tommy

By Michael Collins Piper

The Israeli lobby has launched an all-out drive to ensure congressional
passage of a bill, approved by the House and now before a Senate committee
that would set up a federal tribunal to investigate and monitor criticism
of Israel on American college campuses.

Ten months ago the New York-based Jewish Week newspaper claimed that the
report by American Free Press that Republican members of the Senate were
planning to crack down on college and university professors who were
critical of Israel was a dangerous urban legend at best, deliberate
disinformation at worst. They were claiming that AFP lied.

However, on Sept. 17, 2003, the House Subcommittee on Select Education
unanimously approved H.R. 3077, the International Studies in Higher
Education Act, which was then passed by the full House on Oct. 21. The
chief sponsor of the legislation was Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a conservative
Republican from Michigan.

DANGEROUS LEGISLATION

Critics charge that the bill is dangerous?a direct affront to the First
Amendment and the product of intrigue by a small clique of individuals and
organizations which combines the forces of the powerful Israeli lobby in
official Washington.

Leading the push for Senate approval of the bill are the Anti-Defamation
League (ADL) of B?nai B?rith, run by Abe Foxman, the American Jewish
Congress and the American Jewish Committee.

Also lending its support is Empower America, the neo-conservative front
group established by William Kristol, editor and publisher of billionaire
Rupert Murdoch?s Weekly Standard, which is said to be the ?intellectual?
journal that governs the train of foreign policy thinking in the Bush
administration.

One other group has lent its support: the U.S. India Political Action
Committee, an Indian-American group that has been working closely with the
Israeli lobby now that Israel and India are geopolitically allied.

H.R. 3077 is bureaucratic in its tone, decipherable only to those with the
capacity to wade through legislative linguistics. It would set up a
seven-member advisory board that would have the power to recommend cutting
federal funding for colleges and universities that are viewed as harboring
academic critics of Israel.

Two members of the board would be appointed by the Senate, two by the House,
and three by the secretary of education, two of whom are required to be
from U.S. federal security agencies. The various appointees would be
selected from what The Christian Science Monitor described on March 11 as
?politicians, representatives of cultural and educational organizations,
and private citizens.?

FEARS ECHOED

Gilbert Merk, vice provost for international affairs and development and
director of the Center for International Studies at Duke University, has
echoed the fears of many when he charged that this advisory board ?could
easily be hijacked by those who have a political axe to grind and become a
vehicle for an inquisition.?

The primary individuals promoting this effort to control intellectual debate
on the college campuses are prominent and outspoken supporters of Israel
and harsh critics of the Arab and Muslim worlds. They are:

? Martin Kramer, a professor of Arab studies at the Moshe Dayan Center at
Tel Aviv University in Israel;

? Stanley Kurtz, a contributor of ex-CIA man William F. Buckley Jr.?s
bitterly anti-Arab National Review Online and a research fellow at the
staunchly pro-Israel Hoover Institution; and

? Daniel Pipes, founder of the pro-Israel Middle East Forum and its
affiliate, Campus Watch, an ADL-style organization that keeps tabs on
college professors and students who are?or are suspected of being?critics
of Israel.

These three, along with the Israeli lobby, are claiming that they are
fighting ?anti-Americanism? as it is being taught on the college campuses.

Republicans in Congress have joined this chorus, preferring to allow their
constituents to think that this is an ?America First? measure.

Juan Cole of the History News Network responds to this extraordinary twist
on reality saying that the claim of ?anti-Americanism? is intellectually
dishonest.

?What they mean . . . if you pin them down is ambivalence about the Iraq
war, or dislike of Israeli colonization of the West Bank, or recognition
that the U.S. government has sometimes in the past been in bed with present
enemies like al Qaeda or Saddam. None of these positions is
?anti-American,? and any attempt by a congressionally appointed body to
tell university professors they cannot say these things?or that if they say
them they must hire someone else who will say the opposite?is a
contravention of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.?

The promoters are also suggesting that this legislation would, according to
the American Jewish Committee, ?enhance intellectual freedom on campus by
enabling diverse viewpoints to be heard.? Of course, the legislation would
do precisely the opposite, say critics.

Lisa Anderson of the Columbia University School of International and Public
Affairs said in response that ?this plan . . . is not about diversity, or
even about the truth.?

Ms. Anderson does not cite the role of the Israeli lobby, but instead
targets conservative Republicans who are acting as the Israeli lobby?s
surrogates and says that this plan is ?about the conviction of conservative
political activists that the American university community is
insufficiently patriotic, or perhaps simply insufficiently conservative.?

What she should be saying is that these Republicans who are carrying water
for Israel are concerned that universities are ?insufficiently pro-Israel.?

The Republican House members who originally joined Hoekstra in co-sponsoring
this legislation should be named for the record. They are: John A. Boehner
(Ohio), John R. Carter (Texas), Tom Cole (Oklahoma), James Greenwood
(Penn.), Howard (Buck) McKeon (Calif.), Patrick J. Tiberi (Ohio) and Joe
Wilson (South Carolina).

Americans will not be able to find out how their representatives voted on
the bill. Hoekstra asked for a suspension of the House rules, which was
approved, making it possible for the controversial measure to be passed
with an unrecorded ?voice vote.? There is no record of how individual House
members voted or if they even voted at all.

FIRST MEASURE

The measure passed by the House is the same type of proposed ?ideological
diversity? legislation that AFP detailed in its Oct. 20, 2003, issue. At
the time, the measure was being kicked around for possible introduction in
the Senate by two prominent Republicans, Rick Santorum (Penn.) and Sam
Brownback (Kan.).

AFP?s initial report on the legislation garnered so much attention from
American college and university professors and on the Internet, even so far
as the Arab world, that the resulting negative publicity forced Santorum
and Brownback to back off.

Many major American education organizations, including the teacher?s union,
the National Education Association, have raised their concerns about this
campaign to muzzle the free speech of teachers, professors and instructors.
The American Civil Liberties Union has also protested this measure.

Critics say this is a new form of what has been known in the past as
?McCarthyism,? and no matter what you may think about the late Sen. Joseph
McCarthy, whose name, rightly or wrongly, inspired that terminology, the
truth is that this legislation is ?McCarthyism? by virtue of the popular
definition.

The only chance to destroy this legislation and stop it dead in its tracks
is for enough grassroots citizens to rise up and demand that H.R. 3077 be
put to rest.

And believe it or not, the one senator who may be able to stop it is Edward
M. (Ted) Kennedy of Massachusetts.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/03_...new_bill_.html
--
In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. -
George Orwell, 1984

el paredon

And to think that they criticize Hitler for curtailing academic freedoms!

antizionazi

Excellent, it is about time te world started prosecuting the ZioNazi's
for their war crimes. The people of Israel and their ZioNzi leaders
must be forced to pay fo their crimes, just as the Nazis were forced to
pay for thiers.

In addition, ike the Nazi's who preceeded them, the people of Israel
must also be forever reminded that they are no better than the Nazis.

tommy

The 'controlled media' has decided that the American people shouldn't hear
about these mass graves.

No wonder the ZioNazi's fear the internet.

--
In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. -
George Orwell, 1984

roger

In one age, called the Second Age by some,
(an Age yet to come, an Age long past)

Figured out who runs Time Warner yet, idiot child?

When are you going to stop running like a chickensh*t?

tommy

When are you coming back to alt.rev to answer my post?
--
In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. -
George Orwell, 1984

roger

In one age, called the Second Age by some,
(an Age yet to come, an Age long past)


I have responded to *all* of your posts that have made it to my server
-- was there a response in particular you need me to re post so you
can run from it again, chickens*t?

Here's what the pathetic liar has been running from, just today...
<repost>

In one age, called the Second Age by some,
(an Age yet to come, an Age long past)
someone claiming to be Tommy wrote
in message <1952894.BG39kNNYT1@(FreeBSD)>:

So where's the cite, idiot child?

Why do you continue to lie and run away?

Here's what the pathetic little child cannot discuss, even tho *zie*
brought it up to begin with:
<repost>

In one age, called the Second Age by some,
(an Age yet to come, an Age long past)
someone claiming to be Tommy wrote
in message <3089269.2bqPXS9IQe@(FreeBSD)>:

Well, since there was no jury involved here...

Is there *no* subject* you will hesitate to demonstrate your ignorance of?

Nope, no citation to the actual transcripts. Try again.

No soap of any kind, anywhere in Germany?

Is that your final answer, idiot child?

</repost>

</repost>

ed

Mass graves? What the f---?

Tommy, haven't you, even in your very limited experience, ever learned that
you can't learn about things that don't exist?

Fear isn't the correct word, and it doesn't apply to the internet per se.
Resentment is more appropriate to say regarding the fact that scum of the
earth like you use the internet to propagate your filthy little lies.

ed

Is that "alt.rev" as in "alt.revisionism?"

If so, my question is why would anyone want to violate themselves by going
into that sewer of a newsgroup?

gab

SO, WHERE ARE THE ANTISEMITES GOING TO BE HANGED?