From the Boston Globe:
Republican US Senator Scott Brown is calling on Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to cancel a conference on a “one-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I want to condemn in the strongest possible terms Harvard’s sponsorship of a conference exploring a ‘one-state solution’ to the Israel-Palestinian conflict,” he said in a statement. “This is dangerous thinking that gives comfort to Israel’s enemies who view the ‘one-state solution’ as a euphemism for eliminating Israel as a Jewish state. Harvard may have a right to do this, but that doesn’t make it right to do it. The University should cancel this conference.”
The Globe reported this morning that the conference has drawn criticism from the Anti-Defamation league, which said it has dangerous implications for Israel. The ADL has not called on Harvard to cancel the conference, but has instead asked Harvard President Drew Faust to denounce its theme.
The conference organizer, Ahmed Moor, a first-year student, told the Globe that the conference is intended to discuss ways that all residents of the region enjoy human rights. The Kennedy School told the Globe that the conference is student organized, but received modest funding from the school’s student government and the event’s website will use the school’s name and logo.
Brown, facing a reelection challenge from Elizabeth Warren, has made the Democrat’s ties to Harvard University a centerpiece in his strategy to label her an out-of-touch elitist. Warren teaches at Harvard Law School.
Brown even made a reference to elitism in his in his statement attacking the conference.
“Academic elites need to understand that their ideas have real world consequences well beyond the comforts of the ivory tower, and the last thing Israel needs is Harvard legitimizing a terribly misguided idea,” he said.
Warren’s campaign, in a statement, would not say whether she agrees with calls to denounce or cancel the conference.
dershowitz is good, man.
Another example of how the Israel lobby is ruining the Republican Party. Doesn’t Scott Brown believe in basic American values? America is not an ethnocentric or theocentric state, or, what is worse, a combination of the two. Ethnic and religious nationalism are incompatible with modern Western democratic values. And to top it off, Brown has positioned himself as an opponent of academic freedom and free speech. This is your brain on Likud Zionism.
Everywhere you look, Israel and their agents are terrified, screaming hysterically, every time a debate is announced. Is their position so weak, so defenceless and vulnerable, so easily toppled that they daren’t risk the tiniest amount of open debate about people’s opinions? Really, they are making themselves enemies everywhere with their odious brownshirt tactics, so antithetical to American principles.
Equality under the law regardless of color or creed should be American values, and sometimes we have even practiced them. But very often in our history these have not been our operative values. We are less a “nation of immigrants” than a settler-colonial state, the result of some European tribes conquering territory and subjugating other tribes. Ditto for Israel. The settler-colonial tribalism of Israel speaks on a gut level to a lot of Americans, particularly to white Americans. (This, by the way, is not to disagree in the slightest with Mr McBride above.) I’ve all but given up on trying to talk values and morality to people like Scott Brown; Republicans and Democrats like that don’t really give a toss about “Western democratic values,” academic freedom or free speech, with them it’s all narrowly self-interested tribalism. The only argument that might even make a dent with these yahoos is the sizable national security liability that our costly special relationship with Israel presents. Fortunately this happens to be an easy argument to make.
‘ ‘ Elizabeth was unaware of this conference, but she is a strong supporter of the steadfast relationship between Israel and the United States, and she firmly believes in a two-state solution,” spokeswoman Alethea Harney said. ‘ ‘
Very astute. “Elisabeth is unaware, and she shall remain unaware”. And by being for “two state solution” she is to the left of Danny Dannon and GOP.