In the intellectual degringolade that characterizes campuses today, a particularly disturbing example comes from the University of Michigan. The story is here.
The student government at the University of Michigan has passed a resolution condemning its president for remarks critical of the Palestinians he made as a high school senior.
The final vote of the Feb. 25 resolution rebuking Central Student Government president Ben Gerstein was 25 in favor, zero against and four abstentions.
There should be a test for what type of people deserve a state and what type of people don’t. I think the Palestinian people, with rejecting constant peace deals, with their financing of terror, with their raising kids to hate people purely because of their religion,” said Gerstein on the TV show “North Town News Magazine” in 2017. “I don’t think that people deserve a state at this point in time. Until we see a significant change in the Palestinian mentality and a significant change in the Palestinian leadership, I don’t think they deserve a state at this point.”
On Feb. 19, Gerstein apologized in a public Facebook post.
Was anything Ben Gerstein said as a high school senior in 2017 untrue? Haven’t the Palestinians rejected many peace deals, including one offered by Ehud Barak that would have given them 95% of the West Bank and another, by Ehud Olmert, that would have given them 93%? Aren’t they right now refusing even to consider a deal that would give them a state of their own, with a capital on the edge of East Jerusalem, as well as $50 billion dollars in aid, the largest aid package for a single state in history? Don’t the Palestinians finance terror, paying for the rockets Hamas lobs into Israel’s southern cities, such as Sderot, from Gaza? Don’t Palestinians pay Hezbollah to dig its terror tunnels from Lebanon into Israel? Doesn’t the supposedly “moderate” Palestinian Authority have a Pay-For-Slay program, that provides hundreds of millions of dollars annually to terrorists, if they are imprisoned, and given to their families, if they are dead? Does Ben Gerstein really wish to claim that the Palestinians do not finance or take part in terrorism, do not support, and do not honor, terrorists intent on murdering Israeli civilians? Or does he now think that all of that is justified because of Israeli “oppression”?
And wasn’t Gerstein right in his earlier claim that the Palestinians raise “kids to hate people purely because of their religion”? Aren’t the Palestinian schoolbooks full of antisemitic teachings that encourage murderous acts against Jews? Haven’t we seen those Palestinian children’s shows where young children simulate – with real knives — their stabbing of Israelis, as they chant about killing Jews, to the beaming approval of their adult supervisors? Nothing he claimed in 2017 was wrong. It is precisely now, when he pleads to be forgiven for his previous views — before he saw the pro-Palestinian anti-Israel light – that he is uttering grotesque untruths.
What is wrong with suggesting, as he did then, that it is legitimate to ask the question of who deserves a state? Does everyone who wants a state and claims to be a “people” deserve one? Are we not allowed to examine the evidence? Should there be a test for “what type [sic] of people deserve a state” and which type do not? Gerstein said on that 2017 television show that the Palestinian people, “with rejecting constant peace deals, with their financing of terror, with their raising kids to hate people purely because of their religion,” do not yet deserve a state. “I don’t think that [such] people deserve a state at this point in time. Until we see a significant change in the Palestinian mentality and a significant change in the Palestinian leadership, I don’t think they deserve a state at this point.” Is that an outrageous remark, or isn’t it just common sense not to reward race hatred and terror? In 2017, Gerstein was stating the obvious: if you behave unacceptably, by teaching murderous hatred to your children and encouraging them to want to kill others, if you refuse all compromises (“peace deals”), if you finance terror and celebrate terrorists as heroes – naming streets and squares after them, if terror is your main weapon of war, then your claim to statehood is less deserving than those made by others who do not exhibit such attitudes or engage in such behavior.
Are we not allowed to discuss the depth and legitimacy of different claims to statehood? Wouldn’t we all agree that the 35-40 million Kurds, for example, spread out over Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey, have a powerful claim to an independent state? And isn’t their claim all the stronger because the Treaty of Sèvres stipulated the creation of an autonomous Kurdish state in 1920, but the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne (1923) failed to mention Kurds? That betrayal of a promise by Europeans of an independent Kurdistan was brought about by Turkish pressure.
And the Berbers, the indigenous people of North Africa conquered by Arabs and, in many cases, forced to abandon the Berber language and culture by their Arab masters — especially in Algeria — in attempts to “arabize” them, have a similar claim on our sympathies. Neither the Kurds nor the Berbers have engaged in terrorism. The Arabs, of course, deny that either the Kurds or the Berbers have a right to autonomy, much less a right to statehood. But they are outraged that anyone would deny any significant group of Arabs, anywhere, their right to a state. The Palestinian Arabs, who want a 23rd Arab state – 22 apparently are not enough for the Arab people – should be far down on the list of those deserving a state.
Tracie l Koehler says
If It wasn’t for Israel I would say Bomb The Middle east and then get all the Christians out of Africa and bomb it too !!!!
daniel says
there are good ppl in the middle east who want to escape islam, like iranians
Tracie l Koehler says
If they are Christians then they will go to heaven !
balafama says
how about we bomb you too,if u are a christian you’ll go to heaven .
carpediadem says
No bigotry here thanks. Your beliefs do not apply to much of the world.
Steven Edelman says
People that want to change their mind should be allowed to do it provided that they have a mind. Mr. Gerstein is certainly engaging in a political move nicely credited as “I’ll do or say whatever puts me in the best position.” So, he of two minds needs to be given credit for being a politician, but not for thinking correctly. In my opinion, his original self was the better of two.
Kilauea says
Tell these people to go to hell. Everyone says things they aren’t proud of later and opinions evolve over time. I’m certain that many liberals and conservatives have said things they wouldn’t want shouted from the rooftops. It’s time we stand up to political correctness. If I hurt your feelings, screw you! It’s your feelings not mine. It’s time for this country to man up and tell these snowflakes to suck it!
mortimer says
Dégrinolade may roughly be translated as a ‘TAILSPIN’ or ‘PLUMMET’. The independence of academic thought was once assumed, but now rigid, neo-Marxist orthodoxy and its Office of the Holy Inquisition operates on most campuses to torture and extract insincere ‘confessions’ from heretics.
If worst comes to work, the ‘heretics’ who digress from neo-Marxist orthodoxy are forced out of the community of modern-day Torquemadas, they are de-platformed, silenced and sent into oblivion to be sneered at as intellectual pariahs.
Facts and following the rules of logic do not count when this vicious, failed ideology is in play. The neo-Marxists feel their orthodoxy is so important that they are above the rules, they do not need to debate and their suspension of the normal protocols and rules of professional courtesy to fellow academics do not apply.
Ben Gerstein’s forced ‘repentance’ is indeed a ‘tailspin’ resulting from another witch trial. Ben Gerstein didn’t want to become a martyr for free speech and so lied with his fingers crossed to save his career.
mortimer says
The Pallies have been targeting civilians since the 1920s in Mandatory Palestine and they have continued until 2020 to do the same thing. How do crimes against civilian justify one’s cause? They don’t. Criminals should be tried and locked up.
Pallies are being given a special license by the Leftards to commit crimes targeting civilians. So the Leftards make themselves complicit in these crimes.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Which would be worse about Gerstein’s abject apology? That he meant it, or that he didn’t mean it?
James Lincoln says
Today’s university students soon find out that campus life is much easier if they “cave” to the leftist / Marxist / islamic propaganda.
They’ll also have lots and lots of totally brain-dead “friends” – and will rack up high GPAs, courtesy of their left-wing “professors”.
After all, we mustn’t say the truth – the price is too high…