Ben-Gurion University published an article on its official website accusing Israel of “committing genocide in Gaza”—a move that has sparked significant outrage for its falsehood and national defamation.
Matanya Jeffery, CEO of the Im Tirtzu organization, blasted the university’s response: “While they employ lecturers who support terror and oppose the IDF, they claim this is just a technical error.”
The article’s author, Niv Gordon, is a former Ben-Gurion University lecturer who now teaches in London and continues to publish what Jeffery calls “hateful content against Israel.” In the piece, Gordon claimed Israel uses ‘Palestinians’ as human shields and is carrying out genocide, war crimes that the terror groups Israel faces commit and attempt to commit themselves.
The university said the publication was a mistake. But Jeffery pointed out that the institution employs faculty members who have repeatedly attacked the IDF, including lecturer Sebastian Ben Daniel, who called IDF soldiers “murderers.”
According to Jeffery, the university keeps making these kinds of “mistakes,” sharing incitement and hatred against Israel and IDF soldiers. “It’s time to put an end to this,” he said.
The article made several accusations against Israel: dressing ‘Palestinian’ civilians in military uniforms, designating civilian buildings as shields, and exploiting international law to justify harming civilians. “The guy who wrote it, Niv Gordon, supports refusal to serve in Judea and Samaria and claims Israel criminalizes homes in Gaza to destroy them,” Jeffery said.
Jeffery, who served as a combat soldier in both Gaza and Lebanon, pushed back hard. “As a fighter who served in Gaza and Lebanon, I saw that in Gaza every house is a terrorist’s house. So I, as a combat soldier and reservist—when there are also tons of reservists at Ben-Gurion University—am shocked that this is what it chooses to share. It’s insane. When will they put an end to this?”
Ben-Gurion University responded: “The automated system that pulls articles by university faculty mistakenly identified the author as such, even though he hasn’t been part of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev for nearly a decade. The error has been corrected.”