Dear all: This column is a complete fabrication.
1) HR 3077 has nothing to do with the issues discussed here. HR 3077 is
the Child Health Care Affordability Act, which addresses tax credits for
medical expenses of a dependent.
2) There is currently no bill before Congress called the "International
Studies in Higher Education Act."
3) Rep. Hoekstra --who is about as reactionary as they come!-- has not
sponsored anything related to what is discussed in this column in this
Congress.
4) The column says it was passed on Oct. 21. The House was not even in
session on Oct. 21.
Now, there was an HR3077 related to Higher Education in 2003, but that
said nothing about Israel
(http://edworkforce.house.gov/markups/108th/sed/hr3077/917main.htm).
Things are bad in the US under the Bushies right now, but they're not
this bad. I suggest that the Jordan Times --or at least this columnist--
may have an agenda... :-) .
Best,
Andy
Jon Cloke wrote:
> By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes... it
> seems as if the legacy of the House of UnAmerican Activities is about
> to be visited by the House of Anti-Israeli Activities. Might be about
> time to start talking about a boycott of the Empire, as the lights of
> freedom there go out, one by one...
>
>
> The Jordan Times -- Sunday - October 30, 2005
>
> http://www.jordantimes.com/sun/opinion/opinion2.htm
>
> Criticising Israel in college campuses could soon become a crime in
> the US under a law that has already cleared the House of
> Representatives and is now before a committee of the Senate.
>
> Jewish groups and pro-Israeli lobbyists are the creators of the bill
> Which is yet another affirmation of the strong influence and political
> clout
>
> Israel enjoys in the corridors of power in Washington.
>
> The legislation comes at a time when Americans are becoming
> increasingly critical of the unstinting support that the US offers
> Israel at every Forum and on every issue. The bill, if passed by the
> Senate, will lead to Creating a federal tribunal to investigate and
> monitor criticism of Israel on American college campuses. The panel
> will be empowered to recommend cutting government funding for colleges
> and universities which are deemed as including in its faculty
> individuals and academic groups critical of Israel. Campuses are
> particularly targeted because they produce opinion makers and
> politicians.
>
> The bill also clears the way to crack down on college and university
> professors who are critical of Israel. The bill is called HR 3077, the
> International Studies in Higher Education Act, and was sponsored by
> Representative Peter Hoekstra, a conservative Republican from
> Michigan. It was passed by the full House of Representatives on Oct.
> 21, according to American Free Press, an on-line news agency.
>
> "Critics charge that the bill is dangerous - a direct affront to the
> First Amendment and the product of intrigue by a small clique of
> individuals and organisations which combines the forces of the
> powerful Israeli lobby in official Washington," said the report.
>
> The groups which put their strength behind the bill include the
> Anti-Defamation
> League (ADL) of B'nai Br'ith, the American Jewish Congress and the
> American
> Jewish Committee, as well as Empower America, which is described as a
> front for the
> so-called neo-conservatives who are blamed for the aggressive policy
> pursued by the administration of George W. Bush.
>
> The bill is seen as an effort by Israel and its sympathisers in the US
> to create a shield to protect the Jewish state at a time when
> Americans are questioning whether their country even went to war
> against Iraq in order to clear the Middle East of hard-line regimes
> which could pose a threat to the Jewish state's interests. The
> pressure that the US is currently applying against Syria and Iran –
> arch-enemies of Israel - is seen as part of the Bush administration's
> efforts to further help the Jewish state.
>
> Officially, Israel receives $3 billion in assistance from the US that
> is cleared by Congress.
> In addition are at least $2 billion which are channelled to Israel
> from the budget of the
> US Defence Department and State Department under various programmes of
> co-operation. Hundreds of millions of dollars are also sent to Israel
> by private Jewish groups in the US.
>
> Here are some comments of American analysts and observers about the
> bill. Lisa Anderson of the Columbia University School of International
> and Public Affairs says that
> "this plan... is not about diversity, or even about the truth".
> Anderson is highly critical of conservative Republicans who, she says,
> are acting as the Israeli lobby's surrogates. This plan is "about the
> conviction of conservative political activists that the American
> University community is insufficiently patriotic, or perhaps simply
> insufficiently conservative".
>
> Juan Cole of the History News Network says: "What they mean... if you
> pin them down is ambivalence about the Iraq war, or dislike of Israeli
> colonisation of the West Bank, or recognition that the US government
> has sometimes in the past been in bed with present enemies like Al
> Qaeda or Saddam. None of these positions is `anti-American', and any
> attempt by a congressionally appointed body to tell university
> professors they cannot say these things - or that if they say them
> they must hire someone else who will say the opposite - is a
> contravention of the First Amendment of the US constitution."
>
> An air of secrecy shrouded the bill from the very outset. It is not
> even known how members of the House of Representatives voted on it.
> Hoekstra, the chief sponsor, sought and secured a suspension of the
> House of Representatives' regulations and made it possible for the
> bill to be passed with an unrecorded "voice vote", says American Free
> Press, adding: "There is no record of how individual House members
> voted or if they even voted.”
>
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andrew Herod
Professor of Geography, Adjunct Professor of International Affairs,
and Director, UGA à Paris Study Abroad Program
Department of Geography
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602, USA
Ph: + 1 706 542 2856 (main)
+ 1 706 542 2366 (direct)
Fax: + 1 706 542 2388
www.ggy.uga.edu/people/faculty/aherod
www.uga.edu/paris
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