By Denise Simon – (Cross-posted at the FoundersCode.com web site)
On the Brandeis University website it states the school is the only nonsectarian Jewish sponsored university in the country. The school was named for Louis Dembitz Brandeis, a former Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Then there is a sentence on the website that refers to the school as having innovative and exciting programs of learning that emphasizes an interdisciplinary approach to knowledge and the solutions of real-life problems.
However, when it came to the schools decision to un-invite Ayaan Hirshi Ali for an honorary degree, it flies in the face of the very text above and especially that of what any Supreme Court Justice would encourage.
In a deeper look, one of the notable alumni of the school is Michael Ratner, class of ’65. He is the President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Sounds like a great guy but his organization is at the core of those who aid the Attorney General of the Department of Justice, Eric Holder. Additionally, that organization is the lead agency, full of lawyers, providing free counsel to Guantanamo detainees.
And this very week, the school terminated its invitation to Ayann Hirshi Ali under major pressure from CAIR, whose membership has a nasty history.
When radical speech comes from Muslims however, the same voices claiming to defend the world against hate speech suddenly turn into spin doctors. Among the examples:
- Sami Al-Arian remains a hero in Islamist circles despite being exposed as a board member for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and was taped saying Jews were “made into monkeys and pigs” by Allah and is calling for “Death to Israel.”
- CAIR represented Imam Kifah Mustapha, in failed litigation against the Illinois State Police. The agency dropped Mustapha as its first Muslim chaplain after the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported about his work as a paid fundraiser for a Hamas front, including performances “singing about Jihad and martyrdom” in a singing troupe which performed at fundraisers.
- CAIR lauded University of California, Irvine students charged with misdemeanors for orchestrating a series of disruptions aimed at silencing a 2010 speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. CAIR’s Los Angeles director called the students, whose stated goal was to silence someone else’s speech, “true American heroes.”
- CAIR has defended Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi as a moderate despite his fatwas justifying suicide bombings in Israel and attacks on American soldiers in Iraq. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad joined Qaradawi in 2012 to discuss a film project about the Muslim prophet Muhammad. This meeting occurred after Qaradawi expressed a wish to kill Jews before he dies.
- When a radical Muslim website threatened the producers of “South Park” in 2010, CAIR’s national spokesman dismissed the significance, wondering in the Los Angeles Times if “they were set up only to make Muslims look bad.”
CAIR works diligently to block free speech across America as well as free thought. Brandeis stated it’s reason for shunning Ayaan Hirsi Ali is due in part that her criticisms were inconsistent with Brandeis Universitiy’s core values.
Well, do those core values include shutting down free speech? Did anyone at the University bother to research the history of CAIR, their relationship to Hamas and its documented relationships with unindicted co-conspirators from the Holyland Foundation trial?
It was only recently that CAIR also forced capitulation of the University of Michigan and the Greater Oakland County Republican Club. (Read more here.) My good friends at the Investigative Project continue to do yeoman’s work with proven facts and documents.
Too often, claims of “Islamophobia” are parroted without challenge by the news media. None of the reports this week pressed Hirsi Ali’s critics about the context of her statements or about the overall tenor of their attacks.
None pointed out that internal documents discovered during an investigation into a Muslim Brotherhood support network place CAIR on the group’s “Palestine Committee.” The committee was tasked with helping Hamas politically and financially.
Until that situation changes, the Islamist winning streak of bullying others into silencing their foes is likely to continue.
Come on America, unless we admit what CAIR is, and what Islam and Sharia is doing to the entire culture and history of our country, then we are going to have a crisis all too soon that will begin to make us look like Great Britain and sadly, Syria.
J Street Student Leaders to Repair Brandeis-Al Quds Relationship
UPDATED: Students for Al Quds get $10,000 grant after heckling former IDF spokesman
By Adam Kredo – Free Beacon
Two student leaders of J Street at Brandeis University who recently came under fire for heckling an Israeli soldier have been selected 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 an independent 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 the Davis Projects for Peace program, which encourages students to “design grassroots projects for peace.”
Philip and Stewart wrote in their grant proposal that they are seeking to “create a framework for long-term student dialogue between Brandeis University and Al Quds University.”
The duo hopes to “gain insight into their [Al Quds student’s] daily lives through a structured and intentional five-day trip in Jerusalem and the West Bank and post-trip weekly discussion meetings,” according to the proposal.
Philip and Stewart wrote in their proposal that the December rally at Al Quds “appeared to many at Brandeis to be an anti-Semitic rally.”
Others, including Middle East expert Tom Gross, who first reported on the rally, say that it most definitely was.
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.
“It bothers me very much that the school I am attending has a partnership with a school that inherently promotes death to Jews,” Brandeis student Eve Herman told the Washington Free Beacon at the time.
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.
“We realized that this was the kind of moment for which the [Brandeis] partnership existed, a moment that could have resulted in learning and growth for both institutions,” they wrote in their grant proposal.
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’ 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.”
Philip, Stewart, and a Brandeis University spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the grant.
However, Ellen de Graffenreid, a senior vice president for communications, told the school’s newspaper that the initiative “is consistent with Brandeis University’s principles of academic freedom and open dialogue on challenging issues.”
UPDATE 4:25 P.M.: Brandeis University emailed the Free Beacon following the publication of this article to distance itself from the Davis Projects and the J Street U students’ project.
“The Davis Projects for Peace is an outside foundation that is not affiliated with Brandeis University. Brandeis University does not play a role in selection of students who are the recipients of these funds,” senior vice president for communications Ellen de Graffenreid wrote to the Free Beacon in an email.
The Davis Projects for Peace program is advertised and hosted on Brandeis’s College of Arts and Sciences website. Brandeis is described as one of the David Projects’ “partner institutions.”
“The relationship with Al Quds University remains suspended and there are no plans at this time to reinstate it,” she said.
Brandeis’s communications department cannot quickly respond to press requests, she said.
“You emailed us at 11:29 a.m. and posted your story at 2:52 p.m. Understandably, we are quite busy today and were not able to respond to your single request for comment instantaneously,” she said.
“I respectfully request that you change your headline to reflect that Brandeis neither selected nor funded this student research project,” Graffenreid wrote.