Don't Call Them Activists; They Are Clearly Radicals
In reply to your Nov. 12 cover story, "Dueling Voices Duke It Out on Campus," I'd like to note that the "activists" noted in your piece, Elliot Ratzman and Jeff Halper, who claim Hillel unfairly denied Halper the right to speak, should in no way be considered victims, as their agenda is quite radical, and they are prone to express sympathy to groups who justify violence against Israelis.
Ratzman, in an article published in the magazine American Foreign Policy, accused Israel of practicing ethnic cleansing, and has volunteered with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions -- a group that routinely defames Israel with the charge of being an apartheid state.
Further, Ratzman works with ICAHD founder Halper, a radical anti-Zionist who speaks wistfully of the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state, and who, during his frequent speaking engagements for Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center (a group that often compares the Palestinians to the crucified Jesus, and Israel to his murderers, alluding to the ugly and false deicide charge against the Jewish people), has used language equating Israel with Nazi Germany.
Halper has also justified Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians, even refusing to condemn attacks against a 4-year-old. He is also a member of the International Solidarity Movement, a group, according to the Web site of the Anti-Defamation League, that has associated with known Palestinian terrorists.
There is nothing remotely reasonable, yet alone "progressive," about Ratzman's and Halper's views on Israel; and the Jewish community has no obligation to give a platform to such individuals, who aid and abet those who openly seek the Jewish state's destruction.
Adam Levick
Jerusalem
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