We Must All Reject The "Silencing" of Our Universities and of Intellectual Freedom
:: An Open Letter to Academics & Universities ::
by Mohamed
Khodr
"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it."
Abraham Lincoln
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Honorable Administrators,
Deans, Faculty, and Students of the Following
Universities:
Universities:
Colorado College; Columbia
University; Concordia University; Harvard University; New York
University;
Northeastern University; San Francisco State University;
Stanford University; State University of New York;
University of California - Berkeley; University of Chicago;
University of North Carolina; University of South Florida;
University of Toronto
Professors:
ALAM, M. Shahid -
Northeastern University; COLE, Juan - University
of Michigan; DABASHI, Hamid - Columbia University
ESPOSITO, John - Georgetown University; KHALIDI,
Rashid - University of Chicago; MASSAD, Joseph -
Columbia University
MAZRUI, Ali A. - State University of New York,
Binghamton; SHINGAVI, Snehal - University of
California - Berkeley
IN THE CONTINUING TRADITION OF JEWISH
GROUPS AND PRO-ISRAELI LOBBIES in our
nation since the founding of Israel to silence by
whatever means necessary any debate or criticism
of Israel or any balanced study of Islam comes
the newest and most blatant attack on our
academic freedom, our freedom of speech, and our
liberty and passion to seek knowledge and truth
in our centers of higher learning. The latest
manifestation of such malice intent upon our
freedom to learn, analyze, and reach independent
thought, however unpopular, is the newly created
website Campus
Watch, by
the known Pro-Israeli "expert", Daniel Pipes (www.danielpipes.com). The sole intent of this website is to track
and develop what amounts to a "hit list" or
"black list" (much akin to the website listing
Abortion Doctors) of universities
and academicians who have the courage to analyze
and perhaps criticize Israel's policies toward
the Palestinians; criticism already manifested in
over 90 U.N. Resolutions, all supported by the
United States; found in reports by every Human
Rights Organizations, and in the worldwide media
with the exception of the American media. Such
a "hit list" is meant to draw media attention,
galvanize the usual network of opponents who will
flood the university and/or professor with hate
mail, picketing, even death threats, jeopardize
alumni funding, donations, and governmental or
private contracts. Such tactics have been the
norm against even the slightest hint of criticism
of Israel, a nation whose founding, funding,
weaponry, and U.N. vetoes depends on America's
support and largesse. For Israel to receive
about 40 percent of all our foreign aid,
amounting to five times what the entire continent
of Africa receives is a testament to the power of
Israel's lobby.
With our Executive, Legislative,
and Media institutions already submitting to such intimidating
tactics, our Universities are the last bastion of freedom of
thought, freedom from fear, freedom of expression and debate,
freedom to seek the truth, freedom to analyze, and freedom to
act based on a foundation of learning, curiosity, rationality,
intelligent analysis, and most of all, the "Courage" to
challenge the status quo and move humanity closer to the ideal
of equality, justice, and liberty "endowed by our Creator." Our
Universities and teachers must never surrender their
intellectual freedom to any group that attempts to stifle our
most important gift, the gift of independent thought.
As the late Supreme Court
Justice Louis Brandeis, the founder of American Zionism, stated
regarding the sacrifice of our founding fathers: "They valued
liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to
be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of
liberty."
We must defend our liberties and freedom of speech anywhere,
anytime, and by any means necessary. Our very civilization
depends on our liberty to think and speak freely without
fear. Our institutions of higher learning that attract seekers
of knowledge from around the globe must never submit to the
double standard inherent in our domestic and foreign policies
that benefit the few, the rich, and the mighty. Our future
generation deserves no less than their endowment with an honest,
fair, balanced, and critical education; rather than
the conformity and herd mentality that permeates our political,
economic, entertainment, and media institutions.
As Thomas Mann said: "Speech is civilization itself.
The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact.
It is silence which isolates."
I beseech all of you to reject such intimidating tactics that
divides the world, akin to Bush and Bin Laden, into two
halves----a world of either with or against Israel; a world of
being a self-hating Jew or an Anti-Semite. Even such a luminary
as the President of Harvard lashed out at those Americans,
mostly Jewish Americans, who seek to divest Harvard from its
investments from Israel, as being Anti-Semites. It was fine for
Harvard to divest from the Apartheid regime of South Africa but
not from Israel.
Anti-Semitism has become America's "Scarlet Letter", although
most Americans don't realize that "Semitic" refers to languages
such as Arabic, Hebrew, Assyrian, Aramaic, Babylonian, and
Ethiopian and has no relation to religion or ethnicity. It was
only in the late 19th Century that a German journalist began
using it to refer to the anti-Jewish sentiment in Germany and
Europe. Arabic is the basis for all Semitic languages such as
Hebrew and Aramaic. Given that the majority of Jews around the
world don't speak Hebrew they can hardly be called Semitic,
while speaking the Arabic language defines who is an Arab, thus
all Arabs are Semites.
May God bless you all for caring enough to be our teachers and
mentors and not simply producers of a "silenced" generation of
Americans.
As a former educator and victim of Sharon's (Man of Peace)
siege and onslaught on Beirut in 1982, I am only too aware of the
tactics of carrots and sticks employed to "silence" our nation
into submission to the will of Israel. Today Sharon is
destroying the compound of Arafat as Bush seems intent on
destroying Saddam's compound.
Truth and Justice always prevails in the long run against false
pride, arrogance, and might.
Peace, Shalom, and Salaam
