In 2009, after Gordon wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times supporting a boycott of Israel and calling Israel an apartheid state,[5]Rivka Carmi, the president of Ben-Gurion University, declared that “academics who feel that way about their country are invited to look for different professional and personal accommodation,” and right-wing organisations demanded that his department be closed. In 2012, education minister Gideon Sa’ar called for Gordon's dismissal. Gordon and his partner received threats to their lives and decided to move to London with their two sons, and Gordon became a professor at Queen Mary University of London.[3]
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[7] and as a member of the Israeli peace camp.
Support for economic and political boycotts of Israel
Gordon wrote in a Los Angeles Timeseditorial 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.[5] 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.[9]
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 MinisterGideon Sa'ar called Gordon's article "repugnant and deplorable.[10]Religious Affairs MinisterYa'akov Margi called on the university to immediately suspend Gordon from his job and to publicly condemn his article.[11]
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 shekels in compensation plus 15,000 shekels in legal fees.[12] Both sides appealed 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 "JudenratWannabe" but reduced the damages to 10,000 shekels (about $2,700) because the court reversed three out of four of the libel claims.[13][14] The Supreme Court of Israel rejected Plaut's request to review the case.[15]
Books
Torture, Human Rights, Medical Ethics and the case of Israel, Zed Books, New York, ISBN1-85649-314-8 (1995; editor, with Ruchama Marton)
From the Margins of Globalization: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights. Lexington Books, Lanham, Maryland, ISBN0-7391-0878-6 (2004; editor)
Israel's Occupation. University of California Press, Berkeley California, ISBN0-520-25531-3 (2008)
^*[hhttps://acss.org.uk/our-fellows/ Academy of Social Sciences]
^ abShany Littman: Hebrew: הם הובילו כאן תנועות שמאל, אך התייאשו ונדחקו להגר. סיפורם של הגולים החדשים / After Losing Hope for Change, Top Left-wing Activists and Scholars Leave Israel Behind. In: Haaretz, 23 May 2020.
^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 hereArchived 2011-07-21 at the Wayback Machine