johnb
10-10-2004, 09:07 PM
by Daniel Pipes
My Forthcoming Talk at Duke University
Something called the "National Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement" has become an annual fixture at one or other American campus the past three years, provoking much debate about free speech and the propriety of universities promoting incitement. The fourth conference is scheduled to take place at Duke University on October 15-17, 2004. Although the speakers are no-name fanatics, the perverse celebrity of their event has once again made it the subject of much dispute. (For example, an online petition protesting the event has garnered 65,000 signatures.)
Which explains how it comes to be that I will be giving a talk at Duke one day earlier, October 14, as a guest of the Duke Conservative Union. As its letter of invitation to me in early September put it, DCU "is gearing up for a comprehensive campaign to counter the misinformation sure to emanate from the conference" and it sees a lecture by me as a useful part of this effort. I immediately agreed to go. Young America's Foundation and Intercollegiate Studies Institute are helping to fund the event.
The Duke Conservative Union is, so far as I know, the only Duke organization to come out specifically against the conference and criticize President Richard H. Brodhead for approving it. (The administration's reasons for funding Hiwar, the student group sponsoring the conference, can be read on the Duke University website at http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/psm/qa.html "Q&A on the Palestine Solidarity Conference.") In addition to hosting me, the DCU is taking out full-page ads in the local newspaper to expose the conference's ties to terrorism. (The organizers of the conference deny any link between themselves and the pro-terrorist International Solidarity Movement but the DCU has established that the spokesman for the conference, an Israeli graduate student named Rann Bar-On, is himself an ISM member.)
In contrast to DCU, other campus pro-Israel organizations - including several local Jewish federations, the Duke Friends of Israel, and the Freeman Center for Jewish Life (Duke's Hillel affiliate) - have come out against protesting the conference: "we are asking that those who are considering protest and demonstrations as a response to the conference please refrain from doing so during the conference or outside the buildings where the conference will be held. ... Instead, channel your emotions to support ... Israel-based programming."
Sponsor: Duke Conservative Union
Topic: "The Palestinian-Israeli war - where did it come from, how to end it?"
Other speaker: Debbie Schlussel (who protested and attended a prior PSM conference, at the University of Michigan) will make opening remarks
When: Thursday, October 14, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center
Cost: Free
Map:
https://aux03.auxserv.duke.edu/parking/campusmap/2004mapbig.htm
and the Levine Science Research Center is listed as "LSRC"
Driving and parking directions: Go to
https://aux03.auxserv.duke.edu/parking/campusmap/2004mapbig.htm
then choose "Levine Science Research Center" from the scroll-down menu.
If you plan on attending, I suggest getting early to the hall. There will likely be fairly heavy security and PSM types may well try to pack the room. (September 29, 2004)
Sept. 29, 2004 update: Some hours after posting and sending out the above invitation, I was delighted to learn that the Freeman Center for Jewish Life has decided to co-sponsor my talk at Duke[/url]
My Forthcoming Talk at Duke University
Something called the "National Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement" has become an annual fixture at one or other American campus the past three years, provoking much debate about free speech and the propriety of universities promoting incitement. The fourth conference is scheduled to take place at Duke University on October 15-17, 2004. Although the speakers are no-name fanatics, the perverse celebrity of their event has once again made it the subject of much dispute. (For example, an online petition protesting the event has garnered 65,000 signatures.)
Which explains how it comes to be that I will be giving a talk at Duke one day earlier, October 14, as a guest of the Duke Conservative Union. As its letter of invitation to me in early September put it, DCU "is gearing up for a comprehensive campaign to counter the misinformation sure to emanate from the conference" and it sees a lecture by me as a useful part of this effort. I immediately agreed to go. Young America's Foundation and Intercollegiate Studies Institute are helping to fund the event.
The Duke Conservative Union is, so far as I know, the only Duke organization to come out specifically against the conference and criticize President Richard H. Brodhead for approving it. (The administration's reasons for funding Hiwar, the student group sponsoring the conference, can be read on the Duke University website at http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/psm/qa.html "Q&A on the Palestine Solidarity Conference.") In addition to hosting me, the DCU is taking out full-page ads in the local newspaper to expose the conference's ties to terrorism. (The organizers of the conference deny any link between themselves and the pro-terrorist International Solidarity Movement but the DCU has established that the spokesman for the conference, an Israeli graduate student named Rann Bar-On, is himself an ISM member.)
In contrast to DCU, other campus pro-Israel organizations - including several local Jewish federations, the Duke Friends of Israel, and the Freeman Center for Jewish Life (Duke's Hillel affiliate) - have come out against protesting the conference: "we are asking that those who are considering protest and demonstrations as a response to the conference please refrain from doing so during the conference or outside the buildings where the conference will be held. ... Instead, channel your emotions to support ... Israel-based programming."
Sponsor: Duke Conservative Union
Topic: "The Palestinian-Israeli war - where did it come from, how to end it?"
Other speaker: Debbie Schlussel (who protested and attended a prior PSM conference, at the University of Michigan) will make opening remarks
When: Thursday, October 14, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center
Cost: Free
Map:
https://aux03.auxserv.duke.edu/parking/campusmap/2004mapbig.htm
and the Levine Science Research Center is listed as "LSRC"
Driving and parking directions: Go to
https://aux03.auxserv.duke.edu/parking/campusmap/2004mapbig.htm
then choose "Levine Science Research Center" from the scroll-down menu.
If you plan on attending, I suggest getting early to the hall. There will likely be fairly heavy security and PSM types may well try to pack the room. (September 29, 2004)
Sept. 29, 2004 update: Some hours after posting and sending out the above invitation, I was delighted to learn that the Freeman Center for Jewish Life has decided to co-sponsor my talk at Duke[/url]