Livnat livid B-G Univ. won't fire outspoken professor

Education Minister Limor Livnat yesterday stepped up her battle with Ben-Gurion University over its continued employment of Professor Lev Grinberg.

As reported in Haaretz yesterday, Livnat has notified the university she would boycott university events over the administration's refusal to take action against Grinberg, who heads the Hubert Humphrey Institute for Social Research. In an article published in a Belgian newspaper, Grinberg accused Israel of carrying out "symbolic genocide" against the Palestinians by assassinating Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Yesterday, Livnat told Haaretz that the response of University President Avishai Braverman in both this case and a previous statement by Grinberg was "completely unreasonable." When academics around the world are calling for a boycott of their Israeli counterparts, she said, "we must set an example. I don't consider it right for a university to hide behind academic freedom" - Braverman's justification for his lack of action against Grinberg. "This cannot turn into freedom to incite against and harm the state. We are not talking about a political or party issue here; this is a red line that has long since been crossed."

Grinberg's statement put Braverman into an uncomfortable position: On one hand, he feels obliged to defend his lecturers' freedom of speech.