Dreaming of 'Palestine's South Africa Moment' at Columbia U.

Dreaming of ‘Palestine’s South Africa Moment’ at Columbia U.

Mahmood Mamdani

Boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) activists dream of turning Israel into an international pariah on the level of Apartheid South Africa and are perfectly willing to lie, invent history, and distort the present to achieve their goal. All this was evinced at a recent event at Columbia University, which Mara Schiffren, a Harvard educated scholar of comparative religion, covered for Campus Watch. Her article appears at Frontpage Magazine:

Has the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) movement succeeded in bringing Israel to the point of South Africa when it ended apartheid and reformulated itself into a non-racist state? Despite the egregious falsity of the historical comparison, the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia University recently held an informal debate on this question titled, “Palestine’s South Africa Moment? The Boycott, Divest and Sanctions Movement.” The audience of approximately 140 people—a mix of students, self-described Palestinians, activists, and fellow travelers—filled the Columbia Law School lecture hall.

Rashid Khalidi, Columbia’s Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, restated a point often made by political interlocutors, in an intonation that fully communicated his contempt:

“If you’re Palestinian and you live in certain places, say New York City, like myself . . . you are lectured that the Palestinians should be non-violent. . . . What usually follows that is . . . “Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?”

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Columbia University Rashid Khalidi

Winfield Myers

Winfield Myers is managing editor of the Middle East Forum and director of its Campus Watch project, which reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North American universities. He has taught world history and other topics at the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, Tulane, and Xavier University of Louisiana. He was previously managing editor of The American Enterprise magazine and CEO of Democracy Project, Inc., which he co-founded. Mr. Myers has served as senior editor and communications director at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and is principal author and editor of a college guide, Choosing the Right College (1998, 2001). He was educated at the University of Georgia, Tulane, and the University of Michigan.