In FrontPage today I discuss Hamas-linked CAIR’s hate campaign against a courageous champion of women’s rights.
Brandeis University had planned to award an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali at its commencement ceremony this year, but after a smear campaign led by the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other Islamic supremacist groups, on Tuesday the university issued a statement announcing the predictable result: the honorary degree would not be given.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Brandeis assured the world, “is a compelling public figure and advocate for women’s rights, and we respect and appreciate her work to protect and defend the rights of women and girls throughout the world.” However, as compelling as Brandeis may have considered that work, ultimately it didn’t matter: “That said, we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values. For all concerned, we regret that we were not aware of these statements earlier.”
The Brandeis statement did not mention CAIR, and probably university administrators are unaware of its Hamas ties or its record of opposing any and all counter-terror efforts. Nor did the statement specify exactly what in Hirsi Ali’s past statements was “inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.” CAIR, however, did so in its press release (also issued Tuesday; Brandeis snapped into line quickly) which quoted Hirsi Ali from a 2007 interview saying: “I think that we are at war with Islam.”
Ironically, CAIR spokesmen have said the same thing: “The new perception is that the United States has entered a war with Islam itself,” said then-CAIR Board Chairman Parvez Ahmed in July 2007. The only difference is that Hirsi Ali and CAIR are on opposite sides of this war. Is it unacceptable at Brandeis, a contradiction of its core values, to oppose the global jihad? Apparently so.
In the same interview, Hirsi Ali also called for the closing of Islamic schools in the United States. While that is indeed a severe and questionable recommendation, it should be remembered that Ayaan Hirsi Ali attended Islamic schools in her native Somalia. She no doubt also has seen the reports from all over the world showing hatred and violence being taught in all too many Islamic schools. In that same interview she said: “Asking whether radical preachers ought to be allowed to operate is not hostile to the idea of civil liberties; it’s an attempt to save civil liberties. A nation like this one is based on civil liberties, and we shouldn’t allow any serious threat to them. So Muslim schools in the West, some of which are institutions of fascism that teach innocent kids that Jews are pigs and monkeys—I would say in order to preserve civil liberties, don’t allow such schools.”
Is calling for the schools that teach hatred and contempt of an entire group of people against the core values of Brandeis University? Apparently it is.
CAIR’s press release also smeared Hirsi Ali with the Norwegian neo-Nazi mass murderer whose false-flag operation of associating himself with counter-jihadists has proved so useful for Islamic supremacists: “In her acceptance speech for the Axel Springer Award, Ali seemed to express sympathy for mass murderer Anders Breivik, who included her writings in his manifesto.” In reality, in that speech Hirsi Ali referred to “the neo-fascism of a Breivik” as “abhorrent” and noted that Breivik “may have cited the work of those who speak and write against political Islam in Europe and America – myself among them – but he does not say in his 1500 page manifesto that it was these people who inspired him to kill.”
CAIR, however, has never cared to report the facts accurately and fairly. All it wants is to shut down any and every individual who opposes jihad terror and Islamic supremacism, in any venue. Generously funded and well-staffed, it pounces on anyone and everyone who dares raise a critical word against jihad terror, and mounts a smear campaign intending to get the Islamocritical speaker canceled and discredited.
In acceding to these smear campaigns, event organizers and – in this case, Brandeis University administrators – apparently make no attempt, even a simple Google search, to discover the intentions of the people behind the campaign. They appear indifferent to CAIR’s unsavory connections or its advice to Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement. The organization’s own claims that it is merely a civil rights organization are accepted uncritically and without examination. As I show in my new book Arab Winter Comes to America, CAIR routinely blindsides officials and places on the defensive by its attacks, and so simply to avoid controversy they usually gave the “civil rights group” what it wants: the cancellation, demonization and marginalization of every speaker who is remotely critical of Islam.
The cancellation of Hirsi Ali at Brandeis demonstrates yet again that there is no one who opposes jihad terror who is acceptable to CAIR and its allies. A report on Islamophobia in the U.S. that CAIR produced in conjunction with the Center for Race & Gender at the University of California, Berkeley in 2011 stated:
“It is not appropriate to label all, or even the majority of those, who question Islam and Muslims as Islamophobes. Equally, it is not Islamophobic to denounce crimes committed by individual Muslims or those claiming Islam as a motivation for their actions. ‘A critical study of Islam or Muslims is not Islamophobic,’ former CAIR Research Director Mohamed Nimer wrote in 2007. ‘Likewise, a disapproving analysis of American history and government is not anti-American… One can disagree with Islam or with what some Muslims do without having to be hateful.’”
These were empty words. The report offered no examples of what it would consider to be acceptable and legitimate criticism of Islam and jihad, and neither CAIR nor the University of California Center for Race & Gender have ever done so anywhere else. Nor has any other Leftist or Muslim group. In reality, anyone and everyone who dares to oppose jihad and Islamic supremacism will become a target for a CAIR smear campaign. The real agenda of Islamic supremacist groups in the United States is clearly not to distinguish legitimate resistance to jihad from bigotry and hatred, but to stigmatize all resistance to jihad as bigotry and hatred, and clear away all obstacles to the advance of that jihad.
And they have made great headway, stigmatizing resistance to jihad in the eyes of large segments of the general public, and even of government and law enforcement officials, as “bigotry.” Yet while it has become generally accepted that standing up to jihad terror is “bigotry,” no one has ever clearly explained why. A highly tendentious and politically manipulative perspective has been foisted upon the American people as accepted wisdom, in which opponents of jihad terror are cast as bigots and efforts increased to rule their perspective altogether out of the realm of acceptable public discourse.
The one certain result of this will be more jihad terror in the U.S. – some of it emanating from hate-preaching Islamic schools that Ayaan Hirsi Ali so heinously suggested should be closed.
Jay Boo says
A quiet storm is sweeping across Muhammad’s barren desert of deception.
The eyes of the world is witness to Islam’s disgrace.
Marit says
This is a big shame on the whole of USA. Give Ayaan Hirsi Ali The Noble Peace Price now ! She deservse it more than anybody else.
unbeliever1 says
You are very observant.Islam is under the microscope.For “the religion of peace”, violence is the trademark in the lands where it rules.
El Cid says
It is disgraceful that a person of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s quality, stature and value is treated in this manner in the US. Brandeis has branded her forever in a way that will be quoted in the leftist press every time she is interviewed or in the news.
Jay Boo says
Ayaan Hirsi Ali cuts trough the intricate webs of convoluted Islamic ideology.
The leftist press is just a lapdog that grovels for treats to satiate its appetite for a PC image.
It is time to smear their noses in the pile of Islamic stink they excrete until they get the true message of Islam.
RonaldB says
To me, the saddest aspect of the whole imbrogglio is that the administration and faculty of a once-proud university of high reputation, come across as a bunch of buffoonish dullards. Their defense is that they were unaware of facts which they could have gotten with a simple google, or by actually opening a book. This is the state of a university which terms itself as a “private research university with a liberal arts focus.”
The rationale for universities, with their privilege, expense, and tenure, was that they provided an intellectual hothouse that provided to tools for seeking truth. It seems more and more now that universities are the chosen tool for suppressing, rather than encouraging, critical thought. Universities, through their system of academic hiring, promotion, and peer review, have evolved a very effective way of channeling the intelligence and skills of faculties and students into tightly-controlled channels.
We have the rib-tickling paradox of the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, funded by an important figure in a country that will not even allow a private Christian prayer group. It is unclear to me how any academic, or indeed, any sentient individual, could belong to such a center, or how a university could allow itself to be associated with such a monstrosity. The first impulse is to attribute the surrender of logic and integrity to greed, but I’m wondering now if it’s simply sloth. That is, the faculty and students associated with the center are simply unwilling to make the effort of a little independent research and thought.
As academic institutions continue their slide into obfuscation and mediocrity, we have to examine alternate ways of certifying competence in any given area. In the days of Abraham Lincoln, lawyers did not need to attend law school, but could simply take a bar exam to demonstrate their competence. It’s past time to remove the stranglehold that universities have on pathways to advancement, such as the conferring of a bachelor’s degree.
Defcon 4 says
I don’t really like my tax dollars going to support pubic universities that have become nothing more than indoctrination camps — especially WRT pisslam and Israel.
voegelinian says
“The first impulse is to attribute the surrender of logic and integrity to greed, but I’m wondering now if it’s simply sloth. ”
The scratching around for an explanation for why the mainstream West remains doggedly myopic to the problem of Islam has been going on for years, but it hasn’t really progressed beyond rather simplistic formulas, either lapsing into rather silly reductionism that doesn’t adequately address the magnitude of the phenomenon, or lurching sideways into conspiracy-theory territory in order to address that magnitude with preposterously hyperventilating overkill.
The former I have critiqued in my essay on Hugh Fitzgerald’s “Esdrujula Explanation” where he sums up the reason for the West’s myopia in either Cupidity (greed), Timidity (fear) or Stupidity. I haven’t figured out what “-idity” word would fit your additional attempt, sloth. The point is, these don’t adequately explain the magnitude of the phenomenon.
The best explanation I don’t have yet; but at least I know what it wouldn’t be. From there, I can at least describe the phenomenon instead of leaping to conclusions about why it’s there — particularly when such conclusions require doctoring, fudging, or distorting the data of the phenomenon in the first place.
gravenimage says
Ronal B wrote:
The first impulse is to attribute the surrender of logic and integrity to greed, but I’m wondering now if it’s simply sloth.
…………………………….
I think these both can be factors, Ronald. Certainly, there is a lot of money flowing into the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and other “MIddle Eastern Studies” departments, and I’m sure simply not wanting to hassle with CAIR in this case was a factor—years of simply caving to most demands hasn’t done much to give universities any sort of backbone, certainly.
But I believe a major factor is not wanting to appear “Islamophobic”—fear of this may be even more acute at a Jewish university—and even “racist”, despite the fact that Islam is obviously an ideology and not a race.
And of course, this last is even more absurd in this case than most, since Ayaan Hirsi Ali is sub-Saharan black African, and Ibrahim Hooper is a white American Muslim convert.
Only in the pretzel geometry of current “political correctness” would it be considered possibly “racist” to take the part of Ms. Ali over Hooper and his thugs. Madness…
Salah says
The carrot (petro-dollars) and stick (leftist/islamic thuggery) tactic works.
Jay Boo says
Islam is not a religion; it is a crime.
The world owes a debt to Ayaan Hirsi Ali for peeling back the covers from Islam.
Islamist are desperate for a disguise and wish to play the victim.
This ideology is on the ropes and would love nothing more than to have egotistical anti-jihad folks distracted into following the (ALL Muslims are evil meme) in order for the vile ideology to squirm away while playing the victim card.
REVEAL ISLAM to defeat Islam.
Jay Boo says
Islam is indefensible
Muslim Student Organizations are well aware of this.
Muslim Student Organizations are foot soldiers of Islamic supremacist Hamas-linked thugs of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Descendantofacrusader says
The true issue here is just what ARE Brandeis University’s “core values”? The fact that these obviously fascist, misogynistic, anti-human “core-values” will most likely never be scrutinized by our society at large is truly one of the greatest tragedies of our age as it slowly slips back toward barbarity.
squeezethejuice says
Hirsi Ali is an apostate of Islam. Even worse, she is an apostate who instead of staying silent and keeping a low profile, is constantly denigrating our Prophet and our beliefs. Is it any wonder that we Muslims are fighting back against this kind of public assault on our most sacred beliefs?
Nomadic100 says
Juice, are you referring to beliefs such as misogyny, jihad, religious supremacism, genocide against Jews and infidels? Precisely which beliefs that Ms. Ali criticizes do you find unobjectionable?
Champ says
Even worse, she is an apostate who instead of staying silent and keeping a low profile, is constantly denigrating our Prophet and our beliefs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is speaking the Truth about evil mohammed, and the ugly truth is too hot for you to handle. Oh my, you are such a lost cause serving an evil cause: islam.
Kalliope says
@squeezethejuice
“Hirsi Ali is an apostate of Islam. Even worse, she is an apostate who instead of staying silent and keeping a low profile…”
Ahhhhh…
This is the real reason for the ʾIslāmofascist backlash.
Ms. Hirsi Ali has exposed the truth – that ʾIslām does not protect women.
That for women, living in an ʾIslāmic country is not paradisaical, but a never-ending degraded existence with no end in sight, except death.
And in ʾIslām, not even in death does she escape the clutches of your cruel moon-god Allāh (Satan himself).
She is either banished to Allāh’s hell if she rebels against her second-class treatment, or rewarded with sharing her husband in Allāh’s heaven if she was a “good” Muslimah and endured the abuse.
ʾIslāmic theology is morally and spiritually disgusting.
No wonder Muslims have to kill apostates who spill the beans about ʾIslām.
ʾIslām. Creating hellish, misogynist societies ever since a demon attacked and possessed Muḥammad in that cave in 610 AD.
Thank you, Ms. Hirsi Ali, for speaking up about ʾIslāmic oppression.
I’m glad she is an apostate.
ʾIslām doesn’t deserve a courageous woman like Ms. Ayān.
Marianna says
You are a disgrace.Your so called prophet was a demented murderer and a pervert.
Jay Boo says
squeezethejuice
Recite this mantra recently decoded from the Quran:
NO ISLAM, NO SLEAZE
NO ISLAM, NO SLEAZE
NO ISLAM, NO SLEAZE
Defcon 4 says
So the mere act of criticizing your damned, dumb death cult constitutes an “assault”? Maybe you would be happier back in whatever islam0nazi cesspool spawned you.
voegelinian says
Yes, mere criticism of Mohammed, of Allah, or of Islam in the Islamic perspective constitutes a casus belli (fancy Latin phrase for “fighting words”; more precisely a justification for going to war).
But it’s even worse than that; the mere existence of anyone or any group of people or any society who persists in refusing to submit to Allah and Mohammed either by 1) converting or 2) surrendering as dhimmis — the second option only open to “People of the Book” (Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus; all others should be slaughtered if they don’t convert). And as we know, after surrendering as dhimmis, this doesn’t guarantee that your life and your offspring’s lives won’t become a living Hell surrounded by Muslims who may lynch you at the drop of a zunar if you don’t “behave”.
voegelinian says
Incomplete thought there:
“But it’s even worse than that; the mere existence of anyone or any group of people or any society who persists in refusing to submit to Allah and Mohammed…”
— meant to conclude with “also constitutes a casus belli. Whether or not given Muslims would want to act on that “provocation” (the mere existence and flourishing of a people who refuse to submit to Allah and Mohammed) probably depends on factors unrelated to their fanaticism — relative weakness, preoccupation with other fish to fry (having to slaughter some Shia and/or Sunnis depending on which is which); etc.
gravenimage says
The repulsive “squeezethejuice” (“squeeze the Jews”) wrote:
Hirsi Ali is an apostate of Islam. Even worse, she is an apostate who instead of staying silent and keeping a low profile, is constantly denigrating our Prophet and our beliefs.
………………………………………
Your “Prophet” and your beliefs are appalling, and a threat to every non-Muslim on the face of the earth.
Kudos to the intelligent and brave Ayaan Hirsi Ali for leaving Islam, and for telling us the truth about it.
But this from “squeezethejuice” is nothing unusual—it is normative Islam.
Not only is no one supposed to leave the death cult of Islam, but if they do, they’d better stay quiet about it if they want to stay healthy. Worst of all, of course, is daring to warn the Kuffar of what Islam has in store for them.
More:
Is it any wonder that we Muslims are fighting back against this kind of public assault on our most sacred beliefs?
………………………………………
Notice the rhetoric—telling the truth about his foul creed is an “assault”.
And what is Ayaan Hirsi Ali criticizing here? FGM, child marriage, and “Honor Killing”. So this pious Mohammedan feels “assaulted” when taken to task for mutilating, abusing, and murdering vulnerable girls and women. Talk about projection!
He also makes it clear that brutalizing little girls and women constitutes his “most sacred beliefs”. *Ugh*.
mortimer says
Islam is obscurantism of the most sever kind. How can such anti-intellectualism be permitted in a modern university? It can’t.
The president of Brandeis has sold out to Gulf money.
dlbrand says
Shades of “the People of Shaizar”
Once again, as Robert stated, prime example of Islam in action, thus, prime showcase of exercised, flexed and strutting, Islamic Supremacy: “Believers” set the terms; the vanquished, acknowledging the superiority of Islam, accepting their humiliation and belittlement—a noted source of strength for the Muslims—“agreeing” to the terms presented to them, accept their orders and fall in.
“ statement announcing the predictable result: the honorary degree would not be given.”
Indeed, a proud-worthy, celebratory moment for Brandeis University . Shoots to the fore shades of the People of Shaizar.
So too, more of the “meaningless” words of “the Prophet,” and the fact, no Muslim regards those words, if they even recall them.
“the Prophet commanding, ‘Whoever among you lives after I am gone … you must adhere to my Sunnah and the way of the Rightly Guided Khulafa. Hold on to it and cling fast to it.’”
(Abu Dawud, Vol. 5, The Book of the Sunnah, P. 162, #4607.)
“The Prophet waged war against him [al Aswad] by means of envoys and letters until God killed him….Abu Bakr waged war against all the apostates [only] by means of envoys and letters, just as the Apostle of God had done…..”
“Abu Bakr sent Jarir b. ‘Abdallah …. So Jarir went out, carrying out that which Abu Bakr had commanded him to do. No one opposed him except some men leading a small number [of followers]; so he killed them.” (al-Tabari, Volume XIII p.158, 159,164.)
From the lines of history detailing the Islamic Conquest of Damascus: “the people of Damascus capitulated agreeing to give up …) (Baladhuri, p.189.) The same, detailing the Islamic Conquest of Jordan, “whose inhabitants came to terms, agreeing to give up …” (ibid, p.178.)
“When abi-Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah effected the conquest of Damascus, he left [it] …. Then advanced to Hims whose people capitulated….He pushed towards Hamah [Epiphania] whose people met him offering their submission. He made terms with them, stipulating …. ”
“Thence he proceeded towards Shaizar. The people of Shaizar [Larissa] went out to meet him bowing before him and accompanied by players on the tambourines and singers. They agreed to terms similar to those made with the people of Hamah.” (ibid, pp.201, 202.)
But “we” are not bowing. We are not capitulating and submitting while we sing, dance, and bang the tambourines. Well of course we are not! Whatever made one even consider we could/would?
Kevin V. says
We should begin turning the tables on these clowns in academia.
Anytime a counter-jihadist is offered an “honorary degree” or an opportunity to speak at a commencement, it should be loudly declined on the basis that the speaker does not want to be associated with Marxists and supporters of global jihad.
Invitations from a small number of solid institutions can be accepted of course but only if the institution has a clear record of supporting Western civilization.
RodSerling says
Thanks Robert, for addressing these claims about Hirsi Ali’s statements in substance.
Another false allegation was that Hirsi Ali was advocating a military war against all of Islam or all Muslims. That is simply not the case. Her actual argument, gleaned from a wider range of her writings and speeches, is that Islam needs to be opposed in numerous ways (or, as Hirsi Ali says in the Reason interview, quoted below, “In all forms”), ranging from peaceful persuasion in dealing with non-violent Muslims, to defensive military action against violent jihadists.
http://reason.com/archives/2007/10/10/the-trouble-is-the-west/print
Excerpt:
Reason: Should we acknowledge that organized religion has sometimes sparked precisely the kinds of emancipation movements that could lift Islam into modern times? Slavery in the United States ended in part because of opposition by prominent church members and the communities they galvanized. The Polish Catholic Church helped defeat the Jaruzelski puppet regime. Do you think Islam could bring about similar social and political changes?
Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.
Reason: Don’t you mean defeating radical Islam?
Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace.
Reason: We have to crush the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, “defeat Islam”?
Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they’re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, “This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.” There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.
Reason: Militarily?
Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don’t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.
Reason: Are we really heading toward anything so ominous?
Hirsi Ali: I think that’s where we’re heading. We’re heading there because the West has been in denial for a long time. It did not respond to the signals that were smaller and easier to take care of. Now we have some choices to make. This is a dilemma: Western civilization is a celebration of life—everybody’s life, even your enemy’s life. So how can you be true to that morality and at the same time defend yourself against a very powerful enemy that seeks to destroy you?
Reason: George Bush, not the most conciliatory person in the world, has said on plenty of occasions that we are not at war with Islam.
Hirsi Ali: If the most powerful man in the West talks like that, then, without intending to, he’s making radical Muslims think they’ve already won. There is no moderate Islam. There are Muslims who are passive, who don’t all follow the rules of Islam, but there’s really only one Islam, defined as submission to the will of God. There’s nothing moderate about it.
Reason: So when even a hard-line critic of Islam such as Daniel Pipes says, “Radical Islam is the problem, but moderate Islam is the solution,” he’s wrong?
Hirsi Ali: He’s wrong. Sorry about that.
Defcon 4 says
I applaud her indictment of Pipe’s cowardly position in proposing the lie that there is a “moderate” islam.
RodSerling says
Defcon,
Yes, I had a chuckle when I read that interviewer trying to portray Hirsi Ali as even more “extreme” than Pipes.
gravenimage says
Thanks for posting the excerpt from the Reason interview, Rod.
Incidentally, I still consider Dr. Pipes a brave and decent man, as well as an important Anti-Jihadist—but Ayaan Hirsi Ali is right: Islam itself presents no “solutions”—unless the “solution” one is looking for is oppression and bloody barbarism.
RodSerling says
Graven,
Yes, I respect Pipes too. I disagree with his estimate of the prospects for reform and a few other of his formulations, but overall he is a valuable scholar on this important issue of Islam vs the West, e.g., you are no doubt aware of his ongoing work with Middle East Quarterly.
http://www.meforum.org/meq/
Interesting that Hirsi Ali’s interviewer regards Pipes as a “hard-line” critic, while Pipes has gone out of his way to distinguish between ordinary Muslims and Islamists, refers to moderate Islam as the solution, and so on.
Champ says
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is the face of Courage! …whereas brandeis university represents cowardice and capitulation to evil.
dlbrand says
Amen to that.
logdon says
The clue is here…
http://www.barenakedislam.com/2014/04/10/fox-news-bob-beckel-right-again-about-arab-muslims/
marianna says
Islam is an evil cult that is of no legitimate use to any human being.Islam is a cult of murderers and perverts.I liken Islamic individuals to a roving band of Demons from Hell.It is sad that America has an imposter president that puts Islam above all else.But eveyone knows that he is breaking a major rule of Islam.He is a homosexual.But I have observed that a good majority of Islamic men are homosexuals. Mohammed their prophet from Hell was a nasty piece of work.Pig vomit and swine feces are cleaner than he was.
ApolloSpeaks says
FREDERICK M. LAWRENCE = SPINELESS GIRLIE-MAN PRESIDENT OF BRANDEIS
AYAAN HIRSI ALI = FEARLESS MANLY WOMAN ACTIVIST AGAINST ISLAMIC OPPRESSION AND AGGRESSION
How sickening and disgraceful! A prominent US University named after Louis Brandeis (a great American Zionist leader and Supreme Court judge), which was founded in 1948-the year evil Islamic supremacists launched a war of annihilation on the infant Jewish State-caves into anti-Zionist, Jew-hating thugs in canceling an honorary degree to anti-jihad, pro-Israel feminist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. To make up for this cowardice Prime Minister Netanyahu should bestow on Ms. Ali the Medal of Distinction-Israel’s highest honor.
Franklin Eicker says
I can’t be the only one to realize that it’s the White House…that would be the Obama administration…that calls the shots. Brandeis University, like almost every other large university, is seriously dependent on the Federal government for operating funds. Think the Dept of Education, think the National Institute of Health, think the Dept of Defense, State Dept and dozens of other Federal agencies that support faculty with research grants that total in the millions yearly. And for every dollar in a research grant awarded to a professor, the university is given approximately $.55 as “direct cost.” Can you appreciate how much money that amounts to? I know. I was on the Brandeis faculty in the ’70’s with a large research grant from NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health). I’m thinking of the likelihood that Brandeis could have had a knife to its throat. Don’t forget; we have in the White House a president who is very, very, very sympathetic to Islam. We have in his administration numerous members of the Muslim Brotherhood in high policy and decision-making positions. Of course, Ayaan Hirsi Ali was speaking the truth. Islam is wicked and worse. But what can you do when someone has their foot on your chest?
gravenimage says
…we cannot overlook certain of her past statements that are inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values.
…………………
What “core values” would those be? Caving to pressure from lying thugs? Pretending that craven dhimmitude represents a principled stance? *Ugh*.
Worst of all, other institutions will be watching, and I doubt that many of them will take any good lessons from this incident.
More likely, most of them will simply fail to offer *any* acknowledgments to brave truth tellers, lest they come in for the same pressure from CAIR and other Islamo-thugs that Brandeis has—and honest defenders against Islamic savagery and oppression will be further out in the cold.
Kudos, though, to FOXNews for covering this story, and for mostly covering it quite well; for giving Ayaan Hirsi Ali a voice; and for exposing CAIR’s thuggery.
I hope some few will take *this* lesson, instead.