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Phyllis Chesler

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Red Guard Harvard Students "Educate" Dr. Martin Peretz

Sep 27, 2010

NewsRealBlog

This past weekend, a throng—nay, a large crowd of Harvard students publicly taunted, shamed, and stalked the venerable liberal intellectual Martin Peretz. Like the jihadists who distribute videos of their beheadings, the protesters also released their mini "Aktion" on YouTube. They call it: "Party for Marty."

These students decided to rain on "Marty's" parade, ruin it for him on the day Harvard was honoring him. The video shows students holding up signs presumably with Peretz's own (but out-of-context) words. It is accompanied by Lesley Gore's girlish voice singing the 1963 popular song: "It's My Party and I'll Cry if I Want To." The students are smiling, enjoying themselves, enjoying what they hope is Peretz's enormous discomfort.

The event was to mark the fiftieth anniversary of a Social Studies program. Harvard alumni had raised additional funding for this program in Peretz's honor. Students protested what they believe Professor Peretz wrote, thinks, is—or perhaps they were also protesting Harvard for daring to honor him.

At the end of the day, Harvard allowed Peretz to speak—but only briefly. Very briefly. Harvard still honored him. Speakers included the president of Harvard, various alumni of the Social Studies program, the president of Penn, as well as various social scientists and students.

Peretz was, essentially, silenced. But that was not enough. The righteous, self-satisfied protestors made it a point to hunt Peretz down as he tried to exit quietly, with some dignity, and mocked him continuously as they accompanied him on his long walk through Harvard Yard to his car; they also held the "offending words" posters.

Dr. Martin Peretz? Peretz is a staunch (but somewhat disappointed) Democrat—yes, he supported President Obama, and he is a rabidly old-fashioned liberal, a philanthropist, and the long-time editor-in-chief of The New Republic. Peretz was a professor at Harvard. Peretz is also the descendant of the great Yiddish writer I.L. Peretz and has funded a Chair in Yiddish Literature at Harvard which is currently held by the distinguished scholar, Ruth Wisse.

What crime, what sin, which particular Thought Crime did Dr. Martin Peretz commit?

In our time, there are really only two crimes, two sins, and they are connected. Peretz is a proud and passionate Zionist. By now, jihadic propagandists have persuaded the Islamic world and the Western mainstream media and professoriate that a Zionist is someone who favors colonialism, imperialism, and the continued "Apartheid Occupation" of innocent, helpless Arabs.

In reality, Zionism is not racism–but anti-Zionism is. Even the late, great Martin Luther King, Jr. understood this. Thus, the anti-racists are proud of their racism towards Jews and towards a Jewish Israel; by Orwellian definition, in their view, Jew-hatred is not "racism," it is a highly acceptable progressive political position.

Dr. Martin Peretz is a Jew and he loves the state of Israel. He is seen as an acceptable target for public mockery and humiliation at a major American university.

And, by the way, these same jihadic propagandists have disappeared entirely the long history of Islamic imperialism, gender and religious apartheid, the Arab Muslim enslavement of mainly black people, but also of Caucasians and Asians, the genocide of infidels, including Christians, Jews, and Hindus. Mainly, the propagandists have also disappeared the truth about the incredible, non-stop, heart-breaking Muslim-on-Muslim violence.

The Harvard protestors had no…nuance. Progressives just love that word.

In our time, in addition to being a Zionist, the other great crime and sin is being a "racist," especially an "Islamophobe," a phenomenon which does not really exist but has been manufactured to present aggressive, jihadists as innocent victims.

The protestor students claim that Peretz is anti-Muslim, a racist, anti-Black. What did Peretz write, exactly? On September 4, 2010, Peretz posted an editorial which concluded:

This is proof of Peretz's "racism."

The Nation magazine even concluded that the black ex-Muslim Somali, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is also a "racist" because she, too, is telling the truth about Islam.

What happened at Harvard is a perfect example of the melding of Chinese Communism, barbaric Islamism, and Western progressivism—in the service of condemning "Islamophobia," and hating and shaming Orwell's symbolic enemy, "Goldstein."

I am just now reading an excellent book by Abigail R. Esman, titled Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West. Esman is an American expatriate who has lived in Holland for 25 years although she travels back to America frequently. She is trying to understand what happened in multi-cultural, tolerant Holland and hopes that such understanding may help save both Europe and the United States from becoming medieval Islamic theocratic states. She has an eye for the small but telling detail. She interviews many Dutchmen and women about "what went wrong and when did it go wrong?" She is referring to the immigrant hostility to assimilation, the contempt for Dutch women, the profound and violent radicalization of Muslims in Holland. Esman writes:

And, in America, land of the free and home of the brave, no longer do American students merely write articles and letters in student newspapers to protest or express their views. They plan more … Muslim-style protests. They mount an intimidating, intolerant, show of force instead of dialogue. They show no respect for professors.

They remind me, not only of Muslim rioters, or Nazi brown shirts, but more and more, of the cruel, heartless and young Red Guard in Mao's China, who also believed they were politically perfect and that their enemies, sometimes their own parents, deserved to die.

Watch the video. Then, tell me what you think.

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