Senator: Criticize Israel, Cut School Funding

Congress To Pass 'Ideological Diversity' Legislation

By Michael Collins Piper

American Free Press
americanfreepress.net
4-21-3

Republican members of the Senate are planning to introduce police-state- style "thought control" legislation designed to prohibit criticism of Israel on American college campuses.

The third-ranking Republican member of the U.S. Senate, conservative Rick Santorum (Pa.), plans to introduce so-called "ideological diversity" legislation that would cut federal funding for thousands of American colleges and universities if those institutions are found to be permitting professors, students and student organizations to openly criticize Israel, which Santorum considers to be an act of "anti-Semitism."

Santorum wants to rewrite the federal funding formula under Title IX of the Higher Education Act to include "ideological diversity" as well as sexual equality in education as a perquisite for federal funding.

Joining Santorum is another Senate conservative GOP stalwart -- and a leading pro-Israel ideologue -- Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.) who has his own scheme to call for a federal commission -- critics call it a "tribunal" to be established under Title IX to "investigate" anti-Semitic incidents on American campuses.

This is no "conspiracy theory." It's a fact -- but not one that is getting much attention except in a few high-level circles. Although the average American student or college professor has not heard of the Santorum-Brownback scheme, Wayne Firestone, director of the Center for Israel Affairs for the Hillel Foundation, says that "Everywhere I go, this is the lead topic. This is drawing a lot of interest."

In fact, it was Firestone's organization, Hillel -- which has units on campuses across America -- that first leaked word of Santorum's scheme. Further details appeared in a circumspect report on April 15 in the small- circulation New York Sun, a stridently pro-Israel "neo-conservative" daily published in Manhattan.

Hillel told its supporters that Santorum, along with several other members of the Senate, had invited representatives of a number of powerful Jewish organizations to attend a private meeting on Capitol Hill in order to discuss the senators' concerns about growing criticism of Israel on American college campuses.

The senators in question -- all Republicans -- were: Santorum, Robert Bennett (Utah), Sam Brownback (Kansas), and newly-elected Norm Coleman (Minnesota).

In addition, Senate Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.), and his GOP colleagues, Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and George Voinovich (Ohio) sent staff representatives.

Jewish organizations represented at the private meeting were the Anti- Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith, the Zionist Organization of America, the American Jewish Committee and Hillel, represented by the aforementioned Firestone and his college Jay Rubin, Hillel's executive vice president. Louis Goldstein, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, represented the Bush administration.

During the private Senate session -- of which there are no transcripts available to the taxpayers who footed the bill for the enterprise -- an ADL representative reportedly claimed to the gathering that the ADL's "annual audit" of anti-Semitic activity in America had detected an increase by 24% of anti-Semitism on U.S. college campuses in the year 2002. That 24% increase -- even by the ADL's own admission -- constituted only 21 actions.

However, the ADL definition of "anti-Semitism" is so broad that it largely includes even the mildest criticism of Israel that doesn't happened to be framed in the particular parameters that the ADL determines to be acceptable. In the meantime, word of the Santorum-Brownback initiative is spreading among leaders of the educational community.

However, spokesmen for universities and educational organizations are being quite circumspect about commenting too quickly or too loudly, recognizing that they, too, could be accused of encouraging "anti-Semitism" if they dare to speak out against the thought control mechanism that Santorum, Brownback and their allies want to set in place.

Santorum is rapidly emerging as one of Israel's leading Senate spokesmen. He is one of the chief co-sponsors of the so-called Syrian Accountability Act that accuses Syria of supporting terrorism and developing weapons of mass destruction and demands that Syria withdraw from Lebanon. Forces now clamoring for war against Syria are using these allegations as the foundation for launching a war against the Arab republic.