Lest
anyone think that Mr. Paulin is driving with a poetic license, he stated
in an interview with Al-Ahram, the Cairo weekly paper, that Brooklyn-born
Jewish “settlers” were anathema to him, and that he believed
“they should be shot dead. I think they are Nazis, racists, I feel
nothing but hatred for them.”
As
further proof of his bona fides, he added that that had left the Labor
Party because Prime Minister Tony Blair rules “a Zionist government.”
As far as Paulin is concerned, he “never believed that Israel had
the right to exist at all.”
Having
made such inflammatory and ahistorical statements (like Prince Harry,
he manifestly knows nothing of the Third Reich), there was only one place
for him to go: Columbia University. He will speak there on February 10,
addressing the work of Edmund Burke. Protests followed this news, and
the predictable defenses began, issuing from the university’s official
apologists: the subject on which Paulin is speaking has nothing to do
with Jews, Zionism etc., free speech is sacred, he is being singled out
for a statement, not for his actions bla bla bla.
All
of which might be credible if the place were not Columbia. This deeply
compromised institution was the subject of a recent student documentary,
“Columbia Unbecoming.” which went into considerable detail
about hostility to Jewish students. On the subject of anti-Semitism, a
professor of Islamic civilization allegedly told a Jewish girl, “You
have green eyes. You’re not a Semite. I have brown eyes. I’m
a Semite.”
Joseph
Massad, a professor of Arab politics is said to have demanded of an Israeli
student, “How many Palestinians have you killed?”
Mark
Mazower, a history prof, wrote in the Financial Times that the U.S. is
in Iraq to benefit Israel, and that the Jewish state is to be blamed for
the anti-Semitism in Western Europe.
And…but
why go on? Columbia was, after all, the home of Edward Said, who could
never let hell enough alone and was always bludgeoning Israel when he
was not discoursing elegantly, if falsely, on “Orientalism.”
All
of these chaps, and many more, are happy to excoriate Israel, yet ever
careful to separate it from their Jewish friends of whom, of course, they
are very, very fond.
So
let us forget the Jewish-American contributions to medicine that keep
them all alive, Salk, Sabin and all the others. Let us concentrate only
on Israelis.
Copaxone,
used to treat multiple sclerosis, was developed by Tevya Pharmaceuticals
of you-know-where.
Beta-Interferon,
a substance that modulates the immune system and helps repair nerve damage,
was also developed in Israel.
Capsule
endoscopy, in which a patient swallows a small video-imaging shell, allowing
doctors to thoroughly examine the digestive tract without using a scalpel,
likewise.
And
then there’s stem-cell research, minute cellular examination, stents
for clogged arteries…the list goes on.
But
so do the “Zionist” haters like Paulin. The clear implication
of their statements is that the suicide bombers must have free reign to
murder New York Jews in Israel and, in a more pacific mode, drive the
Yids into the sea.
But,
of course, if the Jews ever did vanish from the region Paulin and his
fellow Islami-fascists would still make use of a little Jew medicine now
and again for themselves and their children. After all, fair is fair.
Another,
more legitimate poet, W. H. Auden had much to say about places like the
present-day Columbia and its management:
