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It appears that there are a number of universities that permit an organization that explicitly condones terrorism to use their campuses for conferences. The organization is the Palestine Solidarity Movement. Per Duke University Ph.D. candidates Eric Adler & Jack Langer:
A new ritual on the American academic scene is the annual conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM). The PSM is an umbrella organization that connects various U.S. and Canadian groups; its yearly gathering offers an opportunity for the constituent elements to establish a visible presence on a prestigious university campus and plan strategy and tactics for a movement dedicated to delegitimizing the state of Israel. Over the last several years, the convocation has been held at Ohio State, the University of Michigan, and the University of California at Berkeley. This past October, it was the turn of Duke University.
The PSM condones terrorism and supports speakers that call for it explicitly.
Among the targets of protest [from some Duke students] was the PSMs fifth official guiding principle, which decrees the groups refusal to denounce any terrorist act committed by Palestinians. Condemnation was also directed at the PSMs amply documented history of anti-Semitism and incitement to violence. For example, one scheduled speaker, Charles Carlson, had openly called for lethal attacks against Israeli youth, declaring that every young Israeli is militarythey are all proper war targets, and that [e]ach wedding, Passover celebration, or bar mitzvah [in Israel] is a potential military target.
Let’s face it, any assistance to such a group is insupportable. The purposeful targeting of civilians for murder cannot be condoned in any way, shape or form. Universities lacking the courage to say as much are a disgrace.
Duke University, among others, has permitted the PSM to gather on its grounds.
Dukes president Richard Brodhead had only just assumed office last summer when the university announced that it would be hosting the PSM conference in the fall. Because the organizers had followed the proper procedures for mounting such an event, Brodhead explained, the decision to grant approval was an easy one. After all, the university was only reaffirming the importance of the principle of free expression.
The International Solidarity Movement was part of the conference.
One of the two ISM-led workshops at the Duke conference was Volunteering in Palestine: Role and Value of International Activists. A last-minute addition to the schedule, the workshop was conducted by ISM co-founder Huweida Arraf. Acknowledging during her talk that the ISM cooperates with the terror organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Arraf encouraged students to join the group and instructed them on how to enter Israel surreptitiously and how to deal with possible arrest and deportation. The Duke administration never commented publicly on the inclusion in the PSMs program of a workshop recruiting for a group with self-professed ties to terrorists and an openly avowed interest in generating casualties.
WorldNetDaily confirms this report:
Speakers at a controversial Duke University Palestinian solidarity conference, which concluded yesterday, recruited students to join a terrorist-harboring organization, WorldNetDaily has learned.
...many documented International Solidarity Movement speakers or workshop leaders participated in this week’s Duke conference, including ISM’s co-founder Huweida Arraf, who tried to recruit students to join her group.
Arraf led a workshop yesterday titled “Volunteering in Palestine: Role and Value of International Activists.” Arraf handed out brochures for the ISM and urged students to join the terror-supporting group, members of Duke’s Conservative Union who attended the workshop told WorldNetDaily. They asked that their names be withheld from publication.
...Arraf also told students the ISM “happily works with Hamas and Islamic Jihad,” said one Conservative Union member who attended the talk.
University support for such organizations will not withstand the light of public attention. All we have to do is look at it and talk about it and it will go away.
A September, 2004 article in FrontPage Magazine states that publicity has already driven the PSM conferences out of California:
On October 15-17th, Duke University is scheduled to host the Fourth Annual Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement. This years event was originally slated for the West Coast (last years was at Ohio State), but the organizers had to look elsewhere because of reports in Frontpage Magazine and elsewhere that chants of Kill the Jews were heard during the proceedings of the first conference at UC-Berkeley. The same chants were repeated at the University of Michigan conference the following year, where the guest of honor was Sami al-Arian, the U.S. head of the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Al-Arian wont be appearing at the Duke event because he is currently in federal lock-up. His group is responsible for the murder ofmore than100 people inside Israel including some American citizens. The campaign Frontpage Magazine waged against the conference at Ohio State, the third conference site, undoubtedly contributed to making university administrators in California skittish about holding such an event again.
Duke was chosen because it is a private university and less beholden to the public than taxpayer-supported institutions.
The PSM supports the killing of civilians in events such as 9-11. They have got to go. It is unthinkable for any American university to provide them with a forum.
#1
#2Good points.
Without trying to propose any larger guiding principal, I would just say that groups advocating the killing of civilians are beyond the pale of what should be countenanced by an American university.
Free speach is a tricky subject.
I agree wholeheartedly that any organization that specifically advocates violence as a means to an ends should be shunned and condemned.
But should their speach be restricted, or made illegal?
Should every organization that is provided a forum at a university be made to vet all their positions and speeches before an event. Which idealogy would judge the message?