Lee Kaplan at Front Page (thanks to JJP Mackie) has a full report on the hate-fest this weekend, and Daniel Pipes’ speech at Duke yesterday. A few highlights:
Duke University, under the leadership of its president, Richard Brodhead, and most notably its Vice President for Governmental Affairs, John Burness, continues to whitewash the anti-Semitic and anti-American event still scheduled for this weekend on the Durham campus despite misrepresentation by the organizers over the event’s real purpose. The Palestine Solidarity”s conference, far from being an academic exercise in freedom of speech and academic freedom, will be a training session for anti-Semites and those seeking to support the Insurgents in Iraq who kill U.S. soldiers. It will be an event where attendees will learn how to conduct civil disobedience that can include the destruction of campus property and to support terrorists overseas while the organizers train others to recruit more of their same ilk on campuses all over the United States and Canada.
What is amazing is that Duke’s administrators seem so intent the event go forward they are practically telling outright lies to the public. On the Duke University official website and advertising for the event, whatever the organizers want the public to believe is posted or whitewashed to look good, courtesy of the University.
For example, Duke ran a statement that “Kill the Jews!” was not shouted at one of the previous conferences at the University of Michigan. After Front Page furnished John Burness with a signed legal affidavit, plus one eyewitness account by a Michigan attendee and proof that two newspapers had verified such epithets occurred, Burness altered Duke’s website to say only that “some other people have claimed such statements were made in Arabic ” and only after citing some unnamed faculty sources at Michigan who allegedly said it never happened. The fact those faculty sources may have had a part in bringing the event to the Wolverines” campus was completely ignored….
Duke’s administrators, like a broken record, continue to cite the event as a model of open dialog and freedom of speech. The question is, “Open dialog and free speech for whom?” Duke states the event has no speech codes as long as things remain civil. But the organizers openly talk of ejecting people who do not talk in “consensus building” speech, no matter how civilly. How can one build “consensus” when the event’s Guiding Principles are full of doublespeak endorsements of terrorism and the destruction of Israel, they refusal to condemn terrorism, and call for civil disobedience?
And from Daniel Pipes:
Durham, North Carolina- Daniel Pipes, the head of the Middle East Forum and an advisor to President Bush in the War On Terror, spoke tonight at Duke University prior to the Palestine Solidarity divestment conference that is taking place here this weekend.
The subject of his lecture was “The Palestinian-Israeli War: Where Did It Come From and How to End It.” As a preface to the actual speech, Dr. Pipes expressed his umbrage about the upcoming Hate Fest by stating, ” I am appalled that the administration at Duke University allowed the Palestine Solidarity Movement to hold this event.”
He continued by thanking the Duke Conservative Union for the great research they did in two open letters sent to Duke President Richard Brodhead condemning the event, and by illustrating how at past conferences the speakers and organizers, as well as two current speakers at this weekend’s event, Charles Colson and Fadi Kiblawi, have both openly encouraged suicide bombings and terrorist attacks against Israelis. He also pointed out that six people actively involved in the organization of the event are members of both the International Solidarity Movement that aids PLO terrorists in the West Bank and Gaza. Campus Vice President for Governmental Affairs at Duke, John Burness, has consistently tried to maintain that the ISM was not a part of this conference, even though some of the organizers openly admit their membership and affiliations.
Pipes briefly commented on the history of the conflict, and pointed out that when Israel began in 1948 it was based on a socialist past akin to political attitudes so prevalent on campuses today. The Soviet Union had actually supported the creation of Israel at that time along with many leftist groups. He told how the kibbutzim, farm movements and labor party actually dominated Israeli politics for the first 30 years of the Jewish state. He mentioned how numerous American liberals supported the nascent country, such as Harry Truman and others from the Democratic Party. He then pointed out how conservatives like Dwight Eisenhower were ambivalent about Israel.
He continued by explaining that from 1970 to about 1990 support for Israel by both political parties in the U.S. was virtually indistinguishable, but that during the 1990″s there was a new distancing by liberals from Israel. This coincided with a warming of relations with conservatives that has been a counterweight to the coldness and opposition Israel is now facing more often in the U.S. and other countries. He discussed the Durbin Conference where Israel was unfairly condemned as a racist state and violator of human rights by many of the most oppressive regimes in the world and how since then the Left is condemning Israel more and more. As an example, he cited the situation on U.S. campuses where Israel is routinely attacked, clearly a reference in part to the Palestine Solidarity Hate Fest scheduled this weekend. He called for a reclamation of our universities to bring them back to mainstream education rather than to a biased emphasis on left wing views.
Read it all.