NY Daily News Editorial: “Vile at Vassar”

NY Daily News Editorial: “Vile at Vassar”

In early April, The New York Daily News had a blistering Editorial regarding the anti-Israel Climate at Vassar College, Vassar’s miseducation, focusing on the anti-Israel climate we documented in Anti-Israel academic boycott turns ugly at Vassar.

Today the Daily News has another devastating rebuke to Vassar, focusing on the reaction to my speech at Vassar which culminated in the now-infamous posting of a Nazi propaganda poster by Students for Justice in Palestine.

I previously knew that the several academic departments which co-sponsored the anti-Israel Max Blumenthal and Ali Abunimah appearance the week before my appearance, would not sponsor me.  I did not previously know that college funds were used for the Blumenthal-Abunimah appearance.

Read the whole thing.  Here’s an excerpt from Vile at Vassar:

… Faculty members have joined the depravity. Thirty-nine professors protested after [Vassar President Catharine] Hill properly said in January that Vassar would not join the American Studies Association’s anti-Semitism-tinged call for boycotting Israeli universities.

The 39 backed the boycott, with some asserting that Hill’s action “silenced discourse on campus,” as one put it. Duh, they claim they want dialogue while supporting a boycott against dialogue.

Then it turned out that the 39 lacked the courage of their convictions. When Cornell University Law School professor Bill Jacobson challenged the entire group to debate the merits of boycotting Israel, they all ducked. So on May 5, Jacobson spoke — without fee — on campus at the invitation of the Vassar Conservative Libertarian Union, which is headed by a Muslim student.

The libertarian union had sought co-sponsorships for Jacobson’s talk from numerous student groups and academic departments. All refused, a fact that demonstrates how strongly anti-Israel sentiment holds sway at Vassar, perhaps inducing a climate of fear among those who feel otherwise.

Consider that five days before Jacobson’s visit, Israel-bashers Ali Abunimah and Max Blumenthal stopped at Vassar on a national road show selling separate books calling for Israel’s destruction. Paid for by student activity fees and departmental funds, their event was sponsored not only by SJP but by Vassar’s departments of religion, political science, sociology, English and geography.

For good measure, the Jewish Studies program, the International Studies program and a variety of student groups signed on in support.

In his talk, Jacobson demolished the rationales behind the BDS movement, a cause that seeks to delegitimize Israel through boycotts on trade, disinvestment in the Jewish state and economic sanctions. During 90 minutes, he proved that the boycott of Israel is based on factual, historical and legal falsities and is anti-Semitic.

SJP responded on the web by attacking Jacobson and the audience of “old white people” and rolling out its artwork. First were nasty cartoons from racist and “white power” websites. One showed Israel inflicting a Holocaust on Palestinians and the other said that the Nazi Holocaust cows the West from criticizing Israel.

Then SJP used the Nazi poster, putting the group beyond even Hill’s tolerance of intolerance.

For those of you who haven’t heard it, here is my speech which ignited the fury:

Related posts:

• Vassar removes Wall of Truth raised to protest anti-Israel campus climate (Updates)
• Vassar President condemns “racist, anti-Semitic graphic” posted by Students for Justice in Palestine
• Vassar anti-Israel group’s unhinged social media sparks student bias complaints
• “One responded, actually calling for a boycott of Professor Jacobson”
• Anti-Israel Vassar student group focuses on race of crowd at my speech

[Featured Image – Part of Nazi poster used by Vassar SJP]

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