RUTGERS GETS 'F' FOR PUTTING ANTI-SEMITISM 101 ON THE SCHEDULE
By ANDREA PEYSER
July 9, 2003 -- IT WILL be big. And ugly. And in New Jersey.
The nation's third college - and the first on the East Coast - to harbor a national anti-Israel hate-fest, featuring tips for destroying the Jewish state and speeches from notable anti-Semites, will not be Columbia or NYU.
A student group at Rutgers University, no slouch in the destroy-Israel department, has snagged the third annual National Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement, to be held Oct. 10-12.
The event, which organizers expect to draw at least 500 Israel foes from the world over, is to include classes designed to teach kids how to pressure their universities to stop investing in companies that do business with Israel. Expect workshops in nonviolent resistance. Or so we hope.
Organizer Charlotte Kates told me peaceful resistance is the fest's guiding principle. Yet she noted that she, as well as the sponsoring organization, the New Jersey Solidarity Movement - an offshoot of International Solidarity - supports Palestinian homicide bombers.
"Palestinian resistance in all its forms has been a very powerful tool of justice," said Kates, 23, a Rutgers law student. "All forms, from armed struggle to mass protest."
And does Israel have a right to exist?
"Israel is an apartheid, colonial settler state. I do not believe apartheid, colonial settler states have a right to exist."
At the two previous conferences, at Berkeley, Calif., and the University of Michigan, pro-Palestinian rhetoric "crossed into virulent anti-Semitism," said Shai Goldstein, director of the New Jersey Anti-Defamation League chapter.
The university said the show will go on, despite 230 letters of protest. As a state school, Rutgers bestows public funding to Solidarity, said a spokeswoman.
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