It is a accepted truism that our "elite" universities have been evincing growing signs of intolerance towards dissident views and analyses that do not reflect the accepted norms of "political correctness." The latter has all but disappeared in the US following the events of September 11, as 90 percent of sensible Americans have rallied behind their president in the country's time of emergency.

In Israel, which is undergoing a more testing situation than a state of emergency, academia does not appear to have internalized the dangers posed to our national existence, and it pursues its witch-hunt in the name of political correctness as if nothing had happened. Evidently, that tool of abuse and repression of free academic thinking and expression will be slow to die here, as its champions dig ever deeper into their indefensible trenches.

There is certainly an appearance of freedom of expression, but only to "our gang," while the other voices are gasping for air underneath the choking atmosphere of intimidation.

A profusion of seminars, study days, colloquia and conferences are held weekly at all "elite" institutions of higher learning, where different views, analyses and insights are supposed to be aired, examined, discussed and debated. But as a rule, the right of expression and presentation is reserved for those who toe the line. Naturally, all this is done "properly" under the argument of "scholarly merit," whereby established professors with internationally-recognized credits and lists of publications who happen to hold the "incorrect" views, are often shoved aside with ill-concealed arrogance, in favor of precocious young scholars without any credit, but with the "correct" views.

The organizers duly proclaim the cliches of "excellence," "freedom of expression," "academic debate" and "matter-of-fact" discussion, in order to stifle the different and the dissident. For example, countless debates are held on the Oslo Accords, the Arabs of Israel, fundamentalist Islam, Arab attitudes to Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the like, where Arabs and academics who toe the line or are afraid for the future of their careers, are invited to speak, with most of them repeating ad nauseam the same positions that favor the Arabs and are critical of Israel.

These fateful matters are discussed with seeming academic equanimity and detachment, before a puzzled general audience which is eager to hear some words of wisdom from academics, but is often frustrated by the uniformity of the message and the lack of any diversity of opinion and analysis, and embarrassed to challenge the "wise" in the open.

Evidently, no one can or should dispose of these prevailing opinions, but other views are as valid and no less deserving of fair hearing and debate.

We are not talking, of course, of gut-feelings but of systematic research, ironically funded by the same institutions that refuse to listen to its findings. The impression is that the organizers wish to hide something and are understandably reluctant to expose themselves to theses that may destroy theirs. This is the kind of intellectual hypocrisy and terrorism that runs across the universities that we otherwise could be proud of.

For example, if a researcher shows, after years of investigation and writing, that anti-Semitism and blood libel, or denial of the Holocaust and such abominations are rampant in the Arab world, centers for the study of anti- Semitism will show interest in them because of their vocation to study anti-Semitism.

But no university center of Arab or Muslim research would tackle this "politically incorrect" issue, discuss it or convene symposia around it, because correctness does not allow the exposure of Arab or Islamic evil, even after the Americans, the fathers of political correctness and intellectual terror, have changed their minds and exposed that evil in the wake of the September 11 disaster.

This phenomenon of Bolshevism in our academia should impel the education minister to investigate the unbearable currents that are stifling academic freedom in our publicly funded institutions of higher learning. Because it is precisely those who demand the right to dominate the Council of Higher Education for the sake of maintaining excellence, who also repress academic freedom and support political correctness which is inimical to excellence.

It is they who prevent the venting in the open of research that is paid for by public funds, and arrogantly, if incorrectly, defend the "freedom of expression," almost exclusively, of positions that undermine that same public, and often sanctify its enemies.