Lecturers say IDF officer who justified Gaza strikes should not teach law

Professors at Tel Aviv University are protesting a decision to appoint Col. Pnina Sharvit-Baruch as a lecturer for the Faculty of Law.

The objections come in the wake of a recent story published in Haaretz about Sharvit-Baruch, who heads the Israel Defense Forces international law division.

The report said that under Sharvit-Baruch's command, IDF legal experts legitimized strikes involving Gaza civilians, including the bombardment of the Gaza police course closing ceremony.

Sharvit-Baruch is planning on retiring from the army in the coming months and is scheduled to teach at the university's law department next semester.

Leading the protest against Sharvit-Baruch's appointment is Professor Chaim Ganz of the university's Minerva Center for Human Rights.

Ganz wrote a letter to Professor Hanoch Dagan, the dean of the law faculty, claiming that Sharvit-Baruch's interpretation of the law during Israel's Gaza offensive allowed the army to act in ways that constitute potential war crimes. Ganz also said that Sharvit-Baruch harms Israel's values system.

Dr. Anat Matar, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University's philosophy department, said, "I was shocked to learn that half of the second-year law students will learn the foundations of law from someone who helped justify the killing of civilians, including hundreds of children."

Dagan told Haaretz that Pnina Sharvit-Baruch will be teaching a course on international law in the law faculty during the second semester of 2009, as scheduled.

He added that Faculty officials are not authorized and are not fit to respond to the factual questions and legal complexities raised in the article on which Professor Ganz's claims are based. As long as these questions have not been cleared there is no room for premature conclusions.

Dagan will not respond to the claims of the original story, but said that the Faculty of Law makes every effort to expose its students to a variety of opinions and encourages discussion, even about questions that provoke disagreement.