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Taking aim at Columbia University for allowing their campus to be used for the conference, Glenn Richter, former chairman of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry movement and the current director of Amcha — CJC, said, “This university has a long and shameful tradition of anti-Semitic policies, dating back over 70 years ago when brave students protested against the pro-Nazi policies of the institution’s heavy-handed president, Nicholas Murray Butler. Butler then had a leader of the protests expelled. Today we are here protesting against a different form of racist ideology, commonly known as Islamo-fascism.”
Calling the members of SJP “Islamo-Fascists For An Arab Only Palestine,” the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam issued a flyer declaring that the motivation for the conference was predicated on “bigotry, violence and genocide against the Jewish people.” Dr. Marvin Belsky, a retired New York City physician and spokesman for HRCARI, said, “In Israel, Christians, Muslims and gays have full human rights, protection and dignity. Arabic and Hebrew are the official languages and Arabs who comprise over 1.2 million citizens serve in government, as well as assuming positions as judges, doctors, ambassadors and police and Israel remains a refuge for the world’s oppressed from Asia to Africa.”
Larry Domnitch, a prolific author, academic and historian, said he came “to express my support for Israel in the face of so much misinformation that is being disseminated on this campus and others as well. In a few weeks will be the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration which expressed the inherent and historical right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. 94 years later that right is still being contested.”
Julian Rappaport, one of the demonstrators engaging with passers-by at the university’s gate, contended that the anti-Israel conference inside was not an expression of free speech, but “to give only one, incorrect side of the picture. Columbia has the responsibility to be more critical of what’s going on.” During a heated confrontation with an SJP member, who called for “the complete obliteration of the racist Zionist entity,” Mr. Rappaport was arrested by police for allegedly kicking the student and was charged with disorderly conduct. He was released soon thereafter and returned to the demonstration.
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