Editor,
The committee at Columbia University concluded that an anti-Israel professor indeed intimidated a student with pro-Israel views, when he shouted at her that she would not be permitted to express her alternative viewpoint in his class ("Report: No evidence professors made anti-Semitic remarks" in the April 1 edition of the Daily Journal).
But the committee, composed mainly of colleges and friends of the accused professors, evaded the main issue: The teaching of propaganda by some professors who so demonize Israel that defenders of the Jewish state find themselves in a hostile environment in their classes.
The report evades this issue by referring to incidents of biased, dishonest teaching in pedagogical and psychological terms. It classes them as rhetorically combative methods or as expressions of uncongenial views that, and the issue is reduced to this, make some students uncomfortable.
But the committee never considers the possibility that these teachings are lies and propaganda. When Professor Massad teaches that the word Zion means penis and therefore Zionism is a macho movement, this is not an uncongenial view, but a lie. When at Columbia it is taught that the Jews are Nazis and the Palestinians are the new Jews, and that the Jews slaughtered Arabs in Jenin, these are not rhetorically combative modes of teaching; they are blood libels, anti-Semitic provocations, deceptions, and Arabist propaganda.
These issues will only fester if investigated by friends of the offending professors, many themselves anti-Israel activists, circling the wagons. The only question is: What will Columbia's President Lee Bollinger do to restore academic integrity?
Charles Jacobs
President, The David Project
Newton, Mass.
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