Last update - 00:00 25/09/2007
Holocaust denier takes center stage using media orgy as cover
By Ram Fishman
At the end of a busy day, everyone at Columbia University seemed to be pretty pleased by the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
As he probably planned, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger presented himself as someone who "dealt a blow to the bad guy from Tehran" in his aggressive introductory words and by so doing managed to make people forget the fact that he invited Ahmadinejad in the first place. He would probably rather forget the principles I heard him defend in a closed forum last year arguing against inviting Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia after a previous attempt to have him speak at the institution without Bollinger's knowledge fell through.
As he probably calculated, Columbia's Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), John H. Coatsworth, emerged as a defender of liberalism and academic free speech, and received a large amount of media attention ?including three appearances on national television networks that most professors are never given.
Columbia students got quite a show. They gave interviews, speeches, debated, protested and posed as idealists in a cultural setting on the lawn. Members of the Hillel Jewish student organization who loyally defend Israel were also pleased with the excellent work they did.
Even Ahmadinjad himself ?though it seemed he did not entirely understand who his audience was such as when he said "we have no homosexuals like you do" in response to a question about their persecution in Iran, or his laughable and boring sermon on the nature of science- managed to deliver a couple of knockout blows and draw applause and laughs. In his comments on the state of the Palestinians, U.S. policy in Iraq and human rights issues, he made the most of the liberal atmosphere and widespread dislike for the Bush administration on campus. His insinuations denying the Holocaust and calling for the destruction of Israel were coupled together with the suffering of the Palestinians, Israeli wrongdoing in the occupied territories, breaches of free speech, aggressiveness and America's double standards on nuclear issues.
On the campus' lawns, the debate did not revolve around the matter of principle of giving a stage to a Holocaust denier who calls for the destruction of the State of Israel, but was drowned in a general debate on the nature of the Iranian government. Many asked: There are lots of dictators who visit here, so why not let Ahmadinejad? Of the thousands who the media reported that protested, only a few hundred, all skullcap-wearing Jews, protested against the visit itself. The rest protested against the Iranian regime in general, the Bush administration, or the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Most seemed to be in favor of allowing the speech itself.
The distinction is important: Obviously the Iranian president isn't popular among American academia. But there is a certain feeling of abandonment. Has there been an erosion of the "sanctity" of the Holocaust and Israel's right to exist even in the U.S.? At the end of the day, on Monday a Holocaust denier who calls for the destruction of Israel got on the podium of one of the most prestigious and respected universities in the world, the one I study at, and received everyone's attention.