Bard College Keeps Partnership With Al-Quds University

The decision comes after Brandeis University and Syracuse University severed ties with Al-Quds after the latter’s administration failed to satisfactorily condemn the offensive displays organized by Islamic Jihad on campus.

Whereas Brandeis publicly demanded that Al-Quds condemn the protest — which included Nazi salutes and people in military garb trampling on Israeli flags near posters of suicide bombers — Bard kept silent on the matter until asked for comment more than two weeks later.

Leon Botstein, president of Bard College in New York, wrote in a statement that Al-Quds officials contacted Bard “immediately” after the rally and “provided an unequivocal denunciation of that protest,” which apparently satisfied Bard.

Botstein differed from the outraged Brandeis and Syracuse administrators in his reaction to the incident at the Palestinian school.

“Suggestions that the university administration condoned the actions of a very small group of students within a university of 12,000 are simply inaccurate,” Botstein wrote in a statement, adding that “the incident and the ensuing controversy demonstrate that it is more important than ever to maintain our educational partnership with Al-Quds.”

Bard says it will continue its partnership with Al-Quds University, which includes active joint-degree programs.

Some at Brandeis have also voiced disagreement with the university’s decision to cut off Al-Quds, arguing that a Nazi salute does not necessarily mean allegiance to Nazi ideology.

This article appeared in print on page 7 of the November 26th, 2013 edition of Hamodia.