The rope could tear

One can imagine the uproar that would have ensued if 350 hesder-yeshiva rabbis issued a petition calling on their students to disobey their military commanders' orders, say, for the uprooting from the Gaza Strip. Such a document has never been released, nor will it be, of course. But 350 university "rabbis" have signed a petition calling on soldiers to refuse to serve in the territories. And this was not the only petition.

The education minister did not summon these institutions' heads for a hearing, nor did he suspend the subverters' leaders. These people take advantage of their academic, state-financed prestige to revile the state and encourage insubordination.

The hesder yeshivas are the darling of religious Zionism. This segment of society strongly opposes insubordination, for the most part. It is an obedient, bourgeois-oriented community that serves the state unconditionally. In recent years it has felt that the more it contributes, the worse it is treated by the state. It also feels discriminated against.

This community will never understand the lenient, even respectful treatment of the Israel Defense Forces, Education Ministry and justice system toward academics and media people who speak out publicly against joining the army and urge recruits to refuse to fight the enemy. Preaching and aiding draft evasion and insubordination are criminal offenses. At the same time they throw the book at Rabbi Eliezer Melamed and his yeshiva, although his students didn't really disobey orders even during the uprooting from the Gaza Strip.

The IDF also has a hesder (arrangement) with the University of Haifa, where some 40 staff members signed a petition calling for insubordination. At that university, senior officers from the National Security College study for a master's degree (Ilan Pappe also taught in that program). In addition, naval cadets and officers from Military Intelligence study there for bachelor's degrees. And lo and behold, in the university's central computer, in a file entitled "war criminals," a group called Aleph published photographs of dozens of officers and by doing so blacklisted them. (The list includes Gabi Ashkenazi, Yohanan Locker, Yigal Slovik, Yoav Mordechai, Avi Blot, Yuval Halamish, Herzi Halevi and Gur Rosenblatt, as well as former foreign minister Tzipi Livni.)

Why, it must be asked, has the chief of staff recommend rescinding the hesder arrangement with the Har Bracha yeshiva, while upholding the (far more expensive and complex) hesder arrangements with the University of Haifa?

At Ben-Gurion University, where trainee pilots study for their bachelor's degrees, some 40 lecturers signed the insubordination petition. Niv Gordon also called for international sanctions on Israel.

Academics who have called for insubordination regularly teach IDF workshops. Three senior academics who support insubordination were included in a senior IDF committee headed by the commander of the IDF's personnel directorate. Students at the National Security College have recently visited the Israel Democracy Institute to hear Prof. Yaron Ezrahi, who signed a petition saying that "while we categorically denounce terror activity against innocent civilians, we see Palestinian violence in general a legitimate rebellion against the colonialist occupation." The General Staff Forum also appeared at that institute no less than nine times.

In what way is the "academic freedom" of 104 Tel Aviv University lecturers or some 100 Hebrew University lecturers - who in the petition of the 350 encouraged insubordination to prevent soldiers from serving against the enemy - preferable to Rabbi Melamed's? He objects to evacuating settlements, but encourages his students to report to the front before all others. Is this, perhaps, why he has been targeted?

"How can you even compare?" academics will probably ask, trying to legitimize this abominable situation. But those who lit the fire must understand that the long-winded specious arguments they use to prove that academia is permitted what the yeshivas are forbidden infringes on thousands of people's most basic sense of justice, especially young people. If this feeling continues to be impinged upon, the protest started by two young recruits from the Shimshon Battalion could sweep thousands in its path, unless someone stands up and ensures that justice is done. The rope could tear.