20 CommentsThis afternoon, a statement was released by over 200 Columbia faculty and administrators, including former deans, calling for the University Trustees to not divest from the university’s business relations with Israel. The document claims that “Columbia benefits from ties with Israeli faculty, students, research, and technology.” This release follows a declaration to condemn Apartheid Divest that was signed by over 600 Columbia students, faculty, and alumni. While the two are not confirmed to be related, the two declarations represent the opposition to new student group Columbia University Apartheid Divest and their Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
You can find the statement and signatures below.
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20 Comments
@Maureen McGrath It’s wonderful to see some leadership from the intellectual elite of this nation. Thank you, Columbia
@Holly Kay Dear Diana,
As much as it warms our hearts that you want to be an activist, I would like to inform you that there is a spectrum that activism and debate about meaningful issues falls upon. I would like to give you some useful tips that will help you improve your arguement in the future. First of all, Steve presented an objective arguement about what specifically the BDS movement represents, and used used the word “hate” and nationalism as a tool to escalate his point to an emotional level. I would like you to be on the same page as me. So I included a snippet of what I am specifically referring to:-” The BDS movement accepts Muslim states, Arab states and a Palestinian state, yet hatefully rejects a Jewish state.”- Steve. Now I’d like to emphasize what Steve did here, in no way did he state his opinion, he simply used pathos to highlight a point. Good job Steve!
As for you, you presented an arguement with very good pathos, however your house has no rhetorical foundation to even stand upon, that’s why you attacked steve, tying opinion to emotional words in a very efforful attempt to discredit him. It’s a great tactic, but your rebuttle is based on opinion. A BIG no no when you’re trying to win a debate. Let’s take a look, shall we? “You and the people who follow your sentiments here are all bigots. To hate all Arabs and Muslims is justifiable but to speak out again Israel is anti-Semitic? Get over yourselves. You all deserve to burn.”
And just to be fair, I added another part:
“Arab/Muslims countries? There are 22 countries that make up the Arab world, and only ONE of the countries from the middle east makes it into the top 10 of highest Muslim populations. Newsflash: China has more Muslims than most countries in the Arab world. Don’t generalize you ignorant fool unless you know what you’re talking about. ”
Again, I would to point out to that he wasn’t generalizing, and you unfortunately we’re just diverting. Now, this would in politics. Politicians use your tactic all the time to discredit people and win debates. However, they also mix it up with some very valid information to give themselves leverage, whilst diminishing the reputation of their opponent. Trying to blow sawdust in someone’s face while you are blindfolded means you’re most likely going to miss. I hope I gave you the tools necessary to take off that metaphorical blindfold and kick some rhetorical ass!
By the way, I think you’re an idiot for supporting BDS and deeply feel like you should get off of commenting boards, people are going to rip your ridiculous arguements to shreds, because you clearly have no fucking idea what you’re saying.
Have a good one!
@Herbert Kaine Notice that the signatories of this petition do useful things like medical research and treatment. The loss of these signatories would be a great loss of Columbia. On the other hand, if the signatories of the pro-BDS petitions decided to collectively leave Columbia, it would save on energy bills
@Diana Steve, check your statistics. Arab/Muslims countries? There are 22 countries that make up the Arab world, and only ONE of the countries from the middle east makes it into the top 10 of highest Muslim populations. Newsflash: China has more Muslims than most countries in the Arab world. Don’t generalize you ignorant fool unless you know what you’re talking about.
And “tiny Israel” is not innocent and to believe that they are victimized by terrorist attacks while doing no harm themselves is blatant naivety.
You and the people who follow your sentiments here are all bigots. To hate all Arabs and Muslims is justifiable but to speak out again Israel is anti-Semitic? Get over yourselves. You all deserve to burn.
@Michelle Diana, passed judgment lately? “You all deserve to burn” ???
@Ed_Koch_2 Diana, I have no idea what China has to do with all this, but nevertheless decided to “check your statistics”. In 2010 there were a little over 20 million muslims living in China. While only in Egypt were over 80 million. Source: [http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jan/28/muslim-population-country-projection-2030].
This was the only “fact” in your angry rant and even that didn’t check out.
@Holly Kay Dear Diana,
As much as it warms our hearts that you want to be an activist, I would like to inform you that there is a spectrum that activism and debate about meaningful issues falls upon. I would like to give you some useful tips that will help you improve your arguement in the future. First of all, Steve presented an objective arguement about what specifically the BDS movement represents, and used used the word “hate” and nationalism as a tool to escalate his point to an emotional level. I would like you to be on the same page as me. So I included a snippet of what I am specifically referring to:-” The BDS movement accepts Muslim states, Arab states and a Palestinian state, yet hatefully rejects a Jewish state.”- Steve. Now I’d like to emphasize what Steve did here, in no way did he state his opinion, he simply used pathos to highlight a point. Good job Steve!
As for you, you presented an arguement with very good pathos, however your house has no rhetorical foundation to even stand upon, that’s why you attacked steve, tying opinion to emotional words in a very efforful attempt to discredit him. It’s a great tactic, but your rebuttle is based on opinion. A BIG no no when you’re trying to win a debate. Let’s take a look, shall we? “You and the people who follow your sentiments here are all bigots. To hate all Arabs and Muslims is justifiable but to speak out again Israel is anti-Semitic? Get over yourselves. You all deserve to burn.”
And just to be fair, I added another part:
“Arab/Muslims countries? There are 22 countries that make up the Arab world, and only ONE of the countries from the middle east makes it into the top 10 of highest Muslim populations. Newsflash: China has more Muslims than most countries in the Arab world. Don’t generalize you ignorant fool unless you know what you’re talking about. ”
Again, I would to point out to that he wasn’t generalizing, and you unfortunately we’re just diverting. Now, this would work in politics. Politicians use your tactic all the time to discredit people and win debates. However, they also mix it up with some very valid information that can be logically backed to give themselves leverage, whilst diminishing the reputation of their opponent. Trying to blow sawdust in someone’s face while you are blindfolded means you’re most likely going to miss. I hope I gave you the tools necessary to take off that metaphorical blindfold and kick some rhetorical ass!
In conclusion, and need to fire or even burn the idiot who’s blowing smoke up your ass and giving you all of this information, because it clearly isn’t doing you much good. To be honest, Steve’s arguement is valid, and yours is not. I don’t care how valid the BDS movement is, or how many people there are out there who hate Israel, if you can’t back up what you’re trying to say, it’s time to find another cause to support. Propaganda successfully does what you failed to do. They find people’s weakest points, and exploit them. Doesn’t matter whether the information is valid, the fact is is that their arguement carries legitimate weight.
By the way, I think you’re an idiot for supporting BDS and deeply feel like you should get off of commenting boards, people are going to rip your ridiculous arguements to shreds, because you clearly have no fucking idea what you’re saying.
Have a good one!
@Steve The BDS movement is 100% anti-semitic. It is not a “peace” movement. It does not promote “justice.” There is nothing liberal or “progressive” about it. Here is why:
– The BDS movement accepts Muslim states, Arab states and a Palestinian state, yet hatefully rejects a Jewish state.
– It accepts Muslim nationalism, Arab nationalism and Palestinian nationalism, yet rejects Jewish nationalism.
– It accepts that Muslim-majority states identify as Muslim, that Arab-majority states identity as Arab, yet it DEMONIZES the world’s one tiny Jewish-majority state for identifying as Jewish.
– The BDS movement rejects the Jewish right to self-determination, while promoting Arab self-determination, Muslim self-determination, Palestinian non-Jewish self-determination, etc.
– The BDS movement singles the Jewish people out using standards they intentionally do not apply to any other groups.
– The BDS movement promotes hate of Israel’s very existence, promotes hate of every single thing Israel does to protect itself, promotes hate of Israelis as a nationality, and promotes bigotry and discrimination against Israeli universities, musicians, artists, etc. No other universities, artists, etc in the world are deemed guilty of whatever wrong their country may do. Only Israeli Jews are singled out for this sort of hate.
All of this is the very definition of anti-semitism.
The BDS movement uses dishonest buzzwords like “peace” and “justice” to try to trick well-meaning people into supporting their hate movement.
BDS should stand for Bigoted Double Standards.
@Steve Arab/Muslim countries are a thousand times more racist/”apartheid”/etc in almost every way imaginable than tiny Israel.
Yet tiny Israel, less than 1% of the Middle East, is the ONLY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD that far-left/Arab/Muslim professors target for a boycott.
Because, anti-semitism in academia.
@CC '18 Convenient how most of the names on that list sound Jewish
@congratulations!... …you’re an anti-semite!
@thanks for showing your true colors...anonymously I know right because Jews couldn’t possibly have a voice in the matter! When Jews or Israelis sign the divestment letter, we’re all for that, but when they sign it for supporting Israel, they must be conniving and blind and unable to have a say in the matter. Makes total sense.
@BC what is far more interesting is that there are only a few lone professors in the humanities– two english lecturers and one anthro professor. most on the list are from the bio-medical sciences, econ & pol. sci….
@Employed, unlike you Yeah those polisci professors must know nothing about the situation!
@CC '18 Whoa there are some big names. Multiple Nobel Prize winners.
@Smh these activists What’s hilarious is that even if you do conclude that Israel is an Apartheid state, it’s not clear that divestment is the best strategy. All these dumb divestment campaigns are just to make you feel like you did something.
@User Your website is shitty to the point is almost unusable. Fix your fucking website.