Nine years ago I published an article in this newspaper under the heading "Cultural revolution, Israeli-style." I argued there that actions taken by the government against the research universities invite a cultural revolution with shades of similarity to the "cultural revolution" in China 44 years earlier, albeit with inevitable differences due to the profound dissimilarities between the two cultures.

A renewed comparison of Chinese history with the events of recent weeks concerning the academic world in Israel reveals that the Israeli cultural revolution is indeed marching forward.

On May 25, 1966, a young philosophy lecturer at Beijing University published a dazibao - a poster sharply attacking the rector and professors at the university and depicting them as anti-Chinese, haters of the state and traitors to the principles of socialism, the rock of the people's existence.

The poster won an enthusiastic response from chairman Mao Zedong, who ordered that it be distributed throughout the country posthaste.

The result was immediate. On May 29, 1966, at the high school associated with Tsinghua University, the first nucleus of the Red Guards was formed. That was the opening shot of the Cultural Revolution, which raged throughout China. The Red Guards - mostly gangs of students - imposed merciless terror on the country. Unhindered and working in the name of the nation and for the sake of social justice, they violently attacked officials tasked with keeping the public order as well as intellectuals, professors, teachers and people in the arts and humanities.

Many were killed and many more exiled to concentration camps where they were pried of their deviant and treacherous thoughts and brought into the fold of correct Marxist consciousness.

The Cultural Revolution in China made the lives of millions miserable while it was happening but its destructive results were felt in China for many years. A manifestation of the cultural darkness that descended on China is the total absence, for about 30 years, of papers originating in China in the international scientific press.

In recent weeks there has been vigorous anti-intellectual activity throughout Israel, mostly against professors, both male and female, writers, artists and intellectuals, who are depicted as anti-Israel, haters of the state and traitors to the principles of Zionism, the bedrock of our existence.

Nationalist student organizations are distributing documents in the style of the dazibao with the encouragement of the education minister and members of the Knesset Education Committee, and with the tacit agreement of the Israel's leaders.

If this activity is a portent of things to come, we are at the start of another significant step in the march of the cultural revolution in Israel. The Israeli revolution looks different from its older brother in China, especially in its dimensions and it's lack of violent.

However, as in China, it has been accompanied by a large ad campaign and tendentious reports in the media. In the absence of violence, the pace of its development is slow and only few people in the country feel the undercurrent.

Over time, though, the revolution will undermine the cultural infrastructure on which rest the intellectual achievements of the Jewish community in Israel over the past 90 years.

Unlike in China, Israel's ability to survive the trend depends on the existence of exactly what the Israeli-style cultural revolution is seeking to destroy: our culture. If the Knesset and the public do not stop this revolution, the outcome is liable to be disastrous for the existence of the state.