Some of you are wondering about giving back my degrees to University of Toronto.  I do not feel it is a publicity stunt, although good grief we can use a few more of those if they help to expose the evil being perpetrated in the name of the Palestinian cause.

To understand my real purpose, read the following extract from Natan Sharansky's seminal article on anti-Semitism in the current age,

"3D Test of Anti-Semitism:
Demonization, Double Standards, Delegitimization

Recognizing the "New Anti-Semitism"

Moreover, the so-called "new anti-Semitism" poses a unique challenge. Whereas classical anti-Semitism is aimed at the Jewish people or the Jewish religion, "new anti-Semitism" is aimed at the Jewish state. Since this anti-Semitism can hide behind the veneer of legitimate criticism of Israel, it is more difficult to expose. Making the task even harder is that this hatred is advanced in the name of values most of us would consider unimpeachable, such as human rights.

Nevertheless, we must be clear and outspoken in exposing the new anti-Semitism. I believe that we can apply a simple test - I call it the "3D" test - to help us distinguish legitimate criticism of Israel from anti-Semitism.

The first "D" is the test of demonization. When the Jewish state is being demonized; when Israel's actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz - this is anti- Semitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel.

The second "D" is the test of double standards. When criticism of Israel is applied selectively; when Israel is singled out by the United Nations for human rights abuses while the behavior of known and major abusers, such as China, Iran, Cuba, and Syria, is ignored; when Israel's Magen David Adom, alone among the world's ambulance services, is denied admission to the International Red Cross - this is anti-Semitism.

The third "D" is the test of delegitimization: when Israel's fundamental right to exist is denied - alone among all peoples in the world - this too is anti-Semitism."

Now you understand:  I am giving back to the University of Toronto what they are "gifting" to the Jewish State by allowing Israel Apartheid (sic) Week to take place - the university is allowing anti-Semitism by allowing the demonization, application of double-standards, and the delegitimization of the State of Israel.

And by returning my degrees, I am showing that I see that the University of Toronto is no longer the legitimate and fair educational environment in which I studied more than 30 years ago - accordingly I wish to delegitimize the University of Toronto insofar as it relates to my life.   i am mailing back the degrees;  I no longer want to be associated with the place.

That is the best way I can hit back.

 I have written a number of books and essays, but the Main Stream Media of course has a hard time with intellectual arguments based on history and law, which are the fields in which I have degrees.   What seems to work best for PR is symbolic stuff that the media can cover without thinking too much.    So I have decided to return my degrees to U of T as a protest against the hatefest called Israel Apartheid Week.   Here is a copy of the letter I sent to the U of T President:   (P.S.  I am retired from the practice of law so do not absolutely need my degree as a precondition of practicing law)   Please pass this along to whomever would be interested…

 

 

Dear President Naylor:

 

I am a graduate of University College (1973) at which time I had the honour of standing first among the students in the Department of History. I received an excellent education, specializing in the history of values and ideologies.   Then I attended, and graduated from, the Faculty of Law, in 1976.

I have tried to live a life of ethics, respect for individual human rights and social justice, and service to my profession and the community.  I have won awards for my service to my municipality in volunteering on municipal committees and for my development of affordable rental housing for low income working people.  I have a record of writing about race relations and participating in conferences meant to accomplish respect for diversity in the context of adherence to foundational Canadian values.

 

I am ashamed that University of Toronto hosted the first Israel Apartheid Week, and continues to make its facilities available to this distortion of “free speech and respect for diversity”.   I read your February 24 remarks on freedom of expression and diversity, and sadly, I feel that you misstate the basic issues.    My university is now known as the birthplace of this vile hatefest.

 

The University would never allow an “Islamic Apartheid Week” because of course the speakers would be violently attacked by mobs of illiberals who have brought with them to the University no respect for free speech but only a respect for their upbringings where they were taught that Jews and the Jewish State are evil, and inferior.

 

I am disgusted that in a time of war against our liberal values, University of Toronto chooses to support one side, and that is the side that supports the war against our freedoms and our civilians from Sderot to Manhattan, from London to Madrid, and from Buenos Aires to Mumbai.

 

I myself have had my lectures shouted down and my books effectively banned.    See http://www.scragged.com/articles/how-i-became-a-banned-author-in-canada.aspx

 

I know that freedom loving writers like myself no longer have the freedoms that you are so proud of extending to people who support the murder of Jewish children, less than a century after the Holocaust.

I do not advocate censoring them, unless they pass into hate crimes, and even then I am not supportive of use of the criminal law, in all but the clearest of cases.   But the notion of feeling compelled to have such an event in effect sanctioned by the University is clearly wrong.   If they want to speak such words, there are, I am sure, other facilities that would welcome them.

 

I hereby adopt the positions taken in the following two essays:   http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=610&PID=0&IID=2778

and http://www.mythsandfacts.org/Conflict/13/human_rights.htm#B1

 

We have now reached a stage where Jewish students and others identifiably Jewish fear for their safety at various universities in North America and Europe, and where various Jewish speakers are denied permission to speak because of Islamist intimidation.    We have now reached a situation where various student groups, such as the Muslim Students Association are being funded by radical Islamist groups, and where various University departments across the “free world” are becoming beholden to radical Islam due to financial funding from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates.

 

I am sure you have read how young Muslim students are being “radicalized” at universities in England, and such was the case with the attempted terror attacker on the Delta airlines jet on Christmas Day.

 

The situation at English universities and even at York University has gotten out of hand.  To the extent that your views are infused with cultural and moral relativism, I suggest that the University of Toronto is poised to eventually join those institutions where Jewish students will be viewed as “offensive” per se to Muslim students and other illiberal antagonists who apply double standards and factually incorrect legal and historical judgments against the Jewish State, and interpret Islam as holding Jews and Christians to be second class citizens, which is the real apartheid that your University will not allow to be discussed.  Moral equivalency is not appropriate between liberal democrats and terror supporting illiberals.   

 

I feel such shame to have been associated with a University that feels that its facilities must be given to those who would destroy our freedoms, and one which fails to understand that tolerance is a two-way concept.   Your moral equivalency is misplaced. Israel is the first front in a war that has already come to our shores.   That war has nothing to do with “sharing” land, but is about an attempt to enforce Western submission to Islamic values, including Sharia Law.

 

I have recently written a book called TOLERism:  The Ideology Revealed.   You might be interested in reading it, although I must warn you that while Chapters Indigo carries 8 different titles by or about Noam Chomsky, my works have been banned by Canada’s monopoly book retailer because they are “offensive” to illiberals.   

 

My grandparents and aunt were gassed to death in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and my father was slave labour there and barely survived.   For years, I felt that it was possible as a Jew to attend the University of Toronto and still publically adhere to the biblical value of justice.   Unfortunately, in your quest for “tolerance” you have abnegated the historical values of our country, based on Justice being a more important value than Tolerance.   My father and his family were certainly not helped by “Tolerance” and I dare say that a continuation of the trends at your university will make it impossible for my grandchildren to attend there. My daughter has two degrees from University of Toronto and my son-in-law has three degrees from U. of T.   I believe that if present trends continue, no further members of my family will be able to attend University of Toronto.    By abnegating all standards in the name of freedom and tolerance, and by failing to stand for Justice over Tolerance, you are party to the decline of a once-great university.

 

Please take me off all mailing lists for University of Toronto, University College, and the Faculty of Law, whether it be for financial solicitations, reports or magazines.

 

I am removing from my office wall my two degrees from University of Toronto.   I shall be mailing them back to you.

 

Shame on you.

 

S. Howard Rotberg B.A., LL.B

 

Rotberg Development Group

Brantcord Group of Companies

Southern Ontario Affordable Housing Inc.

 

Literary website: www.howardrotberg.ca

Blog:  http://secondgenerationradical.blogmatrix.com/

 

As we organize for DAAT, here is an article by the wonderful Melanie Phillips about what has happened in Britain.

WE CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN HERE.  HELP US ORGANIZE THE APRIL 19 DAAT MARCHES.

The jihad against Britain's Jews

Friday, 6th February 2009 Melanie Phillips

I am hearing ever more alarming accounts of the deepening attrition against British Jews in the wake of the incitement against Israel provoked by the war in Gaza. In addition to the record number of attacks upon Jewish individuals and institutions and murderous incitement displayed on the anti-Israel demonstrations and riots as reported by the Community Security Trust, Jewish parents report that their children – some as young as eight – are now running a gauntlet of attack from their Muslim classmates at school who accuse them of ‘killing Palestinian children’. Comments by adults about ‘Jews controlling all the money/the media/the BBC’ (yes, really! All because it allowed Israel’s spokesman to put the case for Israel from time to time) are now commonplace in both private and public discourse. Today’s Jewish Chronicle reports that a 12 year-old Birmingham schoolgirl was terrorised by a mob of 20 youths chanting ‘Kill all Jews’ and ‘Death to Jews’ on her way home from school last week:

She said: ‘One of my friends said an Asian girl from the year above asked her why she was talking to me because I am Jewish. I asked the girl in a friendly manner if she had a problem with me being Jewish. She said “yeah, I do”. I managed to punch her before she hit me but then she grabbed me by the hair and swung me around shouting “f****** Jews, I hate Jews”. But then another Asian girl rounded up a whole gang. They were all in school uniform and they came running towards me shouting “death to Jews” and “kill all Jews.”’

A reader has sent me the following account of what happened to him when, travelling on the Tube in London, he started to read a copy of The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz:

After a time, I became aware that a man sitting diagonally in front of me near the doors at the end of the carriage was looking a bit agitated and had a disgruntled expression on his face. However, he didn't meet my eye, so I thought nothing more of it and continued reading as before...When the train reached St Paul's, the man I had noticed stood up to get off. But instead of leaving by the end doors, he made to pass me. In the process of doing so, he deliberately shoved into me and made to crush me against the side of the carriage and the passengers sitting behind me. Despite already knowing exactly what had actuated this behaviour, I asked the question anyway - and received the following response: ‘You shouldn't be reading that, you f***ing [indecipherable].’...The whole confrontation had taken place in the time it took for the tube doors to wheeze open and shut.

Other than in the Jewish press, such incidents are barely being reported. Last week, for example, there was virtually no coverage of the violent demonstration organised by the Stop the War coalition which prevented the deputy commander of Israel’s Gaza operation from speaking at London’s Jewish student centre, Hillel House, when a crowd of about 60-80 students attempted to storm the building.

One of the most troubling developments is the way in which the universities have become an extension of the Middle East conflict, with a simulacrum of the aggression, intimidation and violence from which Israel is under attack by the Arabs being directed at Jewish students on British campuses, who now routinely run a gauntlet of intimidation and abuse from Arab and Muslim students. But even more worryingly, some universities are spinelessly choosing to give in to such bullying.

Throughout last week, after the cease-fire was declared in Gaza, there was a series of anti-Israel sit-ins and demonstrations organised by the STWC at some 17 universities: in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the London School of Economics, Queen Mary College and King’s College, as well as at Bradford, Sheffield Hallam, Warwick, Leeds, Oxford, Cambridge, Sussex, Essex, Nottingham, Birmingham, Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan and Strathclyde. Some of these protests led to criminal damage and forced the universities to pay thousands of pounds to deal with the disruption, rearrange lectures, hire extra security guards and repair the damage.

The demonstrators took control of lecture halls and made a series of demands: that the universities should issue a statement condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza; offer scholarships to Palestinian students; send surplus educational materials to help rebuild Gaza (presumably its Islamic University, said by Israel to be a fount of terror); dedicate some of their time to fund-raising for Gaza; and take no action against the demonstrators.

Some of these universities responded robustly to such disorder and intimidation. Manchester Metropolitan, Birmingham, Nottingham and, after some delay, Leeds and Cambridge reportedly refused to accept any of these demands.  At Nottingham and Sheffield Hallam, the demonstrators were forcibly evicted.

But the LSE, King’s College London, SOAS, Bradford, Strathclyde and Oxford reportedly gave in to some or all of these demands. According to the JC, the LSE agreed to waive application fees for Gaza and West Bank students ‘directly affected by the conflict’, while Bradford

agreed to investigate the ‘ethical background’ of food and drink served on campus, and promised to ‘explore the feasibility of a twinning link with the Islamic University of Gaza’.
 

Strathclyde agreed among other things to cancel a contract with an Israeli water-cooler company.  Oxford – which fined each demonstrator the princely sum of £20 – nevertheless started negotiations with them with indecent haste, and a mere few hours later had agreed to pretty well everything. In a craven letter to colleagues the Vice-Chancellor, John Hood, having stated that

unlawful action of this kind cannot be condoned

proceeded to reward it by giving the perpetrators what they had demanded.

The Oxford demonstrators also demanded that the title of the series of lectures on ‘world peace’ at Balliol, recently inaugurated by Israeli President Shimon Peres and named in his honour, be changed; the Senior Proctor, Professor Donald Fraser -- who oversees disciplinary matters and who recommended ‘a relatively lenient course of action against the demonstrators ‘--  duly wrote to Balliol drawing its attention to the students’ concerns.

Thus the trahison des clercs as they crumble in the face of criminality, violence and intimidation.

And so now at British universities --which should be the most protected of all environments for free discourse and inquiry -- British Jews no longer feel safe. At Nottingham, one such student said:

The sit-in has created an atmosphere where we do not feel comfortable going into shared buildings on campus.

At King’s, another Jewish student said:

Someone from my course wrote ‘kill the Jews’ on my Facebook profile. Later he said he didn’t know I was Jewish. In public someone said to me, ‘I think all the Israelis are crazy and so are the f***ing Jews’.

And at Oxford, the JC reports:

One University Reader reportedly told a meeting that ‘within five years, Oxford will be a Jew-free zone’

and a student wrote to Professor Fraser warning that

for Jewish students, the university and the city have developed a toxic atmosphere in which I and many others feel increasingly alienated and unwelcome.

Meanwhile, of course, as Sky’s Tim Marshall pointed out the other day on his blog, the government of Sri Lanka is also attempting to eradicate terrorism by a military campaign in which, according to the UN, ‘many civilians are being killed’, thousands made homeless, hundreds of thousands trapped, and to which, as food shortages grow, the government refuses to allow access to journalists. Yet there are no sit-ins on campus against the Sri Lankans, no violent riots outside its High Commission, no calls to boycott Orange Pekoe tea. As Marshall observed:

And yet somehow the lives of the 1,300 Palestinians killed by the Israelis causes far more outrage, in certain quarters, than the 2 million dead in Congo, the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed by Sunni and Shia terrorists, or the growing number of Sri Lankan dead to add to the 70,000 killed over the past 25 years (far more than the number of Palestinians and Israelis killed in the same period).

Of course – because the protests in Britain have nothing to do with humanitarian concerns for the innocent. They are part of the jihad against the Jews – and those in the universities and other parts of the establishment who are capitulating to or even endorsing this are accomplices to a great evil that is now consuming British public life.

 

Accessed 7 February 2009, http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3329296/the-jihad-against-britains-jews.thtml

 

09-02-06, Melanie Phillips, “The jihad against Britain’s Jews,” spectator.co.uk, 6 February 2009, http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/3329296/the-jihad-against-britains-jews.thtml (accessed 7 February 2009).