Three ex-terrorists speak in Princeton: Are Princeton’s Jewish Youth the new judenrat?

I was flown out to Princeton from the west coast at considerable expense by the Walid Shoebat Foundation to work with the Princeton students to generate maximum attendance at this event. I have almost 20 years of experience working with college students. I was one of the original coordinators who helped set up chapters of Students for Academic Freedom on western US campuses. I called to the PIPAC representative every day for a week and sent emails with instructions for very minor things the students could do to promote awareness and attendance on campus. This included contacting the campus radio station, distributing handbills on campus, contacting area groups who might be wishing to attend. My directions were easy to follow and involved minimum time.

When I arrived a week later nothing had been done. Now, this is not unusual for college students who sometimes are busy (and lazy), so I was ready for a worst case scenario.

My first day at Princeton was the same day that a Dean Dunne responsible for student activities there met with the main organizer for the Walid Shoebat Foundation and our principal donor. The campus press agent, Cass Liatt, had called the Shoebat Foundation’s press agent and advised her that the event featuring three former terrorists speaking out against terrorism would not be allowed to go forward at Princeton despite three weeks of preparation and nearly $30,000 expended for the event. The excuse given was the event would be “too inflammatory.” She further stated that having one ex-terrorist speak was inflammatory enough, but having three of them “lacked balance.” To this day I wonder if Princeton’s genius press agent really meant some terrorists were needed to speak up for terrorism at the event for “balance.”

When a dispute arose, then the spin for the media started. First, Cliatt tried to claim there was inadequate parking in the campus lot arranged for the event. The Foundation offered to arrange for extra parking if needed (a large public parking garage is adjacent to the campus). When that ruse failed, she claimed security was lacking. The Foundation showed that arrangements with the campus police were made and cleared in writing three weeks earlier and that no less than eight FBI swat agents were going to provide security. Failing that ruse, she tried to claim the paperwork wasn’t in order, but even that was proven false. In fact, this event was being done for free, paid for by a donor and not at cost to the University and there were email exchanges going back and forth for weeks validating every point.

The head of the Walid Shoebat Foundation and a donor then met with a Dean Dunne who is responsible for student activities at Princeton. He advised them that there was no way such an event would ever take place on the Princeton campus and that it was cancelled. Given Princeton’s background for Arab sponsored fellowships against the existence of Israel, and a Middle East Studies department that invites lecturers and fellows who always speak of terrorism as “legitimate resistance” that they claim is “legal” under “international law,” this abrupt cancellation, while a denial of freedom of speech, is really no surprise. Having former terrorists speaking out against the murder of Israelis was sure to get the hackles up of the Middle East scholars at Princeton who are funded by Arab interests.

I was informed my first day there by the Foundation that Princeton was not allowing the event to go forward on campus. Furthermore, pressure had been placed on the PIPAC students to toe the party line for Princeton—or else. While PIPAC students have tried to deny this, one of them finally broke ranks and admitted this was the case. The students were intimidated by Princeton’s administration. And Princeton, in order to spin the situation more, stated the event was not really cancelled just a few days from occurring, but only “postponed.” When asked if the college had received threats from Arab interest groups, Ms. Liatt replied that she had received “some calls.” She also made clear she did not want national media attention for the event.

“Postponed” is college doublespeak for killed, canceled, not going to happen. How so?
Colleges rely on stalling and postponements when they don’t want to face a problem and hope it will go away with time. Raped in your dorm? The hearing will be postponed. Teacher made racist statements? An investigation will be postponed. Colleges rely on the semester system where students and faculty with “issues” may just “go away” by graduation time or due to changes in their college schedules. Aside, from this tactic, Princeton officials in private told the Walid Shoebat Foundation’s principals the event would never take place on the New Jersey campus at all. In all of its news announcements denying they killed this event, Princeton also never mentions the $30,000 spent to fly in all the speakers and staff, the hotel accommodations and other expenses that the Shoebat Foundation would be forced to lose even if this event were postponed thus costing double the amount (until the next fabricated excuse for postponement). This is disingenuous at best.

But back to the kids from PIPAC. Discussions about litigation had been mentioned at the meeting with Dean Dunne and at the point after their meeting, the Shoebat Foundation’s principals, having not received the cancellation in writing, was hoping the college might
acquiesce. But, in any case, with the money spent and the actors in place the event had to go forward for the date scheduled. If the campus would not cooperate, then the event would be held at a locale off campus. The problem was how to assure good attendance by Princeton’s student body.

So off I went to the campus Center for Jewish Life, also known as Hillel, to meet one of the students to distribute flyers on campus and promote interest in the event. On campus or off, we needed Princeton students to attend. But when I arrived, strange events unfolded.

The students from PIPAC showed up and I explained to them the event had been canceled for that Thursday but that we needed to still distribute flyers and do publicity for the event even if it was held off campus. I needed help doing this as well as for other publicity. Nothing had been done to date, so there was much to do to alert Princeton’s student body.

A tall, lanky, pimply-faced girl who later turned out to be Deborah Anotsky then authoritatively spoke for the group. “The event hasn’t been cancelled,” she said.
“It’s been postponed. And if you say Princeton canceled it we’ll all deny it and
say you lied,” she informed me in an authoritative tone. I asked if she’d been in attendance during the exchanges between Dean Dunne and the Walid Shoebat Foundation. She said she hadn’t. I then explained to her that postponing the event was out of the question and said I needed some help publicizing the event. “Can I speak to you all in private?” she demanded like the Queen of the other PIPAC students The students all left with her.

In the past when I have traveled to college campus for Israel activism, I frequently use a computer when available at the campus Hillel to send and receive email. I asked one of the Jewish students who had remained behind if he could get me access to one. He led me upstairs to the computer lab in the building. On the way up, I asked about Deborah Anotsky. “What’s her problem anyway?” I asked him. “She’s kind of strange,” he explained as he logged me onto a computer then leaving me to my work. I would soon find out just how strange she was.

About fifteen minutes later the PIPAC group came back, led by Tzvi Smith, a recent high school graduate who was wearing payes, a kippah and has teffilin (the significance of which I will explain later). Smith sat on the table next to the computer I was using and began to speak: “We all decided that we agree with Princeton,” he said. “The event should be postponed, and there should be no national news media there. The event should open only to Princeton students” he declared. Clearly these kids, all fresh out of high school, were gansa machers and not to be crossed. “Otherwise, we won’t sponsor the event,” he concluded.

I explained to them again that Princeton had canceled the event for that week, that $30,000 had been expended already, that emails had verified the main details and that
the event would go forward off campus if need be. I told them it had cost about $2,000 to fly me out to handle the event on campus. “We don’t care’” the little macher told me.

I said, “You should be arguing with the administration about the abrupt cancellation of this event and demanding it be on campus on the date scheduled. And why would you not want the news media there? The idea behind Israel activism is to inform the public about what is going on. Do you think the organizers spent $30,000 to entertain just a handful of Princeton students? ”

I continued, “The organizers of this event spent a considerable amount of money and time to bring this event to your campus for your group. Don’t you understand that?”
Tzvi Smith replied “He (the head of the Shoebat Foundation) didn’t do this for us,
he did it for himself.” He was devoid of any sympathy or understanding. This clearly was a gansa macher. In fact, emails show that PIPAC asked the Shoebat Foundation to bring the event to campus, not vice versa. (I subsequently learned that the week before Smith had also told the head of the Shoebat Foundation how excited they were to host the event and were aware of the expense involved. All this will soon come out because one of the PIPAC students broke ranks and admitted the group was pressured by Princeton. But that is not the main issue here.)

The students then explained to me how there was no written contract so they could do whatever they pleased, including causing legal damages to the Foundation with impunity and, above all, arrogance. I again explained the event was cancelled, we would have to move off campus to another venue and that I needed their help. They refused to help. I told them they were a “pusillanimous bunch of children” as they marched out of the computer room. The one PIPAC student I’d spent the prior week working with on the phone hesitated. “Are you on the same page with the rest of them?” I asked. “I can’t face Princeton alone,” he said as he joined the rest.

The students backing out under pressure from Princeton was certainly no help, but it was their conduct after that fact that deserves the most attention by the national and world Jewish community. It wasn’t enough for these kids to not help. No, they had to try and
prevent the event from being successful even off campus. And to do so, no lie or activity was too great to spin and attack the event and its credibility.

The following Sunday I returned to Hillel hoping to use a lab computer again to try and drum up some traffic for the event off campus. As I had done on my last visit I asked one of the students there if he could log me on explaining I was working on a pro-Israel event to invite students to attend. The student gladly did. But a moment later he came running back asking me if I’d not use his login because he might get in trouble. I left the computer and went to look for the rabbi to help me log back on. I could not find the rabbi at that Hillel but I ran into another rabbi visiting from Palo Alto who was being given a tour by another Princeton student. He asked why I was there and when I told him he blessed my work and told the student giving him the tour to stop and log me onto the computer. The student did this for me and I began to work again.

Within minutes a Princeton police officer showed up. The reason? Tzvi Smith from PIPAC saw me using the computer (the same one he’d seen with no complaint me use days earlier) to collect my email and called the police by 911 to “report” me. The officer inquired if I was authorized by Princeton to use the computer and I explained my purpose. He said if I was not authorized by Princeton to use the computer, even if a student had logged me on, it was not allowed. I agreed to leave and find a computer off campus. As I was leaving I saw Tzvi Smith sitting in front of another computer smirking at his accomplishment. As I followed the officer out, I tapped Tzvi Smith on the shoulder and said, “Why don’t you Google judenrat? See what it says.” As I reached the end of the hallway with the officer, Tzvi Smith started shouting “He hit me! He hit me!” I turned around and told the officer I did not hit him, that I’d have to be crazy to hit him with the officer right there.

Tzvi Smith, despite his payes, his kippah and tallis apparently has no qualms about bearing false witness against a fellow Jew. The officer asked me to step into the stairwell with him as he called a supervisor. He obviously did not believe the accusations that I’d struck Smith, however, I was still forced to wait thirty minutes while a sergeant was called who ran my California driver’s license through their computer then released me. I asked the sergeant to at least talk to Tzvi Smith about making a false complaint that resulted in four officers being called. He refused and told me I could go but if I returned to campus I would be cited for trespassing or face possible arrest. The calling of the campus police because I was collecting my email (with the help of another student) was beyond the pale, but apparently Tzvi Smith also sought to have me handcuffed and hauled off to the hoosegow to prevent me from using the computer to promote the event off campus. That Tzvi Smith is an 18 year-old spoiled brat from Westwood, California, who probably must have his own way comes as no surprise, but that he would try to have me arrested for promoting the event off campus is incomprehensible and indefensible.

But things did not stop there. Deborah Arotsky, it seems, works as chief editor at the campus newspaper. And she used her position well to try and ruin attendance at the event off campus. She ran a lengthy article claiming the event had no credibility and that the Shoebat Foundation was seeking publicity by claiming Princeton canceled the event, that it was only “postponed” by Princeton. Her article, further supported by a similar letter to the editor by Tzvi Smith yet, only further served to discourage Princeton students from attending. Of course, the $30,000 dollars spent by the promoters and time involved was not mentioned, just as Princeton avoided mentioning it in its spin about canceling the event in the outside public media.

That the PIPAC students may not have wanted to sponsor the event any more or help promote it is one thing. But to write articles in the student newspaper to claim the Shoebat Foundation was lying in a publicity stunt could have been something expected from the PLO sympathizers on campus rather than the kids at Hillel. Arotsky even went so far as to run her article on Philadelphia Indymedia, a virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Israel radical leftist website used extensively by Palestinian groups and Anarchists who want Israel’s demise.

One leader of a national Israel activist group admonished me not to tell the truth about the students in PIPAC at Princeton. She feared the students might not “cooperate” on future pro-Israel events on college campuses. But this story needs to be told. Jerry Gordon, another pro-Israel activist relayed a story to me by Rachel Fish who helped to stand up to the blatant anti-Semitism in classes given by Arab professors at Columbia.
Jerry explained that “Rachel Fish, who called me late yesterday from Brandeis, where she's in a PhD program, told me of her experiences with the Princeton Jewish kids last spring. They didn’t want her to do a "Columbia" at Princeton.” According to Gordon, “Now we know what their mettle is-soft in the head and heart.”

I’ve been writing and even undercover at ISM and PSM rallies on US campuses over the last three years. The reason anti-Israel forces on American campuses are so successful are
because the myriad groups among them all work in solidarity to destroy Israel. And such solidarity no doubt is what helped to get Princeton to cancel this important event. But with students like Tzvi Smith and Deborah Arotsky at Princeton, who needs enemies?
These kids could use some lessons in solidarity.

Think the story is over? It gets worse. Tzvi Smith and Deborah Arotsky even spun
more tales to discourage attendance at the event. According to the leader of a Los Angeles based Israel activist organization, they told her that the reason the event
was “postponed” was because Joseph Farrah’s Worldnet Daily ran an article beforehand
saying three terrorists were going to be on campus and the police were concerned. In fact, the Worldnet article clearly stated that three former terrorists were going to be speaking.
Next, the students claimed they had no idea the event would draw so much attention and felt unprepared for it. This also was a lie because correspondence shows that as far back as three weeks earlier they were told the event would get national media attention. As for being prepared, there was nothing for them to do as the professional staff was handling everything. The students were simply asked to tell people about the event, something they made no real effort to do despite the work of the Shoebat Foundation.

One of the students in PIPAC broke ranks with the others and confessed to the Shoebat Foundation and media that they were pressured by Princeton to annul the event. But this real question has to be answered: Why would even immature 18 year-old Jewish freshmen and an upper classman like Arotsky go out of their ways to discredit the event being held off campus other than its being a power play by some very immature Jewish kids?

As Tzvi Smith and Deborah Arotsky continued to spin more calumny against the event, their creative abilities knew no bounds. Their final complaint? The organizers of the Walid Shoebat Foundation’s event, some of the most active Israel activists in the country called the kids anti-Semitic names!!! Whenever your conduct becomes inexcusable, take a note from the Palestinian propagandists on campus and scream racism. Jewish activists are now anti-Semitic according to Tzvi Smith and Deborah Arotsky. The accusations would be comedic if they weren’t so pathetic. More evidence will come out as a lone member of PIPAC finally comes out with the truth in coming weeks and tells all.

The PLO’s prime goal on US campuses is to indoctrinate college kids in school that Israel is an apartheid state (when it is not) and that to support its destruction is not antithetical to Jewish values. Princeton is a prime example of this program because its Arabist Middle East Studies department dispenses Palestinian propaganda and lies and supports “legitimate resistance” as a euphemism for the murder of Jews. The last thing Princeton or any US college needs is a judenrat like the PIPAC run by Tzvi Smith and
Deborah Arotsky at Princeton. Israel’s survival may depend on it.

Meanwhile, something must be done to inspire Jewish youth at campus Hillels to not run scared when administrators try to bully them or to behave like spoiled children when things aren’t exactly the way they want them.