Tuesday, April 09, 2019
From Ian:
NYU president Hamilton – Is this how you support justice?
NYU president Hamilton – Is this how you support justice?
On April 4, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) announced on their Facebook page that they were selected to receive the NYU President’s Service Award, given to students who have had an “extraordinary” and “positive” impact on the school’s community. It is clear to so many students on campus – Jewish, non-Jewish and pro-Israel – that this group does the exact opposite of improving the “quality of student life at New York University.” This has not yet been confirmed by NYU, but even the possibility cannot be ignored and must be addressed.You Say Anti-Semitism, NYU says Worthy Work!
SJP has worked immensely hard each year to demonstrate their anti-Israel hatred, sometimes even violently, in more ways than one. Realize Israel, a pro-Israel group on NYU’s campus, mentioned in a Facebook post that members of SJP have defaced Israel’s flag, physically assaulted pro-Israel students, and continually present factually inaccurate anti-Israel resolutions to the Student Government Assembly. Why celebrate such behaviors with an award? Why give an award to an organization that in itself is “anti” and not to an organization that is solely “pro”?
We ask NYU’s senior vice president of student affairs, Marc Wais, if any of the pro-Israel groups on campus will be selected for this year’s award, seeing as none were chosen in 2018. We hope that NYU’s leadership recognizes that: 1) Israel is at the forefront of improving the world with its focus on human rights, diversity and equality for all its citizens; 2) Israel, a country the size of New Jersey, is leading the world in innovation within the healthcare, agriculture and various technological fields; 3) When humanitarian crises strike throughout the world, particularly natural disasters, Israel is always one of the first countries to utilize their financial resources, technology and manpower to help recover and rebuild. How ironic is it that a group which has blatantly shamed students who devote their efforts to support a country that helps communities all over the world is now being praised?
In April 2018, NYU president Andrew D. Hamilton denounced the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. This was an amazing step forward for the community, and for helping Jewish and pro-Israel students feel safe on campus. The Jewish, non-Jewish and pro-Israel community thanked him then, and again say now: THANK YOU president Hamilton for standing against the BDS movement. But why is the student organization that very much supports the BDS movement allegedly receiving your prestigious President’s Service Award?
What has SJP done to have such an extraordinary and positive impact? The greatest impact they’ve had in recent months was on the passage of a boycott resolution by NYU’s student government. SJP members introduced and fought for it. That resolution, though limited in its reach, explicitly supported the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, and made use of easily exposed propaganda.Why Are Democrats Kissing The Ring Of Al Sharpton?
NYU President Andrew Hamilton—presumably, the “president” in “president’s service award”—has repeatedly said that boycotting Israel, which is very nearly the sole purpose of SJP, is “contrary to” NYU’s “core principles of academic freedom” and “antithetical to the free exchange of ideas.”
But it’s not merely that SJP’s mission contradicts the university’s. Adela Cojab, past president of the NYU branch of Realize Israel, has said that for “the overwhelming majority of [her] community, Zionism is a part of who they are, and they see an attack on Israel as an attack on their Judaism.” When SJP led other organizations in declaring that they wouldn’t work with pro-Israel groups, Cojab adopted the language of the left. Anti-Zionist activities were creating “unsafe spaces” on campus for many Jews, she said.
That may be going too far, but it is shocking that this university isn’t just tolerating an organization that promotes what many Jews consider anti-Semitism but patting it on the back. Giving SJP an award reserved for those who benefit the community is a gross insult not only to Jewish pro-Israel activists but also to the many others who, just as Cojab says, consider SJP’s attack on Zionism to be an attack on Jews.
If SJP is really set to receive such an award—NYU did not respond to my request for confirmation–it should be rescinded.
Then again, ruined lives are strewn across Sharpton’s career. Maybe Democrats need to be reminded that Sharpton used a tragic 1991 car accident to incite a four-day race riot in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Or maybe they just don’t care. It was Sharpton who stoked anger over the imaginary nexus between “Tel Aviv” and “South Africa” and the “diamond merchants right here.” After the Jewish community protested, Sharpton said, “Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.”BDS founder Omar Barghouti heads to DC, for panel with Peter Beinart, seeks Congressional meetings
But, of course, Sharpton’s bejeweled and rotund frame was, as always, hiding behind bodyguards. It was his mob that took over. And one man who forgot to pin back his yarmulke was Yankel Rosenbaum, a 29-year old Orthodox Jew visiting from Australia who, after turning down a wrong street, was dragged from his car to the shouts of “Kill the Jews!” by throngs of angry protesters and stabbed to death. Never once has Sharpton shown any remorse for his role in this bloodletting.
When, in 1995, Fred Harari, a Jewish sub-tenant who operated a store called Freddie’s Fashion Mart, evicted his own sub-tenant, a black-owned record store owner, Sharpton, who told the protesters, “We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business,” saw another opportunity to provoke chaos.
Never mind that it had been a black Pentecostal church that had asked Harari to evict the record store owner. If you’re inclined, you can listen to his ceaseless race-baiting and anti-Semitism that Sharpton allowed, and engaged in, on his show day in and out. The venomous protests, fueled in part by his show and his presence, soon began to resemble a mob. When Roland Smith Jr. went in with a gun, he asked all the black patrons to leave before he killed everyone else. The “white interloper,” as Sharpton perceptively predicted, “did not expand his business in Harlem.”
Never once, as far as I can tell, have any of his didactic colleagues on cable news asked him about these career highlights. Not once did a reporter ask any of the presidential candidates about Sharpton’s history.
As a native New Yorker, I hold a grudge. That doesn’t mean others can’t forgive Sharpton for the horrible things he’s done. It’s something else, however, when a remorseless man with a history of hucksterism and cruelty is not only being flattered as national moral leader by presidential candidates but that those same politicians are being given a free pass as they kowtow to a reprehensible character.
Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, is in the U.S. this week to promote the economic battle against Israel.
According to Congressional sources, Barghouti is seeking meetings on Capitol Hill.
Barghouti will also participate on Thursday in two panels at the Arab American Institute in Washington, D.C.
The first event, co-sponsored by the Foundation for Middle East Peace and NYU-Washington, D.C., is billed as a “candid conversation about the BDS movement” between Barghouti and Peter Beinart. The other event, later in the day, is co-sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace – D.C. Metro chapter.
