By Vic Rosenthal
The Jerusalem Post recently conducted a Q&A with Dr. Eilat Mazar, an archaeologist with the Hebrew University and the Shalem Center, about issues concerning the Temple Mount — both what Israel is doing in the vicinity, and what the Waqf has done, and continues to do, on and within the Mount itself.
I recently wrote about Ariel Toaff, the Bar Ilan scholar who wrote a book suggesting that the medieval blood libels against Jews might have had some basis in fact.
Now he has suspend distribution of his book to “re-edit the passages which comprised the basis of the distortions and falsehoods that have been published in the media.†Apparently it hadn’t occurred to him that what he wrote could have been used for nefarious purposes.
Of course one can argue that antisemites will distort anything, but still it’s remarkable that in today’s climate he would have missed this.
Now, of course, we’ll hear that the ‘Jewish lobby’ has ‘silenced’ him.
Technorati Tags: Toaff, antisemitism
By Vic Rosenthal
The families of kidnapped IDF soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev met with Pope Benedict XVI today, the Jerusalem Post reports. The Pope was said to be sympathetic, but of course he has little or no influence on Hezbollah. Why would they care what the ‘crusaders’ think?
From today’s Jerusalem Post:
Palestinians hurled a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli vehicle near Hirbet a-Dir, south of Bethlehem – and hit a Palestinian vehicle instead, wounding one of the passengers.
The wounded man received first aid from IDF soldiers at the scene.
By Vic Rosenthal
The older and farther removed from the academic world that I get, the more I am astonished by the irresponsibility, bias, and sheer ignorance that categorizes it.
Take Brandeis University (please).
Counting Albert Einstein as one of its founders and Abbie Hoffman, Angela Davis, and Jack Abramoff as alumni, Brandeis has
…incurred a sorry record when it comes to Israel in recent years – staging [the] “Voices of Palestine” exhibit, hiring [Natana] DeLong-Bas and [Khalil] Shikaki, granting an honorary degree to the anti-Zionist playwright Tony Kushner, appointing the muddled Prof. Shai Feldman (POL) to head the Crown Center, permitting an Islamist (Qumar-ul Huda) to serve as its Muslim chaplain and setting up the Brandeis-Al-Quds University study-abroad connection. — Daniel Pipes
Now Brandeis president Jehuda Reinharz has displayed his ignorance, bias, or both by calling both Pipes and Norman Finkelstein “weapons of mass destruction”. Poor Pipes is justifiably insulted (read his whole article here) by being lumped together with the disreputable Finkelstein, and irritated by Brandeis’ action in suspending Pipes’ planned appearance there.
Having read both Pipes and Finkelstein and heard Pipes speak, I must agree that Reinharz is far off-base. I do find the visceral negative response to Pipes in academic, left-wing, and Muslim circles to be interesting. The guy is a careful scholar, very competent in his field, and not at all a wild-eyed radical. He has never, as far as I know, written anything in praise of Baruch Goldstein or suggested forced transfer as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I do expect that he votes Republican, but even that doesn’t justify the reception he receives.
I’m afraid that it’s simply his message, which often uncovers the “unclothed emperors” in the academic world, and which exposes radical Islam for the aggressive Jihadism that it is.
Technorati Tags: Daniel Pipes, Jehuda Reinharz, Brandeis
