Is LSE’s Palestine Society trying to break some kind of record for the number of odious speakers hosted over a few weeks?
We have had Abdel Bari Atwan, who “will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight if the Iranian missiles strike Israel”.
Then there was Ben White, who “understands” why some people are antisemitic. White tours the country with some of Britain’s worst extremists, such as Azzam Tamimi.
Up next is Ahron Cohen of Neturei Karta. His topic is “Are Judaism & Zionism Incompatible?”.
Cohen at the Al Quds (Jerusalem) Day march in London, where he is a regular, with a Hezbollah flag in the background. The annual march is organised by the Khomeinists of the Islamic Human Rights Commission for fanatical haters of Israel. “We are all Hezbollah” is the main slogan.
Neturei Karta will be familiar to readers of this blog. It is the tiny sect which supports and works with extremists and terrorist groups in its quest to annihilate Israel. Spittoon blogger bananabrain has written up their theology here.
This is perhaps the most vile line Ahron Cohen has ever trotted out:
“There is no question that there was a Holocaust and gas chambers. There are too many eyewitnesses.
“However, our approach is that when one suffers, the one who perpetrates the suffering is obviously guilty but he will never succeed if the victim did not deserve it in one way or another.
“We have to look within to improve and try to better ourselves and remove those characteristics or actions that may have been the cause of the success of the Holocaust.”
He said this after attending a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran:
Cohen’s trip to Tehran — along with four American rabbis from the same sect — was paid for by the Iranian foreign ministry, which organised the conference entitled The Holocaust: A Global Vision. They were warmly greeted by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, and had two meetings with him.
Cohen ended his speech to the conference with a prayer “that the underlying cause of strife and bloodshed in the Middle East, namely the state known as Israel, be totally and peacefully dissolved”.
The rabbi claimed “learned gentlemen from both sides of the fence” were at the latest conference. They included David Duke, former “imperial wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan.
One would hope that in normal times all LSE staff would be very concerned that some of their students want to hear from so many haters.
Normal times these are not.
Instead we have an LSE professor, Martha Mundy, heaping praise on Bari Atwan, shouting at LSE’s anti-racist officer for objecting to Bari Atwan’s antisemitic remarks, and threatening to “slap” a member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
If you would like to attend this event, here are the details:
Time 01 February 18:00 – 19:30
Location Room E171, East Building, London School of Economics
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/mapsAndDirections/findingYourWayAroundLSE.aspx
