Brandeis Commencement Speaker Leads Iran Cheerleader Squad Brandeis Commencement Speaker is Iran Cheerleader: Lori Lowenthal Marcus
Forget about Israel, doesn’t Brandeis care about Iran’s abysmal human rights record?
All those concerned about the dangers of Iran obtaining the ability to produce nuclear weapons have been closely watching the negotiations between Iran and the U.S. and its partners in the P5+1.
Perhaps no country has been more concerned about that danger than Israel, the nation which the Iranian leaders continue to brazenly threaten with annihilation.
It is reasonable to conclude that those who are urging the negotiators to proceed apace, to succumb to Iranian threats and demands without integrating ironclad precautionary methods are not overly concerned about the safety of Israel.
Given the university’s past “sister” relationship with Al Quds University, perhaps that explains Brandeis’s willingness to offer Ambassador Thomas Pickering – the Iran cheerleader and harsh critic of Israel – an honorary degree as this year’s Commencement featured speaker.
But what about Iran’s human rights record?
Don’t Brandeis students think hanging gays and summary executions are sufficiently objectionable to protest a pro-Iran commencement speaker?
And yet, Brandeis University is having as its 2015 commencement speaker an ardent supporter of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ambassador Thomas Pickering.
A few weeks ago JewishPress.com exposed Pickering’s disdain for Israel and his demands that the U.S. stop coddling the Jewish State and only making demands on the Palestinian Arabs (we’re not kidding).
The lack of a response from the university shows that Justice Brandeis’s namesake university doesn’t care so much about Pickering’s lack of support for Israel’s current leadership. But Israel’s existence? Or how about human rights?
STRONG SUPPORT FOR IRAN’S DEMANDS REGARDING ITS NUCLEAR PROGRAM
It is now clear that Pickering is at the forefront of those advocating for the rights of Iran to continue with its nuclear program, without ensuring every possible cautionary step be taken, and for the as-soon-as-possible rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran, human rights failings be damned.
This year’s planned commencement speaker at Brandeis is anxious to improve U.S.-Iran relations. And “improve” means increasing recognition of and hospitality towards the Islamic Republic by the U.S., without any necessary concomitant improvement in, oh, say, antagonism voiced by Iranian leadership towards the U.S. or any of its allies. Or even any improvement in its treatment of its own citizens.
Pickering has a leadership role in the big three pro-Iran diplomatic organizations: the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), the American-Iranian Council and the Iran Project. All three of these entities are focused on normalizing relations between the U.S. and Iran without demanding Iran first improve its appalling human rights record.
Pickering and his colleagues were delighted when the administration announced the P5+1 pre-Agreement Agreement, back on April 2; they immediately lauded the deal.
And then, when there was so much pushback, not only from the Israeli leadership, or from the Republican leadership, but from the leadership of the Democrats in Congress, Pickering and his pals began playing defense for the deal.
Pickering and his pals at the American-Iranian Council feared that the Congressional proposal might “hamper a speedy resolution to the nuclear deal as well as the AIC’s broader goal of rapprochement between the United States and Iran.”
They did not want to lose the momentum that had seemed to have been gained at Lausanne (momentum that began sputtering as soon as the fact sheets put out by the U.S. and Iran differed dramatically on significant points).
The AIC was horrified that Congress might “undermine all the progress and goodwill” that the negotiators had achieved in Switzerland.
“We remain steadfast in our support for a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear issue that would remove a major issue that has bottlenecked a broader rapprochement between the US and Iran,” AIC advised on its website.
When the Senate leadership began discussing ways in which Congress should be able to play a role in overseeing the structure and implementation of the agreement being made with Iran, Pickering and his pals warned against it.
And then, even when compromises made by the bi-partisan leadership of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee proved sufficient to allay the concerns of the diplomatic team’s own leadership, Pickering and his pals spoke out against it.
Slamming the bipartisan efforts of the U.S. Congress to ensure that any deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program was as strongly protective of U.S. interests as possible, Pickering’s pal, the NIAC policy director Jamal Abdi said: “This bill undercuts U.S. negotiating leverage by casting as an open question whether the U.S. can honor its commitments.”
He criticized the audacity of Congress to insert itself into a decision about whether and when to lift Congressional sanctions: “The uncertainty the bill creates regarding U.S. ability to provide sanctions relief, combined with the backlash that it could generate in Iran to limit their negotiators’ maneuverability, could very well mean greater U.S. concessions will be necessary to secure a deal.”
Perhaps for Jamal Abdi to express such concern is understandable, but former American diplomats?
When President Barack Obama announced that not only would he not veto the Corker bill, but instead declared his willingness to sign it, Pickering and his pals publicly continued speaking out firmly against it.
NIAC’s policy director said that the compromise “does not change the fundamental problems with this bill. It still threatens to derail the talks and kill a deal, and we remain opposed to it.”
He wrote that the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (Corker-Menendez): “is not oversight but instead an extraordinary effort to undermine the president’s ability to conduct diplomacy and change the rules of the game on our negotiators in the middle of high-stakes negotiations.”
What message is Brandeis sending its students, its graduates, and its donors if it insists on honoring an advocate for a regime that openly pledges to destroy another country?
IRAN’S DISMAL HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD
And even if there are those who are convinced Iran has no interest in developing nuclear weapons, what about Iran’s dismal human rights record?
A report recently released by the United Nations on Iran’s human rights record, expresses serious concerns.
The UN condemned the “continuing number of executions in Iran, including of political prisoners and juveniles”; it expressed grave concerns about Iran’s use of torture on prisoners, while denying them access to lawyers.
The UN report expressed horror about rampant child marriage (the legal age of marriage for girls in Iran is 13, but some are permitted to marry at nine years of age), and the widespread existence of formalized gender discrimination laws.
The rampant censorship, restrictions on freedom of opinion and freedom of the press were all mentioned in the UN report, as was the widespread existence of the abuse of religious and ethnic minorities in Iran.
Last year, to its shame, Brandeis revoked its invitation to Ayaan Hirsi Ali because its professors and students were horrified by her views on Islam.
Even if you forget all about Israel (as Brandeis apparently has), has the university undergone such value contortions that Brandeis University chooses to spurn a woman for speaking about her own experiences with Islam, while an advocate for a regime that murders gays, marginalizes and abuses women and children and ignores freedom and civil rights is given its highest honors?
If you listen real hard at this year’s Brandeis Graduation on May 17, you may hear the anguished cries of Justice Brandeis; let’s hope the Board of Trustees also hear them.
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