There’s an old joke that goes like this: Two Jews are facing a firing squad. The officer in charge of their execution asks if they have a last request. One Jew says to the other “I think I’d like a blindfold.” The other Jew says “Let’s not make trouble.”
That Jew turns out to be Rachelle Rubin, president of the Boston University chapter of Students for Israel. Rachelle read a Frontpage Magazine article which recounts the rejection of the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s ad refuting the genocidal lies spread by the Muslim Brotherhood and Palestinian leaders who want to “push the Jews into the sea” (these are their precise words). After reading the article Rachelle felt concerned enough to write a letter to the Freedom Center — urging us not to “push the issue” lest we “offend” BU’s Arab population (which has not said a word in defense of the Jews or in opposition to the lies).
The ad which the David Horowitz Freedom Center attempted to place in the Boston University campus paper, the Daily Free Press, was based on the Center’s campaign to put up a “Palestinian Wall of Lies” on university campuses to combat the “Israel Apartheid Walls” which Muslim Brotherhood front groups are erecting on college campuses this week to delegitimize the state of Israel, and soften it up for jihadist armies of Hamas and Hizbollah massed on its borders.
The Center’s “wall” and its ad refute the ten core lies on which the attacks on Israel mounted by Islamic jihadists and the radical left are based. For example, the lie that Israel is “occupied Palestine.” Israel in fact occupies a tiny sliver of the ruins of the Turkish empire (the Turks are neither Arabs nor Palestinians). Eighty percent of the so-called Palestine Mandate (which refers to a region not a political or ethnic entity) was ceded to Jordan, which is ruled by a Hashemite minority that no one mistakes for Palestinians. Seventy-percent of the population of Jordan are Arabs from the Palestine mandate but no one is calling for the self-determination of these people or the destruction of the Jordanian state, because the agenda of the Islamists is to purge the Jews from the Middle East.
The “Palestinian Wall of Lies” ad was an attempt to confront Boston University’s Israel Apartheid Week, which featured the erection of an “Apartheid Wall,” a speech by Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization, and an event with Noam Lekach and Elinor Amit from a group called “Anarchists Against the Wall” which protests Israel’s security fence and what they term “land theft, violence, separation and occupation” – all favored propaganda terms of the left to support the claims of the terrorists of Hezbollah and Hamas. The removal of Israel’s “apartheid wall” would simply give free reign to Palestinian suicide bombers to kill more Jews.
The Free Press refused to print the ad, claiming that the content “may be offensive to our readers belonging to certain religious or ethnic groups.” When the Freedom Center asked the Free Press editors to cite which specific passages were offensive, and offered to modify the ad, the paper refused to give specifics.
The Freedom Center documented this refusal in its article “Censorship at the Boston University Daily Free Press,” which appeared in Frontpage Magazine. Rachelle Rubin read the article and wrote to David Horowitz. This is their complete correspondence:
[Editor's note: The typos in Rachelle Rubin's email -- including the misspelling of David's name -- have been left uncorrected.]
Dear Mr. Horrowitz,
I was just made aware of the article in frontmag about The Daily Free Press not publishing your ad. While I do understand your frustration, I ask you please not to push this issue. First and foremost, the majority of SJP memebers are not Muslim, many are Jewish and many are anarchists. BU has a large Arab population, which has NOT been mobalized, and we most definitly do not want to do antyhing to offend them- there is no reason for us to try and incite, the same way that there is no reason for them to get involved. In addition, yesterday was a great day for us. At the moment the pro-Israel students are feeling proud and feel the support of the Boston University campus, we dont not need enemies we do not have. Boston University IS a place of understanding and coextiance and we are doing everything in our power to keep it that way- we WILL NOT stoop to SJP. This is a student issue and we are trying to handle it that way. And finally, to press this issue would deter future Jewish and pro-Israel students from attending our campus. We have been pro-active, and stand positively, strongly, and proudly and would like THAT to be the way the outside Jewish and pro-Israel world see our campus, becuase it is the truth
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