Gravitational Physics Group

and here is a complaint letter I circulated in the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration, where the management has been properly following the Statutes and Code of Conduct, but those cerain scientists persistently broke them:

from: Ofek Birnholtz

date: Sep 26, 2024, 10:12 AM

Subject: Fwd: IMPORTANT UPDATE for DEI event

This is a formal complaint regarding breaches of the LVK Code of Conduct, by two LVK members, A. M. and F. D. V.. I am submitting it to the respective spokespersons, as those responsible to provide direct procedural and institutional remedies, and I will describe the specific violations.

I am also cc’ing those who have been made the targets and audience of these breaches, in the hope that this might serve as a learning exercise to help our organization and all members strengthen our abilities to conduct contentious discussions as scientists should, i.e. following the clauses in our Code of Conduct. More importantly - following the basic principles of science and academia: free discussion, critical thought, objectivity and, as objectivity is not always so easy, doubt regarding first and foremost our own positions, and actively applying curiosity to seek out opposing views and complementary information.

I am not expanding the recipient list beyond those already involved - nor will I lay out *here* any specific political opinions of my own - because I don’t believe in hijacking stages (physical or virtual), or taking a captive audience as hostages. I’m also not soliciting support or signatures; as Albert Einstein once said regarding the 100 German authors who wrote against his Theory of Relativity, “Why 100? If it were wrong, one would be enough”. However, anyone who is interested in either expressing criticism, correcting any errors I’ve made, or asking for my opinions beyond the technical points below about the specific violations, is more than welcome to write to me or approach me in any way they see fit. I hope that anyone who took interest in hearing the anti-Israel tirade, might be intellectually inclined to hear something different as well.

The violations of the Code of Conduct revolve of course around the promotion of a one-sided, unobjective, unscientific, hate- and lie-infested “discussion”. The session was held at an LVK collaboration meeting, invited a subgroup of LVK members (not surprisingly, the physical location of which was kept from those who might sound a different voice and risk objectivity…), and for that purpose used both LVK mailing lists (mainly the diversity and council lists; previously also ET lists) and LVK guises (the zoom call’s title was chosen as “DEI Session”, the organizers styled themselves as “The LVK Solidarity Group” and later “The GW Solidarity Group”, and the meeting opened by “reminding the participants to abide by the LVK’s Code of Conduct”, without an iota of self-awareness or sense of irony…). This use of both the LVK mailing lists and guises continued by both A. M. and F. D. V. even after being told to cease and desist such misuse by the spokespersons, i.e. - after having been explicitly warned of their violations of the Code of Conduct. This can hence no longer be excused as ignorance or mere mistake - this is malicious, and should be treated accordingly.

Below are brief examples of the lies and violations as presented and promoted during the event, focusing on the lack of Objectivity, on Falsification of relevant data either outright or by cherry-picking and omission, and above all on creating a hostile and divisive environment in the meeting and in the collaboration, amounting to harassment, related directly to group identities such as race, ethnicity, national origin and political persuasions - all supposed to be protected by the Code of Conduct, and at least two of them also by Federal Law in the US (Title VI), as well as similar laws in other countries with membership in our collaborations. I’ll try to restrict to a representative sample of just ten (a full recording is available):

1. Composition: The event consisted mostly (45 minutes) of talks by two hosted panelists, the second of which (F. D. V.) began by admitting there is no disagreement between him and the first (Omar Barghouty). This in itself goes against objectivity - and against a real academic discourse, let alone any pretext of “diversity” - and of course, purposely omits an important side of a complicated issue. The organizers chose to hold the event in this format and composition even after the LSC Council agreed to explore how to *facilitate* difficult discussion in the future - showing they were never interested in any such objective or diverse discussion, only in a stage for propaganda (in fact, at one point in the discussion, a zoom participant commented “Preach!”)

2. Purpose: This harmonious agreement between the two speakers was regarding the call to boycott Israelis from Science and Academia in general, and from the LVK in particular - and while occasionally they restricted themselves to calling to boycott only Israeli institutions, they also discussed the (self-)righteousness of boycotting Israeli academics, indeed persons, in general (explaining explicitly that Israelis and “Zionists” should feel shame, and that academics are targeted not because of their actions or positions but because that’s what would hurt Israel, comparing to the boycott of sports teams from South Africa). Such boycott’s are inherently anti-academic, and target protected groups with ostracism, marginalization and harassment; this very clause should suffice for action.

3. University “complicity in Apartheid”: In their original email, the self-styled “LVK Solidarity Group” stated that they were motivated to action "As the LVK continues to collaborate with Israeli universities, including one which lies on occupied land", linking to Ariel University, which has never had any ties to the LVK. The presentation itself shifted the target to The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (also not an LVK member), accused of having built dormitories on occupied lands, while in fact its dormitories were built on lands purchased by the university not only before the 1967, but in fact before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 (even before the 1947 Partition Plan of the land, UN resolution 181) - see here. Moving the goalpost and not confronting ones’ “facts” is of course a sign of a weak argument; as is omitting relevant data, such as the inconvenient facts that Haifa University and Bar Ilan University have a higher Arab and Muslim enrollment than any LVK institution (in Haifa, 40% of the students are Arab), that both observe Muslim (and Druze, and Christian) holidays, and that every campus hosts a Mosque. Even the claim that Israeli universities should be targeted for “collaboration with the military” omits the fact that this is common in many universities worldwide (including US Navy and military supported research, and including an LSC institution directly affiliated with the US Navy and Airforce). This is not mere poor research or lazy copying of claims from the BDS template campaign - it’s lazy copying of purposefully partial and false information.

4. Claim that LVK management is motivated by financial concerns: in his presentation, F. D. V. said “our management, unfortunately, is near the government. They are in the rooms of the government to ask for money”, and that that was the reason for the LVK not supporting the DEI session. This assumes malice - and greed - in place of even considering the possibility of respective disagreement - this also goes against the Code of Conduct for respectful behaviour, and of course against the very basis of academia, i.e. respectful disagreement, and presumptions of mutual good will in pursuit of knowledge. Also, the trope of Israel/Zionists/Jews using money behind the scenes to manipulate decision-making processes is of course one of the oldest antisemitic tropes in recorded history.

5. Misrepresented quotes were presented by F. D. V., for example in putting decontextualized quotes as proof for racism. For example, a statement by Galant about Israel’s fighting “human animals” was presented as dehumanizing all Palestinians, while in fact “human animals” is a common Hebrew expression for extremely violent and and moral-less people (equivalent an English accusation like “you monster!”), which in its original context clearly referred to the Hamas terrorists which committed atrocities on Oct 2023, and not to Palestinians as a whole. Similar misrepresentations of quotes (all originally in Hebrew) were presented regarding Presdient Herzog and PM Netanyahu. Now, while I don’t expect anyone to be familiar with modern Hebrew terminology or with the Jewish Talmudic interpretations of “Amalek” (which, like all things Talmudic, differ a lot from the Old Testament plaintext) - one should expect a scientist to show the minimal amount of effort to fill in their knowledge gaps, ask someone who might be more knowledgeable, or otherwise present the limits of their own knowledge, rather than present limited misrepresentations as facts. This is especially egregious considering the set of quotes presented was exactly the set presented in South Africa’s case in The Hague - and as such, received full explanatory responses from the opposite legal team. Presenting one half of a debate as complete truth is unethical, unscientific, and again, directly against the “Falsification and purposeful Omission of relevant date” clause in our Code of Conduct.

6. Deliberate targeting of civilians: was stated by F. D. V. to be a policy, which is an erroneous and unsubstantiated claim, which is easily shown to be a blunt lie. Common estimates of the number of Hamas militants killed are in the 10-25k (out of approximately 40-50k Hamas militants). This is similar to the number of civilians killed, which is estimated to be between 15 and 30k (out of ~2.2 million). It immediately follows that the chance of a civilian to die in the current conflict is on the order of 50 times lower than the chance of a militant. This statistics alone debunks any claim of massive targeted killing of civilians as a policy. Similar statistics applied to the Rwandan genocide or even the Korean war show a civilian’s chance to die was comparable or greater than a combatant’s. This kind of statistical fallacy should not go unchallenged in a collaboration whose members are versed in Bayesian statistics. While we probably all want this particular ratio to approach 0, in every war it is always positive, and the best way to avoid civilian casualties is not to have opened a war to begin with.

7. “Genocide” through the discussion, the accusation of "genocide" was repeated multiple times, giving a false impression that topics like the complicity of Israel in “genocide” are in consensus. This accusation is intentionally ambiguous as there are multiple definitions of genocide. In layman terms, genocide implies the killing of an entire nation or a significant percentage of the population, which is a statement not supported by evidence in any way shape or form. In legal terms, the categorization of Israel's acts as genocide is far from trivial, as it depends not only on the facts and evidence, but on the legal definition (in Geneva convention) and, most importantly, legal precedents. For example, even the deaths of a very large number of civilians as a collateral damage of aerial bombing is recognized NOT to be an act of genocide, due to precedents set to protect the allies in WW2 from such accusations. De facto, in all current legal precedents of recognized genocide, a large percentage of the population was killed. The fact that the international court of justice is considering the complicity of Israel in genocide, does not imply guilt. Indeed, one could easily refer to a list of legal experts who disagree, or the prevailing attitude in many legal cricles that South Africa’s legal claim of genocide is far from being supported - if one wanted to present a truthful and objective presentation of the matter.

8. Hamas terrorism: F. D. V.'s talk explicitly stated that Oct 7th attack against Israel cannot be considered terrorism “by any intellectually honest person”. F. D. V. added the label of terrorism fits Israel, not Hamas, ignoring the fact that Hamas is recognized as a terrorist organization in most LVK countries, and that Hamas’ Oct 7th attacks have been denounced as such across the political spectrum. One is of course entitled to one’s opinion on whether kidnapping, murdering, and raping of civilians, including children, is or isn’t terrorism, as repulsive as that opinion might be - but denying that people holding the normative opinion on such crimes are “intellectually honest” is so divorced from reality and truth that the mere term “falsification” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

9. “Live testing of weapons”: F. D. V. accused the Israeli defense complex in live testing of weapons on Palestinians, to the extent that this is “...the advantage that Israel has of having a disposable population on which it can test weapons and develop control techniques to sell abroad”. This is, at best, a cynical lie; and I will add on a personal note, that much of Israel’s defense technology selling on the world market constitutes of  anti-missile defense systems, like The Iron Dome, which indeed have been “live tested” in the field - this very week, they defended my parents from rockets fired at Haifa by Hizbullah, and indeed, helped keep my family alive, and helped keep many families alive (including the family of a Muslim Arab member of my group and of the LVK).

10. Demagogical claims by Barghouti that BDS actions are part of the “fundamental mission of saving humanity, no less”, and that Israel is the forefront of Fascism, Colonialism, and all the other ails of the world (I counted about 10 “X-cides” listed in addition to the aforementioned “genocide”). Sadly, we know all too well what undercurrents these accusations are drawing from and helping to fuel: accusations of us being “Enemies of the World”, and the singular people blocking the entire world’s salvation from evil are thousands of years old; we all recognize them as Antisemitism in its purest form (i.e. “Deicide”). This is the oldest form of anti-Jewish harassment, and of course the piling up of accusations was not only intended in raising objections any particular Israeli policy (in itself, the first time DEI was weaponized against one particular member country or institution), but as the organizers quoted from the BDS’s objectives - objections to Israel’s existence. This is the opposite of diversity or inclusion, an abhorrent notion in today’s international order, and one that can only be supported by the deepest antisemitic undercurrents, as expressed by the speakers, even as they use the worn-out placation that “some of their best co-campaigners are Jewish!”. The LVK should not - indeed no scientific or human organization in the 21st century -  should agree to host such filthy rant.

I remark in conclusion that any of these falsehoods, misrepresentations, accusations, insinuations, and even outright antisemitic tropes (and others not mentioned here) could have been raised to a free and fair discussion - none of us are free from prejudices, unchecked beliefs, even worldviews (and certainly political views) that others find wrong or even offensive. But the organizers chose to avoid any attempt at a solution or resolution, and any attempt at objectivity or scientific integrity. It is in itself an example of how science engagement should not be done: they essentially received a negative report ot “desk reject” from a desired scientific stage, and so rather than fix issues, pursued publication in a different stage, avoiding peer review entirely. This is clearly not a “best practice” the LVK would wish to encourage…  They have managed to avoid an open and productive (albeit difficult) discussion by opting for Exclusion and harassment, and they have done so using LVK resources and guises. This is a grave breach, and must be dealt with accordingly. 

I am, again, available as needed to anyone interested, especially in disagreeing; surely there’s enough here for anyone to disagree with some or all of it; and open honest peer review is the foundation of science.

   Thank you.

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  אופק בירנהולץ

  Dr. Ofek Birnholtz

  Department of Physics, Bar-Ilan University*,

  Ramat-Gan, Israel