Posted on 09/23/2007 2:04:59 PM PDT by IsraelBeach
Iran Hitler Ahmadinejad At Columbia - Free Speech Or Incitement?
By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
Jerusalem ----September 23...... As one who studied at Columbia University, I am both embarrassed and ashamed of that fact today. Columbia University in New York City had one of the finest journalism schools in the US, that is until Columbia invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran to speak at Columbia tomorrow.
The Iran President left Tehran for New York today and will participate in a question and answer forum at Columbia tomorrow. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is traveling to New York to address the United Nations' General Assembly.
Ya see, I live and work in Israel, a tiny, democratic nation in the Middle East which Ahmadinejad has sworn to "wipe my children off the map." Not really a nice thing of this dictator who fashions himself after Adolf Hitler with a twist of Islamic lemon to say.
Ahmadinejad's Iran is one of the world's leading sponsors of international terror, especially the Hizbullah gang in Lebanon, and he is now obsessed with building thermonuclear weapons with which he might just accomplish what Hitler could not: the annihilation of half the world's Jews with the push of a single button.
Ahmadinejad is also directly responsible for the murder of dozens of numbers of American troops in Iraq, whose killers, according to hundreds of reliable reports, he is arming and funding.
The US State Department calls Iran a state sponsor of terror, and Ahmadinejad has called the Holocaust ``a myth'' and urges for Israel to be destroyed.
Why would Columbia University desire to have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speak on their campus?
Is it freedom of speech or is it marketing? Is it marketing at the expense of incitement to commit genocide against the civilian population of Israel?
Well let's take a deeper, more cerebral look.
Columbia acknowledged last week that the visit to the university of Iran terror leader Ahmadinejad was initiated not by the university but by the Iran envoy to the United Nations through a faculty member, Richard Bulliet.
This was an excellent public relations speaking engagement placement made by Iran. Something that the William Morris Agency would have been proud of (the placement - not Ahmadinejad).
Bulliet is described as having been criticized for, among other things, "his views on the Israel Palestinian conflict as overly favoring the Palestinian cause" and also for offering "qualified support" for the revolution that brought the mullahs to power in Iran in 1979.
"If Hitler were in the United States and wanted a platform from which to speak, he would have plenty of platforms to speak in the United States," Columbia's Coatsworth said in an interview with Fox News. "If he were willing to engage in debate and a discussion to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him."
A former professor of history at Harvard, Coatsworth is dean of the university's School of International and Public Affairs, whose graduates, according to a statement Coatsworth issued last week, "serve as diplomats, intelligence analysts, security experts, business leaders, human rights activists," and leaders of non-governmental organizations.
But even if Hitler would have been, or Ahmadinejad is, welcome at Columbia, would an Egypt tribal leader be invited to defend female genital mutilation, a practice the Egyptian government is finally trying to ban? What about the current president of Sudan, or the leader of the Janjaweed militia that is committing genocide in Darfur?
Last week, the university's president offered his own defense of the invitation. "The event will be part of the annual World Leaders Forum, the University-wide initiative intended to further Columbia's longstanding tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate, especially on global issues," he said in a press statement.
When Columbia's president states: "World Leaders" is he focusing on world leaders who serve as examples of democracy and freedom or global sponsors of terrorism?
"In order to have such a University-wide forum, we have insisted that a number of conditions be met, first and foremost that Iran President Ahmadinejad agree to divide his time evenly between delivering remarks and responding to audience questions. I also wanted to be sure the Iranians understood that I would myself introduce the event with a series of sharp challenges to the president on issues including: The Iranian president's denial of the Holocaust."
Ahmadinejad has already answered that question, he calls the Holocaust a myth.
"His public call for the destruction of the State of Israel."
Ahmadinejad has already expounded on this issue, as recently as yesterday during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur when he introduced and showed off his new Ghadr long range missile that had a sign on it saying: "Israel must be destroyed."
"His reported support for international terrorism that targets innocent civilians and American troops."
Ahmadinejad is a man of action, barbaric action. How many Israeli civilians did he murder this year through his Hezbollah puppets in Lebanon and Syria, how may US soldiers did he kill in Iraq?
"Iran's pursuit of nuclear ambitions in opposition to international sanction."
Ahmadinejad has answered this question as well telling the United Nations to go to hell.
So if these fundamental questions have already been asked and answered then what is this exercise taking place at Columbia tomorrow? It is a marketing event. A marketing event which has backfired on Columbia. A marketing stunt poised as free speech when all know that it is nothing less than a hate speech to be delivered.
Does US INTEL, the CIA, military intelligence and the NSA really need to hear something new by Ahmadinejad that satellites and microwave surveillance have not already picked up?
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called on Columbia University to reconsider its decision to host Iran's president.
A similar invitation to Ahmadinejad was revoked last year by Columbia President Lee Bollinger.
David Feith, CC ’09 and editor of the Jewish affairs publication The Current, expressed his concern directly to Bollinger that there was a difference between refusing to suppress hateful speech and actively inviting and providing a platform for it. Bollinger responded that the invitation very well may serve to help controversial speakers, but that the negative is “far outweighed by the importance of confronting ideas and not shielding ourselves from the world as it is.”
"It is inappropriate and a perversion of the concept of freedom of speech," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "Columbia University has no moral imperative, no legal imperative, no social imperative to give Ahmadinejad a platform, which he would not give them in Tehran. Why give him the credibility and the respectability of a major institution of higher learning? What message does that send to the students? This is not what the First Amendment is all about."
In a letter to President Bollinger, the ADL said it was "extremely dismayed" by the university's invitation to the Iranian President, who has repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel and has made remarks denying the Holocaust, and Bollinger's plans to personally introduce him at the forum. The League noted Iran's support for international terrorism and his country's ambition to acquire nuclear weapons as reasons enough not to provide Ahmadinejad a platform at Columbia.
"Last year, Columbia almost made the same mistake," said Mr. Foxman. "Ahmadinejad didn't get better since then. He's gotten worse."
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday that the university was free to invite Ahmadinejad to speak, but "personally, I wouldn't go to listen to him - I don't care about what he says."
White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said Friday that the Bush administration had no involvement with Columbia's decision.
"This is a country where people can come and speak their minds," he said, adding, "It would be wonderful if some of the countries that take advantage of that here allowed it for their own citizens there."
It was reported today that Iran's judiciary is to have shut down the offices of a news Website critical of Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The Mehr News Agency reports that Baztab, a Website close to the former head of the Revolutionary Guards Mohsen Rezaie, had been banned in April and is the subject of a legal complaint from the Iran presidency.
Will Ahmadinejad's Columbia speech and question and answer be made available to the citizens of Iran. Will the citizens of Iran witness thousands of New Yorkers telling Ahmadinejad to go home?
No way. Iran will edit out and censor the negative and use the positive to incite the Iran and Islamic public. Does Columbia care?
Ahmadinejad's trip to New York also created a debate this week over his rejected request to lay a wreath at 9/11's Ground Zero. Politicians and families of Sept. 11 victims were outraged that Iran's president might visit the site.
New York Police rejected Ahmadinejad's request, citing construction and security concerns.
President George W Bush backed New York authorities in blocking a Ground Zero tour, saying, "I can understand why they would not want somebody running a country who is the state sponsor of terror down at the site."
The Iran leader said before leaving Tehran earlier Sunday that the visit would allow him to meet independent politicians from Tehran's arch foe and provide Iran a platform to address the international community.
"The General Assembly of the United Nations is a good opportunity to present the solutions of the Iranian people to solve the problems of the world," he was quoted as saying by the Fars News Agency.
"We need to take advantage of such opportunities to present the positions of the Iranian people as they (the Americans) are very keen to hear them." That is what Ahmadinejad wants his voters at home to think. And Columbia is giving it to them.
Jewish organizations in the United States are planning large-scale demonstrations, involving thousands of protesters this week to express their growing anger at Columbia University's invitation to Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Gillerman, also likened the Iranian president to Adolf Hilter, and said that a proposed visit by Ahmadinejad to Ground Zero would be similar to a visit to the site by the Nazi fuehrer.
A team of lawyers, led by Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, are seeking to have Ahmadinejad arrested upon his arrival in New York.
"He is an international war criminal," Dershowitz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "He has repeatedly violated the anti-genocide convention. He is as guilty as the Rwandans who are convicted and sentenced to years in prison for inciting genocide."
Now we will see how much guts George W. Bush really has. Will he, will the Governor or Mayor of New York have this "diplomat" arrested, detained and held for the World Court as a criminal, as a terrorist or will Ahmadinejad be protected by so-called diplomatic immunity?
One thing is certain. Columbia University has now placed a commercial marketing event, a cash generating PR effort over the lives of Israel civilians and US troops in Iraq.
Paul Joseph Goebbels, the leader of the NSDAP's propaganda machine and Hitler minister responsible of all Nazi propaganda would have been proud.
- 30 -
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Israel Watching Iran, Syria, Islamic Terrorists On Yom Kippur
Is this Scrappleface?
Why doesn’t he just take out a full page ad in the NYT? I’m sure they’d give him a good rate....
Now, that would be a good idea.
College alumni can have a big influence (checkbook)on a schools activities!!! Perhaps this is a call to arms to them to let the admin know of their displeasure.
Lets do it folks..Somebody set it up and we all can contribute to it ..I’m in.
Dershowitz is a staunch supporter of Israel.
This POS being even allowed on American soil is simply one more reason to get the USA out of the United Nations.
Besides, the UN is totally demonic!
For Columbia to ignore these facts is an astounding kick to the face of all Americans who would remain free; free from a Liberal defined, elitist controlled Utopia, free from Islamofascism. Columbia's academic ivory tower elitism is utterly shocking. It is treasonous, and unjustified on any free speech grounds, for freedom of speech does not cover invective, and demoralizing propaganda supported by the touts of Columbia's supposed academic elite. They are not elite, they are academic trash.
Its time to put the Liberals away for good in November of 2008. They lick the hand of our mortal enemy.
Sure... Makes perfect sense that Columbia U would want to foster debate about whether it's a good idea to wipe out 6 million Jews.
I agree.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in New York Sunday amid a firestorm of controversy surrounding his visit to the United States.
Ahmadinejad, who has called the holocaust "a myth," encouraged the destruction of Israel, supported terrorists in Iraq and defied United Nation's sanctions to halt uranium enrichment, will once address the United Nations General Assembly and then later address a Columbia University forum.
You see it's all been a big cultural misunderstanding.
continued... @
Opportunity: propaganda moment playing to an international audience, but mostly, Iran internal consumption.
Is it true that he was one of the students who kidnapped and held the hostages in 1979? If he is indeed allowed to come to the U.S. this week, it could well be his last taste of freedom. Elements of his country will be reduced to rubble in the not distant future. Good things are a comin’ for the freedom loving people of Iran. After all, we are a weak nation, George Bush is a “backyard barbeque cowboy” and Dick Cheney is just a “Fat Cat Republican” lining the pockets of his rich oil buddies.......Let’s see who has the last laugh. The strike by Israel is just a sneak preview of things to come.
“Will Ahmadinejad’s Columbia speech and question and answer be made available to the citizens of Iran. Will the citizens of Iran witness thousands of New Yorkers telling Ahmadinejad to go home?
No way. Iran will edit out and censor the negative and use the positive to incite the Iran and Islamic public. Does Columbia care?”
As long as he is here I think it’s great that he will go to Columbia and take questions from students. It’s the only time he will have been challenged like that in his political career. As for censoring the feed back to Iran, big deal. China would do the same thing. Surely the Soviets did too. So would most other countries lacking a free press. The main thing is that he gets to see what freedom is and will have to explain himself.
Columbia invites as speakers people who reflect its values. It’s their call.
LOL!
Time for students at Columbia University to get busy with e-mails, phone calls, or whatever it takes to assure that they will boycott this event. Let him speak to an empty auditorium or to the President of Columbia University...Best thing that could happen is to have a 100% boycott.....
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