“It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity.”

I think that this is the real inspiration of Im Tirzu. Forget Romantic poets. Zionism is a project to weave all Jews into a single tapestry of the Jewish State, an organic and harmonious structure, with threads of different hues but none sticking out in wrong directions.

Note that educators play a central role here, their role is not to propagate doubt, under the guise of “critical thinking” or, even worse, outright criticism of the state, but to lead the citizens on the path of civic virtue and weld them to unity.

Does the Department of Political Science at BGU lead the students on the path of civic virtue? Does it weld them to unity? These people sow doubt instead of pride, have temerity of accusing the State of crimes, undermine solidarity by discussing the fate of the enemies as if they were human beings. And yet, they are inside the State, traitorous 5th column.

The notions like “radical leftist” and “fascists” are clearly not particularly precise, there is a continuum of positions to which they can be applied. Moreover, not all people would regard them as negative.

Reasonable people disagree if Jobbik is a fascist party.

I think that Plato was a fascist, more precisely, a state run according to his recommendations would be fascist. Im Tirtzu recommendations are no better. I dread Plato’s estate digging out this comment and suing me. Or some neo-cons, because they love Plato, and typically hate Kant. Following Kant philosophy is responsible, according to them, for a number of major calamities. Should Kantists sue?

One person may think that Ronen Shoval looks like an intelligent young man, another, that he looks like “a brainless hunk of meat”, “hunk of meat” being a male equivalent of “bimbo”. It would be a strange country where court could decide which opinion is correct and which is libelous.

Im Tirzu is a movement that has its positives and negatives. There is no question they want to play hardball and there is no question that they are an organization that openly attacks many groups and individuals on the Israeli Left. That doesn’t make them Fascists.
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Calling for someone to be fired because he takes a state salary from the very state he encourages other countries to boycott is not Fascism, even though this is a key claim in Sternhall’s commentary.
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You and he may disagree with the premise, but it’s not illogical. That bold, liberal academic is not told not to encourage a boycott, he is told not to do it while on the payroll of the country or organization he wants boycotted. It seems to me that Im Tirzu is saying that he can go ahead and open his own university, get funders to pay his salary and then encourage them to boycott him and his university. If he isn’t willing to do that, he shouldn’t be doing it with state resources and a state salary.
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There is a legitimate and legitimately angry debate going on in Israel about what is fair criticism of Israel and when that criticism becomes a tool that aids Israel’s very real enemies. Perhaps it would be best for all if people focused on the debate and stopped calling each other names. Calling someone a Fascist, especially in Israel, is not a trifling insult.