Brandeis Breaks With Al-Quds Over Nazi-Style Demonstration

Brandeis University President Frederick Lawrence said on Monday that the university will have to re-evaluate the relationship. The universities have been sister institutions since 1998.

During the demonstration, protesters marched in black military gear, carried fake automatic weapons and gave the Nazi salute. Banners with images of Palestinian suicide bombers were displayed in the campus’ main square, according to a statement from Brandeis.

Following the demonstration, Lawrence called on Al-Quds President Sari Nusseibeh to issue a condemnation.

In a statement issued to Al-Quds students, Nusseibeh said that “Jewish extremists” were using the demonstration to “capitalize on events in ways that misrepresent the university as promoting inhumane, anti-Semitic, fascist, and Nazi ideologies.”

Without these ideologies, he said “there would not have been the massacre of the Jewish people in Europe; without the massacre, there would not have been the enduring Palestinian catastrophe.”

“As occurred recently, these opportunists are quick to describe the Palestinians as a people undeserving of freedom and independence, and as a people who must be kept under coercive control and occupation.”

Brandeis found Nusseibeh’s statement “unacceptable and inflammatory.”

“While Brandeis has an unwavering commitment to open dialogue on difficult issues, we are also obliged to recognize intolerance when we see it, and we cannot — and will not — turn a blind eye to intolerance.”

Al-Quds has campuses in Yerushayim, Abu-Dis and Al-Bireh.

This article appeared in print on page 33 of the November 20th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.