it's all starting to make sense, in that grotesque sort of way.....
Coatsworth is part of the cabal, i.e. Hamas/Hezbollah's Amen corner in the US
Columbia appoints another anti-Israel Dean
by Jerry Gordon
When former Dean of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), Lisa Anderson resigned in a huff and returned to the faculty after the kerfuffle of her inviting Mad Mahdist Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad on the eve of Rosh Ha Shanah last fall, you might have thought things might improve with appointment of her successor. Not the case. Instead, Professor John H. Coatsworth, currently Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs at Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center got the nod. Coatsworth is a noted scholar on Latin American economic and international history and past President of the American Historical Association.
Notwithstanding his Latin Americn expertise, Professor Coatsworth signed the anti-Israel Harvard divestment petition.
While at Chicago University in 1990, Professor Coatsworth weighed in on a Chicago public library controversy regarding a reading list put together by a virulently anti-Israel librarian, David Williams and contested by the ADL. Coatsworth, chairman of the University of Chicago history department at the time wrote the head of Chicago’s library commission: “For the general reader, Williams [the anti-Israel librarian at the center of the controversy] has put together an extremely useful and carefully balanced works on this important topic. As usual, Mr. Williams work conforms to the highest standards of professionalism. Criticisms by groups like [the ADL} with strongly partisan sympathies in respect to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict should, in my judgment, be dismissed out of hand.”
Having attended patently anti-Israel events at Columbia’s SIPA, Professor Coatsworth will no doubt be welcomed with open arms by like minded faculty. People like Rashid Khalidi, Joseph Massad and the shame of sister institution Barnard College, Nadia Abu El-Haj
Sic gloria transit my alma mater, Columbia.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Hitler & Ahmadinejad yes, but would Columbia even invite Larry Summers??
Below is a post from Martin Peretz's blog that clarifies the whole issue.
AHMADINEJAD TO COLUMBIA; SUMMERS CANCELLED AT UCAL; THE WORLD IS NUTS:
Last year, Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, was persuaded to cancel a speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at its School for International and Public Affairs. He had been put in this position by a pip-squeak scholar named Lisa Anderson who runs the School and the Middle East Center but has contributed exactly nothing to scholarship. Professor Anderson's job seems to be to get Bollinger into trouble, as if he hasn't enough to cope with as president. There are two mad-cap tenure procedures he faces: one at Barnard where an archaeologist seeks to prove that there was never a Jewish commonwealth in the Holy Land (which, by the way, just inter alia, denies the history of Christianity, too); the second, at Columbia, where Joseph Massad, who has abused students with views different from his own (reason enough to be sent off maybe to replace Norman Finkelstein at DePaul), has published a book basically charging modern-day gay intellectuals with forcing gay culture on the Muslim world.
Last year, Anderson did the initial inviting. But Bollinger, after long days of equivocating, suddenly had all kinds of cogent reasons why Ahmadinejad is not welcome at an institution of higher learning like Columbia. Now he has all kinds of phony reasons why Ahmadinejad should be welcome at Columbia. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education:
The invitation to speak, postponed from a year ago, is part of Columbia's mission to understand the world "as it is and as it might be," Mr. Bollinger said, even if that means having to listen courteously to ideas that are "offensive and even odious." He called for Mr. Ahmadinejad to be received with "the powers of dialogue and reason."
Bollinger has put up what he probably imagines are conditions for the Iranian president's speech. The first is that he will be introduced by none other than Bollinger himself. Now, normally, when a university president introduces a campus guest, it is thought an honor to the guest. OK, it's not, at least in these circumstances. In any case, Bollinger has announced that he will ask him some tough questions, the gist of which he has released. The Chronicle reports:
Mr. Bollinger said he would introduce the president by issuing "sharp challenges" to his denial of the Holocaust, stated goal of wiping Israel off the map, support for terrorism, defiance of sanctions stemming from Iran's nuclear ambitions, and suppression of human rights and civil liberties.
Not so tough. And Mahmoud is a canny fella. If I were Bollinger I'd be quaking in the my pants.
The real question is what will Ahmadinejad add to the learning of Columbia's students. Would Bollinger have invited Goebbels or Franco? I'd like to see how he would explain a "yes" answer to these queries. The fact is that Bollinger is afraid of his most mischievous faculty, and it shows.
There is more disturbing news on the ethos of American universities from the other side of the country. An article in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle by John Wildermuth reports that a speech by Larry Summers, former president of Harvard, before a dinner of the Board of Regents of the University of California has been cancelled. Why? A petition with 300 signatures protesting his talk was submitted to the Regents, and Richard Blum, chairman, caved. "Inviting a keynote speaker who has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice in academia conveys the wrong message to the University community and to the people of California," the petition read. (Blum is the husband of Senator Diane Feinstein.)
Columbia invites Ahmadinejad, U Of C cancels Summers. Ahmdinejad is a thug and hopes to be a genocidal thug, now having to content himself with being a terrorist thug. Summers is one of the most eminent economists in the entire world. He has also been secretary of the treasury and did immense good work at the World Bank. I don't know which is a greater scandal: Columbia's welcoming of the Iranian president or the University of California reneging on an invitation to Larry Summers. Actually, I cannot think of anything so repulsive in academe in decades like the barring of Summers from an American campus.
By the way, New York Police have denied Ahmadinejad his wish to lay a wreath at Ground Zero.
What the U.S. should do is put Ahmadinejad on a "watch list," like it did Kurt Waldheim when he was president of Austria. Then Ahmadinejad could watch the proceedings of the U.N. on television.
AHMADINEJAD TO COLUMBIA; SUMMERS CANCELLED AT UCAL; THE WORLD IS NUTS:
Last year, Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, was persuaded to cancel a speech by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at its School for International and Public Affairs. He had been put in this position by a pip-squeak scholar named Lisa Anderson who runs the School and the Middle East Center but has contributed exactly nothing to scholarship. Professor Anderson's job seems to be to get Bollinger into trouble, as if he hasn't enough to cope with as president. There are two mad-cap tenure procedures he faces: one at Barnard where an archaeologist seeks to prove that there was never a Jewish commonwealth in the Holy Land (which, by the way, just inter alia, denies the history of Christianity, too); the second, at Columbia, where Joseph Massad, who has abused students with views different from his own (reason enough to be sent off maybe to replace Norman Finkelstein at DePaul), has published a book basically charging modern-day gay intellectuals with forcing gay culture on the Muslim world.
Last year, Anderson did the initial inviting. But Bollinger, after long days of equivocating, suddenly had all kinds of cogent reasons why Ahmadinejad is not welcome at an institution of higher learning like Columbia. Now he has all kinds of phony reasons why Ahmadinejad should be welcome at Columbia. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education:
The invitation to speak, postponed from a year ago, is part of Columbia's mission to understand the world "as it is and as it might be," Mr. Bollinger said, even if that means having to listen courteously to ideas that are "offensive and even odious." He called for Mr. Ahmadinejad to be received with "the powers of dialogue and reason."
Bollinger has put up what he probably imagines are conditions for the Iranian president's speech. The first is that he will be introduced by none other than Bollinger himself. Now, normally, when a university president introduces a campus guest, it is thought an honor to the guest. OK, it's not, at least in these circumstances. In any case, Bollinger has announced that he will ask him some tough questions, the gist of which he has released. The Chronicle reports:
Mr. Bollinger said he would introduce the president by issuing "sharp challenges" to his denial of the Holocaust, stated goal of wiping Israel off the map, support for terrorism, defiance of sanctions stemming from Iran's nuclear ambitions, and suppression of human rights and civil liberties.
Not so tough. And Mahmoud is a canny fella. If I were Bollinger I'd be quaking in the my pants.
The real question is what will Ahmadinejad add to the learning of Columbia's students. Would Bollinger have invited Goebbels or Franco? I'd like to see how he would explain a "yes" answer to these queries. The fact is that Bollinger is afraid of his most mischievous faculty, and it shows.
There is more disturbing news on the ethos of American universities from the other side of the country. An article in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle by John Wildermuth reports that a speech by Larry Summers, former president of Harvard, before a dinner of the Board of Regents of the University of California has been cancelled. Why? A petition with 300 signatures protesting his talk was submitted to the Regents, and Richard Blum, chairman, caved. "Inviting a keynote speaker who has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice in academia conveys the wrong message to the University community and to the people of California," the petition read. (Blum is the husband of Senator Diane Feinstein.)
Columbia invites Ahmadinejad, U Of C cancels Summers. Ahmdinejad is a thug and hopes to be a genocidal thug, now having to content himself with being a terrorist thug. Summers is one of the most eminent economists in the entire world. He has also been secretary of the treasury and did immense good work at the World Bank. I don't know which is a greater scandal: Columbia's welcoming of the Iranian president or the University of California reneging on an invitation to Larry Summers. Actually, I cannot think of anything so repulsive in academe in decades like the barring of Summers from an American campus.
By the way, New York Police have denied Ahmadinejad his wish to lay a wreath at Ground Zero.
What the U.S. should do is put Ahmadinejad on a "watch list," like it did Kurt Waldheim when he was president of Austria. Then Ahmadinejad could watch the proceedings of the U.N. on television.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Hanging Gays, "Free Speech" & ROTC: Gay-bashing - Shameless Hypocrisy at Columbia
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Next week Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's Holocaust-denying president, who has said that "Israel must be wiped off the map," will be in New York for the U.N. General Assembly session. As the titular leader of a U.N. member state, Ahmadinejad is entitled to visit the city for this reason. But he is not entitled to something else he received, namely an appearance to speak at Columbia University, where he will be introduced by none other than Lee Bollinger, Columbia's president.
Yesterday Bollinger put out a statement defending his decision to authorize the event, and it was filled with high-minded rhetoric:
Columbia, as a community dedicated to learning and scholarship, is committed to confronting ideas--to understand the world as it is and as it might be. To fulfill this mission we must respect and defend the rights of our schools, our deans and our faculty to create programming for academic purposes. Necessarily, on occasion this will bring us into contact with beliefs many, most or even all of us will find offensive and even odious. We trust our community, including our students, to be fully capable of dealing with these occasions, through the powers of dialogue and reason.
But there is one little problem here. As Bill Kristol points out:
As Columbia welcomes Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia students who want to serve their country cannot enroll in the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at Columbia. Columbia students who want to enroll in ROTC must travel to other universities to fulfill their obligations. ROTC has been banned from the Columbia campus since 1969. In 2003, a majority of polled Columbia students supported reinstating ROTC on campus. But in 2005, when the Columbia faculty senate debated the issue, President Bollinger joined the opponents in defeating the effort to invite ROTC back on campus.
The original decision to kick ROTC off campus was the product of 1960s anti-Americanism, but the ostensible reason the policy continues is objection to the law, signed by President Clinton, that prohibits open homosexuals from serving in the military. Apparently some ideas are so odious that they are unworthy of answering "through the powers of dialogue and reason."
So, what is Ahmadinejad's regime's policy on homosexuals in the military? We don't know, but according to Human Rights Watch, Iran is not a terribly friendly place for gay civilians:
On Sunday, November 13, the semi-official Tehran daily Kayhan reported that the Iranian government publicly hung [sic] two men, Mokhtar N. (24 years old) and Ali A. (25 years old), in the Shahid Bahonar Square of the northern town of Gorgan.
The government reportedly executed the two men for the crime of "lavat." Iran's shari'a-based penal code defines lavat as penetrative and non-penetrative sexual acts between men. Iranian law punishes all penetrative sexual acts between adult men with the death penalty. Non-penetrative sexual acts between men are punished with lashes until the fourth offense, when they are punished with death. Sexual acts between women, which are defined differently, are punished with lashes until the fourth offense, when they are also punished with death.
If the U.S. military executed homosexuals instead of merely discharging them, perhaps Bollinger would welcome ROTC back to Columbia.
A Terrorist for Tea
A TERRORIST FOR TEA
By JOHN PODHORETZ
September 21, 2007 -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address a forum at Columbia University on Monday; school President Lee Bollinger promises to ask tough questions. - News item
BOLLINGER: Mr. President, you say the Holocaust didn't happen. That's very hurtful. Don't you know that hurts people's feelings?
Ahmadinejad: The truth hurts, Bollinger. I hosted a conference at which it was conclusively demonstrated that 6 million Jews actually escaped Nazi Germany by journeying over the Alps into Switzerland, singing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain."
B: That was the Von Trapp family in "The Sound of Music"! And that was Austria, not Germany! And the Von Trapps weren't even Jewish!
A: For someone who claims the Holocaust happened, you seem to know a great deal about the escape plans, Bollinger.
B: Oooh! You make me so mad I might actually venture an opinion about something!
A: This is my narrative, Bollinger. You have your narrative. Everyone has a narrative. What is truth to me might not be truth to you. Haven't you read your Derrida? The Ayatollah brought us back a copy from his exile in Paris.
B: And what about saying you are going to wipe Israel off the map?
A: What about it?
B: Well . . . that's not very nice, is it?
A: Actually, I was once very pro-Israel.
B: You were?
A: Yes, I was. Until I read the works of a Columbia professor named Edward Said.
B: Really, that is absolutely . . .
A: It was reading Said that convinced me Israel was an apartheid nation guilty of monstrous crimes and, therefore, that it should cease to exist. Well, now I am in a position to give aid to that cause. What kind of person would I be if I failed to heed the guidance provided by a respected Columbia professor?
B: Now wait a . . .
A: He was very august, wasn't he, Edward Said? I mean, you even have a professorship named after Edward Said here at Columbia. Oh, who's that I see in the front row? It's the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies here at Columbia, Mr. Rashid Khalidi!
Khalidi: Not now, Mahmoud. I'll Skype you later.
B: I can understand your anger at Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, Mr. President, but surely 5 million Israelis shouldn't be wiped off the map.
A: Why not? After all, at your sister school, Barnard College, you are in the process of granting tenure to Nadia Abu El-Haj, who has written a book that proves there was no ancient Jewish kingdom in Israel. Her work has had a great deal of influence on me. After all, if there is no Jewish claim on the land dating back to the time before Christ, there really is no reason for Israel to be where it is, right, Bollinger?
B: I have no say over Barnard tenure decisions, Mr. President, but I must say that there are some questions about the quality of her scholarship because she does not take account of the archaeological evidence.
A: That is uncalled for. Ms. El-Haj says in her own book that she rejects your "positivist commitment to scientific method," Bollinger. She has a narrative. A narrative, Bollinger! So shut your pie hole.
B: Now about your state support of terrorism . . .
A: What is terrorism, Bollinger? I take my wisdom from another newly tenured professor here at Columbia, Mr. Joseph Massad. You remember him. He's the one who Jewish students claimed had intimidated them in his classes.
B: That was never conclusively . . .
A: Right here on this campus, he called Israel a "racist state" and then said: "Every racist state should be destroyed." I don't know why you are upset with me, Bollinger - I'm learning so much from people who are paid by your institution!
B: Wait, let me check my list of very tough questions for a second . . .
A: Sorry, our time is up, Bollinger. You promised to give me a lift to Ground Zero.
B: I did no such . . .
A: Just kidding!
By JOHN PODHORETZ
September 21, 2007 -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to address a forum at Columbia University on Monday; school President Lee Bollinger promises to ask tough questions. - News item
BOLLINGER: Mr. President, you say the Holocaust didn't happen. That's very hurtful. Don't you know that hurts people's feelings?
Ahmadinejad: The truth hurts, Bollinger. I hosted a conference at which it was conclusively demonstrated that 6 million Jews actually escaped Nazi Germany by journeying over the Alps into Switzerland, singing "Climb Ev'ry Mountain."
B: That was the Von Trapp family in "The Sound of Music"! And that was Austria, not Germany! And the Von Trapps weren't even Jewish!
A: For someone who claims the Holocaust happened, you seem to know a great deal about the escape plans, Bollinger.
B: Oooh! You make me so mad I might actually venture an opinion about something!
A: This is my narrative, Bollinger. You have your narrative. Everyone has a narrative. What is truth to me might not be truth to you. Haven't you read your Derrida? The Ayatollah brought us back a copy from his exile in Paris.
B: And what about saying you are going to wipe Israel off the map?
A: What about it?
B: Well . . . that's not very nice, is it?
A: Actually, I was once very pro-Israel.
B: You were?
A: Yes, I was. Until I read the works of a Columbia professor named Edward Said.
B: Really, that is absolutely . . .
A: It was reading Said that convinced me Israel was an apartheid nation guilty of monstrous crimes and, therefore, that it should cease to exist. Well, now I am in a position to give aid to that cause. What kind of person would I be if I failed to heed the guidance provided by a respected Columbia professor?
B: Now wait a . . .
A: He was very august, wasn't he, Edward Said? I mean, you even have a professorship named after Edward Said here at Columbia. Oh, who's that I see in the front row? It's the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies here at Columbia, Mr. Rashid Khalidi!
Khalidi: Not now, Mahmoud. I'll Skype you later.
B: I can understand your anger at Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, Mr. President, but surely 5 million Israelis shouldn't be wiped off the map.
A: Why not? After all, at your sister school, Barnard College, you are in the process of granting tenure to Nadia Abu El-Haj, who has written a book that proves there was no ancient Jewish kingdom in Israel. Her work has had a great deal of influence on me. After all, if there is no Jewish claim on the land dating back to the time before Christ, there really is no reason for Israel to be where it is, right, Bollinger?
B: I have no say over Barnard tenure decisions, Mr. President, but I must say that there are some questions about the quality of her scholarship because she does not take account of the archaeological evidence.
A: That is uncalled for. Ms. El-Haj says in her own book that she rejects your "positivist commitment to scientific method," Bollinger. She has a narrative. A narrative, Bollinger! So shut your pie hole.
B: Now about your state support of terrorism . . .
A: What is terrorism, Bollinger? I take my wisdom from another newly tenured professor here at Columbia, Mr. Joseph Massad. You remember him. He's the one who Jewish students claimed had intimidated them in his classes.
B: That was never conclusively . . .
A: Right here on this campus, he called Israel a "racist state" and then said: "Every racist state should be destroyed." I don't know why you are upset with me, Bollinger - I'm learning so much from people who are paid by your institution!
B: Wait, let me check my list of very tough questions for a second . . .
A: Sorry, our time is up, Bollinger. You promised to give me a lift to Ground Zero.
B: I did no such . . .
A: Just kidding!
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