And now for something completely different: Good news. After
many doom and gloom posts about antisemitism around the globe, it's time for some cheer.
Senator Rudy Boschwitz, head of the U.S. delegation to the UN Commission on Human Rights, notes a small good sign:
For many years now a totally disproportionate amount of time at the UN has been spent bashing Israel. In an early speech I made here in Geneva, I asked delegations to recognize and support the changes taking place in the Mideast by moderating their remarks. For whatever reason that's what happened. Last year, speeches bashing Israel took 2 days. This year they totaled 30 minutes!
The Palestinian delegate gave a stunning "speech," the best and shortest of the many at this session of the CHR to date. His speech in its entirety was: "We extend our hand to our Israeli neighbors to live in peace." I went over and congratulated him.
On the occasion of a Kurd being appointed as interim president of Iraq, Neo-neocon notes that the Kurds have for the most part taken exception to Arab Jew-bashing, and in fact may be our closest genetic relatives. There's lots more;
read the whole thing.From a veteran Jewish journalist to an up and coming one:
Student politics at Wellington's Victoria University has changed beyond recognition since me, Kiwi Bob and David Bisman were part of the only actually successful Zionist conspiracy ever attempted, the move to smash the hard Left on New Zealand campuses, starting with Victoria. Actually the idea was simply to fight anti-semitism on that one campus, and we didn't expect to even win that one, but as it turned out the revolution was wildly popular, and suitable for export, and before we knew it, NZUSA had been eviscerated and a majority of student associations had non-Left executives. . . . But I visit the old student newspaper's site this week, and what do I see? The editor is a Jew?
The Jewish editor Emily Braunstein is the target of a campaign to dump her for presenting more than one side of an issue and refusing to print letters which call her derogatory names, but she says that "on campus these days, classical liberalism is "the new black," being wildly popular among students." Who woulda thunk it?
UPDATE: And
anything that makes Saddam unhappy is a good thing.
Antisemitism watch, one more time. Previous entry in this series
here.
The systematic anti-Israel propaganda of Human Rights Watch.
David Bernstein deconstructs
the irresponsible use of the term "Likudnik." (It's kinda like "Straussian" and "neoconservative.")
The latest on the SOAS saga.Some French Jewish students exchange notes with some Jewish students at Hunter College.
Professors in France are given standardized materials, according to the students I spoke with, so they have no room for editorializing in the classroom. Students, however, have gained a lot of power since 1968, so while professors teach lessons controlled by a national program put together by the government, the students speak out loudly.
“But the student political world,” I was told, “is very left--very communist and anarchist.” Much like my own campus, I was surprised to learn. The students I spoke with described posters at their schools with messages such as, “Freedom for Palestine,” “Freedom for Iraq,” “Sharon and Bush are Killers.” Of course, that is nothing different than the posters I’m greeted with everyday in the halls of Hunter.
What came as a shock to me, though, was how very different our societies are. In a country where “secularism is the law,” my table explained to me that there is no sense of personal identity amongst the people. Before everything else, whether you’re Jewish, Gay, Muslim, or Black, you are considered French and must think of yourself in that manner. “You’re first a French citizen,” David Rak told me. “We all belong and each time religious issues arise, it’s seen as a weakness.” In America, diversity is something that strengthens the country, while in France it’s seen as something that holds back national unity.
An example of a poster at Hunter College, right here in Manhattan.
Academic Integrity and the Middle East: the continuing controversy. Previous entries on this topic
here,
here,
here,
here,
here,
here, and description of the conference and speakers
here.
Campus-J's stringers at Columbia and
Columbians for Academic Freedom are on the front lines of this controversy; check both sites for updates.
A timeline of events that led to the current conflict, with many links to primary sources.
Joining
Charles Jacobs and Alan Dershowitz, the Columbia Chapter of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) (which sponsored the conference last month)
issued a critique of the Columbia Ad-Hoc Committee report.
More on the
Times' collusion with the university:
The Times has a clear preexisting relationship with the university’s administration. That fact was made clear yesterday in the way the world-renown newspaper was employed as Columbia’s personal press agent. The Sun has been highly critical of the atmosphere on campus and has supported the students in their campaign from the beginning. Nevertheless, despite claims to the contrary by Professor Massad and other CAF detractors, the Sun, unlike the Times, brokered no deals with anyone to ensure biased coverage. The opinions expressed in the Sun or any slant to its reporting is an indication of the paper’s personal interpretation of the events on campus and not, as many would like to claim, a result of manipulation by “neo-Conservative organizations” like the David Project.
. . . In a show of the Columbia Spectator’s commitment to balanced journalism, it printed an opinion highly critical of the committee report alongside its own Op-Ed echoing the university’s desire, as articulated in the report, “to restore norms.”
After making a deal with Columbia to publish a story on the report without talking to the students whose complaints instigated the investigation, the
NYTimes then reported on the students' reaction to the report. However, the article takes at face value claims by other students that the university
overemphasized the problem of not having adequate grievance procedures and underemphasized the problem of coordinated, focused attacks from outside interest groups at the university. "Why are there no recommendations on that point?" said [Brenda] Coughlin, who was one of a handful of students calling for Mr. Bollinger's resignation last week because they felt he was not defending academic freedom forcefully enough. "Clearly, the administration has jumped when the David Project and Campus Watch criticized them," she said. "What are we to expect from them the next time a shoddy video gets a secret release?
Brenda Coughlin seems to be one of the ringleaders of
an organized effort to
recast the MEALAC problem as "outside agitators pressuring our university" rather than unprofessional behavior on the part of professors:
. . . a small group of graduate students began circulating a petition yesterday calling for the resignation of Columbia's president, Lee C. Bollinger, because he "failed to defend our faculty, thereby nurturing an environment of fear and intimidation throughout the university."
Some professors expressed surprise that anyone was calling for Mr. Bollinger's resignation. And few appeared to have any interest in signing such a petition. But Columbia's faculty is clearly divided about Mr. Bollinger's performance since last fall, when a small group of pro-Israel students created a videotape charging that some professors of Middle East studies were intimidating Jewish students in classes and on campus. Some professors say they are disappointed that top administrators have not made a vigorous defense of academic freedom and professors' right to express views publicly, no matter who might take offense.
As the students interviewed in
"Columbia Unbecoming" made painstakingly clear, the issue is not "offense," but outright misrepresentation of facts, bullying of students, and inadequate grievance procedures. (The call for Bollinger's resignation seems to have intensified
following a speech he recently gave on academic freedom.)
A student
responds to the "outside agitator" charge.A MEALAC student defends the critique of the department, placing it within the context of intra-departmental competition and academic politics.
. . . by reducing the pedagogical conversation to “Zionist!” vs. “Anti-Semite!” we seem to have forgotten that the students involved in this crisis hardly used terms like these. In fact, their published accounts are sprinkled with statements that are surprisingly apologetic and even generous. They liked the courses, they said; they liked the professors, respected them, and certainly didn’t want anyone to lose their jobs. They even liked MEALAC and learned a lot. And I don’t recall any of the students saying freedom of inquiry should be curtailed. In the context of what is going on, this is rather astonishing, and little noted. What, then, were the students saying? I’m not sure, but I think they were saying something a little more nuanced, and thus much more important, than the simplistic charge of bias.
An interview with Alan Dershowitz about the Columbia U situation, including some comparisons with the way Harvard handles such things.
UPDATE: After
giving Steven Weiss the run-around for five days, the
NYTimes runs a "correction," conceding that it should have sought responses from the students as well as the professors.
