HIKIND, CYMBROWITZ DENOUNCE BROOKLYN COLLEGE FOR CO-SPONSORING RACIST LECTURES

MEDIA ADVISORY
WHAT: PRESS CONFERENCE DENOUNCING BROOKLYN COLLEGE
FOR CO-SPONSORING RACIST LECTURES

WHO: Assemblyman Dov Hikind and Assemblyman Steve Cymbrowitz, along with Members of the NY State Senate, the NY State Assembly, and the New York City Council.

WHEN: Thursday, January 31, 11 A.M.

WHERE: Brooklyn College, Main Gate on Bedford Ave. (between Campus Road & Avenue I)

NEWS FROM
ASSEMBLYMAN DOV HIKIND

January 30, 2013

Contact: Yehudah Meth                                                       For Immediate Release718-853-9616973-945-4903 (cell)

HIKIND, CYMBROWITZ DENOUNCE BROOKLYN COLLEGE
FOR CO-SPONSORING RACIST LECTURES

“PUBLIC MONEY FOR A HATE-FEST IS UNACCEPTABLE!”

Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) and Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz (D-Brooklyn) will lead numerous elected officials tomorrow in denouncing Brooklyn College’s official co-sponsoring of a racist lecture. The event “BDS Movement Against Israel,” which is scheduled to take place on the Brooklyn College campus on February 7, is being co-sponsored not only by student groups but also by Brooklyn College’s Political Science Department.

“This lecture, which is funded by tax dollars, gives a platform to the BDS movement, whose goal is to delegitimize Israel’s existence,” said Assemblyman Hikind. “Like its philosophical brothers in Hamas, BDS aims to eliminate the State of Israel from the map. The only difference between BDS and their terrorist cousins are their tactics: While Hamas blows up buses filled with innocent men, women and children, BDS works to isolate Israelis—to starve them by cutting them off from all business.”

In a recent letter to Brooklyn College President Karen Gould, Assemblyman Cymbrowitz wrote, “No department or club in Brooklyn College, which boasts a richly diverse student body, has any business sponsoring events on the college campus that serve no useful purpose but to promulgate anti-Semitism. It is our task as responsible leaders to always stand on the right side of history, and Brooklyn College should not participate in or allow any event to take place on the college’s campus whose primary impetus is to shatter the already shaky bridges of peace and unity that so many of us have labored to build.”

The event “BDS Movement Against Israel” invites students to hear seasoned propagandist Omar Barghouti, founder of the BDS. Barghouti has compared Israelis to Nazis and added that he won’t take a lecture from a “white person”; that, as far as he’s concerned, “the white race is the most violent in [the] history of mankind.” Barghouti will be joined by Judith Butler, an apologist for Hamas and Hezbollah.

Assemblyman Hikind’s office reached out numerous times to Paisley Currah, chairman of the Brooklyn College Political Science Department, but Currah would not accept the calls. Hikind did speak at length with Brooklyn College President Karen Gould.

“I am extremely saddened and disappointed by President Gould’s lack of courage to do the right thing,” said Hikind. “She just doesn’t have the guts or the backbone. Allowing Brooklyn College to officially co-sponsor this hatefest will have a chilling effect on Brooklyn College and CUNY’s Jewish students.”