Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Danger that Hebrew University will be Closed Down?
the university altogether if the faculty do not abandon their strike for
better pay. (See http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/943155.html)
You realize what this means?
If the Hebrew University campus is completely shut down, how will
anthropologists there conduct research showing that Jewish soldiers do not
rape Arab women because they are too racist againt Arabs!
2.
http://thejewishpress.blogspot.com/2008/01/guru-of-ben-gurion-universitys-gordon.html
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
The Guru of Ben Gurion University's Gordon Touting Terror in Lebanon
Norman Finkelstein, the anti-Semitic ex-professor, was in Lebanon this
week rubbing fangs with the Hizbollah terrorists. He had been sitting
around his rent-controlled apartment near Coney Island trying to figure
out how to entertain himself now that DePaul University in Chicago joined
the list of academic institutions that regard Finkelstein as a fraud, a
liar, and as a pseudo-scholar.
Finkelstein, widely regarded as a Neo-Nazi and often regarded as a
Holocaust Denier, goes to Lebanon regularly to show his support for
Hizbollah terrorism against Israel. There he gave talks in which he
celebrated the fact "that the Lebanese resistance inflicted a historic and
well-deserved military defeat on the invading foreign army and its chief
supporter." (Meaning - on Israel and its children.) While in Lebanon he
met with senior Hizbollah terrorists to show his solidarity with them.
Noah Pollak describes Finkie thus:
"It is normal to say that Finkelstein.s are the views of a self-hating
Jew. But by all appearances, the man does not hate himself, and in fact
views his role as that of a hero - a brave truth-teller fighting against
the imperial forces of Zionism and Americanism. Finkelstein is a hustler
and a coward because he trades off his Jewishness to lend credibility to
starkly anti-Jewish rhetoric. It.s time we stopped calling Finkelstein a
self-hating Jew and started calling him what he actually is: an
anti-Semite."
In Haaretz he is cited as saying:
"I think that the Hezbollah represents the hope. They are fighting to
defend their homeland."
Finkelstein is now involved in a one-man campaign on behalf of anti-Jewish
genocidal terror. But what of his number-one Israeli academic supporter?
Neve Gordon, a radically anti-Israel far-leftist instructor in political
science at Ben Gurion University, has devoted much of his career to
celebrating and promoting the writings and views of Norman Finkelstein.
Gordon, seen in the picture with another of his gurus, has ethically
compared Neo-Nazi Finkelstein to the Prophets in the Bible.
Neve Gordon, in turn, has been conducting a campaign on behalf of Norman
Finkelstein, promoting him and his views and denouncing DePaul University
for firing him. Gordon went so far as to claim that Finkelstein could get
tenured at his own school, Ben Gurion University (BGU). BGU officials
repudiated the claim that a pseudo-scholar like Finkelstein could get
tenured at Ben Gurion University by turning out anti-Israel hate
propaganda!
The problem is that in a sense Gordon was correct. Anti-Israel
propagandists and anti-Semitic pseudo-scholars indeed CAN get hired,
promoted and granted tenure at Ben Gurion University!
3. More on Israeli Guilt by way of Innocence:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/7677
4. Seeds of hate:
5. Kosovo in the Galilee:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3491040,00.html
6. Karl Marx writing to Engels:
'The Jewish nigger Lassalle who, I'm glad to say, is leaving at the end of
this week, has happily lost another 5,000 talers in an ill-judged
speculation. The chap would sooner throw money down the drain than lend it
to a "friend," even though his interest and capital were guaranteed. In
this he bases himself on the view that he ought to live the life of a
Jewish baron, or Jew created a baron...
'It is now quite plain to me - as the shape of his head and the way his
hair grows also testify - that he is descended from the negroes who
accompanied Moses. flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal
grandmother interbred with a nigger). Now, this blend of Jewishness and
Germanness, on the one hand, and basic negroid stock, on the other, must
inevitably give rise to a peculiar product. The fellow.s importunity is
also nigger-like.'
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1862/letters/62_07_30a.htm
More Marxism:
Karl Marx, .The Russian Loan,. New York Tribune, January 4, 1856:-
'Thus we find every tyrant backed by a Jew, as is every Pope by a Jesuit.
In truth, the cravings of oppressors would be hopeless, and the
practicability of war out of the question, if there were not an army of
Jesuits to smother thought and a handful of Jews to ransack pockets.
'The fact that 1,855 years ago Christ drove the Jewish money-changers out
of the temple, and that the money-changers of our age enlisted on the side
of tyranny happen again chiefly to be Jews, is perhaps no more than a
historical coincidence. The loan-mongering Jews of Europe do only on a
larger and more obnoxious scale what many others do on one smaller and
less significant. But it is only because the Jews are so strong that it is
timely and expedient to expose and stigmatize their organization.'
7. January 9, 2008
DOW JONES REPRINTS
Bush's Mideast Muddle
By MICHAEL OREN
January 9, 2008; Page A14
George W. Bush's visit to Israel today -- the first of his presidency --
has many Israelis confused. Is he coming to advance the peace process
begun six weeks ago at the Annapolis Summit, that 83% of Israelis see as
fruitless? Or is he aiming to fortify Israel against a mounting Iranian
nuclear threat that American intelligence services claim no longer exists?
The visit spotlights the blurring of the administration's Middle East
policies, leaving many of its friends -- Israel included -- confused.
Israel's bafflement is deepened by the fact that Mr. Bush's agenda departs
from a more than 30-year tradition. Unlike Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and
Bill Clinton, all of whom visited Israel, Mr. Bush will not address the
government on the grounds that that would obligate him to speak before the
Hamas-dominated Palestinian Parliament.
Mr. Bush also abandoned the protocol of receiving the head of the Israeli
opposition, in this case Benjamin Netanyahu, who will likely be Israel's
next prime minister. And while Mr. Bush's predecessors came to Israel
following diplomatic achievements -- Nixon after the separation of forces
in the Yom Kippur War, Mr. Carter after the Camp David Accords, and Mr.
Clinton after the Wye River Memorandum -- Mr. Bush has none to his credit.
Further bewildering for Israelis is the fact that Mr. Bush's policies
previously seemed unequivocal. He repeatedly affirmed America's support
for Israel's identity as a Jewish state, and so ruled out the Arabs'
demand for the resettlement of millions of Palestinians within Israel's
pre-1967 borders. He further recognized the reality of Israeli settlements
in the West Bank, and insisted that any agreement take that reality into
account.
Most importantly, Mr. Bush had reversed the once-sacrosanct formula
through which the Israelis first ceded territory to the Arabs and only
then received peace, insisting that the Arabs first eschew terror and
recognize Israel's existence before regaining land. The president upheld
Israel's right to defend itself, while stressing the Palestinians' duty to
dismantle terrorist infrastructures and abjure violence. "The Palestinian
people must decide that they want a future of decency and hope," he
declared last July, "not of terror and death."
Since Annapolis, however, much of this paradigm has been jettisoned. Mr.
Bush hasn't reconfirmed Israel's status as a Jewish state, and failed to
comment when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice compared the
Palestinians' plight to that of African Americans in the Alabama of her
youth -- implicitly likening Israelis to Southern racists.
The administration has also denounced settlements as "obstacles to peace,"
while ignoring the Palestinians' reluctance to clamp down on terror. Freed
from their Road Map commitments, Palestinians can now proceed directly to
the "Go" of statehood without paying a fine for infractions.
The administration's policies on Iran have also become chaotic. A mere
week after 49 countries and organizations rallied in Annapolis against
Iran's production of nuclear weapons, the National Intelligence Estimate
(NIE) concluded that Iran had suspended efforts to acquire those arms. The
NIE report undermined both military and diplomatic options against Iran.
Americans may be relieved that there was no need to destroy Iranian
reactors, and foreign contractors delighted that sanctions against Iran
were superfluous, but for Israelis having just forged an international
consensus against Iranian nuclearization, the report was disastrous. The
president to whom they had looked to take the lead in defending against
Iran's genocidal tendencies was suddenly rendered impotent.
No wonder Israelis are stumped. While the old George Bush deemed the end
of terror as imperative for peace and the containment of Iran as the
prerequisite for eliminating terror, the new George Bush focuses on
Israeli settlement-building and hesitates to confront Tehran. It is
uncertain which of the two is visiting Israel today and what policies he
may pursue.
The president nevertheless has little leeway. Facing an investigation into
the abortive Second Lebanon War that might force his resignation, Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is in no position to make concessions to
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose popularity on the West Bank is
dwindling. The two could not even agree to meet trilaterally with Mr.
Bush. At best, the president can bestow another blessing on continued
Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Regarding Iran, Mr. Bush might assure Israelis that the NIE has not tied
his hands, and that the U.S. will back efforts to safeguard Israel's
survival. That message might, in turn, be conveyed to the Gulf States --
Mr. Bush's next stop -- that were no less dismayed by the report.
Presidential visits are always characterized as "historic," but Mr. Bush's
trip to the Jewish state is marked by a lack of momentousness.
Cross-signals and contradictory policies have clouded a celebration for
one of Israel's firmest friends. Israelis will greet Mr. Bush exuberantly,
but his departure may leave them grappling with terror largely on their
own.
Mr. Oren is senior fellow at the Shalem Center and the author of "Power,
Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present" (W.W.
Norton, 2007).
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119984146243176521.html
8. January 9, 2008
DOW JONES REPRINTS
Defining Diversity Down
January 9, 2008
The world gets more competitive every day, so why would California's
education elites want to dumb down their public university admissions
standards? The answer is to serve the modern liberal piety known as
"diversity" while potentially thwarting the will of the voters.
The University of California Board of Admissions is proposing to lower to
2.8 from 3.0 the minimum grade point average for admission to a UC school.
That 3.0 GPA standard has been in place for 40 years. Students would also
no longer be required to take the SAT exams that test for knowledge of
specific subjects, such as history and science.
UC Board of Admissions Chairman Mark Rashid says that, under this new
system of "comprehensive review," the schools "can make a better and more
fair determination of academic merit by looking at all the students'
achievements." And it is true that test scores and grades do not take full
account of the special talents of certain students. But the current system
already leaves slots for students with specific skills, so if you think
this change is about admitting more linebackers or piccolo players, you
don't understand modern academic politics.
The plan would grant admissions officers more discretion to evade the ban
on race and gender preferences imposed by California voters. Those limits
became law when voters approved Proposition 209 in 1996, and state
officials have been looking for ways around them ever since. "This appears
to be a blatant attempt to subvert the law," says Ward Connerly, a former
member of the University of California Board of Regents, who led the drive
for 209. "Subjective admissions standards allow schools to substitute race
and diversity for academic achievement."
One loser here would be the principle of merit-based college admissions.
That principle has served the state well over the decades, helping to make
some of its universities among the world's finest. Since 209,
Asian-American students have done especially well, with students of Asian
ethnicity at UCLA nearly doubling to 42% from 22%. Immigrants and the
children of immigrants now outnumber native-born whites in most UC
schools, so being a member of an ethnic minority is clearly not an
inherent admissions handicap. Ironically, objective testing criteria were
first introduced in many university systems, including California's,
precisely to weed out discrimination favoring children of affluent alumni
ahead of higher performing students.
The other big losers would be the overall level of achievement demanded in
California public elementary and high schools. A recent study by the
left-leaning Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA, the
"California Educational Opportunity Report 2007," finds that "California
lags behind most other states in providing fundamental learning conditions
as well as in student outcomes." In 2005 California ranked 48th among
states in the percentage of high-school kids who attend college. Only
Mississippi and Arizona rated worse.
The UCLA study documents that the educational achievement gap between
black and Latino children and whites and Asians is increasing in
California at a troubling pace. Graduation rates are falling fastest for
blacks and Latinos, as many of them are stuck in the state's worst public
schools. The way to close that gap is by introducing more accountability
and choice to raise achievement standards -- admittedly hard work,
especially because it means taking on the teachers unions.
Instead, the UC Board of Admissions proposal sounds like a declaration of
academic surrender. It's one more depressing signal that liberal elites
have all but given up on poor black and Hispanic kids. Because they don't
think closing the achievement gap is possible, their alternative is to
reduce standards for everyone. Diversity so trumps merit in the hierarchy
of modern liberal values that they're willing to dumb down the entire
university system to guarantee what they consider a proper mix of skin
tones on campus.
A decade ago, California voters spoke clearly that they prefer admissions
standards rooted in the American tradition of achievement. In the months
ahead, the UC Board of Regents will have to decide which principle to
endorse, and their choice will tell us a great deal about the future path
of American society.
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119984049867076451.html
