Hillel working hard to stomp out debate at Northeastern University

[Morrissey Breen]

Preliminary comment by MORRISSEY BREEN. . . .
Looks like the Hillel cult at Northeastern University has simply given
up on the Jewish tradition of robust debate. Faced with the horrifying
prospect of a visit to campus by Norman Finkelstein, they've been busy
haranguing, telephoning, e-mailing, texting and writing mad letters to
Joseph Aoun, the president of the University, pleading with him to ban
him.

Reading this farrago of hysterical fantasy and cynical lies, it's
difficult to work out which is the more appropriate response: anger,
or laughter.

Perhaps the latter option is the only sane one.

Now, READ ON....

Jewish students at Northeastern tremble in fear
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/jewish-students-at-northeastern-tremble-in-fear/

Dear Mr. President,

It is with great urgency and concern that we write you this letter.
We are writing as certain representatives of the Jewish community at
Northeastern and as members of the executive boards of Northeastern
Hillel, and Huskies for Israel. Firstly, the Jewish community at
Northeastern would like to express our sincere gratitude to your
working to help develop and grow our community at Northeastern. Our
community has never been larger or more vibrant than in the last two
years and we continue to see the results of this growth every day.

The issue for why I am writing is in regards to our relations with and
the activities of the Northeastern Students for Justice in Palestine.
This year we have made a concerted effort to build a positive,
peaceful and mutually respectful relationship and a trustful dialogue
with NU SJP. Earlier in the semester we even came up with the idea to
co-sponsor an event with them called “Stand Up for Peace”, a two man
comedy show with Palestinian and Jewish American friends advocating
peace and breaking down barriers through comedy. The event was a
great success and we hoped to further build trust and a working
relationship with SJP going forward. Additionally, Huskies for Israel
and NU SJP came together with Barbra Gotshalk, the creator of Seeds of
Peace, to begin talks of cooperation. This is why the Jewish community
at Northeastern watched with great concern and horror as NU SJP
“occupied” the Israeli Consulate of New England at 20 Park Plaza,
spewing hateful rhetoric including “viva intifada,” which carries the
connotation of the suicidal terror campaigns to blow up civilians in
the Jewish State. As a result of their actions NU SJP (in a YouTube
video) has been featured on PressTV, Iranian State News.

The Jewish community at Northeastern is beginning to feel unsafe and
uncomfortable on campus and we feel it is the obligation of the
University to prevent that. It is our hope that the University will
fulfill its obligation to its students to make them feel safe and
secure on campus again and take preventative and punitive actions
against those who choose to do otherwise.

With great urgency our community is asking for your intervention with
the scheduled lecture of Norman Finkelstein on December 1st in 20 West
Village F from 7:00-10:00pm hosted by Students for Justice in
Palestine, the Arab Student Association, and the International Affairs
Department (Professor Dennis Sullivan). I am sure you know who Norman
Finkelstein is and my question would be this: What would their motive
be to bring such a speaker? What good will come from paying such a
speaker to lecture here? The university is paying (with our student
activity fee) for and funding Finkelstein’s Speech. A university
sanctioned and funded lecture by Norman Finkelstein will be an
unprecedented step towards creating an environment that is harmful and
hostile to Jewish students on our campus.

In his controversial book The Holocaust Industry, Finkelstein argues
that “Jewish elites” have created an “industry” to perpetuate the
memory of the Holocaust as a ploy to extort money and to gain
influence, as well as a tactic “to crush any dissent, any criticism,
of the State of Israel.” The New York Times’ review of the book
described its premise as a “novel variation” of the Protocols of the
Elders of Zion, the fraudulent essay concocted in the late nineteenth
century by the Czarist secret police which purports to uncover a
Jewish conspiracy to take over the world.

As the Jewish leaders on our campus whose own families perished in the
Holocaust, we will not stand for such hateful incitement on our
campus. If the University funds this event and allows it to proceed,
irreparable damage will be done to the Jewish students on our campus
that comprise about 1,000 members of our student body, and the
University will ultimately stand accountable for that harm. At a time
when we believe Northeastern is trying to foster growth for its Jewish
community, we urgently request that you intervene to cancel and de-
fund this event on December 1st. We see this as contributing towards
a growing environment of hostility towards Jewish students that have
become rampant in parts of the University of California system and
other schools across the country, where Jewish enrollment has
drastically decreased. We are fully appreciative of our first
amendment rights, however this does not mean that the university
should fund such forms of speech against our community members and
express such apathy towards our feelings of security. We see
absolutely nothing positive coming from Norman Finkelstein coming to
spew his lies and hate on our campus. Everyone is entitled to their
opinion, but not their own facts, especially in an academic
environment. To what end do SJP, The Arab Student Association, and
Professor Sullivan want to bring Norman Finkelstein to our campus?
Is it to hide antisemitism behind the fact that Finkelstein was born
of Jewish parents? Just what does the Holocaust have to do with a
peaceful solution in the Middle East? Does Professor Sullivan think
he can get away with this, now, because he is stepping down at the end
of the semester?

Furthermore, hosting an event such as this will have very negative
publicity for the University. Wherever Finkelstein speaks there is a
wave of protests against his presence. He is the definition of an
anti-academic and he has been discredited as a liar and a radical
revisionist of history. Universities who host him are placed under
the scrutiny of many organizations including the Anti-Defamation
League for fostering anti-semitism, whether directly or indirectly.
Just as we would expect racial supremacists such as David Duke to not
be welcomed to our community, we also expect that Jewish Conspiracy
Theorists, and supporters of terror will also not be welcomed on or
funded to be on our campus. Additionally, Norman Finkelstein has
openly met with and supports the leaders of the Hezbollah who, prior
to 9/11 killed more Americans than any other terrorist organization in
history.

Finkelstein lauds Hezbollah, the fundamentalist terrorist group
responsible for numerous bloody attacks, including the bombing of the
Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argetina which killed 86
Jewish Argentinians and injured over 200 civilians:

Finkelstein states: “I did make a point of publicly honoring the
heroic resistance of Hezbollah to foreign occupation. … Indeed,
looking back my chief regret is that I wasn’t even more forceful in
publicly defending Hezbollah against terrorist intimidation and
attack.” He also states “The US qualifies as the main terrorist
government in the world today” Do you think young American men and
women who are fighting militant Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan are
terrorists?

We are appalled that the university would sanction such hateful
rhetoric against a significant portion of the student body. Another
concern is amongst Jewish alumni and parents of Northeastern who have
been privy to these events and many are just as displeased. The fact
that Professor Sullivan would sanction such a lecture further outrages
our community as Jewish students are now too uncomfortable to enroll
in his classes (due to this and other inappropriate actions by him).
If this event proceeds, there will be an organized response from the
Jewish community of Northeastern and the wider Boston Jewish community
as well as much publicity of the event and the decisions made to
allow Finkelstein an audience at Northeastern.

We will not stand idly by as this is allowed to happen at the school
we call home. We chose to attend Northeastern, and we choose to pay
tuition each semester. Please do not let that money fund hateful
speech against us and please stand up for our safety and comfort on
campus. It is our biggest fear that all of the events of the semester
will snowball to create a hostile environment for Jewish students like
that of UC-Irvine or UC-Davis. Irvine was once a Jewish destination
school, today their Jewish community numbers have all but disappeared
due to the extremely hostile environment they faced on campus from
Anti-Israel students and groups. Let me make our position clear, we
are not anti-Palestinian, we are pro-peace and this lecture will only
serve to harm Jewish students and will not further peaceful goals of
any organization or entity and will not contribute towards positive,
accurate, and intellectual discussion within the classroom or on
campus. We don’t want NU to be compared to UCI.

Additionally, one does not have to be born a gentile to be anti-
Semitic, a fact which Finkelstein has proven over and over again. It
is our greatest hope that if the university is to fund speakers
regarding the conflict in Palestine and Israel that professors bring
speakers with academic integrity, who will uphold the academic
integrity of the university, and have at least some semblance of an
unbiased discussion. Many speakers of such a nature have been brought
before but Norman Finkelstein is not one of them. It is also our hope
that such speakers would promote peace through a two state solution,
and not advocate the destruction of the Jewish State as the “final
solution” to the conflict. It sends chills down my spine to know
that the destruction of my family during the holocaust will be used as
a platform to promote hatred of Israel through bringing Norman
Finkelstein to our campus to hear about his “Holocaust Industry,” and
other radical and historically unfounded ideas. Our people’s past
drives us to defend the sanctity of these collective memories, not to
have them be compared in such a manner. Justice is better served
through the promotion of peace, not the hijacking of history.

We continue to be extraordinarily proud to call ourselves Huskies and
to call Northeastern our home. We hope it will continue this way. We
are extremely grateful for the time you have taken to read our
concerns and we look forward to receiving a prompt response.