In defending his role in denying Tony Kushner an honorary degree from CUNY, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld tells New York Times columnist Jim Dwyer, referring to the Palestinians:
People who worship death for their children are not human.
Dwyer gives him a chance to walk it back and Wiesenfeld says:
They have developed a culture which is unprecedented in human history.
At the Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, who knows Wiesenfeld, walks him through the gentle art of removing one’s foot from one’s mouth:
If Wiesenfeld had said, "I have proof that Tony Kushner has spoken out in favor of Hamas and the al-Aksa Martyrs’ Brigade, two organizations that have both developed a very unusual and repulsive culture of death, which has allowed them to use Palestinian suicide bombers, often very young Palestinian suicide bombers, to murder Israeli children; therefore, I don’t believe Tony Kushner is deserving of this honor," well, that would have been one thing. But he didn’t say that. He broad-stroked the Palestinians — some of whom I know, and some of whom, from what I have observed, love their children — in the manner many Palestinians, particularly those in the Hamas camp, broad-stroke Jews.
UPDATE: Goldberg gets Wiesenfeld to walk it back, a little:
I told (the writer), people who worship the death of their children are not humans. Did I say all of them do? No. I would say that every Palestinian who supports the development of their child into a shahid (martyr) is not human.
Ed Koch, meantime, is a little less delicate. He thinks CUNY should give Wiesenfeld the boot:
"I can’t think of a dumber academic action," the former New York mayor and one of Israel’s most ardent supporters said in a letter Thursday to the chairman of the Board of Trustees. "What does Kushner receiving an award have to do with criticism of the State of Israel? I am a well-known supporter of that nation. What if I were denied an honorary degree because of my strong support for that state? That would make as much sense as denying Mr. Kushner a degree."
UPDATE II: Benno Schmidt, the CUNY board chairman, is reconvening the board’s smaller executive committee to reconsider the matter. Denying Kushner was a "mistake of principle," he says.
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