RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/phil-orenstein/open-letter-to-cuny-chancellor-matthew-goldstein/print/

Chancellor Matthew Goldstein
Office of the Chancellor
535 East 80th Street
New York, NY 10075
Phone: 212.794.5311
Fax: 212.794.5671
chancellor@cuny.edu

Open Letter to CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein:

I write this letter calling for the resignation of Brooklyn College President Karen L. Gould and Paisley Currah, chair of the political science department for their unscrupulous actions in violation of students’ First Amendments rights, sanctioning blatant viewpoint discrimination, and promoting biased political propaganda under the auspices of the City University of New York. As a former adjunct instructor in the CUNY system and a New Yorker concerned with how my tax dollars are spent in our publicly-funded City University system, I add my voice to the growing concern incurred by the college president and political science department chair over the irresponsible manner in which they handled the virulent anti-Semitic event on February 7 co-sponsored by Brooklyn College’s political science department, entitled “BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Movement Against Israel,” which serves to promote a global boycott of Israeli businesses, academics and institutions, and deny the legitimacy of the State of Israel.

The featured speakers at the BDS forum advocated boycotting, divesting from and sanctioning Israel, and have praised the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel and murder of Jews. One of the speakers, Omar Barghouti, founder and foremost advocate of BDS, has asserted that Israel is a racist apartheid state that has no right to exist, and he advocates for a Palestinian state to replace Israel. He is not only promoting a global campaign to boycott and financially harm the Jews, replete with activists carrying signs saying “Don’t buy Israeli apartheid goods,” but also sponsors an academic boycott campaign against Israeli academics and universities known as the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. This offshoot of the BDS movement flies in the face of the noble mission of academia as “free and open exchanges of ideas.”

Barghouti’s unscholarly crackpot theories, lies and deceptions have been well documented and Brooklyn College’s BDS forum was a medium for the dissemination of these crackpot anti-Semitic theories. The BDS movement is not a campaign for Palestinian rights as its spokesmen ostensibly claim, or to protest disagreeable Israeli policies, but it is in effect political and economic warfare against Israel, seeking to dismantle the Jewish state. For an academic department to sponsor such vicious propaganda is a breakdown of academic standards.

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/to-kill-a-murderer/print/ Twenty years ago, Nathan Dunlap walked into a Chuck E. Cheese in Colorado. Dunlap had been fired from the restaurant earlier that year and told a friend that he wanted to get even and take all the money. One cold wintry evening he walked in, put a gun to the head of a 19-year-old […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/davidhornik/jews-under-muslim-attack-in-europe/print/

With President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry planning to visit Israel and the Palestinian Authority next month, speculation proliferates as to whether Obama plans—once again—to push for “peace” between Israel and the PA, or has learned from his first term that such an outcome is hard to attain and still more effort in pursuit of it is not likely to be rewarded.

Meanwhile the French Jewish community reports a record rise of 58% in anti-Semitic incidents for 2012—a total of 614 compared to 389 in 2011. While seemingly not directly relevant to the question about Obama’s visit, the situation in France—and Western Europe generally—in fact tells much about the Middle East and Israel’s position in it.

Amid the general increase in anti-Semitic activity in France, then, there were almost twice as many physical attacks on Jews there in 2012 as in 2011, and 25% of those involved a weapon. Why the dramatic rise? While anti-Semitic behavior is known to burgeon during and after major Israeli military operations, 2012 saw only the eight-day-long Operation Pillar of Defense against Gaza rocket fire in November.

Yet the incidents in France started to mount well before then—after an incident on March 22. In it a French Muslim of Algerian descent named Mohamed Merah murdered four Jews in a school in Toulouse. Merah had earlier murdered three off-duty French soldiers.

Merah’s victims at the school were a 30-year-old teacher-rabbi, his six-year-old and three-year-old sons, and an eight-year-old girl whom Merah chased, grabbed by the hair, and shot in the head.

Ever since, French Jewry has been reporting a rise in attacks. The above-linked report confirms it: “After the Toulouse attack, numerous anti-Semitic acts were committed and included support or identification to Merah and his act.”

In other words, there were many for whom the school massacre was an inspirational event, evoking not condemnation but emulation.

http://www.steynonline.com/5425/every-man-a-criminal For Chris Matthews, the sob-sister sap who hosts MSNBC’s hilariously misnamed Hardball, President Obama’s inaugural address bore comparison to Lincoln at Gettysburg. Whether Lincoln would have felt the same is doubtful. “He talked about the government that we want,” enthused Chris, “which is infrastructure, education, regulation, all the good things . . .” Infrastructure? […]

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/ Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer’s latest article is entitled “Palestine – Backtracking Begins As Democracy Dies”. In it, he takes issue with the views recently expressed in Peter Beinart’s Daily Beast by Dr James J. Zogby, founder and president of the Arab American Institute and author of Arab Voices: What They […]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/21/when-burqas-become-accessories-to-crime/ When it comes to using female Islamic garb as an accessory to crime, Philadelphia, the city where I live, has quietly, unassumedly, become the capital of the Western world. First, a tutorial on Islamic coverings, all of which tend to be called veils in English, but which fall into three main categories. Some (the […]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/21/preserving-genetic-privacy/ Science has broken the code of human composition and can read the genetic “fingerprint” unique to each person. The forensic technique of collecting DNA raises serious privacy concerns, however, especially when government demands it with the force of law. The Supreme Court has an opportunity to safeguard this most personal of information and preserve […]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/22/why-an-education-system-to-leave-everyone-behind/ America’s educational system is leaving behind anyone who starts with disadvantages, and that is wrong. Those born in poverty already face significant challenges. For those striving to climb the ladder of success, we must fix our schools. The question then bears asking: What is the best way? Let’s start with what we’ve tried. We […]

http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/thank-joe-mccarthy-dont-demonize-him/

Diana West drubs those criticizing Ted Cruz over Senate committee behavior

Diana West is the author of “The Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization,” and blogs at dianawest.net.

Freshman Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is just the latest in a long series of public figures to be reviled for “McCarthyism” following his recent questioning of Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for secretary of defense. The response? Conservatives have rushed to defend their own against the charge. To understate the case, that’s not enough. It’s time to debunk McCarthyism itself.

No matter how much evidence vindicating the late Sen. Joe McCarthy comes out, what we call McCarthyism remains anathema in American life. Simply to utter the word is to deep-freeze debate, even thought itself. Even as we learn about the history-changing extent to which American traitors working for the Kremlin penetrated and subverted the U.S. government (including many individuals investigated by McCarthy), the unsupportable fact remains that nothing in American public life is worse than to be compared to the man best-known for his uncompromising fight against the secret, massive assault on our nation. When will we realize it’s time to make amends and honor his memory?

Liberals and conservatives alike continue to fall for the poisonous bait. Last summer, for example, Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom called Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s accusations that Mitt Romney hadn’t paid his taxes “baseless” and “shameless,” and compared them to so-called McCarthyism. The Hill newspaper’s write-up of Fehrnstrom’s comments perfectly sums up society’s ignorance on the issue:

Purim begins on the evening of February 23….tomorrow. It is, like so many Jewish holidays, based on our endless history of suffering and harassment, and ultimate triumph and victory. What I find endlessly amazing and comforting is how the Jews have survived centuries of unspeakable oppressions and genocide. But we are still here while other mighty empires have crumbled and disappeared. I leave the explanation of this holiday to my learned and articulate friend Yoram Ettinger whose counsel and optimism and brilliance are of the greatest value to me.

Happy Purim to all. May we enjoy and retell this story for eternity and may the people of the Land of Israel thrive and prosper in peace.

RSK