Let’s back up a bit. The Hampshire College board of trustees responded to a petition from a pro-Palestinian student group by divesting from one of its investment funds containing stocks of companies benefiting from the Israeli Occupation.
You can imagine how this news will be distorted by right-wing pro-Israel forces. Hampshire College becomes the first U.S. institution to endorse the Israel boycott. Hampshire College hotbed of anti-Israel activism. Anti-Semitism reigns at Hampshire, the pro-terror college. You get the gist. And if you don’t David Horowitz, Charles Jacobs, Daniel Pipes, and Marty Peretz will fill you in.
Not to be outdone, Alan Dershowitz had to open his big fat mouth and weigh in:
Allen Dershowitz has just called SJP [Students for Justice in Palestine] members and has threatened to start an international campaign to divest from Hampshire College
I think Der Dersh is thinking too small. Clearly, Hampshire is a hotbed of pro-Hamas terror. Why not invite the IDF in to place the campus under siege? Lock everything down. Search every person and vehicle entering campaign to ensure there is no contraband that could be used for pro-terror activities.
You’ve got to be specially vigilant because they say a Qassam launched from Hampshire could reach Dersh’s home in Cambridge. And I think that in good conscience the IDF should draft him into the army with the rank of at least colonel, if not general. Won’t he look smashing in his IDF uniform with those officer epaulets and that cute beret they give to all the Golanis? Who better to command the forces in the war against Hampshire than someone who knows the lay of the academic land?
But let’s not stop there. Organize a boycott of every Hampshire College faculty member: refuse to publish their papers, disinvite them from academic conferences, get their grants cancelled, etc. Dersh knows how that game is played since he circulated a dossier on Finkelstein to the entire DePaul faculty. This means war and Dersh knows how to fight it since he’s a street fighter going back to his days beating up little weanie goyim and schvartzes in the old Brooklyn neighborhood.
Oh, and lest you not believe that the Jerusalem Post is written by a bunch of pro-Israel nitwits of the first order read this passage and tell me otherwise:
Asked if the SJP would encourage the college to divest from companies providing similar “dual-use” products in Gaza that assist Hamas’s fighting efforts, Cohen replied, “the bottom line is that we as an institution have money invested in the Israeli occupation. We do not have money in Hamas. So it’s a non-issue.”
Which U.S. companies provide dual use products to Gaza? In fact, since the IDF has the enclave under siege and specifically prohibits the import of any product that might remotely be construed as having a link to manufacturing rockets, how could such products manufactured by U.S. companies even enter Gaza? I mean, really, is this the height of journalistic imbecility or what? Haviv Rettig Gur, you have won the prize for most partisan pro-Israel journalism of the week, if not the month.
What a joke this guy is. I had to click on the source to make sure you weren’t pulling our leg Richard.
For anyone who isn’t a total moron, this will surely show that Der cannot be taken seriously again EVER. Pathetic twip.
Mr Silverstein said: ” In fact, since the IDF has the enclave under siege and specifically prohibits the import of any product that might remotely be construed as having a link to manufacturing rockets, how could such products manufactured by U.S. companies even enter Gaza?”
That is the way I felt hearing Hamas was being accused by Israel of using phosphorus bombs, that are a US manufactured weapon. Did we take to supplying both sides? I wondered, how did they get there? Did Hamas strong arm a Israeli enclave and confiscate them? I was definitely baffled.
I feel bad for Hampshire College. As if this economy is not hard enough for most institutions. They chose not to choose sides, in essence. And, they will likely be punished and labeled.
About the phosphorus bomb sent from Gaza into Israel (whether by Hamas or some other group), if true, I’d speculate they might have re-used duds or incompletely burned leftovers and returned them to sender.
There have been reports of children being injured when playing with pieces still containing unburned phosphorus that ignited through friction.
That’s pure speculation on my part though.
Speaking of Dershowitz, he has a letter printed in today’s NYtimes, if you want to get your blood pressure up even more:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/opinion/l13muslim.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
Though I was never for boycott in the past, I think it might make a dent if it was more of a movement, maybe in solidarity with Hampshire.
The “self defense” argument should be argued. Whether Gaza is still occupied or not should be argued. (Dershowitz calls Gaza “formerly occupied”). The use of “war on terror” should be argued.
And since that Obama quote from Sderot is being used, or misused, Obama should, if he has not, clarify further what he meant by: “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”
How about going to Gaza and imagining his two daughters trying to sleep at night?
This idiot gets complete access to mainstream news. He’s on TV all the time and he gets to write in the Times.
That’s how morally bankrupt we are as a country. We’re turning into Israel.
All we need now is for a US soldier to kill a bunch of Iraqis and leave a note in one of their houses saying it’s their fault we ruined their lives.
Zionist sanctimony. Although, we’re pretty sanctimonious ourselves in the first place.
Excellent writing.
The way to go.
We need good humor to show up the fanatics.
Congratulations
K
wonderful, Richard. This saved my day.
Well, there are the tunnels. Indeed, ironically I believe some enterprising Palestinians have got their hands on some Caterpillar tunnel boring equipment. A delicious irony if there ever was one.
There are plenty dual-use products entering Gaza:
Food, medical goods, electricity, fuel…you get the idea. After all, Qassam makers have to eat and drink, too, when ill they need a doctor, they heat their homes, and so on. It’s all “terrorist infrastructure”.
Food? Well basic foodstuffs like rice yes, but dual use Pasta requires the personal intervention of a US Senator (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1882347,00.html). I think chocolate biscuits will probably require the personal intervention of Obama himself.
Hampshire was also the first college to divest from South Africa in 1977 and we all know how the world looks at that situation now. Israel is an occupying force, a nation with an apartheid and as a student of Hampshire College I fully support the divestment.
Hey Folks ::
The administration doesn’t speak for the student movement that has won this divestment.
http://www.hsjp.org/voices-of-divestment/
http://voicesofdivestment.wordpress.com/
The is the greatest column. As someone with contacts to Hampshire, this column was the best (and humorous) contribution to the debate. Dershowitz never looked better. The point for Hampshire is that everyone won, if the Trustees could simply say that guidelines for socially responsible investment, put in place in 1976, direct our investments. The Students for Justice in Palestine presented us with information indicatin that one of our portfolios contradicted our guidelines. Based on a commitment to international human rights laws and concern for the environment among others, we divested from companies in that portfolio. punto
Poor Dersh. You can tell that he was a skinny pimply adolescent and none of the girls he wanted paid any attention to him. He’s now compensating by being a racist apologist for Israeli genocide.
Usually when teenagers are ignored because they are geeks, they have two paths… the one that Bill Gates took or the one that Whirling Dershowitz has taken… similar to the path that other small ugly men like Napoleon, Hitler and Sharon have taken… “I’ll get even with the world by destroying what I can of it.” Sad really
what a joke, if only the world itself could divest from alan dershowitz.
in the meantime, though, hang in there.
Dersh’s kid went to Hampshire: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/13/hampshire
This guy really has no shame, it has got to a point where if you wake and find Al Dershowitz defending you, you know you are on the wrong side.
God! I can hardly believe that Silverstein exists.
And before spring with all the new burgeoning life.
New Life in already in February!!
I have no idea who RS is, but he certainly has added verbal power and hearty humor to the debate.
I have said for a long time, the debate will only begin when some genius publishes a Modest Proposal, a 1984, an Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Such a book, or better movie, could be the axe to break the ice around so many hearts.
Go to it, Silverstein.
You have my vote!
K
Do you think that Hampshire College will extend the boycott to all supporters of Israel?
I have no idea what this means. But whatever it does mean it is borderline nonsense as divestment is not a boycott, nor is this particular divestment proposal designed at individuals. IT is targeted at specific companies which benefit financially from products tailored to aid the Occupation & settlelment building projects.
I am reminded of the decline and fall of the House Un-American Activities Committee (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HUAC#Decline).
The Israeli Lobby has hitherto been able to focus its fire on anyone brave enough to put their head above the parapet. It’s problem is increasingly that there isn’t just one, there are many; there are going to be hundreds, then thousands, then too many to count, like phosphorous fragments over a UN compound. As with the HUAC a growing number of people are going to say “go ahead and fire, we’ll see who gets hurt most”!
Very well done Hampshire students 🙂