The New York Post reported that the Alavi Foundation, which recently had its assets seized by the government for acting as a front for the Iranian government, donated large sums of money to universities and professors acting in Iran’s interest.
The report says that the Alavi Foundation donated $100,000 to Columbia University after the school agreed to host Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a speaker in 2007. The Foundation also donated $351,600 to the Rutgers Persian Language Program between 2005 and 2007. The New York Post notes that a Rutgers professor who also used to serve as the head of Rutgers’ Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Hooshang Amirahmadi, “unabashedly has touted Hezbollah and Hamas as legitimate organizations and not terrorists.” The report also listed two other professorships that received Iranian funding via the Alavi Foundation: Gary Sick of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and Hamid Dabashi, a professor of Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University. The latter was quoted in the report as comparing the heroes of the movie, “300" to “those resisting this [U.S.] empire: They are the Iraqi resistance, the Palestinians, Hezbollah.”
