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Where's the Academic Outrage Over the Bombing of a University in Gaza?
Not one of the nearly 450 presidents of American colleges and universities who prominently denounced an effort by British academics to boycott Israeli universities in September 2007 have raised their voice in opposition to Israel's bombardment of the Islamic University of Gaza earlier this week. Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University, who organized the petition, has been silent, as have his co-signatories from Princeton, Northwestern, and Cornell Universities, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Most others who signed similar petitions, like the 11,000 professors from nearly 1,000 universities around the world, have also refrained from expressing their outrage at Israel's attack on the leading university in Gaza. The artfully named Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, which organized the latter appeal, has said nothing about the assault.
While the extent of the damage to the Islamic University, which was hit in six separate airstrikes, is still unknown, recent reports indicate that at least two major buildings were targeted, a science laboratory and the Ladies' Building, where female students attended classes. There were no casualties, as the university was evacuated when the Israeli assault began on Saturday.
Virtually all the commentators agree that the Islamic University was attacked, in part, because it is a cultural symbol of Hamas, the ruling party in the elected Palestinian government, which Israel has targeted in its continuing attacks in Gaza. Mysteriously, hardly any of the news coverage has emphasized the educational significance of the university, which far exceeds its cultural or political symbolism.
Established in 1978 by the founder of Hamas - with the approval of Israeli authorities - the Islamic University is the first and most important institution of higher education in Gaza, serving more than 20,000 students, 60 percent of whom are women. It comprises 10 faculties - education, religion, art, commerce, Shariah law, science, engineering, information technology, medicine, and nursing - and awards a variety of bachelor's and master's degrees. Taking into account that Palestinian universities have been regionalized because Palestinian students from Gaza are barred by Israel from studying either in the West Bank or abroad, the educational significance of the Islamic University becomes even more apparent.
Those restrictions became international news last summer when Israel refused to grant exit permits to seven carefully vetted students from Gaza who had been awarded Fulbright fellowships by the State Department to study in the United States. After top State Department officials intervened, the students' scholarships were restored - though Israel allowed only four of the seven to leave, even after appeals by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "It is a welcome victory - for the students," opined The New York Times, and "for Israel, which should want to see more of Gaza's young people follow a path of hope and education rather than hopelessness and martyrdom; and for the United States, whose image in the Middle East badly needs burnishing."
Notwithstanding the importance of the Islamic University, Israel has tried to justify the bombing. An army spokeswoman told The Chronicle that the targeted buildings were used as "a research and development center for Hamas weapons, including Qassam rockets. ... One of the structures struck housed explosives laboratories that were an inseparable part of Hamas's research-and-development program, as well as places that served as storage facilities for the organization. The development of these weapons took place under the auspices of senior lecturers who are activists in Hamas."
Islamic University officials deny the Israeli allegations. Yet even if there is some merit in them, it is common knowledge that practically all major American and Israeli universities are engaged in research and development of military applications and receive money from the Pentagon and defense corporations. Weapon development and even manufacturing have, unfortunately, become major projects at universities worldwide - a fact that does not justify bombing them.
By launching an attack on Gaza, the Israeli government has once again chosen to adopt strategies of violence that are tragically akin to the ones deployed by Hamas - only the Israeli tactics are much more lethal. How should academics respond to this assault on an institution of higher education? Regardless of one's stand on the proposed boycott of Israeli universities, anyone so concerned about academic freedom as to put one's name on a petition should be no less outraged when Israel bombs a Palestinian university. The question, then, is whether the university presidents and professors who signed the various petitions denouncing efforts to boycott Israel will speak out against the destruction of the Islamic University.
Neve Gordon is chair of the department of politics and government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and author of Israel's Occupation (University of California Press, 2008). Jeff Halper is director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. His latest book is An Israeli in Palestine: Resisting Dispossession, Redeeming Israel (Pluto Press, 2008).
51 Comments so far
Show AllCocks, go back to your hidey hole in the cave somewhere instead of spreading zionist propaganda.
.Well certainly. I would only note that, in most nations the protesting of governmental actions begins and thrives in University settings. Thus the outrage against the targeting of that school is justified while the call to boycott Israeli Universities is not.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Happy New Year ardee, I hope you are invigorated, because it is on.
Your friend, azjoe.
.You as well, azjoe, we can accomplish miracles!
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Well, see, that's the funny thing. It turns out that Amerikan university officials are not exactly Profiles in Courage when it comes to even-handedly and assertively championing academic freedom and civil rights.
Self-important swine like Lee C. Bollinger are ideal for a display of rude and overweening self-righteousness when hosting a visiting Head of State from the Axis of Evil.
And college presidents are right at the head of the procession with a flaming torch when it's necessary to scapegoat some unpopular academic and run him out on a pretext-- or yield to smears and the prospect of negative publicity to deny tenure to an eminiently qualified professor.
So they are pretty good at tendentious bluster and rationalizing scapegoating of faculty and such when crowded by circumstances. It's just a bit of rough trade in the ivory tower. Hi-ho.
But when it comes to standing up and denouncing their MASTERS-- even indirectly, by criticizing the actions of their Masters' close ally, actions wholly endorsed by the Masters-- this lot doesn't have the skeletal structure for it.
They are self-serving, time-serving, ultra-servile bags of skin appointed to maintain an optimal symbiotic relationship with the Establishment-- the Masters, the political and financial elites to which they are beholden.
No way they're going to risk soiling and wilting their gowns, ribbons, cords, tassels, and lucrative professional careers by plunging into the untidy mêlée of Gaza.
Hope that clears it up for you.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Good points. Cowardice in our Uni's indeed!
Lets remember that 2008 was the year one university fired a respected Professor of Political Science, Norman Finkelstein, based on slanderous screeds from a flying-monkey Zionist Professor of Ambulance-Chasing at Harvard.
And, another university in Minnesota canceled a speech by the gentle old Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu, who had compared conditions in the West Bank to the apartheid that he lived under in his own country. This university didn't even wait for a statement from the Anti Defamation League or other such Jewish group, they instead preemptively canceled the speech just in case even one Jew supporter of the Uni. might be offended.
Then in the world of arts, there was the cancellation of "My Name is Rachael Corrie" in various location around the US - once again out of fear that wealthy Jews would withhold their money.
---USAn---
I'm sorry? Criticise? Why? It's the Israelis and you should know they are ALWAYS right (chosen people, don't you know). Besides, they need to keep to 100:1 ratio up somehow...... Isn't there also research that shows that Gazans, like fish, don't feel pain? AND - don't forget that Gazans, well, you know, just as whales and apes and dogs are SOCIAL, that doesn't make them HUMAN... and if they WANT to stay where they're so obviously not wanted, it's their lookout - same on the West Bank - they should know that rampaging gangs of SettlerTeens have all the rights they need and just move.. aren't arabs traditionally nomadic? - they should just Nomad the F### out of Israel. Actually they must be really stupid if they don't get the hint, what with the road blocks, the bombings, having their farms uprooted, their kids stoned on the way to school, untreated sewage from hilltop houses flow down to them.. yeah - since they are so palpably stupid, they don't deserve a place to stay. It's evolution - even the Neanderthals took less time to get rid of.
Hamas is funded by the Israeli zionists and the dictatorships of corrupt neighboring Arab nations in addition to the EU and the US. The zionists want to keep Hamas as an "excuse" to destroy the Palestinians and Egypt and Jordan are doing the same to the Palestinians.
Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota
A very dark age is already upon us. All news sources (once Pacifica is gone) will be propaganda machines.
democracynow.org, counterpunch.org, The Guardian UK, things ARE bad but perhaps not as dire as you are painting.
Nietzsche:Pacifica is still here. www.pacifica.org WBAI is still here. www.wbai.org They are nonprofit, community based and need your financial support. Pacifica survived a takeover attempt in 2000, by corporateers. Are you a supporter? www.pacificaradioarchives.org fabulous archives I listen to DemocracyNow on Pacifica's NYC station, WBAI, where the show originated. You know the line, "don't mourn, organize"Joe Hill, I believe.
The silence in academia, Congress, corporate media, and the general population in the U.S. over Israel's lengthy track record of continued horrific war crimes and other atrocities is, and always has been, deafening -- just the way the criminally insane AIPAC zio-zealots who run this nation like it.
This won't change until we, the citizenry, figure a way to make our elected representatives in Congress, as well as the White House, more afraid of us than they are of AIPAC. Easier said than done, I know, but that's the reality of the situation.
Our make pretend two party system, which is really just one giant self serving corporate party, must be upended and, at this point, I think the only feasible way to do it will be through strategies/tactics built around massive non-violent non-cooperation. This means well organized massive numbers of people, all on the same page with very specific well publicized goals -- again, easy to talk about, but MLK and Gandhi demonstrated for the world that that it CAN be done, and that it DOES work.
If education is to be a catalyst for change, then, definitely Neve Gordon and Jeff Halper, you must start from where you are. We have seen what the Internet managed to do re raising funds and electing Obama (not that we won't have to keep making ourselves heard to him also!)
We pay the congressmen and no matter how many lobbyists, petrol companies, etc are pouring $$ into their wallets, eventually hundreds of thousands, if they keep focused on creating momentum, can make a difference.
We are living during a shakedown of a system that didn't work, a moment has created a space that can be filled with new and fresh ideas.
If educators/professors join with students in making noise on the Internet and stay with it, positive change can happen.
The old name calling, bomb dropping, rocket launching hasn't worked. Drop the names and the tired ephitets and change the dialogue! There is a remarkable similarity between what both sides are shouting/preaching...and if you dig underneath, what both are saying is 'we're afraid...there isn't enough room/food etc. Both sides are looking for respect, security and all the rest that comes with that.
Send this article beyond Common Dreams. Send it to the campuses, the students...and add a place for people to sign a petition for a cease fire, for delivery of food and medicine and demand a place at the negotiating table for them = with the caveat that the dialogue doesn't include hateful demonizing words and revenge...that the dialogue be focused on solutions, possibilities.
Out of the millions of people out there, there just might be a few who have some ideas of where to start shifting what's happening. It won't happen overnight, but this particular moment in the conflict is definitely an opportunity for change.
Imagine the two year old who decides that since they keep falling down they're not going to try to walk anymore and the parents who say, absolutely, the baby shouldn't walk..he/she can just crawl..
The laws of physics prove that there are an infinity of possible outcomes to any given event...we need to focus on that.
Has everyone written their letters? Protested at their Universities? And if we send enough of them surely a few will get published in our evil corporate media! Outrage has to translate to action! (but please remember: it's the "jewish" money that creates the silence; we have to reject corporatism folks)
"jewish money"? oh, dear. That's as old as "Constantine's Sword" by James Carroll,nonfiction history. If not the book, see the documentary, same title.
My spouse is Jewish. One of our kids, about age 6, heard someone talking about stacks of Jewish money, Jews taking money out of the ghetto in wheelbarrows. He was very annoyed and asked us why we never gave him any of that money.
Joe
You're all a bunch of anti-semites..... Shucks, 3.5 million Jews died in the Holocaust and they invented the sky-god most of you losers worship so that pretty much gives them a blank check to do what the fuck they want.. Exterminate all the Brutes or as our new Sec. of State Hillary would say, "Obliterate all the brutes." Have a nice day.....
The Arabs can't be anti-Semitic, they are Semitic.
Give it a rest!
6million Jews were murdered.
Well, it is still winter break.
Gaza To Be The Undoing Of Zionism
"Based on?"
"Gaza looking more and more like the Warsaw Ghetto."
bligh4
Has Hamas not targeted Israeli universities with their rockets?
.errr, none that I am aware of, can you share your inside info with us?
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
I think 'targeting' is something well beyond what a Hamas rocket is capable of. These things are basically home-made pipe-bombs with one end open and some fins attached. They have no guidance system and limited accuracy. They are harder to aim than the German V2 rockets and only about 100 times less powerful with 100 times less range.
"Targeting" with one of these things is basically point it in the general direction of a town, light the fuse, and hope it doesn't actually spin around and hit your own village instead. OK, it's not quite that bad, but it's close.
These are like the German V2 rockets in that they are entirely weapons of terror with no military advantage whatsoever. They are a weapon used by a people who have no other way to hit back at their enemy and do them serious physical harm. Like the V2 it is a weapon of the mind much more than a weapon of war.
The use of them by Hamas is both intelligent and foolish. Intelligent in the sense that they strike in the only way they can, also in the sense that it buys them political cache' with the other Palestinians holed up in the Gaza concentration camp. But foolish in the sense that every one of these things will fall on a civilian 'target' and since the press are only sitting in Israel at the moment, they will report what they see and the Propaganda-fed people in the USA will buy every line the Israeli press-engine feeds them.
If the Palestinians were smart they'd all line up, un-armed, carrying signs in English...Preferably mostly women and children under the age of 9...and with no weapons, no rocks, and no guns calmly allow themselves to be mowed down in front of the cameras by the Israeli military (don't think it wouldn't happen either!).
It would be horrible, tragic, create hatred for generations....but it would fast turn public opinion against the Israeli's both here and within Israel itself.
Non-violent protests would have freed Palestine long ago, but it is just as difficult for the non-violent camel to pass through the eye of that needle.
"If the Palestinians were smart they'd all line up, un-armed, carrying signs in English...Preferably mostly women and children under the age of 9...and with no weapons, no rocks, and no guns"
This would work. It might lead to one or at most two massacres, but, like the sight of Southern sheriffs using dogs on unarmed civil rights protestors in the 1960's, the revulsion it would provoke in the US would lead to a cut off of aid to Israel.
It would work, but it will not happen...The Palestinian leadership has no desire to end this conflict, nor do their Arab patrons.
Why should innocent Palestinians have to die for Israel's crimes? Shouldn't we be advocating for Israelis citizens to lay down in the path of tanks, and to block the entrances and exits of Israelis military facilities? Lets ask Israel's citizens to non violently take responsibility for Israel's crimes first IMO. And yes the refusniks are heroes more of THAT please.
Great post, I am sick of some of these people bringing up the Hamas rockets in every single post, when they do almost nothing.
ALL ARE TERRORISTS! The rich the poor the jew the palestinian the christian the muslim the slacker the capitalist the worker the anarchist the cop the criminal the feds the spooks the north the south the tamil the hindu the militaries the militias the corporations the outsourcers the protesters the consumers..the soldier the contractor the students the arms dealers the weapons designers the tree huggers the tourists the shut ins the punk bands the journalists the bloggers the advertizers.
WHO IS NOT A TERRORIST NOW+?????? I really want to know? Who is clean? who is right? Who is NOtpart of the problem??? All you armchair chief justices are a load of gossips..
This is not the first time that Israel has bombed a university and the academic world has remained silent. Early in the Second Intifada, Israel, using U.S. supplied TOW missiles slammed them into the recently built Millennium Hall at Bethlehem University. Photos showed once pristine classroom covered with broken glass, shrapnel and debris.
I emailed the president of the university, an American from Arkansas, and told him that as an American Jew I am ashamed not only of my country for supplying Israel with the weapons to perform this hideous deed but also ashamed of the country that purports to be my "homeland" - which it definitely is not.
Ironically, the building which had been finished only 3 weeks before the Israeli army shelled it, had been funded by the American Agency for International Development.
There was no outcry from anyone.
Then as now, Israel shows its true colors and they are bloody once again.
By the way, Israel is also quite adept at bombing hospitals and orphanages as they did in Lebanon, especially when the buildings have a red cross on their roof.
Don't believe me? Read the report from the August 4, 1982 Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/1982/0804/080446.html
Israel has shown that it is a monster and must be sanctioned by the world.
I cannot see how the bombing of a University is part of a "most moral and ethical war" as Israeli leaders continue to describe this war crime.
One issue in this country is that Americans are paralyzed to speak out their conscience and minds when it comes to the Palestine-Israel conflict. The fear of being labelled as an anti-semite coupled with the Christian West guilt in the Holocaust has provided Israel with a carte blanche to commit wanton destruction and continue its century long campaign of ethnic cleansing against an indigenous population.
Having two prominent Israelis speak so forcefully as they have brings hope. And while there are many Jewish Americans speaking out, will our mass media let their voices be heard? Do our political leaders even dare to listen to what they are saying?
Jewish voices for peace can only encourage more and more non-Jewish Americans to speak their conscience. Sooner or later the mass media will have to let them be heard.
Like where was the acedemic outrage when Ward Churchill was fired for speaking truth to power when it came to Israel and the Zionists????? And that happened in this country...... I don't remember a peep of outrage from the spineless acedemics.... A tenured Professor fired for speaking the truth should of sent chills down the collective spines of us all but not in this fucked up country....
ps Did any of you see the B-2 Stealth bomber fly over the Rose Bowl before the big game??? Wasn't that exciting!!!! I'd so much more rather have that than Universal health care.... My special place got all tingly when I saw it.. We are SO much worse than the Nazis... We are Human scum and that is how history will remember US...... Have a nice day...
Ward Churchill? He said that Americans deserved to be killed in 9/11. I was at ground zero, we didn't deserve to be punished for what our government does without our knowledge or consent.
KeLeMi:I don't like Ward Churchill's comments (having heard him on WBAI www.wbai.org the Pacifica station in NYC, where I hear DemocracyNow), but that is not exactly what he said about Sept. 11, 2001. Alas, in "blowback", we, the people do get punished for what our government does without our knowledge of consent. I just starting reading Chalmers Johnson's "Nemesis". (His first in the trilogy was "Blowback" and I'll read that next. I read his middle book, "Sorrows of Empire" and it was wonderful.) I am truly sorry you were at ground zero. Truly. I hope you are physically well and healing in psyche. DemocracyNow played Howard Zinn's speech today, given Nov.8,2008 at Binghamton, NY, the University; the transcript should be online, if not yet, soon. You'll like the speech. www.democracynow.org
I believe that Churchill said that many of the folks who were working at WTC prior to the attacks were "Little Eichmans"...
Although I believe that it was bad form to publicly voice that opinion so soon after NineOneOne...
I think that it was an astute observation to compare Hedge fund managers to Eichman, who was convicted during the Nuremburg trials for being an accessory to the crime for being an accountant...
The firebrand that he is, I don't believe that Churchill was referring to the custodians and receptionists and other innocents...
I believe he was trying to point out the economic terrorism that the banksters have perpetuated throughout the world...
By saddlng nations in debt through WorldBank development projects, intentionally crashing national economies (like Argentina), privatizing national infrastructure (through austerity measures from the IMF), using economic hitmen and jackals and mercenaries and paramilitaries to create business friendly climates for "foreign investors", to the dumping of subsidized food in foreign markets to drive the small-scale farmers out of business and off their land, to work as wage-slaves in sweatshops and maquiladoras, liquidating the natural resources of other nations of their timber, minerals, and oil and gas...
Just because hedge fund brokers and other wall street folks have a disconnect between their wealth and the impact on the rest of the world doesn't mean that those in the global south do too...
Let's not forget that it wasn't only USAans that were killed in the WTC attacks, there were many foreigners there that day as well, we just don't consider them as part of the equation...
Just an observation:
Tunnels and sewer lines were used throughout the Warsaw Ghetto smuggle both food for survival - and arms for an uprising.
Unfortunately, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising came too late.
And like the Gazans, the Jews of Warsaw were armed with pea shooters against the might of cannons, submachine guns and rifles.
The Jews of Warsaw were also completely ignored by the international community. They were demonsized as as "untermenshcen," "communists" and "marxists" just as today's Palestinians are all tarred with the brush "terrorist."
Likewise, the Jews of Poland were encouraged to "migrate" to accomodate the needs of the Aryans for "Lebensraum"
[W]ithout consideration of "traditions" and prejudices, it [Germany] must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation.
--- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
If you think that's an obscene comparison (and someone is bound to) I suggest you think about the well known pattern of the abused child that becomes a child abuser.
I am working for an outcome DIFFERENT from Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I hope our new government will join me.
dwg:Polish Jews encouraged to migrate? You had to have money to leave and you had to leave everything. And most important, there had to be a country that would let you in. Jews didn't have a lot of options. In the headlines column, in comments, Helen Suzman obit, I paraphrased something the late Sen. C. Pell said about his father in re FDR: Pell's father was certain there was a "gentleman's agreement" to "ignore what the Nazis were doing to the Jews.". I think your point about sewers in Warsaw was good.
"And most important, there had to be a country that would let you in. Jews didn't have a lot of options."
It seems to be the same way now for Palestinians...none of the Arab countries want them. However, the ones I have met here in Florida seem to like it here, especially since there is such a big Muslim community in Tampa where I went to school.
Because of the dimiminishing support for education from our public funding, university budgets have become more and more dependent on grants from oil, military and drug industries. University presidents are chosen on their business abilities - their abilities to raise funds and to shut up if they disagree with the corporatocracy. They must be willing to suppress research and writing that does not serve the funders. Intellectual dishonesty, careerism and imperial arrogance dominate the top leadership at many universities. Their "vision" of education may not include scholarship and moral questioning and leadership.
I wish that the students and faculty were more active... but alas many are economically insecure and have chosen the path of least resistance. That path will turn out to be the most expensive in the long run as our national treasure is looted, our global environment is laid to waste and our moral and intellectual standing melts into a toxic little puddle.
Joe
Moreover, the vehicle that protected faculty - professorial tenure - far less commonly granted today. Thus making "academic freedom" a thing of the past.
Traditionally, tenure allowed "enlightened minds" to speak out on issues without fear of losing their livelihood.
While not entirely consigned to the rubbish bin, it is increasingly the case that college "lecturers" are just that - adjunct faculty with no tenure, no "academic freedom" and often, no job benefits. They are "merely" contractors there to do a job.
And what "contractor" is likely to take a chance to lead students if they feel their livelihood threatened?
Perhaps students must lead the rest?
dwg:adjuncts are hired every semester and are "at will" employees. They run from campus to campus. Wildly busy. It's been traditional, in my aging memory, that students have taken the lead since the 1968 sit-ins of campus buildings and teach-ins about the Vietnam War and since, not the faculty.
jclientelle:Joe, Happy (or hello)New Year. Asking the university presidents to do anything resembling nonfundraising is odd. The students were sitting in at former Sen. Kerry from Nebraska (?), the Pres. of New School University during finals week because they no longer have a library, or a student place/lounge in which to study, only the food/eating area. (DemocracyNow covered it.)I took classes at the New School long ago when it was an adult education college.
My thought was that this article was going to be about faculty and students protesting....they are on vacation now...........And I like your comment. I know one faculty member and the operative word is busy busy busy. Working on site, preparing for classes, all the extras of chores by the school, my caregiving and errands...So, indirectly, my errands get done by a professor and that includes making copies of and mailing my protest art....am taking a break from one in process.........
Many students are swamped by "living". Most are working, have families in many of the NYC colleges. There have been many protests on the streets (not necessarily on campus), but I don't know which are students, faculty or plain folks, but no doubt the NYPD are taking photos....see NYCLU www.nyclu.org for history of NYPD in re peaceful demonstations and taking photos/video.
The Granny Peace Brigade recently did a teachin on Afghanistan, I think. No doubt there will be some on Gaza. I hope so. Mayor Bloomberg did some disgusting pandering; I heard a soundbite on local commercial radio giving the lie about "protecting its citizens" in re Gaza. It's impossible to get real news in NYC unless you listen to WBAI www.wbai.org the Pacifica Network radio station in NYC. It's where I hear DemocracyNow, and the original home of DemocracyNow.
Another good source for news, not mentioned on CD, is Free Speech Radio News www.fsrn.org A collective of journalists.
Bring America Back !!!! Unfortunately, Kent State and Berkeley and Academia are not what they used to be !!! When it comes to getting away with Murder, Israel is right up there with King George the Bushwacker !!!!
**Uncle Sammy passes around all those lucrative research contracts and grants to US schools, universities and colleges. You don't expect those 'lackademics' to leave their nice warm labs, and computer rooms to protest or raise issues, do you ?? Gee. what if Unc Sam revokes all those big bucks for research into what makes a terrorist tick ??? Where would they be then??
****Just because there is genocide at Gaza by the usual suspects ?
****They also bombed a mosque, and rammed former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney's medical supply ship so badly she had to seek another port for repairs, and could not get the supplies to the needy Palestinians.
****They've been barricading , starving, and blockading Gaza for over a year.
****During the Annapolis, MD (give me something for my Library) Bush mideast invitational, the Israelis fired a missile killing 6 Palestinians who were
peacefully protesting not being invited to the Annapolis talks !! There will be a special room in the "W" Presidential Library on his contribution to the Annapolis Accords !! Can you even keep your dinner down on that ?
***The Israelis really get into combating sticks & stones with laser guided missiles--man, that is their kind of warfare ! They proved it again a year ago in Lebanon==again earning their infamous title as the Butchers of Beirut!
***We all know that the tail wags the dog in the MidEast, and Israel thru AIPAC controls all US policies in the region, e.g., the so called War In Iraq.
Bushco and his puppets merely mouth the words put there by Israel !!!!
There is such a contrast of this story with the humanitarian and educational influence on US higher education of the esteemed former Senator from Rhode Island, Claiborne Pell. Pell passed away on Thursday, January 1.
Pell authored and sponsored the legislation which provides financial assistance to lower and middle-income US college students; these are still known as Pell Grants.
May his spirit live on.
May the bombardment of Gaza stop.
At least two academics have been outraged all along.......
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/rwp06-011
In 2007 when Fatah was still operating in Gaza they discovered approximately 1,000 rockets and several Iranian military trainers at the Islamic University of Gaza.