On May 4, a panel entitled “Not Backing Down: Israel, Free Speech, and the Battle for Palestinian Human Rights” will be held at the University of Massachusetts. This panel, which was organized by the Media Education Foundation, seems to be designed to influence students into supporting a one-sided message against Israel. The panel lacks a diverse viewpoint, and attendants will only hear arguments against the Israeli government’s policies without any scholar to defend those ideas. It’s propaganda, unworthy of higher education.
Linda Sarsour, the Women’s March leader now known for undermining the movement’s reputation by associating it with anti-Semitism, has somehow been able to find applause in the academic world. Universities, including UMass, are turning a blind eye to Sarsour’s discriminatory and hypocritical behavior throughout her tenure as a leader of the Women’s March. Sarsour purports to be a woman for all peoples, fighting for minorities and the oppressed, yet she singles out Jews, trivializing attacks made against them and demonizing Israel with blood libels. Sarsour acts as an ally to other movements such as Black Lives Matter by drawing purported analogies between the Black and Palestinian communities; but all this is only to advance her narrative of perpetual Palestinian victimhood at the hands of Israel.
Marc Lamont Hill, another pro-Palestinian speaker, was fired from CNN after defending Hamas and calling for the elimination of the State of Israel at the United Nations.
Free speech allows these people to address interested spectators, but free speech does not compel UMass, a state-funded university, to endorse this one-sided event. A University-backed lecture should consist of various viewpoints, providing students with a means to better educate themselves and learn how to dialogue and debate with one another respectfully. This upcoming panel will be doing the exact opposite.
“Not Backing Down” is therefore not worthy of an academic setting. The panelists are anything but honest advocates for liberal principles. They only seek to create an echo chamber on campus for their anti-Israel ideology.
And that’s not all they’re doing. In 1994, notorious Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, whom Sarsour and Lamont Hill have defended, spoke at UMass. Just this past year Farrakhan claimed that “Satanic Jews have infected the whole world with poison and deceit,” and a few months later called Jews “stupid” and compared them to termites. The UMass community didn’t accept Farrakhan’s presence in 1994, after 800 students voiced their disgust and protested his speech. Twenty-five years later, Farrakhan’s defenders are here to spread his ideas under the guise of human rights.
Given the panel’s lack of viewpoint diversity and its embracing of defenders of Farrakhan, one can only wonder: Has UMass since lost its moral compass?
Aviva Slomich Rosenschein
Class of 2008
Dr. Ed • Apr 22, 2019 at 2:33 pm
Sadly, UMass has a long history of antisemitism.
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It wasn’t just that Louis Farrikhan spoke at UMass but that he was paid out of the so-called “Cultural Enrichment Fund” — the surcharge on the washers & driers in the dorms. And then there were Leonard Jefferies and Tony Martin to fill out the triad.
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The Graduate Voice had turned into such an antisemitic screed that then-Chancellor David Scott had to create a commission to deal with it — that’s where the Jewish Affairs Office came from.
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Back in 1993, the Grad Dorm (then Prince/Crampton) had turned into such a bastion of antisemitism that Hamas members were working the security desk. Yes, they openly bragged that they were members of Hamas, reminding me that it was their organization that had “blown up your embassy in Lebanon” a decade earlier (i.e. 1983). I found the atmosphere toxic and vile — and I’m not even Jewish….
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So I’m really not surprised to see yet one more antisemitic diatribe at UMass — sadly, it’s like the smell of manure spread on fields in the spring, something that one is likely to experience at Planet UMass…..
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And one other thing: The strongest supporters of Israel in America are Protestant Christians — not Jews. We understand something that, sadly, a lot of American Jews somehow don’t — that part about “Little Satan and Big Satan” — that they may destroy Israel first, but we’re next and they want to kill us too…
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The Holocaust did not start with the Jews, the first group killed were the disabled and the whole thing could have stopped at that point — it was too late later, the Nazis had become too powerful to stop. So too here — Israel is a country that represents Western (small “l”) liberal values in a part of the world where such values are rare. Israel is an important ally who helps keep us safe at home.
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NB: Yes, I know that the Nuremberg (Racial Purity) Laws passed in 1935, Kristallnacht occurred in 1938, and that the National Socialists were generally antisemitic from the outset (German antisemitism actually dates back to Martin Luther) — my point is that organized mass-murder started with the killing of the mentally retarded and only later expanded into the organized mass-murder of the Jews.
Elliott Aron Green • Apr 21, 2019 at 6:12 pm
I live in Jerusalem. Arabs live on my street about 6 or 7 doors up the street. Arabs ride the same buses and trams as Jews, they can and do go to the same hospitals, They shop in shopping centers alongside jews and eat in the same restaurants and shopping center food courts. That is not apartheid. There is an ongoing political crisis in the Land of Israel that has not ended because the Arab leadership, that is, Fatah, PLO, Hamas, etc do not want peace with Israel but want to destroy Israel. Calling Israel an apartheid state is a lie of Goebbelsian Nazi dimensions. South Africa was an apartheid state and you can do research in an encyclopedia to find out just what apartheid was. It does not exist here. However, historically, in Islamic-ruled societies, non-Muslims, including Jews & Christians , Hindus, and others, were subject to oppressive, humiiliating, and exploitative laws called the dhimma. Look up dhimma and dhimmi in the Encyclopedia of Islam. Do research to find out to what extent the dhimma is still in effect in some Arab and Muslim lands like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
amy • Apr 16, 2019 at 9:24 pm
“Without the Israel Firsters in America Israel would be condemned by politicians and public figures around the country. Because of the Israel Firsters in America Israel is not denounced as the Apartheid State that it is.”
Okay lol. Palestinian is not an apartheid state, if anything it’s a terrorist state. Americans support Israel probably for a few reasons its considered the birthplace of Christianity and also Israel is the only democracy or real democracy in the middleast and our great ally. The u.s has few allies in this area.
Those who are against Israel are usually anti-Semitic or liberals.
It’s a sad thing that this author is trying to make jews look like oppressors. I think we all know how liberals think and its along the oppressor/victim binary ideology and so they view Muslims who live in Palestinian as the victim and jews in a tiny state comparably to New Jersey surrounded by hostility in every direction with a long history of violence and genocide against them as the “oppressor”.
Rydberg • Apr 16, 2019 at 9:09 pm
Interesting how no one speaks up when UMass openly supports blatant lefties agendas with no one representing the right to defend their viewpoints ? the social justice kool aid theory applies to all forms of uninformed, biased practices
Mary • Apr 16, 2019 at 1:36 pm
Organize a protest against this event. Writing about it is far from being enough.
Harry • Apr 16, 2019 at 1:29 pm
Gennaro Pasquale, a few questions: Apartheid against whom? And how are Arab Israelis second class citizens? What rights are Palestinians denied, except for the “right” to murder Jews? Why can’t Gazans simply go through Egypt?
Gennaro Pasquale • Apr 16, 2019 at 12:32 pm
Talk about “without any scholar to defend” readers should consider that the Israeli Lobby and Jewish supporters of Israel are always ready to pounce on any anti-Israel statements by anyone anywhere in the United States and to work behind the scenes to destroy anyone who speaks out against Apartheid Israel. Only in recent years have a few spokespersons like Linda Sarsour had the ability to speak in public about Israel’s never ending occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and its denial to Palestinians of their “unalienable” rights. Israel has no moral compass to lose. It’s Arab citizens are second class and the country does not belong to its citizens It only “belongs” to Jews even though 25% of its citizens Muslim and Christian Arabs. Without the Israel Firsters in America Israel would be condemned by politicians and public figures around the country. Because of the Israel Firsters in America Israel is not denounced as the Apartheid State that it is. Any reasonable person visiting Gaza would agee that it is an open air prison surrounded by Israel whose snipers seem to enjoy shooting Palestinian protesters at the border. interested persons should read “Israel An Apartheid State by Uri Davis an Israeli Jew.
amy • Apr 16, 2019 at 1:21 am
Umass drank the social justice kool-aid and never looked bad. This is far different college than when you went here..