The Columbia Faculty Letter, signed with what may look like an impressive long list of faculty personnel, also uses other forms of validation: the claim that many other ‘governments and non- governmental institutions’ would be signatories of their letter, because they think alike. This is to suggest that there is no need to re-think their arguments. It has all been done and cleared by many ‘great minds’.
They hold back in asking openly for universal recognition because in a University, one needs to imagine at least as possible some counter arguments or at the very least, different arguments of other ‘great minds’ around. Still, they present words that imply their position to be truthful, historical, humane and by implication, moral. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet they shamelessly do ‘demand’ — hoping no one will realize it– that the space that allowed them to produce their thinking be denied to others, as they argue in a coda for reversing the decision to create curricular programs in Israel. What has that got to do with the current issues here? Nothing. The calls for openness and balance, for different points of views, do not seem to apply to anyone else but themselves.
Unfortunately for the signatories whose names will get automatic recognition now, their letter is full of incorrect factual statements, incorrect thinking that distorts from the premises to their conclusions. The way the arguments are presented is not only incorrect but misleading and deliberately aimed to deceive. For a university environment- this is poison.
Before addressing all other of their points, let’s eliminate one issue upfront: future employment.
They protest what employers do or want to do when deciding whom to employ. The topic is not material for this forum. There are rules and decisions that each enterprise has on its side regarding its workforce. If the signatories have a problem with this, then the forum to argue it is elsewhere. Columbia is not the employer being addressed here.
Getting to the issues:
1.
This letter, supporting a previous Student Letter, states that ” The loss of human life is a deeply painful and a heartbreaking experience for “loved ones’ regardless of one’s affiliation. ……affected by tragic losses by both Palestinians and Israelis”.
Suddenly all is murky: the painful and heartbreaking experience is only for ”loved ones” regardless of affiliation? – would they care to explain the dichotomy created here and define who it applies to ?
Who are the loved ones here? could it be Hamas itself? and if October 7th is the trigger for the letter, are not Israelis the first to be identified as affected by tragic loss?
However, the letter skips that logic, and goes to identify Palestinians’ loss first, and so Israelis are a footnote to the issues here. That is why this letter is not a letter about empathy or sorrow, and certainly not about outrage for what was done to Israelis and other foreigners on a simple regular day, with no provocation: Oct. 7th. The date is just a useful entry to present ideological justifications for the current politics of Hamas and terror, and, to confuse.
October 7th is the day when ISRAELIS were murdered, maimed, and savagely burnt alive, cut open, violated, and decapitated, 1400 of them, plus more than 3000 injured, and 250 hostages were taken by the terror groups that entered Israel.
But in their letter, Hamas’s actions are not Hamas’s, but Palestinians’ actions justified for their grievances. Hamas are now called ‘militant soldiers’ for all Palestinians. Not a mention of them as terrorists that have denigrated Palestinians and devastated them with their own agenda. Once melded as groups, are we to see Palestinians as separate from Hamas or not? Are they all civilians now? So, is Israel alone in separating the two groups trying not to harm civilians? When the world is saying that Hamas uses ‘human shields’ to cover for themselves and confuse— here is the best example of how this gets articulated in words. They acted as Palestinians, they did not act as terrorists– they go back to Gaza, so there we find only Palestinian civil population. The lack of civility and the brutality they displayed with their aggression, is now to be eliminated from all thinking, and we should only see and think of the regular population. Where have the terrorists gone - disappeared?
This letter, and the students letter it supports and defends, aim at confusing and eliminating all traces of the murderous actions undertaken. Oct. 7th, was, according to these professors, just another day for justice and moral resolution.
2.
“Peace will remain elusive unless and until the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory ends and is accounted for…. “ What is wrong with this part of their statement? Inaccuracy and falseness.
a. Israeli occupation was the result of a war that was started by the enemies of Israel. That is how, when the war was lost by them, Israel had taken over territory. Israel never initiated the occupation of this territory.
b. After the war — there has never been any acceptance by losers of a path for a negotiated resolution that would, recognizing Israel’s legitimacy as a State, find a way to return the territory, and settle a peace between all parts. So to account for the occupation of this territory, you need to look at the other entities that lost it in the first place, and ask oneself, why have they never accepted a peace, a la Egypt or Jordan.?
c. Gaza, which is a part of a territory that was absorbed by Israel after that war, was eventually returned– even without a peace agreement. Hamas took over its governance.
To bring as a support of their reading of history (which ignores the above always) the UN, the UN General Assembly and Human rights organizations, is disingenuous. Many western solid democracies have been protesting and vetoing these statements for years. No one in the western world– no one– governments, individuals, and thousands of professors, has ever accepted this misleading reading of history, that conveniently cuts out history to build its case.
3.
Apartheid as a term to describe the situation of Palestinian and Israeli Arabs, is again trying to square the circle. How and where is the term to be used? Why not substitute apartheid, for instance, to describe American slavery here? Why not use it to describe the gender treatment in Iran? Israel may have many issues in its midst but apartheid is not one of them. The situation of having to manage a population of different political and civic qualifications, is much more complex and flexible than you would like us to believe. There are political Arab parties in Israel, education and higher education is available to all Arabs in Israel, there are permits to work for other foreigners and for Arabs, there are many joint ventures between Palestinian and Israelis. None of this fits — despite imperfections– the appellate apartheid.
If Desmond Tutu did not understand it, it must have been for lack of information and knowledge, and did he, we may ask, entertain any prejudice by any chance?.
If President Carter said that Israeli society was ‘worse than South Africa’ then he was so ignorant of Israel despite being president. We have had many such cases here where a buffoon or an ignoramus manages to bewitch masses. Further, just look at the situation of South Africa and Israel today and conclude if the term is a useful form of description of that society. What Carter may have said, from a president of a country that has not managed to accept its faults with American Racism and black slavery, suggests his preaching seems thin.
4.
The Student Letter and the current support letter by the undersigning professors, argue then for another shameless and misleading point: that one needs to “contextualize Oct 7th” to understand it. It echoes the old arguments over rapes: the context is that she was the cause of the aberration. So what do they mean when they say that? They have the deliberate audacity to define the barbaric massacres of the Hamas group on October 7th, as a “military operation and a state violence that did not start that day’, … a ‘military response by a people who had endured … state violence from an occupying power”.
Well, a few points here:
a. The world has been privy to see what vicious degenerate terrorists decided to do to avenge ” the occupation”. The violence they have inflicted forces other — Israelis– to use force as well. The violence is constant because that is the method they use all the time. It is not appalling to hear Professors of a distinguished university who claim to be solidly ’empathizing in their sentiments with others, to claim, to be feeling ‘deeply’ the pain of loved ones of different affiliation’ and arrive at this conclusion? So the love they feel– as they ‘clear’ their name– is not for Israelis murdered, but for Hamas’s soldiers that the world over has designated as monstrous executioners.
The attacks of Oct 7th, treated this way are seen as acceptable and legitimate attacks on the occupier Israel. What a barbaric conclusion from those that claim to be defending “communication,’ “freedom of speech”, but most important, ‘higher forms of critical thinking’…! What an absurdity and shameful disengaging from reality, civic values and moral parameters– in another word, of decency.
It is shocking to see how many fools are following the chanting of these deceitful sentences.
b..Now, to topple all devious artistry, they claim in this letter, that ‘all forms of resistance must conform to the laws of war, prohibiting against the targeting of civilians”. They can ask from others to conform to the laws of war? Prohibiting the targeting of civilians, does not apply to them? Is October 7th… an exception?
So, terrorists do not exist, there are only all Palestinians; then the Palestinians, are fighters that are legitimized by what Hamas is doing on their behalf; terrorists and civilians are one. Indistinguishable….. how absolutely terrible for decent Palestinians to have these mouths speaking for them. Further, Israel should uphold the prohibition to not harm civilians — which it does to the degree they can in a war — so where are the murderers? The savagery is justified for these freedom fighters? Can anyone in their right mind, legal experts included, ignore these mental gymnastics and distortions and sign such a letter?
So which one will it be: terrorists and Palestinians are one, or they are separate? Does one protect civilians, or are they protecting terrorists? Israelis should uphold laws of war, but these fighters have different rules to go by? October 7th, a holy day for some already, has become the platform to argue a legitimate form for the massacre of Jews.
If this is not classic antisemitic language, it is difficult to find better examples. The language of decency that the signatories claim to uphold is just a rubric with no relation to the content of the letter they wrote and signed. Not once was the word PEACE used here, not a single word expressed for the articulation of a path for future resolution… …You know why? because they need to hide here the fact that almost no one on the Palestinian side it seems — and certainly not the signatories of the letter and their students they are defending, — the hundreds of Hamas-praising students on campus — none care for peace, resolution, civility and coexistence. The higher critical thinking they claim to uphold seems to have eliminated these words and ideas from their vocabulary.
5.
Last, the ongoing demands that Columbia University reverse the decisions to create curricular and research programs in Israel and with Israel.... and this is a reaction they say with a distorted logic that is ghastly — to the fact that they see that the university favors ‘suffering of Jews over suffering Palestinians.’. As anyone thinking critically would notice, the premise perfectly follows the conclusion, right?
So here is your challenge: It would be great to have an opportunity to select from among many Arab universities and research institutes, to forge study centers. You can dismiss Israel because surely others offer fantastic courses and research in agriculture; water technology; food alternatives, sustainability; medicine, nuclear medicine, medicinal innovations; eye and sight innovative technology; as well as high tech advancements, with so many formats that are today indispensable from cellular phones to computers apps. etc. etc. Yes, drop Israel. Who needs any of what they offer. There are much better programs that we need to find out about; for that, we would appreciate it from the undersigned professors to present to us a survey of these substitutes. These thinkers must surely be up to date in research, analysis of all kinds, and they certainly must know where the coveted ‘critical thinking’ programs are best taught, to propose the alternatives or at least the competing possibilities so that the University administration should be able to review them. We can then copy the models or sign up with the centers of higher education of Iraq, Syria or Lebanon. Perhaps, just an Iranian type of university