RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Connecticut College administrators have finally put it in writing.

And they did so on the last day of the semester before the winter break when they knew that students would be leaving or already gone.

Based on what they wrote, these administrators would welcome a professor who teaches that the earth is flat. One can only wonder if they would also welcome Darwin’s discoveries about evolution—or might they view evolution as Darwin’s own opinion to which he has every right unless it offends a person of color who might become violent, in which case, Darwin’s ideas may be taught as long as Creationism is given equal time.

The American campus now welcomes all expressions, Big Lies, lethal narratives, speech that incites people to violence, junk science, ideas that are false and that endanger their own students—all are welcome.

Here is the statement just issued by Connecticut College administrators. I have never read a more intellectually vacuous statement—but the good news is this: they have opened the door to the truth. I can only hope and pray that organizations begin to tell the truth via posters on every campus from coast to coast. Here is your permission:

“To Members of the Campus Community,

The conflict in Israel and Palestine is one of the most complex issues
today, and one that we as a community have been discussing in classes,
in programs and in forums over the last several months.

Last week, the student group Conn Students in Solidarity with
Palestine (CSSP) placed posters around campus about an international
travel program called Birthright. The program sponsors free travel to
Israel for young Americans of Jewish descent.

We recognize CSSP’s right to share its perspective. Likewise, we
acknowledge the right of members of the community to express their
disagreement with the posters’ characterization of the Birthright
program. We continue to work proactively to open up venues for further
dialogue so that diverse points of view can be expressed. We are
committed to supporting all members of our community as we navigate
these and other complicated issues. We believe that a free and open
exchange of ideas—especially on contentious issues of the day—is a
hallmark of a vibrant institution and an essential part of a liberal
arts education.”

What are they talking about? Pro-Palestinians students and supportive faculty plastered posters around the campus which are Big Lies and, in my view, amount to anti-Semitic hate speech. Nevertheless, these ideas have gained enormous traction on the North American campus. Such posters function as indoctrination tools for Islamism.

These posters have frightened and humiliated a small number of Jewish students on campus who will soon be visiting Israel for the first time.

These posters are meant to intimidate Jewish or pro-Israel students and faculty and to entice non-Jewish or uninformed students and faculty into believing that Israel is factually an example of “settler colonialism;” that there really are “seven million Palestinian refugees today”—all because of the “Nakba” (catastrophe), which is how Arab Muslims refer to the creation of the sovereign, democratic, modern state of Israel.

These posters view the Birthright Project as yet another example of Jews “ignoring Palestine” and caring only about Jews.

This is crude stuff that has no place on a university campus.

The posters are phrased in such a way as to present the Taglit-Birthright Israel as an ethnically exclusive free program for Jews only; as if this is unfair; as if this is only possible because there are too many rich Jews.

Also, the posters show us that Israel is unfair for another reason too: Jews can automatically become citizens of Israel, but Israel will not allow the “right of return” of 7 million Palestinians. Further, the Jews who live in Israel are actually living on stolen, Palestinian land, and the only way to “secure that ‘right’ is through violence, land theft, and displacement.”

Now, if that doesn’t get you upset, there’s always this:

“Any American, even one who has never been to Israel, can fly to Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel without a visa easily; a Palestinian born in Israel and subsequently exiled cannot return to Israel without first acquiring the citizenship of another country, which is extremely difficult.”

Ipso facto: “Taglit-Birthright is Settler Colonialism.”

The second poster continues the indoctrination. It is called: “The Nakba by the Numbers,” and claims that “750,000+” Palestinians were “dispossessed;” 400+ villages destroyed; 2 dozen+ massacres [occurred]; 4.2 million+ acres of land [were] confiscated; and there are “7 million+ Palestinian refugees today.”

None of this is remotely true. None of this is a balanced presentation in context. How does one fight such Big Lies?

By telling the truth. Simply that.

Parallel, corrective posters must be plastered across the campus. If they tell the truth, they will show that there has absolutely never been a “Palestinian” people; that Jews—and only Jews—are the surviving and indigenous people of this land; that Arab Muslim governments have refused citizenship to so called Palestinians because they have long been ruled (and abused) by terrorists, such as Hamas, the PLO, the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, etc., which are all Islamist and terrorist entities; that no Arab Muslim country has ever welcomed non-Muslims—that Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Yezidis, Baha’i and Zoroastrians have been converted via the sword, mercilessly taxed, or tortured and murdered; that Muslims have long been engaged in their own unholy religious war of Sunni versus Shiite, a war which persists to this day and has not been caused by Western imperialism.

In fact, the parallel and corrective posters must show that Islam is the largest practitioner of both religious and gender apartheid on the planet. In addition, their history is one of ceaseless imperialism and colonialism, as well as anti-black hatred and slavery—all of which continue to this day.

Israel, to its great credit, protects the public worship of Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism; Baha’i fled from Iran to Israel where they lead modern and democratic lives. The same cannot be claimed of the Arab or Central Asian Muslim world. Let the posters proclaim this truth.

I would suggest that the five signatories of Connecticut College administrators read an excellent new book, just out, by Dr. Tawfik Hamid, a former Egyptian Islamist. It is titled Inside Jihad: How Radical Islam Works, Why It Should Terrify Us, How to Defeat It. I would strongly suggest that they also read all of Ibn Warraq’s books, beginning with Why I Am Not a Muslim, Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out, and Why The West is Best: A Muslim Apostate’s Defense of Liberal Democracy, as well as Bat Yeor’s work about the decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam.

They will not read them by re-enrolling at their own campus.