Columbia's choice, and ours -Caroline Glick[B]y inviting Ahmadinejad to campus, Columbia has made the pros and cons of genocide a legitimate subject for debate. By asking Ahmadinejad challenging questions, Bollinger has reduced the right of the Jewish people to live to a question of preferences.
No doubt, Bollinger prefers to see the Jewish people remain alive. But this is beside the point. The point is that by debating the issue with Ahmadinejad, Bollinger just put the right of the Jewish people to exist on the table.
[B]y inviting Ahmadinejad to its campus, Columbia University announced that supporting or opposing the genocide of the Jews is a legitimate topic for discussion. In so doing, Columbia has taken itself beyond the pale of legitimate discourse.
As an institution, Columbia has embraced depravity...
[Jerusalem Post]
Caroline Glick, a Columbia graduate
No doubt, Bollinger prefers to see the Jewish people remain alive. But this is beside the point. The point is that by debating the issue with Ahmadinejad, Bollinger just put the right of the Jewish people to exist on the table.
[B]y inviting Ahmadinejad to its campus, Columbia University announced that supporting or opposing the genocide of the Jews is a legitimate topic for discussion. In so doing, Columbia has taken itself beyond the pale of legitimate discourse.
As an institution, Columbia has embraced depravity...
[Jerusalem Post]
Caroline Glick, a Columbia graduate
5 comments:
This is so wrong it is painful. Open debate is not a bad thing. The bad thing is Ahmadinejad and Iranian positions in a lot of matters. It is not wrong to allow a leader of a scary nation a place for discussion at an institution of higher learning. There was no “debate of genocide”. The debate was to expose Ahmadinejad and to educate ignorant people that may feel like minded. It does a disservice to Jewish people and Israel to act like they should censor or hide away from such discourse. Then they would seem like they were afraid of something or trying to hide something. They should want these views aired because most would find them unacceptable and offensive, and anyone who doesn’t should be made more public because they obviously felt that way already. Even unconscionable ideas should not be hidden when leaders of any kind are the one’s that have them. We need to educate more people not hide from bad people and their criminal ideas.
Hm. While true that illegitimate ideas generally fall in reasonable discourse, that was not the main menu @ Columbia.
Nor, i believe, is Caroline Glick proposing that the issues should be hidden or censored. These type of views could have been given voice by other people, or gleaned from the internet and discussed.
By inviting Ahmadinejad, Columbia elevated him higher on the world stage, increasing his power and legitimacy around the globe...not to mention in Iran.
One of the sad sidebars of this event is that Ahmadinejad's power has been waining somewhat in Iran. He played the UN and Columbia like a well practiced musician. He returns to Iran a hero in the Muslim world.
I do not believe this has elevated him anywhere. I believe that Columbia, or any other fine institution would invite and/or allow any leader of any significant nation with ridiculous ideas to air them in such a public forum. I disagree that his powers were waining in Iran or that this has helped him. The Ayatollah actually running Iran toned down some of the rhetoric on nuclear issues and some people took that as a rebuke of Ahmadinejad. I think otherwise, that it was staged to see how these scenarios might play out on the world stage. Glick made it very clear she did not think this "debate of genocide" of the Jewish people of Israel should have been allowed. That would have been censoring it, and I still do not believe it was a debate about genocide either. She made it plain that she believes Columbia legitimized such a debate about whether Israel and the Jewish people should be exterminated. Whether Ahmadinejad believes this or not, he did not admit to it in this forum, and such a debate never took place. Ahmadinejad avoided many answers, seemed to contradict other statements he had previously made, and was visibly flustered by the way the forum was handled. I do not think this made him appear stronger to any Arab nations, as he did not have the courage of his convictions to provide invective against Israel when he was on the stage. A weak, flip-flopping, flustered performance is the best he can lay claim to, and I do not think it will help him anywhere at all.
When Glick refers to the debate of genocide, she is, i believe, referring to giving legitimacy to an anti-Zionist position.
Also, there was a recent election in Iran that saw the erosion of Ahmadinejad's power base.
Larry, oddly enough, in the case of Columbia, your position and George Bush's position are in sync. i'm worried about this development.
Glick claimed by inviting, those supporting, OR opposing genocide, you were giving credence to a debate that should not be allowed in the first place. I agree with her actually, that having a debate about any peoples genocide is unacceptable. I just disagree with her viewpoint that, that is what went on here. I believe many Iranian people would vote to show they were not happy with Ahmadinejad's handling of some issues that might bring about needless sanctions and harassment but have not seen a true weakening of support by the actual rulers of the country as opposed to his predecessor. As for my opinion being as one with President Bush, it is for differing resons. He probably feels this way because he too is an unpopular and controversial world leader and wants to think an Ivy League school might someday be interested in what he has to say. (He is probably mistaken in this, though) I,on the other hand, think nasty ideas should be aired out in public forums and not shied away from.
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