Arabs aim to use Jewish facilities to propagandize
By Lee Kaplan
Monday, February 19, 2007
If you're having your coffee while reading this, you had better sit down.
The Hillel Foundation exists on campuses all across the United States. Its purpose, of course, is to provide a place on campus where Jewish students can mingle, socialize and, of course, do "Jewish" things. When it comes to Shabbat dinners, or Hebrew lessons, or Israeli folk dancing, Hillel is the place to be. But when it comes to politics, Hillel is the collegiate center of Chelm.
You see, Hillel runs by what they call a "big tent" that includes all points of view, sort of like academic freedom with blinders on.
For years, I've warned Hillel leaders that groups like the ISM held seminars in US campuses where they discussed infiltrating Hillel with members of their Palestine Solidarity Movement. Their aim: to use Jewish facilities to propagandize and work against the existence of Israel and, frankly, to sucker the Jews into aiding the enemy. Hillel's reaction was to silence me whenever possible, not correct the problem.
I found it amusing once that Hillel's national headquarters sent out solicitations from donors asking for money so they could fight the ISM. Anyone who donated funds probably never knew they went for things like those described below.
It's not enough that Israel has to contend with the billions in Arab oil money seeking to poison the minds of future young Americans at our colleges with the lie that Israel, the only pluralistic society in the Middle East, is a rogue nation practicing apartheid worse than South Africa ever did and that it treats those poor, poor Palestinians worse than the Jews were treated by the Nazis in the Holocaust.
The Hillel at Berkeley is a prime example of Chelmite theory. On the UC Berkeley website can be found a permanently affixed video of an IDF "refuseniks" conference held with the co-sponsorship of Berkeley Hillel and the Students for Justice in Palestine. When I investigated these "refuseniks," alleged IDF veterans who refused to serve in the West Bank, they turned out to be radical Israeli expatriates who hadn't lived in Israel for over 20 years and never returned to Israel anyway for anything. But, as communists and anarchists in America, they were suddenly representative of the IDF thanks to Hillel's co-sponsorship.
When I pointed out to Hillel in Berkeley a few years back that a young woman working on their Israel Action Committee had actually been a leader among the Students for Justice in Palestine in Pennsylvania, who openly advocated for the end of Israel, the Hillel director, instead of thanking me, demanded to know how I found that out. When I offered to work with him to prevent that from happening again, he stonewalled any contact with me.
On another occasion, my good friend Tovia Singer and I broadcast live from an event at Berkeley Hillel conducted by Brit T'zedek V'Shalom where the deportation of Jews from their homes in Judea and Samaria was openly advocated. There was considerable outrage from donors over this. But did Hillel change its policies on allowing groups into Hillel that advocate for things that hurt Jews? Nah.
Recently, I got back on Hillel's Israel Action Committee email list at Berkeley. The girl in charge of the IAC was sending out the usual wonderful programs about Israel including showing a film of a poor Palestinian who is "suffering under the occupation." When I notified the Hillel director this girl persists with this "occupation" garbage constantly, using the rhetoric of Israel's enemies, the Hillel director took immediate action: he removed me from the email list.
Last August, Hillel co-sponsored with the Students for Justice in Palestine at UC Berkeley a resolution through the UC Berkeley student senate that called for "peace and the end of the Israeli occupation." The SJP at Berkeley started and promotes nationwide the divestment from and boycott of Israel. Mind you, the resolution - put together by a Jewish kid in the SJP who tells the Arabs how they can hurt Israel and even lectured at SFSU to Arab students from Al-Awda, which openly advocates Israel's annihilation - did not specify just the West Bank or Gaza. Any visitor to Chelm knows that the Arabs, including the leaders of Al-Awda, consider all of Israel "occupied."
Word is that the Hillel at the University of Michigan voted to allow the Muslim Students Association on campus to use its facilities for meetings. The MSA, funded by Saudi Arabia, is also behind the national divestment movement. That "big tent" should be called the Tent of Chelm.
But what really got my dander up for this article was the latest from Hillel at CUNY, the City University of New York. Stop the ISMlearned the ISM was planning another seminar and conference on campus for "Israel Apartheid Week." We started legal proceedings to stop the event as anti-Semitic and an attack on Jews, which it was. A week ago, the administration denied the event was taking place on campus, saying it required a reservation a month in advance. Then, just three days ago, it was announced.
Our attorney contacted the Hillel director at Hunter College at CUNY and asked her if some students would sign onto the lawsuit as plaintiffs. Her reaction was to refuse to cooperate with him; and she announced to the students within earshot that she "forbids" (really!) any students from cooperating. When some other CUNY students decided to protest the event peacefully and asked fellow students at Hillel to join them, the students in the IAC at Hillel said they would only protest by playing Israeli music outside the event and serving Israeli food. Yum.
You have to admire the Chelmites in Hillel for being consistently stupid. But the story gets better. The Arab students started their conference at CUNY by screening a film that claimed IDF soldiers abuse Palestinian paraplegics and other disabled Arabs. There were five CUNY security guards present at this event that CUNY administrators claimed wasn't even taking place. When some other Jewish CUNY students wearing kippahs turned up to sit in on the event, it was the Hillel director who called for additional security backup, not the Arabs. A swarm of CUNY security guards, some shtarkers akin to the Russian police, showed up immediately as the Jewish students sat down inside.
One of the CUNY students asked the Arab panel at the conclusion of the film if they supported terrorism. They refused to answer. He asked a second time. Then the Hillel director told the security guards to throw the questioner out even though he was neither violent nor disruptive. Five guards didn't ask him to leave, they just grabbed him out of his chair and dragged him to the door, where they beat him severely. The student offered to walk out away peacefully, but when he reached the escalator outside, one guard pushed him down the steps and injured him enough for him to be taken to the hospital by an ambulance.
You're not supposed to ask Arabs who propagandize and promote terrorist groups on campus in America if they support terrorism. If you do, even the Chelmites from Hillel will call the goons in on you.
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