Columbia University vs. the Jews, Again - by Rafael Medoff

...Israel, however, is not a debating society. Unlike Columbia University, it faces daily terrorist attacks and constant threats to its national existence. From the safety of Morningside Heights, university officials can welcome Nazis, rock-throwers, antisemitic poets, and terror-sponsoring dictators without having to worry about the consequences. The Israelis, who are forced to address real-world issues such as life and death, have to be a little more cautious as to whom they let in.

Rafael Medoff..
The Weekly Standard..
08 May '18..

The president of Columbia University this week criticized Israel for expelling an American professor who endorses Palestinian terrorism. That’s the same Columbia University which has never apologized for expelling a student who protested the university’s friendly relationship with the Nazis in the 1930s.

The new controversy concerns Columbia law professor Katherine Franke. When Palestinians unleashed a wave of stabbing attacks on Israelis in October 2015—which Israel’s prime minister characterized as “Palestinian Islamic terrorism”—Prof. Franke responded with this tweet: “Palestinian resistance 2 Israeli policy isn’t ‘Islamic terrorism’ - it’s anti-colonial resistance.” Prof. Franke is also one of the leaders of the Academic Advisory Council of the organization “Jewish Voice for Peace,” which promotes the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

When Franke sought to bring a 19-person delegation to Israel last week, she probably had some inkling that her positions and activities might result in Israel denying her admission. (Certainly such antics could keep a foreigner from entering the United States. Non-citizens who “endorse or espouse terrorist activity” are denied entry to the U.S. under Sec. 212 (3)(b)(IV)(bb) of the U.S. Criminal Code.) Unsurprisingly, the Israeli authorities turned Franke away. At which point Columbia University president Lee Bollinger jumped in, declaring: “I think it is wrong for a country to deny entry to a visitor because of his or her political beliefs.” That appeared in a New York Times column headlined “Israel Banishes a Columbia Law Professor for Thinking Differently.”

But Israel does not deny entry because of a person’s political beliefs or thoughts. In fact, 15 of the 19 members of Franke’s delegation were allowed to enter, despite their unabashedly unfriendly beliefs and thoughts. (The declared purpose of the delegation was to “witness” what they called Israel’s “history of systematic displacement and institutional racism” against Arabs.) Among the delegation’s members was Tammika Mallory, co-chair of last year’s Women’s March and an outspoken supporter of the antisemitic Rev. Louis Farrakhan. Mallory has been participating in Farrakhan’s rallies “regularly for over 30 years,” she has acknowledged. And yet “oppressive” Israel allowed her to enter.

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