Neve Gordon (; born 1965) is an Israelis professor[ Senior Faculty on the BGU website (in Hebrew)] and fellow of the British Academy of Social Sciences.[ Academy of Social Sciences] He is a professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University of London[Shany Littman: / After Losing Hope for Change, Top Left-wing Activists and Scholars Leave Israel Behind. In: Haaretz, 23 May 2020.] and writes on issues relating to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and human rights. He used to teach at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He is a member of Academia for Equality, an organization working to promote democratization, equality and access to higher education for all communities living in Israel.
Early life
A third-generation Israeli, Gordon completed his military service in an IDF
Paratrooper unit, suffering severe injuries in action at Rosh Hanikra which left him with a disability. During the
First Intifada, he served as director of Physicians for Human Rights, Israel. He is an active member in Ta'ayush, Arab-Jewish Partnership.
[ Support Neve Gordon , Ta'ayush September 2009.] He identifies himself as a member of the Israeli peace camp, has described Israel as an "apartheid state", and supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel movement.
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Academic career
Gordon received his doctorate at the University of Notre Dame in 1999. In the same year he started his academic career in the Dept. of Politics and Government at the Ben-Gurion University. He became a department chairperson in 2008-2010 and was promoted to full professor in 2015. During these years Gordon has been a visiting scholar at University of California, Berkeley; University of Michigan; Brown University; the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton; and at SOAS, University of London. Gordon has participated in the 'Humanitarian Action in Catastrophe' group at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.
In 2009, after Gordon wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times supporting a boycott of Israel and calling Israel an apartheid state,
Publications
Gordon's articles have been published in LA Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Guardian, Ha'aretz, The Jerusalem Post, The Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, London Review of Books, Al Jazeera, In These Times, The National Catholic Reporter, The Chronicle of Higher Education and CounterPunch.
Gordon was co-editor, together with Ruchama Marton, of Torture: Human Rights, Medical Ethics and the Case of Israel and editor of From the Margins of Globalization: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights. His book Israel's Occupation was published by the University of California Press in late 2008, and his co-authored books The Human Right to Dominate was published by Oxford University Press in 2015, and Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire was also published by University of California in 2020.
Views
Israel–Palestine conflict and Israeli politics
Gordon describes himself as a supporter of the one-state solution[ Israeli professor shares 1-state solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict at MENA, EPL event, The Daily Northwestern 2017.] and as a member of the Israeli peace camp.
Directly after the February 2009 Israeli election, Gordon stated that it would have "devastating effects". He also stated that the new Yisrael Beiteinu party possessed 'neo-fascist' tendencies. He concluded that the Obama administration should pressure the Likud-based government coalition economically and politically to adopt the two-state solution.
Support for economic and political boycotts of Israel
Gordon wrote in a Los Angeles Times editorial on August 20, 2009, that he had decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel movement. He stated that Israel had become so right wing and 'an apartheid state' that he felt he had no choice but to support this course of action.[ This led to threats by some US donors to withhold funds from Ben-Gurion University, and to a heated debate within Israel over the rights of academics to freedom of expression.][* The battle of the boycotts, Yocheved Miriam Russo, Jerusalem Post, 26 September 2009.]
The Ben-Gurion University management responded by denouncing Gordon's views. The President of the university, Professor Rivka Carmi, said, "We are appalled by Dr. Neve Gordon's irresponsible remarks, that morally deserve to be completely and utterly condemned. "We disapprove of Gordon's disastrous views and reject his cynical exploitation of the freedom of speech in Israel and the university." Israeli Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar called Gordon's article "repugnant and deplorable.
Gordon – Plaut court case
Aside from his vocal criticism of Israeli policies, Gordon was well known in a high-profile controversy involving Steven Plaut in which Gordon sued Plaut for libel. In May 2006, the Israeli magistrate court in Nazareth ruled in favour of Gordon, and ordered Plaut to pay Gordon 80,000 in compensation plus 15,000 shekels in legal fees.[ U.S.-born professor guilty of libeling colleague Ira Moskovitz, Haaretz 9 June 2006.] Both sides to the District Court in Nazareth and in February 2008, the court upheld a libel judgment relating to a publication in which Plaut called Gordon a "Judenrat Wannabe" but reduced the damages to 10,000 shekels (about $2,700) because the court reversed three out of four of the libel claims.[ע"א (נצרת) 1184/06 - פרופ' סטיבן פלאוט נ' ד"ר ניב גורדון . תק-מח 2008(1), 11886. (Hebrew) 1184/06 Steven Plaut Vs. Dr. Neve Gordon, Takdin-District 2008(1) Full text of the District Court's decision is available here ] The Supreme Court of Israel rejected Plaut's request to review the case.[ רע"א 2985/08]
Books
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Torture, Human Rights, Medical Ethics and the case of Israel, Zed Books, New York, (1995; editor, with Ruchama Marton)
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From the Margins of Globalization: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights. Lexington Books, Lanham, Maryland, (2004; editor)
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Israel's Occupation. University of California Press, Berkeley California, (2008)
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The Human Right to Dominate with Nicola Perugini, Oxford University Press, , (2015)
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Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire with Nicola Perugini, University of California Press, (2020)
External links
