Column: Solidarity with Hebron U. ignores school's terror links
by Bazalel Stern
Forum | 2/4/03
Posted online at 2:19 AM EST on 2/4/03
These are troubling times. So troubling, in fact, that I often find it hard just to get out of bed. With the prospect of war looming overhead, the economy in a continually, seemingly unending downward slump, and the bitter cold of another Boston winter, it is a wonder that any of us make it out of our rooms at all.
Turn on the news and all you see are prognostications of death and despair, either imminent or already occurring. The world, once a friendly-seeming place, is now a battleground of terror. Everyone seems to be looking over his shoulder, and a new generation of McCarthyism seems to be looming just around the corner.
This is why I have decided that the students at Brandeis need something to make them happy -- something that will give them a false sense of security before they go off into the real world and probably die quick, painful deaths. My idea has the obvious advantage that it combats many of the ills mentioned above. It is a very cold winter. I know. I live here. My idea will make things much better. The idea will also be a protest -- something that some Brandeis professors and students still like to do at times. It will be a protest comparable to the takeover of Ford Hall. This special kind of protest may have the power to change the world, to enlighten humanity for all time.
Of course, I am being facetious. The protest, of course, will have no affect whatsoever, except perhaps to cause the actual protesters to feel good about themselves. But, I am getting ahead of myself. The protest, our grand outcry of rage against a system that has brought us all such despair, is as follows.
I must thank, of course, one of our noble professors, who gave me the idea for this protest, by raging against the closure of Hebron University in last week's Justice. Now, Hebron University is only a 'university' in the broadest sense of the term. The 'university' is widely known to be a hotbed of terrorism. In a recent election of the student government of the university, the parties to win most of the seats were none other than Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which admittedly carry out attacks on Israeli civilians. The students at the school are trained in propaganda -- suicide bombing is routinely extolled, and Israel is seen as a hated enemy.
Turn on the news and all you see are prognostications of death and despair, either imminent or already occurring. The world, once a friendly-seeming place, is now a battleground of terror. Everyone seems to be looking over his shoulder, and a new generation of McCarthyism seems to be looming just around the corner.
This is why I have decided that the students at Brandeis need something to make them happy -- something that will give them a false sense of security before they go off into the real world and probably die quick, painful deaths. My idea has the obvious advantage that it combats many of the ills mentioned above. It is a very cold winter. I know. I live here. My idea will make things much better. The idea will also be a protest -- something that some Brandeis professors and students still like to do at times. It will be a protest comparable to the takeover of Ford Hall. This special kind of protest may have the power to change the world, to enlighten humanity for all time.
Of course, I am being facetious. The protest, of course, will have no affect whatsoever, except perhaps to cause the actual protesters to feel good about themselves. But, I am getting ahead of myself. The protest, our grand outcry of rage against a system that has brought us all such despair, is as follows.
I must thank, of course, one of our noble professors, who gave me the idea for this protest, by raging against the closure of Hebron University in last week's Justice. Now, Hebron University is only a 'university' in the broadest sense of the term. The 'university' is widely known to be a hotbed of terrorism. In a recent election of the student government of the university, the parties to win most of the seats were none other than Hamas and Islamic Jihad, both of which admittedly carry out attacks on Israeli civilians. The students at the school are trained in propaganda -- suicide bombing is routinely extolled, and Israel is seen as a hated enemy.
