OXFORD STUDENT UNION SINKS EVEN LOWER

DOES OXFORD THINK IT OK TO HONOR A MAN WHO CALLS ANNE FRANK A PORN STAR? (Tom Gross)

In October, I wrote about criticism of the Oxford Union in a dispatch titled “Outrage after Holocaust denier David Irving invited to Oxford Union.”

Oxford University’s world famous Oxford Union debating society went ahead with the invitation to Irving, and British fascist leader Nick Griffin, in November. Shortly before, in the latest of several outrageous pronouncements, Irving had told the British daily The Guardian that the Jews were responsible for “most of the wars of the last 100 years.”

Tomorrow (Tuesday) at the Oxford Union, four academics who all support a boycott of Israel, will debate the motion “This House Believes That The State of Israel has a Right to Exist.”

American revisionist “historian” Norman Finkelstein along with Prof. Ted Honderich will be speaking for the motion while opposing them will be Exeter University academics Ghada Karmi and Ilan Pappe, a former Israeli Jew who has made a career out of slandering the country where he was born and grew up. It is harder to know which of these four is the most vile.

Just last week, Finkelstein reprinted on his website an article from the Israeli paper Ha’aretz about worrying signs of failures in Holocaust education among German youth, and added the mock headline: “To reverse declining German interest in Holocaust, Britney Spears to play Anne Frank in new Holo-porn video.”

Making fun of Holocaust survivors has been a frequent feature of Finkelstein’s work (even though he is himself the son of survivors) and it is not surprising that so many regard him (as was the case with former chess champion Bobby Fischer who died last week) as a highly disturbed Jewish self-hater.

What is surprising – and dangerous – however, is Oxford’s behavior.

Do the university authorities think it is ok to honor (and indeed pay a fee to) a man who thinks it is fun to call child Holocaust victim Anne Frank a porn star?

Do people in turn think it is ok to continue making donations to Oxford University’s fundraising appeals?

The issue is not just why Israel is the only country whose right to exist is being questioned at Oxford. Perhaps of even greater concern is why Oxford has chosen such anti-Israeli figures as Finkelstein and Honderich to argue Israel has a right to exist. All four speakers have in the past supported organizations that have called for the delegitimization of the State of Israel.

DOES BRITAIN HAVE A RIGHT TO EXIST?

Fresh from his tour of Lebanon earlier this month (where he was warmly welcomed by Hizbullah supporters), Finkelstein is this week on a British tour organized and paid for by FOSIS (the Federation of Student Islamic Societies in the UK and Ireland) and supported by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign. In addition to Oxford, he will be speaking to students at Manchester, Keele, Sussex and Edinburgh Universities, and at the London School of Economics (LSE).

The posters advertising the speaking tour show a map depicting a one state solution for Palestine, with Israel eliminated, and Palestine represented in red with dripping blood. So why has Oxford chosen Finkelstein, of all people, as the speaker students will hear putting the case for a Jewish state not to be wiped out?

What would people in Britain think if foreign universities debated whether Britain had a right to exist?

I also attach below, in the “Full Articles” section, a piece on how the idiocy of the Oxford Union has spread to American universities. It is by Cliff May, a subscriber to this list.

I should add that when I was a student at Oxford University, and a member of the Oxford Union, it never invited quite such evil people to appear before it as it does now.