People who think that America is immune to exterminationism need to be aware of what is happening on college campuses. A legacy of decades of lazy, left-wing ideology has rendered some campuses quite receptive to exterminationist rhetoric.
Palestinian supporters use a combination of intimidation and pleas of victimhood to paralyze those who disagree with them. Students need to be given the information that they need to overcome the mob psychology and misleading rhetoric that is used against Jews and against Israel. Terms like "apartheid state" and "racist war" are used without justification.
Eventually, this section will give students the tools they need to:
I encourage feedback and suggestions. Write to:
arnoldsk@us.net
please put "ideas rain" in the subject line
If you scroll halfway down Jay Nordlinger's column, you will find some commentary on the situation on college campuses. For a summary of anti-semitic statements and actions by professors, see this article by Daniel Pipes.
There were several articles this week on what Charles Johnson calls idiotarianism. What Charles has in mind can be found here. Another term for it is the anti-imperialism of fools. The idiotarians continue to dominate the field of Middle East Studies.
The SFSU story continues to unfold. This week, there were stories here and there about the Palestinian group actually punished for some of their hate-promoting activities.
The "American Jihad" graduation speech at Harvard turned out to be rather innocuous. Joe Katzman reconsiders whether it was worth worrying about.
Karen Alexander in The New Republic writes about why the anti-semitism at Berkeley and San Francisco State is particularly nasty. However, note these corrections to her article. Links to the article and the corrections from Instapundit.
The original story concerns a peaceful demonstration by Jewish students at San Francisco State University that was subject to ugly intimidation by pro-Palestinian counter-demonstrators. See Meryl Yourish.
California Governor's Press Release on anti-semitism
San Francisco State University is not the only campus in the area with a brazen cadre of bigots. This story is about an example at the University of California at Berkeley.
one of the basic freshmen reading courses required at UC Berkeley, which is titled "The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance" and is taught by English instructor Snehal Shingavi. The course description concludes with the following caveat: "Conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections."
Other dimensions of this incident and the alarming trends it represents are detailed in the full SFSU Blog Burst Index at Winds of Change.
The student commencement speaker at Harvard originally titled the speech "American Jihad." In response to outrage in the community, the title was changed, but the speaker and the speech remained the same.
The "jihad" valedictory address continues to draw attention.
The place to follow this story is Mathew Yglesias' blog.
When South Africa still practiced apartheid, students pressured their colleges and universities to have their endowments get rid of stocks in companies doing business in South Africa. This was called divestiture.
Now, pro-Palestinians and left-wingers are trying to apply similar pressure for divestiture of stocks of companies doing business with Israel. They started with a petition that targets Harvard and MIT.
A new site calls attention to the fact that Harvard has accepted large donations from the Bin Laden family. It suggests that the University divest itself of those donations.
Those of us with MIT or Harvard connections can sign an online petition that is against divestiture and expresses solidarity with Israel. Let's hope that this effort succeeds in quelling the Israel divestiture movement.
This article in the Village Voice describes the tension on college campuses. The article makes it appear that the problem consists of extremists on both sides. I hope that if there are situations where the extremism and lies all come from one side that reporters will have the courage to report it that way. But I am doubtful.
If you want to see that arguments that the pro-Palestinian side is using, you can look here or here for examples.
My impression is that they want to argue that Arafat did not cause the breakdown at Camp David. This is in contrast to the first-hand views of Dennis Ross. Sometimes, the pro-Palestinians argue that Arafat actually accepted the Camp David proposals, but the Israelis backed away. At other times, they argue that the Camp David proposals were hopelessly one-sided and had to be rejected. Those arguments strike me as mutually exclusive.
A common argument from the Palestinian side is that suicide bombing will end when the Israelis abandon their West Bank settlements. If so, then this is a complete abrogation of the Oslo agreement, which is that the issue of the settlements was to be resolved peacefully through negotiations.
Another argument for suicide bombing is that it represents "resistance to the humiliation of occupation." In fact, the bombing has emanated from places such as Jenin which were under Palestinian control for nine years.
National Review Online's Stanley Kurtz describes counterproductive education programs funded by taxpayer dollars.
the American government has been pouring millions of dollars into the pockets of the most anti-American scholars in the academy, vast chunks of which end up force-feeding America's children a steady diet of Arundhati Roy and Edward Said. Worse, since Sept. 11, the government subsidy for Edward Said and his legion of followers has been massively increased — and may grow larger still next year....To bring this scam to a halt, readers may want to get in touch with the Chair of the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations. Rep. Ralph Regula (R., Ohio), can be reached at 2306 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington D.C. 20515, Phone (202) 225-3876. And here is a link to all the members of the key House Subcommittee. Even better, readers may also wish to contact their own congressman, senator, or the White House and urge that funding for area studies under Title VI be scaled back and controlled.
