Tammi Rossman-Benjamin The Brandeis Center and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) have just issued the following statement: WASHINGTON, DC — The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB) and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East today issued a Joint Statement in defense of University of California at Santa Cruz lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin. Rossman-Benjamin, an activist known for her opposition to campus anti-Semitism, has recently been the target of a public campaign of character assassination because of her advocacy for the civil rights of Jewish college students. LDB and SPME joined together today to defend Rossman-Benjamin against these smears and to denounce efforts to suppress advocacy for the civil rights of university students. Rossman-Benjamin is a co-founder of the AMCHA Initiative, an organization that combats anti-Semitism on American college and university campuses. She is also a member of the Brandeis Center’s Academic Advisory Board and a former member of SPME’s Board of Directors. Rossman-Benjamin has famously accused her university, UC Santa Cruz, of harboring a hostile environment for Jewish students. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has opened an investigation into Rossman-Benjamin’s complaint, which is now pending. On June 20, 2012, Ms. Rossman-Benjamin delivered a speech at the Ahavath Torah Congregation in Stoughton, Massachusetts. During the course of that speech, Ms. Rossman-Benjamin described anti-Semitic incidents at the University of California. Ms. Rossman-Benjamin attributed some responsibility for contemporary campus anti-Semitism to two organizations, Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Students Association. Rossman-Benjamin also stated that some members of these organizations have had connections with terrorist organizations. In response to that synagogue presentation, student activists at the University of California have launched a campaign to condemn Rossman-Benjamin. As a result of this campaign, in March 2013, Associated Students at the University of California (ASUC) at Berkeley adopted a resolution that called on outgoing UC President Mark Yudof to condemn Rossman-Benjamin’s remarks. LDB and SPME jointly announced: “We find the accusations against Rossman-Benjamin to be false, scurrilous, and unjustifiable. Over the years, Rossman-Benjamin has tirelessly campaigned against anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli harassment. Perversely, Rossman-Benjamin is now being branded a purveyor of hate speech and Islamophobia precisely because she attempted to expose hate speech which her accusers would prefer to shield from scrutiny.” LDB President Kenneth L. Marcus commented, “I have worked with Tammi Rossman-Benjamin over the years, and I consider her to be a bold and courageous fighter for the civil rights of Jewish college students. It is reprehensible that some people are targeting her for abuse because of her fight against campus anti-Semitism.” (more…)
Mary Robinson at World Economic Forum, Davos, 2013 Rubberstamping the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement’s drive to delegitimate and demonize “Apartheid” Israel, the Irish government has announced that produce from the West Bank should be declared “illegal” by the EU. Giving their blessing on a Dublin visit were the so-called “Elders,” the seven-member “peace-making” delegation that includes former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, and former Irish President Mary Robinson. The Elders have gotten older but no wiser since their founding in 2007. They continue to focus all their criticism for Mideast ills on Israel—ignoring Hamas and Hezbollah—at a time when chemical weapons are being used in Syria and “wipe Israel from the map” Iran continues on track to develop a nuclear weapon. Irish developments matter for two reasons. First, the nexus with former President Robinson who was the moving force behind 2001’s Durban “Anti-Racism” Conference held just days before the 9/11 attacks. Durban’s main impact was to revive the UN’s discredited 1975 resolution equating “Zionism with racism” while legitimizing the use of “all means”—including terrorism—to destroy the Jewish state. Robinson failed to deliver on her promise to the Simon Wiesenthal Center that the Iranian government would provide visas to the official Israeli delegates and Jewish NGO representatives, in accordance with UN rules, to the “prepcon summit” in Tehran that instead made impossible participation by Jewish NGOs (as well as the Bahá’ís) and refused to denounce anti-Semitism. She then also presided over the Durban hatefest—where the delegation headed by the Wiesenthal Center’s Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Dr. Shimon Samuels protested the widespread distribution of copies of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”—waiting until the Conference was almost over before admitting that “there was horrible anti-Semitism present.” Later, she backtracked on her admission by issuing a declaration that she was still “proud” of the event. In addition, she has accused Israel’s supporters at home and abroad of “bullying”—in charges echoing libels against “The Israel Lobby.” The second reason is that Sein Fein—the political wing of the IRA (and vice versa)—has aligned with radical Palestinian nationalism since the 1970s and called for the expulsion of Israel’s Ambassador to Ireland since the 1990s. But this shameful history goes back further. As Andrew McCarthy’s and Dermot Keogh’s book shows, Sein Fein’s founder, Arthur Griffith, supported the Limerick Pogrom and boycott of “Jewish usurers” in 1904. Francis Stewart—pro-Nazi during World War II—was elected head of a government-funded arts group boycotting Israel in 1996. Sean Russell, another Nazi collaborator, had a statue dedicated to him in 2004. (more…)