News Brief

(IsraelNN.com) The Yad VaShem Holocaust Memorial project has issued a harsh criticism of Columbia University in New York City.  Columbia recently invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to answer students’ questions on campus, with Columbia dean John Coatsworth explaining his decision by saying that Nazi leader Adolph Hitler would have been invited as well if he were still alive.

“It is unfortunate that Columbia University, an institution ostensibly dedicated to the pursuit of truth and knowledge, should choose to provide a man so divorced from reality and historical truths with a platform to spout his venomous ideology,” according to a Yad VaShem spokesman as quoted in the Jerusalem Post.  Ahmadinejad has threatened to destroy the state of Israel, and recently held a conference denying the Holocaust.