RUTHFULLY YOURS

A group of students at Cornell University is demanding that the school change the name of its botanical garden from “Cornell Plantations” because apparently, the word “plantation” is always racist.

The idea behind the protest is that the word evokes images of slavery. The demand to change it is just one of many demands in a seven-page document sent to the administration by Cornell Black Students United in November.

And it’s one that’s reportedly actually being considered:

“Our staff and Advisory Council have been considering all aspects of our identity, our name, our mission and how our identity can best reflect what Cornell Plantations is — and does,” Christopher Dunn, director of the gardens, wrote in a piece for the Cornell Daily Sun.

The garden was named “Cornell Plantations” all the way back in 1944, according to a piece in Verdant Views, the plantations’ magazine. But according to Cornell Black Students United, it must be changed now. After all, the group claims that its demands must be met in order for the campus to be “conducive to the overall success of students of color.”

It’s the darkest irony of the year so far. Last week, feminists, alongside many others, were praising the recently deceased Harper Lee and her extraordinary literary achievement. Yet just hours later, they were behaving like Lee’s literary villains, the outraged mob in To Kill a Mockingbird, who are driven by an ugly, singular conviction: that if enough angry people believe a man is guilty of rape, then he is guilty of rape, and to hell with due process.

In their outpouring of belief in pop star Kesha, who claims to have been sexually assaulted but has never had those claims tested or proven, these Lee-celebrating feminists did precisely what Lee’s most immoral characters did: They assumed that a man was guilty of rape on the basis of nothing more than accusation and suspicion.

The Kesha story reveals the irrational rot that has set in within much of modern feminism. Kesha spent months trying to wriggle free from her contract with Sony, on the basis that her producer, Dr. Luke, had previously sexually assaulted her. She said that continuing to work with Sony would cause her “irreparable harm.” But there’s a small problem for Kesha: These claims of rape have never been brought to criminal trial and thus remain unproven. So it’s her word against Dr. Luke’s, and he says her claims are “outright lies.” Understandably, the Manhattan Supreme Court in New York City, which presumably works from the understanding that Dr. Luke, like everyone else, is innocent until proven guilty, has rejected Kesha’s request to be released from her contract.

Feminists don’t think this is understandable. For them, the Kesha-contract lock is a crime against womankind. They’ve got the hashtag #FreeKesha trending on Twitter. And, most strikingly, they’ve rallied around Kesha as a victim of sexual abuse who has now been abused further by the court system. They casually, tyrannically assume that Kesha was sexually assaulted, which of course also has the effect of branding Dr. Luke an assaulter, despite the fact that he has never been tried or convicted of this offense.

Last Thursday, yet again, we learned that pro-Palestinian activists couldn’t care less about Palestinians.

For them, the Palestinians whose rights they claim to champion are nothing more than means to another end.

Our latest lesson came from the University of Chicago.

Last week, Palestinian human rights activist Bassam Eid was abused and threatened by supposedly pro-Palestinian and pro-peace activists as he tried to inform his audience about the state of Palestinian human rights today.

Bassam Eid has dedicated his life to defending the human rights of the Palestinians. From 1967 through 1994, Israel administered the population centers of Judea, Samaria and Gaza. From 1994, with the establishment of the Palestinian Authority until today, the Palestinians have been ruled by the PLO and Hamas.

As a human rights activist, until 1994, Eid directed most of his criticisms against Israel. Since then, Eid has defended Palestinian human rights from abuse at the hands of the PLO and Hamas.

Until 1994, Eid’s human rights activism made him the darling of the far Left. He was a co-director of B’tselem. He was invited to prestigious anti-Israel forums worldwide and given platforms where he presented his accusations against Israel to international acclaim.

But since the PA was formed, those who once upheld him as a hero have turned their backs on him. In so doing, they have shown their true colors.

During his talk at the University of Chicago, those colors came shining through.

Eid talked about the human rights abuses and repression of Palestinians not at the hands of Israel, but at the hands of the PA and Hamas. In other words, Eid held the Palestinian leadership accountable for its failure to respect the rights of the Palestinians it claims to speak for.

This, it turns out, is a big no-no.

Eid was attacked by two distinct groups for daring to hold the Palestinian leadership accountable for its abuses of Palestinian human rights. In their collusion, we see the truth about those who proclaim their commitment to “justice for the Palestinians” on the one hand, and those who proclaim their devotion to “peace” on the other hand.

The first group to attack him was Students for Justice in Palestine. In leading the assault on Eid, SJP members interrupted him, threatened him and demonized him.

“You must never again speak about the Palestinians!,” some yelled in English at a man who has devoted his life to defending Palestinian rights.

In the meantime, other SJP members reportedly threatened Eid in Arabic with physical violence.

William Covino, president of California State University Los Angeles, has canceled a planned speech by Breitbart editor-at-large and conservative brainiac Ben Shaprio three days before it was to take place. All in the name of inclusiveness, bringing to mind the notorious Vietnam War statement, “We had to destroy the village to save it.”

In doing so, he has set the stage for what could be a major confrontation, as the speech’s sponsor, Young Americans for Freedom, has vowed to proceed with the speech, titled “When diversity becomes a problem,” regardless of the loss of the sanction by Covino. Will the university president attempt to silence the speech?

The rationale for Covino’s action is ridiculous on its face.

In an email to the Young America’s Foundation chapter at CSULA, university president William Covino wrote, “After careful consideration, I have decided that it will be best for our campus community if we reschedule Ben Shapiro’s appearance for a later date, so that we can arrange for him to appear as part of a group of speakers with differing viewpoints on diversity. Such an event will better represent our university’s dedication to the free exchange of ideas and the value of considering multiple viewpoints.”

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion exhibited a real knack for the twofer on Friday, by going after both his political opposition and the Israeli government in one disingenuous swoop.

In perfect doublespeak, Dion managed to announce his (Liberal) party’s support for a Conservative motion condemning the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel, while attacking it as an attempt to foment discord in parliament.

The motion to “condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals” to engage in BDS — “the demonization and delegitimization” of Israel — was tabled by Tory MP Tony Clement.

“This is not a partisan issue,” he asserted, urging Liberals to “side with us on this motion. Send a strong message to our fellow Canadians and to freedom-lovers around the world.”

Tory MP David Sweet went even further, calling BDS “anti-Semitic.” Sweet also got up and commended the Liberals for joining in a bipartisan effort to combat it. But this was too much for Dion, who made sure to say that though the Liberals would support the motion, they had “reservations” about it, among them the impure and divisive motives of the Tories in pushing the bill forward.

“To me, this is further proof that the Conservatives have not learned from their mistakes and are still trying to divide Canadians on issues that should unite them,” he said.

Huh?

Paul Bronfman is a hero to the Jewish people. He gave York University an ultimatum: Take down the anti-semitic mural within 24 hours or else I withdraw all support. As the chairman of Pinewood Toronto Studios, he had been supplying thousands of dollars of film equipment, technical services, and know-how to York University’s Cinema and Media Arts Program. They refused to take down the mural. And he followed through with his threat. He pulled money, production equipment, seminars, open houses with students, learning labs and training programs – everything!

Mr. Bronfman’s action has attracted a lot of media coverage because it is big news. As a result, anti-semites everywhere have been crawling out of their holes. A hundred faculty members at York University have exposed themselves as Israel haters when they signed an open letter defending the now infamous anti-semitic mural and critizing Paul Bronfman for pulling funding over it. Even Rogers Waters of Pink Floyd fame, today mainly known for Jew hatred, has chimed in with his useless opinion. It doesn’t happen every day that a Jewish donor steps up to the plate. In fact, it has as far as I can recall, never happened…until now.

Despite the fact that universities across North America have become sewers of anti-semitism, rife with anti-semitic professors, anti-Israel demonstrations, and verbal and physical assault of Jewish students, Jewish donors have generally chosen the path of denial and continue their love affair with their chosen universities. Personally, I lose sleep when I know fellow Jews are harassed or attacked. But maybe that’s just me and my like-minded friends and cohorts. Apparently Jewish donors have no problem dishing out hundreds of millions of dollars to educational establishments that allows its Jewish students to be treated like garbage. They pretend that all is well and continue pouring big money into their alma matters – because after all, that campus building is simply not going to name itself.

The Guardian hyperventilates today, with a story headlined: “Climate experts urge leading scientists’ association: reject Exxon sponsorship.”

Well, those “experts” should be having that discussion with their own employers first.

The Guardian article reports on a petition just issued by prominent climate hysterics like James Hansen, Michael Mann, and Naomi Oreskes, who are using the petition to ask the American Geophysical Union (AGU) to end its sponsorship deal with oil giant ExxonMobil. The AGU is a membership organization for Earth and space scientists known for its scientific journal and its conferences.

The signatories write:

We, the undersigned members of AGU (and other concerned geoscientists), write to ask you to please reconsider ExxonMobil’s sponsorship of the AGU Fall Meetings.

As Earth scientists, we are deeply troubled by the well-documented complicity of ExxonMobil in climate denial and misinformation. For example, recent investigative journalism has shed light on the fact that Exxon, informed by their in-house scientists, has known about the devastating global warming effects of fossil fuel burning since the late 1970s, but spent the next decades funding misinformation campaigns to confuse the public, slander scientists, and sabotage science — the very science conducted by thousands of AGU members.

We won’t litigate Exxon’s alleged “complicity” in “climate denial and misinformation” now. (You may read the silly allegations here and Exxon’s detailed defense here.) But for the sake of argument, let’s assume the hysterics are making their claims in good faith.

In almost every venue today, we find that “new slogans, political and social [are] used often with calculated ambiguity. Extreme positions, on the right and on the left, are becoming more and more uncompromising. Moderation is taken for apathy, and patience is looked upon as a pretext for inaction. There is mounting unrest and violence not only among university students but in society at large. The product is a weakening of confidence between young and old, between racial groups, between partisan political factions, between students and administrators, between citizens and government. An individualism of suspicion and distrust is replacing an individualism of opportunity and hope.”

Written almost 50 years ago, the above aptly describes what is assailing America today. In 1968, Philip H. Rhinelander, then a professor of philosophy and humanities at Stanford University, wrote a piece entitled “Education and Society” for The Key Reporter which was delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Stanford on June 15, 1968. Rhinelander reminded his audience that they were “dealing with a failure of education” leading to “an increasing doubt in the minds of students as to whether intellectual discipline and rational analysis have any relevance to the solution of the pressing problems of the day.”

One cannot enter a classroom of higher learning today without walking into pitched battles and extreme positioning. University students deride the idea of consensus-building and seek to run administrators out of town. Any student daring to express an opinion different from the politically correct one of the day is frightened into mental subservience, so much so that logical argumentation is in tatters. Aristotle’s classifications of ethos, pathos, and logos rarely make their way into classroom discussions as shouting matches become the rule of the day.

Anti-Israel protesters confronted and threatened a Palestinian human rights activist who was critical of the Palestinian Authority while lecturing at the University of Chicago, reports Algemeiner.

Bassem Eid, founder of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, was confronted by hostile protesters last week. They challenged him for speaking of PA human rights abuses without referencing Israel’s “occupation,” according to a post Eid shared on his Facebook page.

A former student at Chicago’s Columbia College who claimed he was from Gaza threatened Eid physically.

A video shows the man yelling threats in Arabic including: “I’m going to destroy this place!”, “I’m going to kill this mother****!” and “Wait until you go to your car!”

Eid previously worked as an investigator for B’Tselem, a human rights organization which often is critical of the Israeli military. His turn to criticizing Palestinian rejectionism and human rights abuses angered anti-Israel activists.

http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=15325
A great god and small knives

The “lone-wolf terrorist” phenomenon should not come as a surprise to the defense apparatus. It’s an exact implementation of the obligation of Muslim believers in an age when political Islam is reawakening.

A decade ago, Abu Moussab a-Suri — who would become the strategist for the Islamic State group — wrote “The Call for Global Islamic Resistance,” a 1,600-page document that called on all believers to upgrade their jihad tools to G3.

According to a-Suri, the first generation was resistance organized in specific territory, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, which despite its partial successes, turned out to be untenable when facing the armies of the West. Even the second generation — organization without territory, like al-Qaida — has had difficulty ever since its cross-border success on 9/11 in combating the technological intelligence methods activated against it. The alternative is a war fought by crowds of individuals motivated solely by commandments and faith. This is G3: Nizam la Tanzim (“The School of Individual Jihad”). Non-organized, and with no territory. Anyone, using any method, at any time.

This is not only a new tactic, it’s the fulfillment of the Islamic dream. The G3 jihad has no organization and no hierarchy, no funds and no international training camps.

But they’re not necessary. The only thing that sets the act in motion is a divine command, which contains three main principles: The first is loyalty to the Islamic nation, rather than to the family or a tribe. This turns every individual into a soldier in the service of the nation. The second principle is universality: the only border recognized in Islam is that between Dar al-Islam (“the House of Islam,” the lands where Islam rules) and Dar al-Harb (“the House of War,” where Islam does not rule). This jihad brings the globe back to its original Muslim definition, “a House of War,” which is destined to continue until Shariah law is applied to all of it. The third principle is an update from the Muslim Brotherhood school — that murderous jihad is not just the obligation of the public as a whole but also of every individual.

In the Muslim world, there is a debate about timing, about the good of the nation. And there is a battle between Sunni and Shiite, between the different groups fighting for local rule or rule of the entire caliphate.

But this religious ideology is a common denominator and what motivates them all, so it’s the enemy we find ourselves facing.

That conclusion makes us uncomfortable. We hoped that we had left ideological wars behind in the last century. We trusted the prophecy of Fukuyama in “The End of History,” but the religiosity of the G3 Muslims is not satisfied with the modern conveniences and individual freedom that prophecy ushered in, and we should acknowledge that. We should treat these aspects of Muslim ideology as we treated other ideologies that threatened the free world not so long ago. We must remove it from the concept of freedom of religion and invalidate all activity related to it and its dissemination — certainly that which condemns the principles of humanism or national sovereignty.

Victory is conditional upon knowing the enemy. When they stop searching for “inciters” in Western terms and reject the ideology itself, we can do it. The public discussion of Balad MKs meeting with the families of “mujahedeen” (“jihadis”) and the fuss about broadcaster Razi Barkai’s sensitivity toward their mothers are the result of the mistaken conception of Islam. A moral society must take action, not out of blood lust or an explosion of nerves, but rather as a justified, vital war against parts of an ideology that threaten all of humanity.

Amit Halevi is the executive director of the Jewish Statesmanship Center in Jerusalem.