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The Lawrence Summers Controversy

Commentary by Dr. Gerhard Falk

     

Harvard University - Hitler Lives Again

     Freedom of speech and the right to discuss anything and everything without fear and in an atmosphere of conciliation was at one time the very foundation of American higher education.

    Now, however, we see the ugly resuscitation of Nazi ideology in many of our largest universities and in particular at Harvard University, our oldest institution of higher learning.

    Nothing is so indicative of Nazi ideology than attacks against Jews. This, however, motivates the so-called liberals to engage in anti-Jewish propaganda and activity. The evidence for this can be found on many large university campuses in America today and is particularly at Harvard University.  There, as in so many other colleges and universities in this country, freedom of speech and the exchange of ideas are denounced and even physically prevented by gangs of haters who travel under the name of "liberal".

    Exactly this kind of behavior was evident in the German universities during the early 1930s and often even during the late 1920s when Nazi propaganda invaded the universities. Then Jewish students and professors were insulted and reviled in the German universities and often physically assaulted just as is done at Harvard today. Similar anti-Jewish events continue to occur at the University of San Francisco, at the University of Michigan, and other large centers of higher education in this country, such as, for example, Columbia University in New York City.

    Most recently, we have witnessed the assault against Lawrence Summers, currently president of Harvard University. The so-called occasion for the current uproar against Summers was his expression of an opinion with which some folks don't agree, either because they sincerely believe that Summers is wrong or because they are unwilling to calmly discuss differences. Without doubt, the majority of those who were shouting that Summers should resign on the grounds that he holds a view with which they, the so-called "liberals", don't agree gave no thought to the issue at hand but acted only from anger and emotion. The anger is directed against Summers in particular because he's Jewish and makes no bones about it.

    About a year ago President Summers addressed the faculty and students at the University concerning the ever increasing rise in anti-Jewish hatred as expressed throughout the campus.  He told students and faculty that he is Jewish and that he never expected to see this kind of Nazi style conduct at any American university, let alone Harvard. He did not use the word Nazi style but this is what I call it.

    The following examples will suffice to support my contention.  For example, bricks were thrown through the windows of Hillel, the Jewish student organization. On Holocaust Remembrance Day, anti-Jewish demonstrations were held by a jeering crowd of students and faculty at the Harvard campus.  Some of the demonstrators praised the Nazis and shouted, "Hitler didn't finish the job" and "get out or we will kill you."

    Of course, the so-called human rights advocates are screaming that all American corporations should divest completely from Israel.  In fact, over 120 faculty members of Harvard signed a petition to that effect.  Of course, no one seeks divestment from such slave states as Nigeria or Saudi Arabia or other America haters.

     Jewish students are insulted and a ridiculed in class by professors and threatened physically by students. The Nazi students sell books which feature such chapters as "the myth of the Holocaust".

     Now it turns out that all their liberal Jewish students find that the only allies they have  on the Harvard campus are the Harvard Republican club and other conservatives.

     Consequently many so-called Jewish liberals are having second thoughts about their lifelong politics in an atmosphere in which Jewish students find it prudent to tuck stars of David under their shirts, just as in Nazi Germany 60 years ago.

     It is of course to the credit of Jewish students that at Harvard and other universities Jewish students have been fighting back. That is true, of course, of only a small minority. By fighting back is meant that some Jewish students now wear buttons which say in Arabic and English "I am a Jew".  Others hold pro-Israel demonstrations or write pro –Jewish articles in some of the campus newspapers. That, however, has also become almost impossible at Harvard, where Jewish students were removed from the Harvard Crimson newspaper on the grounds that were too many Jews involved in journalism.

      In sum, Harvard University and many others have now succumbed to the old Nazi ideology, which is once more current all over Europe, although it is seldom found in the United States outside of our erstwhile institutions of higher learning.

      Contrast the conduct of these liberals with the conduct of our conservative Republican president.  Only today he appointed Paul Wolfowitz to the position of president of the World Bank.  This despite the objections of the Europeans who don't want a Jew to lead that important financial institution. Only two weeks ago President Bush appointed Michael Chertoff to head the department of homeland security. Chertoff is the son of a Rabbi.

      So let us decide who our friends really are.  This may be difficult for those who are wedded to the Nazi, or liberal, point of view in face of all the evidence that these are our enemies.

Shalom u’vracha.

Dr. Gerhard Falk is the author of numerous publications, including Man's Ascent to Reason (2003) & the forthcoming Football & American Identity.

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