STUDENT ACCUSED OF BEING ISRAELI GOV'T AGENT

    All Munk School of global affairs graduate student Ari Blaff wanted to do last December was to meet a few professors over coffee to discuss pursuing a PhD with a focus on Middle Eastern studies.
   In response to Blaff's e-mailed invitations, Jens Hanssen, an associate professor of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the University of Toronto, replied almost immediately with a scathing e-mail accusing Blaff of being an agent of the Israeli government.
    He claimed that Blaff, a former Hasbara fellow, was sent to the U of T campus by the new Israeli ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy to indoctrinate students, professors and administrators into thinking anti-Israel activities are a bad thing.
    “It was a little out there,” Blaff said of Hanssen’s response. “I never had accusations on paper like that.”