, accusing Palestinian Arabs of genetic inferiority leading to rampant sexual deviancy? Or that Bedouins were inherently prone to theft?
Of course not. There would be a drumbeat of condemnation and demands for the removal of such a defamer. It would not matter when and under what circumstances these allegations would have been made. The accuser would not only have to be fired, but he would have to be maligned, canceled from decent society.
In other words, there has been something of a selective circling of the wagons here. Yes, what Ben Daniel said was regrettable, but, hey, he is entitled to indulge his libido in his free time. Thankfully, he wasn’t impugning anything we just could not excuse away.
Yes, Virginia, it’s all about the context.
So, here we are, a nation at war, a nation asking our soldiers to sacrifice, a nation striving for resilience and a semblance of unity, and somehow, we tolerate the worst form of disrespect, demonization and defamation.
The Ben Daniel incident is a stain on Ben Gurion University, and by extension Israeli academia. Independence of thought is not a free pass from moral accountability. Sebastian Ben Daniel has no place receiving a paycheck subsidized by the Israeli taxpayer and relying on the protection of those he is willing to condemn in the most heinous fashion.
To say that he was actually a reputable lecturer is to call into question the decency of those who would look the other way. Shame on them.
Douglas Altabef-is Chairman of the Board of Im Tirtzu and a Director of the Israel Independence Fund.