Palestinian in Exile

THE LOBBY GETS ITS WAY AT DePAUL UNIVERSITY

A Catholic University seems to be taking its directives from AIPAC and other groups associated with the infamous Lobby. Freedom of Spech and the right to an education are no longer options in certain areas.
Slowly the remaining freedoms of the American people are being eroded away by the same forces that have denied freedom to the entire nation of Palestine for the past 60 years.... what will it take for Americans to wake up and take a stand against these enemies of freedom? How long will America put up with this before there is a backlash never before seen in the history of the country.... a backlash that will evoke cries of antisemitism from the very forces that are anti everything and everyone else.
ENOUGH ALREADY! LET FREEDOM RING!!.... STARTING IN THE CLASSROOM!
The following AP report from Fox News talks about the situation at DePaul University...
DePaul University Cancels Class Taught By Professor Critical of Israel
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Associated Press
CHICAGO — DePaul University canceled the one remaining class taught by a controversial professor who has accused some Jews of improperly using the legacy of the Holocaust.
Norman Finkelstein, whose work led to a long-running public feud with Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, says he may respond by committing civil disobedience when classes resume Sept. 5.
Finkelstein, 53, was denied tenure in June after six years on the DePaul faculty, but he was permitted to teach for the one year remaining on his contract.
On Friday, however, the university e-mailed students saying that Finkelstein's sole political science course had been canceled. By Monday, the books for the course had been pulled from the DePaul bookstore's shelves.
Finkelstein's most recent book, "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History," is largely an attack on Dershowitz's "The Case for Israel." In it, Finkelstein argues that Israel uses the outcry over perceived anti-Semitism as a weapon to stifle criticism.
/**/
Dershowitz, who threatened to sue Finkelstein's publisher for libel, urged DePaul officials to reject Finkelstein's tenure bid in June.
The American Association of University Professors is preparing a letter to the university protesting Finkelstein's treatment as a serious violation of academic ethics, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.
Finkelstein told the newspaper that he planned to wage his own campaign against the administration.
"I intend to go to my office on the first day of classes and, if my way is barred, to engage in civil disobedience," Finkelstein said. "If arrested, I'll go on a hunger strike. If released, I'll do it all over again. I'll fast in jail for as long as it takes."
After he was denied tenure, Finkelstein, a son of Holocaust survivors, posted a letter on his Web site explaining the school officials' reasons, including Finkelstein's "deliberately hurtful" scholarship along, lack of involvement with the school and tendency for public clashes with other scholars.
"In the opinion of those opposing tenure, your unprofessional personal attacks divert the conversation away from consideration of ideas, and polarize and simplify conversations that deserve layered and subtle consideration," school President Dennis Holtschneider wrote in a letter dated June 8. DePaul at the time verified the letter was authentic.
Denise Mattson, the university's associate vice president for public affairs, released a statement saying Finkelstein was on administrative leave with full pay for the academic year.
"Administrative leave relieves professors from their teaching responsibilities. He was informed of the reasons that precipitated this leave last spring," the statement said.

The dawn hour, the hour of silence, when time seems to stand still. Dawn, the hour when we think our loneliest thoughts, when we beseech God, and search for understanding deep in our hearts, our whole being. What is the secret that keeps our humanity alive, what pain, what breath? Again and again, the question returns to haunt us.

Suddenly, pictures flood into my mind: war and conflict are raging, human beings are being driven from their homes, abused, dragged through the mud, tormented... concentrated in death camps. Humiliated for a name, an origin, an identity. Humiliated, and then forgotten. It was only yesterday, and in the mists of my memory their faces are simultaneously engraved and obliterated by the immensity of the evil that human History has wrought. Are we not responsible for our History? Can it be that we have not learned to confront life? The taste in my mouth is harsh, bitter

Today is so like yesterday. Where have we come, in fact? Are we innocents droning on for all to hear about their insignificant lapses? Madmen carried away by ignorance of what they have done? Monsters possessed, by their thirst for power and comfort? Who are we? Yesterday’s victims, today’s killers... suffering at dusk, dictators at dawn? And when the long night is over, what will we have become? Who, finally, are we? What memory can we call our own? The same images: of those driven from their homes, abused, dragged through the mud, tormented... concentrated in camps of the selfsame death. Today, like yesterday. They knew, of course. And they let it happen... Today, we know. We let it happen. The cowardice is identical.

The dawn hour, the hour of silence, when time seems to stand still. Suddenly, I feel I must speak with my daughter, my son. To whisper to them what lies in the heart. A secret. Down deep, I do not know what human beings are; I cannot know their hopes, their aspirations. I no longer know the value of their promises, so much have we betrayed each other. My daughter, my son, if our life’s blood has any meaning, it is time to awaken our shared memories. It is time for us to awaken; to resist.

We have been deceived. How beautiful were our dreams; how ugly the reality. They spoke to us of peace as one would speak of hope: something for us, beyond us, without us. Without effort. We stand as spectators of a destiny free of memory, of justice, of sacrifice. Without dignity. On the horizon of Palestine, I can hear the deadened melodies of wounded conscience, of long-nourished guilt, of choking infirmity; I would like to become the voice of the voiceless, of the lost, the exiled and the refugees, who have paid twice over the price of our spinelessness. I would like-surely you can understand-to energize those victims, the memory of dusk that brings forth the demanding justice of the dawn. To awaken us from the long night of our history. How I would like to do that!

The dawn hour, the hour of silence, when time seems to stand still. To live for peace! To stand up at last, in the name of those driven from their homes, abused, dragged, tormented, assembled in the death camps, today like yesterday. To become the conscience of the oppressed. For here love, dignity, and hope lie concealed. Here faith is born, the breath of life, the task that lies before us. This, finally, is the price of peace: among us, with us, for us all. Never give up. Simple, when you come down to it. But at the heart of this deafening silence, here among human beings, I know no other secret.