Right this minute leading universities around the United States are discussing something called divestiture, or divestment. This means that universities doing business with Israel, directly or indirectly, should stop doing so ? divest. The timing for all this could not be more perfect as we approach the 60th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, a meeting held in Berlin to organize and implement the ?Final Solution.? Beginning with Reinhard Heydrich, Hitler?s top goons were there, January 20, 1942, to set in motion the murder of an entire people.
Although the killing of Jews was already under way, the Wannsee Conference made genocide official ? and these goons were not subtle. Their talk was about train schedules for deportation to death camps, and they talked about the most efficient gasses to poison millions of men, women and children. These were not honorable men. They were vile, wicked, evil, cruel and corrupt. They were the worst humanity has to offer.
Not so, these university activists, students and professors who are in hysteria about Israel - that tiny democracy surrounded by 22 dictatorships, a nation outnumbered 150 million to five. No, these academics are good people ? in their own eyes. They want to do good, and destroying Israel is good. They will deny that is their intention, for they are so good and liberal and educated. So they will deny that divestiture is a means to an end. They will deny that they are anti-Semitic. Even professor and poet Tom Paulin denies that he is anti-Semitic despite his calls for the murder of Jews in the "West Bank." Tom Paulin, an acclaimed Oxford don, now lecturing at Columbia, has said that Israel has no right to exist. Here's a thought: Given its bloody history, going back centuries, perhaps Europe has no right to exist.
Other professors, and students, likewise share Paulin's view, and some, even many, insist that Israel must be dismantled, but they are not ant-Semitic, being so good and righteous and all. They love to compare Israel to South Africa when that nation was all about apartheid, dismissing the fact that the million-plus Arabs living in Israel proper are free citizens, freer than in any other part of the Arab world. That's not good enough for our elite, who demand that Jews be ethnically cleansed from the Land of Israel in favor of a 23rd Middle Eastern Islamic state that oppresses women and suppresses freedom of any kind. They will not say so in so many words, for they are honorable people, honorable and good.
They are also subtle. The men at the Wannsee Conference were not subtle, and that is the difference. That is all the difference there is. The men at the Wannsee Conference did not hide behind pretense. They said, openly, that they were motivated to destroy the Jewish people. Our university elite, gathering this minute within their own Conferences at Columbia, Harvard and many other higher places of learning, would never be so brazen. Tom Paulin, the poet, the professor, is an honorable man, as are other like-minded poets and professors and students, in whom radical Islam has found a new furnace to stoke the fires of a new anti-Semitism; the motto being, "Get them while they're young." They are all honorable men and women, and they want to do good. Israel is bad because it wants to survive. The Arabs are good because despite the fact that they sit on 99.8 percent of the Middle East ? they don't have enough land. They need more land. They need Israel. Israel is the problem.
If they could get their hands on Israel, the world would be safe, safe for another Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Iran...
Certainly the land would be safe for Yasser Arafat, a particular favorite among our poets, professors and students. Once Yasser Arafat gets his hands on Israel, there will be peace, brotherhood and goodness, as there was when Arafat controlled Lebanon for a decade and its capital, Beirut, under the control of Arafat and his PLO, became a synonym for hell-on-earth, and, according to eyewitnesses, virtually all the women of Lebanon became fodder for PLO rapists.
At these university conferences, unknowingly modeled on Wannsee, our elite do not discuss train schedules or poison gasses. That was Germany. Today, they discuss the same business, but call it "divestiture" ? or, some might say, "How can we sock it, again, to the Jews." But that language would never be used, for these are poets, professors and students. Such people favor diversity, as long as Jews take no part. Diversity includes everyone, certainly radical Islam, but it excludes the Jews. Jewish students, especially those with a conservative bent, and even more especially those who love Israel, are permitted no voice, and when they speak up, they are shouted down. Liberals ? and most of our elite are liberals ? believe in a diversity of opinion only if it squares with their point of view. All others are bigots.
Our poets, professors and students are not bigots. Gosh, no. They do favor ethnic cleansing, they do favor genocide, but they have a better word:
Divestiture.
That is a wonderfully subtle word, a wonderfully subtle approach. Much better than anti-Semitism, or genocide. On the other hand, Hitler's elite who gathered at the Wannsee Conference likewise did not think of themselves as anti-Semitic. Here's a bet that they never even used the word "genocide." Most likely they used the word... divestiture. Or divestment. They probably used those very words to mean genocide. In that sense they were subtle.
Just like our own elite.
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Jack Engelhard is the author of the international bestseller Indecent Proposal and is a former radio and newspaper editor covering the Mideast and former American volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces. His columns can be read online at www.comteqcom.com/jackcolumn.php and he can be reached at JackEngelhard@ComteQcom.com.
Although the killing of Jews was already under way, the Wannsee Conference made genocide official ? and these goons were not subtle. Their talk was about train schedules for deportation to death camps, and they talked about the most efficient gasses to poison millions of men, women and children. These were not honorable men. They were vile, wicked, evil, cruel and corrupt. They were the worst humanity has to offer.
Not so, these university activists, students and professors who are in hysteria about Israel - that tiny democracy surrounded by 22 dictatorships, a nation outnumbered 150 million to five. No, these academics are good people ? in their own eyes. They want to do good, and destroying Israel is good. They will deny that is their intention, for they are so good and liberal and educated. So they will deny that divestiture is a means to an end. They will deny that they are anti-Semitic. Even professor and poet Tom Paulin denies that he is anti-Semitic despite his calls for the murder of Jews in the "West Bank." Tom Paulin, an acclaimed Oxford don, now lecturing at Columbia, has said that Israel has no right to exist. Here's a thought: Given its bloody history, going back centuries, perhaps Europe has no right to exist.
Other professors, and students, likewise share Paulin's view, and some, even many, insist that Israel must be dismantled, but they are not ant-Semitic, being so good and righteous and all. They love to compare Israel to South Africa when that nation was all about apartheid, dismissing the fact that the million-plus Arabs living in Israel proper are free citizens, freer than in any other part of the Arab world. That's not good enough for our elite, who demand that Jews be ethnically cleansed from the Land of Israel in favor of a 23rd Middle Eastern Islamic state that oppresses women and suppresses freedom of any kind. They will not say so in so many words, for they are honorable people, honorable and good.
They are also subtle. The men at the Wannsee Conference were not subtle, and that is the difference. That is all the difference there is. The men at the Wannsee Conference did not hide behind pretense. They said, openly, that they were motivated to destroy the Jewish people. Our university elite, gathering this minute within their own Conferences at Columbia, Harvard and many other higher places of learning, would never be so brazen. Tom Paulin, the poet, the professor, is an honorable man, as are other like-minded poets and professors and students, in whom radical Islam has found a new furnace to stoke the fires of a new anti-Semitism; the motto being, "Get them while they're young." They are all honorable men and women, and they want to do good. Israel is bad because it wants to survive. The Arabs are good because despite the fact that they sit on 99.8 percent of the Middle East ? they don't have enough land. They need more land. They need Israel. Israel is the problem.
If they could get their hands on Israel, the world would be safe, safe for another Afghanistan, or Iraq, or Iran...
Certainly the land would be safe for Yasser Arafat, a particular favorite among our poets, professors and students. Once Yasser Arafat gets his hands on Israel, there will be peace, brotherhood and goodness, as there was when Arafat controlled Lebanon for a decade and its capital, Beirut, under the control of Arafat and his PLO, became a synonym for hell-on-earth, and, according to eyewitnesses, virtually all the women of Lebanon became fodder for PLO rapists.
At these university conferences, unknowingly modeled on Wannsee, our elite do not discuss train schedules or poison gasses. That was Germany. Today, they discuss the same business, but call it "divestiture" ? or, some might say, "How can we sock it, again, to the Jews." But that language would never be used, for these are poets, professors and students. Such people favor diversity, as long as Jews take no part. Diversity includes everyone, certainly radical Islam, but it excludes the Jews. Jewish students, especially those with a conservative bent, and even more especially those who love Israel, are permitted no voice, and when they speak up, they are shouted down. Liberals ? and most of our elite are liberals ? believe in a diversity of opinion only if it squares with their point of view. All others are bigots.
Our poets, professors and students are not bigots. Gosh, no. They do favor ethnic cleansing, they do favor genocide, but they have a better word:
Divestiture.
That is a wonderfully subtle word, a wonderfully subtle approach. Much better than anti-Semitism, or genocide. On the other hand, Hitler's elite who gathered at the Wannsee Conference likewise did not think of themselves as anti-Semitic. Here's a bet that they never even used the word "genocide." Most likely they used the word... divestiture. Or divestment. They probably used those very words to mean genocide. In that sense they were subtle.
Just like our own elite.
--------------------------------------------------------
Jack Engelhard is the author of the international bestseller Indecent Proposal and is a former radio and newspaper editor covering the Mideast and former American volunteer in the Israeli Defense Forces. His columns can be read online at www.comteqcom.com/jackcolumn.php and he can be reached at JackEngelhard@ComteQcom.com.