Michigan State U. tells the ADL to go stuff itself

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Will the ADL bring in the heavies, like the corpulent Abe Foxman to denounce this travesty against the Chosen Ones?

Screaming "anti-Semite" anytime anyone anywhere wants to have an open and honest dialogue about the ME, especially Occupied Palestine, is pure censorship.

And anytime someone wants to censor something, they have something to hide. What is Israel and her rabid band of well-financed backers trying to hide?

Group assails MSU's Tutu invitation

Academic freedom cited by Simon in response to criticism

MATTHEW MILLER • MRMILLER@LSJ.COM • APRIL 10, 2009 • FROM LANSING STATE JOURNAL

EAST LANSING - Michigan State University announced last week that retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu would give this year's commencement address. Two days later, the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish advocacy organization, filed a protest.

In a letter to Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon, two ADL officials wrote that Tutu, whose opposition to apartheid in the 1980s won him the Nobel Peace Prize, had made statements about Israel that "conveyed outright bigotry against ... the Jewish people."

They said a proposed cultural and academic boycott of Israel, which Tutu supports, was "based on ideas that are anti-Semitic and should be anathema to any institution of higher learning truly committed to academic freedom."

They asked MSU to reconsider the invitation.

Simon responded this week. She said no.

While noting that university leaders had publicly opposed such a boycott, she wrote, "Michigan State University rejects the notion that free intellectual exchange and scholarly activities should be casualties of political disagreement."

It's an apparently open and shut matter, but it has set off minor ripples on campus.

Professors and students interviewed Thursday were unanimous in their support of Simon's stance on academic freedom and on allowing Tutu to speak.

Opinions diverged on the ADL's tactics and on the boycott that Tutu has advocated.

David Wiley is a professor of sociology who headed MSU's African Studies Center for 30 years before stepping down this year. He played a role in MSU's decision to divest from South Africa in 1978. And he called the ADL's request "improper."

"Again and again, the ADL and some other Jewish agencies confuse being critical of Israel with being anti-Semitic," he said. "In fact, Bishop Tutu has always been for inclusion of the marginal, whether it's blacks in South Africa or the Jewish community."

Tutu has said he supports the existence of the state of Israel. He also has compared the treatment of Palestinians to that of blacks under apartheid.

If anyone would know what Apartheid looks like, it would be the good Bishop Tutu. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next month.

Israel is afraid of Tutu having already denied him entrance to Gaza last year for a fact-finding mission. The only "facts" Israel wants the world to see or hear about Gaza will come thru Zionist filters.
That doesn't sound like the actions of the ME's "only democratic" state.

I imagine MSU President Simon will be getting an earful from the Chosen Ones over the next month, anything from physical threats to her well-being, to vandalism on her office and home, to well heeled donors calling MSU and saying they not going to contribute anymore money to a bunch of "anti-Semities."