A translation of an interview with the ne Rector of the University of
Haifa, Professor Yossi Ben-Artzi. Published in Kolbo, Haifa local
paper, Friday, 29 October 2004
Ben-Artzi In Performance
What didn't they say about him? That he is overexcited,
blunt, aggressive. What stories didn't they tell about him?
That he intensifies the politization of the University; that his
academic record is far from brilliant; that he operates as if
he were in a military system. What didn't they believe of
him? That only six days after having been promoted to a
Full Professor, he will be appointed as the Rector of the
University of Haifa. Hanna Tal met Professor Yossi Ben-
Artzi and found it very difficult to engage in a conversation
with him. Mr. Education?
"The esteemed Professor was very upset with the hard questions that
were put to him, so he terminated the interview …"
By Hanna Tal
He arrives to our meeting as if under protest. Bothered, impatient. Yet he
makes an attempt to look friendly. His handshake is brave, somewhat
military-like. Our meeting takes place at the town hall, a few minutes
after the send off ceremony of his new book, Turning a Desert into a
Carmel. In the ceremony, Professor Yossi Ben-Artzi is showered with
much honor. He is introduced as the new Rector elect of the University of
Haifa, a diligent academic, and a great Haifa patriot of, An immense
pleasure. Choice honey! “Shame you were not there," says his wife Orit.
"It was interesting."
May be. It was hard, at that moment, not to wonder whether she knew
that earlier that morning her husband was trying to cancel our meeting,
He has heard, he told the worried University spokesperson, that I was
investigating his background with colleagues, asking questions about the
process of his election, trying to understand how was it that only six days
after he was promoted to the rank of Full Professor, he managed to
persuade the University Senate to elect him as the new Rector. Ben-Artzi
didn’t like it. He asked to make it clear to me he was interested to talk me

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about his plans as the second most important position at the University,
his vision, the place of the campus within the city.
Good for him, But I, nothing doing, am curious to know just as well, how
did he manage to overcome all the hurdles and win the much coveted
position, how he tried to promote a candidate who failed to get the
position in the first round, and how he suddenly jumped on the cart
himself at the last minute and hit the jackpot. “That is not the issue,” he
says, “Now we draw a line and look to the future.” Ben-Artzi tries to be
statesman-like after all.
A few minutes after the warm handsake, however, the argument turns
into a crisis. "What is it exactly that you want," he asks me, his eyes
squinting and never meet mine. His body language cries: “Get this one
off my back, fast."
"Why deal with all these nonsense," He tries again, “Who cares about
it?".
“I do," I am trying to keep pacified, and go back to the beginning, but
can’t manage to finish asking the next question. Now he is pretty agitated.
“You said you’ll ask me about the University," he complains, gathering
the pile of papers he brought with him, straightening it by pounding it on
each side in rhythmical and nervous slams to the table.
The atmosphere in the room becomes tense. The tones are rising. Ben-
Artzi manages to cut me off every time I try to open my mouth. "I am
going to put an end to this interview," he almost shouts already, "you are
hostile, and I would like you to know that I dislike it very, very much!"
The conversation is escalating to the point of no return when I ask him,
without taking a breath, to relate to the claim, made by many, that his
election campaign was aggressive and politicized, one the like of which
was never seen before at the University. Ben-Artzi loses at once whatever
shreds of patience remaining in him,
Ben-Artzi half turns to me, still glancing at the pile of papers, but his
rhytm of speech gets faster, shooting: “Who are you to ask me this kind
of questions? Do you know at all what a Rector is? Do you know at all
what University is? You better go and do some homework before you
come to me with this heap of nonsense!"
His wife sits on the side, squinting, as if she was planted into the chair.
The photographer is hunting flies, And Ben-Artzi goes on with the show
for some very long minutes. The decision to end the meeting saves us
from farther escalation. What a fright!
Sadly, I was hardly surprised. I prepared myself in advance. Professor
Ben-Artzi's record is full of aggressive expressions, verbal confrontations
and power struggles, personal and professional, leaving behind him a
long trail of casualties. At the beginning of the interview he was still
trying to sound statesman-like. "In every election campaign there are

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winners and losers," he said. "The winners are content, the losers are sad,
and a day later everyone forgets about everything and together we march
on." Instantly, however, he came back to himself, arrogantly shooting: "It
is beneath my dignity to deal with all that."
But unfortunately not everyone forget and not everyone are ready to
march on. The election campaign for the position of the Rector was
accompanied by some very hard feelings, deep frustration and
apprehension of the outcomes. At least with some who were involved in
the election process themselves. The election of Professor Ben-Artzi
came at the end of a dirty campaign, highly emotional, full of personal
attacks, intrigues and manipulations, that would not put to shame the
conduct of the Likud convention. "There is a melancholy atmosphere at
the University today," says one of the veteran professors. "At such a
vulnerable period, in which the entire Higher Education system in the
country is requested to undergo a radical transformation, there was an
acute need for a Rector who would represent a wide consensus of the
academic community. Professor Ben-Artzi is a controversial figure, and
his election forebodes less tolerance, less exchange of opinions,
less agreement, and more sectarianism, What's more upsetting than the
actual result of the elections, is the way in which he was elected, It was
done by the book, but has a very bad stench."
Militant, Dominant, Creative.
He is 55 years old, graduate of the famous Re’alli high school in Haifa,
Colonel (res.) in the army unit for localization of missing in action.
Married and a father of three. In 1975 he received his BA degree in
Geography and History from the University of Haifa. In 1984 he
completed his PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He then taught
history at the Depatrment of Israeli Studies, became Head of the
Department and later Dean of Humanities.
He became a member of the leadership of the "Peace now " movement
for a while, but then quit political activity. "I am not a political man, nor a
party man," he said earlier in our short interview. "The only party I was
ever a member of DASH [a centrist liberal party in the 1970s; trans.]
which died a few months after it was established, I am an academic man,
and that is the arena where I would like to be examined.”
Ben-Artzi stood out, however, in his involvement within the University
politics and his militant activity as for preserving the natural beauty and
historical sites in town, and an activist in the Greens campaign against the
corruption of Mount Carmel by entrepreneurs and real estate sharks.
During his period of studies at the University he was a member of the
Council for Beautiful Israel, and a public trustee on the municipal

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committee for sites preservation, and his activism increased during
Amram Mitzna’s years in office as Mayor. He kept challenging him, on
one occasion after another, in recruiting public support for the campaign
for the shaping of the town’s landscape. Determined, blunt, creative in
choosing his strategies, and extremely militant, which made him hard to
be ignored.
In 1999 Ben-Artzi was involved in a campaign against the uprooting of
old carob trees in his Neve Sha’anan neighborhood in Haifa, as part of a
municipal plan to enlarge the road leading to the new shopping centre
nearby. Within a short time he became one of the dominant and leading
activists in the campaign against the municipality. He called on the
residents to launch a persistent campaign, suggested to flood Mitzna’s
office day and night with faxes and phone calls until the threat was
removed, and commanded a series of protest operations. In the battle
against the Remez Road building Mitzna told that Ben-Artzi sent the
children of his neighborhood to protest against him and call him ugly
names. The mayor said then he expected a more restrained behavior from
an educator and a member of faculty.
Professor Ben-Artzi’s militancy shocked the neighborhood committee,
when he set up an alternative committee which he called “the committee
for saving the neighborhood.” Challenged their leadership, totally
neutralized them, and scolded them on every available platform. The
chair of the neighborhood committee, Shlomo Wohl, was called by him
“a dull functionary,” and of the committee itself he said: “this committee
is nothing but the table which makes them feel great,” “They are good for
nothing, " he summed up his view of them in an interview to Kolbo.
In 2000 he was a founder member of the Haifa Way movement, which
vowed to fight the town-development policies of the municipality: Mayor
Mitzna and the city council were seeing red whenever he was mentioned.
They called him “a public hitchhiker." “They are not worth anything,”
was his reaction.
“We are talking two worlds here," he told Kolbo at the time. "the one
political, manipulative, unable to deal with criticism, even if it is sound,
and the other professional, thinking and acting critically, not hesitating to
express his mind.”
Conducted, Convinced, Influenced
After the recent elections, this last statement sounds to some of his
colleagues as a bad joke. As far as they are concerned, Professor Ben-
Artzi's involvement in the campaign for the Rector's position, and earlier
in the election of Professor Aaron Ben-Zeev for president, reflect the

5
same political manipulation he so fiercely condemned. They just call it “a
politization of the academic system."
In order to understand the stormy winds blowing at the university, we
need to take few steps backwards. At the Haifa campus there is a constant
power struggle between the two large faculties - Humanities, and Social
Sciences. There is a world of essential differences between the two
faculties in terms of academic world view, priorities, resources allocation,
faculty promotion, and the appointments of central positions.
Recently, all Israeli universities were undergoing organizational changes,
imposed on the systems of Higher Education in the country by the
government. Whereas before, the management of the universities was
divided between the president (the chief administrator) and the Rector
(the highest academic authority), especially if each belonged to another
faculty, the current changes have strengthened the authority of the
president, turning him into the ultimate leader of the university, granting
him wide authority, and threatened to marginalize the position of the
academy within the system. This apprehension created insecurity and
fear.
The last two administrations governing the University of Haifa came
from the faculty of Social Sciences, and within the faculty of Humanities
it was determined to create a new order. Add to this the fact that the
elections took place at a period of transition, while major organizational
changes were occurring, while recession severely affected the university
budget, and you’ll understand why the elections were deemed crucial, and
hence, political more than ever.
The claim coming from a number of the university's faculty is that Ben-
Artzi intensified the politization of the university. It had started already
with the elections for presidency. Professor Ben-Zeev, of the Faculty of
Humanities, was the Rector, before having been elected for President.
Professor Ben-Artzi was the Dean of Humanities who aggressively
pushed for his election. Ben-Zeev did not forget Ben-Artzi's efforts and
devotion, and immediately after his election appointed him Vice
President for administration. Together they ran a candidate for the
Rectorship (from the Faculty of Social Sciences, as Ben-Zeev promised
upon his election), Professor David Faragi, Chair of the Department of
Statistics. a pretty anonymous candidate, and relatively inexperienced,
passing for the showcase of a functionary representing the Faculty of
Social Sciences.
A search committee located five more candidates, all Full Professors, as
required by the regulations for the Rector position: Professor Arik
Rimmerman, former Dean of the Welfare and Health and Faculty,
Professor Avi Sagi, Head of the Centre for Child Development, Professor

6
Arie Melnik, former Dean of the Social Sciences Faculty, Professor Ron
Rubin, the Students Dean, and Professor Yoav Gelber.
Professor Ben-Artzi conducted an almost explicit campaign for Professor
Faragi, and did whatever he could to persuade the Senate, the electoral
body, which includes 60 representatives from all ranks of the university
from lecturers all the way up to Full Professors. “The very pluralistic
nature of the Senate," explains one of the faculty members, "invites
pressures of the kind one can find outside the academic bubble, since the
promotion of the Senate members depends on the Rector, who ex-officio
is also the chair of the Appointments Committee, and the Dean, who
recommends them for promotion, Professor Ben-Artzi indefatigably
called Senate members, soliciting their support for Professor Faragi, and
belittled the other candidates. When a person in the position of a Dean,
responsible for the promotion of low-ranking faculty, whose professional
careers depend on him, especially within a rigid system such as the
University of Haifa, where it takes 15-20 years to reach a senior position,
they feel obliged to him, Such has historically been the structure of the
system, but this time everything was much more extreme and blunt."
Why?
"First of all Ben-Zeev appointment was delayed owing to the
administrative reorganizations, and until his election was approved, he
went on serving in two positions: the Rector and the President Elect, and
he did not allow the elections procedure for the Rector position to start.
This has never occurred before at the university, and system came out of
balance. The too long incubation period intensified the politization. The
candidacy of Professor Faragi, Ben-Zeev and Ben-Artzi's favorite, was
hardly favored by the members of the Faculty of Social Sciences, who
preferred Professor Avi Sagi as their candidate. The dilemma of the
electors. who would not come out against the person who was to
determine their future professional careers, raised very strong feelings
among them. Professor Ben-Artzi worked diligently and efficiently, He
turned to junior faculty and put his the entire weight of his authority to
pressure them. Such blunt measures were never used before in an
elections campaign. People at the university are supposed to deal with
research, to aspire for the Nobel prize or the coveted Israel prize, and
suddenly they find themselves involved in politics, which seems the
exclusive essence of university life,”
Ababndons, Scolds, Impatient
The results of the elections held on June 17th reflected the confusion.
None of the candidates got the 60 votes required for being elected. At the
last phase only the two Social Sciences candidates were left, namely,

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Professor Faragi and Professor Sagi, with 27 votes each. In the decisive
vote between them, Professor Sagi got only 26 votes, following one of the
voters’ decision to abstain, and Faragi remained the sole candidate. But in
the last round of voting, in which his election was supposed to be to
confirmed, there was a surprise when Faragi won only 23 votes, less than
the number of votes he gained in the former rounds.
"That was clearly a vote of protest," explains a faculty member. "People
expressed their disapproval of the proceedings. This was alarming and
unprecedented. Professor Ben-Artzi was wandering among the voters,
impatiently admonishing them. "Stop acting like children and give Faragi
a chance. You are bad losers," he told them, But the results spoke for
themselves. The Faculty of Social Sciences did not succeed in putting
forwards a candidate who met everyone’s approval, and clearly
disapproved of Ben-Artzi and Ben-Zeev's favorite.
This was not the end. On October 14th, at the end of the summer vacation,
it was decided, there will be another round of elections, and in the
meantime, the President Elect, Professor Ben-Zeev, will go on serving as
the Rector. A new committee was appointed and located two candidates,
Professor Sagi (from the first round) and Professor Jacob Barnai. But on
September 6th a bomb was dropped. The University’s Appointments
Committee was convened for a special session, and Professor Ben-Zeev
in his capacity as the Rector, recommended Professor Ben-Artzi, who
was until then an Associate Professor for a Full Professor, and thus made
him eligible to run for the position of the Rector. Professpr Ben-Artzi did
not wait. Six days before the deadline for putting up a candidacy, he
resigned his position as Vice President for Administration, and
announced his running for the position of Rector.
Barnai and Sagi, one after the other, announced the withdrawal of their
candidacies, and Ben-Artzi, remaining the sole candidate, was elected
with a big majority. "That was a shameful show of underhanded
opportunism," says one faculty member. "It was clear that the game was
rigged". The President gave his place to the new Rector, and he in turn
was quick enough this week to appoint, how else, Professor Faragi as
Vice Rector. The circle closed.
Eagerness, Passion, Haste
At the university, however, they find it difficult to calm down. Professor
Ben-Artzi is not popular with many on campus. He is considered a
difficult personality, many say, one who arouses antagonism, impatient,
conceited, careless in his respect for others, especially when they disagree
with him, and there is a good measure of roughness in the way he
expresses himself. Once, on Student's day 2002, he was involved in a

8
physical confrontation with the University security guards, who did not
allow a bus carrying staff members to enter the campus. Ben-Artzi moved
the barrier they placed, and when the guards tried to put it back, a
physical conflict evolved, in which a barrier fell on one of the guards who
needed medical care. The spokeswoman of the Students union, Moran
Dor, told Kolbo at the time, in an understatement, "Our lecturers are
impatient and impolite."
Already his election for Dean met with considerable resentment, but his
election for Rector is very difficult for many to digest. "People at the
University find it hard to accept his election," says a member of faculty,
"It is thought that he is hardly representative and overexcited, The
underhand manoeuvre whereby he rapidly abandoned his appointment for
Vice President for Administration, after only two months in office, in
order to run for a more senior position, only six days after he received the
new rank of Full Professor was grotesque and out of decorum. What is
this eagerness? What is this ambition for power? What is this haste? The
elections procedure was a farce. The balance between the faculties was
disrupted. All the positions will be filled by members of the Faculty of
Humanities, and even if they will make some appointments from the
Faculty of Social Sciences, they will prefer secondary personalities,
unsuitable, yesmen, whom, were a poll taken among the faculty members,
would have been found inappropriate. An entire faculty was brushed
aside."
Professor Ben-Artzi is not impressed by the criticism, Over the years he
managed to receive hot showers of attacks and criticized from enemies he
made for himself on many occasions, the most notorious among them was
the case of disqualifying the formerly approved MA thesis of Teddy Katz,
which established that the soldiers of the Alexandroni Division
perpetrated a massacre in 1948 among the Arab villagers of Tantura.
“The man has a short fuse" Katz claims, "I have seen him in various
conferences and in several meetings, and found his conduct shameful. He
is unaccountable for anything he says, lacks tact, behaves as if he is the
only one who knows everything, Whoever follows him sycophantly and
grovels at his feet is OK by him. Whoever dares to act otherwise, doesn't
exists. He kicks that person aside like a worthless object. It is clearly
manifest that Ben-Artzi comes from the military; he displays military
mannerism."
The Tantura affair caused a confrontation between Professor Ben-Artzi
and Dr. Ilan Pappe of the Department of Political Science, who came out
to the rescue of Katz. Ben-Artzi recommended to put Pappe before the
University’s disciplinary court and demanded that he be sacked from the
University. Dr. Pappe, for his part, claimed that Ben-Artzi had "put out a
contract for him," boycotted him, made certain that no Department will

9
dare inviting for any conferences or seminars, and canceled Pappe’s
participation in academic events.
"When I was told that Ben-Artzi intended to run for the office of Rector,
but had a problem because he was not a Full Professor, I said that it was a
matter of one week until it is all arranged," Dr Pappe laughs. "When I
was told that there were other candidates, I said, there will be no other
candidates, Unfortunately, I was right. I knew the results in advance,
because I know the University and I know the type of person we are
dealing with. Ben-Artzi tried to get rid of me, and did something
unprecedented in the history of academic life. Regardless the question
who was right in the Tantura case, he caused a great damage to the
reputation of the University of Haifa abroad, and that alone, irrespectively
of what went on during his election procedure, was enough to make me
certain that a person of such a conduct should not have been elected
Rector, And, by the way, we are not talking here of a brilliant academic
mind."
Professor Avner Giladi, a former Chair of the Department of Jewish
History [writer’s error; in fact the Department of Middle East Studies –
trans.], is not one of Ben-Artzi's fans. "I also voted against his election for
Dean,” he explains, "since I thought he lacked the temperament and
personality required by that position. He is a very efficient administrator,
but he did several things which I severely condemn. In the Katz affair, for
instance, he was involved in the most negative why. Professor Ben-Artzi
was the locomotive who led the disqualification procedure. His
persecution of Dr. Ilan Pappe was no less severe. This is not the way a
Dean should be acting, and I am full of apprehensions about the future."
And what do you think about his election for Rector?
"I knew he was ambitious and aspired for greatness, since he is not one of
the modest and content with little, But I thought that in an academic
community like the University there will be some balance and a system of
breaks will operate. Professor Ben-Artzi is not the type of an academic
leader. He is aggressive, he is a military man also in his conduct at the
university. I do not like generals in the academia. There are many
academics who came from a military background, but they knew how to
adjust themselves to the new phase. Not so Ben-Artzi. In the general
atmosphere in Israel today, many desire for strong people, because they
can get things moving. I am not among them. As far as I am concerned,
there is something brutal about him. His involvement in some affairs at
the university was callous. He eliminated the leadership of the Theatre
Department and appointed a History Professor instead of Professor Avi
Oz, who is a well-known left person. I begin to suspect that people like
Oz, Pappe, and Katz are going to be targeted now."

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But Ben-Artzi himself is on the left, he is one of the founders of
"Peace Now"?
"Also MK Yuval Steinitz was once Left, where is he now?” [Steinitz, a
former lecturer in philosophy at the University of Haifa, is a right wing
member of Knesset from the Likud right wing party – trans.]
Doesn't know, Doesn't remember, Not political
Professor Ben-Artzi does not understand what is all the fuss about. "The
elections for Rector were very matter-of-fact and democratic," he says,
"There was nothing irregular."
There are very hard feelings at the University about the way in which
you have conducted the election campaign, and your involvement in
the election of the President.
"What feelings? What are you talking about? The election campaign was
very open and fair."
Then why was it so difficult to reach a decision, and two rounds were
required, and in the last round the two candidates withdrew their
candidacy?
"Because in the first round no candidate was successful, and in the second
the candidates withdrew their candidacy for personal reasons, What is
wrong here?"
Was there ever such a situation like in the past?
"I can't recall ".
I have checked, there wasn't. Why has it happened this time?
"I don't know."
You are a man of research, a man of the academia. Don't you have
any estimation?
"The people of the academia are intelligent and mature people. Why is it
relevant to my position to try and understand what happened? I have got
nothing to say about that."
There were allegations against you that you brought politicized the
elections campaign, that you ran an unpopular candidate using
aggressive measures unbecoming to an academic institution.
"What is the meaning of "political"? What does it mean to "run a
candidate?" We have no such things here, and I don't feel like talking
about that. You are fed with wrong information. That is not our issue
now. We drew a line. There is no interest for the public here. This is an
internal matter for the Professors at the University, who enjoy an
independent democratic thinking. All the rest is gossip"
When you phone people who depend on you for their promotion to
persuade them to vote for you, don't you find that political?"

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"What is political here? When a Prime Minister, who is supposed to
determine your future, asks for your support, what’s irregular here? What
is wrong with that?"
I am not sure this example serves you well.
"This is a democratic structure. It has rules and regulations. Why do you
have to address this to me?"
You were appointed Vice President for Administration. How come
you have decided all of a sudden to run for the rector's office?
"When I was appointed I could not run, because I was not a Full
Professor. I have got to this only in September, and then I ran for the
office. I am a man of the academia, a man of research, my motive is
academic. I am more interested in teaching and research, in students, and
the future of the University, rather than to be a Vice President for
Administration. It makes a lot of sense. A pilot in the Air Force would
wish to be the commander of the Air Force rather than the Army’s
personnel officer. Don't you agree?"
You don't find anything wrong with being appointed for one position
and within less then two month run for another position?"
"Definitely not."
Not a very commendable eagerness.
"There was a calculated risk here. For had I not been elected for Rector, I
could have been left without neither position."
"The complaints are based on lies"
Nehama Wintman, the University spokesperson: "The impressive
majority is an evidence for a cross-faculty support gained by Professor
Ben-Artzi."
"The University of Haifa has undergone a significant change on the level
of its senior managerial administration. Such a change is followed by a
period of uncertainty. Today, two weeks after the election of the Rector
and less than a month since the new President took office, the atmosphere
on campus is excellent, and the members of faculty are warmly greeting
the results of the elections for both President and Rector, vigorously
mobilizing to move the University forwards.
“The good atmosphere and the practical work are a solid evidence to the
fact that the difficulties were only temporary and the members of faculty
are eager to put the restless period behind them and look forwards.
“As far as Professor Ben-Artzi's promotion and his election for Rector,
the promotion procedure of Professor Ben-Artzi was similar to all other

12
promotion procedures at the University, and started long before the
elections. Only professional considerations guided the procedures.
“It is important to point out that Professor Ben-Artzi was elected by an
impressive majority. Such a majority indicates a cross-faculty support
gained by him. The support for Professor Ben-Artzi is based on his
extensive experience and successful running of various systems within
the university system, and on the belief of the faculty members that his
experience will enable him as a Rector to lead the academic faculty at the
university in the best manner.
“The university contemptuously rejects all the slanderous allegations,
since all the complaints are based on lies."