http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/world/middleeast/09iran.html?th&emc=th

“POLITICAL ZIONISM AS A RACIST IDEOLOGY AND ISRAEL AS AN APARTHEID EUROPEAN-FOUNDED IMPERIALIST SETTLER-COLONIAL STATE”

Interesting. Jews are indigenous to the middle east. This was accepted on other threads. Remember…The Dead Sea Scrolls? Jesus?

So this hate stuff is just so much programmed racist claptrap. Sorry.
Which puts s back to what do you want to do about Israel, if you’re so obsessed with how terrible it is?

7 million people there now.

Do you want to kill them all? What’s your answer?

Michael Kenny said on October 15th, 2007 at 7:03 am: “Bear in mind that both DePaul and St. Thomas are Catholic universities whose mission is to provide Catholic education.”

WHAT A RIDICULOUS STATEMENT.

Or perhaps he needs to define what you think “Catholic education” is. Is it teaching “Catholic physics”, “Catholic astronomy” (no, Galileo and Copernicus have now been officially accepted by the Vatican), “Catholic biology” (including “Catholic creationism”), “Catholic capitalist economic theory”? Catholic universities (at least modern ones) have always had non-Catholic professors/instructors. Besides, Finkelstein wasn’t at DePaul to proselytize for Judaism (or to teach that Judaism is “the one true faith”), and Tutu wasn’t going to the Univ. of St.Thomas to proseltyze for Anglicanism. However, it’s also entirely possible for a Catholic university to have a scholarly course taught by a Muslim or Jewish or Anglican scholar (whether even Muslim, Jewish, Anglican him-/herself or not) about Islam or Judaism or Anglicanism.

A Catholic university is a university founded and, in part, funded by the Catholic church to provide an education in, presumably, a Catholic environment — which means there would be university recognition and celebration of Church religious days and holy days and holidays, and church services on those days. There would be courses on/by Catholic theologians, theoreticians and philosophers. There would be a university church/chapel for daily mass attendance and a pastor &/or other priests/clerics funded, as clerics, by the university. There might also be Catholic catechism classes.

Smith is dancing around THE BIG WHITE-&-BLUE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM WITH THE STAR OF DAVID ON ITS FOREHEAD.

What do we have in common with both Finkelstein and Tutu and any other such threatened academics or denied speakers?: both are incisive CRITICS OF POLITICAL ZIONISM AS A RACIST IDEOLOGY AND ISRAEL AS AN APARTHEID EUROPEAN-FOUNDED IMPERIALIST SETTLER-COLONIAL STATE — and *that* is what must not be officially allowed on American/Canadian university campuses, especially by academics and prominent official guest speakers.

That is where “cowardly administrators prioritize endowment over education”: they usually cave in to, indeed, bullying threats by THE ISRAEL LOBBY — unless the rest of us fight back.

Parochialism is a negative. The parochial mindset is inimical to the values of an open society … and thus, while well withing the unfortunate tradition of American narrow-mindedness is antithetical to what a college education should be … an opening of the ears to the ideas of others. It does not imply that the speaker is correct because the speaker is heard.

My own journey was radicalized, not by speakers but rather by actors. As a librarian I am committed to the concept of collection balance … the idea that in the life of the mind all ideas are worth giving some thought to. It is a sad fact that there are so many well-meaning people (I give them the benefit of the doubt) who are so mean about things they disagree with. Book banning and burning is not dead … and it is a two-way street.

Is that what we are all about? Agree with me … or leave? Agree with me … or I will ban you from my presence? Agree with me … or I will ban/burn your book? Agree with me … because only I can be right?

I would hope not.

G

A more interesting question, though, is how America’s Catholic universities found themselves in a position where non-Catholic groups, whether Jewish or otherwise, could bully them. Is it linked to finance? If so, shouldn’t the universities look to broadening their financial base. Certainly, the cause of Catholic education is not well served if the universities can be held to ransom by non-Catholic groups.

I said; “Go Catholics. And Galileo is with you.”