RUTHFULLY YOURS

Reprinted from the Jewish Voice. 

For those of us who grew up in Brooklyn in the 1960s and 70s and for those of us who decided to linger a bit longer in the County of Kings before taking the proverbial plunge into the big world out there, many of us ended up at good ol’ Brooklyn College.

Decades ago, however, this veritable Brooklyn institution boasted an integrated student population and crafted an enduring legacy as a campus that heralded the right of free speech, thought and assembly.

Not so, anymore.  Apparently, the proverbial compass of time has pointed Brooklyn College in the “politically correct” trajectory as have most other urban centers for higher learning.  For those not in the know, that essentially means that a fascist flavor now dominates campus political life.  As such, Muslim organizations (among others) have sealed their pact with leftist totalitarian groups in order to “shut down any opposing viewpoints” and to “not allow any dissenting ideas to be publicly expressed,” says David Horowitz.  A stalwart champion of free speech and founder of the eponymously named David Horowitz Freedom Center, Horowitz is one of the lone voices in the wilderness in offering an alternative narrative to the liberal, leftist, anti-Semitic ideologies that are taught on college campuses today and are being passed off to a naïve generation as the unadulterated truth.

Last week his conservative campus watchdog group issued a list of the “Top Ten Schools Supporting Terrorists” and to the surprise of many, Brooklyn College had the dubious distinction of garnering the number one position.

“I spoke at Brooklyn College back in 2011 and the atmosphere was so threatening, that I had to take body guards along with me,” recalls Horowitz. The 2011 speech to which Horowitz referred, entitled the “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Myths and Facts,” was sponsored and organized by Brooklyn College student Yosef Sobel and Mitchell Langbert, an associate professor in the department of business and economics.

“Because the Hillel organization on campus was too afraid to sponsor me, I must thank those who had the courage to do so.” said Horowitz at the time.  Despite numerous warnings prohibiting verbal disruptions, Muslim student hecklers abounded and Horowitz’s remarks were often punctuated by the sounds of acrimonious attacks.

A native New Yorker and a graduate of Columbia University, David Horowitz was once a self-proclaimed Marxist and left-wing academic whose political beliefs have now shifted to the right. As one of the founders of the New Left in the 1960s, he was also the editor of its most influential magazine, Ramparts. Along with Peter Collier, he is the author of a number of best-selling dynastic biographies on the Rockefellers, the Kennedys, the Fords, and the Roosevelts. With Collier he also wrote “Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the 60s” (1989), a chronicle of their break with the 1960s Left.  He is also the force behind the conservative intellectual web site, “Front Page Magazine” (frontpagemag.com).

His recent books include, “Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left” (2004),”Indoctrination U:The Left’s War Against Academic Freedom” (2007) and “Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party”(2007), and “The Black Book of the Left” (2013).

“There are basically no campuses left in this country that provide safe spaces for free speech, as the fascist left has joined forces with what some might think is a strange political bedfellow, but really isn’t. It is an amalgamation of organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Association, American Muslims for Palestine and other assorted groups that have links to terror groups.

Mr. Horowitz said that Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is a ubiquitous site on today’s college campuses and its raison d’etre is to “spew forth Hamas propaganda and reproduce the outrageous mendacity of the left-Muslim alliance along with the radical Islamic credo.” He added that, “the major mission of SJP is to vilify Israel with incessant and egregious propaganda and lies and to intimidate and bully pro-Israel students and speakers on campus.”

In order to make headway in his protracted struggle for the advancement of free speech and a truly democratic climate on campus, Horowitz has plans to demand that university presidents and alumni committees immediately desist in generously funding these campus groups with links to a terrorist agenda.

“We must always be mindful of the fact that the Hitlerian and genocidal lies that being told on North American campuses by such groups as the SJP is nothing short of terrorist abuse of other students. This menacing environment makes it virtually impossible for others to express opposing views without feeling threatened,” cautioned Mr. Horowitz.

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which specifically targets Israel is also a beneficiary of these organizations, said Mr. Horowitz.  His top ten list and report reveals that yet another Hamas front group is American Muslims for Palestine, according to Congressional testimony. The report indicated that the AMP “funnels large sums of money and material assistance to SJP… for the purpose of promoting BDS on American campuses.”

Sol Kershbaum, an alumni of Brooklyn College, said that “over the last few decades, the demographics of the college student population have changed dramatically. Jews, who had always been a shining presence on campus, were essentially pushed out by a large and very politically active Muslim student population. Their clear objective is to blame Israel for a fictitious occupation of purportedly Palestinian lands in Israel and they do it with lies and threats.”