Duke University's Weekend Hate Fest
By Lee Kaplan
FrontPageMagazine.com | October 15, 2004
Duke University, under the leadership of its president,
Richard Brodhead, and most notably its Vice President
for Governmental Affairs, John Burness, continues to
whitewash the anti-Semitic and anti-American event
still scheduled for this weekend on the Durham campus
despite misrepresentation by the organizers over the
event¢s real purpose. The Palestine Solidarity¢s
conference, far from being an academic exercise in
freedom of speech and academic freedom, will be a
training session for anti-Semites and those seeking to
support the Insurgents in Iraq who kill U.S. soldiers.
It will be an event where attendees will learn how to
conduct civil disobedience that can include the
destruction of campus property and to support
terrorists overseas while the organizers train others
to recruit more of their same ilk on campuses all over
the United States and Canada.
What is amazing is that Duke¢s administrators seem so
intent the event go forward they are practically
telling outright lies to the public. On the Duke
University official website and advertising for the
event, whatever the organizers want the public to
believe is posted or whitewashed to look good, courtesy
of the University.
For example, Duke ran a statement that ÒKill the Jews!Ó
was not shouted at one of the previous conferences at
the University of Michigan. After Front Page furnished
John Burness with a signed legal affidavit, plus one
eyewitness account by a Michigan attendee and proof
that two newspapers had verified such epithets
occurred, Burness altered Duke¢s website to say only
that Òsome other people have claimed such statements
were made in Arabic Ó and only after citing some
unnamed faculty sources at Michigan who allegedly said
it never happened. The fact those faculty sources may
have had a part in bringing the event to the
Wolverines¢ campus was completely ignored.
Even worse, Burness cites an alleged endorsement by the
American Jewish Committee that the Michigan event was
an example of educational discourse and civility. This
tale was no doubt given to Burness by Fayyad Sbaihat,
the current head organizer of the Duke Hate Fest whom I
exposed in my article on last year¢s Conference.
Despite the American Jewish Committee sending a letter
to Burness stating that such an endorsement by their
organization never occurred, Burness at this writing
has failed to correct the lie on the Duke website that
whitewashes the event.
Scuttlebutt has it that Duke is spending upwards of
$50,000 in added security costs to make sure the event
happens on campus, including metal detectors to keep
out recorders and cameras at this Òopen dialogÓ event.
When I queried Burness by email if Saudi money was
helping Duke to foot the bill, he wrote back saying he
was unaware of ANY Saudi funding at all going to Duke
University. Sending him proof of Saudi donations and
funding for Duke in the past elicited no response at
all. Such donations are too numerous to all be cited in
this article.
Originally Front Page Magazine did not ask that Duke
cancel this event, just merely allow tape recorders and
cameras inside. Censorship is de rigueur for the
organizers at all their events because they hold
sessions where lawbreaking methods -- to be used to
support terrorism overseas -- are discussed.
Burness left the banning of recorders and cameras open
to the organizers as he insisted this event was open to
all points of view. However, a recent Duke University
Chronicle article reports that the press will also not
be allowed to record quotes inside the workshops at
all, even without cameras and recorders. What is the
excuse given by the organizers? ÒTo ensure free
speech,Ó according to one leader, who fails to explain
how reporting to the public hinders free speech.
Duke¢s administrators, like a broken record, continue
to cite the event as a model of open dialog and freedom
of speech. The question is, ÒOpen dialog and free
speech for whom?Ó Duke states the event has no speech
codes as long as things remain civil. But the
organizers openly talk of ejecting people who do not
talk in Òconsensus buildingÓ speech, no matter how
civilly. How can one build ÒconsensusÓ when the event¢s
Guiding Principles are full of doublespeak endorsements
of terrorism and the destruction of Israel, they
refusal to condemn terrorism, and call for civil disobedience?
In short, there will be no real dialog or discussion at
this event and Duke¢s administrators, in the most
Orwellian fashion of doublespeak, are working hard to
keep things that way.
The event's list of workshop speakers scheduled on the
Palestine Solidarity organizers¢ website reveals a
collection of anti-Semites and non-academic Òexperts,Ó
who are given academic credibility by Duke¢s previous
reputation (something this event should diminish for
years to come). Duke¢s conduct should make it the
laughing stock of universities.
For example, one workshop is led by Abe Greenhouse, a
former student at Rutgers University, whose greatest
academic achievement there was to smash a pie in the
face of Israeli Minister of the Diaspora Natan
Sharansky during a campus visit. Greenhouse is a felon.
He will be conducting and lecturing at a workshop
titled ÒAnatomy of the Organized Zionist Community in
the United States.Ó Greenhouse is no expert on Zionism.
He has never written any scholarly books subject to
academic scrutiny on the subject. Sharansky spent many
years in a Soviet Union gulag as part of the Soviet
Jewry movement and endured daily torture to finally
earn the right to emigrate to Israel. Want to become
famous and a speaker at Duke? Just commit a felony
assault on campus against a champion of democracy and
freedom.
But Greenhouse isn¢t just an isolated example from the Conference.
Fadi Kiblawi, at the Michigan conference, spoke of his
desire to strap on a belt and become a suicide bomber
in an article titled ÒA Perspective on Palestine while
High on Vicodin." (Muslim journal Al-Risalah,
University of Michigan, Spring Edition II, June 24,
2001). He also lectured at the Ohio State conference on
how to take over campus newspapers across the country.
Kiblawi will also be speaking and running a workshop. A
law student now at George Washington University,
Kiblawi¢s articles in the campus newspaper at GWU are
monitored by pro-Israel groups on that campus who
frequently have to write in to correct his false
statements. He was arrested in Israel for trying to
bring down the Security Fence, and Kiblawi also
condemned the shut down of the Global Relief Foundation
and the arrest of its head manager, Rabih Haddad, for
funding al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups overseas.
Howie Machtinger will lead a workshop on ÒAn
American-Jewish Anti-Occupation Perspective.Ó Like
Greenhouse, Machtinger uses his Jewish ancestry solely
as a weapon to advance his radical agenda to destroy
American capitalism (while living here) along with
Israel. Machtinger is a stereotype come to life; a
comedy writer¢s image of the aging activist. If he
wasn¢t real, his career would be too amazing to
believe. Machtinger was on the barricades at Columbia
University in 1968 and was one of the founders of the
Weather Underground. He co-authored a tome that stated,
ÒAt the right moment, revolutionaries within the United
States were to wage a ¡people¢s war¢ and attack from
within. The government would fall and ¡world Communism¢
would eventually be instituted.Ó He also spoke about
Òhow the black liberation movement is so far advanced
at this point that the only thing left for white
revolutionaries is to support blacks by fighting cops
as a diversionary tactic.Ó Machtinger has been a
radical for so long he appears at radical
retrospectives and he claims that H. Rap Brown is
innocent of killing a black policeman during a traffic
stop. Calling for the destruction of Israel is the
cause of the millennium. This is another speaker Duke
is hosting at this Òeducational conference.Ó
But the most telling speaker at this event who shows it
is an anti-Semitic hate fest is Charles E. Carlson,
whose hatred for Jews borders on psychosis. Carlson is
an overt supporter of suicide bombers. He has written
articles glorifying suicide bombers:
ÒImagine taking the risk of being caught and beaten to
death while trying to sneak out of Gaza, a fenced
prison; then to travel alone overland to some populated
area carrying a homemade pipe bomb that you know can
only be detonated within a few feet of an enemy if it
is not to be wasted. Imagine knowing that if you
detonate the bomb too soon or in the wrong place you
will kill only yourself and your friends....Ó
Carlson goes on to argue that the fact that so many
Israeli soldiers are killed by suicide bombers ÒprovesÓ
that the bombers are targeting soldiers, not civilians.
Soldiers are killed when they apprehend suicide bombers
at check points. The bombers are, of course, en route
to civilian targets.
Carlson is a hardcore anti-Semite, repeating
long-discredited conspiracy theories claiming Jews run
the money supply and are not, in fact, Jewish. For example:
ÒAre There any Zionist Judeo ¡Christians¢ in your Town?
Do they Act in Good Faith? Does the Truth have a place
in their ¡Religion/Beliefs¢? Or do they Serve the
¡Alleged Authorities¢? The Rulers of Romans 13. You
Know the Ashkenazim/Khazar Edomite ¡Jews.¢ The Class A
Stockholders of the Federal Reserve:
[http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm] - Share the
Light of the Truth with the neo-conned
¡Judeo-Christians¢ and lead them into the paths of righteousness.Ó
Carlson is also a publisher of al-Jazeera and will be
joined by other virulent anti-Semites like Alison Weir
from Sausalito, California. Weir has called the Hebron
Massacre of 1929 an ÒArab UprisingÓ and pushes the
propaganda that the Nazis and Jews worked hand-in-hand
during the Holocaust, among other ludicrous accusations.
The PLO, the Saudis and the Arab League have targeted
American universities as the next outlet to spread the
anti-Israeli, anti-American propaganda they already
teach in their own schools. It¢s a pity that Duke¢s
administration is so willing to aid them.
Duke President Richard Brodhead was inaugurated only
weeks ago and has lowered Duke¢s reputation by making
Duke a training base to spread pro-terrorist hatred.
President Brodhead has told Duke¢s trustees, Ò[T]he
next few weeks promise to test our university in many
ways. I am confident this current controversy will
eventually be seen as a moment when Duke demonstrated
leadership and preserved a principle at the core of
what universities must be about.Ó
ÒDemonstrated leadershipÓ is precisely what Duke is
lacking. The purpose of a university should be to
enable a free society to remain free through the
exercise of scholarship, research and real
dialogue. Brodhead and Burness are perfectly willing to
let the organizers ban the press from
strategy-and-training sessions. That has nothing to do
with education.
Want to know more about what goes on inside the
Palestine Solidarity Conference at Duke? Write
President Brodhead and demand the press be allowed
inside ALL workshops and events during the event.The
American public has a right to know. You can e-mail
President Richard Brodhead at: president@duke.edu.
While you're at it, write the trustees of Duke
University, as well.
À À ÀÀ À À
Lee Kaplan is a contributing editor to Frontpagemag.com.
Copyright©2004 FrontPageMagazine.com
--
LP
"We are fighting today for security, for progress,
and for peace, not only for ourselves but for all
men, not only for one generation but for all
generations. We are fighting to cleanse the world
of ancient evils, ancient ills."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
State of the Union Address - 1942
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