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Avatar fuel Islamic Protests

admin — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 23:05:09 +0000

The Making of the West Bank’s ‘Avatar’ Protest

Carl Franzen

(Feb. 12) – The conflict in the Middle East took on an especially cinematic quality Friday, when activists representing a small Palestinian village dressed up like the oppressed aliens from the blockbuster movie “Avatar” before staging a demonstration in front of the Israeli West Bank barrier.

“When people around the world who have watched the film see our demonstration and the conditions that provoked it, they will realize that the situations are identical,” said Mohammed Khatib, one of the leading Palestinian organizers of the protest against the barrier

Source: http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/palestinians-use-avatar-to-protest-west-bank-barrier/19356749

SSgt Bellavia: “House to House”

admin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:14:23 +0000

One of the goal of VAF is insure that the reality of combat, war, and understanding the current enemy is accepted within the academic environment. Departments such as political science and humanities, must include the facts and truths of the world that our armed forces are facing.

The video below of Silver Star winner SSgt. Bellavia is critical in understanding the warfare faced in Iraq and exactly who the enemy is and how he fights.

Some say Stern prof’s comments in Forbes were “anti-Muslim”

admin — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:33:20 +0000

by Michaela Kron

Published November 16, 2009

Some members of the university have reacted strongly to what they perceive as “anti-Muslim” rhetoric in a column published last Monday on Forbes.com by Tunku Varadarajan, a clinical professor of business at NYU’s Stern School of Business.

Varadarajan

Varadarajan wrote the column, titled “Going Muslim,” in response to the Nov. 5 massacre at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. At Fort Hood, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire, killing 13 people and wounding 28 others. Hasan, who is also an Army psychiatrist, is an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent. He allegedly shouted “Allahu akbar” (“God is great”) before he began shooting in the Soldier Readiness Center of Fort Hood.

In his column, Varadarajan characterizes Hasan’s actions as “going Muslim,” a phrase he likens to “going postal” (a slang term that has its origins in several cases from 1983 onward in which U.S. Postal Service workers shot and killed their colleagues). He wrote that by opening fire, Hasan defended his religion in “an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans.”

Varadarajan’s column elicited a great deal of criticism. A group of NYU students sent a letter expressing their concerns to Stern dean Thomas Cooley, President John Sexton and Khalid Latif, the chaplain and director of NYU’s Islamic Center. In their letter, they asked that Varadarajan’s comments be repudiated.

Second-year Steinhardt graduate student Sulayman Ferguson was among the students who wrote the letter.

“It’s singling out Muslims in a way that’s pretty offensive,” Ferguson said about the column. “You’d never say that about another group. You could never say someone’s ‘going Christian.’ ”

But Varadarajan believes much of the negative response is unwarranted. He said a number of his critics appear to have not read his piece “carefully.”

“Many others are ideologically predisposed to reject my arguments, arguments which have been made by many other commentators on this subject,” Varadarajan said. “My views are actually quite mainstream.”

In his responses to the students’ letters, Cooley wrote: “You need to think more about what this means since you don’t seem to understand it.” He said Stern would not rebuke Varadarajan’s column because doing so would defy the notion of free speech.

Ferguson said he found Cooley’s reply “very condescending.” Cooley defended his response.

“As dean, my duty lies in defending the academic freedom of the faculty, as well as the rights of students, to their own freedom of expression,” Cooley said. “This is true whether I agree with the ideas or not.”

Ferguson and other students are skeptical of Cooley’s explanation. In particular, Ferguson said he believes Cooley is reluctant to rebuke the column because he also writes a weekly column for Forbes. Cooley denied this allegation.

“It is the principle of academic freedom, not the fact that we are both columnists, that is important here,” he said. “One thing that news organizations and universities have in common is that they both encourage the free exchange of ideas.”

In a statement, Sexton said that although he found Varadarajan’s column to be offensive and disagrees with it, he values civil discourse. Sexton said he will not impose a sanction against Varadarajan.

“Such an action would be antithetical to NYU’s academic principles, and it will not happen,” Sexton said. “It is the nature of a university to be home to opposing ideas and opposing views, even absurd and offensive ones.”

But Stern senior Sahal Kango, a member of NYU’s Islamic Center, said he and the rest of the Center value free speech, but believe Varadarajan’s column went too far.

“We believe in academic freedom, but also that academic freedom enables students to grow, develop and contribute,” Kango said. “How can we expect students to mature, to learn and to engage their identities if they feel unwelcome and unsafe?”

Varadarajan said that in light of the controversy stirred by his column, he is considering writing a follow-up article highlighting the nature of the response to his column.

Meanwhile, Ferguson said he hopes to continue the discussion of the column on and off campus.

He said: “I think the dialogue will continue for a while.”

Michaela Kron is university editor.

Tunku Varadarajan’s article http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/08/fort-hood-nidal-malik-hasan-muslims-opinions-columnists-tunku-varadarajan.html

Criticizing Islam? Sorry, You’re Cancelled

admin — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:27:25 +0000

Criticizing Islam? Sorry, You’re Cancelled
by Pamela Geller (more by this author)
Posted 10/15/2009 ET
Updated 10/15/2009 ET

Conservative warrior David Horowitz was scheduled to speak at St. Louis University this month. But he won’t be. University officials canceled his speech because of its title: “Islamo-Fascism Awareness and Civil Rights.”

Horowitz commented: “I have spoken at 400 universities. This is the first time my speech has been censored and stopped by an administration. And they are supposed to be the guardians of intellectual discourse.” Cary Nelson, the president of the American Association of University Professors, said that with this cancellation, St. Louis University “joins the small group of campuses that are universities in name only…. The free exchange of ideas is not just a comforting offshoot of higher education; it defines the fundamental nature of the enterprise.

But the free exchange of ideas is something that is increasingly denied to conservative voices. Robert Spencer was set to speak at the American Library Association convention last summer but was canceled at the last minute after pressure from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Michael Savage was set to participate by means of a video link in a debate next Thursday at Britain’s Cambridge Union, but last Wednesday the debate was canceled. Julien Domercq and Jonathan Laurence of the Cambridge Union claimed that “there are numerous legal issues with Dr Savage speaking here.”

Savage suggested that the debate was canceled because he had said he would reveal how British authorities added his name to a list of people banned from Britain so that it wouldn’t consist entirely of Islamists: “Did they fear my reading the secret e-mails which disclose how the entire British leadership colluded to destroy a man’s name and reputation?” He added: “What did the socialist Brown regime fear I might say during the debate? What are they hiding form the general public that would have been exposed? Why do they wish to hide what they did to an innocent broadcaster?”

It has happened to me also. Last Friday, I was scheduled to appear on The Eddie Burke Show on WBYR, “the best news and talk in Alaska,” to debate the “freelance journalist” and anti-Semite Alison Weir.

Weir is the founder of the fiercely anti-Israel organization called “If Americans Knew.” Daniel Okrent, the former Public Editor of the New York Times, says: “Representatives of If Americans Knew earnestly believe that the information they present to be true, and refuse to accept evidence that contradicts their beliefs.” The Anti-Defamation League says: “Weir’s criticism of Israel has, at times, crossed the line into anti-Semitism.”

That’s an understatement. She is a fierce racist and infamous trafficker in Jewish blood libels. Weir condemns U.S. aid to Israel (which is, in fact, mostly loans). Does Weir address the $900 million that Barack Obama has given to the Palestinians, i.e., to Hamas? No. Does she address the billions that the U.S. gives to Egypt? No way. Does she say anything about the ten thousand rockets that have been fired into southern Israel from Gaza? No, she has nothing to say about that, but she laments (with graphs!) the fact that more Jews were not killed during the conflict in Gaza last year. She laments the low casualty numbers of the Jews — as if it’s the Jews’ fault that the jihadist rockets from Gaza have not been more accurate.

I was going to take her on. Until I got a call from Eddie Burke late Friday afternoon.

Apparently, Alison Weir would not appear on the show with me, so Burke had to cancel me. He had promised Alison Weir an appearance when she came up to Alaska, so no opposing voice would be allowed to be heard.

Burke is a good guy. And I said to him, “You, Eddie, you’re a decent fellow; one day, I hope you will step outside yourself and look at what happened here objectively. You have given in to a racist and a liar, provided an open platform for a Jew-hater to spread venom and bile, and capitulated to a demand for censorship. Why bow to those who traffic in lies and evil? Why strike at the heart of free speech?”

This is how we lose the war. Drip, drip, drip. Fifteen or twenty years ago, Alison Weir would not be heard in decent society. She would be relegated to the fringe, as all malevolent propagandists should be. Instead, decent folks like Eddie Burke are mainstreaming her fallacious message. Mainstreaming anti-semitism.

That is how evil advances. That is how the road is paved for incitement to violence and hatred.

And increasingly, the voices that would defend freedom are silenced.
Pamela Geller is the editor and publisher of the Atlas Shrugs website and former associate publisher of the New York Observer. Her op-eds have appeared in the Washington Times, WorldNetDaily, the American Thinker, Israel National News and other publications.

Islamic Studies California-Style Revisited

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 06:32:52 +0000

Accuracy in Academia executive director Mal Kline recently submitted testimony on California’s revised Islamic Studies curriculum. Read more.