Well sure, Chris Hedges can say anything he wants. This, after all is
America, the Land of the Free and the Brave. He just can't speak his
mind at the University of Pennsylvania
But hey, he's got the entire rest of the world....until he doesn't.
But the dirty little truth is that freedom of speech never did exist
in this America the Beautiful.
Carl Jarvis
On 12/27/14, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
> Chris Hedges is blackballed by Penn after likening ISIS to Israel
> US Politics
> Philip Weiss on December 26, 2014 22 Comments
>
> Chris Hedges
>
> Chris Hedges was invited to speak at the University of Pennsylvania. Then he
> likened Israel to ISIS, and got disinvited. At Truthdig (12/21), he reports
> this latest scandal:
> I had been invited to talk next April 3 at the University of Pennsylvania at
> a peace conference sponsored by the International Affairs Association, but
> last week after Truthdig published my column "ISIS—the New Israel" the
> lecture agency that set up the event received this email from Zachary
> Michael Belnavis, who is part of the student group:
> "We're sorry to inform you that we don't think that Chris Hedges would be a
> suitable fit for our upcoming peace conference. We're saying this in light
> of a recent article he's written in which he compares the organization ISIS
> to Israel (here's the article in question). In light of this comparison we
> don't believe he would be suitable to a co-existence speaker based on this
> stance he's taken."
> Being banned from speaking about the conflict between Israel and Palestine,
> especially at universities, is familiar to anyone who attempts to challenge
> the narrative of the Israel lobby. This is not the first time one of my
> speaking offers has been revoked and it will not be the last. However, the
> charge of Belnavis and the International Affairs Association that I do not
> believe in coexistence between the Palestinians and Israel is false. I
> oppose violence by either party. I have condemned Hamas rocket attacks as
> war crimes. And I support Israel's right to exist within the pre-1967
> borders.
> Here's a portion of Hedges's December 15th piece titled "ISIS–the new
> Israel":
> Its quest for an ethnically pure Sunni state mirrors the quest for a Jewish
> state eventually carved out of Palestine in 1948. Its tactics are much like
> those of the Jewish guerrillas who used violence, terrorism, foreign
> fighters, clandestine arms shipments and foreign money, along with horrific
> ethnic cleansing and the massacre of hundreds of Arab civilians, to create
> Israel. Antagonistic ISIS and Israeli states, infected by religious
> fundamentalism, would be irreconcilable neighbors. This is a recipe for
> apocalyptic warfare. We provided the ingredients.
> Hedges's banning is a reminder that none of the rules apply when it comes
> to Israel. Americans are allowed to mock and satirize any country we like–
> or even make a movie about assassinating a foreign dictator, and the
> president will stand up for you against efforts to suppress it– but don't
> touch a hair on Israel's chinny chin chin. So Ari Roth is gone from the
> theater company he built at the DC Jewish Community Center because he dared
> to broach the Nakba, and at Penn, an intellectual is blacklisted because of
> his criticism of Israel's origins in ethnic cleansing and its constitutional
> failure to separate church and state– a great American principle. This is
> McCarthyism, on a broader scale than the original in the '50s. Today on WNYC
> radio, Brian Lehrer argued that Francis Fukuyama's 1989 prediction of the
> end of history has been proven wrong in recent years by the rise of ISIS and
> radical Islam, also by Iran's history since its revolution. All these
> political conditions are a contradiction of liberal democracy, Lehrer said.
> Well jeez, if you are going to speak about religious states, why not address
> the one in your back pocket, Israel, which surely has helped to sow the
> seeds of apocalyptic nation-building in the Middle East. It's not just the
> Israel lobby that effects this silence. It's western guilt over the
> Holocaust and the Jewish question in Europe that keeps Israel a sacred cow.
> Major spiritual damage there. So shouldn't Penn be hosting Chris Hedges to
> talk about this kind of thing?
>
> Chris Hedges is blackballed by Penn after likening ISIS to Israel
> US Politics
> Philip Weiss on December 26, 2014 22 Comments
>
> Chris Hedges
>
> Chris Hedges was invited to speak at the University of Pennsylvania. Then he
> likened Israel to ISIS, and got disinvited. At Truthdig (12/21), he reports
> this latest scandal:
> I had been invited to talk next April 3 at the University of Pennsylvania at
> a peace conference sponsored by the International Affairs Association, but
> last week after Truthdig published my column "ISIS—the New Israel" the
> lecture agency that set up the event received this email from Zachary
> Michael Belnavis, who is part of the student group:
> "We're sorry to inform you that we don't think that Chris Hedges would be a
> suitable fit for our upcoming peace conference. We're saying this in light
> of a recent article he's written in which he compares the organization ISIS
> to Israel (here's the article in question). In light of this comparison we
> don't believe he would be suitable to a co-existence speaker based on this
> stance he's taken."
> Being banned from speaking about the conflict between Israel and Palestine,
> especially at universities, is familiar to anyone who attempts to challenge
> the narrative of the Israel lobby. This is not the first time one of my
> speaking offers has been revoked and it will not be the last. However, the
> charge of Belnavis and the International Affairs Association that I do not
> believe in coexistence between the Palestinians and Israel is false. I
> oppose violence by either party. I have condemned Hamas rocket attacks as
> war crimes. And I support Israel's right to exist within the pre-1967
> borders.
> Here's a portion of Hedges's December 15th piece titled "ISIS–the new
> Israel":
> Its quest for an ethnically pure Sunni state mirrors the quest for a Jewish
> state eventually carved out of Palestine in 1948. Its tactics are much like
> those of the Jewish guerrillas who used violence, terrorism, foreign
> fighters, clandestine arms shipments and foreign money, along with horrific
> ethnic cleansing and the massacre of hundreds of Arab civilians, to create
> Israel. Antagonistic ISIS and Israeli states, infected by religious
> fundamentalism, would be irreconcilable neighbors. This is a recipe for
> apocalyptic warfare. We provided the ingredients.
> https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1429849?code=siteorange
> https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1429849?code=siteorangeHedges's banning
> is a reminder that none of the rules apply when it comes to Israel.
> Americans are allowed to mock and satirize any country we like– or even make
> a movie about assassinating a foreign dictator, and the president will stand
> up for you against efforts to suppress it– but don't touch a hair on
> Israel's chinny chin chin. So Ari Roth is gone from the theater company he
> built at the DC Jewish Community Center because he dared to broach the
> Nakba, and at Penn, an intellectual is blacklisted because of his criticism
> of Israel's origins in ethnic cleansing and its constitutional failure to
> separate church and state– a great American principle. This is McCarthyism,
> on a broader scale than the original in the '50s. Today on WNYC radio, Brian
> Lehrer argued that Francis Fukuyama's 1989 prediction of the end of history
> has been proven wrong in recent years by the rise of ISIS and radical Islam,
> also by Iran's history since its revolution. All these political conditions
> are a contradiction of liberal democracy, Lehrer said. Well jeez, if you are
> going to speak about religious states, why not address the one in your back
> pocket, Israel, which surely has helped to sow the seeds of apocalyptic
> nation-building in the Middle East. It's not just the Israel lobby that
> effects this silence. It's western guilt over the Holocaust and the Jewish
> question in Europe that keeps Israel a sacred cow. Major spiritual damage
> there. So shouldn't Penn be hosting Chris Hedges to talk about this kind of
> thing?
>
>
>
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> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
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