OTHER VIEW'S

On Campus, Off Base

Philadelphia
or three decades, left-wing
extremists have dominated
American academics, spout-
ing odd, but seemingly
harmless, theories about "deconstruc-
tion," "post-modernism" and "race,
gender and class," while venting
against the United States, its govern-
ment and its allies.
Only these ideas are not so harmless.
The radical notions espoused in the
classrooms and campus demonstra- •
tions recently have had dangerous con-
sequences. These are especially visible
with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Ill

Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle
East Forum. His e-mail address is
Pipes@MEForum.org A version of this
piece, with footnotes, appears on
www.danielPipes.org

Consider some of the steps American
professors took during 2002:
• Columbia University, New York
City: Hamid Dabashi, a specialist on
Iran, compares Israel's military
maneuvers in Jenin (to prevent future
suicide bombings) with the
Holocaust. He cancels class to attend
a rabidly anti-Israel sit-in and when a
student protests his irresponsible
behavior, Dabashi sneeringly replies,
"I apologize if canceling our class in
solidarity with [Palestinian] victims of
a genocide ... inconvenienced you."
Also at Columbia, Joseph Massad, a
Jordan specialist, speaks at that same
anti-Israel rally and calls Israel "a
Jewish supremacist and racist state,"
which he proclaims "should be threat-
ened." This is in addition to a talk
with the inflammatory title "On
Zionism and Jewish Supremacy" and a

Inspired By The Israeli Will

s ome people said I was brave.
Some people said I was crazy.
Some people said I was both.
I heard it for so long before
my trip to Israel at the end of May with
45 fellow metro Detroiters on the United
Jewish Communities solidarity mission,
that I was beginning to believe them.
Well, after my return from seven
days in Israel, I realize I'm neither.
I'm not brave. because the brave ones
are the Israelis who, despite relentless
Arab hostility and violence, struggle to
live ordinary lives. Yes, many public

Kenneth Gold is a West Bloomfield

resident.

places are emptier than before and
security guards check everyone before
they enter parking lots, restaurants,
stores, and many other locations.
These people risk their lives every day
and they do a great job. Because of
them, I never felt in danger.
I'm not crazy because I know that, by
supporting Israel, I really am helping my
family and me. Why? Because I know
that all free people will benefit from
Israel's refusal to surrender to the Islamic
extremism that threatens all Western
countries, whether they appreciate it or
not (and except for the U.S., they don't
appreciate it), and because I know that I
and my family will have more secure

If I Were Born A Palestinian Arab

I

t never ceases to amaze me to
what extent the sheer coincidence
of your birth affects the direction
of the rest of your life, determin-
ing your final destiny and destination.
My own. life story is a prime example.
If I were born a Palestinian Arab liv-
ing in one of those overly crowded
and squalid United Nations refugee
camps, most probably I, too, would
have detested the Israeli Jews, blaming
them for my miserable existence.
My four well-educated and, most

Rachel Kapan is a West Bloomfield

resident.

6/28
2002

28

importantly, kind-hearted and loving
sons, may very well have turned out
to become suicide-homicide bombers
— as horrible and inconceivable as it
seems to me. They would have
learned from early childhood the viru-
lent hatred of Israeli Jews who,
according to their teachings, took
their land 'and drove them away to
live a life of misery and hopelessness.
But I was not born a Palestinian
Arab. Instead, I was born a Palestinian
Jew, later to become an Israeli Jew. I'm
the proud, and very fortunate, daugh-
ter of a pair of wonderful and
extremely courageous people who

course that (students report)
• University of Oregon,
served as a soapbox for anti-
Eugene: In a course entitled
Israeli polemics.
"Social Inequality," Douglas
• State University of New
Card of the sociology depart-
York at Binghamton: Robert
ment calls Israel "a terrorist
Ostergard of the political science
state," deems Israelis "baby-
department converts his course
killers," and insists that stu-
into an anti-Zionist platform.
dents agree with his view that
One guest speaker, Ali
DAN TEL
Israel "stole land" on the final
Mazrui, presents a lecture that a
PI PES
exam. One student finds that
student called "a 45-minute dia-
Card bashed Israel and Jews
Spe cial
tribe against Israel" with offen-
Comm entary "at every opportunity."
sive assertions equating Zionism
• University of California at
with fascism, Israel with
Berkeley: Snehal Shingavi of
apartheid South Africa and Israeli Prime
the English department and a leader
Minister Ariel Sharon with Hitler.
of "Students for Justice in Palestine"
• Kent State University Kent, Ohio:
announces a class on "The Politics
Julio Cesar Pino of the history depart-
and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance"
ment publishes an ode addressed to a
that includes the now-infamous
Palestinian suicide bomber, lauds her
"warning" to conservatives "to seek
courage and concludes by calling on
other sections."
Allah to "elevate your place in paradise."
In brief, instructors routinely tout

lives in a world that respects a
•To the Cardo, a once-
strong Israel and, thus, all Jews.
bustling shopping area now
For those that are interested
so empty that our group was
in where we went and what we
the only shoppers there on a
did, yes, we went to Jerusalem.
Thursday afternoon.
We went to:
• To Ramat Rahel, where
• The Western Wall, where I
we met new immigrants,
barely had time to pray for peace
including a young American
before the police evacuated us
KEN NETH
who was badly hurt in a
because someone found a suspi-
recent bombing.
G OLD
cious package. I did manage to
• To Tel Aviv, where we vis-
Corn munity
pray that many Palestinians
ited a center that counsels
Vi ews
would decide to convert to
victims of terror and their
Judaism (which I believe would peace-
families.
fully.
• To the Park Hotel in Netanya,
* To Gilo, a neighborhood often
scene of the Passover Massacre and
attacked by Palestinian gunfire. We
where, just a day later, after another
looked across a narrow valley to Beit Jala
bombing killed three people (includ-
and Bethlehem, where the shooting
ing) a survivor of the seder attack, we
often erupts.
held a memorial service.

were able to realize the 2,000-
teeming with neighbors. The
year-old dream of their much-
U.N. General Assembly
beloved Jewish people to
decided that Palestine was to
return to the land of their fore-
be partitioned into two states,
fathers and rebuild it.
one Jewish and one Arab.
Coming to the Land of
The overwhelming sounds of
Israel in the early 1920s —
joy emanating from our
each of them separately — my
apartment echoed the ones
parents were among the
RACHEL
that soon engulfed the entire-
founders and builders of the
ty of the Yishuv, as the Jewish
KAPEN
Hebrew city of Tel Aviv
community of Eretz Israel, or
Community
(meaning "Hill of Spring"),
Palestine, was then called.
Views
where I later was born.
The land apportioned to
I remember late on the night of
the Jewish state was not big, yet the
Nov. 29, 1947, as the eagerly awaited
Yishuv was happy and content to
news from the United Nations in
accept it. But not so the Arabs of
New York City finally arrived at our
Palestine and outside it. They rejected
small apartment. We 1 ived in the
out of hand the mere notion of an
south end of Tel Aviv, which was
independent Jewish entity in the land.

