Ben-Gurion University: MKs who called a hearing against us were ‘bought’

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev on Thursday accused Knesset members of calling a hearing in the parliament on false pretenses in a bid to obstruct purported attempts by the university to oust an outspoken university board of governors member — British businessman Michael Gross — who is a friend, and in one case a donor, of the lawmakers.

The university suggested that lawmakers had been “bought” by Gross’s influence to convene the Knesset meeting last week on trumped-up charges that the Beersheba-based institution supports Israel boycott efforts.

Gross said he was involved in convening the meeting, but said it was strictly about Israel boycott trends at the university, rather than a personal matter.

On May 24, the Knesset’s Education, Culture, and Sport Committee held a meeting at the request of Jewish Home MK Bezalel Smotrich, Likud MK Anat Berko, and Likud MK Amir Ohana. The hearing was headlined “Fears that Ben Gurion University is continuing to support BDS,” a reference to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

It was not the first hearing on the matter — nor is it unprecedented for the Knesset to investigate possible anti-Israel bias on the part of universities — but it was the first in recent years.

According to the text of Smotrich’s request, that hearing — which coincided with Jerusalem Day — was convened due to a report in the Israel Hayom tabloid that said a workshop on photographing arrests and political protests was advertised on the university’s student union page; because the institution was giving college credit to students volunteering at anti-Israel organizations; and over comments by various professors critical of the state of Israel.

But the university said the allegations raised in the hearing were disguising efforts by lawmakers to block the university board from voting on amendments to its policies that were seen as targeting Gross.

Gross — a controversial figure who in 2009 emailed a Ben-Gurion University professor and wished he would “perish” — attended the Knesset hearing with his son. (That email came after the latter, Professor David Newman, took part in a UK documentary about the hidden influence of Britain’s “Israel lobby” that was later accused of anti-Semitic undertones.) Earlier this year, Israeli media reports said Gross withdrew a $1 million donation to the university after learning it was hosting a conference featuring the controversial Breaking the Silence NGO, which documents alleged abuses by Israeli soldiers against the Palestinians. The university said, however, that no such pledge by Gross had been received. Last year, the university also refunded a $100,000 donation by Gross.

In a letter sent by chairman Alex Goren to the board of governors on Thursday, a copy of which was obtained by The Times of Israel, the university condemned the “disgraceful, outrageous, and mainly absurd” allegations that it supported boycott efforts, noting that Shas MK Yaakov Margi, the committee chairman, backed them up unequivocally at the end of the session. The university is at the forefront of combating BDS, not supporting it, it said.

The Knesset meeting was originally scheduled to coincide with the university’s board of governors meeting, during which the staff were set to vote on an amendment to allow for the removal of members. With some effort, the university managed to postpone that Knesset hearing to a later date, the letter said.

That amendment, seen as targeting Gross, was approved two weeks ago, but no further steps were taken against him since that time, according to a university official.

But the originally planned timing of the Knesset meeting by lawmakers — backed up by right-wing Im Tirzu activists who receive donations from Gross — was intentional, Goren alleged.

“There were two levels to the meeting: the overt level and the covert level. For the hidden agenda – ‘ensuring’ Michael Gross’s position in the BGU Board of Governors – empty claims were raised as part of the overt agenda, allowing for ‘the ends to justify the means.’ The elected officials’ precious time was enlisted to the matter without most of them even knowing that there was a hidden agenda in the discussion,” the letter charged.

“It is, therefore, difficult to ignore the feeling that a member of the Board of Governors allegedly ‘bought’ a meeting in the Israeli Knesset’s Education Committee on a baseless, political pretense, while degrading the university, in order to prevent what seemed to him as an attempt to remove him from the Board of Governors. My heart goes out to the Members of Knesset who came to a meeting supposedly with a certain topic (contrived though it may be), and were actually tools at the hand of a person with means, intending to promote his own personal interests,” the letter said.

“The university intends to appeal to the Israeli Knesset’s Ethics Committee regarding this matter,” it added.

In the letter, the board chairman noted that Berko and Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer stated on the record that they were acquainted with Gross, and that Zionist Union MK Yoel Hasson was a former recipient of a primaries donation from the British businessman, as he also stated on-record during the meeting. All expressed concern at the meeting about attempts to remove Gross from the board.

However, while the letter said that Berko and Forer initiated the meeting, according to a statement from the Knesset committee, Berko, Smotrich, and Ohana were in fact the ones who requested it.

Gross told The Times of Israel that while he is personally acquainted with the lawmakers, after decades of working with government figures to bring long-term social housing to Israel, the meeting was strictly about the boycott allegations.

“This specific meeting was called in response to the level of BDS at Ben-Gurion University. Im Tirzu are involved, and reserve soldiers were involved, and lots of people were involved,” he said. “Of course I was involved… These are issues of public concern,” he added.

“The truth to the matter is these people are encouraging and fostering the BDS at the university, and I’m the one person who is prepared to say [something], so they don’t like it,” he said. “I obviously can’t control the Knesset. Four Knesset members from four different parties decided to bring it there and these people are hard-left, self-hating anti-Zionists. And that’s what the university is under the control of at the moment. So what am I supposed to do?”

“One person stands up and of course these people attack him,” he maintained.

In response to the accusation, Berko defended her stance, saying university donors should be allowed to express their opinions.

“I think it is unacceptable to remove members from the board of governors for expressing their opinions… whoever donates should get the right to express their opinion,” she said in a statement. A spokesperson added that Berko’s position stands “with no connection to the fact that she knows him [Gross].”

Smotrich’s spokesperson denied he was personally acquainted with Gross.

During the hearing, the Jewish Home MK told Ben Gurion University President Rivka Carmi he had no say in when the hearing would be scheduled, and did not plan to have it originally coincide with the board of governors meeting.

“You asked about the timing. I don’t work for anyone,” Smotrich said last week.

At the same time, Smotrich maintained he sought to preempt the amendment and link it to his accusations that Ben-Gurion University lecturers were providing a tailwind for BDS, as “if freedom of speech is upheld for lecturers, than certainly, certainly, it must be upheld for Mr. Gross.”

He also distanced himself from comments attributed to Gross, saying he “greatly disapproves” of the statements.

A spokesperson for Hasson, who called Gross a “dear friend” during the hearing, similarly denied any connection between the meeting and Gross’s donation to his primary campaign.

“Certainly there is no connection, the donation was in 2008!” the spokesperson said.

During the hearing, Hasson described the university as “wonderful” and in no way supportive of Israel boycott efforts.

“But I am coming and asking, if we are in favor of freedom of speech, why can’t Michael Gross express his opinion as a member of the board of governors?” said Hasson. “You are in favor of academic freedom, pluralism, democracy. You have a member of the board of governors who thinks differently than you do. Don’t expel him, don’t suspend him, because that’s what you want to do.”

Asked by Smotrich directly, Carmi told the Knesset panel there were no attempts to remove Gross, a claim Gross dismissed as a “baldfaced lie.”

“I wouldn’t have even considered bringing Mr. Gross up, although he is sitting here,” Carmi said in the May 24 hearing, addressing Hasson. “They say that we, as a university, are ‘silencing’ Mr. Gross.

“Mr. Gross is the one who wished a faculty member that he should die, who called Prof. Shimon Glick, the father of MK Yehudah Glick, ‘judenrat,’ who called me, indirectly, a kapo,” she said. “This is the way Mr. Michael Gross has addressed the university, in the most besmirching manner — and I wouldn’t have mentioned this unless it was raised.”