Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.
(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)

With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)

Sunday 13 April 2014

A Litany of Shame: Fabulous Phyllis highlights Brandeis's past betrayals

Professor Phyllis Chesler knows a thing or two about Islamic oppression of women, as her recently published memoir, An American Bride in Kabul, makes clear.

A staunch defender of Israel, she has already criticised here Brandeis University's craven rescinding of its planned honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an act which of course suggests that when the claims of Islam clash with the claims of downtrodden womankind, liberal-leftists will betray the latter in order to placate the former: "Islamophobia" is, evidently, more of a crime in leftist eyes than Islamic misogyny (see, for instance, here).

Indeed, Islamic misogyny is not to be differentiated from the vestiges of sexism that occur in the United States and other Western societies: to make that distinction, in the eyes of liberal-leftists, is racist and unconscionable, hence the disingenuous piffle of  signatories to a faculty petition against Ms Ali's honouring that "gendered violence"occurs everywhere.

But in her latest critique of Brandeis, Professor Chesler dwells not on the above obvious points but on something which to many of us is not so obvious: she has done yeoman service in highlighting the fact that Brandeis has form when it comes to accommodating the enemies of Israel.

She writes, inter alia:
'In 2003, Brandeis partnered with Al-Quds University—and did so, year after year, until 2013, when violent demonstrations broke out on the Al-Quds campus, replete with traditional Nazi salutes.
In 2006, the Brandeis community of students and professors did not protest the Distinguished Professorship Brandeis awarded to the "inflammatory" anti-Zionist playwright Tony Kushner.
In 2006, Brandeis also staged a "Voices of Palestine" exhibit. Seventeen paintings by Palestinian youths depicted their lives under Israeli "occupation." This time, refreshingly, Brandeis students had the exhibit taken down because there was absolutely no Israeli perspective being exhibited.
This was not surprising. There usually isn't an Israeli perspective exhibited. Kudos to these Brandeis students.
In 2006, Jordan's Prince Hassan bin Talal delivered the keynote address at the Brandeis graduation. Students did not protest Jordan's human rights record vis a vis the Palestinians (they massacred them in 1970), or in terms of torturing its own citizens, nor its abysmal record on honor-related violence, including honor killings.
Indeed, Brandeis students and staff did not hold Jordan accountable for its former systematic desecration of Jewish holy places and for its forcing the evacuation of Jews, many of whose families had been there for centuries, from the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem in 1948.
Brandeis students did not create online petitions to debate the merits of choosing Jordan's Prince as a speaker.
Here's why. Arabs and Muslims have been and still are treated super-sympathetically on American and Canadian campuses. Jews and Israelis are not. Nevertheless, the false charge of "Islamophobia" is received as divine revelation on many of these same campuses....'
In 2007, Dr. Daniel Pipes was invited to speak at Brandeis. However, he was defamed by Brandeis's former President who compared the distinguished and sober Pipes to Holocaust denier Norman Finkelstein. Both allegedly were speakers who "inflame passions, whose mission is not so much discussion and education as it is theatre, a show." Pipes did not lecture at that time—but subsequently did so.
Oh, but there's more.  Read all of Phyllis Chesler's revelations here

6 comments:

  1. Douglas Murray: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4259/brandeis-ayaan-hirsi-ali

    ReplyDelete
  2. Replies
    1. Mark Steyn is great - used to write for the London Daily Telegraph when Conrad Black owned it.

      o/t - just noticed this:
      https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/56247

      Delete
    2. Someone posted that on EoZ of all places
      http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/latest-bds-conundrum-salt-424-boycott.html#comment-1321953127

      I seriously doubt they had 200 people, only 13 people follow his stupid blog. Also no mention of money raised, a bit odd considering that was the point.

      Delete
  3. Steyn at his best! " ....Their decision the most explicit recognition yet that, in the hierarchy of identity-group politics, Islam trumps everything, including race, gender and secularism.....As for Brandeis president Frederick Lawrence and the others who took this decision, nobody's asking them to be as brave as Ayaan Hirsi Ali. They will never know what it's like to have their associates murdered and to be forced into living under armed guard. They will never have to "share the risk" that Ms Hirsi Ali faces every day of her life. All that was required of President Lawrence & Co was that they not be total craven, jelly-spined squishes who fold like a cheap Bedouin tent at the first hint of pressure.

    But Lawrence couldn't even do that. Ayaan Hirsi Ali campaigns against female genital mutilation - that's to say, the barbarous practice by which Muslim men deny women sexual pleasure by having their clitorises cut off. Lawrence and the other fellows who run Brandeis are in no danger of any equivalent procedure since it seems clear they've nothing down there to chop off anyway. The eunuchs of the American academy are the beneficiaries of western liberty, of the spirit of openness and inquiry that is the principal difference between us and the intellectually stagnant Muslim world. But they will not lift a finger to defend that tradition.

    So getting an honorary degree at Brandeis, like serving on the board at Mozilla, is open only to those who make sure they never cross the Conformity Enforcers. And apostates to Islam, as Ayaan is regarded, must accept that they are apostates to American campus conformity, too, and be prepared to lead a life without the consolations of honorary degrees. Accepting the loss of A-list commencement gigs doesn't take a lot of courage, but it still takes more than Frederick Lawrence has displayed.
    http://www.steynonline.com/6250/degrees-of-separation

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is good too:
      http://www.nationalreview.com/article/375450/shame-brandeis-charles-c-w-cooke

      Delete

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