Brandeis using J StreetU to repair relations with Al Quds U

I had to check the calendar, but no, Purim was a month ago and we are past April Fools as well.

From Free Beacon:

Two student leaders of J Street who recently came under fire for heckling an Israeli soldier have been selected by Brandeis University to help repair the school’s relationship with the Palestinian Al Quds University, which has hosted several anti-Israel terror rallies on its campus.

Brandeis was forced to sever its long-term partnership with Al Quds after it hosted a military rally last year that featured masked men performing the traditional Nazi salute. A second Hamas rally was held in late March.

Two leaders of J Street’s campus group, J Street U, were recently given a $10,000 grant to travel to Al Quds and spearhead a “student dialogue initiative” aimed at repairing relations between the two universities.

The students—Eli Philip and Catriona Stewart—serve as the copresidents of Brandeis’s J Street U group. They most recently drew headlines for heckling a former IDF soldier who was speaking on campus.

The Al Quds dialogue initiative comes at a critical time for Brandeis, which is facing a fierce backlash for rescinding an honorary degree from the Islamic human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

The J Street leaders were awarded the $10,000 as part of Brandeis’s Davis Projects for Peace program, which encourages students to “design grassroots projects for peace.”

...Al Quds students associated with Islamic Jihad’s campus faction donning black military gear and mock automatic weapons. They then marched across the school’s campus flashing the traditional Nazi salute.

J Street leaders Philip and Stewart say that the Nazi rally inspired them to pursue the new partnership, which will allow a delegation of Brandeis students to spend a week at Al Quds.

...The students claim that Brandeis’s decision to cut ties with Al Quds “lacked appreciation for [former Al Quds University head Sari] Nusseibeh’s desire to uphold the values of free speech and respect, as well as for the realities of life in the West Bank.”

J Street U sparked a row on Brandeis’s campus late last year, when Philip and others were reported to have been “disruptive and rude” during a speech by former IDF spokesman Barak Raz.

“Philip and his [J Street U] colleagues were so disruptive during Raz’s talk that there were calls for him to resign his student leadership position for having embarrassed the Brandeis community,” the Jewish Press reported at the time.

Raz later responded to the incident by stating that Philip “walked in [to the event], over an hour late, and aside from the disruptive chatter, missed the points that were made.”

“The behavior you displayed was quite sub-par,” Raz wrote, adding that “should you desire to continue this conversation, it’s probably best done in a way that reflects a little more integrity. I’m surprised that while you came to learn and listen, you refused to do that.”

Here's part of the grant proposal.

Brandeis seems to be teaching the philosophy that the worse people act, the more important it is to reward them.

(h/t Daniel Mael)